Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2

by Daniel Polansky

  ‘Siblings,’ he began. ‘The Lady of the House of Rose and Sorrow avers the Aelerians are less than five cables from the Roost. If not checked their riders will be at the foot of the Roost in hours, and their infantry by the morning. I am informed by the chancellor that downslope is in rebellion from the docks to the Third Rung, and that every available custodian is required to stop it from spreading any further. Likewise, the rumours you have heard are true. By some or other stratagem, the Dayspans have fortified the Perpetual Spire, and a force of unknown size now rests within walls of the First Rung. The custodians spent the night trying to retake it, without success. A number of our siblings have fallen in the same attempt.’

  ‘By the Founders,’ said the Lord of the House of Kind Lament, ‘we ought have done as the Lord of the Ebony Towers bid us, and drowned the locusts in their own blood.’

  ‘We ought have done many things differently,’ the Prime said imperiously. ‘But there is no time to discuss guilt or past foolishness.’

  ‘The external threat must be dealt with first.’ Having been wrong in every past prediction did not prevent the Lord of the House of Kind Lament from further augury. They were not so different from humans as they liked to believe, Calla thought then, though she was unsure to take comfort or warning in this fact. ‘We scatter the locusts below, then we return to deal with their counterparts on the First.’

  ‘The forces inside the Roost are surely waiting for just such an attempt,’ answered the Prime. ‘Would you leave our hatchlings to the mercy of the Aelerians? We cannot rely on the custodians alone to defend the Rung.’

  ‘Then we divide our forces. We keep a body here to ensure that the Spire is quarantined, and the rest of us ride down to dispose of the Dayspans.’

  The Sentinel of the Southern Reach rose to speak then, the missing stalk of her hair seeming very distinct. ‘Fifty thousand Aelerians march on us this day. They have spent two years supping on the corpse of Salucia, and they come well-nourished but unsated. Whatever my siblings may have convinced themselves of in this long autumn of foolishness, they will not break at the sight of our forces, nor at the first charge. We will need every lance if we hope for victory.’

  ‘The Lady of the Ivory Towers has spent such time among the locusts as to confuse herself with their champion. However large the army they have amassed below, it is yet an army of humans, no more concern than an army of rats.’

  ‘The Sentinel,’ she corrected. ‘And the Lord of the House of Kind Lament is every drop as foolish and blind as I ever remembered. Should we see tomorrow’s sun, I will settle his insult at the courses.’

  ‘Enough,’ the Prime said. ‘This is no moment to waste on strife. It is unthinkable to allow the Rung to remain unprotected. A contingent must remain to hold the First, and another must be offered to the custodians to try and put down the rebellion which is taking place below. What is left will ride out to confront the army at our gates.’

  ‘That will not be enough,’ the Sentinel answered.

  ‘It is the only option available to us.’

  ‘If you will forgive me, my Lords and Ladies, that is an alternative yet to be examined.’

  It was Calla’s voice, though she only realised it when they all at once turned upon her, row upon row of unblinking, single-faceted eyes, terror as though a yawning sinkhole had opened up below her. Since waking up that morning with Leon’s head upon her shoulder, since long before, she had been planning this speech, choosing her words, but in the moment itself she found her mind blank. It was the language itself that inspired her beyond this first exquisite moment of fear. A quarter-century of practice but Calla had never dared enunciate above a whisper, and she discovered then that it was not meant to be spoken at all in fact but to be shouted, to be sung. It was not language but a prayer, a poem, a love-ode. The words came all of their own, somehow, the Eternal’s language but in her own voice, her own dialect, as much her own creation as a newborn child.

  ‘I am Calla of the Red Keep, whose family has faithfully served the Prime for seven generations. The Roost is the only home I have ever known, the only home I have ever wished. I have always imagined that in time an eighth member of my line would one day assume the role of seneschal, would perform the duties and obligations of the office as had their mother and grandfather and their ancestors before them. That our rituals and traditions, hallowed by age, would remain inviolate and unchanging.’

  In her brief pause Calla could hear the scattered droplets of the Source falling against its basin, the attendant humans quiet by custom and made doubly so by fear, the Eternal watching her with pregnant and unknowable silence.

  ‘That was an error, one that we have all been operating beneath. Today we see that the Roost was a far more fragile thing than we had ever supposed. The humans downslope – ignored, oppressed, abused – have taken shelter in the false promises of the Aelerians, and the result is as you have seen. The enemies of the Roost swarm towards our gates, and will soon be inside. As humans were the cause, so they will be the remedy. You say that you have not the numbers to assault the Aelerian armies below and to protect the upper Rungs simultaneously, but all the while you hold your hand upon an unsheathed blade, a vast army upon which you might call. The subjects of the Roost are more than fearfully passive, or made monstrous with misfortune. There are many like me who would fight for their homes, who would die to stop it from becoming a satellite of some foreign power. Equipped with weapons from your armouries, they could maintain the quarantine here on the First Rung, they might even be strong enough to halt the spread of violence below. They would rise to meet our mutual foes, they would fight to protect what is theirs – if their service was recognised, if they were called upon. With a militia drawn from the First and Second Rungs, you would not need to split your forces. You could meet the enemies of the Roost with the full might of your army, rather than piecemeal. No doubt there are many among you who imagine such a thing impossible, but if today has taught us nothing else, it is that humans are capable of more than you suppose.

  ‘An audacious proposal, my Lords and Ladies, as is my presenting it. But crisis demands audacity and there can be no question but that we are at that moment. Our sole certainty is that by tomorrow morning the Roost will be changed irrevocably. Either it will be consumed in fire and blood, the homes of the Eternal become the abode of the Aelerians, millennia of history undone entire – or it will be transformed, reborn into a city all of whose members are called upon to serve it to their fullest, and to demand an equal share in their labour. A city in which Those Above and Below strive in concert towards the betterment of both species. We will set out on this journey together, or we will die alone.’

  And as she came to the last word she found that she could almost see this future unfolding below her, a syncretic fusion of the two species, a city undivided, without rancour, where the hideous misery of the lower Rungs was ameliorated by the vast wealth that resided above it, in which the superiority of Those Above was tempered with justice and even mercy, in which the splendours of the Roost were accented with freedom, a jewel more priceless even than that which graced the Prime’s diadem.

  It was a beautiful dream – Calla was privileged to die staring at it.

  She did not feel the blow, or only for a short, shattered instant, her neck snapping like a dry twig. And it was well for her that she died so quickly, because what was done to her person after by the nearby Eternal, and even those somewhat more distant, was cruel beyond measure, ripping and tearing with their strength that was so much greater than that of a man. And also because, with the darkness falling so swiftly, she never knew that the first strike had come from the Prime, hoping, perhaps, to end quickly the suffering that Calla’s temerity was certain to cause, or simply as savage and blood-mad as the rest of his species, his and not his alone.

  39

  Just after the hour of the Eagle, with the sun high and hot in the sky, a snaking line of metal and flesh descended from the Source to th
e main gates on the Fifth Rung, a sudden pulse passing down through the metropolis, rattling crockery off the walls of Second Rung mansions and shuddering the foundations of slum tenements, riding straight through the barricades, even the fiercest Dead Pigeon not so mad as to try and obstruct its passage. Twenty years since Those Above had gone to war, the kaleidoscopic fluttering gonfalons, the horses monstrous and spiteful, lances couched and cruel-looking, thousands of riders in synchronous and perfect union. The fate of the city, the fate of the nation, the fate of much of the world, would be decided in the coming few hours – it would be seen whether this army of heavy cavalry would be sufficient to break the Aelerian line, and forestall in blood the future that was to come.

  Some short time later Pyre and a handful of Dead Pigeons marched upslope from their base at the top of the Fourth. The Roost had been in open rebellion since the night before, and thus far everything had gone according to Pyre’s plan, everything had followed within the clear rut of destiny. The custodians were weak and undisciplined and represented no serious threat to Pyre and his men. Here and there in the savage skirmishes that had taken place across the Rung an Eternal had made their presence known, in the blood and brain and bone of humans, but they had been carried down by the sheer mass of men against which they contended. Their casualties had been terrible, Courage and Mace, Badger and Grim lost when they retreated from the walls, Frost and his entire cell slaughtered by a single Eternal. But they had martyred themselves gloriously, and their losses had been made good ten times over by the army that had arisen, as Pyre knew it would, from the cobblestones and the slurp itself, men ignorant of the word but willing to die in its service.

  Upslope the city was a certain sort of quiet, a silence that was more than the absence of sound, which seemed almost its own active presence, a great beast lurking over the spires. There were no guards on the gates to the Third Rung, the Cuckoos posted there and across most of the rest of the lower portion of the Roost fled. There were two Cuckoos manning the gate to the Second, though they bolted at the sight of Pyre and his bodyguard. He gave no thought to pursuing. It was far too late to be concerning himself with any individual traitor; indeed now that the contest seemed over or nearly, it was time to turn attention from vengeance and towards forgiveness. Without Those Above to torment and beguile them, the people of the Roost would be able to live in harmony with one another.

  Though there was little suggestion of pardon in the pose, face and tone of Eudokia, Revered Mother, when they met in the antechamber of her mansion high up on the Second. At her side was the Parthan, chubby-cheeked, eyes brown as chocolate, breasts like a whore, hands that might have wrapped comfortably round an aged oak. At his side hung a curved cutting sword, the make of it unfamiliar to Pyre but the purpose clear enough, of the blade and the man who carried it. A killer, Pyre knew from a glance, and wondered why his presence was needed if Eudokia was so suitably protected, his presence or the presence of the four men he had brought along.

  Pyre had arranged for a safe house nearby, on a further corner of the Second Rung. It was a reasonable precaution. It was possible that the Eternal or their misguided human chattel might seize on Eudokia as some reasonable proxy for the forces outside their gates and, regardless of the violence that was to come, it would do well to keep the Revered Mother protected.

  ‘I was told there would be a third,’ Pyre began. ‘A young man?’

  Eudokia’s eyes were stones, and her mouth was a line, and neither revealed anything of what she thought. ‘It is only the two of us.’

  Pyre nodded and led them out of the gate and onto the main road. He set two of his men half a block ahead and put two half a block behind, and between them he supposed himself safe from attack.

  A reasonable supposition, though it would soon become clear that he feared danger from the wrong point of origin. ‘I take it by that last caterwaul that our tormentors have evacuated the city?’ Eudokia asked, as if the matter was of only casual import.

  ‘Such was our assumption.’

  ‘And the Spire?’

  ‘It holds, Revered Mother, at least it held according to our last report.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent. All moot of course, if my stepson can’t manage his end of it outside the walls. But then again, if the thing was certain there would be no point in doing it.’

  The street down which they walked was narrow and formed of perfectly fitted slate. On either side of the thoroughfare a clear, thin trickle of water had been diverted to act as moat or adornment for the buttressing houses, things of hardwood and polished stone, lovely and unassuming. Here and there were bright little spots of colour flaring out against the afternoon sun, purple silk awnings, flags and streamers fluttering in the wind. The windows were shut tight, the doors barred. The smell of smoke in the air was strong but not yet overwhelming.

  ‘It does not quite seem so terrible, does it Pyre, the First of His Line?’ Eudokia asked. ‘It does not seem, at first glance, like a thing which needs to be destroyed.’

  ‘A cage is no less confining for being made of gold.’

  ‘Return in a week and knock at the door of one of these cages, and ask the women and children cringing inside if they preferred servitude beneath the Birds to their new-found freedom.’

  Pyre was clever with his hands, and he was more than clever as a tactician and as a leader of men, but words had never been his strength, and after nearly a straight day of labour he would have preferred to remain silent. ‘Good fortune borne on the backs of their species and their kin,’ he snapped. ‘For every one of these happy householders there are a hundred families on the Fifth Rung starving and dying and rotting in misery.’

  ‘Correct, exactly,’ Eudokia agreed, seeming pleased. ‘They’ve enjoyed themselves long enough. It’s your turn now.’

  ‘In the age to come humanity will know of no distinction,’ Pyre said, again quoting from the prophet, ‘a happy family, without division or rancour.’

  Eudokia paused for a moment, staring at him ‘I think that was quite the most foolish thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.’

  But Pyre did not respond to this provocatio, and Eudokia continued hobbling onward. ‘And where is Edom, on this glorious occasion? Where is Edom, at the moment his long dream has finally come to fruition?’

  ‘Safe,’ Pyre answered confidently. ‘His is too valuable a presence to risk until the outcome is certain. Should the demons rally and break our line, he will be needed to renew again the struggle.’

  ‘And you will not?’

  ‘There are others who can do as I do. The word is what matters, and the word speaks most honestly from Edom.’

  ‘Truth is to be preferred over even modesty, in my experience, Pyre, the First of His Line, and you will find that there is no virtue which cannot become a vice if taken beyond its proper boundaries. Take loyalty, for instance – an admirable quality, necessary for the stability and the progress of civilisation, frequently and easily carried beyond all objective reason.’

  ‘Therein we disagree, Revered Mother,’ Pyre said. He more stalked than strolled, and his eyes flashed round for signs of threat as happy distraction from the conversation. ‘Loyalty is the essence of the Five-Fingered. Loyalty to our species, loyalty to our descendants, loyalty to one another.’

  ‘The essence, you say? The very essence? This continued fidelity towards a man who sought to kill you is more masochistic than admirable.’

  Half of the escort were twenty paces ahead of him, and half were twenty paces behind, and none seemed to hear this blasphemy. Pyre bit down against his fury, felt his tongue give way between his teeth, took his hand off the hilt of his sword. ‘That was a foolish joke.’

  ‘Levity is one of the pleasures which make existence bearable, and Eudokia has been known on occasion to let a jest slip into the wild. But that was not one of them.’

  ‘If my men heard you speak in such a fashion,’ Pyre said, still quietly, ‘I am not at all sure that I could stop them from hur
ting you.’

  ‘I suspect Jahan would have better fortune,’ Eudokia said, ‘though it seems best not to discover either way, which is why this discussion does not include them. Oh, come, boy, so far you’ve been nothing but clever, and perhaps even a bit more than that. A decade now I’ve dribbled money into Edom’s accounts, wondering all the time if I was not pissing away silver. I had anticipated it would take another five years to build to this moment, but you and your little army have brought my timeline forward half a decade. Best for all of us.’ Eudokia halted for a moment, rubbing at her knee for relief – or effect. ‘I’m scarce sure I’d have been capable of running things by then. Age is implacable, Pyre, the First of His Line.’ She began moving again, and returned to her monologue. ‘As for this false modesty, it is a delusion which you and you alone labour beneath. Your confederates look to you, rightly, as the source of their success. The people praise your name as a slayer of demons and a leader of men. I assure you Edom is entirely cognisant of your qualities, indeed I suppose he thought of little else in the days before arranging to have you murdered. Curious, perhaps even fitting, that it proved to be this attempt on your life that would ensure your pre-eminence among your people. But then, if I am to confess bluntly, I have never considered Edom to be worthy of this reputation you and the rest seem to have granted him. He has a very square jaw, and his hair is distinct-looking. He has some modest talent with epigram. There are less clever men, certainly, though this hardly qualifies someone for leadership. But then again, one must never underrate the willingness of fate to thrust an individual beyond their proper station. Mark my words, you will live long enough to see Edom’s name used in blessing, to see him named prophet and called saint. In thirty years children living in the city will struggle to fall asleep the night before the festival of Edom’s name day, will wake the next morning to toys and sweet treats, will watch the mummers perform a pageant in his honour. Though, if you act wisely in the next few hours, that signal honour will pale beside the praise heaped upon your own name. How many sons will be named Pyre in the generation to come! Babes across the great length of the Roost!’ Eudokia had a light, sharp laugh, like the point of a stiletto, and Pyre did not realise his hand was back on the hilt of his weapon until he noticed the Parthan doing the same, his curved blade already a few finger-widths out from its sheath, his eyes effortless and uncaring and dark as night.