Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 (22 page)

Occupied with her thoughts, she was slow to notice him standing behind her, looking, as they all did, ageless and unknowable. ‘Calla of the Red Keep,’ the Wright began. ‘I hope the sun finds you well this day.’

‘My Lord of the Sidereal Citadel,’ Calla said, the Eternal greeting offered second-nature. ‘May the moon bless you with its touch.’

It was difficult and near impossible to determine the age of an Other, at least if one was not a member of the species. They reached their maturity nearly as swiftly as human children, remaining atop this sunlit peak for – who could say with certainty? The Eternal did not share the humans’ conception of, or obsession with, time, thought in generations and epochs rather than weeks and seasons. But Calla knew the Wright to be among the elder generation of Eternal, old enough to have known the Prime’s father, in some past so distant as to be scarcely imaginable. Regardless, he wore his centuries or millennia casually, his face unlined, the perfect brow, the chin as if carved from ore. ‘I take it the Prime has not seen fit to accompany you?’

‘Lamentably, the Lord of the Red Keep has other responsibilities that keep his attention occupied fully.’

‘Then you are here to play shepherd to our Aelerian guests?’

‘To accompany them, yes.’

‘He rarely leaves his demesne, these days.’

‘Except to visit the courses. He has kept up with his weapon training daily.’

This did not seem to comfort the Wright to any great degree. ‘And his … mood?’

‘There is much to weigh down the head of the Prime,’ Calla remarked after a moment. ‘Being responsible for the well-being of Those Above and Below.’

‘It does no good to brood,’ he answered. ‘And eyes turned inward lead swiftly enough to blindness. You will come speak to me, Calla of the Red Keep, if there is any … depreciation in this condition, yes? You will not hesitate.’

‘I’m not sure I take your meaning, my Lord,’ Calla said, keeping the umbrage off her face.

‘I think you understand entirely.’

And then one of the Wright’s servants called him over for a last inspection of some part of the craft, and Calla was left alone, staring out at the skyline of the First.

Though not for long. ‘That was our host?’ Leon asked from behind her, and she suppressed a smile and turned to answer.

‘That was the Lord of the Sidereal Citadel, the greatest genius and craftsman the Roost has produced in generations.’

‘I wonder that you can tell one apart from the other,’ he remarked.

‘I’ve had long practice,’ Calla admitted. ‘But you’re right – perfection allows for little by way of variety. Except in the eyes.’

Behind Leon, languid and unenthusiastic as ever, stood the dark-eyed Parthan slave whose name she had forgotten if it had ever been offered. He was wrapped in loose overlaid robes of a fashion Calla had never seen before, and they gave full vent to his odour, which was less than fresh. The wonders of the First Rung, the towers stretching out for ever into the distant sky, the craft that bobbed along beside them in violation of all natural law, provoked no hint of interest from his heavy chocolate eyes. He masticated aimlessly over some forgotten piece of cud, and occasionally scratched his buttocks.

‘Can he understand us?’

‘Jahan? Oh, yes. Parthan, Aelerian, Roost Speech. Probably others, though it’s hard to say with certainty.’

‘Is he mute?’

‘No, he just …’ Leon shrugged. ‘Holds speech in low regard.’

‘How long has he served the Revered Mother?’

‘How long have you served my aunt, Jahan?’.

His eyes, Calla noted, seemed always about to blink, though they never quite completed this intention. ‘Years.’ The syllables rumbled up his broad chest like bitter water from a deep well.

‘See? Years. A regular orator, our Jahan.’

‘He’s a slave?’

‘He does my aunt’s bidding,’ Leon admitted. ‘But then, so does most of Aeleria. I would think it more accurate to say he is … a sort of a counsellor.’

‘And what sort of counsel does he offer your aunt?’

‘I can’t say with certainty. My aunt keeps her secrets tight in hand, and Jahan, believe or disbelieve this at your discretion, is little given to intimacies.’

‘I believe it,’ Calla said.

‘Yes, I supposed you might. But then again, I have never had occasion to ask him directly. Tell me, Jahan, what services do you render my aunt, apart from your obvious and indisputable value as a bodyguard?

A shrug of his bovine shoulders, a blink of his false-docile eyes.

Something about his blunt disinterest, or perhaps the conversation that she had just finished with the Wright, spurred her towards uncharacteristic rudeness. ‘Strange, for I had thought that in Aeleria, women are held in low regard, and that it would be a source of shame for a man to serve one freely.’

It was an insult rather than a question, and Calla did not suppose to hear an answer. Jahan stared out at the city below and the sky above with his equanimous glower. ‘The dog bows to the jackal, the jackal bows to wolf, the wolf bows to the tiger. To whom does the tiger bow?’

‘A riddle beyond me,’ Leon admitted.

‘Bigger tigers,’ Jahan said, and his mantle of silence again descended.

Eudokia returned then, as if on cue, smiled with dubious sincerity, executed the Eternal greeting with perfect competence. ‘A pleasure to see you again, Calla of the Red Keep. I take it the Prime has chosen not to attend?’

‘The Prime is very busy,’ she said, not sure why she felt it necessary to defend him. ‘There are many matters which require his attention.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Eudokia said, turning to face the skyline arrayed before them. ‘A magnificent view,’ she said. ‘A season here and I admit I haven’t yet grown used to the city, it remains as wondrous and confusing as it was when I first arrived. What is that building?’ she asked, pointing a long finger at one of the castles gracing the skyline.

‘The House of Sweet Balm,’ Calla explained. ‘The Lady there is famed for the excellence of her gardens and orchards, and has incorporated her obsession into the very structure of her home. There are trees sprouting from her walls which were planted a thousand years before the Founding of Aeleria.’

‘And that one?’

‘The Prismatic Ziggurat,’ Calla continued, enjoying the exercise. ‘The stones were, so it is said at least, quarried from a mountain range in the very north of the continent, many weeks’ journey from Hyrcania. Its rainbow hue is the result of some geological peculiarity.’

‘And when was this?’

Calla laughed. ‘Centuries. Millennia. Who can say?’

‘And that one, Calla of the Red Keep?’ Eudokia asked, pointing towards a distant peak, taller and perhaps a bit less grand than the others. ‘What is that one called?’

‘That is the Perpetual peak, one of the very oldest of the seats of the Eternal,’ Calla explained. ‘One of the few that can be traced back to the Founding. It reaches into the depths of the mountain, down even into the lower Rungs – or such at least is my understanding.

‘And who lives there, Calla? What Lord or Lady is graced with so magnificent a seat?’

‘None reside there any longer.’

‘Such grandeur, allowed to go fallow?’

‘One of the Unforgotten,’ Calla explained. ‘That is to say, a line which has fallen out of use.’

‘By which you mean there are no longer any Eternal alive to claim it?’

‘That’s what I meant.’

‘A curious thing, do you not suppose? Surely there must be some or other who could make use of it?’

‘It would be … blasphemous for anyone not of the line to attempt it. In any case, there are more castles than there are Eternal to fill them.’

‘Do you suppose that an auspicious augury for the species, Calla of the Red Keep?’

But Calla did not have the opportunity to answer. The craft was launched without fanfare, drifting slowly from where it was anchored out into the open sky. A few links into the ether and an array of pinions sprung outwards from within the substructure, fins of silk and light wood, wings draping streamers of cloth and silver, the whole vast apparatus resembling one of the creatures that could be found in the Lord’s aquariums, something bright and beautiful swimming through the firmament. Some further artifice was then engaged, and the craft turned upward on a current of wind, listing gracefully. Leon laughed loudly, and Calla clapped her hands, as did most of the other humans present.

‘What is the range of these aeroships?’ Eudokia asked.

Calla shrugged. ‘I have no idea. You would need to ask the Lord of the Sidereal Citadel, and I think it unlikely he would offer answer. The point is a moot one, of course. Those Above would no sooner leave the Roost by aeroship than they would walk.’

‘Then it is used solely for recreation?’

‘You might at least scruple to hide your contempt.’

‘Have I caused insult?’ Eudokia asked, one hand against her breast as if the suggestion had caused her some physical pain. ‘Forgive me, though I hardly suppose your offence is warranted – is that not how they themselves imagine their existence? An endless dance, a continuous celebration of their own divinity?’

‘Do the people of Aeleria paint the surface of the sky? Do the people of Aeleria drift amidst the clouds? You speak contemptuously of creations which are as far beyond your understanding as fire is to a dog. A thousand of your people working for a hundred years could build nothing of the like.’

‘I would not think to dispute it,’ Eudokia admitted. ‘They are an extraordinarily clever species, Those Above, so clever and yet so blind. What a dream, to fly, and how pointlessly they waste their gifts!’

‘What would you use them for?’

‘For a thousand things! For transport and for communication, for surveillance, for exploration, for war. Imagine a fleet of these, carrying soldiers to the corners of the Commonwealth, putting down rebellions, appearing sudden and swift as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.’

‘You must forgive my aunt,’ Leon interrupted, in a vain effort at peace. ‘She has a tendency to slaver.’

‘What need have the Eternal for transporting troops? What need have the Eternal for any of these alterations which you are so desperate to see made? For untold millennia the Roost has stood inviolate, has remained perfect and unchanging. The Eternal have followed the traditions of their forefathers for thousands of years before the Aelerians ever came to the continent, before your throne was emptied. They have no need of improvement, for the simple reason that they have already discovered perfection – they need only maintain their divine stasis.’

The Wright’s distant bubble of colour diminished towards the horizon, flitting past the Red Plum House and the Castle of the Sun’s Grace, moving further into the city, a flickering shadow running over the pedestrians of the Second Rung.

‘Stasis!’ Eudokia repeated. ‘How happy they would be if existence offered them the same courtesy! But I’m afraid it does not, Calla of the Red Keep, I am afraid it does nothing like that at all. Autumn follows summer, and winter after autumn.’

‘And spring comes next, and then we’re back to winter.’

‘True. But the leaves are not around to see it.’

W
hen the priest of Eloha had finished offering the last blessing – the sentences intoned swiftly and without any excess of emotion, there being other men to bring the god’s peace to that day, that day as every day – Bas folded Theophilus’s hands across his chest, and made sure that his eyes were closed. He sat next to the body for a long time, however, listening to the moans from the other cots, the silhouettes of the dying tossed against the thin layer of cotton that surrounded the bed, which offered some semblance of privacy for the last moments of a man who had once breathed, and spoken, and walked above the ground.

It was not a surprise. Theophilus had been battling that thick, wet cough for the better part of a month, since a few days after the battle at Actria, though he never complained of it as he had never complained of anything in all the years since Bas had met him, a noble youth gone west to fight for the safety of the Commonwealth and the glory of the Empty Throne. Losing weight also, not the soft outer shell of a civilian but the gristle beneath it, the flesh draining off him until it had distorted his handsome, patrician face, made him look ten years older and hard as bruised flint.

It wasn’t the cough that killed him, but it was the cough that weakened him enough for the flux to carry him off. First his eyes had gone red and then his hands had started to shake, though he did his best to hide it. Some of the hoplitai seemed to get better from it, but after Bas’s first visit to the infirmary he had known that Theophilus would not be among them. Theophilus did not notice Bas for a long time, and when he did he had had nothing to say. The next time Bas had visited, just a few days later, he had thought Bas his father and not seemed pleased to see him, the unforgotten slights of childhood coming suddenly to the fore, Bas bearing witness to an unbecoming monologue of abuse, trauma made fresh from delirium. Bas had sat quietly until it was over, and afterward he had told Konstantinos they would need to find a new head of horse.

That had been yesterday – no, it had been two days ago, but here in the hinterlands of Salucia it was easy to lose track of time, the days crowding against each other, filled up with a routine that seemed purposeless as they had no enemy to fight any longer. It had taken the army two weeks after the battle of Actria to start moving again, unpardonable by any standard of warfare. You need work twice as hard after a victory as a defeat; Jon the Sanguine had always insisted upon that point, forcing his exhausted army onward, refusing a beaten enemy the chance to regroup. But the Salucians had been allowed to flee northward towards their capital, to take shelter within the boundaries imposed by the Roost’s ultimatum. A week was spent following them, and then another week in camp, Konstantinos insisting that they were preparing to impose a new order over the conquered territories, Bas and every other man in the army without a serious head injury knowing this to be false. Would the Protostrator – or, it was whispered quietly, his stepmother – decide to call the Others’ bluff and march into Salucia, or was it nothing but a great pantomime? An elaborate play that had claimed the life of Theophilus, an inglorious and pointless end, though Bas had seen enough death to know that they were all that way; whether from a gut wound or tainted water or the final dim victory of age, death is death is death, implacable, ferocious, banal.