He rolled over and climbed wearily to his feet then turned in a circle, gazing out over the City. The veil’s pearly dome encompassed everything from the Seagate in the south to the Great North Wall, from the Salient to the Paradise Tower. Beyond its gleam he could see the sun was just starting to set. Though he had experienced other men’s lives over centuries, little time seemed to have passed there on the mountain.
He looked at the floor. Marcellus lay sprawled on his back among the glass and blood and Rubin knelt by his side ready to wake him, then froze in shock. His lord’s face was a skull, the eyes lost in shadow, the skin frail and white as bone. Fearfully Rubin touched his shoulder. ‘Lord!’ he whispered.
Relief coursed through him as the eyelids flickered. Rubin stood and turned to the others. The empress lay back on the Immortal Throne, eyes open but unseeing. Jona was motionless on the floor. Both had aged. With a stab of dread, Rubin examined his own hands. They trembled a little but seemed the same – no wrinkled skin, no blemishes of old age.
He gently helped Archange to sit. She felt as delicate as swans-down, her clothes hanging on fragile bone.
‘It has done for us.’ Marcellus’ voice trembled. Rubin hurried back to him and supported his lord as he stood, clutching his side where the wound was bleeding again. ‘We succeeded,’ Marcellus grunted, gazing at his hands, the hands of an old man. ‘I felt the invaders burn. But the veil sucked us dry in the process. We did not foresee that.’
Jona too climbed slowly to his feet. His black hair had turned iron-grey but he appeared less damaged than the empress or Marcellus. ‘Four of us were not strong enough to control it,’ he sighed. ‘If Giulia—’
‘We have sacrificed a great deal,’ Marcellus interrupted. ‘But we will have to live or die with it.’ He looked Rubin up and down, frowning. ‘Your youth seems to have protected you.’
Although he would never admit it to Marcellus, Rubin felt satisfied by the outcome. He thought the loss of einai would prove a good thing for the City. For all the travellers’ original high intentions, it had in the end been primarily an arena for them to play out their family rivalries, their petty jealousies and vendettas. Its citizens had been no more than pawns in their power games. Now the last Serafim were fatally weakened, the people might have a chance to rule their own destiny.
‘We must go down,’ he urged his lord. ‘There will be much to do and people will need our help. We have the dead to dispose of, food to gather and distribute, defences to rebuild.’
But he realized he was talking to himself. Marcellus was not listening. He was looking at Archange assessingly.
‘You are dying, cousin,’ he concluded coldly.
Rubin saw he was right. He had known, even before the veil had snatched her power, that the empress had little time left. Now she clung grimly to the arms of the throne as if clutching at a cliff; her eyes had become lost and childlike, and her mouth moved uncontrollably as if she were trying to speak but could not find the words.
‘I could wait for you to die,’ Marcellus told her, staring at her as he might an injured dog, wondering if it was worth the effort of killing, ‘but that might take days and the City needs a strong leader. And we all know the Immortal Throne is rightfully mine.’ He bared his teeth in a death’s-head grin.
Rubin stared at him in despair. For all the day’s revelations, for all its horrors, had Marcellus learned nothing? He brought to mind the young pioneer his lord had once been. All those high ideals vanished, corrupted into personal ambition. Inwardly, Rubin was racked with sorrow.
Hunched on the throne, Archange muttered, ‘You would be emperor?’
‘That was Araeon’s wish, and it was agreed by all of us long ago,’ Marcellus told her. ‘You remember as well as I, Archange. And the child changes everything,’ he went on. ‘A newborn Serafim, sired by a reflection. It could be the first of many. A new race of Serafim, unspoilt by the past, just as Hammarskjald predicted.’
Archange peered at him. Her lips trembled but her words were clear. ‘First you call on Araeon, then Hammarskjald, in support,’ she croaked. ‘What does that say of your ambition?’
‘My ambition, as ever, is the future welfare of the City,’ he retorted. He looked around at them, smiling, and Jona stepped up to stand beside him.
Archange leaned forward, spitting, ‘You are a fool, Marcellus! Like Hammarskjald, your pride was ever your undoing.’
She fixed her gaze on Marcellus and Rubin was startled to feel her power move ominously among them once more. It was much weaker than before, but it was enough to fix Marcellus, already grievously damaged, in its thrall. A spasm of fury crossed his face as he realized, too late, what she was doing. He roared like a baited beast but could not move. Archange’s black eyes flashed at Jona. Before Rubin knew what was happening, Jona had pulled a knife and thrust it deep into Marcellus’ heart.
Marcellus slumped to his knees, face contorted. With a bellow of pain he gripped the hilt and dragged the blade out, stared at it unbelieving. Casting his eyes up at Jona he choked, ‘Traitor!’ Then he fell back, blood pumping from his chest in thick, rich spurts. Panic-stricken, Rubin dropped beside him and tried to staunch it, pressing his hands over Marcellus’ heart, but it gouted through his fingers, unstoppable.
Gurgling sounds rose from Marcellus’ throat as he tried to speak, then blood poured from his mouth. As Rubin watched in anguish, his eyes became dull, the muscles of his face slackened. The blood-flow slowed to a trickle, then stopped.
Rubin sprang up and, raising a bloody hand towards Jona, threw a bolt of power at him. The assassin was flung high into the air then crashed to the floor, sliding on the glassy surface. Helpless under the force of Rubin’s wrath, he slithered across the throne room.
Time slowed as Rubin watched, savouring his revenge. Eyes wide with panic, Jona slid to the edge of the mountaintop. He scrabbled for purchase as Rubin had done, if only in his mind, when Hammarskjald tormented him. But as Rubin relived his own terror and saw it reflected in Jona’s agonized face he stayed his hand at the last moment. He stopped the assassin’s slide on the very brink of the abyss, leaving him frozen, suspended over the drop.
Rubin turned back to Marcellus’ body and, stunned by shock and grief, sank to his knees, tears flooding his face.
As if from a great distance he heard Archange’s words of venom. ‘Jona was never a traitor!’ she told the dead man, her voice slurring, indistinct. ‘He was always loyal to me! Only your colossal ego let you think he was ever your man.’ She seemed oblivious of Marcellus’ death.
‘He’s dead,’ Rubin told her through his tears, but she couldn’t hear him.
‘I warned you I would pay you back for Saroyan’s death!’ she slurred.
‘He’s dead,’ Rubin repeated, raising his head. ‘He can’t hear you.’
Grief and fury vying within, he sprang up and strode towards the throne. The empress cringed before him and he witnessed the play of emotions over her ancient face. Fear battled there with triumph, and confusion. And cunning.
‘You can heal me, boy,’ she muttered slyly. ‘Yours is the power now.’ She clutched at his hand and he drew away, repulsed. Her gaze, once so terrible, wandered as if she was forgetting her words as she spoke them. Rubin guessed she had used her last morsel of power to destroy Marcellus and she would, as his lord had predicted, soon be dead.
He turned his back on her and considered Marcellus’ body, wondering: Can I heal him? Can I bring him back? And if I can, should I? He was gripped by indecision, mystified by the power he now seemed to control. Then, miserably, he thought the unthinkable. Will the world be a better place without Marcellus in it?
He knelt by his lord’s side and laid the body out, the arms across the chest. He gently closed the dead eyes. In his mind he said goodbye, for he could not utter the words aloud. Then he stood and went over to where Jona still lay, half off the edge of the floor, unable to move. The man watched him come, fear in his eyes.
‘Have you
always been Archange’s man?’ Rubin asked him without emotion.
Despite his plight, Jona spoke defiantly. ‘Since I was old enough to make a choice.’
Rubin bent down and grabbed his hand, then, releasing him from his thrall, helped the man to safety. Jona tried to stand but his legs gave way and he sat down. After a moment Rubin joined him and they sat side by side on the edge of the blood-stained floor watching the sun go down over the City.
‘Why did you not kill me?’ Jona asked after a while, his black eyes curious.
Because treachery and loyalty are two sides of the same coin, Rubin thought. And I would have done as much at one time. I would have killed Archange if Marcellus had ordered it. And there had been enough death.
But he said simply, ‘My father once told me loyalty was the most important virtue.’ He did not add, ‘but you should choose its recipient with care.’
He heard the stealthy steps of soldiers behind them and, without turning to look, he flung them away from him. He heard them crash to the floor, rolling, their armour and weapons clattering on the black and white marble.
Jona watched with interest. ‘It seems you have gained the power we lost,’ he commented.
Rubin shrugged. ‘I don’t know what happened. I didn’t ask for this.’
‘So you will be emperor now.’
Rubin gazed at him. What is it about these people? he wondered. So obsessed with power and its uses.
And yet … should he take the throne? With so many dead and Archange dying, who would then deny him? The remaining armies would fall into line once they had a taste of what he could do. He would be a wise, benevolent ruler and make up for some of the Serafim’s transgressions.
He thought about it for half a heartbeat then shook his head. ‘The City doesn’t need another emperor,’ he said, ‘it needs to be healed and rebuilt by those who define its heart – its people.’ People like Elija and Emly, and Valla, he thought.
Though the enemy hordes were destroyed, the City was maimed and suffering. There would be a great deal to do. He could use his power to mend and restore. But he knew that was how the Serafim had become corrupted, first dictating the end they desired then shaping measures to suit it. No, he thought, I will leave the resurrection of the City to its people. They must make their own future, for good or ill. Instead he would seek out Fiorentina and her son and ensure their safety – fulfilling the duty placed on him by Marcellus so long ago. And he would send word to Indaro that she could come home now. The bleakness in his heart lifted a little at the thought.
But first he had to find Valla.
‘They were men and women of honour, the First Serafim,’ Jona was musing, watching the horizon where the sun had left a stain of rose and gold. ‘They wanted to save their world. Everything they did was with that in mind.’
Rubin realized they must have shared experiences in the veil trance.
‘But they had an impossible task,’ he replied. ‘They did not know for sure how their world had gone so wrong, and could only guess how to fix it.’
From the vaults of memory he heard Marcellus’ voice – a young Marcellus, not yet sullied by power and failed dreams. ‘We don’t know what we’re doing,’ he’d said once in a fit of candour. ‘We’re blind men using cudgels to perform brain surgery.’ He smiled. Marcellus would never be truly gone while Rubin held his memories.
He turned to look at his lord’s body. Soldiers were now swarming the floor, though they eyed Rubin with fear and gave him and Jona a wide berth. Some raised Marcellus up and carried him away. Others attended the empress, who seemed unconscious or dead – Rubin couldn’t tell which and he didn’t much care.
‘Why did Archange and Araeon hate each other so?’ Jona asked, following his gaze. ‘She never told me, though it was that hatred which brought us to where we are today.’
Rubin thought he was both right and wrong. If Archange had not conspired against Araeon then the City would not have been so weakened that Hammarskjald felt able to make his play. Yet … if Marcellus had been less loyal to the emperor they would not, maybe, have become enmeshed in the long, draining war. Besides, others shared the blame, Rubin knew now, and most of them were long dead. It took many people to destroy a City, or a world.
He tapped the memories crowding his brain. ‘Something happened before they even reached here, the First Serafim,’ he recalled. ‘They planned to secure their position by increasing their number. But their offspring were few and far between and when they did quicken they usually died at birth or in their first days. Some believed,’ he said, remembering, ‘that the journey back through the centuries had been an insult to Nature, and that barrenness was her revenge.’
‘But they had plenty of time,’ Jona pondered. ‘With such long lives women had centuries in which to bear children.’
‘Yes, and slowly their numbers increased but they never flourished. Which is why they began breeding with the primitives. That had never been the intention, in fact Araeon had forbidden it. But—’ Rubin stopped and shrugged. He’d learned a great deal that day, but Jona was still hundreds of years older than him and there was nothing Rubin could tell him about forbidden love.
Instead he said, ‘Araeon began to lose his sanity a very long time ago. A strong leader and an arrogant man, he desperately wanted Sarkoy sons. But they didn’t happen. That is probably when he started abusing the Gulon Veil, creating reflections in the dark depths of the Red Palace. He hoped to create a female version of himself to mate with and produce offspring.’
Rubin felt no revulsion at this, no judgement. To know all is to understand all, he thought. But Jona’s face darkened. Rubin thought of his ancient mother Sciorra, imprisoned in the Iron Palace, and her grisly obsession. Her distorted reflections were all despatched, under Jona’s orders, as soon as they drew breath. Will such madness seize us all if we live that long? he thought. He shuddered with foreboding.
Then, ‘In the end Araeon did what seemed both obvious and inevitable,’ he went on. ‘He wed his sister. By then few recalled that Araeon and Archange were brother and sister, and those who did didn’t care. Yet still they had no sons. Rather they had two daughters and in his corruption Araeon abused them vilely, as he did his daughters’ daughters. Later Archange may have regretted her deeds, for she adopted the Vincerus name for herself and her girls. Marcellus conspired in the charade; at the time it suited him to have her beholden to him.’
But he had seen her black heart. She had wed Araeon with the calculated intention of founding a dynasty. And their daughters, Selene and Eithne, were damaged from birth. They shared Archange’s capacity for hate, though not her strength. Thekla, also spawned by the emperor, was as corrupt as he was, though she hid it behind her mask of beauty.
Rubin got slowly to his feet, the weight of the world on his shoulders, and looked about him. The soldiers had departed. Only Hammarskjald’s body, in a circle of dry blood, had been left for the carrion birds. He gazed up. Crimson eagles were circling beneath the dome.
He said, ‘Fixing your heart on one goal, however well-intentioned, will always open you to corruption.’ Jona caught his eye and nodded. Both knew it was a warning.
Rubin looked at his hands, sticky with Marcellus’ blood. He blinked and they were clean. Then he made his way back across the floor towards the ruined stairway, planning to seek out Valla. Suddenly he stopped and turned. There in the gathering darkness on the edge of the floor stood the Immortal Throne, silent and implacable. He walked over to it and looked at it closely for the first time. He touched its smooth warmth, closed his eyes and listened to the white alabaster. What was it telling him?
Stepping back, he drew just the smallest drop of einai from the deep well he had to command, and hurled the great alabaster throne backward. It flew off the mountain then crashed down, smashing on the rocks below into bone-white rubble and dust.
EPILOGUE
THE PATCHWORK GULON padded through the ruins of the White Palace and down the long tu
nnels beneath, searching. Time had no meaning for the creature and it was scrupulous in its investigation of every chamber, every courtyard and corridor, working its way down through the layers of the mountain, undeterred by time or by infirmity.
When it found her at last, broken and long dead, lying in pitch-blackness at the root of the mountain, a place which would not be rediscovered by men for many centuries, it sniffed her ice-blonde hair and her black and silver uniform and realized at last that this was just a rotting corpse, no longer of use even as food.
It sat on its haunches and waited for a while, scratching occasionally. Then, undeterred, it followed the demands of its loyal little heart and padded away, hot on the trail of the woman.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stella Gemmell has a degree in politics and is a journalist. She was married to the internationally acclaimed and bestselling fantasy novelist David Gemmell and worked with him on his three Troy novels, completing the final book – Troy: Fall of Kings – following his death in 2006. Her first solo novel, the acclaimed The City, was published in 2013, and confirmed her as a major name in fantasy fiction in her own right. Stella Gemmell lives and writes in East Sussex.
Also by Stella Gemmell
THE CITY
with David Gemmell
TROY: FALL OF KINGS
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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www.transworldbooks.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Stella Gemmell 2016
Maps © Liane Payne 2016
The Immortal Throne (2016) Page 62