The Blade Itself

Glokta’s leg was throbbing, his back was groaning, his neck was stiff as a dry branch. It was all he could do to keep his agony a secret. He would have given anything to sprawl in that one undamaged chair and scream his head off. But I must stand, and trade words with these charlatans. “Could you explain to me what happened here?”

Ninefingers shrugged. “I needed to piss in the night. I saw someone in the room.” He had little trouble with the common tongue, it seemed, even if the content was hardly polite.

“Did you see who this someone was?”

“No. It was a woman, I saw that much.” He worked his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable.

“A woman, really?” This story becomes more ridiculous by the second. “Anything else? Can we narrow our search beyond half the population?”

“It was cold. Very cold.”

“Cold?” Of course, why not? On one of the hottest nights of the year.

Glokta stared into the Northman’s eyes for a long time, and he stared back. Dark, cool blue eyes, deeply set. Not the eyes of an idiot. He may look an ape, but he doesn’t talk like one. He thinks before he speaks, then says no more than he has to. This is a dangerous man.

“What is your business in the city, Master Ninefingers?”

“I came with Bayaz. If you want to know his business you can ask him. Honestly, I don’t know.”

“He pays you then?”

“No.”

“You follow him out of loyalty?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you are his servant?”

“No. Not really.” The Northman scratched slowly at his stubbly jaw. “I don’t know what I am.”

A big, ugly liar is what you are. But how to prove it? Glokta waved his cane around the shattered chamber. “How did your intruder cause so much damage?”

“Bayaz did that.”

“He did? How?”

“Art, he calls it.”

“Art?”

“Base magic is wild and dangerous,” intoned the apprentice pompously, as though he were saying something of great importance, “for it comes from the Other Side, and to touch the world below is fraught with peril. The Magus tempers magic with knowledge, and thus produces High Art, but like the smith or the—”

“The Other Side?” snapped Glokta, putting a sharp end to the young moron’s stream of drivel. “The world below? Hell, do you mean? Magic? Do you know any magic, Master Ninefingers?”

“Me?” The Northman chuckled. “No.” He thought about it for a moment and then added, almost as an afterthought, “I can speak to the spirits though.”

“The spirits, is that so?” For pity’s sake. “Perhaps they could tell us who this intruder was?”

“I’m afraid not.” Ninefingers shook his head sadly, either missing Glokta’s sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “There are none left awake in this place. They are sleeping here. They have been for a long time.”

“Ah, of course.” Well past spirits’ bedtime. I tire of this nonsense. “You come from Bethod?”

“You could say that.” It was Glokta who was surprised. He had expected at best a sharp intake of breath, a hurried effort at concealment, not a frank admission. Ninefingers did not even blink however. “I was once his champion.”

“Champion?”

“I fought ten duels for him.”

Glokta groped for words. “Did you win?”

“I was lucky.”

“You realise, of course, that Bethod has invaded the Union?”

“I do.” Ninefingers sighed. “I should have killed that bastard long ago, but I was young then, and stupid. Now I doubt I’ll get another chance, but that’s the way of things. You have to be… what’s the word for it?”

“Realistic,” said Quai.

Glokta frowned. A moment ago, he had teetered on the brink of making sense of all this nonsense, but the moment had slipped away and things made less sense than ever. He stared at Ninefingers, but that scarred face held no answers, only more questions. Talking with spirits? Bethod’s champion but his enemy? Assaulted by a mysterious woman in the dead of night? And he doesn’t even know why he’s here? A clever liar tells as much truth as he can, but this one tells so many lies I hardly know where to begin.