The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  The gates exploded, the force shuddering through the stone wall beneath Avrell’s feet. Then a concussive blast hit him from behind, flung him forward to the parapet, the skin of his hands scraped raw on the stone. He gasped, rolled to one side, and struck the stone of the crenellation with his back, grinding to a halt. Something soft landed on the parapet before him—a body, the guardsman already dead, eyes wide in shock—and then the body slid off the wall and Avrell could see wood and stone flying outward, away from the wall.

  Avrell gasped again, realized he could barely hear his own breath, sounds muted, felt a trickle near his ear and reached up to his jaw. His shoulder screamed at the movement and his hand came away bloody.

  Boots pounded past, their thuds like muffled cloth. Through the fog of dust from the gates, he could pick out shouts and screams, too soft and chaotic to make out words.

  The stone beneath him rumbled, shuddered again, and he felt the wall shift, suddenly leaning inward.

  He jerked himself up onto his elbow, ignored the sharp pain in his chest, and scrambled to his feet. His dark blue robes were covered with grit, his hands throbbing where they’d been skinned raw. He huddled against the canted wall, coughed as he tried to make out what was happening.

  The gates had fallen. The stone above where the gates had stood had collapsed, and the walls to either side were threatening to give way as well.

  He stood on the parapet, guardsmen running past, retreating from the walls, and stared. Chorl filled the street below, surging in all directions, their main force angling straight for the inner gates.

  The wall trembled again, the motion piercing Avrell’s numbness and shock, and he suddenly said, “Eryn.”

  He shook himself, pain shooting up from his elbow and shoulder where he’d hit the stone parapet. Clutching that arm to his chest with the other hand, he began to stagger back along the parapet, looking for a way down to the street.

  I left him, pushed up through the middle ward, past the huge three-horse stone fountain in front of the merchant’s guild, the plaza already swarming with Chorl, up through the streets to the inner wall, the inner gate, and settled inside Eryn.

  She’d seen the middle gate fall, had seen the dust, debris, and smoke from the outer gate. Her jaw was set, her hands flat on the stone wall before her as she stared out into the street. “Avrell,” she said to herself.

  Then the Chorl flooded the street below, came screaming up to the wall, and the arrows began to fly.

  Eryn didn’t pay any attention, guardsmen bellowing orders all around her. Instead, she closed her eyes, concentrated inward.

  I felt her heart slow, felt the faint tremors of concern and fear leave her, her arms steadying.

  The river around her calmed, the turbulence caused by the guardsmen, by their raw terror, by the death, faded away, evened out.

  Until, when the roars of the Chorl died down as they had at the middle gates, when the Chorl retreated and the guardsmen on the wall fell silent and Eryn opened her eyes, she stood in a pool of total serenity.

  On the street below, the Chorl parted and the Ochean stepped forward. She surveyed the wall as she had before, and her arms lifted.

  Eryn drew in a deep breath, her hands on the stone before her, and summoned the river.

  It solidified fluidly, the wall of force she constructed flawless as far as I could see, stretching from the ground to the top of the parapet, completely covering the gate, and curved like a shield.

  She finished it a moment before the Ochean released.

  I saw the Ochean’s power flash across the square, raw and blunt, channeled like a battering ram and aimed at the center of the gates.

  When it hit Eryn’s wall, it struck like a solid punch to the gut. Eryn gasped, her eyes flying wide, one arm leaving the wall and clutching her stomach. The shield she’d created flexed, wavered, the force of the Ochean’s blow being shunted to the side as swiftly as possible. For a single moment, it seemed that Eryn would be overwhelmed. The wall stuttered, frayed at the edges—

  But it held.

  In the square below, the Ochean stepped forward, her eyes flashing with hatred. The Chorl began to mutter, shocked. Then she spun, clapped her hands and shouted an order.

  Instantly, three of the Ochean’s Servants stepped forward.

  The Ochean swung back to the gates, arms outstretched, face livid. The three Servants fell into position around her, one each to either side and a step behind, the third directly behind her and two steps back, so that they formed a rough diamond.

  The three Servants clasped their hands before them and bowed their heads. Lines of force wavered into being on the river, connecting them to the Ochean, solidifying into thick conduits.

  The voices of the throne drew in a sharp breath.

  Except that wasn’t true. Most of the voices seemed merely confused, murmuring with worry, some stunned into silence by the previous explosions. Only the Seven had drawn breath.

  They’re Linking. They’ve advanced farther than I suspected, Cerrin said.

  Then I have to help her.

  I reached, even as Eryn steadied her shield, a thin pain shooting up from her stomach. Even though her shield had held, she’d still felt the force behind the Ochean’s blow. I began to weave the river into a second shield behind Eryn’s.

  No, Liviann said, and I felt her step forward, felt Cerrin recede. We can’t teach you how to supplement Eryn’s power as the Servants below are supplementing the Ochean’s—there’s no time—but we can show you how to effectively reinforce Eryn’s shield.

  She reached through the Fire with Cerrin’s help, the rest of the Seven stepping forward as well, all of them guiding the shield’s lines that I’d already put in place, shifting them slightly so that my own shield wove into Eryn’s, slipped along its edges, forming buttresses between Eryn’s shield and the physical stone walls themselves.

  As the last currents slid into place, Eryn straightening and murmuring a soft, grim, “Thank you, Varis,” under her breath, the Ochean unleashed another hammer blow of power.

  On the river, the hammer descended with horrifying strength, not just the power of the Ochean and three Servants, but more than ten times the power.

  It struck, and a solid core of heat and pain exploded in Eryn’s gut, like a sizzling ball of fire. Both Eryn and I gasped, Eryn’s arms wrapping around her stomach as she staggered. The shield held, power dissipating outward, shuddering along its length, the buttresses bleeding the power down into the walls themselves until the stone began to shudder. More power slammed into the shield, pressure building, the tremors of the wall increasing, until a few of the guardsmen cried out. Eryn’s shield began to collapse, crumbling in from the sides—

  And then the Ochean’s power halted.

  At the same time, a horrendous crack reverberated through the inner ward as the stone of the wall split. Guardsmen leaped back from the sundered stone, shouts rang out, but the wall held.

  Eryn gasped and collapsed forward, holding herself up on the edge of the parapet with one arm, knees weak. The captain of the guard shifted forward in concern, to where Eryn hunched forward, arm still clutching her stomach.

  Eryn waved him off, forced herself to straighten and stand, her breath coming harsh and fast now, gasping. The white hot fire radiated up from her abdomen, seething, shooting flares of pain down her arms, into her heart. But she closed her eyes, reached out and steadied the wall of force before the gate yet again, sucked in another deep breath and held it as the Ochean gathered her power, and that of the Servants, for a third strike.

  Eryn’s shield never had a chance, even with my help, even with the guidance of the Seven. It held for one short breath, two—

  Then it collapsed.

  And the gates exploded.

  Eryn sagged to the stone wall in front of her as it shuddered, groped blindly for the st
one as debris flew outward behind her, dust enveloping her in a shroud. She coughed as she tried to breathe through the grit, raised an arm weakly to her mouth, covering it with the sleeve of her white dress. Grit settled into her eyes, too fast for her to blink it away, and she felt herself slipping down the stone of the crenellation, felt it shuddering beneath her hands, ready to crumble, to collapse.

  Then someone gripped her beneath the arms, a guardsman, heaved her up as she coughed and hacked, and dragged her away, the fire in her gut exploding with the movement, tasting of acid and blood in the back of her throat.

  She held on to consciousness a moment more, enough to see the captain whose name she did not know hauling her to safety.

  And then everything went black.

  I pulled away, stared down at the wreckage of the inner gates, watched as the parapet Eryn had just been pulled off of caved in, stone raining down onto the base of the promenade. I lifted up, shifted to the tower, and turned, staring down over the city, the taste of acid and blood moving with me, tainting the river. The harbor was filled with burning ships, the water crammed with bodies and debris, rising and falling with the waves stained red with blood. Smoke billowed through the afternoon skies, rising in thick columns from the city, from the harbor, from the watchtowers. Even as I watched, a building in the middle ward collapsed, dust rising in a thick cloud. And everywhere there was fire—on the wharf, in the warehouse district, in the inner city. Even in the slums.

  It was the vision. Amenkor lay in ruins, the stench of smoke and blood and death clogging the air.

  I turned from the image, sank down through the tower, down through the stone to the throne room, and settled into my body, breathing in with a hard, shuddering, painful gasp, tears at the corners of my eyes, weakness coursing through my arms, through my chest. And still the taste of acid and blood lingered.

  Keven stood at the throne’s side, guardsmen lining the walkway, stationed behind the pillars. I frowned in irritation, thought about ordering them all out of the room, but halted when I saw the set expression on Keven’s face.

  “They’ve broken through the gates,” I said instead, my voice ragged, hoarse, my throat raw. “The Ochean is inside the palace.”

  The Throne Room

  Keven shifted nervously, the throne room utterly silent. Outside in the corridor, through the open double doors, the palace felt deserted. No servants tread the halls, no guardsmen guarded the entrance to the inner sanctum, nor the entrance to the throne room. The only sign of life came from Keven and the score of guardsmen lined up in the spaces between the columns along the central aisle.

  She’ll come straight to the throne room, Cerrin said.

  I tensed at his voice, then relaxed. The voices had remained quiet since helping Eryn at the gates, so quiet I’d barely noticed they were there. Now, I felt them all—all of the previous Mistresses, the Seven who had created the Skewed Throne, the men and women who had touched the throne at some point and died because of it, like Alendor. They were all quiet, even the madmen, the silence in my head, behind the protective wall of Fire that still encircled them, eerie.

  I could feel Cerrin and Liviann at the forefront, hovering at the edge of the white flame, Liviann slightly behind Cerrin. I could feel Atreus and Alleryn, Seth and Garus and Silicia, could smell their individual scents, all mingling.

  She’ll try to seize control of the throne, Cerrin added, his melancholy voice intense. You can’t let her take it, no matter the cost. The Chorl are ruthless. They’ll destroy everything. I could hear the echoes of the pain over his wife’s death in his voice. Of his daughters’ deaths.

  “I don’t intend to let her take it,” I said, and a few of the guardsmen jumped at the sound of my voice.

  Then, out in the corridor, came the tramp of boots on stone.

  Everyone tensed, Keven taking a step forward, his hand falling to the pommel of his sword.

  “Leave them to me,” I said sharply.

  He frowned without turning, but he didn’t draw his sword.

  The sound of footsteps grew louder, closer.

  Then a group of five Chorl warriors stepped into the doorway to the throne room and halted, curved swords drawn and at the ready, gazes darting around the room, taking in me, Keven, the guardsmen along the sides.

  They hesitated, unsettled, obviously expecting more resistance.

  Someone barked a command in the corridor, then stepped to the center of the group of warriors.

  The Chorl captain. The man with the circular tattoos on his cheeks, his ear half cut off.

  He surveyed the throne room, his face set in a dark frown as the men to either side of him relaxed, his eyes finally settling on me.

  I could see his hatred, could sense his malevolence, could almost taste it, like smoke.

  Inside my head, I felt the voices in the throne stir.

  See, Cerrin whispered.

  The other voices murmured agreement.

  Still watching me, he motioned to the side, and more Chorl warriors flooded the corridor outside. But they left a narrow space between them.

  When her escort was in position, the Ochean moved into view, followed by the Chorl man in yellow robes carrying the reed scepter, both stepping up to the Chorl captain as the others closed in behind them.

  The Ochean hesitated at the edge of the throne room, then stepped inside, alone, walking down the aisle between the pillars imperiously, as if she’d already seized control, as if the throne—the entire city of Amenkor—was already hers. Her captain followed her, a pace behind, a few of the warriors behind him, fanning out to the sides, their stances wary, gazes locked solidly on the guardsmen at their flanks.

  The Chorl in yellow robes remained behind, frowning.

  My eyes narrowed with anger. When she’d made it halfway down the aisle, I stood abruptly, felt the weakness from Reaching shiver through my legs to the point I almost collapsed. But I steadied myself, shoved the weakness back.

  The Ochean halted, lowered her head slightly as she considered me, jaw clenched.

  Behind me, I felt the throne begin to twist, reshaping itself into another form. I felt its power reaching out, the voices stalking the room like a predator hunting its prey. I could feel their hatred, as harsh and malevolent as the expression on the Chorl captain’s face . . . or on the Ochean’s.

  Her eyes widened in surprise as the throne twisted, as the power of the throne filled the room, but she crushed the reaction swiftly, her glare settling back on me. Behind her, the man in yellow didn’t bother hiding his surprise.

  I smiled. “Welcome to Amenkor.”

  I didn’t know if she understood the words, but she heard the sarcasm, condescension, and hatred in my voice.

  Her frown deepened, almost into a scowl.

  Then she lashed out using the river, a whip crack of force that snapped across the shield I raised at the last moment. I felt the tip of the lash skid across the invisible barrier, sending ripples of force out into the river, but before they could dissipate, I flung a barrage of daggerlike shards across the throne room.

  They hit her own shield like ice pellets, shattering into a thousand scintillate fragments of visible light. The guardsmen gasped. Keven lurched forward, suddenly aware that I’d already been attacked, but—my voice cracking through the room—I barked, “Stand back!” The Ochean spat something herself, her captain and warriors edging back toward the doorway.

  Keven growled, and I flashed him an angry glare.

  “Don’t interfere,” I snapped. “No matter what happens.”

  Sword half drawn, he stepped back behind the throne grudgingly, sheathing his blade.

  I turned back to the Ochean. Her eyes flashed, her shield pulsing. A solid wall of force, like Eryn’s, the weave tight, controlled.

  She had more practice at using the river than I did, more experience. Perhaps even more
experience than Eryn.

  A shiver of doubt coursed through me.

  But you have us, Cerrin said, and his voice was no longer sad, no longer weak. It was angry. All of the Seven radiated anger, had shifted forward, ready to help.

  Drawing a steadying breath, my heart thundering in my ears, I stepped down the three steps of the dais to the main floor.

  The Ochean watched me coldly.

  I thought about the dagger at my waist, about the drills Eryn had put me through in the courtyard, about Erick and Westen and the hours of training with the Seekers.

  And then I struck.

  The blow fell on the Ochean’s shield with blunt force, like a mace, and I heard her grunt. I smiled in satisfaction, but the emotion was fleeting. Her wrist flicked and a blade, curved like the Chorl warriors’ blades, slashed into my own shield. I shunted the stroke aside, let the power bleed out into the river, struck back with the mace again, raining blows down left and right, dodging her sword slashes, shoving them aside when they struck, grunting with the effort. Sweat broke out on my forehead, began to trickle down my face, but I concentrated on her blade, watched the fluctuations in her shield as each of my blows landed, searching for a weak point.

  We began circling each other, the Ochean edging left, me right. Her hands, fingers long and supple, flicked as she directed her sword. The shells in her necklace and laced through her hair clacked together, a strange counterpoint to the soundless and mostly invisible battle waged between us. Shards of light, in all colors, sparked from the shields occasionally, flaring and dying in a heartbeat, the guardsmen and Chorl warriors gasping at the more intense displays.

  I could feel myself beginning to tire, to flag, drained by the Reachings I’d done to keep track of the battle in the city below, so I increased the intensity of the mace’s blows, shifted them subtly so that they struck at odd angles, and still her shield held, shuddering under each blow, but steadying in a heartbeat, not weakening in the slightest.