Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Page 9

  Pyre walked his mother to the doorway. She stood looking at him for a long time before she spoke. ‘It was a good boat.’

  ‘It was what we could offer, though less than he deserved.’

  ‘He is with the gods now.’

  ‘We all are.’

  ‘You are safe?’ she asked finally.

  ‘As much as I can be.’

  ‘And the work?’ she asked. Pyre did not quite know what his mother thought he did for the Five-Fingered. Only that in those rare moments when he could afford to stop in and see her, when he felt it worth the risk, she looked at him in a way that she never had when he had been a layabout or a thug, and though she feared for his life, she had never asked him to stop.

  ‘The truth is as the sun,’ Pyre answered. ‘Only a fool would seek to deny it, and with as much success.’

  She nodded and held him tight and then went inside to mourn her youngest child.

  Hammer was lounging in a caddy-corner alleyway, unobtrusive and unobserved. Against Pyre’s orders he had shadowed them down to the jetty, as Pyre had known he would.

  ‘Any trouble?’ Pyre asked quietly, following the larger man through the narrow lane between his and the next strand of tenements. It had been an easy winter, and the withdrawing layer of rime had left behind broken spindles and stray bits of cloth, chicken bones and pig entrails, turds fresh and turds powdered.

  ‘He was where you said he’d be,’ Hammer answered. ‘And he came along without any fuss.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pyre nodded. ‘He was never much of a fighter.’

  They came to the back door of a neighbourhood grocery, one of the dozens of safe houses that were scattered across the Fifth Rung and the Fourth and even some of the Third. A Dead Pigeon stood guard outside; Talon, tall, dark-skinned, very good with his fists. His father was a merchant of some renown and he had grown to manhood clad in soft silks, with personal tutors – all luxuries he had forsworn after hearing the truth. He nodded briskly and waved them down.

  Through the back entrance was a small storage room, crates of empty liquor bottles and small sundries. Without saying anything Hammer moved a stack of these, revealing a small door behind it. He knocked twice, then paused, then knocked once, then paused and knocked again. The door swung open a moment later, another of Pyre’s many comrades standing behind it and ushering them into the basement below.

  Razor, the First of His Line, was tied to a chair, and he smiled a bit when he saw Pyre, muscle memory as much as anything else. They had been friends for as long as they’d been alive, Barrow boys from back in the day. His name had been Felspar then, as Pyre’s had been Thistle, according to the arbitrary nomenclature that ruled downslope, mothers naming their children after any passing thing that found their fancy. They had been close as brothers – or at least Pyre, not having known what that meant, had thought so. A passer-by seeing them together at five, at ten, at fifteen, would not have noticed much difference; the usual Fifth Rung runts, natty clothing and nasty eyes, making what trouble their inclinations suggested and their limited means allowed. Smash-and-grabs and cheap cons that went wrong as often as they went right, frantic dashes downslope to the docks or up to the Straits, looking for scrums and generally finding them.

  But Pyre did not smile in answer. The two men standing on either side of Razor, the two men responsible for his captivity and, one could only assume, the line of bruises growing on Razor’s face, did not smile either. Hammer very rarely smiled, did not start then. After a short moment, Razor’s face shared a grim, even line with the rest of them.

  ‘Hello, Felspar.’

  ‘Hello, Pyre. I’m sorry about Apple.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was only the one chair, and it was clearly occupied. Unprompted, Hammer grabbed one of the heavy crates from the corner, pushed it in front of the captive. Pyre sat down on it but did not say anything, just watched Felspar with heavy eyes.

  ‘I was scared to death the first time I had to do this,’ Pyre said finally.

  ‘I’m scared to death right now,’ Felspar responded, and gave another weak smile.

  ‘His name was Chalice, he was a tradesman on the Fourth Rung. We were not well acquainted, but he had known the truth for years, long before Edom’s name had made its way down here. He was one of the men responsible for security, before that task was turned over in its entirety to me. It was an important position; it was also, potentially, a lucrative position, should the man holding it decide to make business with our misguided fellows, and the Four-Fingered monsters for whom they labour.’

  Again Pyre went silent. Within the heavy stone walls the city sounds were obscured entirely; all that Felspar could hear was the slurp and his own beating heart, and to break free for a moment from the relentless rhythm of the latter, he asked, ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  Pyre nodded to Hammer, who began to roll it. ‘The organisation was growing; many were hungry for Edom’s truth, already half-formed in their hearts, waiting only to be pronounced. Likewise, there were many who feared the word, who saw it for what it was; a blade sharpened, an arrow notched, a spark brought to tinder. The demons knew to fear it, and their human servants, still befogged, knew as well. Chalice had debts. Against them he set his integrity, the future of his children, the very soul of his species. The first time that one of our meetings in his section was raided, I thought it bad luck. The second time I grew suspicious. The third time I knew. I knew. But certainty is not proof; do you understand? You cannot kill a man because you dislike him, or even because you distrust him. That is not justice. I had Chalice brought to me – I determined, one way or another, that I would find the truth.’

  Pyre held the pause for a moment, as a child with a ball or a god with the world.

  ‘It was a room like this one. He was in a chair, as you are. I stood over him with a blade. He was older than me, a full-grown man while I was barely more than a cub. He began to speak; first angrily, demanding to know what was happening, why he had been taken, on what authority did I hold him prisoner? And when I did not answer he went quiet, and in the silence I could hear his guilt. I could hear it and so could he, as if the three of us, he and I and his sin, were sharing the room, as if it was seated between us. But even then, when I knew, knew for a certainty, knew the way I know the five fingers at the end of my hand, still I was frightened. For his crimes demanded only one sentence, one I had never before delivered, one I feared to pronounce.’

  Hammer handed Pyre the cigarette he had rolled. Pyre lit it off a nearby candle, brought it tenderly to Felspar’s lips.

  ‘But from inside this fear there came truth, truth that swallowed and eclipsed my terror and Chalice’s terror as well. Because it was not Pyre sitting in a room with Chalice, not Pyre who would be required to judge the truth of Chalice’s words, to pass sentence, to carry it out. It was the future in combat with the past. The new age dawns, and we are driven on before it. And staring at the face of it, as I did in that moment with Chalice, as I am in this moment right now, one can understand the futility of falsehood, of anger or despair. The will of the gods is clear in all things, clear and immutable, and it is to us only to recognise that truth, to grow towards it as a plant does the sun. Chalice understood that, in the last, before we did to him what needed to be done. And I think you understand it now as well, Felspar. Behind me walks the spirit of a people who will be free. I am a slave to its destiny, as are you.’ Pyre pulled the cigarette out from his old friend’s lips. A bit of smoke escaped into the close air of the room. ‘When did they approach you?’

  ‘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 te
lling 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.’

  11

  From 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.’