Overhead, the hazy moon was still on the rise, and somewhere to the north buildings burned. He needed to be done by dawn. The ground cleared, a wide, circular space of nothing but bared earth. It could be lumpy. That was all right, and it was good that it was all right since cemeteries were lumpy places.
Hearing a moan from the hole where the tree had been, Ublala rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and then his hands, and walked over. Edging down into the pit, he stared at the grey forms until he figured out which one was coming round. Then he crouched and punched the man in the head a few more times, until the moaning stopped. Satisfied, he returned to his clearing.
By dawn, yes.
Because at dawn, Ublala Pung knew, the Emperor would lift his cursed sword, and standing across from him, on that arena floor, would be Karsa Orlong.
In a secret chamber-what had once been a tomb of some kind-Ormly, the Champion Rat Catcher, sat down opposite an enormously fat woman. He scowled. ‘You don’t need that down here, Rucket.’
‘True,’ she replied, ‘but I’ve grown used to it. You would not believe the power being huge engenders. The intimidation. You know, when things finally get better and there’s plenty of food to be had again, I’m thinking of doing this for real.’
‘But that’s just my point,’ Ormly replied, leaning forward. ‘It’s all padding and padding don’t weigh anything like the real thing. You’ll get tired walking across a room. Your knees will hurt. Your breaths will get shorter because the lungs can’t expand enough. You’ll get stretch marks even though you’ve never had a baby-’
‘So if I get pregnant too then it’ll be all right?’
‘Except for all that other stuff, why yes, I suppose it would. Not that anybody could tell.’
‘Ormly, you are a complete idiot.’
‘But good at my job.’
To that, Rucket nodded. ‘And so? How did it go?’
Ormly squinted across at her, then scratched his stubbly jaw. ‘It’s a problem.’
‘Serious?’
‘Serious.’
‘How serious?’
‘About as serious as it can get.’
‘Hmmm. No word from Selush?’
‘Not yet. And you’re right, we’ll have to wait for that.’
‘But our people are in the right place, yes? No trouble with all the riots and such?’
‘We’re good on that count, Rucket. Hardly popular sites, are they?’
‘So has there been any change in the time of execution?’
Ormly shrugged. ‘We’ll see come dawn, assuming any criers are still working. I sure hope not, Rucket. Even as it is, we may fail. You do know that, don’t you?’
She sighed. ‘That would be tragic. No, heartbreaking.’
‘You actually love him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Hard not to, really. I’d have competition, though.’
‘That scholar? Well, unless they’re in the same cell, I don’t think you need worry.’
‘Like I said, you’re an idiot. Of course I’m worrying, but not about competition. I’m worried for him. I’m worried for her. I’m worried that all this will go wrong and Karos Invictad will have his triumph. We’re running out of time.’
Ormly nodded.
‘So, do you have any good news?’ she asked.
‘Not sure if it’s good but it’s interesting.’
‘What?’
‘Ublala Pung’s gone insane.’
Rucket shook her head. ‘Not possible. He hasn’t enough brains to go insane.’
‘Well, he beat up five scribers hiding out from the riots in the Tarthenal cemetery, and now he’s crawling around on his hands and knees and pinching weeds.’
‘So what’s all that about?’
‘No idea, Rucket.’
‘He’s gone insane.’
‘Impossible.’
‘I know,’ she replied.
They sat in silence for a time, then Rucket said, ‘Maybe I’ll just keep the padding. That way I can have it without all the costs.’
‘Is it real padding?’
‘Illusions and some real stuff, kind of a patchwork thing.’
‘And you think he’ll fall in love with you looking like that? I mean, compared to Janath who’s probably getting skinnier by the moment which, as you know, some men like since it makes their women look like children or some other ghastly secret truth nobody ever admits out loud-’
‘He’s not one of those.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am.’
‘Well, I suppose you would know.’
‘I would,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, what you’re talking about is making me feel kind of ill.’
‘Manly truths will do that,’ Ormly said.
They sat. They waited.
Ursto Hoobutt and his wife and sometime lover Pinosel clambered onto the muddy bank. In Ursto’s gnarled hands was a huge clay jug. They paused to study the frozen pond that had once been Settle Lake, the ice gleaming in the diffuse moonlight.
‘It’s melting, Cherrytart,’ he said.
‘Well you’re just getting smarter day by day, dearie. We knowed it was melting. We knowed that a long time coming. We knowed it sober and we knowed it drunk.’ She lifted her hamper. ‘Now, we looking at a late supper or are we looking at an early breakfast?’
‘Let’s stretch it out and make it both.’
‘Can’t make it both. One or the other and if we stretch it out it’ll be neither so make up your mind.’
‘What’s got you so touchy, love?’
‘It’s melting, dammit, and that means ants at the picnic’
‘We knew it was coming-’
‘So what? Ants is ants.’
They settled down onto the bank, waving at mosquitoes.
Ursto unstoppered the jug as Pinosel unwrapped the hamper. He reached for a tidbit and she slapped his hand away. He offered her the jug and she scowled, then accepted it. With her hands full, he snatched the tidbit then leaned back, content as he popped the morsel into his mouth.
Then gagged. ‘Errant’s ear, what is this?’
‘That was a clay ball, love. For the scribing. And now, we’re going to have to dig us up some more. Or, you are, since it was you who ate the one we had.’
‘Well, it wasn’t all bad, really. Here, give me that jug so’s I can wash it down.’
A pleasant evening, Ursto reflected somewhat blearily, to just sit and watch a pond melt.
At least until the giant demon trapped in the ice broke loose. At that disquieting thought, he shot his wife and sometime lover a glance, remembering the day long ago when they’d been sitting here, all peaceful and the like, and she’d been on at him to get married and he’d said-oh well, he’d said it and now here they were and that might’ve been the Errant’s nudge but he didn’t think so.
No matter what the Errant thought.
‘I seen that nostalgic look in your eyes, hubby-bubby. What say we have a baby?’
Ursto choked a second time, but on nothing so prosaic as a ball of clay.
The central compound of the Patriotists, the Lether Empire’s knotted core of fear and intimidation, was under siege. Periodically, mobs heaved against the walls, rocks and jugs of oil with burning rag wicks sailing over to crash down in the compound. Flames had taken the stables and four other outbuildings three nights past, and the terrible sound of screaming horses had filled the smoky air. It had been all the trapped Patriotists could do to keep the main block from catching fire.
Twice the main gate had been breached, and a dozen agents had died pushing the frenzied citizens back. Now an enormous barricade of rubble, charred beams and furniture blocked the passage. Through the stench and sooty puddles of the compound, figures walked, armoured as soldiers might be and awkward in the heavy gear. Few spoke, few met the eyes of others, in dread of seeing revealed the haunted, stunned disbelief that resided in their own souls.
The world did not work like this. The people could always be cowed, the ringleaders isolated and betrayed with a purse of coin or, failing that, quietly removed. But the agents could not set out into the streets to twist the dark deals. There were watchers, and gangs of thugs nearby who delighted in beating hapless agents to death, then flinging their heads back over the wall. And whatever operatives remained at large in the city had ceased all efforts at communicating-either had gone into hiding or were dead.