‘Above!’ squealed a cringing minister. ‘The second balcony!’ There was no loyalty left in Skekenhouse, only fire and chaos.
Across the wide floor to a narrow passageway, ash fluttering down around them like black snow. Up a curving stair, higher and higher, their breath echoing and their shadows dancing in the darkness. Past one doorway and out of another, into the garish light.
An old woman stood at the elf-metal rail in a robe that trailed the floor, white hair cut short, a great stack of books beside her, their spines marked with gold, set with gems. She snatched up an armful and flung them over the rail: years of work, decades of lessons, centuries of learning gone to the flames. But so it goes when Mother War spreads her wings. She rips apart in a gleeful moment what it takes her weeping husband Father Peace lifetimes to weave.
‘Grandmother Wexen!’ called Yarvi.
She froze, shoulders hunched, then slowly turned.
The woman who had ruled the Shattered Sea, chosen the fates of countless thousands, made warriors quail and used kings as puppets, was not at all what Koll had expected. No cackling villain. No towering evil. Only a motherly face, round and deeply lined. Wise-seeming. Friendly-seeming. No gaudy marks of status. Only a fine chain about her neck, and strung upon it papers scrawled with writing. Writs, and judgments, and debts to be settled, and orders to be obeyed.
She smiled. Hardly the desperate prey, finally at bay. The look of a mentor whose wayward pupil has at last answered their summons.
‘Father Yarvi.’ Her voice was deep, and calm, and even. ‘Welcome to Skekenhouse.’
‘Burning books?’ Yarvi eased ever so slowly towards his old mistress. ‘I thought it was a minister’s place to preserve knowledge?’
Grandmother Wexen gently clicked her tongue. The disappointment of the learned teacher at the rash pupil’s folly. ‘That you should lecture me on a minister’s place.’ She let a last armful of books fall over the balcony. ‘You will not benefit from the wisdom I have gathered.’
‘I do not need it.’ He held up his elf-staff. ‘I have this.’
‘The elves had that, and look what became of them.’
‘I have learned from their example. Not to mention yours.’
‘I fear you have learned nothing.’
‘Forget learning,’ growled Skifr. ‘You will bleed for the blood of my children you have shed, the blood of my children’s children you have shed.’ She levelled her elf-weapon. ‘My one regret is that you can never bleed enough.’
Grandmother Wexen did not so much as flinch in the face of Death. ‘You are deceived if you think the blood of your children is on my hands, witch. I heard you were seen in Kalyiv, and was happy that you were gone from the Shattered Sea, and more than content that you would never return.’
‘You are made of lies, minister,’ snarled Skifr, the sweat glistening on her furrowed forehead. ‘You sent thieves and killers to pursue me!’
Grandmother Wexen gave a sorry sigh. ‘Says the thief and killer who licks the feet of the prince of liars.’ She swept Koll, and Skifr, and finally Yarvi with her eyes. ‘From the moment when you kissed my cheek after your test, I knew you were a snake. I should have crushed you then, but I chose mercy.’
‘Mercy?’ Yarvi barked out a laugh. ‘You hoped you could make me bite for you, rather than against.’
‘Perhaps.’ Grandmother Wexen looked with disgust at the elf-weapon Skifr cradled in her arms. ‘But I never dreamed you would resort to this. To break the deepest laws of our Ministry? To risk the world for your ambitions?’
‘You know the saying. Let Father Peace shed tears over the methods. Mother War smiles upon results.’
‘I know the saying, but it belongs in the mouths of murderers, not ministers. You are poison.’
‘Let us not pretend only one of us stands in the shadows.’ Father Yarvi’s eyes glittered with reflected fire as he eased forward. ‘I am the poison you mixed with your own schemes. The poison you brewed when you ordered my father and brother killed. The poison you never supposed you would drink yourself.’
Grandmother Wexen’s shoulders sagged. ‘I am not without regrets. That is all power leaves you, in the end. But Laithlin’s arrogance would have dragged us into Mother War’s embrace sooner or later. I tried to steer us clear of the rocks. I tried to choose the lesser evil and the greater good. But you demanded chaos.’
The First of Ministers ripped a paper from the chain around her neck and flung it at Yarvi so it floated down between them. ‘I curse you, traitor.’ She raised her hand, and tattooed upon her palm Koll saw circles within circles of tiny letters. ‘I curse you in the name of the One God and the many.’ Her voice rang out, echoing in the towering space of the Hall of Whispers. ‘All that you love shall betray you! All that you make shall rot! All that you build shall fall!’