“This is an observatory,” he explained. “We would watch the stars from here.”
“Why?”
“Did you never lie at night and watch the stars revolving above you and wonder about them?”
“I never wondered about them, for they never change and my wondering would achieve nothing.”
Marcellus smiled. “How very pragmatic of you, Fell.” He looked up. “Did you know that the moon is receding, getting smaller and more distant?”
Fell shrugged. He neither knew nor cared.
“When I first came here the moon dominated the sky. Now it is fleeing, heading for the dark and the cold.”
He stepped out into daylight again and walked to the south side of the tower. Fell followed him and together they gazed down. Beyond the many towers and minarets of the palace they could see the City spread out before them. In the south much of it was destroyed, walls crumbled and buildings fallen. Fell could see no bodies from this height, but a thick glaze of mud lay over everything. He frowned, baffled but not perturbed. Something about this was not right, but he could not say what.
Marcellus was watching him. “Ah,” he said, “you did not know of this. I am glad.”
“What happened here, lord?”
“Your friends destroyed the high dams and flooded the City. Thousands died yesterday, drowned, and thousands more will die today of their injuries. The palace itself is collapsing from the lowest levels up.”
He pointed. “Out there in the south is an army of twenty thousand Blues. They have breached the wall yet they are holding position, waiting for something. What are they waiting for, Fell?”
Fell shook his head. “I know nothing of this.”
“What do you know?”
“My part was to kill the emperor,” Fell told him, happy to be of help.
“Two assassins,” said Marcellus, raising his brows. “Two invasions. Double redundancy.”
He thought for a while, then said, “A two-pronged attack is a basic of battlefield strategy. You know that. More subtle, and far more difficult to execute is the three-fold attack. But I have never seen this four-fold strategy except on the urquat board. I guess the mastermind behind the plan is an urquat player.” He seemed to be speaking to himself, but Fell nodded politely. “Not Hayden Weaver. He is a fine general. Only he has the authority to bring an army within reach of their hated enemy and to hold them there without attacking. Yet he is not a man of subtlety. Who is the source of this plan?”
Fell was grateful to have a question he could answer. “Mason,” he said.
Marcellus shook his head. “I have already spoken to Mason Weaver. He is filled with bile and would have slaughtered every man in the City if he had half a chance. He knows more about this grand scheme than you do, yet he does not know whose idea it was to betray the diversionary army. That was the part of the scheme—such a ruthless part—which nearly caused the emperor’s death.”
He said, more sharply, “You have been played for a fool, soldier. All of you—Mason, Gil Rayado, your friend Indaro.”
Fell didn’t care. His role here was ended, and he could tell the lord nothing of any use. He felt calm and at peace.
As they watched together a thin minaret, an elaborately carved spike of green and red marble, leaned drunkenly to one side before falling through a roof below in a crash of stone and tile.
“The foundations of the palace have been compromised,” Marcellus explained as the noise drifted away. “The structures which kept the river water and the sewers flowing have been left to rot. My fault. Our fault. Lack of focus. Centuries of decadence. And now the water from the dams is delivering the final blow. The palace will not be habitable for much longer.”
He turned to look at the corner of the tower. Fell followed his gaze and saw the shape of a man huddled in the corner. It was Mason. He had last seen him at Old Mountain only days before. Fell was interested but not surprised. Nothing was surprising on this day of days.
They walked over. Mason was gravely wounded but he still lived. His eyes had been put out and blood was leaking from his lids and from his ears and nose. Fell could see the lifeblood pumping weakly from his side, where a slender knife was embedded. One blood-covered hand groped blindly for the blade.
Marcellus knelt, taking the searching hand and guiding it away. “Don’t,” he said gently. “Don’t pull it out.” As he gazed at his enemy, Fell saw only compassion in his eyes.
Mason, his face contorted in agony, muttered, “My death is inevitable, Marcellus. I would rather die without a piece of metal lodged under my ribs. Do you really need to prolong this?”
“Mason,” said Fell.
The injured man groaned at the sound of his voice. “Fell?” he whispered. “He has you too? Then I am dead already, Marcellus. You have won, as always.”
“First,” said Fell, crouching down, “tell me the truth.” The thrall that held him was waning. His mind started to clear. “You have lied to us from the first, Mason. You owe me the truth, now you are dying and I am soon to die.”
Marcellus watched them silently.
“You wanted the emperor dead, as did I,” Fell said to the dying man. “You wanted the City destroyed, washed away. That I understand. Your people are dying because of the war. And the City was dying too, although I know that gave you pleasure. But why fool us with the elaborate plan? Did Gil Rayado know? And Saroyan? Did you send them both to their deaths as a diversion?”
“You’ve seen the powers of these creatures, these Serafim,” Mason whispered. “If all the armies of the City and its enemies turned against them, we still could not be sure of killing them. This was our last throw, Fell. If this failed we had nothing left. We had to use everything in our arsenal.” He muttered, “Have some perspective.”
Marcellus sat back on his haunches. “You have failed,” he told Mason. “The City will survive,” he said. “The greater part of it is untouched. The palaces on the Shield will ride out the storm. The last Families will be watching with interest. Araeon had many enemies among them, but none would move against him. He was their brother. Now they will rally and sally out and descend on your armies. There will be more death and more suffering, but the City will survive. It always has.”
“You were ready to destroy the whole City in the hope of killing one man?” Fell asked Mason. “You would tear down a house to kill a single rat?”
“Petty selfish people,” Marcellus said, standing and gazing at the sky. “You never see beyond your own small needs and passions.”
“My sister,” Marcellus said, turning to Fell. “Whom you call Archange.”
Fell frowned. He remembered the tall woman who had defended the hostages in the trial so many years ago. Indaro danced across his thoughts again. She knew Archange, had worked with her. What has she got to do with this? he wondered.
“Mason once loved my sister,” explained Marcellus. “And she loved him, in her way. He was a young soldier then, of the Petrassi nobility. They were not our enemies in those days. She married him, against our entreaties.”
“They were determined to have me killed,” said Mason weakly. “They call us primitives.”
Marcellus looked at him sadly. “If we had wanted you dead, you would have died then. It would have been better if you had. For the City and all its enemies. It was one of many mistakes we made.
“He was exiled from the City, and from Petrus too. He could not sell his sword in any land in his own name. He lost his woman, his family, and his name. He has spent forty years plotting his revenge for this slight.”
Mason bared his teeth. “The taste is sweet on my tongue,” he said.
“He loved a goddess,” Marcellus said to Fell as if it explained everything. “It is a dreadful fate. He could never recover from that.”
“She loved me,” whispered Mason, his voice failing. Fell’s practised eye saw he had only moments to live.
Marcellus sighed. “We all loved you,” he replied. “You blame us, but ever
ything we did was out of love.”
Mason seemed to rally a little and blood dripped from his mouth. “Our lands are barren and the fields reek with the smell of corpses. A million men and a generation of young women have died under the swords of our enemy. The City is populated only by children and crones, and old maimed men living lives of misery. Is this how the gods show their love?”
Marcellus gazed off into the distance, apparently adrift in his own thoughts, and he did not answer. For a long time the only sound was of Mason’s weak, whistling breath. Then it stopped. Marcellus knelt and felt for the beat at the base of the man’s throat. “He is dead,” he said.
Chapter 46
Em had been sitting on the floor holding the dying woman’s hand. The gesture meant more to her, she guessed, than it did to Indaro, who seemed unaware of her presence. The hand was lifeless and cold, although from time to time the girl could detect a low, slow beat of life force deep beneath the skin. Emly felt numb, exhausted beyond movement. All her hope, her ambition, had been to free her sick father from the dungeon. Now that man had changed beyond recognition. Dead-eyed, she’d watched him move with a purpose, striding back and forth on the wide landing, surveying the activities of the enemy warriors below, consulting with his troops, giving orders. He was garbed in armour, a breastplate and sword-belt. She did not know him any more. Evan stayed at his side, his eyes on the general, listening, advising. He had not glanced at her. She felt adrift and alone.
But then Bartellus had crouched down to speak to Indaro, glancing at Em with a small smile which warmed her heart a little. And Indaro said the one word which brought Emly’s soul back to life.
“Elija.”
“Elija was with you?” Bartellus asked, surprised, and Indaro nodded. “Broglanh, did you know this?” he asked the soldier. Evan shook his head.
“Where is he?” Emly asked her urgently. “Is he alive?”
“Injured,” Indaro muttered. She gestured at the doors behind them. “Back there.”
She seemed to be losing consciousness again. The girl resisted the impulse to shake her. “Where? Was he badly hurt?” she asked.
“Broken arm,” the woman told her, her eyes closed.
“Where? Where is he?” Em asked her. Then, “Please, Indaro.”
The woman frowned. There was a long, frustrating pause, and she opened her eyes, her eyes like flowers. “Back there,” she repeated, with certainty although her voice was weak. “Up the sloping corridor. Up the stone stairs. Keep the green wall on your left…I mean, the right. Take the first, no…the second, on the right. The corridor has a white marble floor and a blue ceiling. The room,” she hesitated, remembering, “the room is on the right, carved doors, near a fountain with dolphins. I told him to hide.”
Em jumped up, her lethargy blown away like smoke in a breeze. “I’ll find him,” she told her father. She snatched up a half-empty waterskin lying on the floor then looked around for something to defend herself with.
Bartellus took her by the arm and she thought he was going to stop her, but all he said was, “I can send no one with you.”
“I’ll be better on my own,” she reassured him, although it was not true. Evan handed her a long-bladed knife and she stuck it in the waist of her trousers, scarcely noticing him now. She took a deep breath.
“Be quick,” her father said. “The palace is collapsing. If you find him come back here if you can. The Keep is the oldest part of the building. It might be the safest.”
Em looked down at the hundreds of armoured warriors, and she thought the Hall of Emperors was the most perilous place she had ever been in, but she merely nodded, thinking only of her brother. If she discovered him and he was still alive, then she would decide what to do.
Bart clasped her to him for a moment. “Good luck, little soldier,” he whispered, then he let her go and turned back to his troops.
Em ran up the corridor, glad to be doing something. Immediately she saw the stone stairs winding upwards. She ran up them, her hand on the knife in her waistband. At the top she followed the hallway, keeping the green marble wall to her right, as instructed. It was a long corridor, curving round. She crept along nervously, her eyes darting about, fearing more soldiers. She saw no one, although she could hear the distant sounds of battle, cries and shouts.
She paused, listening. Something was coming. Something terrifying. She felt her limbs suddenly start to shake and her heart start panicking in her breast. She looked around but there was nowhere to hide, only blank walls stretching away in each direction. She moaned and her legs started to give way.
A young man, tall and fair, dressed in green, appeared around the curve of the corridor. He was younger than she and he looked, if anything, more scared. Em felt her fear drift away. Was this boy frightened of the unnamed thing too? She walked towards him and they passed each other, each sticking to one side of the corridor, eyeing each other uncertainly. Em considered speaking but the young man said nothing, only watched her as she passed. His eyes were dark as pitch, she saw. Then she was past and she hurried on.
She passed one corridor on her right, and took the second. She found herself not in a corridor with a blue ceiling, but facing a pile of debris where part of the building had collapsed. It had happened recently, for dust hung thickly in the air and it was hard to see past it. Emly could see the light of day streaming in above. She picked her way over the stones and masonry, peering ahead, trying to see if she could get past the heaped debris. Something moved under her foot and she stopped, listening to the sound of shifting stone and sifting dust. The air cleared a little and ahead of her she could see a gaping hole where the falling roof stones had shattered the floor and fallen right through. She crept up to it, placing her feet with care. Peering over the lip of the hole she could see that several floors beneath her had given way. Water, black and threatening, roiled far beneath.
She looked ahead. On the other side of the fall the corridor continued, and she could see the blue ceiling Indaro had spoken of. She had to go this way. There was a broken ledge clinging precariously to the wall. She could walk along it. It was quite wide. But as she made her decision a drunken pillar on the far side of the hole tottered and collapsed, bringing down with it more of the ceiling. She crouched, covering her head, fearing the rest of the roof would give way, and she heard the crash and splash as it plummeted into the water.
As the dust subsided she stood and stepped forward, placing her feet carefully. She edged her way along the ledge, testing each footfall, finding small handholds in the stone wall beside her, hardly daring to breathe. She took one quick glance down into the hole, glimpsing pale bodies in the water. On firmer ground again she moved more quickly, finally leaping from the ledge onto the marble floor of the corridor.
She hurried on, assessing each door she passed. Many were carved. She looked for the dry fountain Indaro had mentioned, but could not see it. She wondered if it was destroyed in the roof fall. Then she spotted it. She had been expecting a large fountain such as in a public square. But, of course, this was a small drinking fountain set in the wall, with three stone dolphins leaping over it. She looked around eagerly. There were several carved doors nearby. She ran to the first, pushing the doors, hearing the grate of dust and grit as they opened and peering around them.
“Elija,” she whispered. Then louder, “Elija!”
It was a bedchamber, furniture covered with ghostly white cloths, dust lying thickly on the floor. Her voice echoed emptily. No one had entered there in years. She ran to the next room, then the next. She looked back along the corridor. The water fountain was nearly out of sight. What had Indaro said? The room was on the right? Which right? Her right? Em ran back to the fountain, then to a pair of carved doors set deep in a dark recess. She pushed them open. They moved silently.
Inside was a scene of frozen carnage and for a moment her heart seemed to judder to a halt. Bodies of armed men were strewn on the floor and on the bloodflecked furniture. The odours of blo
od and excrement were pungent in the air. Em put her hand to her mouth. She guessed she had found the right place, but could anyone still be alive in here?
“Elija?” she whispered.
There was a groan from her left, and she flinched as she saw an armoured arm move. Her breathing shallow, she forced her legs to take her to him and she found a dying warrior, half his head hacked away but still alive, still moving. She backed away, then dragged her eyes from the suffering man.
“Elija!” she called.
Desperately her eyes searched the room. Most of the bodies were at one end. In that corner was an upturned table. She crept over to it, nervously stepping round corpses, unwilling to climb over them for fear that one might come alive and grab her.
She peered over the edge of the table. In the corner was the figure of a man, unarmoured, tall yet thin and frail, lying with one arm held in the other hand. His dark head was sunk on his breast. He did not look like a soldier. Was he dead or asleep? She edged round the table. She knelt down and peered at the smudged, dirty face. She saw nothing in it she recognised. She sighed and stood, looking around her, uncertain where to go next.
At the sound the man moved, as if shifting in his sleep. He clutched his arm and moaned quietly. Em’s heart leaped.
“Elija?” she asked hesitantly.
She touched his good shoulder. “Elija?”
His eyes opened and there was a flash of fear in his face as he looked up at her, and in that moment she knew him. Joy flooded her and she knelt beside him, trying to take him in her arms, to hold him close to her, to comfort him.
“Emly?”
He looked up at her, disbelief in his eyes. Then hesitant recognition became certainty, and her brother burst into tears.
The battlefield seemed to go on forever. It was old, ancient, its thousands upon thousands of corpses just dry husks, dusty with age, their torment muted and softened by ages, by the wind and rain. There were no colours, for their blood had long-since dried and blown away. Even the insects, the beetles and flies and their maggots, had taken their fill and departed. Centuries before.
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