The Collected Joe Abercrombie (130 page)

Logen shared out the food, such as it was, while Bayaz glared at Quai from under his heavy brows. ‘If I had only had the good sense to listen to my master then, but I was young, and head-strong, and full of pride. I burned to make myself more powerful than Khalul. I decided, fool that I was, that if Juvens would not teach me . . . I had to find another master.’

‘Slop again, eh, pink?’ grunted Ferro as she pulled her bowl from Logen’s hand.

‘No need to thank me.’ He tossed her a spoon and she snatched it out of the air. Logen handed the First of the Magi his bowl. ‘Another master? What other master could you find?’

‘Only one,’ murmured Bayaz. ‘Kanedias. The Master Maker.’ He turned his spoon over and over thoughtfully in his hand. ‘I went to his House, and I knelt before him, and I begged to learn at his feet. He refused me, of course, as he refused everyone . . . at first. But I was stubborn, and in time he relented, and agreed to teach me.’

‘And so you lived in the House of the Maker,’ murmured Quai. Logen shivered as he hunched down over his own bowl. His one brief visit to the place still gave him nightmares.

‘I did,’ said Bayaz, ‘and I learned its ways. My skill in High Art made me useful to my new master. But Kanedias was far more jealous of his secrets than ever Juvens had been, and he worked me as hard as a slave at his forges, and taught me only such scraps as I needed to serve him. I grew bitter, and when the Maker left to seek out materials for his works, my curiosity, and my ambition, and my thirst for knowledge, drove me to stray into parts of his House where he had forbidden me to tread. And there I found his best-guarded secret.’ He paused.

‘What was it?’ prompted Longfoot, spoon frozen halfway to his mouth.

‘His daughter.’

‘Tolomei,’ whispered Quai, in a hiss barely audible.

Bayaz nodded, and one corner of his mouth curled upwards, as though he remembered something good. ‘She was unlike any other. She had never left the Maker’s House, had never spoken to anyone besides her father. She helped him with certain tasks, I learned. She handled . . . certain materials . . . that only the Maker’s own blood could touch. That, I believe, is why he fathered her in the first place. She was beautiful beyond compare. ’ Bayaz’ face twitched, and he looked down at the ground with a sour smile. ‘Or so she seems to me, in memory.’

‘That was good,’ said Luthar, licking his fingers and setting down his empty bowl. He’d become a great deal less picky with his food lately. Logen reckoned a few weeks of not being able to chew was sure to do that to a man. ‘There any more?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Take mine,’ hissed Quai, thrusting his bowl at Luthar. His face was deathly cold, his eyes two points of light in the shadows as he glared across at his master. ‘Go on.’

Bayaz looked up. ‘Tolomei fascinated me, and I her. It seems strange to say, but I was young then, and full of fire, and still had as fine a head of hair as Captain Luthar.’ He ran one hissing palm over his bald scalp, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘We fell in love.’ He looked at each of them in turn, as though daring them to laugh, but Logen was too busy sucking salty porridge from his teeth, and no one else so much as smiled.

‘She told me of the tasks her father gave her, and I began, dimly, to understand. He had gathered from far and wide some fragments of material from the world below, left over from the time when demons still walked our earth. He was trying to tap the power of these splinters, to incorporate them into his machines. He was tampering with those forces forbidden by the First Law, and had already had some success.’ Logen shifted uncomfortably. He remembered the thing he had seen in the Maker’s House, lying in the wet on a block of white stone, strange and fascinating. The Divider, Bayaz had called it. Two edges – one here, one on the Other Side. He had no appetite now, and he shoved his bowl down by the fire, half-finished.

‘I was horrified,’ continued Bayaz. ‘I had seen the ruin that Glustrod had brought upon the world, and I resolved to go to Juvens and tell him everything. But I feared to leave Tolomei behind, and she would not leave all she knew. So I delayed, and Kanedias returned unexpected, and found us together. His fury was . . .’ and Bayaz winced as though the memory alone was painful ‘. . . impossible to describe. His House shook with it, rang with it, burned with it. I was lucky to escape with my life, and fled to seek sanctuary with my old master.’

Ferro snorted. ‘He was the forgiving type, then?’

‘Fortunately for me. Juvens would not turn me away, despite my betrayal. Especially once I told him of his brother’s attempts to break the First Law. The Maker came in great wrath, demanding justice for the violation of his daughter, the theft of his secrets. Juvens refused. He demanded to know what experiments Kanedias had been undertaking. The brothers fought, and I fled. The sky was lit with the fury of their battle. I returned to find my master dead, his brother gone. I swore vengeance. I gathered the Magi from across the world, and we made war on the Maker. All of us. Except for Khalul.’

‘Why not him?’ growled Ferro.

‘He said that I could not be trusted. That my folly had caused the war.’

‘All too true, surely?’ muttered Quai.

‘Perhaps, in part. But he made far worse accusations also. He and his cursed apprentice, Mamun. Lies,’ he hissed at the fire. ‘All lies, and the rest of the Magi were not deceived. So Khalul left the order, and returned to the South, and sought for power elsewhere. And he found it. By doing as Glustrod had done, and damning himself. By breaking the Second Law, and eating the flesh of men. Only eleven of us went to fight Kanedias, and only nine of us returned.’

Bayaz took a long breath, and gave a long sigh. ‘So, Master Quai. There is the story of my mistakes, laid bare. You could say they were the cause of my master’s death, of the schism in the order of Magi. You could say that is why we are now heading westwards, into the ruins of the past. You could say that is why Captain Luthar has suffered a broken jaw.’

‘The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present,’ muttered Logen to himself.

‘So they do,’ said Bayaz, ‘so they do. And sour fruit indeed. Will you learn from my mistakes, Master Quai, as I have, and pay some attention to your master?’

‘Of course,’ said the apprentice, though Logen wondered if there was a hint of irony in his voice. ‘I will obey in all things.’

‘You would be wise to. If I had obeyed Juvens, perhaps I would not have this.’ Bayaz undid the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled his collar to one side. The firelight flickered on a faded scar, from the base of the old man’s neck down towards his shoulder. ‘The Maker himself gave it to me. Another inch and it would have been my death.’ He rubbed sourly at it. ‘All those years ago, and it still aches, from time to time. The pain it has given me over the slow years . . . so you see, Master Luthar, although you bear a mark, it could be worse.’

Longfoot cleared his throat. ‘That is quite an injury, of course, but I believe I can do better.’ He took hold of his dirty trouser leg and pulled it right up to his groin, turning his sinewy thigh towards the firelight. There was an ugly mass of puckered grey scar flesh almost all the way round his leg. Even Logen had to admit to being impressed.

‘What the hell did that?’ asked Luthar, looking slightly queasy.

Longfoot smiled. ‘Many years ago, when I was yet a young man, I was shipwrecked in a storm off the coast of Suljuk. Nine times, in all, God has seen fit to dump me into his cold ocean in bad weather. Luckily, I have always been truly blessed as a swimmer. Unluckily, on this occasion, some manner of great fish took me for its next meal.’

‘A fish?’ muttered Ferro.

‘Indeed. A most huge and aggressive fish, with a jaw wide as a doorway and teeth like knives. Fortunately, a sharp blow on the nose,’ and he chopped at the air with his hand, ‘caused it to release me, and a fortuitous current washed me up on shore. I was doubly blessed to find a sympathetic lady among the natives, who allowed me to recuperate in her abode, for the people of Suljuk are generally most suspicious of outsiders.’ He sighed happily. ‘That is how I came to learn their language. A highly spiritual people. God has favoured me. Truly.’ There was a silence.

‘I bet you can do better.’ Luthar was grinning across at Logen.

‘I got bitten by a mean sheep once, but it didn’t leave much of a mark.’

‘What about the finger?’

‘This?’ He stared at the familiar stub, waggling it back and forward. ‘What about it?’

‘How did you lose it?’

Logen frowned. He wasn’t sure he liked the way this conversation was going. Hearing about Bayaz’ mistakes was one thing, but he wasn’t that keen to delve into his own. The dead knew, he’d made some bad ones. Still, they were all looking now. He had to say something. ‘I lost it in a battle. Outside a place called Carleon. I was young back then, and full of fire myself. It was my stupid fashion to go charging into the thick of the fighting. That time, when I came out, the finger was gone.’

‘Heat of the moment, eh?’ asked Bayaz.

‘Something like that.’ He frowned and rubbed gently at the stump. ‘Strange thing. For a long time after it was gone, I could still feel it, itching, right in the tip. Drove me mad. How can you scratch a finger that’s not there?’

‘Did it hurt?’ asked Luthar.

‘Like a bastard, to begin with, but not half as much as some others I’ve had.’

‘Like what?’

That needed some thinking about. Logen scratched at his face and turned over all the hours, and days, and weeks he’d spent injured, and bloody, and screaming. Limping around or trying to cut his meat with his hands all bandaged up. ‘I got a good sword cut across my face one time,’ he said, feeling the notch Tul Duru had made in his ear, ‘bled like anything. Nearly got my eye poked out with an arrow,’ rubbing at the crescent scar under his brow. ‘Took hours to dig out all the splinters. Then I had a bloody great rock dropped on me at the siege of Uffrith. First day, as well.’ He rubbed the back of his head and felt the lumpy ridges, under his hair. ‘Broke my skull, and my shoulder too.’

‘Nasty,’ said Bayaz.

‘My own fault. That’s what you get when you try and tear a city wall down with your bare hands.’ Luthar stared at him, and he shrugged. ‘Didn’t work. Like I said, I was hot-headed in my youth.’

‘I’m only surprised you didn’t try and chew through it.’

‘Most likely that would’ve been my next move. Just as well they dropped a rock on me. At least I’ve still got my teeth. Spent two months squealing on my back while they laid siege to the city. I only just healed in time for the fight with Threetrees, when I got the whole lot broken again, and more besides.’ Logen winced at the memory, curling up the fingers of his right hand and straightening them out, remembering the pain of it, all smashed up. ‘Now that really did hurt. Not as much as this, though,’ and he dug his hand under his belt and pulled his shirt up. They all peered across the fire to see what he was pointing at. A small scar, really, just under his bottom rib, in the hollow beside his stomach.

‘Doesn’t look like much,’ said Luthar.

Logen shuffled round to show them his back. ‘There’s the rest of it,’ he said, jerking his thumb at what he knew was a much bigger mark beside his backbone. There was a long silence while they took that in.

‘Right through?’ murmured Longfoot.

‘Right through, with a spear. In a duel, with a man called Harding Grim. Damn lucky to live, and that’s a fact.’

‘If it was in a duel,’ murmured Bayaz, ‘how did you come out alive?’

Logen licked his lips. His mouth tasted bitter. ‘I beat him.’

‘With a spear through you?’

‘I didn’t know about it until afterwards.’

Longfoot and Luthar frowned at each other. ‘That would seem a difficult detail to overlook,’ said the Navigator.

‘You’d think so.’ Logen hesitated, trying to think of a good way to put it, but there was no good way. ‘There are times . . . well . . . I don’t really know what I’m doing.’

A long pause. ‘How do you mean?’ asked Bayaz, and Logen winced. All the fragile trust he’d built over the last few weeks was in danger of crumbling round his ears, but he didn’t see any choice. He’d never been much of a liar.

‘When I was fourteen, I think, I argued with a friend. Can’t even remember what about. I remember being angry. I remember he hit me. Then I was looking at my hands.’ And he looked down at them now, pale in the darkness. ‘I’d strangled him. Good and dead. I didn’t remember doing it, but there was only me there, and I had his blood under my nails. I dragged him up some rocks, and I threw him off onto his head, and I said he fell out of a tree and died, and everyone believed me. His mother cried, and so on, but what could I do? That was the first time it happened.’

Logen felt the eyes of the group all fixed on him. ‘Few years later I nearly killed my father. Stabbed him while we were eating. Don’t know why. Don’t know why at all. He healed, luckily.’

He felt Longfoot easing nervously away, and he hardly blamed him. ‘That was when the Shanka started coming more often. So my father sent me south, over the mountains, to look for help. So I found Bethod, and he offered me help if I’d fight for him. I was happy to do it, fool that I was, but the fighting went on, and on. The things I did in those wars . . . the things they told me I did.’ He took a long breath. ‘Well. I’d killed friends. You should have seen what I did to enemies. To begin with I enjoyed it. I loved to sit at the top of the fire, to look at men and see their fear, to have no man dare to meet my eye, but it got worse. And worse. There came one winter that I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing most of the time. Sometimes I’d see it happening, but I couldn’t change it. No one knew who I’d kill next. They were all shitting themselves, even Bethod, and no one more scared of me than I was.’