Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 (12 page)

‘I was drinking in a bar on the Fourth Rung. The Borrowed Harp, I doubt you’ve ever been there. Maybe it was a set-up,’ Feslpar said, then shrugged and shook his head back and forth. ‘I don’t know. I guess I might have mentioned a bit that I was in with you, to some girl or other. You know how … you know I run my mouth sometimes, don’t mean to but there it is. When I woke up there were bruises on my knuckles and on my face, and there was a Cuckoo telling me that I’d gotten into a brawl, that they’d be taking me in front of a magistrate the next morning, that I’d be underground before noon. I couldn’t go down there, Pyre. I wouldn’t survive it. I knew I wouldn’t survive it.’

To be forced to labour beneath the ground, performing upkeep and maintenance on the pumps, was the standard punishment for any petty crime a human might commit, unceasing effort without sight of the sun. ‘And?’

‘They told me that they knew I was an initiate. That they wanted some background information, nothing that would ever come back to hurt anyone. I never told them anything important, I swear to Enkedri, I swear to Mephet, I swear to—’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘The location of some of the meetings,’ he said, eyes on the stone floor and on the yellowed mortar between them.

‘Which ones?’

‘The big one – the one you figured they already knew about, in the weaver district by the Fourth Rung. I didn’t think I was harming anyone.’

‘Did you name me?’

‘They know who you are,’ Felspar said, the smile returning, then retreating. ‘Everyone knows who you are.’

‘And my family?’

‘No! I swear, Pyre. I swear. I never told them anything like that. I never would.’

‘You hadn’t yet – but will you look me in the eyes and tell me that you wouldn’t?’

‘It was mumble or go in the sewers. You can’t blame me for that. You can’t blame me for not wanting to die beneath the ground.’

‘But I can, boy they call Felspar. I can and I do hold you responsible for the choices you have made. That is what it means to claim yourself the first of your line; that the randomness of your birth, the misfortune of your life thus far, these are of no consequence. It was you and you alone who chose weakness over strength, the easy path over the just. In truth this is my fault more than yours; I shouldn’t have let you join; you were not yet ready for your new name. But you took it, Felspar, you took it and you dishonoured it. For this, there must be reckoning.’

Felspar’s face was wan, and his eyes could not meet Pyre’s. ‘What happened to Chalice?’

‘Chalice’s crime was worse than yours,’ Pyre said. ‘But he paid for it like a man, and I hope – I believe – that the Self-Created has forgiven him. And I hope that he will do the same for you, though your punishment will not be so terrible.’ Pyre stood suddenly, turned to Hammer. ‘Clip him,’ he said.

Felspar’s eyes went wide and bright with fear. ‘Please, Pyre, by the gods, by the Founding, by the Time Below – I’ve known you since we were children, for Rat’s sake, for the sake of—’

The mention of their dead confederate, slaughtered randomly by the hand of a slumming Eternal, brought a black flash to Pyre’s face, calloused knuckles tightening. ‘I ought to judge you twice so harsh because we were friends. I ought to slit your throat and dump you in the slurp.’ His eyes were bright and furious, but he blinked past the rage and continued on. ‘But I will not – vengeance is not justice, and you will be given no more than your due.’

From a satchel on his back Hammer removed a short wooden box of no particular distinction, slid open the top. Inside was a cloth lining, and a wide-bladed chopping knife. Pyre took it, inspected the edge. Talon abandoned his spot by the door, began to undo the binding round Felspar’s hands.

‘Scream and I’ll gag you – struggle and I’ll beat you down,’ Talon said.

But he was beaten down enough already, and he neither spoke nor moved, unmanned by fear. It was more than the cut itself, though that was far from pleasant, for all that Pyre would make sure to do it quickly, two swift movements and then they would cauterise it and bandage it and take him back home. And in truth there was very little that a man with ten fingers can do that a man with eight cannot – juggling, perhaps, but then Felspar had never been a juggler.

No, the punishment was more than the injury, more than the loss of the digits; it was the humiliation that it entailed, incitement to all those friendly to the Five-Fingered. And there were many of them these days, on the Fifth and the Fourth and even on the Third, many who would look at Felspar’s injured hands and scowl hard, refuse to serve him a drink or a slice of meat, maybe, if they were feeling antsy, take him out back and beat hell out of him for a while. To be clipped was to be known as an informer, as an enemy of the people. To leave them alive was to make manifest the consequences of betrayal, as well as to provide the faithful with a target, a reminder to be ever-vigilant, ever-righteous, that they were in the midst of battle, and the contest was not yet certain.

Pyre held the knife out over the flame of a nearby candle, watching it grow hot, watching Felspar watch the same. How similar they all looked in this moment – how little was left of a man once fear had taken residence in his soul. The same slack eyes, the same quivering jaw. Hammer brought over a cask of ale from the corner. Talon forced Felspar’s hand down against it.

‘It’ll be quick,’ Pyre promised, withdrawing the blade from the fire, coming to kneel down beside Felspar. ‘And you know that I never flinch.’

F
rom the entrance of the Red Keep Calla walked downslope, turning south at the Silver Orchard, its lines of apple and pear and quince gone barren for the winter, then west, running alongside the Abiding Redoubt, towering and grand and vacant for nearly twenty-five years, its former resident one of the few Eternal to be lost during the last war against Aeleria. Late morning but the streets were uncrowded, the few passers-by going about their business with languid grace, like the canals, like the Eternal against whom they patterned their lives. The custodian at the entrance to the Second, clad in blue robes and a wide smile, his ferule leaning listless against the wall, waved her through without comment.

The Second Rung was busier and louder, and it was only set against the wonders of the First that one might find complaint. Calla turned down a narrow but pleasant thoroughfare, footfalls ringing against cobblestone. She had arranged quarters for the Aelerians a short distance from the First, in a small corner of the Rung that specialised in the sale of books and parchment. Calla passed long rows of these shops, the walls and doors formed of intricately carved white oak, and hanging from the open shutters bits of bright paper, smiling strands of colour against the dark wood. In the doorway of one of these, a girl just on the merry cusp of adolescence and her younger sibling set a toy boat down into the gutters that ran, moatlike, on either side of the street, smiled and clapped as it continued bravely downslope and towards the sea.

Calla’s message had suggested they order a palanquin, but the returning epistle had flatly rejected the suggestion, insisting that the Revered Mother wished to see the city by foot. As she came in sight of the two of them Calla supposed, as she generally did, that hers had been the right of it, for it was still no short walk to their destination, and Eudokia less than hale. Nearer to sixty than fifty, had Calla to guess, and leaning hard on her cane.

Leon stood beside her, smiling that smile of his, at once innocent and cynical. The resemblance between the two was clear: the piercing, light blue eyes, the high cheekbones and unshakable sense of self-regard. In the light of day he did not seem quite so handsome as he had during the reception at the Red Keep, but then, starlight gilds everything.

The third member of their triumvirate stood out distinctly in contrast, a squat, broad-shouldered, fat-faced Parthan to whom no one had yet bothered to introduce her. He wore unbecoming coloured robes, and had flat eyes that followed Calla without interest or scruple.

‘Revered Mother,’ Calla said, performing the Eternal greeting.

It was returned with equal grace, Eudokia folding her cane beneath one arm to allow for the full range of motion. ‘Sensechal,’ she said.

‘Will your … colleague be joining us?’

‘Senator Gratian, whom honesty bids me mention is only an associate and no colleague, is, lamentably, rather too busy with the many responsibilities of his position to have time for any of these excursions, however enlightening they may be. Needless to say, he sends his deepest regrets.’

‘How unfortunate.’

‘I must once again protest at the Prime’s hospitality, which, like any virtue, can be taken to exaggeration. Surely someone with your slate of duties can find something better to do than squiring an old woman along familiar paths?’

‘Graciousness can never be exaggerated, Revered Mother,’ Calla said. ‘You do yourself a disservice and me too great a kindness. Truly, it is an honour to be accompanying so esteemed a guest on a tour of some small fraction of the Roost’s wonders, indeed, more of honour than I deserve.’

‘I should have brought a book,’ Leon said, smiling, ‘to while away the pleasantries. Or perhaps there is a tavern nearby? You could come and find me once you’re done?’

Eudokia smiled and Calla smiled as well, but neither of them looked at the boy. After a moment Calla led them onward, and despite her fears, Eudokia proved no hindrance to their movement, indeed seemed barely to need the ashwood cane she leaned on, as if it was affectation rather than aid. She halted for a moment when they came in sight of the Red Plum Canal, smiling her smile which might have meant anything. ‘To spend a life always in sight of water! Magnificent. And yet I cannot help but observe that these aquatic thoroughfares receive little use.’

‘The Canals are the exclusive province of Those Above,’ Calla explained.

‘And yet, there are no Eternal making use of them this morning. Thinking now, I cannot remember, in my admittedly short time here in the Roost, ever having seen one here on the Second Rung.’

‘The Eternal infrequently find occasion to descend from the First,’ Calla admitted.

‘Curious, to guard so closely a privilege which is never invoked.’

‘You must have, in your distant capital, a home of some size and expense? A keep or a mansion?’

‘A modest domicile,’ Eudokia admitted. ‘Little more than a hovel, when compared against the splendours of the Eternal’s estate.’

‘Without question. And, in your absence, did you give permission for your servants to sleep in your bed? To fuss about in your closets, to feed themselves from your stores?’

Eudokia laughed. ‘Well spoken, Calla of the Red Keep. Well spoken. Tell me, Calla. These waterways, they find their origin at the great fountain which is at the centre of your Conclave?’

‘You refer to the Source,’ Calla explained, certain somehow that Eudokia knew well its name, was pretending at ignorance. ‘The origin of the canals and indeed, the essence of the Roost. Generations of humans laboured in its creation, a masterpiece of engineering undreamed of save by Those Above. The water is drawn up from the bay to the very peak of the mountain, then directed back to the oceans whence it sprung.’

‘Magnificent,’ Eudokia agreed, though she was looking at Calla and not at the object of her veneration, ‘spectacular, unique in all the world. A wonder, I take it, which was bequeathed by previous generations, distant ancestors of the city’s current inhabitants?’

‘The Roost requires constant upkeep. The labour of dozens of Eternal and many thousands of humans ensures its maintenance.’

‘Maintenance is not creation. I see no construction, no improvement, no alteration …’

‘Why mar perfection?’

‘Why do anything, dear?’ Eudokia asked. ‘Why get up in the morning?’

If Calla had an answer, she did not offer it, smiling the same false smile that Eudokia wore and leading them further west. Staring at Eudokia, Calla found, had begun to give her a headache, and her bodyguard offering no more pleasant a sight, she turned her attention to Leon. Too young for her, needless to say, but still she could admit to some sort of an attraction. Two years since Bulan returned to his homeland, fled the Roost in a moment that, she told herself, was one of unbecoming fear, and there had been no one serious since. Which was not, of course, the same as saying there had been no one at all – at thirty-one Calla had the same instincts as any creature of flesh and blood, and in the higher Rungs of the Roost, at least, there was no shame in indulging them. Cinnabar was an overseer for the Lady of the Azure Estate’s vast collection of musical instruments, but he had lived far to the east and eventually the walk had proved more inconvenience than she felt the destination warranted. She had recently enjoyed a brief dalliance with the pastry chef for the Lord of the Stygian Freehold, but that had ended some weeks earlier, without rancour or animus or even much reason. Walking beside Leon, noticing the firm roundness of his biceps and posterior, Calla found the day growing ever so slightly warm.

The chancellor’s office was towards the middle of the Second Rung, a far walk from where they had met, in one of the distant central sections that Calla very rarely visited. It was a massive, squat structure composed of white stone, large enough to contain the small army of custodians, bureaucrats, collectors and inspectors and functionaries who maintained order in the Roost. It could have fitted comfortably within one wing of the Red Keep, not that the Aubade would have ever allowed something so hideous to occupy space in his domicile.

‘How very …’ Leon scratched his head. ‘Square?’

Eudokia made a sound which was not quite a snicker but conveyed essentially the same meaning. Their reception awaited them at the front gates, an honour guard of custodians standing at attention – blue robes freshly cleaned, hardwood cudgels well-buffed. From there they were taken into the bowels of the building, down long hallways and through unmarked doors, up several flights of stairs, coming finally to a broad office on the top floor, and a large desk made of mahogany, and a man who stood behind it.