anarchy reigns – and anarchy is the natural state for men to freely express the evil that lurks within them. Within all of them. Within you,’ she added, staring down at him with an expression that froze his blood.
This woman is insane.
‘I was young and naive. I am no longer that person. I no longer answer to the same name. There is but one man I believe in, and he is no man at all. He is a god.’
She bent down so her face was close to his. ‘Feel no sorrow for those you betray,’ she said softly. ‘Embrace what you do. You serve Salazar, whose wisdom is beyond reproach by the likes of us. Do not lament the loss of your legs. Instead, celebrate the fact they have liberated you from the evil you would have otherwise committed. You are half a man – yet by virtue of that simple fact, you possess only half the evil of a man.’
She turned away from Eremul and so, fortunately for him, didn’t see the look of pure poison he shot her. Batshit insane. She’s batshit insane.
The Augmentor looked up at the sinking sun. Evening was near. ‘I will bring the books we gathered to the Obelisk,’ she said. ‘You can make your way home in your own time. The paralysis shouldn’t last much longer.’
Goodlady Cyreena walked away without a backward glance.
It was growing dark by the time he recovered enough feeling in his arms to begin wheeling himself up the side street and back towards the depository. This was the worst day he could remember since the Obelisk dungeons had changed his life, and that was no small feat – there was the time he had fallen out of his chair while taking a shit and wallowed in his own excrement for six hours waiting for Isaac to return, to name but one possible contender.
He wondered what had become of Isaac and the rest of the small band that had set off for the Wailing Rift two weeks past. The ship sent up Deadman’s Channel to investigate the collapsed mine had failed to discover any sign of the saboteurs. That gave him hope they were still alive. Despite his maddening enthusiasm and annoying knack for effortlessly picking up new skills, Isaac had proved a loyal assistant.
Lost in sudden melancholy, he didn’t realize how close he had come to the harbour until he heard the sound of lapping water below. His curiosity got the better of him and he wheeled his chair out until he overlooked the vast expanse of water. The cleaning operation was winding down for the night. Crew were disembarking all around him. He gazed out, amusing himself with the thought of Isaac and the others slipping furtively through the detritus of floating corpses on their tiny sailing boat, wondering what disaster had befallen the city in their absence.
An odd noise suddenly caught his attention. It almost sounded like a baby crying, and it came from somewhere below him. He peered down into the murky water.
There. A tiny bundle fidgeted pathetically on a small piece of flotsam bobbing towards him. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching and then, with a brief unveiling of magic, he levitated the twitching figure up to drift slowly into his arms.
It was a dog – a scrawny little thing with patchy grey fur and drooping ears. It watched him nervously with watery brown eyes.
Eremul felt something strange stir within him. This poor creature had somehow lived through the absolute destruction of its city. Even more miraculously, it had survived a voyage across the Broken Sea clinging to a fragile piece of furniture.
The dog leaned forwards and licked his nose. He flinched away, then reached forwards and patted its head. We’re the same, you and I, he thought. A pair of mongrels, cast adrift, clinging to whatever we can to make it through the day.
He remembered what Goodlady Cyreena had said to him. You’re like an abused dog that still tongues his master’s arse hoping for a pat on the head.
The Augmentor had been wrong about that. He had saved Salazar’s life only because his own had depended on it. He would have his vengeance when the time was right, when the old bastard least expected it. He wasn’t like her – a broken, vicious, evil thing. All right, perhaps he was broken and occasionally vicious, but evil? He patted the dog on the head again.