Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades

by Brian Staveley

  “You may choose your Sitters.”

  This, too, was standard. Dozens of panels of Seven waited in chambers below, each sealed with a number. Uinian, now, would choose any number from one to twenty, and the Sitters associated with that number would be summoned to the room to judge him.

  Only, he did not speak a number. Instead, his tongue flicking between his lips, he glanced over at Adare, then up into the shadowy space of the rafters.

  “As this trial has already shown,” he said, his voice quieter than the regent’s, but sly, snaking throughout the hall, “men and women are much given to folly. I will not be judged by them.”

  For the first time, il Tornja frowned and Adare’s stomach clenched.

  “If he will not be judged,” Adare began, half-rising to her feet, “then let us send for the headsman at once. Annur is nothing if not an empire of law. It is this law that separates us from the savages offering blood sacrifice in the jungles and on the steppe. If this so-called priest would flaunt that law, let us be done with him.”

  Hundreds of eyes turned to her. Il Tornja, too, met her gaze, raising a placating hand and nodding that he already understood the nature of her objection. Adare let the words trail off, retaking her seat with as much dignity as she could muster. The ministers flanking the regent looked on like buzzards in their black robes. The men had no sympathy for Uinian, but they had not stopped looking for weakness in Adare, either. It is no slight to you, Baxter Pane had argued, staring at her with those rheumy eyes of his, but women are not suited to the Ministry. They are too … fickle, too easily transported by their emotions.

  Adare swallowed a curse. And here I am, allowing myself to be transported by my emotions.

  The priest paused, allowing the sudden buzz that had attended her outburst to subside, clearly enjoying the confusion of the crowd and Adare’s own discomfort. Her father had tried to teach her to control her emotions, but it was a skill for which she had little talent.

  “If you refuse the trial—,” il Tornja began, but Uinian cut him off.

  “I do not refuse the trial. I refuse this trial. The Chief Priest of Intarra, the chosen of the goddess on earth, is not subject to the petty minds and manifest error of men and women.” He spread his arms wide, as though inviting all assembled to consider the very contents of his soul. “I refuse the judgment of the Seven Sitters and call instead upon the goddess herself to render her verdict. I demand, as is my ancient right, Trial by Flame.”

  Adare half rose to her feet once more.

  Around her, the hall exploded into shouts and exclamations, dozens of arguments and questions kindled like fire. She had known, from the look on his face, that Uinian hoped to subvert the trial in some way, and yet this … The Trial by Flame was every citizen’s prerogative, had been ever since Anlatun the Pious walked into his brother’s funeral pyre to prove his innocence and emerged unscathed to take the Unhewn Throne. The fire had not burned him, Anlatun insisted, because Intarra herself had decreed his innocence. In the years that followed, there had been a spate of criminals demanding Intarra’s justice. Without exception, they had burned. Screamed and burned. The Trial by Flame quickly lost its appeal, fading from practice and memory until it existed only as a scribal note in manuals of jurisprudence.

  Until now.

  “Let the goddess judge,” Uinian continued, pitching his defiant voice to carry over the turmoil of the crowd. “Let the goddess judge,” he said again, raising a hand to draw all eyes to himself. “The Lady of Light and Goddess of Fire. My goddess.”

  Adare drove her fingernails into her palms, but she refused to speak again, turning her gaze instead toward il Tornja to see how he would meet this new challenge.

  The kenarang had risen to his feet, looking half-prepared to draw the long sword at his side. Instead, he gestured once to the slave at the gong, and in moments the deep reverberation silenced the chamber. With the crowd stilled, the regent reseated himself, then looked over to where Jesser and Yuel sat—one tall, one short, both skeletal in their ministerial robes, arguing heatedly but inaudibly, gesturing in the air with their ink-stained hands. The two debated a moment more; then Yuel rose to murmur something in il Tornja’s ear. He listened, nodded impatiently, then waved the man away.

  “Well, this should cut down considerably on the time,” he announced at last, his voice too jocular for Adare’s comfort. “There will be no Seven Sitters, no reading of the facts, no disputation by the accused. Instead, according to the law, the Chief Priest will thrust his bare arm into the flame up to the elbow for fifty strikes of the gong. If his flesh remains unburned through all this time, it will be decreed that Intarra, who watches over all Annur, has judged him free of guilt. He will walk free.

  “If,” he continued, a vulpine smile on his face, “the flesh or the hair upon the flesh singes or burns—” He shrugged. “—then the whole body will be consecrated to Intarra’s sacred flame and fire.”

  He turned to Uinian. “You understand this, priest?”

  Uinian smiled his own smile. “Better, perhaps, than any assembled here.”

  “It seems, then, that we will need a flame. This brazier,” he continued, indicating a metal grate large enough to roast a goat, “should do the job nicely.”

  “No,” Uinian replied, raising his chin.

  You got your ’Shael-spawned Trial by Flame, Adare thought angrily. You don’t get to pick the brazier. Blood hammered in her ears, but she kept her face still and refused to speak.

  Il Tornja raised an eyebrow. “No?” Clearly he was unaccustomed to hearing the word.

  “I will not be tested over some petty flame like a common criminal. I am the Chief Priest of Intarra, her officer here in this benighted world, and I will be tested in a manner and location worthy of my sacred trust.”

  Adare held her breath.

  “I will be tested,” Uinian continued, eyeing Adare, “in the Temple of Light.”

  She was on her feet again without realizing it. “No,” she said, turning to il Tornja and the assembled ministers. “Absolutely not. This vermin has the right to due process under Annurian Law, which unfortunately includes this antiquated sideshow, but he does not dictate his terms. He has armed men in the Temple, if you don’t recall. He has practically an army!”

  Uinian smiled at Adare. “A sideshow? I would make a sacred appeal to the goddess you profess to worship, and you term it a sideshow?”

  “It’s a ruse,” Adare snapped. “A trick. You can’t survive the flame, and you know it.”

  “Then there is no harm in allowing me the Trial,” Uinian replied. He turned to the assembled crowd, extending his arms. “All here are welcome. All who walk beneath the light of Intarra, all who see by her flames and cook by her fires, all who love beneath her lambent moon, all those who work the earth or ply the waves beneath her noonday sun. Come. Come! I have nothing to hide before my fellow men or my goddess. Watch as I allow the Flame to test me, and judge for yourselves who is pure in heart and truthful, and who is filled with deceit.”

  That sealed it. With a few words, the priest had appealed above the court, above the throne itself, directly to the religious sentiments of the people. Not every citizen of Annur was a devoted follower of Intarra, of course—other gods had their temples and clergy, some quite wealthy and popular—but the people of the city were pious enough to allow the man his test. Sanlitun had been a well-liked Emperor, and many no doubt wished to see Uinian burn, but they would give him his time and place. Il Tornja could refuse, but the thing had already gone too far. For the regent to balk now would bring accusations of tyranny and impiety both, accusations the Unhewn Throne could ill afford during a delicate transition of power. The priest wasn’t offering a defense, he was making an attack, a more subtle attack than that which had killed her father, but one aimed at the heart of the entire Malkeenian line.

  He knew it all along, Adare thought, sick to her stomach. I should have stabbed him in his cell as he slept. She scrambled to think o
f some third course, some alternative to this parade down the Godsway in the sight of all Annur. Father would have seen a way.… But her father had not seen a way. Uinian had lied to Sanlitun, tricked him, and murdered him, and now he seemed prepared to do the same to Adare. She wanted to scream, but screaming would do no good. Think, she spat at herself, but thought failed her. All she could do was follow and watch, as in a nightmare.

  * * *

  No structure in the city stood far enough from Intarra’s Spear to escape the sight of the impossible monolith, but Uinian IV’s predecessors had been shrewd enough to move the locus of religious power outside the Dawn Palace, distancing themselves from the imperial family and consolidating their hold on the ecclesiastical rule of the city. The Temple of Light, a soaring structure of stone and colored glass, stood halfway down the Godsway, close enough to the center of Annur for easy commerce with the Palace, but not so close that it fell under the shadow of those looming red walls.

  Unlike the Spear, the Temple of Light was clearly a human creation, but what a creation. Tiers of arches, one above the other, climbed toward the sky, each filled with a huge window. Adare knew something of the glass trade. A single one of those panes cost more than a year’s salary for a thriving merchant—not including the price of cutting and transportation—and there were thousands of them, so many that it seemed as though the temple were more glass than stone, a massive, glittering, multifaceted gem humbling the edifices surrounding it.

  As a child, Adare had marveled at the scope and the color, but now, as she dismounted from her palanquin with what seemed like half of Annur crowded about, it was the armed soldiers ringing the walls and flanking the tall doors that drew her eye and stoked her fears. Il Tornja had insisted that a thousand guardsmen accompany the odd procession from the Palace to the temple, more than twice the number of the waiting Sons of Flame, probably enough to overwhelm them if it came to an open battle. Of course, if it came to blood, there was also the mob to consider. In addition to the hundreds formally attached to the trial, thousands more had gathered—some from curiosity, others indignation—and already rumors and anger had grown ripe in the restive crowd.

  A battle on the Godsway, Adare thought. Sweet ’Shael, my father’s barely cold in his tomb and already the empire is pulling apart at the seams.

  If il Tornja was concerned, he didn’t show it. The kenarang sat his horse in a casual half slouch, clearly more comfortable there than he had been back in the Palace. He might have been out for a ride in the country, only there was something in his eyes Adare had not noticed before, something alert and predatory, as he surveyed the crowd.

  Uinian, for his part, looked triumphant. He raised his manacled hands to the mob in a gesture of blessing or defiance. With the wrong words, he could start a riot right now. And yet, after what seemed like an eternity, he turned to enter the temple.

  The inside of the Temple of Light was, if anything, more impressive than the exterior. The light flooding through those tall windows danced on the surface of vast reflecting pools, scribbling bright shapes on the walls and pillars. Worshippers had dropped coins into those pools: copper flames, silver moons, even a few golden Annurian suns from the most wealthy. Another source of revenue for Uinian, Adare thought, only now fully realizing the extent of the priest’s reach and influence, and another one we do not tax. Each of those suns could keep a soldier in armor for the better part of half a year, a soldier who might well choose to fight against the Unhewn Throne.

  The Aedolians accompanying the party had ringed off a small space in the center of the temple, holding back the press of those eager to witness a death or a miracle, and it was into this space that Adare stepped along with il Tornja, the other ministers, and Uinian himself.

  “Here,” the Chief Priest said, casting a defiant smile to the crowd, “I will face my Trial.”

  Of course. The entire vault of the temple was a glass and crystal hymn to light—panes and facets reflecting and refracting a thousand hues—but the most striking sight of all was the enormous lens set into the ceiling directly above the nave.

  Old Semptis Hodd had explained the principles of lenses to Adare when she was only a child, showing her how she could use a circle of carefully ground glass to ignite a small fire in the Palace courtyard. Adare had wanted to see how some ants would stand up to the treatment, but her tutor refused, assuring her that they would burn as readily as the grass but insisting that a princess should not sully herself with such crass pursuits. Adare was glad now that she had spared the ants, but she wished she’d paid more attention to Hodd’s lectures on lenses.

  There, on the floor at the center of the nave, a square foot of stone glowed a sullen red, shivering the air above it where the lens began to focus the noon rays of the sun. The effect would not last long; the sun would peak, then start her slow descent, and the stone would cool. For about ten minutes, however, that beam of liquid light could boil water, char wood, or blacken flesh in an instant, and it was there that for centuries priests had made offerings to Intarra.

  “This,” Uinian said, gesturing to the smoldering stone, “is where I will face my goddess.”

  A collective gasp went through the crowd.

  He can’t survive it, Adare told herself. It’s impossible.

  Il Tornja looked skeptical. “It’s not a flame.”

  Uinian shook his head in scorn. “This is the pure kiss of Intarra. If you doubt her power,” he continued, stripping the amice from his shoulders in one fluid motion and hurling it into the light, “observe!” The cloth caught flame in midair before landing in an ashen heap on the stone. A stir of excitement ran through the mob. Adare thought she might be sick.

  “No!” she shouted, stepping forward. “The regent is right. This is not a flame. The man has demanded Trial by Flame. Let there be a flame.”

  “How little the princess understands,” Uinian sneered, “of the nature of the goddess. Of the many forms she may take. When I step into her burning sight and do not burn, the world will know who is the true servant of Intarra. Your family claims descent from the goddess, but her ways are ineffable. Her favor has shifted. And without her favor, you are what? Not divinely ordained protectors, but simple tyrants!”

  The heat lapped at Adare’s face, and sweat slicked the flesh beneath her robes.

  “You dare call us tyrants,” she spat back. “You? Who murdered the rightful Emperor?”

  Uinian smiled. “The test will tell.”

  He will fail, Adare said, repeating the inner mantra again and again. He will fail. But the man had mocked and manipulated the entire process thus far. That searing heat was not a flame, and the smile had not left his lips.

  “I will not accept this,” Adare insisted, raising her voice over the growing noise of the crowd. “I do not accept this trial.”

  “You may forget, woman,” Uinian replied, his own voice vicious, scornful, “that you are not the goddess. Your family has ruled for so long that you demand too much.”

  “I demand obedience to the law,” Adare raged, but someone was already taking her by the shoulder gently but firmly, drawing her back. She struggled to escape, but she was no match for the hands that held her. In a fit of fury, she rounded on the person. “Release me! I am a Malkeenian princess and the Chief Minister of Finance—”

  “—and a fool if you think you can change anything here,” il Tornja murmured, voice low but hard. His grip felt like steel as he held her back. “This is not the time, Adare.”

  “There is no other time,” she spat. “It has to be now.” She writhed in the kenarang’s grasp, unable to free herself but turning back toward the priest nonetheless. A thousand eyes fixed on her; people were shouting and yelling, but she ignored them. “I demand your life!” she screamed at Uinian. “I demand your life in return for the life of my father.”

  “Your demands mean nothing,” he replied. “You do not rule here.” And then he turned and stepped into the light.

  Uinian IV, the Chief
Priest of Intarra, the man who had murdered the Emperor and taken her father, did not burn. The very air ran liquid with luminous heat, and yet the priest himself merely spread his arms, raised his face to the radiance as he might to a warm rain, letting it wash over him. For an eternity he stood there, then stepped, finally, from the rays.

  Impossible, Adare thought, slackening in il Tornja’s grip. It’s not possible.

  “Someone killed Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian,” Uinian declared, triumph writ large across his face, “but it was not I. The Goddess Intarra has declared me unsullied by sin, just as she once declared Anlatun the Pious, while those who thought to bring me low—” He stared pointedly from Ran il Tornja to Adare. “—have been checked, and humbled. I can only pray to the Lady of Light that they remember this humility in the dark days to come.”

  20

  The morning sun blazed through the window, bright and unyielding. With a grunt, Valyn raised a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the glare. The entire room was white: white walls, white ceiling, even the wide pine boards of the floor had been scoured, sanded, and scrubbed so many times, they were bleached of all color. The place smelled of the strong alcohol the Kettral used to scrub out wounds and the herbal poultices they plastered on after the cleaning was done. Valyn would have preferred to move his bed into the cool shadow at the side of the room, but Wilton Ren, the medic on duty, had given him strict instructions about staying still and calm, instructions he would have happily ignored save for the lance of pain that drove through his chest every time he so much as shifted.

  According to Ren, they’d dragged him in, pulled the arrow, stitched the wound, and bandaged it, all while he was unconscious. When he finally woke, after a day and a night, his first thought had not been for the puncture in his shoulder or the one who fired the arrow, but for Ha Lin. Whatever went wrong on the sniper field, he’d survived it. He had no such assurances about Lin’s meeting with Balendin. Valyn tried to drag himself out of bed half a dozen times, reaching the door before he collapsed on his final effort. That was where Ren found him.