The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  I leaned forward, possibilities leaping upward in my chest, but forced myself to settle back.

  I couldn’t risk it. Not without the river. I’d learned that the first few days on the wharf. I could still feel the hawker’s hand latching onto my wrist and jerking me around the first time I’d tried.

  Where do you think you’re going with that? he’d spat, his voice somehow greasy.

  I leaned back against the crates, brought up a hand to wipe at where I could still feel the spit on my face. I’d said nothing, too shocked that I’d been caught to speak.

  I’d never been caught on the Dredge. Not since I’d figured out how to combine the river with what Dove and his street gang had taught me. And especially not after the Fire.

  But here I had to be more careful, had to take fewer risks. All because every time I tried to use the river that spike of pain returned. I couldn’t tell if it was lessening as the days passed; it was still too sharp. So sharp that I hadn’t tried to use the river at all in the last two days.

  I pushed the nagging worry back, continued to watch the last of the crates being unloaded. The strange hairy fruit was being repacked.

  I sighed and turned back to the wharf. I couldn’t risk taking anything directly from the docks, where escape routes were restricted, but the wharf. . . .

  I slid from my place among the crates and netting and merged with the crowd.

  I spent the rest of the day on the wharf, shifting from place to place, watching the hawkers, watching the dockworkers, eyes sharp for the misplaced fish-head, the unwatched crust of bread. The crowds were slightly different here than on the Dredge. The majority of the people were the same—pale skin, darker hair in shades of brown and black, darker eyes as well—but there were more strangers on the wharf. Men with beads braided in their beards; women with feathers in their hair. Others wore cloth draped over them, secured with intricate folds and tucks, rather than being tailored. I saw a few with the blue paint smudge of the Tear of Taniece near the corner of their eye.

  The streets and alleys just beyond the wharf were almost like the Dredge as well. The alleys were lined with bundles of netting and meshed crab traps with dried seaweed stuck to them, rather than heaps of broken stone and crumbling mud-brick. The stench: salt and dead fish, rather than shit and stagnant water. I’d even managed to find a new niche—the end of an alley, where crab traps had been piled high, covered over with a stretch of tanned hide against the rain. I’d forced a hole in the center, pulled traps out from inside, until I could squeeze into the narrow opening and move around beneath the tanned hide. It was much closer to the Dredge than the upper city, where I’d been before, where I’d woken to find Perci staring down at me.

  I glanced away from the wharf, up past the buildings immediately next to the water to the slope of the hill behind. The roofs thinned as my gaze swept higher, the buildings larger, more ornate and isolated. At the top of the hill I could see three circular walls, the white stone of the palace gleaming in the sun in their center.

  In the upper city, there were almost no foreigners, and almost no smells at all. At least nothing that stung the nose or made my eyes water.

  My gaze dropped back to the wharf and I breathed in the stench of fish again.

  A man cursed and the thud of a dropped bundle hitting the wood of the wharf drew me out of my daze. Night was beginning to settle, and clouds had begun to drift in from the sea.

  It would rain tonight.

  The man squatted down, began gathering up what had spilled from his bundle, the flow of the crowd parting around him. A few items had rolled. A flat package tied with twine slid against a dock support jutting up from the planking and the undulating water below.

  For a moment, I tensed, ready to slip beneath the river, but stopped myself with a shudder, remembering the spiked headache.

  I settled back against the alley wall and watched as the man grunted, reaching for a cylindrical package that had rolled farther away than the rest. Only the flat item that had slid to the support remained.

  But the man stood abruptly, tossed the cylindrical package into the bundle, then swung it up over his shoulder and joined the crowd.

  I stared in shock at the rectangular package he’d left behind.

  Then, with a swift glance left and right, I shoved through the people to the dock support and snatched the package up.

  Without opening it, I headed back to my niche, pushing through the crowd. Once in the back alleys, I slowed, relaxed, my arms tingling.

  All I wanted was my niche.

  I slipped down an empty street, toward an alley. Night had fallen completely now, and the first drizzle of rain began to fall. I’d almost reached the end of the alley, my hands still clutching the package, when someone stepped into my path.

  I froze, water beginning to drip from the hair hanging before my face. Through the tangles, I could see the man’s grin, could see he wore finer clothes than the dockworkers, than the hawkers. Breeches without stains, a leather belt with a dagger tucked into it, a dark shirt, a cloak against the rain.

  “What have we here?” he murmured, and like the hawker that had grabbed my arm days before, his voice sounded greasy.

  I took a step back, one hand dropping from the package to the dagger hidden beneath my shirt.

  The man’s grin widened, and even before I saw his eyes focus on something behind me, I heard a sound.

  A footfall.

  I spun, dagger half drawn—

  And a fist crashed down against my face, striking hard along my jaw, so hard I stumbled backward, fell into a clutter of netting resting against a crate. My free hand groped at empty air, my head resting against the crate, a sudden dull roar filling my ears. I’d lost the package, but not my dagger. It was caught in my shirt, still hidden.

  My hand found the edge of the crate and the disorientation vanished. Blinking against the rain, against the darkness, I shifted forward, dragged myself into a crouch.

  Through the roar in my ears, I heard someone laugh, the sound dull and empty.

  Anger flared, frigid and tinged with Fire.

  I lowered my head, spat blood onto the rain-slicked cobbles of the alley—

  And felt myself slip into the river. Smoothly, cleanly. Like a knife into flesh.

  And without any pain. No spiked headache. No nausea.

  I almost cried out in joy, hope and relief surging upward into my throat, but I choked it down.

  “Come on, Cristoph,” someone said. The second man. The one who’d struck me. “Take whatever she’s got. It’s not safe here.”

  “Shut up. It’s perfectly safe here. No one will see a thing. Besides, this won’t take long.”

  I lifted my head. The alley was no longer dark. I could see the wash of red that was Cristoph, another wash of red that was the second man. The rest of the alley was gray, but with a push I slid deeper, the gray taking on edges, and deeper still, until I could see the crates, the cobbles, the slashes of rain as it fell. The blurs of red deepened as well, until I could see the cloaks, the belts, the knives that had been drawn. I could see their rain-drenched hair, their faces.

  Cristoph was moving forward, knife held ready.

  The second man’s face pinched into a frown. “What are you doing? Just take whatever she dropped!”

  “I want more than just the packages this time.”

  The second man grabbed Cristoph’s shoulder, brought him to a halt. “What do you mean?”

  Cristoph jerked out of the second man’s grip. “Don’t touch me.”

  I slid my dagger out from under my shirt.

  Cristoph turned back toward me and I could see what he intended, with a sickened heart could see how it would end.

  Amenkor—the real Amenkor—was just like the Dredge. The streets might be cleaner, but the people were the same.

  “Don�
�t,” I said, and I could hear beneath the warning in my voice an edge of pleading. “Don’t,” I said again, shaking my head. Softer this time, but more steeled.

  Cristoph grinned and I shifted my weight.

  He came at me in a rush, his knife forward but not ready to strike. He wanted me docile, immobile, not dead. At least not at first.

  I stepped to the side, just out of his path, and brought my dagger around in a hard, vicious slash, all of the training Erick had given me in the depths of the Dredge sliding smoothly into place.

  My dagger cut across his arm, high, near the shoulder. I heard him gasp, saw him stumble into the crate.

  “Shit!” the second man cried out, then stepped to Cristoph’s side, pulling him up roughly. “Stop this!”

  “No!” Cristoph hissed as he lurched out of the second man’s grasp, glanced at his torn shirt, at the stain of blood there.

  Then his gaze leveled on me. “So the bitch knows some knife-play.” With a wince of pain, he reached up and tore off the clasp of his cloak, freeing both arms.

  “Oh, gods, Cristoph,” the second man muttered, still leaning against the crate behind him.

  Cristoph ignored him. He edged toward me, eyes intent, breath coming in short little gasps through his nose.

  He lunged.

  I stepped aside again, slashed, connected with his upper back, slicing along the shoulder muscles, but not deep. Cristoph grunted, spun, slashed low, across my stomach, but I’d already stepped back, out of reach. He changed tactics, tried to slash upward. I leaned back, felt his blade slick past my neck, nick a tangle of my hair, but my own blade had already risen, had slashed across his face, along one cheek. But without pause, without even a gasp, Cristoph pressed forward, forced me to step back, to one side, pushing me—

  And suddenly I felt the second man’s presence at my back, felt it like an undertow, felt his knife, tasted his knife—

  I turned, ducking beneath one of Cristoph’s slashes, and drove my dagger up into the second man’s gut, up under the ribs, in and out with a single hard thrust, and then I stepped back, still half crouched.

  The second man tried to gasp, choked instead. The arm that had been raised to slit my throat from behind dropped to his side. He stared down at the gush of blood that had begun to seep into his shirt, that had already spread down to his breeches.

  He glanced back up and in a soft, confused, wet voice, said, “Cristoph?”

  Then he dropped to his knees, hard, and fell back, knife hitting the cobbles with a thin clatter, body with a solid thump.

  I turned to Cristoph. He’d stepped back, almost to the alley wall, and now stared down at the second man’s body in cold shock. His knife arm hung at his side, and blood seeped from the slash across his face.

  I straightened, and his gaze shifted to me, his eyes sharp and wide. He blew air out through his mouth, rainwater spluttering outward.

  “Gods,” he whispered.

  And then he ran, heading toward the alley’s entrance, leaving his cloak and the second man behind.

  I watched him go, watched the empty entrance to the alley for a long moment, then realized that someone was watching me.

  I turned.

  At the far end of the alley, at the other entrance, two figures stood, one slightly behind the other. The second man held a lantern, the light almost white in the gray.

  I let the river slip away.

  The man at the end of the alley was dressed in a blood-red jacket with gold threading. When he turned, lantern light reflected off the wire he wore on his face.

  I tensed, but the two men walked away, leaving me alone.

  I stared down at the body.

  I felt nothing inside except a cold, flat hollowness.

  I thought of the boy, of Perci.

  Looking down at the body, rain pattering against the fine clothing, a darker stain beginning to seep out from underneath along the cobbles, I said in a dull voice, “This is who I am.”

  I turned, picked up the package I’d taken. I ripped away the paper, felt the twine cut into my fingers. But I didn’t care.

  It was a book.

  I flipped through the pages, stared blankly at the black markings.

  I couldn’t read.

  I turned back to the dead body. “You died for a fucking book,” I said.

  I dropped the book onto his chest.

  Then I walked away.

  The Palace

  “Too late, too late, too late,” I mumbled under my breath as I rounded a corner at almost a dead run. The linen closet should be inside the room just ahead. But I could feel the night sky pressing down on me even inside the palace, could feel time slipping away. I should never have been held up by Avrell and Nathem, shouldn’t have paused in the concourse, staring at the immense hall, at the guards. I was going to miss the changing of the guard.

  “Stupid, stupid.”

  I rounded the corner and almost slammed into the back of another servant.

  Pulling up short, I slid back around the corner and pressed flat against the wall, listening. My breath came in barely controlled gasps. I’d sprinted from the waiting room where I’d overheard Avrell and Nathem talking.

  In the adjacent hall, I heard the servant’s footsteps pause and I held my breath. After an agonizing moment, the footsteps resumed, receding down the hallway.

  I let out a long breath, stole a quick glance around the corner to make certain the corridor was empty, then ducked to the only doorway off of the hall.

  It was open.

  I slid through it, then closed it behind me and locked it. I scanned the darkened room after my eyes had adjusted. Some kind of library, shelves of books lining three walls. A large table surrounded by chairs filled the center of the room, books stacked haphazardly on the table among numerous candlesticks and half-burned, unlit candles. Parchment and quills and ink were placed before some of the chairs.

  Against the back wall, inconspicuous among a few scattered plants and more comfortable reading chairs, sat a door with wooden slats and inset panels. The linen closet.

  I bolted across the room. The door was locked.

  Reaching into the inner pocket, I drew out the key Avrell had provided, thinking once again it was odd to lock a linen closet, then inserted the key and turned. The catch sprang and the door snicked open.

  I stepped inside, closed the door behind me and took a moment to peer through the wooden slats into the library.

  No one had followed.

  Then I turned and my heart froze.

  The closet was full of . . . of linens. Stacked floor to ceiling. No wall was bare. There was no entrance to the inner sanctum.

  Horror set in—that I’d made a mistake, that someone had betrayed me. Taking a quick step forward, I grabbed a stack of linen and yanked. The stack gave way, collapsing with a low, rustling whmmp into the small space behind the door, revealing a rough stone wall. In the center of the wall, but low to the floor, a narrow aperture glowed with torchlight coming from the opposite side.

  I drew in a steadying breath of relief, then crouched down next to the opening.

  It was three hands high, almost two hands wide, and had originally been a slot for archers on the outer wall of the castle, a window so that they could fire down onto an invading force. For some unknown reason, during the construction of the newest parts of the palace, the archer’s niche had not been filled in and sealed up. I knelt and placed a hand against the outside of the opening, felt the grit of the granite that had made up that original wall. Not the smooth white stone of the more recent palace. This stone was rough, flecked with impurities, colored a blackened and sooty gray by exposure to the elements, even though now it never saw daylight.

  Through the archer’s window I could see the small niche where the archer would have sat, ready to defend the wall, and beyond that a
hallway. Shifting slightly, so that the torchlight from the hallway lit my face in a long thin bar, I could see a doorway guarded by two guardsmen. They wore the edged clothing of the guards of the real Amenkor, carried themselves with the same blatant sense of danger and arrogance, but they wore more armor. The Skewed Throne symbol stitched to their clothing was gold. Firelight from the palace’s wide bowls of burning oil glinted off the metal of wrist guards, of the pommels of sheathed swords, and of shoulder guards.

  Perhaps I hadn’t been slowed down as much as I thought.

  I’d just turned to settle in and wait when one of the guardsmen looked toward the other and sighed. “We’ve only just started and already I’m tired. It’s going to be a long watch.”

  I fell back against the granite wall and said, “Shit,” even as the other guard grunted in agreement.

  I’d missed the changing of the guard after all.

  Drawing in a deep breath, fingering the handle of my dagger, I grunted and bit my lower lip.

  Shit, shit, shit. Now what?

  Chapter 8

  I was working the wharf, had been working the wharf for the past week, ever since killing the man in the alley. I was leaning on a support, the sounds of the docks a muted rush of wind in the background. Beneath me, I could feel the support quiver as waves slapped up against it below. The world was a wash of blurred gray, except for a narrow window of focus, where sunlight glared on a mostly-white cloth spread out over the back end of a cart. Stacked on the cloth were piles of vegetables and fruit.

  In the sunlight, the colors of the fruit stood out vibrant and harsh. Everything looked perfect, the flesh smooth, unblemished. There were no scabs, no bruises, no softened spots of decay.

  Since coming to the wharf, I hadn’t seen anyone selling fruit. I’d seen nothing but fish—fish heads, fish bones, fish guts—and crabs, which smelled like fish but tasted sweet.