The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  Conduit ready, Ottul attached it to Heddan’s shield. The younger Servant gasped as the additional strength augmented her shield.

  Then Ottul severed the conduit and stepped back. “Try!” Except it wasn’t a request. Ottul made the single word a command, without any allowance for failure.

  Marielle shot her a dark look, which was ignored, then pulled the river to her.

  I watched Ottul for a moment, her arms crossed, back rigid, face set in a partial scowl. “She reminds me of Laurren,” I said, under my breath.

  Behind me, Keven heard. “Yes, she’s a lot like Laurren.”

  I turned, caught Keven’s gaze. For a moment, I could see a reflection of Laurren’s fiery death on The Maiden in his eyes, could sense the grief I felt mirrored there.

  Then Ottul barked again, something in her own language, and Marielle threw up her hands in frustration.

  Before it could degenerate any further, a rumble of noise came from outside the manse. Keven immediately stepped forward, close to my back. All of the Servants turned in the direction of the entrance to the manse, hidden behind the corner of the building.

  “What’s that?” Gwenn asked, rising slowly.

  “Men,” Keven said. “Armored men. Marching.”

  I frowned and stood, motioned for Marielle to watch over Ottul, then headed toward the front of the manse. Keven and Gwenn followed.

  When we turned the corner of the building, the group of Venittian guardsmen had reached the front gates, were passing by in line after line, sunlight glinting off of the winged helms of those in the forefront, off of the shields and armor of all of those behind. The sheaf of wheat on a blood-red field on their surplices and shields, on the banners that flapped in the breeze from the harbor, created a blur of vibrant color against the white-and-gray stone of the buildings, walls, and streets. As we moved to the gates, the Amenkor guardsmen that surrounded it watching the force as it passed outside, the noise of thousands of feet pounding the flagstones in step grew. Rank after rank of men, an entire phalanx.

  And then they were gone, the backs of the rear guard trailing into the distance. Dust rose in their wake, settling slowly.

  “It would appear that Lord March meant what he said.” I turned to Keven as the guardsmen at the gate relaxed. “Venitte is preparing for war.”

  “Hold this, Ilya.”

  The Servant before me held out her hand dubiously, and I dropped the circular stone into it.

  She gasped, her eyes widening.

  “What do you feel?” I asked.

  Trembling, Ilya said, “I feel . . . power, Master Cerrin. As if I were linked to the other Servants, but without any conduits.”

  I smiled. “Good. Now, keep hold of the stone for a moment.”

  Ilya nodded.

  I reached out with the Sight, felt the stone like a presence, somehow more dense than the surrounding objects, more real. And it drew me, pulled at me, like a whirlpool in water, tugging at me, drawing me forward.

  Closing my eyes, I let myself be drawn into the vortex, let myself fall into it.

  The sensation was strange, as if for a moment I stood on a precipice, looking out over a vast open landscape. Something held me back, a thin veil that was easy to pierce, nothing more than an irritating nuisance, like spider’s silk. I brushed it aside . . . and then I leaped from the precipice.

  Then I was inside the stone, the texture and smell of rock—gritty and rough—surrounding me. I could feel it pulsing, then realized that it wasn’t the stone pulsing, but Ilya’s blood pounding through her body, a hot, visceral thrum that reverberated in the stone she held. And more. I could sense her, could feel her, as if the stone—as if what I’d done to the stone—had created a field around it, one that could sense the Servant.

  I frowned in thought, tentatively explored the field, reaching out from the heart of the stone, aware that the Servant’s pulse was increasing. I could feel the sweat as it slicked her palm, could feel her heart throbbing in her chest.

  And then I slid into her mind.

  Through her eyes, I saw myself slumped back into my chair behind my note- and object-littered desk, my head sagging backward, my arms hanging over the wooden arms, as if I’d been knocked senseless and tossed into the chair. I could taste Ilya’s fear, bitter, like ash in my mouth, could sense her indecision. She wanted to rush forward, to see what had happened, but her awe held her back. I was a Master, one of the Seven. She didn’t dare approach me. Not that close, not that personally.

  But I was slumped there, the posture not quite natural.

  I frowned, took a step forward, leaned in closer. I didn’t think I was breathing.

  With a lurch, I drew back, realized that for a moment, somehow my own personality and Ilya’s had meshed. I’d started to confuse myself with her, had actually started to become her, had stepped forward using her body, her flesh, her senses.

  I shuddered, and at the same time, Ilya retreated, confusion flushing her face. Her gaze darted around the room uncertainly. She hadn’t intended to take that step forward, didn’t remember taking the step forward. Her grip on the stone increased, her heart rate jumping. She was on the verge of fleeing, to find help, to escape—

  Don’t. Everything’s fine, Ilya.

  She screamed and dropped the stone, my connection to her severed as sharply as if she’d cut me free with a knife. But it wasn’t a clean cut. A few tenuous threads connected the stone to her as she fled. Through them, I could feel her panic, could feel the adrenaline racing through her body, could hear her heightened breath.

  I studied the threads for a moment, thought about leaving them connected. She’d obviously heard me through the stone somehow. Perhaps she didn’t need to be touching it. Perhaps she’d been bound to the stone somehow, was still connected, and I could still reach her.

  I hesitated a moment, then sighed and severed the threads, letting her go.

  But she didn’t vanish as I’d expected. Not completely. Something remained behind, trapped in the stone. A taste of her, of her essence. Nothing more than a hint of what she’d been, what she’d thought and experienced. A memory of her.

  I pondered this for a moment, noticed that there was still a field of awareness around the stone, nothing more than a few feet. I wondered if I could increase that area. Perhaps if the stone were larger? Or perhaps if more people were involved in the stone’s creation . . .?

  Still thinking, I attempted to pull myself out of the stone, reach back toward my own body. For a moment, the draw of the stone, that inexplicable whirlpool, kept me in place. I frowned, exerted more energy, more focus—

  And managed to escape, falling into my own body with a gasp, lurching forward from where my body had sprawled, smacking my knees into the bottom of the desk. I spat a curse, felt my heart thud once, twice, hard in my chest . . . and then I exhaled sharply, leaning forward to massage my throbbing knees.

  Laying my head down on top of my desk, I took a moment to simply breathe as exhaustion washed over me. I smelled the scent of dried flowers, of dust and stone, the pungent odor of oil from the lantern and the mustiness of old books and dried ink. But the scents were sharper, clearer, each one distinct, even though I was not using the Sight. In fact, everything had altered slightly. I could feel the stone floor beneath my feet, almost like a living thing, could sense the wood beneath my forehead, my skin prickling with the sensation. As if somehow it had all become an extension of my body.

  The stone.

  I jerked upright, pushed away from the desk, and began searching for the stone Ilya had dropped. I’d heard it bounce and rattle across the floor.

  I didn’t immediately see it.

  I slid into the Sight, felt that same density, felt it drawing me forward, pulling me into its heart. But not as strongly as before.

  I grunted, stepped up to the cabinet and bookcases against one wall and knelt. Reaching into the space beneath, I retrieved the stone . . . along with a few cobwebs and a lot of dust. I didn’t allow
the servants to clean the study.

  “Master Cerrin!” One of my servants charged into the room, eyes wild. His gaze landed on the seat behind the desk first, saw it empty, and his eyes grew wider still, his mouth opening in shock. Then I stood, and he lurched back, hand moving to ward off evil before he recognized me and darted forward. “Master Cerrin, are you all right?”

  I waved him back. “I’m fine. Something neither Ilya nor I expected to happen happened, that’s all.”

  He stepped to one side, hands wringing before him, clearly uncertain about what he should do. I ignored him.

  The stone felt warm in my hands, but even as I gripped it tight I felt that warmth fading. Felt its strange pull fading as well, as if some shift in the Threads had upset the whirlpool and disrupted it.

  And the stone . . . I would have sworn that the stone had been shaped differently when I handed it to Ilya.

  “Cerrin?”

  I glanced up, saw Garus dismiss the servant with a gesture. “What?”

  “Nothing. Your servants seemed somewhat . . . concerned, that’s all.”

  I sighed. “I frightened one of the true Servants. Ilya. She ran out of here in a panic.”

  Garus raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you’ve made progress?”

  I motioned Garus to a chair, settled back behind my own desk, and set the stone before Garus. He frowned down at it.

  “What’s this?”

  I smiled. “Progress.”

  He picked it up, as dubious as Ilya, hefted it once or twice, then set it back down. “I don’t get it. Are we going to chuck it at the Chorl? We already have catapults, and they use much bigger stones.”

  “No. We’re going to give them to the Servants. They augment their powers, so that they’ll be able to overpower the Chorl Servants in battle without the use of conduits . . . or the presence of another Servant for that matter.”

  Garus grunted. “Which means we won’t have to group the Servants together so that they can Link to overpower the Chorl Servants. We can spread them out more, cover more area, protect more of the army at one time.” He nodded, brow creasing in thought. Garus had always been the most militant mind of the Seven—the Strategist, while I was the Builder.

  He stared down at the stone a long moment, then turned toward me. “That might be enough to break the current stalemate.” But his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’s the problem?”

  I didn’t answer at first, thinking about the vortex the crafting of the stone had created, about how much effort it had taken me to break free . . . but then shook my head. “The problem is that the effects seem to be temporary. It doesn’t last. And there may be some side effects I didn’t intend.”

  “Such as?”

  “Some kind of bond is formed between the stone and the Servant. I’m not sure why.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It doesn’t seem to be. And it may present a solution to Liviann’s other demand . . . that we somehow preserve our knowledge.”

  Garus grunted again. “Then I don’t see a problem.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  For Garus, preservation of knowledge was secondary to defeating the Chorl.

  Garus hesitated, then leaned forward, his gaze catching mine, his voice taking on a darker tone, a grim tone. “We need something to upset the balance, Cerrin. We’ve held it for two years, kept the Chorl at bay, relegated to a few coastal areas, a few cities. But I’ve just learned that they’ve taken Bottan. It’s the reason I came down to see you. They’ve interrupted our supply routes south. If we don’t regain those routes before winter . . .”

  He trailed off. He didn’t need to continue. I knew how low our supplies were, knew that we could not survive the coming winter without new supplies reaching the city.

  He must have seen the understanding in my eyes, for he nodded, looked back down at the stone. “Can you make more of these?”

  “Yes.”

  “How soon? And can you make the effect permanent?”

  “I can have a dozen ready by the end of the week, another three dozen next week. But I don’t know if I can make the effect permanent. I’ll have to work on it.”

  He grunted. “Good enough.” Setting the stone down in the center of my desk, he stood. “I’ll inform Liviann.”

  I frowned at his retreating back.

  Liviann.

  It felt as if she’d seized control of the entire Council of Seven. Everyone reported to her. Everyone sought her approval.

  Then, my gaze fell on the stone. Reaching forward, I picked it up.

  How could I make the effect permanent?

  It would require something more from me, something significant.

  I closed my hand over the stone, held it to my chest as I leaned back into my chair. I sighed, closed my eyes as weariness coursed through me, and immediately the vision of Olivia enfolded me. The veranda, the smell of her hair, the heavy weight of the sunlight, my daughters’ laughter.

  My fist tightened on the stone.

  Perhaps it would require something drastic.

  Perhaps, to make the effects permanent, it would require something . . . truly permanent.

  Chapter 11

  The dagger blade slashed across my field of vision, coming within a hair’s breadth of nicking the bridge of my nose.

  I grunted, kicked out hard toward Westen’s chest with one foot, the river pulsing around me, the White Fire inside me leaping up in warning at the Seeker’s slightest move. Sweat flew from my hair as I spun, my foot connecting with nothing but air. I used the momentum to carry me up and around, one hand raised to block Westen’s downward thrust, catching his forearm and halting it, the tip of his blade hovering a handspan above my shoulder. The force of his blow knocked me down to one knee before him, and I hissed as my kneecap ground into the flagstone floor.

  Here, in a secluded room in the bottom of the manse that Lord March had given us, the stone was older, grittier. I could feel its texture through my breeches as Westen put his full strength into lowering his dagger even further. Sweat dripped from his nose, his chin, his hair already matted to his head, his shirt sticking to his own skin.

  But his face was calm. No strain showed there.

  “Report,” I gasped.

  His dagger lowered an inch. Another. His arm began to tremble.

  But he smiled.

  “The Seekers have found nothing so far.”

  I frowned, almost absently gathered a portion of the river before me, and punched it into Westen’s chest.

  He barked at the blow, leaping back, one hand raised to halt the sparring match. I stood slowly, one brow arched in question as I wiped the sweat away from my face. We’d only been working for an hour. Westen usually worked me harder than that.

  But now he shook his head, his expression serious. “We’ve been watching Lord Demasque and Lady Parmati for a week now. The Seekers should have seen something.”

  “What have the two been doing?”

  “They spend most of the time either inside their own estates, or within the Council chambers. Lord Demasque has a preference for a particular . . . establishment situated near the docks. He usually stops on his way to his own estates on the northern cliff face of the channel.”

  “Conducting business?”

  “Not that kind of business.”

  I nodded.

  “And Lady Parmati?”

  “She spends most of her time in the Merchant Quarter when not in the Council chamber itself, although she also has an estate on the northern cliff face, closer to the city than Demasque’s. She’s been to two of the other Lords’ estates—Dussain and Aurowan—as well as to a meeting with Lady Casari.”

  “What are the meetings about?”

  “The Seekers can’t get close enough to find out. Or at least, I haven’t ordered them to get that close yet. It would require . . . skill. And involves risk I did not think you were willing to take yet.” He hesitated, then added, “The meet
ings are held at the heart of their estates. If Lord March—or any of the Council of Eight for that matter—discovered one of Amenkor’s Seekers that deep inside one of the Council member’s personal estates—”

  I cut him off with a gesture and he subsided. “What about Lord Sorrenti?”

  “Lord Sorrenti has done nothing unusual. But he is . . . more difficult to watch. He’s a Servant. The Seekers are wary about getting too close. We know very little about him, only what Avrell was able to tell us from the few times he’s been to Venitte. And the last time he came was almost ten years ago.” Westen hesitated. “Are you certain he’s who we should be following?”

  I thought back to Sorrenti’s arrival at the Amenkor estate, thought back to his presence as he stood over Erick and removed the spell. Since then Erick had improved, to the extent that he currently sparred with the other Seekers. He hadn’t returned to his self-appointed guardianship of me, leaving that to Keven still, but it wouldn’t be long before he did.

  “Yes. Lord Sorrenti knows where the other throne is. I could feel it the moment he stepped into Erick’s room behind Brandan Vard. I could feel it in the Council chamber. He carried the weight of the throne around with him. He’s the Master of the Stone Throne, and if he’s here, in Venitte, then so is the throne.”

  For a moment, I considered telling him about the dreams—no, the memories, of Cerrin. Of the others as well, but it was Cerrin’s memories that seemed the strongest. They’d become more visceral, more real. And somehow they were building, reaching out, drawing me in. Like the subtle pull of the stone that Cerrin had felt, luring him toward that vortex, that whirlpool of power.

  But instead, I said, “I asked a few discreet questions, had Avrell and William question a few of their associates here in the city. Lord Sorrenti hasn’t left the city in the last twenty-five years.”