The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  She paused, half hoping he would awaken and argue with her. But he slept on.

  ‘Believe me, I don’t want to go. But there is . . . I know you will think this foolish, but there is the assassin Casmir. He will be looking for me, if he lives. If he finds me, or if I find him, he will take me back to the City. It is his job to take me back unharmed. Then I can warn Archange. These women will take care of you and . . .’ She found tears rolling down her cheeks, ‘. . . we will meet again, I know.’

  She remembered another phrase he used. ‘If not here, then on the other side.’

  She dried her tears and left him. She found a woman and asked to speak to whoever was in charge. Eventually she was guided to a high room, small, like all of them, but with a large round window overlooking fields and river. Selene was standing at the window. She turned as Emly came in.

  ‘Was a few days in the fields enough for you?’ she asked. Em couldn’t tell if she was being criticized or mocked.

  ‘You put something in my milk,’ she accused.

  Selene smiled thinly but there was a brittle coldness in her eyes. ‘Merely a light sleeping draught. You were exhausted when you arrived. Do you not feel stronger?’

  ‘I am returning to the City.’

  Selene frowned and her eyes glinted. ‘Are you sure? It is perilous up there. You can stay as long as you like here. We need hard workers.’

  ‘I must go back and tell them, warn the empress what is coming. There is an army marching on the City and someone must tell them.’

  ‘You are already far behind the enemy. You cannot possibly get to the City before they do.’

  ‘How many days have I been here?’ Emly tried to remember.

  ‘How many days do you think you’ve been here?’ Selene retorted, and Em was reminded of Archange’s cryptic answers to questions.

  ‘Eight?’

  ‘Well then. They are marching fast and you have no mount. This is dangerous country. There are wandering tribes of Fkeni who would make your death hard.’

  Em bit her lip. It was as though the woman knew exactly what she most feared.

  ‘There will be other survivors from the battle,’ Selene argued. ‘There always are. Let them take up the burden of warning the City. Stay with us.’

  ‘I must do it, for I can’t be sure anyone else will.’

  ‘Perhaps that is arrogance speaking, Emly.’ Selene’s voice was hard now.

  Why is she so anxious for me to stay? Em thought. And how can she know about the enemy’s movements when these women lead such secluded lives?

  She shook her head, her decision set in stone. ‘I know my weaknesses. I have never been outside the City before and I am ignorant of many things. I am not a warrior . . .’

  ‘If you stay,’ Selene offered, ‘we will teach you to fight. There are many veterans from the war here. Then you can go back and battle for the City. Together with your soldier.’

  Em’s resolution was under attack. But she said, ‘I don’t know much about you all and I don’t know what brought you here. But I know you are hiding, and that is often the only choice a woman has in this world. But I’m not ready to hide yet. I have friends in the City and my brother is there and if he is in danger I will go and fight for him with what weapons I have.’ It was the longest speech she’d ever made.

  The woman nodded. ‘As you wish,’ she said briskly. ‘And the soldier?’

  ‘I ask you to care for him until he is well or until I return. I would leave a message for him, though I cannot write well. Perhaps someone could help me.’

  Selene looked out of the window. ‘Someone will help you with your letter, and a guide will take you back to where we found you. If you are set on this.’ Turning, she asked, ‘How old are you, Emly?’

  ‘Seventeen or eighteen, I think.’

  ‘Then do not judge us. Although you have seen and experienced a great deal for one so young, yet I’d hazard a guess that you have been protected by powerful people.’

  Em frowned. How could she know that?

  ‘Most women, and men, have nothing but their strength and wits and sometimes that is not enough,’ Selene went on. ‘Often the urge to run and hide is a better one than the impulse to make a hasty, foolhardy gesture which can only end in torment and death.’

  The words were reasonable, but Emly saw a hectic light flashing in her eyes. Was it just anger? Suddenly she was worried the woman might force her to stay.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said truthfully. ‘I did not wish to offend.’

  The woman lowered her eyes for a heartbeat and when she looked up again the strange light had gone. ‘I am a good deal older than you,’ Selene said. ‘A few harsh words from a thoughtless girl do not have the power to offend me. If you insist on leaving I will not stop you. Go pack your things.’ She turned her back.

  By mid-morning Em was ready. She was given a guide, Cora again, and a donkey to aid them on the climb. Selene came out to bid her farewell. She proffered a small jar of honey, full of pale light.

  ‘This is the clover honey which is nutritious and good for healing wounds,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Em said, embarrassed by her generosity, for she felt she had done nothing to deserve it.

  After a few paces Emly looked back at the rosy citadel, the women working in the quiet fields, the tall figure of Selene watching her. She wondered if she was doing the right thing. Was she being prideful to think she could make a difference? Was Selene right? Could she be trusted? Em tried to think what Evan would say and do, but thoughts of him filled her heart with loss. And she tried to suppress the stab of misgiving which told her she should not leave him, helpless, with these women.

  She had hoped to reach the top of the cliff by nightfall, where she would spend the night in the hole under the tree roots. Beyond that she had no plan. But they made fast progress and the sun was still high in the sky when Cora halted.

  ‘This is as far as I go,’ she said.

  Em looked up. They still had a distance to climb but the path was clear. They were on one side of a deep ravine Emly had barely noticed on their way down. Narrow but sheer-sided, it cut across the goat path they were following. It was crossed by a sturdy rope and plank bridge.

  ‘The bridge is closed except when we greet visitors,’ Cora explained.

  ‘Closed?’

  ‘It swings on a pivot, see? It is finely balanced. Once it is drawn to this side the rift cannot be crossed.’

  ‘The gap is not very wide,’ Em said doubtfully, thinking she could probably jump across.

  ‘No, but there is a steep climb on each side. No man, or horse, could cross it because he could not run at it. It is the only way into the valley except from the sea. It keeps us safe. And there is a guard-post here.’ She pointed to a small hut, half-hidden in the shadow of the cliff. ‘Years ago tribesmen tried to invade the valley. They used hooks to get ropes across but we were waiting and simply tossed them back. They gave up in the end. That was long ago. No one has tried since.’

  She added, her eyes kindly, ‘If things go badly for you, you can always return, Emly. Just shout when you get here. Someone will hear.’

  Em stepped across the bridge. The heavy ropes creaked, but it was the only sound in the still afternoon air. Beneath her feet she could see goats grazing peacefully on the steep sides of the ravine, and huge birds wheeled and swooped silently above. On the other side she turned and watched as Cora hauled on a rope and the bridge pivoted creakily and settled against the cliff-side. Emly hesitated, knowing she was taking the harder path, then she started climbing. Within a short while she could see the ancient tree on the lip of the cliff, its roots waving to her.

  As she clambered up to the root cave she heard the soft snort of a horse nearby and, startled, her heart panicked in her chest. The Fkeni – those malevolent bats which flittered through her nightmares – came screaming into her mind. She dropped to a crouch and glanced back down the pathway. It would be easy to run and shout for Cora, to ret
urn to the safety of the hidden citadel.

  She listened for a long time but could hear no voices, no sound at all apart from the slight breeze riffling her hair. She could not do nothing. Holding her courage tightly, she climbed the last few steps up the cliff, keeping her head low. Then she peered cautiously over the top.

  Patience stood there, munching grass. He snorted when he spied her and fidgeted his great hindquarters. She looked around but there was no one in sight. She scrambled over the cliff-edge and ran to him, putting her arms round his neck.

  ‘What are you doing here, boy?’ she asked, bemused. Stalker must have brought him back, but he could not have known she would return. Perhaps the horse had got loose and wandered back on his own. Emly shook her head, clearing it of questions she could find no answers for. For the first time since she’d descended into the valley she felt she had done the right thing.

  The warhorse was saddled and bore two bulging water skins, along with Evan’s pack and her cloth bag. Em unhobbled him, then scrambled on to his broad back. Turning away from the Vorago, she pulled the stallion’s head towards the City and they set off at a gallop.

  Selene watched the two girls and the donkey until they were out of sight and went back into the shaded citadel.

  Hilly struggled up on her crutches. ‘Mother Selene, what shall I do about the soldier?’

  ‘Leave him to me.’

  She went to the cell where he lay. She stood beside him, mulling over what she would do. Perhaps she should wait a day. The girl might come back. She should have stayed here, not be wandering the world of men, a victim ripe for rape and torture. But she had abandoned the soldier and Selene had no doubt what to do with him.

  She took a small pot of dark honey from a pocket and opened the lid. Its fragrance filled the small cell. So deceptive, she thought. Evil masquerading as virtue, as in so many things. She looked down at the soldier. She waited, indecisive. She put the pot away again. It seemed a waste.

  She went to the window, feeling the crispness of autumn in the air. She looked along the valley to the north. The girls had gone. Emly would not be back.

  She returned to the bed and took out the honey once more. She scooped out a small amount and mixed it with water in a cup until it had dissolved. Then she lifted the soldier’s unresisting head and put the cup to his lips. His swallow reflex was good. He was definitely improving. But not for much longer once the poison began its work.

  She would tell the girls to throw the carcass into the river.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  SINCE THE DAY the lance was driven into his chest at dead Man’s Fall, Evan Broglanh had complacently believed he possessed miraculous powers of healing. All his soldier’s life he’d heard his comrades – those born in the City – boast of their toughness, their endurance and will to live compared with foreigners. Hard to kill, they’d say. He was sick of hearing the words. As a foreigner himself he knew he was just as hard to kill, and without a speck of City blood in him so far as he knew. His recovery from the lance-wound, he thought, had proved that.

  And it was some years before he discovered he had been entirely wrong.

  It was the summer before the fateful Day of Summoning and he was serving with the Wildcats – the company linking the chain of his destiny with Indaro Kerr Guillaume and Fell Aron Lee – and he had been sent, with Indaro, to guard the emperor on some unexplained mission. Protect the Immortal had been the order from his company commander, but Broglanh had known Fell was giving him the chance to get close to Araeon and kill him if he could.

  But his plans had been thwarted when a band of Blues ambushed the convoy. An explosion injured the emperor and killed most of his guard. Broglanh, who had been riding behind the imperial carriage, was unhorsed and thrown against a pile of rock. His right arm was broken, both bones of the forearm snapped at an angle, the bloody white points of bone erupting from torn flesh.

  The pain had been monstrous, the nausea intolerable. Broglanh had cradled his right arm with his left and prayed for death. A friend gave him lorassium and he passed in and out of consciousness as the sun crossed the sky, waiting his turn for medical aid. Then a shadow loomed over him and he opened his eyes.

  ‘Thekla!’ he slurred, unwilling to believe his fortune.

  The woman sniffed. ‘No, but I’d like to know why you think so, soldier. What is your name?’

  He blinked, trying to focus. No, it was not Thekla. This face was hard and gaunt, the eyes cold. Why did he think it was her?

  ‘Your name, soldier?’ she snapped. She had a voice like a corncrake.

  ‘Broglanh.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Evan Quin.’ He’d closed his eyes. Perhaps she would leave him alone now.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

  This was his first meeting with Saroyan. She had spotted his name on the list of wounded and he was taken back to the City in a strange re-enactment of his injury a few years before. He was greeted joyfully at Thekla’s home in Otaro, where she straightened his arm and splinted it. The house was cool and quiet and had a small, sunny courtyard where he dozed away the time of healing. He waited impatiently for the arm to mend, but was frustrated when after three days it remained broken.

  ‘You fool,’ Thekla told him fondly when he complained. ‘I thought you realized it was Archange who healed you of the lance-wound. You were valuable to her, for some reason I can’t fathom,’ she smiled. ‘You are strong, my love, but even you could not have survived that.’

  When a visitor arrived at Thekla’s home the next day he wasn’t surprised to see it was Archange. She was dressed as usual in blue – a dark blue gown with a robe the colour of cornflowers over it. He struggled to stand but she waved him back to his chair.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ she snapped and he extended the splinted arm.

  She had taken his hand in one of hers and run the other up and down the forearm. He felt the pain intensify until it was hard not to cry out, then the agony slowly dissolved, until all he could feel was warmth and peace. Visions of a calm, slow river filled his head, the snow on a mountain. Thekla removed the bandage and splint and the arm was good as new except for a vivid scar where the bone had broken through. For the rest of the day he had felt light-headed, his arm tingling to the touch, his body surging with strength.

  ‘I have a mission for you,’ Archange told him, and how could he deny her anything?

  Nonetheless he’d said, ‘I should return to the Wildcats.’ He hadn’t missed the horrors of battle, the hard ground beneath him as he slept, the dreadful food. But he wanted to be with his comrades – Indaro and Garret and Doon and the others.

  ‘Saroyan has arranged for you to be invalided out of the Maritime.’ Archange’s voice had brooked no opposition. ‘I need you to guard an important man.’

  Broglanh opened his mouth to argue.

  ‘This man,’ Archange continued remorselessly, ‘escaped the dungeons and is in hiding under a false name. He is old and his memory is fading. I believe he has a cancer which will soon end his life. But he is tough and ready for his last battle. Our plans are all in place. We only need Fell now. If anyone can kill the emperor it is Fell Aron Lee.’

  ‘I can kill him!’ Broglanh told her, feeling insulted. ‘You don’t need Fell!’

  Her lips thinned. ‘You might not be fully fit by then.’

  ‘And Fell might be dead!’

  ‘We will keep him safe. It is strange,’ she mused, ‘how foreign soldiers like yourself, brought to the City as poor, abused boys, have been so unshakeably loyal to the City which gave them so little and took so much.’

  ‘Who is this man I must guard?’ Broglanh asked.

  ‘He is Shuskara.’ The name silenced Broglanh. Shuskara was a legendary general, believed long dead at the hands of the emperor. ‘Although that name must never pass your lips outside this house. He calls himself Bartellus now and he lives at the House of Glass in Blue Duck Alley.’

&n
bsp; When the old woman had left Broglanh grabbed Thekla’s hand and pulled her to him. He put his good arm round her hips and buried his face in the folds of her skirts.

  ‘I must go,’ she said, and he could hear she was smiling.

  ‘Stay,’ he said, his voice muffled. His body, newly strong, surged with desire for her.

  ‘There are sick and injured people who need my help more than you do.’

  ‘It’s not your help I want,’ he told her. ‘Stay.’

  ‘And your arm is not fully healed.’

  ‘Stay.’

  So she stayed.

  Broglanh awoke in a place full of light. He felt it pressing on his closed eyelids. His head was full of dreams of Thekla, as ever, but the last thing he remembered in this life was Emly saving him from the battlefield, the warhorse galloping under him.

  He opened his eyes and saw he was in a small room. It was cool and the air was fresh. He rolled his head and the movement made his stomach lurch. He turned and vomited on the floor. He felt a little better and looked up at a barred window with a patch of sky beyond. He tried to sit but his muscles shrieked their dissent. He tried again, anxious to check his injuries. He tore the clean bandage off the thigh wound and found neat stitches and a cut healed without rot. He looked at the wounds on his arms and chest. Ten days of healing, he calculated. Ten days since the battle.

  He wondered where he was.

  After a while he tried to stand. He was weak but hungry. There was a jug of water by his bedside and he drank it down, feeling its virtue course through him. His clothes, washed and mended, lay in a corner. It took him a long time to pull them on, and he had to sit down afterwards. He kept looking at the patch of sky. Finally he stood again. He had not the strength to pull on his boots and he walked slowly, barefoot, to the door. To his surprise it opened at his touch. He stepped out.

  He was on a wide, grassy slope above a river bank. He gazed along the river. To his right he could see distant figures. The enemy? No, they were too few. He raised his eyes and saw he was in a deep valley flanked by high rock walls. Behind him dwellings were hacked out of the red rock. The air was eerily still and he could hear nothing. He wondered if he was dead after all. He put one hand to his heart and closed his eyes, feeling the slow beat. He felt breath suck in and out of his chest. Not dead, he thought. Not yet.