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‘With whom?’

‘The Rat Catchers’ Guild.’Advertisement

Brys frowned. ‘Now I am well and truly confused.’

The scribe shrugged and rolled up the scroll to put it away. Over his shoulder he said, ‘No need to be, sir. The guild is profoundly competent in a whole host of endeavours-’

‘Competence doesn’t seem a relevant notion in this matter,’ Brys observed.

‘I disagree. Punctual reports. No queries. Two renewals without challenge. Highly competent, I would say, sir.’

‘Nor is there any shortage of rats in the city, as one would readily see with even a short walk down any street.’

‘Population management, sir. I dread to think what the situation would be like without the guild.’

Brys said nothing.

A defensiveness came to the scribe’s expression as he studied the Finadd for a long moment. ‘We have nothing but praise for the Rat Catchers’ Guild, sir.’

‘Thank you for your efforts,’ Brys said. ‘I will find my own way out. Good day.’

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‘And to you, sir. Pleased to have been of some service.’

Out in the corridor, Brys paused, rubbing at his eyes. Archival chambers were thick with dust. He needed to get outside, into what passed for fresh air in Letheras.

Seven thousand disappearances every year. He was appalled.

So what, I wonder, has Tehol stumbled onto? His brother remained a mystery to Brys. Clearly, Tehol was up to something, contrary to outward appearances. And he had somehow held on to a formidable level of efficacy behind – or beneath – the scenes. That all too public fall, so shocking and traumatic to the financial tolls, now struck Brys as just another feint in his brother’s grander scheme – whatever that was.

The mere thought that such a scheme might exist worried Brys. His brother had revealed, on occasion, frightening competence and ruthlessness. Tehol possessed few loyalties. He was capable of anything.

All things considered, the less Brys knew of Tehol’s activities, the better. He did not want his own loyalties challenged, and his brother might well challenge them. As with Hull. Oh, Mother, it is the Errant’s blessing that you are not alive to see your sons now. Then again, how much of what we are now is what you made us into ?

Questions without answers. There seemed to be too many of those these days.

He made his way into the more familiar passages of the palace. Weapons training awaited him, and he found himself anticipating that period of blissful exhaustion. If only to silence the cacophony of his thoughts.

There were clear advantages to being dead, Bugg reflected, as he lifted the flagstone from the warehouse office floor, revealing a black gaping hole and the top rung of a pitted bronze ladder. Dead fugitives, after all, needed no food, no water. No air, come to that. Made hiding them almost effortless.

He descended the ladder, twenty-three rungs, to arrive at a tunnel roughly cut from the heavy clay and then fired to form a hard shell. Ten paces forward to a crooked stone arch beneath which was a cracked stone door crowded with hieroglyphs. Old tombs like this were rare. Most had long since collapsed beneath the weight of the city overhead or had simply sunk so far down in the mud as to be unreachable. Scholars had sought to decipher the strange sigils on the doors of the tombs, while common folk had long wondered why tombs should have doors at all. The language had only been partially deciphered, sufficient to reveal that the glyphs were curse-laden and aspected to the Errant in some mysterious way. All in all, cause enough to avoid them, especially since, after a few had been broken into, it became known that the tombs contained nothing of value, and were peculiar in that the featureless plain stone sarcophagus each tomb housed was empty. There was the added unsubstantiated rumour that those tomb-robbers had subsequently suffered horrid fates.

The door to this particular tomb had surrendered its seal to the uneven heaving descent of the entire structure. Modest effort could push it to one side.

In the tunnel, Bugg lit a lantern using a small ember box, and set it down on the threshold to the tomb. He then applied his shoulder to the door.

‘Is that you?’ came Shurq’s voice from the darkness within.

‘Why yes,’ Bugg said, ‘it is.’

‘Liar. You’re not you, you’re Bugg. Where’s Tehol? I need to talk to Tehol.’

‘He is indisposed,’ Bugg said. Having pushed the door open to allow himself passage into the tomb, he collected the lantern and edged inside.

‘Where’s Harlest?’

‘In the sarcophagus.’

There was no lid to the huge stone coffin. Bugg walked over and peered in. ‘What are you doing, Harlest?’ He set the lantern down on the edge. pqdm.com