Here is what I know about the Raensapali emperors. I know about Emperor Guelstahv I, who turned his generals into slavers and sent them west of the mountains to conquer cities and shackle their inhabitants. I know about Emperor Dendevaen III, called the Insomniac, who went insane from lack of sleep and claimed that his shoulders had become rocks. I know about Emperor Panthoekuhm I, who joined a cult and was about to give away the wealth of the empire when he was assassinated. And I know about Emperor Adakhuehan II, who was so plagued by acne that he would decapitate anyone who had clear skin. I have very clear skin. I looked down at the ghost in Lewibindi’s doorway and felt my death come near.

  I fled, running down the dark stairs and out into the lighted atrium. Whinagher looked up in alarm. Never mind. I needed a drink and my feet compelled me out into the street. I wasn’t wearing my outside robes, and I was aware of the cold, but I was also running fast, hurtling through the library complex and the tunnel beneath the wall, out into the city and across the icy cobbles to the Dust and Pen.

  I arrived gasping and collided with Ipenlaya the bouncer at the head of the stairs. He held me in his arms. His body was warm, his stolid frame protective. I was like a baby chick, shivering under the warmth of a mama bird’s wings. But when he spoke the illusion of matronly security dissipated.

  “How drunk are you?” he asked.

  “I have not had a drink in at least two days,” I told him with some dignity. Then I spoiled any illusion of sobriety and a reformed life by saying, “I would like one now, please.”

  He smelled my breath. He was neither bearded nor clean-shaven. He liked his facial hair to be rough and spiky, so that he could threaten you with it. “Doefrit,” he said, “I worry about you.” But he let me pass.

  I tripped lightly down the stairs, feeling somewhat removed from my body and alienated from any sense of peace or joy. Bhukahnee was at the bar. She glared at me. “Have you come to pay your bill?” she asked.

  I gaped. “My bill was paid. The interdict was lifted.”

  “Your new bill, Bends. You may not remember, but you drank quite a lot in the last few days.”

  I shivered. “Please, Bhukahnee, chastise me later. I have had a fright.”

  She was stern and unmoving. Fortunately a figure detached herself from the end of the bar and came to my aid. It was the apple-cheeked matron in Bhaetamistri’s employment. “Will you allow me to pay his bill?” she asked Bhukahnee.

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again,” the apple-cheeked matron said. Her tone was friendly, light, conversational. She seemed on the verge of bursting into a peel of laughter. “But perhaps I’ll start by buying him a drink, and then return to pay the entire sum after he and I have had a little chat.”

  Bhukahnee regarded her with narrowed eyes. “If you like.”

  I ordered a yeasty beer and was led to a table in the corner. Beer, as everyone knows, is good for you, even healthier than water. I was demonstrating virtue, but as I sipped I wished that I had ordered something stronger.

  “Well,” the apple-cheeked matron asked, sipping at a little glass of anise liquor, “have you found the elephant?”

  I gave her my best suspicious glare. “What is your name again?”

  “Vaetra.”

  “You didn’t even have to think about that, did you?”

  “Why should I have to think about my own name?”

  “It occurred to me that you and Bhaetamistri might actually be called something else. You have your real names and your spy names. Maybe a lot of different spy names. Maybe they’d be hard to remember.”

  “If we couldn’t remember our names, we wouldn’t be very good spies.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose not.” I slid my left hand into the right sleeve of my robe and fidgeted with the elephant through the fabric of my pocket. “This elephant,” I said. “Why is it important?”

  She smiled innocently at me. “Who said that it’s important?”

  “Let’s just say that it has awakened my scholarly curiosity.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  She tutted at me softly, like a disappointed mother. “You have chosen an odd time to become a scholar.”

  I straightened my back and looked at her haughtily. “I have always been a scholar.”

  She took a sip of her nasty little liquor. “I look forward to reading your treatise. Now, the elephant.”

  “It will be a very good treatise,” I said. “I am writing on the People of Skies and Visions. No one has written about them since Prahb Vidva made his journey to live among them, and that was before the plague.”

  “Very interesting. The elephant, please.”

  “They have much to tell us about freedom and the best way to live one’s life.”

  “Are you drunk already?”

  “Madam, this is the first drink I’ve had in several days.”

  “Once you’ve drunk some more, will you give me the elephant?”

  “I have it here. I wanted to make a point.”

  “What point?”

  “I am not merely a man who enjoys a tipple. I am a scholar.”

  “I caused offense. I apologize.”

  “And you still haven’t answered my question. Why is the elephant important?”

  She sighed. “It was stolen from Raensapal after the fall of the empire. It was used to carry secret messages.”

  I glowered at her. “It’s very small.”

  “The messages were written on tiny scrolls and rolled up tight. Will you give it to me or not?”

  I leaned back against the wall. My body had started to relax and some of my fear was draining away. By some alchemy it had turned to mulish anger, and I found that I was enjoying this fact, and much inclined to keep annoying her. “I have been told by a friend that you Sasturi are great liars.”

  She regarded me coldly. Some of the redness had fled from her apple-cheeks. “In what way?”

  “When my parents died, I paid a Sasturi some coins and he took their ghosts to a bend in the river. Only apparently ghosts are never deposited out in the beautiful world. They don’t get to haunt a pleasant forest grove. I am told that you take them to your guild houses. What do you do with them, then?”

  “Who is your friend, and how would they know anything about us?”

  “You forget that I am a scholar of Haunts and Scribbles. We have whole floors devoted to scrolls and books that delve into the dubious habits of the Sasturi.”

  She stood up. “I’m sure you do. I am afraid that your bar bills will go unpaid. I wonder how much you owe.”

  “Don’t be hasty!” I said, scooting forward.

  “The elephant,” she said, holding out a hand.

  I removed it from my sleeve in a very grudging manner and deposited it in her hand. Our little corner of the Dust and Pen was quite shadowy, and as her fingers closed around it I saw a figure flash into existence behind her. Short, with bushy eyebrows and a hairlip. I gave a little cry, and Bhukahnee looked up from the bar.

  Vaetra pretended that nothing had happened. She turned her back on me and walked away. The ghost turned to follow, disappearing as she stepped into the light. I drank off the remainder of my beer and ordered another.

  So the ghost hadn’t been haunting Lewibindi’s chambers. It had been haunting me. Or the elephant. I was halfway through my third drink when I came to this conclusion, and I choked and spewed beer all over the table. I told myself that I must be wrong. I had never heard of a ghost haunting an object before. And why would a mad emperor tie his afterlife to a trinket? Yet I felt inspired. I, Doefrit from Doefrit’s Bend, scholar of the Fourth Tower, felt the call to research for the first time in my life.

  I hurried out of the Dust and Pen, and Bhukahnee didn’t stop me, which meant that she had either already received payment or simply trusted that my bill would be paid. I rushed past Ipenlaya, who reached out and gave me a friendly pat as I hurried by, very fatherly and unexpected. Now that I was no longer running in panic, I was well aware that I was thinly dressed for the cold night. My teeth were chattering as I approached the wall. Its windows were alight. Many a scholar was at work. The night was still young. I hurried to imitate them.

  But as I exited the tunnel I tripped over a bulky shape that littered the pavement. I flew forward and fell, tearing my robes and scraping my knees. I turned back to study whatever unfortunate object had blockaded my scholarly intentions, and saw that it was a man, collapsed on the cobblestones. I crawled over to him, intending to offer aid. He was very still. His robes were oddly familiar. Light from the windows in the walls shed down upon us, and I turned the body over. The cold face of Lewibindi Jaestis looked up at me.

  I have seen dead bodies before. Who hasn’t. I was the one who found my mother, after the barge captain bashed in her skull. And it was I who sat with her spirit, until the Sasturi came to take her ghost away. Lewibindi’s spirit had risen up beside his body and was looking down at me. He hadn’t been bashed. He had been knifed. Someone had slid a sharp blade across his throat. His ghost looked as he had in life, but I found that I preferred to look at the corpse. His handsome features had gone taught, his cheeks sunken, the skin around his nose tightened against the bone, as if his flesh were fleeing away. I thought to take one of his hands, as if that could give him comfort. His nails had been ripped out and his palms had been burned by a hot poker.

  I started up in horror, and turned to run. There were figures in the street ahead of me. My shadow reached towards them, cast by the lighted windows. I turned again, leapt over Lewibindi’s body, and sprinted down the tunnel.

  There was a shout behind me. A bell began to ring. I raced back towards the Dust and Pen, thinking that Ipenlaya might protect me. But I am a scholar, and not much built for running. They caught me before I had gone two blocks.