The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  When she arrived at the Narrows she had feared herself defeated for she could not imagine crossing the wide water alone. She remembered the day, years ago it seemed, when she had crossed it in the other direction, riding atop the warhorse while Evan swam beside them. She had wept that night, wondering if she would ever get home and what she would find when she got there.

  The crossing had been terrifying and she feared for them both as Patience was swept far out of their way by the strength of the water. But the big beast had an indomitable spirit and eventually he gained the far shore, exhausted and shaken by his struggle. That was three days ago and she had spent the long days and nights since resting the horse and idling on the bank of the water watching the birds and animals creeping back now the vast army had passed.

  Once they were in sight of the City, Emly had wondered again if she’d been right to return and abandon Evan to the mercies of the strange woman Selene. But then she had found the veil, and finding it convinced her she was doing the right thing. She now believed Evan had been wrong to steal it, for ill luck had plagued the City since its departure. She could only return the Gulon Veil to the empress and throw herself on Archange’s mercy.

  As she slept that night, tucked in a grassy dell, her dreams haunted by corpses, a man walked into her camp. Patience gave a snort of recognition and the man patted his neck and whispered words of calm. He looked down at the sleeping girl and marvelled at her persistence. And he wondered if the plague would take her once she found her way into the City. He thought it probably would, for he was sure the blood of the Serafim ran strongly in her. Would she survive it? Perhaps. Would she go on if she knew about it? Probably.

  When Emly awoke it was still dark. The chill air made her shiver as she quickly saddled Patience, and as the first fingers of dawn touched the land they set off along the wall again heading, though she did not know it, towards the sea. She wondered that this stretch of the wall was so quiet, deserted except for wild beasts and birds, while the gate behind her was under siege. Em had no idea of the geography of the City. The only map she had ever seen was in the throne room of the White Palace and she did not recognize it for what it was for she could not read. Despite a life spent within the City she did not understand the scale of it, the hundreds of leagues of mighty walls stretching from the heaving streets of the south to the empty lands of the north, from the Seagate all the way to the Wayfarers Gate. She guessed only that if she followed the wall she would eventually find another gate to enter by and she hoped the next would not have an enemy army camped outside.

  It was midday and Patience was dawdling a little in the sunshine when Em heard the beat of galloping hooves behind them. Panic clutching her throat, she kicked the warhorse into a run. Leaning forward in the saddle she yelled at him, urging him on, terrified of being captured by the enemy army, or worse, Fkeni.

  ‘Emly!’ a voice bellowed above the pounding hooves, and in her terror she closed her ears. Then she glanced over her shoulder and saw it was a single horseman and that Patience was drawing away from him. Her initial panic subsiding a little, she realized it was in fact a familiar figure riding a familiar horse. Relief washed through her and she reined Patience in and waited, trembling still, as they came alongside. She was more surprised to see Blackbird than his rider. The two horses nuzzled each other.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked Stalker, thinking how true he was to his name.

  ‘I’ve been on your trail for a day or so, since you crossed the Narrows,’ he told her, grinning. She smiled back, her heart lifting. He was the first living person she had seen for many days and he was a reassuring sight, his mount bristling with weapons and with a brace of rabbits slung from the saddle. ‘I hoped to stop you entering the City,’ he explained.

  ‘Why?’ she asked him, her mind full of questions, the least of these being why he was always dogging her steps.

  ‘There is plague inside. Best avoid it and take a wide circle round to the coast,’ he waved one arm north, ‘and go to the port of Adrastto. You’ll be safe there. Have you got coin?’

  ‘Plague?’ It was a dread word, yet it seemed distant and irrelevant to Emly. ‘But I must get to the White Palace,’ she argued. ‘I must see the empress.’

  He snorted. ‘When last I saw you, lass, you were fleeing that woman.’

  She ducked her head, reluctant to tell him the truth. ‘Nevertheless I must go.’

  He watched her, grey eyes thoughtful, but she remained silent. Then he looked around and heeled Blackbird towards a small copse of trees. She followed and they both dismounted. Em eased off her boots and wriggled her toes in the sunshine while Stalker swigged from a water skin.

  ‘How far is it to the next gate?’ she asked him.

  ‘The next is the Wayfarers Gate, the last before the sea. You could be there by sunset, but you’d be mad to go inside. The plague is a terrible thing. Carry on to the coast, then head north to Adrastto.’

  She thought about it. She knew she should trust Stalker, for he had fought beside Evan and her lover respected him; besides, he had saved her life, but the big man’s habit of suddenly appearing from nowhere then vanishing again had made her wary.

  ‘Why are you so determined to return?’ He asked it gently and the kindness in his voice went to her heart like an arrow.

  ‘I will tell you the whole truth,’ she offered, ‘if, in return, you tell me one true thing.’

  Stalker laughed shortly, but his voice was cool when he said, ‘This is not a game, girl.’

  ‘Yet each time I see you I feel I’m a small part in one,’ she retorted.

  He nodded his big head. ‘Ay, I suppose you’re right, in a way, but it’s not my game. So tell me.’ He looked at her, waiting.

  She confessed, ‘I stole something from the empress and now I must return it. It is important, so, even though there is plague, I must get to the palace.’

  He frowned, his brows bristling, his eyes dark. ‘You are speaking of the Gulon Veil.’ She nodded. She was no longer surprised by what Stalker knew.

  ‘I will take it for you,’ he offered. His voice was casual but his pale eyes bored into her, heavy with intent. ‘I’m going south anyway. I will ride around the enemy army. I can get the veil to the empress more quickly than you, even if you could survive the journey. Now, where is it?’

  He rapped the last words out, like one used to being obeyed. She suddenly felt afraid. He was much stronger than her and could wrest the veil from her in a heartbeat if he chose.

  ‘You could not get into the palace,’ she argued, knowing she was only delaying the inevitable. ‘I can. The gates would open to me. I can walk straight into the empress’s presence.’

  ‘And be executed in a heartbeat. She’s an unforgiving woman.’

  She bowed her head in acceptance. ‘Perhaps that is what I deserve. I betrayed her kindness to me: I stole from her and ran away.’

  Suddenly the tension in him faded and he smiled. He leaned back on the grass and sniffed the air, looking around at the grassy plain and the sky and the grey line of the wall disappearing into the distance. He turned his gaze back on her and his eyes were kind, and his voice was gentle as he spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry, lass. I would not wish to alarm you.’ He shrugged. ‘I was curious to see the thing. It is famous and very rare and I’ve heard it spoken of all my life.’

  At these reasonable words Emly’s fears floated away and she marvelled that she could be so suspicious. Stalker was her friend. He had saved her life more than once.

  She stood and pulled the veil from her bag. It was crumpled and looked like nothing but an old rag. She handed it to him. He held it to his heart, just as she had done the day before. Then he opened it out on the grass and ran a brawny hand over it. The veil started to gleam, the creases smoothing out until it was as she remembered it, smooth and silken, shining under the morning sun. As his hand touched each lacework animal its dull colours shone and sparkled. Em watched, marvelling anew at its b
eauty.

  ‘It is a rare thing,’ Stalker repeated. His voice held neither awe nor reverence, only the careful calculation of a man with much to gain, or lose.

  ‘I tried . . .’ she hesitated to confide in him but wanted to make up for her grudging manner. ‘I tried to save a man, yesterday, by the cairn north of the gate.’ She pointed back the way she’d come. ‘There was a battle there. Stern was killed, and many others. I tried to save a soldier who’d just died. I thought the veil could make him live again.’

  ‘It could. But you cannot bid it. For you it is just a pretty piece of cloth.’

  He folded it. She held out her hands for it and he paused, then gave it to her. It felt oddly heavy in her lap.

  ‘Can only Archange use it?’

  ‘And other Serafim.’

  Faltering, she asked, ‘Are . . . are you a Serafim?’

  He laughed and the sun shone a little more brightly. ‘No, I’m not, lass.’

  ‘Then – and this is the one true thing I ask,’ she said, ‘who are you?’

  Stalker lifted his ginger head, scenting the air. ‘I must ride,’ he declared.

  ‘One true thing,’ Em urged. She put her hand on his sleeve. He looked at it, sighed and looked south again, as if eager to be off. But he said, ‘My name is Stalker.’

  She waited patiently. Layers of silence formed around them. Finally, as she knew he would, he spoke.

  ‘Have you heard the rich and powerful speak of reflections?’ he asked. His voice was distant.

  Emly remembered Archange telling her of such things. The old emperor created replicas of himself, and these were called reflections. Evan had called them walking corpses. Em thought they had all been destroyed in the fall of the Red Palace. She shivered and nodded uncertainly, frowning.

  Stalker looked into her eyes. ‘I am one of them.’

  She smiled a little, thinking he was teasing. This was her friend Stalker, a living man who bled and snored and pissed like any other. She had imagined reflections as ghouls of the night, dim replicas of people, walking in a half-life of malice and shame. Then she recognized the truth in his eyes, and his overwhelming sadness.

  He looked south again, as if drawn by an invisible thread. ‘My lord,’ he went on, ‘created me to do his will.’ She realized he was confessing to her, perhaps relieving himself of some of the secret burden he bore.

  ‘Who is he, your lord?’ she whispered.

  ‘His name is Hammarskjald and he is responsible for this fearful army which is even now attacking the City, ready to kill and pillage all within.’ He looked into her stricken face. ‘He burns with hatred for the City and he has waited many centuries for the right time to destroy it. That time is now.’

  ‘But why? Why does he hate the City so?’

  Stalker sighed then laughed shortly, more like his old self. ‘Most people do, lass. There is much to hate. But he has a long-held feud with its overlords. He was one of them once but they banished him and then, when he vexed them still, they tried to kill him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They all had their reasons. They called him a criminal, though their own crimes are monstrous. And he is a terrible man, even by the standards of the Serafim. But he is old and wily and will die hard. He plans to destroy the City with plague and with the sword, and pull down the White Palace.’

  ‘Pull down the palace!’ Emly was appalled. ‘Can he do all that?’

  Stalker nodded. ‘He is well on his way to it. The old emperor is dead. The City is vulnerable thanks to the endless grudge between Archange and Marcellus. The Serafim have always squabbled among themselves. The two of them have formed an alliance now they know who they’re facing, but it is too late. Much too late.’

  ‘Why did Archange hate him so much, this man?’

  ‘It is hard to follow a feud that has formed and festered over centuries. But there is one dispute between them which diminishes all the rest. Archange had two daughters.’ He pulled on his braids as she’d seen him do before when thinking. ‘Both were abused, cruelly treated by the old emperor Araeon, an evil man the City is well rid of. One of the daughters lost her wits. The other, well, she fled the world of men and she suffers still.’

  ‘And what does Hammarskjald have to do with that?’

  ‘He tried to help them, the daughters, and later their own two daughters, poor lost creatures.’

  ‘And she hates him for that?’ Emly asked, baffled.

  ‘Ay, she professed other reasons to revile him, but that was at the root of it. He reminded her that she failed to save them herself.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘The elder disappeared into the Halls. They say she still walks there in the deepest dark. I have been down there myself searching for her, but I believe now she is dead. The other you have met. She found sanctuary in the lost city of the Vorago and has found a kind of peace there.’

  ‘Selene?’

  He nodded. ‘She is Archange’s younger daughter but she is deeply troubled in her mind. Do not betray her sanctuary to the empress if you return to the palace.’

  Em, musing over what he had said, asked, ‘What woman would not try to save her own daughters?’

  He shook his head. ‘It is not as simple as it seems. Age-old grievances, and debts paid and owed over a millennium have kept an uneasy balance of power among the Serafim. And Archange fled the City for a very long time and that was her choice. But for this crime Hammarskjald blamed her and she has never forgiven him for that.’

  ‘And you are his . . . ally?’

  He bowed his head. ‘I do his bidding. I can do no other.’

  ‘Yet you fought for the City, with Evan and Stern and the others?’

  He grinned. ‘I have a long leash and I like a good scrap. And I always root for the underdog who battles to his last breath. Besides, I am hard to kill too.’

  He looked south again as if alert to a distant summons. ‘I have followed my own path for many years. But I always knew he would eventually pull on the leash and I must follow him. That time has come.’ He paused. ‘If you ever see me again, girl, run away.’

  He said the words so casually she barely took them in. She frowned.

  Leaning forward, stretching out one strong hand, he said, ‘You see, the final thing my lord needs to ensure the City’s destruction is the Gulon Veil.’

  Gripping the veil, Emly rolled away from him and leaped to her feet. He stood quickly. She ran to Patience and leaped into the saddle. Limping on his game ankle Stalker made a grab for her stirrup. She kicked him hard in the face and felt the crunch of bone. He lost his grip, cursing. She seized Blackbird’s reins and urged Patience into a gallop.

  As she fled she heard a bellowing roar behind her. But whether it was of frustration or triumph she could not tell.

  Emly arrived at the Wayfarers Gate before dusk, exhausted from riding but fearful of entering the City. Stalker’s words whirled round her head and she wondered what to believe. Was there really plague inside or was he trying to stop her entering with the veil? Had he lied to her before, manoeuvring her towards the sanctuary of the Vorago to keep her from returning? But that was before she had found the veil. Perhaps he was truly trying to keep her safe? There was too much she didn’t know, but the loss of Stalker as an ally was a crushing blow.

  Her mind was as tired as her body and she sat passively on the warhorse and let him plod up to the gates. The gateway was built of rich red stone, a massive arch which dwarfed the horses and riders milling at its foot. To Em’s surprise the gates were wide open and troopers in their hundreds, armed and armoured, seemed on the verge of departing. She made her way through them, her progress watched by stern and unfriendly eyes. She feared they were judging her – a girl alone, dirty and barefoot, riding a warhorse through their ranks. She urged Patience on and he shouldered past, Blackbird following behind, until the press of riders thinned out.

  ‘Can we help you, girl? You look lost.’

  A stocky infantr
yman, red-faced and fair bursting out of his uniform, stood in her path.

  Em sat up, looking around her, alert to danger. ‘Who is commander here?’ she asked.

  A woman soldier, sharp-faced, came up beside the man. She asked, ‘What do you want of him?’

  Em hesitated. ‘City soldiers,’ she told them, ‘lie dead near the cairn at the next gate.’ She pointed. ‘Someone needs to know.’

  She fell silent as the pair stared at her. The man looked at the woman and said, ‘I’ll go.’

  He disappeared into the melee and the woman looked up again at Em. Concern in her voice, she said, ‘You look exhausted, girl. Climb down and rest. Have you eaten?’

  Em shook her head, biting her lip to stop it trembling. The soldier’s kind words had gone straight to her heart. ‘I must go on. I have to get to the White Palace.’

  The woman looked astonished. ‘What do you want to go there for? It’ll take you days, even on that big beast.’

  Her partner came back accompanied by a tall captain with a face of stone and deep, hooded eyes. Em repeated to him what she’d told the pair and the officer snapped, ‘How do you know that, girl?’

  ‘Because I was there.’

  ‘At the Great North Gate? You saw the battle?’

  ‘No, I arrived after it was over. They were all dead.’

  The captain stared at her, clearly disbelieving. Then he focused on the two horses. ‘Get down, girl. We need your mounts.’

  ‘But they’re mine,’ she argued, hearing the tired whine in her voice.

  He looked her up and down, and she was conscious of her bedraggled clothes and bare feet. ‘Stole them, I’d wager,’ he concluded. He made a grab for the stallion’s bridle but Patience, startled, reared and the officer flinched.

  ‘Get those horses,’ he ordered the two soldiers, who glanced at each other and stepped forward without haste.

  Em found anger rising in her, fighting back against her fatigue. ‘I have to get to the White Palace,’ she told him and the officer snorted his disbelief. ‘But you can take this one.’ She was reluctant to hand over Blackbird, but could not justify keeping him if the cavalry was in need. She leaned over and lifted Stalker’s water skins and pack off the beast and slung them on her own saddle, then untied Blackbird’s tether.