The House of the Maker

It was a stormy day, and the House of the Maker stood stark and grim, a huge dark shape against the ragged clouds. A cold wind whipped between the buildings and through the squares of the Agriont, making the tails of Glokta’s black coat flap around him as he shuffled after Captain Luthar and the would-be Magus, the scarred Northman at his side. He knew they were watched. Watched the whole way. Behind the windows, in the doorways, on the roofs. The Practicals were everywhere, he could feel their eyes.

Glokta had half expected, half hoped, that Bayaz and his companions would have disappeared in the night, but they had not. The bald old man seemed as relaxed as if he had undertaken to open a fruit cellar, and Glokta did not like it. When does the bluff end? When does he throw his hands up and admit it’s all a game? When we reach the University? When we cross the bridge? When we stand before the very gate of the Maker’s House and his key does not fit? But somewhere in the back of his mind the thought lurked: What if it does not end? What if the door opens? What if he truly is as he claims to be?

Bayaz chattered to Luthar as they strolled across the empty courtyard towards the University. Every bit as much at ease as a grandfather with his favourite grandson, and every bit as boring. “…of course, the city is so much larger than when I last visited. That district you call the Three Farms, all teeming bustle and activity. I remember when that whole borough was three farms! Indeed I do! And far beyond the city walls!”

“Erm…” said Luthar.

“And as for the Spicers’ new guildhall, I never saw such ostentation…”

Glokta’s mind raced as he limped after the two of them, trawling for hidden meanings in the sea of blather, grasping for order in the chaos. The questions tumbled over each other. Why pick me as a witness? Why not the Arch Lector himself? Does this Bayaz suppose that I can be easily fooled? And why Luthar? Because he won the Contest? And how did he win? Is he apart of this deception? But if Luthar was party to some sinister plan, he was giving no sign. Glokta had never seen the slightest hint that he was anything other than the self-obsessed young fool he appeared to be.

And then we come to this puzzle. Glokta glanced sidelong at the big Northman. There were no signs of deadly intent on his scarred face, little sign that anything was going on in there at all. Is he very stupid or very clever? Is he to be ignored, or feared? Is he the servant, or the master? There were no answers to any of it. Yet.

“Well, this place is a shadow of its former self,” said Bayaz as they halted outside the door to the University, raising an eyebrow at the grimy, tilting statues. He rapped briskly on the weathered wood and the door swayed on its hinges. To Glokta’s surprise, it opened almost immediately.

“You’re expected,” croaked the ancient porter. They stepped around him into the gloom. “I will show you to—” began the old man as he wrestled the creaking door shut.

“No need,” called Bayaz over his shoulder, already striding briskly off down the dusty corridor, “I know the way!” Glokta struggled to keep up, sweating despite the cold weather, leg burning all the way. The effort of maintaining the pace scarcely gave him time to consider how the bald bastard might be so familiar with the building. But familiar he certainly is. He swept down the corridors as though he had spent every day of his life there, clicking his tongue in disgust at the state of the place and prattling all the while.

“…I’ve never seen such dust, eh, Captain Luthar? I wouldn’t be surprised if the damn place hadn’t been cleaned since I was last here! I’ve no idea how a man can think under such conditions! No idea at all…” Centuries of dead and justly forgotten Adepti stared gloomily down from their canvases, as though upset by all the noise.

The corridors of the University rolled past, an ancient, dusty, forsaken-seeming place, with nothing in it but grimy old paintings and musty old books. Jezal had precious little use for books.

He had read a few about fencing and riding, a couple about famous military campaigns, once opened the covers on a great big history of the Union he found in his father’s study, and got bored after three or four pages.

Bayaz droned on. “Here we fought with the Maker’s servants. I remember it well. They cried out to Kanedias to save them, but he would not come down. These halls ran with blood, rang with screams, rolled with smoke that day.”

Jezal had no idea why the old fool would single him out to tell his tall stories to, and still less how to reply. “That sounds… violent.”

Bayaz nodded. “It was. I am not proud of it. But good men must sometimes do violent things.”

“Uh,” said the Northman suddenly. Jezal had not been aware that he was even listening.

“Besides, that was a different age. A violent age. Only in the Old Empire were people advanced beyond the primitive. Midderland, the heart of the Union, believe it or not, was a sty. A wasteland of warring, barbaric tribes. The luckiest among them were taken into the Maker’s service. The rest were painted-face savages, without writing, without science, with barely anything to separate them from the beasts.”

Jezal glanced furtively up at Ninefingers. It was not at all difficult to picture a barbaric state with that big brute beside him, but it was ridiculous to suppose that his beautiful home had once been a wasteland, that he was descended from primitives. This bald old man was a blathering liar, or a madman, but some important people seemed to take him seriously.

And Jezal thought it best always to do what the important people said.

Logen followed the others into a broken-down courtyard, bounded on three sides by the crumbling buildings of the University, on the fourth by the inner face of the sheer wall of the Agriont. All was covered in old moss, thick ivy, dry brambles. A man sat on a rickety chair among the weeds, watching them come closer.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said, pushing himself up with some difficulty. “Damn knees, I’m not what I used to be.” An unremarkable man past middle-age, in a threadbare shirt with stains down the front.

Bayaz frowned at him. “You are the Chief Warden?”

“I am.”

“And where are the rest of your company?”

“My wife is getting the breakfast ready, but not counting her, well, I am the whole company. It’s eggs,” he said happily, patting his stomach.

“What?”

“For breakfast. I like eggs.”

“Good for you,” muttered Bayaz, looking slightly put out. “In King Casamir’s reign, the bravest fifty men of the Bang’s Own were appointed Wardens of the House, to guard this gate. There was considered to be no higher honour.”

“That was a long time ago,” said the one and only Warden, plucking at his dirty shirt. “There were nine of us when I was a lad, but they went on to other things, or died, and were never replaced. Don’t know who’ll take over when I’m gone. There haven’t been too many applicants.”

“You surprise me.” Bayaz cleared his throat. “Oh, Chief Warden! I, Bayaz, First of the Magi, seek your leave to pass up the stair to the fifth gate, beyond the fifth gate and onto the bridge, across the bridge and to the door of the Maker’s House.”

The Chief Warden squinted back. “You sure?”

Bayaz was growing impatient. “Yes, why?”

“I remember the last fellow who tried it, way back when I was a lad. Some big man, I reckon, some thinker. He went up those steps with ten strong workmen, chisels and hammers and picks and what-have-you, telling us how he was going to open up the House, bring out its treasures and all. Five minutes and they were back, saying nothing, looking like they saw the dead walk.”

“What happened?” murmured Luthar.

“Don’t know, but they had no treasures with them, I can tell you that.”

“Without doubt a daunting story,” said Bayaz, “but we’re going.”

“Your business, I suppose.” And the old man turned and slouched across the miserable courtyard. Up a narrow stair they went, the steps worn down in the middle, up to a tunnel through the high wall of the Agriont, on to a narrow gate in the darkness.

Logen felt an odd sense of worry as the bolts slid back. He shrugged his shoulders, trying to get rid of it, and the Warden grinned at him. “You can feel it already, eh?”

“Feel what?”

“The Maker’s breath, they call it.” He gave the doors the gentlest shove. They swung open together, light spilling through into the darkness. “The Maker’s breath.”

Glokta tottered across the bridge, teeth clenched tight on gums, painfully aware of the volume of empty air beneath his feet. It was a single, delicate arch, leaping from high up on the wall of the Agriont to the gate of the Maker’s House. He had often admired it from down in the city, on the other side of the lake, wondering how it had stayed up all these years. A spectacular, remarkable, beautiful thing. It does not seem so beautiful now. Not much wider than a man lying down, too narrow by far for comfort, and with a terrifying drop to the water below. Worse still, it had no parapet. Not so much as a wooden handrail. And the breeze is rather fresh today.

Luthar and Ninefingers seemed worried enough by it. And they have the free and painless use of both their legs. Only Bayaz made the long trip across without apparent worry, as confident as if his feet were on a country lane.

They walked always in the vast shadow of the House of the Maker, of course. The closer they came, the more massive it seemed, its lowest parapet far higher than the wall of the Agriont. A stark black mountain, rising sheer from the lake below, blotting out the sun. A thing from a different age, built on a different scale.

Glokta glanced back towards the gate behind him. Did he catch a glimpse of something between the battlements on the wall above? A Practical watching? They would see the old man fail to open the door. They would be waiting to take him on their way back through. But until then, I am helpless. It was not a comforting thought.

And Glokta was in need of comfort. As he tottered further across the bridge, a niggling fear swelled inside him. It was more than the height, more than the strange company, more than the great tower looming above. A base fear, without reason. The animal terror of a nightmare. With every shuffling step the feeling grew. He could see the door now, a square of dark metal set back into the smooth stones of the tower. A circle of letters was etched into the centre of it. For some reason they made Glokta want to vomit, but he dragged himself closer. Two circles: large letters and small letters, a spidery script he did not recognise. His guts churned. Many circles: letters and lines, too detailed to take in. They swam before his stinging, weeping eyes. Glokta could go no further. He stood there, leaning on his cane, fighting with every ounce of will against the need to fall to his knees, turn and crawl away.

Ninefingers was faring little better, breathing hard through his nose, a look of the most profound horror and disgust on his face. Luthar was in considerably worse shape: teeth gritted, white-faced and palsied. He dropped slowly down on one knee, gasping, as Glokta edged past him.

Bayaz did not seem afraid. He stepped right up to the door and ran his fingers over the larger symbols. “Eleven wards, and eleven wards reversed.” He traced the circle of smaller characters. “And eleven times eleven.” His finger followed the fine line outside them. Can it be that line is made of tiny letters too? “Who can say how many hundreds here? Truly, a most potent enchantment!”

The sense of awe was only slightly diminished by the sound of Luthar puking noisily over the side of the bridge. “What does it say?” croaked Glokta, swallowing some bile of his own.

The old man grinned at him. “Can you not feel it, Inquisitor? It says turn away. It says get you gone. It says… none… shall… pass. But the message is not for us.” He reached into his collar and pulled out the rod of metal. The same dark metal as the door itself.

“We shouldn’t be here,” growled Ninefingers from behind. “This place is dead. We should go.” But Bayaz did not seem to hear.

“The magic has leaked out of the world,” Glokta heard him murmuring, “and all the achievements of Juvens lie in ruins.” He weighed the key in his hand, brought it slowly upwards. “But the Maker’s works stand strong as ever. Time has not diminished them… nor ever will.” There did not even seem to be a hole, but the key slid slowly into the door. Slowly, slowly, into the very centre of the circles. Glokta held his breath.

Click.

And nothing happened. The door did not open. That is all then. The game is over. He felt a surge of relief as he turned back towards the Agriont, raising a hand to signal to the Practicals on the wall above. I need not go further. I need not. Then an answering echo came from deep within.

Click.

Glokta felt his face twitch in sympathy with the sound. Did I imagine it? He hoped so, with all his being.

Click.

Again. No mistake. And now, before his disbelieving eyes, the circles in the door began to turn. Glokta took a stunned step back, his cane scraping on the stones of the bridge.

Click, click.

There had been no sign that the metal was not all one piece, no cracks, no grooves, no mechanism, and yet the circles span, each at a different speed.

Click, click, click…

Faster now, and faster. Glokta felt dizzy. The innermost ring, with the largest letters, was still crawling. The outermost, the thinnest one, was flying round too fast for his eyes to follow… click, click, click, click, click…

Shapes formed in the markings as the symbols passed each other: lines, squares, triangles, unimaginably intricate, dancing before his eyes then vanishing as the wheels spun on…

Click.

And the circles were still, arranged in a new pattern. Bayaz reached up and pulled the key from the door. There was a soft hissing, barely audible, as of water far away, and a long crack appeared in the door. The two halves moved slowly, smoothly away from each other. The space between them grew steadily larger.

Click.

They slid into the walls, flush with the sides of the square archway. The door stood open.

“Now that,” said Bayaz softly, “is craftsmanship.”

No fetid wind spilled out, no stench of rot or decay, no sign of long years passed, only a waft of cool, dry air. And yet the feeling is of opening a coffin.

Silence, but for the wind fumbling across the dark stones, the breath sighing in Glokta’s dry throat, the distant lapping of the water far below. The unearthly terror was gone. He felt only a deep worry as he stared into the open archway. But no worse than when I wait outside the Arch Lector’s office. Bayaz turned round, smiling.

“Long years have passed since I sealed this place, and in all that slow time no man has crossed the threshold. You three are truly honoured.” Glokta did not feel honoured. He felt ill. “There are dangers within. Touch nothing, and go only where I lead you. Follow close behind me, for the ways are not always the same.”

“Not the same?” asked Glokta. “How can that be?”

The old man shrugged. “I am only the doorman,” he said as he slipped the key and its chain back inside his shirt, “not the architect.” And he stepped into the shadows.

Jezal did not feel well, not well at all. It was not simply the vile nausea that the letters on the doors had somehow created, it was more. A lurch of sudden shock and disgust, like picking up a cup and drinking, expecting water, and finding something else inside. Piss perhaps, in this case. That same wave of ugly surprise, but stretching out over minutes, over hours. Things that he had dismissed as foolishness, or old stories, were suddenly revealed as facts before his eyes. The world was a different place than it had been the day before, a weird and unsettling place, and he had infinitely preferred it the way it was.

He could not understand why he had to be here. Jezal knew precious little about history. Kanedias, Juvens, Bayaz even, they were names from dusty books, heard as a child and holding no interest even then. It was just bad luck, bad luck was all. He had won the Contest, and here he was, wandering about in some strange old tower. That was all it was. A strange old tower.

“Welcome,” said Bayaz, “to the House of the Maker.”

Jezal looked up from the floor and his jaw sagged open. The word “house” did little to describe the vastness of the dim space in which he found himself. The Lords’ Round itself could have fitted comfortably inside it, the entire building, with room to spare. The walls were made from rough stones, unfinished, unmortared, piled haphazardly, but rising endlessly upward, upward. Above the centre of the room, far above, something was suspended. A huge, fascinating something.

It put Jezal in mind of a navigator’s instruments, rendered on an enormous scale. A system of gigantic metal rings, shining in the dim light, one about the other, with further, smaller rings running between them, inside them, around them. Hundreds of them perhaps, all told, scored with markings: writing maybe, or meaningless scratches. A large black ball hung in the centre.

Bayaz was already walking out into the vast circle of the floor, covered in intricate lines, set into the dark stone in bright metal, his footfalls echoing high above. Jezal crept after him. There was something frightening, something dizzying, about moving across a space so huge.

“This is Midderland,” said Bayaz.

“What?”

The old man pointed down. The squiggly lines of metal began to take on meaning. Coastlines, mountains, rivers, the land and the sea. The shape of Midderland, clear in Jezal’s mind from a hundred maps, was laid out beneath his feet.

“The whole Circle of the World.” Bayaz gestured across the endless floor. “That way is Angland, and beyond, the North. Gurkhul is over there. There is Starikland, and the Old Empire, and over here the City States of Styria, beyond them Suljuk and distant Thond. Kanedias observed that the lands of the known World form a circle, with its centre here, at his House, and its outer edge passing through the island of Shabulyan, far to the west, beyond the Old Empire.”

“The edge of the World,” muttered the Northman, nodding slowly to himself.

“Some arrogance,” snorted Glokta, “to think of your home as the centre of everything.”

“Huh.” Bayaz looked about him at the vastness of the chamber. “The Maker was never short on arrogance. Nor were his brothers.”

Jezal stared up gormlessly. The room was even higher than it was wide, its ceiling, if there was one, lost in shadow. An iron rail ran round the rough stone walls, a gallery perhaps twenty strides above. Beyond it, higher still, there was another, and another, and another, vague in the half light. Over all hung the strange device.

He gave a sudden start. It was moving! It was all moving! Slowly, smoothly, silently, the rings shifted, turned, revolved one about the other. He could not imagine how it was driven. Somehow, the key turning in the lock must have set it off… or could it have been turning all these years?

He felt dizzy. The whole mechanism now seemed to be spinning, revolving, faster and faster, the galleries too, shirting in opposite directions. Staring straight upwards was not helping with his sense of disorientation, and he fixed his aching eyes on the floor, on the map of Midderland beneath his feet. He gasped. That was even worse! Now the whole floor seemed to be turning! The entire chamber was revolving around him! The archways leading out were all identical, a dozen of them or more. He could not guess now through which one they had entered. He felt a wave of horrible panic. Only that distant black orb in the centre of the device was still. He fixed his watering eyes desperately on that, forced himself to breathe slow.

The feeling faded. The vast hall was still again, almost. The rings were still shifting, almost imperceptibly, inching ever onwards. He swallowed a mouthful of spit, hunched his shoulders, and hurried after the others with his head down.

“Not that way!” roared Bayaz suddenly, his voice exploding in the thick silence, ripping out and bouncing back, echoing a thousand times around the cavernous space.

“Not that way!”

“Not that way!”

Jezal jumped backwards. The archway, and the dim hall beyond, looked identical to the one down which the others had been walking, but he saw now that they were off to his right. He had got turned around somehow.

“Go only where I go, I said!” hissed the old man.

“Not that way.”

“Not that way.”

“I’m sorry,” stammered Jezal, his voice sounding pitifully small in the vast space, “I thought… it all looks the same!”

Bayaz placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and drew him smoothly away. “I did not mean to scare you, my friend, but it would be a great shame if one so promising were taken from us quite so young.” Jezal swallowed and stared into the shadowy hallway, wondering what might have awaited him down there. His mind provided any number of unpleasant possibilities.

The echoes still whispered at him as he turned away. “…not that way, not that way, not that way…”

Logen hated this place. The stones were cold and dead, the air was still and dead, even the sounds they made as they moved fell muffled and lifeless. It wasn’t cold and it wasn’t hot, and yet his back trickled with sweat, his neck prickled with aimless fear. He’d jerk around every few steps, stung by the sudden feeling he was being watched, but there was never anyone behind him. Only the boy Luthar and the cripple Glokta, looking every bit as worried and confused as he was.

“We chased him through these very halls,” murmured Bayaz quietly. “Eleven of us. All the Magi, together for the last time. All but Khalul. Zacharus, and Cawneil, they fought with the Maker here, and each was bested. They were fortunate to escape with their lives. Anselmi and Brokentooth had worse luck. Kanedias was the death of them. Two good friends, two brothers, I lost that day.”

They edged round a narrow balcony, lit by a pale curtain of light. On one side sheer stones rose smooth, on the other they dropped away and were lost in the darkness. A black pit, full of shadows, with no far side, no top, no bottom. Despite the vastness of the space there were no echoes. No air moved. There was not the tiniest breeze. The air was stale and close as a tomb.

“There should be water down there, surely,” muttered Glokta, frowning over the rail. “There should be something, shouldn’t there?” He squinted up. “Where’s the ceiling?”

“This place stinks,” whined Luthar, one hand clasped over his nose.

Logen agreed with him, for once. It was a smell he knew well, and his lips curled back with hatred at it. “Smells like fucking Flatheads.”

“Oh yes,” said Bayaz, “the Shanka are the Maker’s work also.”

“His work?”

“Indeed. He took clay, and metal, and left-over flesh and he made them.”

Logen stared. “He made them?”

“To fight in his war. Against us. Against the Magi. Against his brother Juvens. He bred the first Shanka here and let them loose upon the world—to grow, and breed, and destroy. That was their purpose. For many years after Kanedias’ death we hunted them, but we could not catch them all. We drove them into the darkest corners of the world, and there they have grown and bred again, and now come forth to grow, and breed, and destroy, as they were always meant to do.” Logen gawped at him.

“Shanka.” Luthar chuckled and shook his head.

Flatheads were no laughing matter. Logen turned suddenly, blocking the narrow balcony with his body, looming over Luthar in the half light. “Something funny?”

“Well, I mean, everyone knows there’s no such thing.”

“I’ve fought them with my own hands,” growled Logen, “all my life. They killed my wife, my children, my friends. The North is swarming with fucking Flatheads.” He leaned down. “So don’t tell me there’s no such thing.”

Luthar had turned pale. He looked to Glokta for support, but the Inquisitor had sagged against the wall, rubbing at his leg, thin lips tight shut, hollow face beaded with sweat. “I don’t care a shit either way!” he snapped.

“There’s plenty of Shanka in the world,” hissed Logen, sticking his face right up close to Luthar’s. “Maybe one day you’ll meet some.” He turned and stalked off after Bayaz, already disappearing through an archway at the far end of the balcony. He had no wish to be left behind in this place.

Yet another hall. An enormous one, lined with a silent forest of columns on either side, peopled with a multitude of shadows. Light cut down in shafts from far above, etching strange patterns into the stone floor, shapes of light and dark, lines of black and white. Almost like writing. Is there a message here? For me? Glokta was trembling. If I looked, just for a moment longer, perhaps I could understand…

Luthar wandered past, his shadow fell across the floor, the lines were broken, the feeling was gone. Glokta shook himself. I am losing my reason in this cursed place. I must think clearly. Just the facts, Glokta, only the facts.

“Where does the light come from?” he asked.

Bayaz waved his hand. “Above.”

“There are windows?”

“Perhaps.”

Glokta’s cane tapped into the light, tapped into the dark, his left boot dragged along behind. “Is there nothing but hallway? What’s the point of it all?”

“Who can know the Maker’s mind?” intoned Bayaz pompously, “or fathom his great design?” He seemed almost to take pride in never giving straight answers.

The whole place was a colossal waste of effort as far as Glokta could see. “How many lived here?”

“Long years ago, in happier times, many hundreds. All manner of people who served Kanedias, and helped him in his works. But the Maker was ever distrustful, and jealous of his secrets. Bit by bit he turned his followers out, into the Agriont, the University. Towards the end, only three lived here. Kanedias himself, his assistant Jaremias,” Bayaz paused for a moment, “and his daughter Tolomei.”

“The Maker’s daughter?”

“What of it?” snapped the old man.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” And yet the veneer slipped then, if only for an instant. It is strange that he knows the ways of this place so well. “When did you live here?”

Bayaz frowned deep. “There is such a thing as too many questions.”

Glokta watched him walk away. Sult was wrong. The Arch Lector, fallible after all. He underestimated this Bayaz, and it cost him. Who is this bald, irritable fool, who can make a sprawling idiot of the most powerful man in the Union? Standing here, deep within the bowels of this unearthly place, the answer did not seem so strange.

The First of the Magi.

“This is it.”

“What?” asked Logen. The hallway stretched out in either direction, curving gently, disappearing into the darkness, walls of huge stone blocks, unbroken on either side.

Bayaz did not answer. He was running his hands gently over the stones, looking for something. “Yes. This is it.” Bayaz pulled the key out from his shirt. “You might want to prepare yourselves.”

“For what?”

The Magus slid the key into an unseen hole. One of the blocks that made up the walls suddenly vanished, flying up into the ceiling with a thunderous crash. Logen reeled, shaking his head. He saw Luthar bent forward, hands clamped over his ears. The whole corridor seemed to hum with crashing echoes, on and on.

“Wait,” said Bayaz, though Logen could barely hear him over the ringing in his head. “Touch nothing. Go nowhere.” He stepped through the opening, leaving the key lodged in the wall.

Logen peered after him. A glimmer of light shone down a narrow passageway, a rushing sound washed through like the trickling of a stream. Logen felt a strange curiosity picking at him. He glanced back at the other two. Perhaps Bayaz had meant only for them to stay? He ducked through the doorway.

And squinted up at a bright, round chamber. Light flooded in from high above, piercing light, almost painful to look at after the gloom of all the rest. The curving walls were perfect, clean white stone, running with trickling water, flowing down all around and collecting in a round pool below. The air was cool, damp on Logen’s skin. A narrow bridge sprang out from the passage, steps leading upwards, ending at a tall white pillar, rising from the water. Bayaz was standing there, on top of it, staring down at something.

Logen crept up behind the Magus, breathing shallow. A block of white stone stood there. Water dripped onto its smooth, hard centre from above. A regular tap, tap, tap, always in the same spot. Two things lay in the thin layer of wet. The first was a square box, simply made from dark metal, big enough to hold a man’s head, maybe. The other was altogether stranger.

A weapon perhaps, like an axe. A long shaft, made from tiny metal tubes, all twisted about each other like the stems of old vines. At one end there was a scored grip, at the other there was a flat piece of metal, pierced with small holes, a long, thin hook curving out from it. The light played over its many dark surfaces, glittering with beads of moisture. Strange, beautiful, fascinating. On the grip one letter glinted, silver in the dark metal. Logen recognised it from his sword. The mark of Kanedias. The work of the Master Maker.

“What is this?” he asked, reaching out for it.

“Don’t touch it!” screamed Bayaz, slapping Logen’s hand away. “Did I not tell you to wait?”

Logen took an uncertain step back. He had never seen the Magus look so worried, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the strange thing on the slab. “Is it a weapon?”

Bayaz breathed a long, slow breath. “A most terrible one, my friend. A weapon against which no steel, no stone, no magic can protect you. Do not even tread near it, I warn you. There are dangers. The Divider, Kanedias called it, and with it he killed his brother Juvens, my master. He once told me it has two edges. One here, one on the Other Side.”

“What the hell does that mean?” muttered Logen. He couldn’t even see one edge you could cut with.

Bayaz shrugged. “If I knew that I suppose that I’d be the Master Maker, instead of merely the First of the Magi.” He reached forward and lifted the box, wincing as though it was a great weight. “Could you help me with this?”

Logen hooked his hands under it, and gasped. It could hardly have weighed more if it was a block of solid iron. “Heavy,” he grunted.

“Kanedias forged it to be strong. As strong as all his great skill could make it. Not to keep its contents safe from the World.” He leaned close and spoke softly. “To keep the World safe from its contents.”

Logen frowned down. “What’s in it?”

“Nothing,” muttered Bayaz. “Yet.”

Jezal was trying to think of three men in the world he hated more. Brint? He was simply a swollen-headed idiot. Gorst? He had merely done his meagre best to beat Jezal in a fencing match. Varuz? He was just a pompous old ass.

No. These three were at the top of his list. The arrogant old man with his idiotic prattle and his self-important air of mystery. The hulking savage with his ugly scars and his menacing frown. The patronising cripple with his smug little comments and his pretensions of knowing all about life. The three of them, combined with the stagnant air and perpetual gloom of this horrible place, were almost enough to make Jezal puke again. The only thing he could imagine worse than his present company was no company at all. He looked into the shadows all around, and shuddered at the thought.

Still, his spirits rose as they turned a corner. There was a small square of daylight up ahead. He hurried towards it, overtaking Glokta as he shambled along on his cane, mouth watering with anticipation at the thought of being back out under the sky.

Jezal closed his eyes with pleasure as he stepped into the open air. The cold wind stroked his face and he gasped in great lungfulls of it. The relief was terrific, as though he had been trapped down there in the darkness for weeks, as though fingers clamped around his throat had just now been released. He walked forward across a wide, open space, paved with stark, flat stones. Ninefingers and Bayaz stood side by side up ahead, behind a parapet, waist high, and beyond them…

The Agriont came into view below. A patchwork of white walls, grey roofs, glinting windows, green gardens. They were nowhere near the summit of the Maker’s House, only on one of the lowest roofs, above the gate, but still terrifyingly high. Jezal recognised the crumbling University, the shining dome of the Lord’s Round, the squat mass of the House of Questions. He could see the Square of Marshals, a bowl of wooden seating in amongst the buildings, perhaps even the tiny yellow flash of the fencing circle in its centre. Beyond the citadel, surrounded by its white wall and twinkling moat, the city was a sprawling grey mass under the dirty grey sky, stretching all the way to the sea.

Jezal laughed with disbelief and delight. The Tower of Chains was a step ladder compared to this. He was so high above the world that all seemed somehow still, frozen in time. He felt like a king. No man had seen this, not for hundreds of years. He was huge, grand, far more important than the tiny people that must live and work in the little buildings down there. He turned to look at Glokta, but the cripple was not smiling. He was even paler than ever, frowning at the toy city, his left eye twitching with worry.

“Scared of heights?” laughed Jezal.

Glokta turned his ashen face toward him. “There were no steps. We climbed no steps to get here!” Jezal’s grin began to fade. “No steps, do you understand? How could it be? How? Tell me that!”

Jezal swallowed as he thought over the way they had come. The cripple was right. No steps, no ramps, they had gone neither up nor down. Yet here they were, far above the tallest tower of the Agriont. He felt sick, again. The view now seemed dizzying, disgusting, obscene. He backed unsteadily away from the parapet. He wanted to go home.

“I followed him through the darkness, alone, and here I faced him. Kanedias. The Master Maker. Here we fought. Fire, and steel, and flesh. Here we stood. He threw Tolomei from the roof before my eyes. I saw it happen, but I could not stop him. His own daughter. Can you imagine? No one could have deserved that less than she. There never was a more innocent spirit.” Logen frowned. He hardly knew what to say to this.

“Here we struggled,” muttered Bayaz, his meaty fists clenched tight on the bare parapet. “I tore at him, with fire and steel, and flesh, and he at me. I cast him down. He fell burning, and broke upon the bridge below. And so the last of the sons of Euz passed from the world, so many of their secrets lost forever. They destroyed each other, all four of them. What a waste.”

Bayaz turned to look at Logen. “But that was a long time ago, eh, my friend? Long ago.” He puffed out his cheeks and hunched his shoulders. “Let us leave this place. It feels like a tomb. It is a tomb. Let us seal it up once more, and the memories with it. That is all in the past.”

“Huh,” said Logen. “My father used to say the seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.”

“So they do.” Bayaz reached out slowly, and his fingers brushed against the cold, dark metal of the box in Logen’s hands. “So they do. Your father was a wise man.”

Glokta’s leg was burning, his twisted spine was a river of fire from his arse to his skull. His mouth was dry as sawdust, his face sweaty and twitching, the breath hissing in his nose, but he pressed on through the darkness, away from the vast hall with its black orb and its strange contraption, on towards the open door. And into the light.

He stood there with his head tipped back, on the narrow bridge before the narrow gateway, his hand trembling on the handle of his cane, blinking and rubbing his eyes, gasping in the free air and feeling the cool breeze on his face. Who would have thought that wind could feel so fine? Maybe it’s just as well there weren’t any steps. I might never have made it out.

Luthar was already halfway back across the bridge, hurrying as though he had a devil a stride behind. Ninefingers was not far away, breathing hard and muttering something in Northern over and over. “Still alive,” Glokta thought it might be. His big hands were clenched tight around that square metal box, tendons standing out as though it weighed as much as an anvil. There was more to this trip than just proving a point. What is it that they brought out from there? What weighs so heavily? He glanced back into the darkness, and shivered. He was not sure he even wanted to know.

Bayaz strolled out of the tunnel and into the open air, looking smug as ever. “So, Inquisitor,” he said breezily. “How did you find your trip into the House of the Maker?”

A twisted, strange and horrible nightmare. I might even have preferred to return to the Emperor’s prisons for a few hours. “Something to do of a morning,” he snapped.

“I’m so glad you found it diverting,” chuckled Bayaz, as he pulled the rod of dark metal out from his shirt. “And tell me, do you still believe that I’m a liar? Or have your suspicions finally been laid to rest?”

Glokta frowned at the key. He frowned at the old man. He frowned into the crushing darkness of the Maker’s House. My suspicions grow with every passing moment. They are never laid to rest. They only change shape. “Honestly? I don’t know what to believe.”

“Good. Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment. Between you and me, though, I’d think of something else to tell the Arch Lector.” Glokta felt his eyelid flickering. “You’d better start across, eh, Inquisitor? While I lock up?”

The plunge to the cold water below no longer seemed to hold much fear. If I were to fall, at least I would die in the light. Glokta looked back only once, as he heard the doors of the Maker’s House shut with a soft click, the circles slide back into place. All as it was before we arrived. He turned his prickling back, sucked his gums against the familiar waves of nausea, and cursed and struggled his limping way across the bridge.

Luthar was hammering desperately on the old gates at the far end. “Let us in!” he was nearly sobbing as Glokta hobbled up, an edge of cracked panic to his voice. “Let us in!” The door finally wobbled open to reveal a shocked-looking Warden. Such a shame. I was sure that Captain Luthar was about to burst into tears. The proud winner of the Contest, the Union’s bravest young son, the very flower of manhood, blubbing on his knees. That sight could almost have made the trip worthwhile. Luthar darted through the open gate and Ninefingers followed grimly after, cradling the metal box in his arms. The Warden squinted at Glokta as he limped up to the gate. “Back so soon?”

You old dolt. “What the hell are you talking about, so soon?”

“I’m only halfway through my eggs. You’ve been gone less than half an hour.”

Glokta barked a joyless laugh. “Half a day, perhaps.” But he frowned as he peered past into the courtyard. The shadows were almost exactly where they had been when they left. Early morning still, but how?

“The Maker once told me that time is all in the mind.” Glokta winced as he turned his head. Bayaz had come up behind him, and was tapping the side of his bald skull with a thick finger. “It could be worse, believe me. It’s when you come out before you went in that you really start to worry.” He smiled, eyes glinting in the light through the doorway. Playing the fool? Or trying to make a fool of me? Either way, these games grow tiresome.

“Enough riddles,” sneered Glokta. “Why not just tell me what you’re after?”

The First of the Magi, if such he was, grinned still wider. “I like you, Inquisitor, I really do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the only honest man left in this whole damn country. We should have a talk at some point, you and I. A talk about what I want, and about what you want.” His smile vanished. “But not today.”

And he stepped through the open door, leaving Glokta behind in the shadows.