The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  Rubin dumped a bulging bag of coin on the scarred table in front of Drusus’ bulbous nose.

  ‘Drusus Vermilo, the empress demands your attendance.’

  Ears all around the squalid inn pricked up, heads turned, eyes narrowed. Valla resisted looking at them, estimating the level of threat.

  Drusus stared at the bag, then peered up into Rubin’s face, and repeated, ‘Piss on you, whoever you are.’

  Rubin picked up the money and looked around him. ‘You two,’ he said briskly, gesturing to two brawny fellows, ‘I have coin for you if you take this man out and dunk him in the horse trough.’

  The pair leaped up willingly and grabbed Drusus by the arms, hauling him to his feet. The drunkard struggled. ‘Help,’ he wheezed. Several chairs were pushed back, grating across the stone floor. Valla stepped in front of Rubin and drew her sword. Its metal gleamed in the dull light and the men all sat down again.

  Drusus was sobering up fast. ‘The empress, you say?’ he said, struggling against the pair who were trying to wrestle him through the doorway.

  ‘We are at her command,’ Rubin told him.

  Once out in the daylight, blinking, Drusus complained, ‘Get these thugs off me. I’ll listen.’ Rubin tossed the men a gold coin each and they shambled back into the inn to spend their sudden wealth.

  ‘The name of Drusus Vermilo has come to the Immortal’s notice,’ Rubin told him. He leaned in confidingly. ‘The Hand of Saduccuss now holds sway at the White Palace. The empress asks you to accompany us there.’

  The Hand of Saduccuss, Valla knew, was one of the myriad groups of conspirators which had blossomed and died in the last years of the old emperor. It plotted self-importantly though without result and was generally thought of as a drinking-club for disaffected veterans.

  ‘I’m your man, lord,’ Drusus managed, standing upright and brushing morsels of food off his chest. He squinted at Rubin as if he might recognize him, but abandoned that and looked around. ‘Where’s our carriage?’

  In the end Rubin had to hire a wagon, pulled by a lively donkey, to transport them across the City. During the journey, while Valla dozed and woke and dozed again, Rubin talked ceaselessly to the drunkard, building up his pride and self-belief with a mixture of flattery and palace gossip, dropping in the names of members of the Hand, until he judged Drusus was ready for the news that he had been volunteered to guide them through the tunnels to the Shield. The former dungeon guard blustered and whined, but he was an easy man to flatter and by the end of the journey Rubin had him believing the empress had personally appointed him as guide. The promise of coin helped.

  Rubin knew of a portal into the dungeons via the Halls north of the former palace. But Drusus claimed there was a way to the dungeons of Gath, familiar, he claimed, only to those in the know, in Lindo. Lindo was closer to the Shield, and Rubin leaped at the suggestion.

  ‘How do we get inside?’ Valla asked, though she doubted a single word from the man’s mouth was true.

  Drusus winked and tapped his swollen nose. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out, girlie,’ he told her. Valla resolved to cut his throat once he was no longer useful.

  Drusus told the carter to stop at the bottom of a shabby alley called Green Lane and watched with a frown as Rubin paid the man from the bag of coin. When he opened his mouth to speak, Rubin told him sharply, ‘You will get the rest of this when we reach the mountain.’ Drusus shuffled his feet and shrugged. He said no more but set off down the alley.

  It quickly became narrower, then twisted sharply in a dog-leg and came out in a dusty courtyard surrounded by blank stone walls. There was an ancient well near the centre. Its high sides were crumbling and dusty, and the debris-strewn courtyard looked long abandoned. Valla guessed the well was dry.

  Drusus trotted round the back of it. They followed and saw a narrow, steep flight of stone steps leading down into darkness. Valla could smell mould and decay and sewage. She took a deep breath of clean air, glancing up at the sun, before following the others as they plunged in. The spiralling steps were well worn and slippery. As the gloom rose around them Drusus paused to light a torch and Valla followed its reassuring flicker. The stench grew worse.

  ‘This must be what the Halls smell like,’ Valla said to the top of Rubin’s head. He paused for a moment and looked up.

  ‘You have no idea,’ he said with feeling.

  The tight spiral of steps made Valla dizzy and when they finally reached the bottom she was sweating with exertion and trepidation. The prospect of remaining underground all the way to the mountain filled her with dread.

  By contrast, Drusus became quite cheerful. Perhaps he had worn off his drunken daze, and perhaps he had found a purpose in life, even for a short time. Or maybe he was buoyed by the prospect of gold. But he started talking about the dungeons and his exploits in them, talking loudly, with no concern for possible listeners. Rubin warned him to keep his voice down.

  ‘No one to hear me here, boy,’ Drusus replied airily. ‘No one for leagues to come.’

  Valla noted that Rubin had been demoted from ‘lord’ to ‘boy’, but he didn’t seem to mind. Drusus was in his element and Rubin had reason only to encourage him.

  The tunnel walls here were smooth and perfectly circular, as if bored by some monstrous machine. The surface was reddish-brown and Valla could make out the remains of murals, paintings of animals, perhaps, or gods – it was hard to tell, for they had mostly fallen away leaving small, sometimes vivid patches of colour, flecked and peeling. Drusus claimed that in the heyday of the Third Empire carriages moved regularly through this underground highway, carrying the nobility back and forth between the Red Palace and the Shield. There were empty brackets all along the walls on both sides, as if to confirm this, and a deep groove ran along the centre of the floor. Valla wondered what it was for. The floor was dry and thick with the dust of many years, although a pattern of recent bootprints ran down the centre.

  After a while her dread started to dissipate. The walking was easy, a single torch lighting the way. She found herself idling along, thinking of old friends, dead friends. Then, when Drusus’ droning voice quietened for a moment, she heard a sound behind her and her heartbeat quickened. She stopped, letting the others move ahead, and listened. She could hear nothing. She shrugged to herself and carried on. Again that soft sound, a pattering of footsteps. It stopped when she stopped, went on when she stepped forward. It sounded like a child.

  Or an animal. She smiled.

  When they paused for bread and water, sitting in a row against the tunnel wall, Rubin leaned in to Valla and said quietly, ‘We are being followed.’

  She marvelled that he could hear the soft sound above Drusus’ drone. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I think it’s the gulon.’

  He stared at her, eyes wide. She knew now he had disbelieved her when she told him about the beast. She shrugged. What did I tell you?

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ he asked her, like someone contemplating crossing a field with an angry bull in it.

  She grinned at him. ‘Not to me.’

  When they set off again Drusus warned them to hush, for they were approaching the dungeons of Gath. Rubin and Valla exchanged an amused glance, for they had both been largely quiet thus far. Drusus spoke in a loud whisper but as the tunnel widened he fell silent. They came to a great open cavern, their passage watched by blind statues towering above. Many tunnels met here and Drusus paused as if unsure of his way. He squinted at the ancient runes carved on the walls as if he could read them, before deciding which route they should take. Soon Valla heard distant shrieks and moans and she unsheathed her sword and hefted it, comforting, in her hand. The tunnel dwindled, becoming smaller and darker. The cries became louder.

  Suddenly a skinny hand darted out from the side of the tunnel and grabbed at Rubin’s shoulder. He flinched and pulled away with a startled cry. Valla saw they were in a narrow corridor with cell doors on either side, each with its own barred window into perditio
n. Ghostly, skeletal faces appeared in the flickering torch flame, pressing themselves at the bars, their eyes closed against the light, their mouths open, howling. The corridor stretched on and on, past hundreds of such doors, and the three hurried along it, staying in the centre to avoid clutching hands, until they were past and the cacophony behind them slowly died. Their guide turned to them, his fat face livid in the torchlight, and pressed one stubby finger to his lips.

  The corridor opened into another huge cavern. It too was the convergence of many tunnels, like the hub of a wheel. In the centre was seated a lone guard, his feet up on a table, fast asleep. The chamber was empty apart from the guard and his table and chair and a bag, presumably of food and drink. And a large bell on the table. This appeared to be the centre of the dungeons but there were no chains and shackles, no bunches of keys, no weapons.

  Drusus silently led the way. From a pile on the floor he picked four new torches. He winked at them then crept into the next tunnel. Here the cell doors were smaller and without bars. There were no sounds in this place, no cries or howls, and the darkness pressed down like a fetid blanket. Many of the doors were marked with a painted cross. Valla suddenly felt very thirsty and she drank deeply from her water skin. She followed Drusus and Rubin, their boot-steps soft on the dusty floor, and behind them she sensed the gulon padding after.

  When they had left the dungeons Drusus remained quiet and the others had no desire to start him talking, but when they stopped for a rest Rubin, ever curious, asked, ‘Why just one custodian? Is he supposed to ring the bell when there’s trouble? Then what?’

  Drusus explained, ‘There is an air-shaft above him. If he rings the bell a squad of soldiers is sent down.’

  ‘Where from? And how long would that take? Someone could empty half those cells in a few moments.’

  Drusus sneered. ‘How? The doors are locked. The custodian doesn’t hold the keys. The keyholder is far away, up in the fresh air.’

  ‘What if the custodian needs to open a cell door?’

  Drusus looked baffled. ‘Why would he?’ he asked, and Rubin had no answer to that.

  ‘What of the doors with the crosses?’ Valla asked, though she was afraid she knew.

  ‘They call them oubliettes,’ said Drusus. ‘When there was some purge or mutiny and they rounded up a lot of prisoners, they’d just herd them all into one cell – sometimes fifty or more in a two-man cell. They’d have to crush them in sometimes. Then they’d lock the door and forget them. Well, we didn’t forget them. We’d hear them yelling and crying for a couple of days but they soon died, from thirst or . . .’ Drusus shrugged, unwilling to think what so many men forced into one small cell would die from. ‘They never open the doors, those with crosses.’

  He added, ‘The emperor could be cruel.’

  In a City where men and women were burned alive or slowly disembowelled for the entertainment of crowds, this seemed to Valla to be both obvious and appalling. She noted that Drusus admitted no part in this business, though as a dungeon guard he had doubtless been one of the men forcing the prisoners to their terrible fate.

  They strode on for the better part of a day, or so Valla judged as her energy diminished, ignoring Drusus’ many requests to stop. At last Rubin relented and they slept on the hard rock floor. When Valla woke, opening her eyes without moving, she spied the gulon sitting on its haunches on the edge of the light pool, watching. Their eyes met. She was unsurprised to see it, though she had no understanding of how it could be there when she had last seen it beneath the Red Palace, far away and long ago. Remembering how it had torn the throat out of her enemy, she was glad it was with her. Its golden eyes glinted in the torchlight and it was motionless until Rubin rolled over, mumbling, then it faded back into darkness.

  They walked on until they saw a dull gleam in the distance. Drusus crept forward and they followed, Valla with sword in hand. The light grew and they saw it was coming from an archway in the side of the tunnel. The way through was barred by an iron gate but, peering through its bars, they could see a lake of still water, gleaming silver, though there was no obvious light source.

  ‘What is this?’ Rubin turned to ask Drusus, to see him standing nervously on the other side of the tunnel as if he feared the silver pool.

  ‘You’re where you wanted to be,’ the man said, nodding in confirmation of his own words. ‘We’re at the mountain. Give me my money and I’ll be leaving.’

  Valla stepped up, happy to get the point of her sword in a dirty crease of his neck.

  Rubin told him, ‘You’ll be paid when we have proof we’re at the Shield.’

  ‘What do you want?’ the man whined, ‘a sign saying Welcome to the Shield of Freedom? I’m a man of honour. I’ve not played you false.’

  ‘Valla,’ Rubin said, and she willingly pressed the sword-tip against Drusus’ throat. He shrank back against the rock wall.

  ‘Kill me,’ he said, his bloodshot eyes on hers, ‘I’ll go no further.’

  Valla looked to Rubin. She would gladly slice him from ear to ear, but Rubin shook his head and she stepped back.

  ‘What are you frightened of?’ he asked the man.

  ‘The lake,’ Drusus said honestly, his eyes troubled as he stared at the shining water. ‘They call it the Tears of the Dead. All the evil things that are done on the mountain leak down into it. Then, when it’s disturbed they flow out again. Anyone who passes is doomed to die within the day. Or,’ he added, ‘that’s what they say.’

  ‘Let him go,’ Rubin said briskly. ‘Here.’ He threw the bag of coin at Drusus, who quickly forgot his fear as he looked inside.

  ‘Silvers!’ he cried, outraged. ‘You promised me gold!’

  ‘I promised you this bag of money,’ said Rubin. ‘I did not say what was in it.’

  But Drusus was already shambling back the way they had come, muttering to himself, fingering the coins.

  ‘Do you think he’ll raise the alarm?’ Valla asked, glad to see the back of him.

  Rubin shook his head. ‘Those silvers will keep him in strong drink for half a year. Besides, it’ll take him a while to get back to the guard station. By then we’ll be long gone. Come on.’

  They set off with a lighter step, knowing they were near their destination, but only moments later they were thwarted. A gate, like the one that guarded the lake, barred their way. Made of sturdy black iron, its bars were sunk deep into the walls. It was covered with the dust of ages. It was impassable.

  Rubin grabbed the bars. ‘Drusus was wrong,’ he said. ‘There is a welcome sign. This is it.’

  He stood back and looked at it. The space between the bars was wide, but only a child could slip through. He took the torch from Valla and examined the gate minutely.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s not dusty here.’

  Valla peered at the gate. The dust lay thickly except where Rubin had laid his hands – and a section on the right where two vertical bars had been wiped clean. Rubin grabbed one and shook it. It didn’t move. He grabbed the other – and it came away in his hand.

  ‘Cut!’ he said with satisfaction. He peered at the cut end, then he slithered through the gap and Valla slid after him. He set the bar back in its hidden grooves, and stared at it again. ‘This is recent work,’ he said, ‘and clandestine. The cut end is smooth and without corrosion. Someone wanted to get in, then hide the fact that they had got in.’

  ‘What could cut a thick iron bar like that?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I have no idea. But now we know there are other intruders in the mountain. Besides ourselves,’ he added. ‘It might be useful information.’

  But then they came abruptly to the end of their journey together. The tunnel they were following ended at a wide vertical shaft, which disappeared up into darkness. A sturdy ladder rose up the wall of the shaft. There was no other way.

  ‘I can’t climb that,’ Valla said, her heart in her boots.

  Rubin stared at her aghast. ‘There must be some way�
�’

  ‘There isn’t,’ she told him sharply. ‘I cannot climb ladders. If we could see the top I might try, with one hand. But . . .’ She shook her head. She had feared this might happen, that he would have to leave her at some point, but apparently it had not occurred to him. It seemed a cruel trick by the gods to bring them together then part them again so quickly. She dreaded the journey back through the tunnels alone, and busied herself divvying up the torches and lighting one for herself. She checked their water skins to see they were equally full, and that they had an equal amount of food.

  ‘Have you seen these?’ she asked him, pointing at the myriad bootprints at the base of the ladder.

  He nodded. ‘Whoever cut the barrier,’ he said. ‘I wonder who they are and what they want here.’

  ‘I hope you find your father,’ she said stiffly, torn between unwillingness to say goodbye and the need to get it over with. She placed her hand on his shoulder in a comradely gesture but he stepped forward and pulled her into a long embrace. She felt his breath against her neck as he whispered, ‘Be well.’

  He slung his pack on his back and she stuffed one end of a lighted torch deep in a pocket on its side. Then Rubin set his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, nodded to her, and climbed swiftly up the shaft, not looking back. Valla watched as the blur of his torch became smaller, the sound of his feet diminishing until she could see and hear nothing more. She listened for a long time but the silence muffled her like a blanket, pressing down. She turned, raised her own torch and started back the way they had come.

  Now she was alone the gulon trotted into the pool of torchlight and moved into its usual position by her heels. She looked down at it and it gazed up at her. It was more bedraggled than ever and now had a bald spot on its head in front of one of its ragged ears. She wondered where it had been, what it had been doing, since she was last underground. She had no clue. But she was glad of its company, however strange.

  It occurred to her that it might know the way back better than she did. It had guided her truly in the Red Palace. She stopped and looked squarely at it. It sat on its haunches and scratched ferociously.