The Blade Itself

tedious
day in the City of White Towers. On the road, in the wild, he’d
be alert as soon as his eyes opened, but here things were different.
The boredom and the heat were making him slow and lazy. He stumbled
across the threshold into the living room, yawning wide and rubbing
at his jaw with one hand. He stopped.
    There was
someone in there, a stranger. Standing at the window, bathed in
sunlight with his hands clasped behind him. A small, slight man, with
hair shaved close to his knobbly skull and strange, travel-worn
clothes—faded, baggy cloth wrapped round and round his body.
    Before Logen had
a chance to speak, the man turned and sprang nimbly over to him. “And
you are?â€

Her Kind Fight Everything
    Night. Cold. The
salt wind was keen on the hilltop, and Ferro’s clothes were
thin and ragged. She hugged her arms and hunched up her shoulders,
staring sourly down towards the sea. Dagoska was a cloud of pinprick
lights in the distance, huddled around the steep rock between the
great, curving bay and the glistening ocean. Her eyes could make out
the vague, tiny shapes of walls and towers, black against the dark
sky, and the thin neck of dry earth that joined the city to the land.
An island, almost. Between them and Dagoska there were fires. Camps
around the roads. Many camps.
    â€œDagoska,â€

She Loves Me… Not
    â€œAh!â€

The Seed
    â€œHow are
you, Sand?â€

Never Bet Against a Magus
    Logen sat in the
hot sun, hunched over on his bench, and sweated. The ridiculous
clothes did not help with the sweating, or indeed with anything else.
The tunic had not been designed to sit down in, and the stiff leather
dug painfully into his fruits whenever he tried to move.
    â€œFucking
thing,â€

The Ideal Audience
    Arch Lector Sult
was standing by his huge window when Glokta arrived, tall and
imposing as always in his spotless white coat, gazing out across the
spires of the University towards the House of the Maker. A pleasant
breeze was washing through the great circular room, ruffling the old
man’s shock of white hair and making the many papers on his
enormous desk crackle and flutter.
    He turned as
Glokta shuffled into the room. “Inquisitor,â€

The House of the Maker
    It was a stormy
day, and the House of the Maker stood stark and grim, a huge dark
shape against the ragged clouds. A cold wind whipped between the
buildings and through the squares of the Agriont, making the tails of
Glokta’s black coat flap around him as he shuffled after
Captain Luthar and the would-be Magus, the scarred Northman at his
side. He knew they were watched. Watched the whole way. Behind the
windows, in the doorways, on the roofs. The Practicals were
everywhere, he could feel their eyes.
    Glokta had half
expected, half hoped, that Bayaz and his companions would have
disappeared in the night, but they had not. The bald old man seemed
as relaxed as if he had undertaken to open a fruit cellar, and Glokta
did not like it. When does the bluff end? When does he throw his
hands up and admit it’s all a game? When we reach the
University? When we cross the bridge? When we stand before the very
gate of the Maker’s House and his key does not fit? But
somewhere in the back of his mind the thought lurked: What if it
does not end? What if the door opens? What if he truly is as he
claims to be?
    Bayaz chattered
to Luthar as they strolled across the empty courtyard towards the
University. Every bit as much at ease as a grandfather with his
favourite grandson, and every bit as boring. “…of
course, the city is so much larger than when I last visited. That
district you call the Three Farms, all teeming bustle and activity. I
remember when that whole borough was three farms! Indeed I do!
And far beyond the city walls!â€

Nobody’s Dog
    â€œWhy me?â€

Each Man Worships Himself
    Ferro stared at
the big pink through narrowed eyes, and he stared back. It had been
going on for a good while now, not all the time, but most of it.
Staring. They were all ugly, these soft white things, but this one
was something special.
    Hideous.
    She knew that
she was scarred, and weathered by sun and wind, worn down by years in
the wilderness, but the pale skin on this one’s face looked
like a shield hard used in battle—chopped, gouged, torn,
dented. It was surprising to see the eyes still alive in a face so
battered, but they were, and they were watching