Page 28
On a banner behind him, the Murder Alphabet read:
Wouldst thou all my treasures see?
Come and have a bout with me!
“Right,” I said. “You’ve got something good in this part, but I’ve got to go through this geezer first.”
It wasn’t going to show me a damn thing with the rusty hammerhead and pile of iron nails I was reading around to stop the book trying to kill me. But if I wanted to see what was in here, I would have to let it try to kill me.
“Fuck this,” I said. “This is for a proper mage, not a thief.”
But not even high mages like Fulvir or witches like Deadlegs could read this book. Could they? Maybe Fulvir. But the Murder Alphabet was serious business, something I was only able to get through alive thanks to my birth-gift of being a Cipher.
It occurred to me that, even though I’d been held prisoner in the meat-cage of a goblin ship, and I’d run from giants under the streets of Hrava, and I’d had a ship sunk under me by an emotional kraken, this book was as dangerous as any of those things, if not more. Every page in this Gallery of Fell Delights was an invitation to be pinned like a moth in a magical nowhere, or beheaded by my sleepwalking friend, or turned into a walking dead man wearing this cunt of a tome for a hat.
Maybe everyone would be better off if I destroyed it. But how? Fire seemed the likely answer, for had the thing not done my bidding when I’d threatened it with burning before? But it was possible that being burned would only damage it or cause it hurt. Surely there must be some spell in it to ward it from such an obvious peril.
I looked at the fire I had going, and which I kept good and high for Galva’s sake.
What would it do if I stuck it right in the hottest part of the coals?
Maybe nothing, if I put it in the bear trap first.
I pictured myself holding it above the flames, its pages catching and turning to ash alongside Galva’s and Deadleg’s hopes of taking down the Guild with its secrets. I was beginning to think it would be worth it, despite what all we had endured to get it here.
It truly was a hateful thing, and you had to be near it to feel the weight of its wickedness.
I looked down at the picture of the wrestler again and noticed there was a crowd behind him. In the crowd, I saw a lovely, sad-looking girleen holding up a placard that said PLEASE.
“Oh no, no you don’t. You’ll not trick me into sparing you by making me think you want me to burn you to ashes. Why would you ever want that?”
“Who are you talking to?” Galva mumbled from the mound of furs she was cocooned under. Her voice was weak, but she was able to get out more than one or two words at a breath, so I’ll call it an improvement.
“This arsehole of a book.”
“Oh. Be careful.”
“Faith and I will.”
“It will trick you.”
“No shyte.”
I looked and the girleen with the sign was gone from the crowd.
I said, “Do you think I should burn it?”
“Not until you have got what you can from it.”
“It’s going to kill us.”
She sighed.
“If you would let me instruct you. In the mysteries. Of the Bride. You would not. Give this possibility. More importance. Than it deserves.”
And then fuck if she didn’t fall asleep and snore again.
I looked back at the picture.
