Disgusted, nauseated, the god pushed his way through the detritus, and clawed his way clear: a steeply angled space, created by the partially collapsed inner wall. Blue tesserae to paint an image of unbroken sea, but various pieces had fallen away, revealing grey plaster still bearing the grooved patterns left by the undersides of the minute cut tiles. In this cramped space the Errant crouched, gasping. Time told no bright tales. No, time delivered its mute message of dissolution with unrelieved monotony.
By the Abyss, such crushing weight!
The Errant drew a deep breath of the stale, dead air. Then another.
And sensed, not far away, the faint whisper of power. Residual, so meagre as to be meaningless, yet it started the god’s heart pounding hard in his chest. The sanctification remained. No desecration, making what he sought that much simpler. Relieved at the thought of being quickly done with this ghastly place, the Errant set out towards that power.
The altar was beneath a mass of rubble, the limestone wreckage so packed down that it must have come from a collapsing ceiling, the huge weight slamming down hard enough to shatter the stones of the floor beneath that runnelled block of sacred stone. Even better. And… yes, bone dry. He could murmur a thousand nudges into that surrounding matrix. Ten thousand.
Edging closer, the Errant reached down and settled one hand on the altar. He could not feel those runnels, could not feel the water-worn basalt, could not feel the deep-cut channels that had once vented living blood into the salty streams filling the runnels. Ah, we were thirsty in those days, weren’t we?
He awakened his own power-as much as she would give him, and for this task it was more than enough.
The Errant began weaving a ritual.
Advocate Sleem was a tallj thin man. Covering most of his forehead and spreading down onto his left cheek, reaching the line of the jaw, was a skin ailment that created a cracked scale pattern reminiscent of the bellies of newly hatched alligators. There were ointments that could heal this condition, but it was clear that the legendary advocate of Letherii law in fact cultivated this reptilian dermatosis, which so cleverly complemented both his reputation and his cold, lifeless eyes.
He stood now in Bugg’s office, hunched at the shoulders as if to make himself even narrower, and the high collar of his dark green cloak flared out like a snake’s hood behind his elongated, small-eared and hairless head. His regard was languid in that lifeless way of his as he studied Bugg. ‘Did I hear you correctly?’ the advocate asked in a voice that he tried hard to make sibilant, but which instead came out awkward and wavering. The effect, Bugg realized with a faint start, precisely matched what he would imagine a snake would sound like with words emerging from a lip-less mouth. Although, he added to himself, the specific question hardly seemed one he would expect a snake to utter. Snakes don’t ask for clarification.
Do they?
‘You wear a most odd expression,’ Sleem said after a moment. ‘Did my inability to understand you leave you confused, Master Bugg?’
‘Did you truly misunderstand?’
‘That is why I sought reiteration.’
‘Ah. Well, what did you think you heard?’
The eyes blinked. ‘Have we truly uttered all these words to return to my original query?’
‘I invite you to use some more, Sleem.’
‘Rather than simply repeating yourself.’
‘I hate repeating myself.’
Advocate Sleem, Bugg knew, despised discombobu-lation, although that was in all probability not even a word.
‘Master Bugg, as you know, I despise discombobulation.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You should be, since I charge by the word.’
‘Both our words, or just yours?’
‘It is a little late to ask that now, isn’t it?’ Sleem’s folded hands did something sinuous and vaguely disreputable. ‘You have instructed me, if I understand you correctly-and correct me if I am in error-you have instructed me, then, to approach your financier to request yet another loan with the stated intention to use it to pay a portion of the interest on the previous loan, which if I recall accurately, and I do, was intended to address in part the interest on yet another loan. This leads me to wonder, since I am not your only advocate, just how many loans you have arranged to pay interest on yet other loans?’
‘Well, that was expensive.’
‘I become loquacious when I get nervous, Master Bugg.’
‘Dealing with you gets more costly when you’re nervous? That, Sleem, is really quite clever.’
‘Yes, I am. Will you now answer my question?’
‘Since you insist. There are perhaps forty loans outstanding with respect to addressing interest payments on still other loans.’
The advocate licked suitably dry lips. ‘It was reasons of courtesy and respect, Master Bugg-and, I now see, certain misapprehensions as to your solvency-that encouraged me to refrain from asking for payment up front-for my services, that is, which have been substantial. Although not as substantial, proportionately, as I was led to believe.’
‘I don’t recall leading you into any such assumptions, Sleem.’
‘Of course you don’t. They were assumptions.’
‘As an advocate, you might have been expected to make very few assumptions indeed. About anything.’
‘Permit me to be blunt, Master Bugg. Where in this financial scheme of yours is the money you owe me?’
‘Nowhere as of yet, Sleem. Perhaps we should arrange another loan.’
‘This is most distressing,’
‘I am sure it is, but how do you think I feel?’
‘I am resisting asking myself that question, because I fear the answer will be something like: “He feels fine.” Now, were I to cling with great faith to those particular assumptions we spoke of earlier, I would now insist that this next loan be devoted exclusively to addressing my fees. No matter what lies I deliver to your financier. Which returns us, alas, to my original utterance, which was voiced in a tone of abject disbelief. You see, your financiers’ present state of panic is what has brought me here, for they have reached a level of harassment of my office with respect to you, Master Bugg, that has reached absurd proportions. I have had to hire bodyguards, in fact-at your expense. Dare I ask you then, how much money is in your possession?’
‘Right now?’
‘Yes.’
Bugg drew out his tattered leather purse, prised it open and peered inside. Then he looked up. ‘Two docks.’
‘I see. Surely you exaggerate.’
‘Well, I cut a sliver off one of them, to pay for a haircut.’
‘You have no hair.’
‘That’s why it was just a sliver. Nose hairs. Ear hairs, a trim of the eyebrows. It’s important to be presentable.’
‘At your Drowning?’
Bugg laughed. ‘That would be fun.’ Then he grew sober and leaned forward across his desk. ‘You don’t think it will come to that, surely. As your client, I expect a most diligent defence at my trial.’
‘As your advocate, Master Bugg, I will be first in line demanding your blood.’
‘Oh, that’s not very loyal of you.’
‘You have not paid for my loyalty.’
‘But loyalty is not something one pays for, Advocate Sleem.’
‘Had I known that delusions accompanied your now-apparent incompetence, Master Bugg, I would never have agreed to represent you in any matter whatsoever.’
Bugg leaned back. ‘That makes no sense,’ he said. ‘As Tehol Beddict has observed on countless occasions, delusions lie at the very heart of our economic system. Indenture as ethical virtue. Pieces of otherwise useless metal-beyond decoration-as wealth. Servitude as freedom. Debt as ownership. And so on.’
‘Ah, but those stated delusions are essential to my well-being, Master Bugg. Without them my profession would not exist. All of civilization is, in essence, a collection of contracts. Why, the very nature of society is founded upon mutually agreed measures of value.’ He stopped then, and slowly shook his head-a motion alarmingly sinuous. ‘Why am I even discussing this with you? You are clearly insane, and your insanity is about to trigger an avalanche of financial devastation.’