The Emperor is silent for a while, inside the hanging body.The rain streams down the man’s broken nose, over that bird tattoo, and is whipped off and out to sea.
‘You don’t want to harm your father. I understand that.’ Crowkisser opens her mouth to clarify, and it continues over her. ‘Family is hard, and strange. Even I know that. Even if his death meant nothing to you, it would make him a perfect martyr for the thousands who want you dead. This war would drag out for years beyond counting. You can’t afford that.’
Her heart stings a little at the truth of it.
‘You can’t kill Shroudweaver. But you can take away the power he needs.’
It watches her then, and she hates it. Hates the smug green fire in its eyes. Hates that she’s leaping at the bait it’s dangling.
She presses her lips together, thinking of Slickwalker and of Astic behind her on the road. ‘Tell me how.’
The gallowswatcher inclines its head, the skin at its neck tearing to let the knobbed vertebrae through. ‘Gladly. When your father and Skinpainter defeated me, they took certain precautions. On the living, Skinpainter tattooed wards, to prevent my reaching out to the lingering trace of me that slept in their blood. And the dead Shroudweaver stole from me, and kept from me. And so, I was diminished.’
Part of Crowkisser admires her father’s hubris, admires Skinpainter’s arrogance in effecting such a thin, desperate solution. She doesn’t say that. Instead she says, ‘I thought you were eaten alive.’
For the first time, she hears something close to real pain in the Emperor’s reply.
‘Your father and Skinpainter were … naïve. I suspect they believed their measures to be sufficient in appeasing the mob.’ Its voice drops to a lingering whisper. ‘They were incorrect.’
Crowkisser winces. ‘I’m sorry.’
The Emperor’s voice is matter of fact. ‘Once you have experienced teeth on your bones, your perspective changes. I saw my skin hanging in shreds off a dozen hungry lips. Yet, I did not die. I saw them swallow my body in red gobbets down pulsing throats.And somehow, I still survived.’ Its voice is almost soft, reflective. ‘Magic is a strange thing, girl. All power alters you, and you don’t even notice your unmaking until you’re forever changed.’
Crowkisser feels her body hum like a struck chord, and bites her lip to stop the tears. Her hand on the dry leathered flesh is suddenly tender for a moment, before she snatches it back, self-consciously.
The Emperor’s voice is muted, droning. ‘You’ve felt it, I see. Or the beginnings of it. All knowledge changes you, girl. And all knowledge is power. Do not fight it. Do not even presume you can fight it. There’s no point.’
Again, its story cuts in a beat before her choked back reply.
‘When Shroudweaver and Skinpainter found me, they gathered the scraps, the half-chewed rags of red bone, and they begged me for answers.’ Its brown teeth gleam. ‘Men such as these always feel they are deserved answers. Another free lesson – give them nothing, girl. They owe you their world, and they arenothingcompared to you.’
Crowkisser smiles again, before she can catch herself. ‘I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone.’
It croaks approvingly. ‘Good. When Skinpainter and your father found me, they could not bring themselves to finish the job the people of Thell had begun.’ It pauses. ‘Or perhaps they would not. In either case, they were weak, and afraid. And scared people do the most terrible things.’
‘What did they do?’ she asks, and the Emperor hears the tone in her voice. It has her interest.
Its voice is sing-song, reminiscing. ‘In the depths of my mountain, there is a great black lake. Its waters still as new glass. Above it, the teeth of the mountain hang. Growing year on year, drip by drip. Longer and longer. Perhaps one day the teeth will grow long enough that the jaws of the mountain close on the water. I do not know.’
Its voice a sigh, a low undertone. ‘Girl. They took what remained of me, that red pile that was nothing but the shreds of a man, and they placed me in the dark, above the lake, in ahalf-grown tooth. Hollow enough, that for the first few years, my remaining eye could look down on the dark water. Until I was sealed off, drip by drip.’
‘That’s …’ Crowkisser, says, and nothing more, her mind struggling with the cruelty of it.
‘Quite,’ the corpse replies, with a flare of green. ‘But, as I said, Skinpainter is a clever thief. Before they left me there, they took a piece of me. A finger bone. Snapped off clean and tucked in a small leather bag. As insurance.’
Crowkisser frowns. ‘Insurance?’
Its tone is indulgent. ‘Old magic, girl. Bone and body magic. I dream in the blood of everyone born in the mountain. I call to the dead around it. And, it seems, my body never truly died. If Skinpainter keeps my finger clutched to their fluttering chest, they can keep me bound. I can never help you. I can never be free.’
‘You want the bone,’ she says.
‘I wantyouto have the bone,’ it smiles. ‘Go to Thell. Steal from the thief. Take my finger back, and we will have our revenge.’
Crowkisser looks dubious.
It laughs again. ‘Why fret, girl? I told you. We have sought the same songs beneath the earth. When the tooth finally closed over, the only thing left to me was the dark. Within the stone. Within my own head. Days into months into years, until time fell away from my mind like the flesh fell from my bones. And that, girl, that was when the dark started to sing to me. You’ve heard its songs too. And you’ve stolen what you needed from them. In the libraries, the forests and the caves, and deep under the earth from the forgotten bodies of the dreaming dead. Perhaps from the singing dark itself. You have been a thief all these years. A thief of power. And you know the only thing that’s required to steal is the will, the bravery and themoment.’
Crowkisser doesn’t bother arguing, just nods. ‘Fine. I’ll get that bone. Any tips on that?’
