The Tower of Living and Dying

by Anna Smith Spark

  “Shut up, Tobias,” said Raeta. “Well?”

  “What’s the one thing Amrath was ever afraid of?” said Landra.

  “His mum,” said Tobias. “The pitiful size of his willy. His total sexual inadequacy. Someone finding out who his dad really was.” Something Amrath was afraid of. A story I think I might have heard recently, and once before in a caravan inn. Oh gods. Oh gods.

  “The gabeleth,” said Landra. “The one thing that defeated Amrath and Serelethe’s power. The magelord Symeon had to destroy it for Him. And Amrath was afraid of Symeon, that he could do it where He had failed. Had him killed in turn. The gabeleth could destroy Marith. Perhaps. Don’t you think?”

  Two nights ago, their dear friends the soldiers of the light infantry, the mighty guardians of the baggage cart, had told the story, singing it loud out into the night.

  A great fortress, Amrath raised in Illyr. Its walls were made of gold and mage glass, and its banqueting halls were carved of onyx and red jade. A mustering ground for armies. A prison for his enemies. A warning to all men. Its towers were so high they blocked out the very sunlight. Its chambers rang with shadows and screams. Blood was its mortar. Tears were its mortar. Ashes were its mortar. It was built on the bodies of the dead.

  But Amrath could find no pleasure in his fortress. For each month at the dark of the moon, a soldier or a serving maid or a noble was found dead in their bed, and not a mark on them but the burning marks of a great fire running all up the length of their right arm. But no smoke was smelled, and no cries were heard, and what was killing them and how they died no man knew. And the guards and the maids and the nobles began to lose faith in Amrath, if he could not keep his own people safe within his own walls.

  So Amrath and his mother Serelethe were in despair, for try as they might, they could not find an answer to the mystery, and their people were dying and muttering against them. And Amrath had angry words with Serelethe, who had promised him mastery of an empire but could not defend his own men for him. And so things went badly in Ethalden.

  Now, this had been going on for a year, and no man was any closer to finding the truth of it, when there came to Ethalden a young mage, a wandering sorcerer from Tarboran where the fires burn. And he stood before the throne of Amrath, and dared look even Amrath full in the face. And he promised Amrath that he knew the secret that was plaguing his fortress, and could destroy it. And all he wanted in return was a chance to stand beside Amrath, and be his lieutenant, and lead his armies with fire and blood.

  So Amrath roared a great roar of laughter, and promised the mage gold and silver and precious jewels, and a lordship, and the command of his armies, if he should only defeat the evil that was plaguing him. For he saw in the mage a brother, and a comrade, and a tool to be used. He gave the mage a great chamber for lodgings, and put all of his wealth and his power at his disposal.

  The mage walked the corridors of the fortress, sniffing the air and looking at the stone. And at length he stopped in a certain place, a small room in the outer keep looking down over the city, and he gave a great cry and said, “This is the place. And now we shall see what we shall see.” And he ordered the men with him to dig.

  The men dug and the men dug, and they broke open the great stones of the walls, and they found there buried the body of a young girl, with her right arm burned through to the bone from her wrist to her shoulder, and the marks of a knife on her throat.

  Well, Amrath, he ordered the body buried with full honour, as though the girl was his own sister. Ten horses, they burned over her grave. But still the dying did not stop, for at the next month at the dark of the moon one of the mage’s very servants was found dead and cold with no mark on him but the burning marks of a great fire running all up the length of his right arm. And the mage knew then that he was dealing with no ghost but a gabeleth, a demon summoned up from the twilight places by the shedding of the girl’s blood. And he was greatly afeared, for such a thing is very powerful.

  But the mage had promised Amrath he would destroy that which was harming his people. And he feared Amrath near as much as he did the gabeleth. So he locked himself away in his chamber with his books and his magics, and for three days he did not eat or sleep but only worked at his spells. And at the end of three days he went back to the room where he had found the girl’s body, bringing with him his staff, and his sword, and a silver ring. And there he fought the demon.

  Three days and three nights they fought, and fire raged through the skies above Ethalden, and Serelethe herself cried out for fear. So terrible was the battle that every child birthed on those three days in all Ethalden and for thirty leagues beyond was born dead. So terrible was the battle that the sick died and healthy men went mad and ran screaming into the sea, or set themselves afire and were burned to death where they stood.

  And at the end of three days, the mage overcame the demon, and peace returned to Ethalden, the Tower of Life and Death. And Amrath’s heart was pleased.

  For Amrath had feared the gabeleth.

  “The gabeleth.” Landra was very pale. Her hands opening and closing on her stupid little scrap of yellow cloth. “The demon was so powerful, even Amrath and Serelethe feared it. If Marith cannot be killed with bronze or iron or a gestmet’s magic, then perhaps … a demon … a thing even Amrath feared … perhaps he could be killed with that.”

  “The demon, uh, was destroyed …” Oh no, Tobias thought. Oh hells. Oh gods. Oh fuck. Oh no. I could have been in his bloody army, Tobias thought. Victorious and glorious and all that. I could have been home in Alborn. A little house and a girl and a pint of Immish gold or three of a night. I could have been warm and safe and cosy and dead.

  “Symeon overcame it. But he didn’t destroy it. It was not alive, and so it could not die. He imprisoned it. He imprisoned it in the silver ring. In my family,” said Landra, “we have a story that Amrath wore the ring all His life, out of fear of it. No one says what happened to it after Amrath’s death. I always assumed that He … that He died wearing the ring.”

  Amrath lies unburied, somewhere in the ruins of Ethalden. Wearing a silver ring?

  “There’s nothing in Ethalden,” said Tobias. “Nothing. Just rubble and dead earth. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. Just dead earth.”

  So many things, he thought, that I’ve seen. A dragon. A dead whale. A god walking the forests, my friend and my companion. Beautiful Thalia smiling at me. And what else is there we can do, indeed? See Marith destroyed. What else is there left for me? I’ve been dead since Tyrenae, he thought.

  Landra shivered violently as a night bird screeched out in the marshes. Far off, staring into the dark, Tobias thought he could see the lights of ten times a thousand campfires. The army of the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane. Somewhere out there in the dark. Like trying to think that there were whales out swimming beneath the cold grey sea, dragons dancing on the west wind.

  Not campfires, he thought. Marsh lights. Glow flies. Tricks of his eyes.

  “If bronze and iron cannot kill him, if he is Amrath returned, if he is Death,” said Landra.

  Marching through the Wastes. Marching to the edge of the world.

  Marching to find a ring with a demon in it, on the finger of a dead god, unburied in the ashes of a ruined tower. To kill a man who cannot die.

  Gods and demons and fuck.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Marching through the Wastes. Marching to the edge of the world.

  Marching to rebuild a great city. To find the betrayed body of Amrath the World Conqueror.

  Marching triumphantly to war.

  The soldiers walked in near silence, neither hungry nor tired. The nearer they got to Illyr the more they hardened, silent and uncomplaining, tramping on and on. They barely seemed to need to eat or drink. To think. Their faces stared fixed on the horizon, towards Illyr; at night their faces turned towards the king’s tent and the king.

  Thalia kept in her wagon. Marith had arranged, while it travelled to catch them, for it t
o be even more sumptuously decked out, gold silk lining the walls and ceiling, three layers of green dyed kid skin for the floor cover, jewelled flowers set into the struts of the roof. A glade of light and blossoms for her, fragrant with sweetwood: he had had in his mind, perhaps, the Great Chamber of her Temple, glowing golden bronze in the morning sun.

  The wagon jogging along slowly with the wheels catching and slipping and sticking in ruts. Four times they had broken a wheel on hidden rocks. One day it stuck for hours, under a burning sun and a cold wind. A man’s hand got caught, trying to mend the back axle; when they got him free his skin was black from fingers to elbow. Thalia asked Tal to find out what happened to him. For days he refused to tell her anything; finally he admitted that the man had had his arm cut off, but had still died. In the marshes the pace was almost painful, the horse straining, the wheels fouled so they could barely move. The weight of two kingdoms’ treasures, pressing down in the mud. Often they had to stop while men scrambled behind pushing. Lay out the canvas coverings of the supply wagons in the mire to help the wheels turn. The water got in on the green leather flooring, made it rank with mould. The sweetwood rotted. Huge flies caught inside the window slats, whined and rattled till they died. Tal swatted them, burst them in clots of red on the silk walls. Two men led the horses at a crawl pace, cursing at them to keep on.

  “Amrath campaigned rough with his men?” Thalia asked Marith. “The old ways of war?”

  “You deserve better.” He’d been drinking with Osen the night before, hard rough spirits distilled by the men. Sat in silence now in her wagon watching Tal swat the flies.

  “We should have got a ship there,” she said bitterly. “I can’t go on, in this.”

  “No one sails to Illyr.” He shuddered. He, who loved the sea.

  “It cannot be as bad as this. You didn’t tell me it was like this.”

  “I didn’t—” He rubbed hard at his eyes. Hatha itch. He and Alleen Durith took hatha together. In Tyrenae, and on the march. Despite her pleading. Despite her threats to Alleen. “Stop talking about it.”

  “We should have got a ship there,” she said.

  “My grandfather Nevethlyn sailed to Illyr. His fleet was driven all the way round Illyr, into the Sea of Grief, wrecked on the south coast. His army was destroyed. One of his ships made it back to the Whites. Hilanis the Young sailed to Illyr. Every one of his ships was destroyed. No one knows if he even reached the Illyian coast.” He looked away from her. Frowned. Almost bared his teeth. “Is that what you want for me, then?”

  “What?”

  “Me, all my army, dead?” His voice was poisoned, like the water of the marshes.

  “What?” Sickness filled her. “Marith?”

  Rubbed harder at his eyes. “Are you still meeting with Landra?” he said. “Giving her more of my mother’s jewels?” He stumbled to his feet, pulled open one of her chests of clothing. “She’s following us, isn’t she? She and that thing. Which of these shall we give her, then?”

  Tal was staring at them. Terrified. Flies buzzing around his head, around the dead flies on the walls, on his lap where he had been scraping them off.

  “That’s enough,” Thalia said. High Priestess of Great Tanis. Chosen of God. Queen of the White Isles and Ith and Immier and Illyr and wherever else he claimed to rule. “Enough.”

  “Are you meeting with Tobias? Did you give him gifts of jewels too?” His eyes. His mad eyes.

  The light blazed up in her. Golden. Tal cried out in fear. The horses leading the wagon snorted, also in fear. The wagon juddered, almost stopped.

  Marith cowered back into the corner of the wagon. A dark clot of shadow by the wagon’s door. Raised his hands over his eyes. Clawed at his face.

  The light died. Thalia knelt down beside him. “I thought of killing you once.”

  “I can’t die,” he whispered.

  Walk out. Leave him. Curse him.

  She had begun to hear rumours, about Tyrenae. Whispers. He had said something himself, then closed his mouth on it, looked away in shame, tried to speak of other things.

  Vile.

  Disease, he is.

  “Come away now with me. We can get away,” Landra Relast had said.

  “I gave Landra a necklace, yes. Out of pity. As I said before. To buy food. She was freezing. Starving. As I was, when you found me. I was starving and cold and alone, and you cared for me, gave me your cloak. You were kind to me. I was kind to her.”

  He whimpered. He sounded like the horses drawing the wagon, snorting and afraid, stupid dumb fearful things. My husband the dragonlord. My husband who defeated a god.

  “Get out,” she said.

  The Army of Amrath marched faster, singing the paean. Their mouths bitter with thirst. Thalia’s wagon rattled over dusty stones. The horses were thin and sore in their harnesses. They held up their heads and trotted eagerly onwards. Their nostrils pricked. Smelling coming blood. Tal brought word to Thalia that Illyians were massing to repel them. Rumour amongst the men said that the Illyians ate their enemies’ still beating hearts. The men jogged on waiting. A heavy impatience hung over them all. Thalia sat listless in her wagon. Tal reported to Thalia that Marith rode with Osen Fiolt or Alleen Durith. Thalia was sleeping in her wagon. She and Marith had not spoken since they argued.

  They reached the Nimenest five days later. The river that marked the border between the Wastes and Illyr. Marith came to tell Thalia. Ask her to come and stand on the bank of the river and see it by his side.

  “And Illyr, too, you will raze to ashes? Butcher everything that lives?”

  “This is war, Thalia! That is what war is. What did you think I would do to Tyrenae? Tyrenae deserved it.” He rubbed his eyes. “If you don’t like people dying, you can—”

  “I can?”

  “What did you think would happen in war?” he shouted. He walked out.

  They made camp in the hills a few hours’ march from the river. From the hilltops the river showed as a thin band of silver, bordered by scrubby trees. Tiny figures swirled on the plain beyond it. Their swords glinted in the sun. It felt very strange, to Thalia, setting up tents with the enemy out there so near. Marith had the troops draw up in full battle order, paraded the horses, then ordered them all to get some rest. The baggage wagons were a long way behind them still. Marith had sent Yanis Stansel back after them, with a large contingent of foot soldiers. The river was wide, fast flowing. The land beyond huge. They had little spare food. They seemed suddenly very small.

  Marith rode out the next morning to inspect the river, look over the grassy plain beyond, where the battle was to be fought. Thalia watched from the crown of the hill. Distant figures wheeled on the Illyian bank. Shouting things, waving spears and swords. Been watching them since they arrived. Several brief exchanges of arrows. At night they could see the Illyian campfires, spread on the plain like stars.

  There are a lot of them, she thought.

  “But they could come over and attack us,” she said to Tal. Marith looked so small and vulnerable, with just Osen and Kiana and a handful of soldiers. More and more Illyians were riding up to stare at him. Their first proper sight of him.

  Tal snorted. “They could. They won’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Tal pointed at the silver river. “Because they’d have to be suicidal to cross that when there’s an army waiting for them on the other side.”

  Thalia considered this. “And we cross …?”

  “Day after tomorrow, at first light. Not that I’m supposed to know that, mind.”

  Thalia went to her wagon. It smelled very strongly of marsh damp. The air outside rang with the preparation for battle. The wind shifted direction: she caught the scent of hot iron, the clang of the smith’s hammer, ensuring at the last that the horses were all well shod. A low rasping noise hung over everything. Thalia realized after a while it was the sound of an army’s worth of swords being sharpened. The air must be full of tiny fragments of metal dust.


  Hours passed. She had nothing to do. She decided to go for a walk around the camp. The king’s tent was closed off, Brychan and one of Lord Erith’s sons and another man standing guard at the door. Voices buzzed inside, too quiet for her to catch them. Then a cheer and a laugh. Kiana Sabryya came up in full armour, flanked by two attendants. Said something as she entered, stopped in the doorway and smiled at Thalia, then the leather closed behind her. Men’s voices cheered.

  Thalia thought, for a moment, of going in there. Confronting them all.

  She walked the circuit of the camp. Tal followed her, very close behind. The whole place was churning with activity. Bright glow of excitement. Like the day before a great festival, or the morning of her wedding. She laughed bitterly to herself at that. Like the day she was dedicated. The day of a sacrifice. Everyone waiting with such impatience, trying to find something to do. Soldiers’ faces smiled up at her. The great omen of their king’s prowess, the holy beauty of the Yellow Empire he had mastered and made his wife. Pain filled her. She smiled back at them smiling at her with love. The soldiers had set up a shrine place at the bank of a stream, she knelt carefully in the damp and placed a necklace in offering. Piles of green branches, piles of wet round pebbles, pieces of bark and stone and metal scratched with the names “Amrath,” “Eltheia,” “Marith,” “the king.” Locks of hair, human and horses’. Feathers. Crumbs of bread. Bird bones. Bird entrails. Smears of blood.

  There was nothing more she could do. Indeed, she rather suspected from Tal’s expression that she was getting rather in the way. Soldiers hurried about doing … things. Some horses got loose, overexcited, charged off through an encampment and almost brought down a tent. From the king’s tent came the sound of singing. She could tell from the voices that most of them were drunk.

  “The old ways of war, My Lady Queen,” Tal said. Mistaking her face. “It’ll be all right. The king’s not expecting it to be anything difficult, tomorrow. Just some fun and a bit of spilled Illyian blood.”