The Blade Itself

“It takes hard work, of course, winning a Contest. You should have seen our mutual friend Collem West working. He sweated at it for months, running around while the rest of us laughed at him. A jumped-up, idiot commoner competing with his betters, that’s what we all thought. Blundering through his forms, stumbling about on the beam, being made a fool of, again and again, day after day. But look at him now.” Glokta tapped his cane with a finger. “And look at me. Seems he had the last laugh, eh, Captain? Just shows what you can achieve with a little hard work. You’ve twice the talent he had, and the right blood. You don’t have to work one tenth so hard, but you refuse to work at all.”

Jezal wasn’t about to let that one past. “Not work at all? Don’t I put myself through this torture every day—”

“Torture?” asked Glokta sharply.

Jezal realised too late his unfortunate choice of words. “Well,” he mumbled, “I meant.”

“I know more than a little about both fencing and torture. Believe me when I say,” and the Inquisitor’s grotesque grin grew wider still, “that they’re two quite different things.”

“Er…” said Jezal, still off balance.

“You have the ambitions, and the means to realise them. A little effort would do it. A few months’ hard work, then you would probably never need to try at anything again in your life, if that’s what you want. A few short months, and you’re set.” Glokta licked at his empty gums. “Barring accidents of course. It’s a great chance you’ve been offered. I’d take it; if I was you, but I don’t know. Maybe you’re a fool as well as a liar.”

“I’m no fool,” said Jezal coldly. It was the best he could do.

Glokta raised an eyebrow, then winced, leaning heavily on his cane as he slowly pushed himself to his feet. “Give it up if you like, by all means. Sit around for the rest of your days and drink and talk shit with the rest of the junior officers. There are a lot of people who’d be more than happy to live that life. A lot of people who haven’t had the chances you’ve had. Give it up. Lord Marshal Varuz will be disappointed, and Major West, and your father, and so on, but please believe me when I say,” and he leaned down, still smiling his horrible smile, “that I couldn’t care less. Good day, Captain Luthar.” And Glokta limped off toward the archway.

After that less than delightful interview, Jezal found himself with a few hours of unexpected free time on his hands—but he was scarcely in the frame of mind to enjoy it. He wandered the empty streets, squares and gardens of the Agriont, thinking grimly on what the cripple had said to him, cursing the name of Glokta, but unable to quite push the conversation from his mind. He turned it over and over, every phrase, constantly coming up with new things that he should have said. If only he had thought of them at the time.

“Ah, Captain Luthar!” Jezal started and looked up. A man he did not recognise was sitting on the dewy grass beneath a tree, smiling up at him, a half-eaten apple in his hand. “The early morning is the perfect time for a stroll, I find. Calm and grey and clean and empty. It’s nothing like the gaudy pinkness of evening time. All that clutter, all those people coming and going. How can one think in amongst all that nonsense? And now I see you are of the same mind. How delightful.” He took a big, crunching bite out of the apple.

“Do I know you?”

“Oh no, no,” said the stranger, getting to his feet and brushing some dirt from the seat of his trousers, “not yet. My name is Sulfur, Yoru Sulfur.”

“Really? And what brings you to the Agriont?”

“You might say I have come on a diplomatic mission.”

Jezal looked him over, trying to place his origin. “A mission from?”

“From my master, of course,” said Sulfur unhelpfully. His eyes were different colours, Jezal noticed. An ugly and off-putting characteristic, he rather thought.

“And your master is?”

“A very wise and powerful man.” He stripped the core with his teeth and tossed it away into the bushes, wiping his hands on the front of his shirt. “I see you’ve been fencing.”

Jezal glanced down at his steels. “Yes,” he said, realising that he had finally come to a decision, “but for the last time. I’m giving it up.”

“Oh dear me, no!” The strange man seized Jezal by the shoulder. “Oh dear me, no you mustn’t!”

“What?”

“No, no! My master would be horrified if he knew. Horrified! Give up fencing and you give up more than that! This is how one comes to the notice of the public, you see? They decide, in the end. There’s no nobility without the commoners, no nobility at all! They decide!”

“What?” Jezal glanced around the park, hoping to catch sight of a guard so he could notify him that a dangerous madman was loose in the Agriont.

“No, you mustn’t give it up! I won’t hear of it! No indeed! I’m sure that you’ll stick with it after all! You must!”

Jezal shook Sulfur’s hand off his shoulder. “Who are you?”

“Sulfur, Yoru Sulfur, at your service. See you again, Captain, at the Contest, if not before!” And he waved over his shoulder as he strolled off.