The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  We’d reached the end of the jut and halted, were now staring down at the remains of the watchtower. The wall, slightly shorter here than in the city, abruptly ended, stone jagged at the edge where it dropped down into a shallow hole. To the right, waves crashed onto the natural stone of the jut, slapping into rock with a hollow booming sound, spray hissing upward, errant wind blowing it into our faces occasionally, my hair flying about my face. I licked my lips, tasted salt and sand.

  Three weeks before, there had been a tower here. A short tower, only two levels, but enough to give the guardsmen a greater view of the ocean.

  Now, there was nothing but a crater littered with shattered stone and twisted wooden beams. One wall of the tower had slid to the side, a fan of stone tumbling down to the greedy ocean below.

  I felt again the surge of power that had wrought such destruction. Felt it like a thud to my chest. Slipping beneath the river, I could still sense the disturbance in the eddies and flows around me.

  Without releasing the river, I turned away from the debris, away from the ocean and the wide open threat that it represented, and looked to the city. I could see the masts of the ships at the docks, could make out movement along the wharf, even though we were too distant for me to pick out individual people. Skiffs darted back and forth across the bay, and other fishing boats bobbed on the waves closer to the tower, men leaning over the edge to haul up traps from the harbor’s bottom. And beyond, rising up from the water’s edge and outward from the River’s mouth, buildings and streets, a charred husk just above the wharf where the Chorl had landed, the palace to the south, the Dredge to the north.

  I watched the activity near the wharf for a long moment, noted the empty berths at the docks.

  “No,” I said finally. “There is something else that can be done.”

  Both Darryn and Catrell frowned.

  “What?” Darryn asked.

  I motioned to the harbor, to the city beyond. “We can build another wall.”

  * * *

  “It will bankrupt us,” Avrell said.

  “What, the festival? It’s a little too late for that. It’s already started.”

  Avrell clenched his jaw and visibly controlled himself. “No, not the festival. Building the wall.”

  I paused in my preparations to frown at him. We were waiting in the antechamber to my bedroom, Avrell seated while I tucked the folds of my shirt into my breeches. Isaiah had removed the bandage keeping Avrell’s arm immobile a few days before, declaring his shoulder healed. “What do you mean? Just build it. We have stone available in the quarry to the north, wood in the forests to the east. We have plenty of laborers in the city; just recruit people from the Dredge. The carpenters and engineers are practically begging to get started.”

  “Yes, but all of that requires money. Money that we don’t currently have. Or at least, don’t have enough of. We used a significant portion to gather enough food to get us through the winter. We have enough to continue paying the wages of the servants and guardsmen and to keep the palace running at a nominal level, but that’s it. Spending our resources on the labor necessary to build the wall is out of the question, unless you have a cache of buried gold hidden somewhere in the slums that you haven’t told me about.”

  I shot him a withering glare. “We need that wall. The Chorl attacked by sea the last time, because that’s what they were used to. According to Catrell and Darryn, our most significant weakness at the moment is the unprotected parts of the city to the east, including the stockyards and the Dredge. We need some type of defense for that portion of the city. We can’t rely on the Chorl giving us enough of an advance warning to get all of the people in those areas into the walls of the palace!”

  “Then you’ll have to figure out a way to fund their construction.”

  Before I could form a scathing reply, a knock came at the door, which opened a moment later to reveal one of the Seekers set to guard my chambers. “Marielle is here to help with your preparations, Mistress.”

  “I’m already done,” I said.

  Avrell’s eyes shot wide open, and from behind the Seeker I heard Marielle say, “What?” She shoved past the bemused Seeker, who quietly shut the door behind her. Her gaze raked over my crisp white shirt and tan breeches, my boots, the dagger at my belt. She wore a pale green dress, tied at the waist with a swath of trailing blue cloth. “You can’t possibly be thinking of wearing that to the festival.”

  I frowned in confusion. “This is what I always wear.”

  “Exactly.”

  Marielle stalked across the antechamber into the inner room, moving swiftly toward the wardrobe. “You must have something in here suitable to wear to this event.”

  I cast a surprised look at Avrell, whose face was now suspiciously neutral. “Like what?”

  “Like a dress!”

  A knot of horror clenched in my gut, all thought of the problem of the wall forgotten. I followed Marielle into my chambers, Avrell a step behind me. “I don’t have a dress. I don’t wear dresses. I don’t like dresses.”

  Marielle pulled back out of the wardrobe, a thin sleeping shift held up before her. She tossed it to the floor in disgust, then saw Avrell. “Eryn,” she said.

  Avrell seemed to understand. With a quick nod, he vanished through the door. I heard the outer door open and close, followed by footsteps moving fast. Not at a run, but close.

  I caught Marielle’s gaze, held it, my face set in the sternest frown I could manage. “I don’t wear dresses,” I said, my voice hard, edged with the deadly intent most people identified with the Seekers. “I’m the Mistress.”

  Half an hour later, Eryn stepped back from straightening the folds of one of my sleeves and said, “There. What do you think?”

  Marielle gave me a penetrating look. “It will have to do. We’re already late. If we don’t leave now, the ships will have to launch without us there to see them off or they’ll miss the tide.”

  I stood stiffly, the dress feeling awkward against my skin. What skin it covered. Yellow, embroidered at the edges as almost all of Eryn’s dresses were, it hung down to my ankles and was fitted at the waist, two servants having hastily measured, pinned, and stitched it to the right size. The sleeves were loose, the shoulders a little poofed, the neckline square. I could feel the air against my skin across my chest and shoulders. And my feet. Instead of boots or shoes, they’d forced me into some kind of sandal, but with many more straps.

  The only concession they’d made was my dagger. Strapped to my forearm within easy reach, in a leather sheath Westen, captain of the Seekers, had given me, its weight was comforting.

  I glared at the two through narrowed eyes and lowered my arms, breathing in the heady perfume they’d applied. “Are we finished?”

  Eryn smiled, smoothing the creases of her own white dress. “I think so.”

  They herded me out into the antechamber, where Keven, Avrell, Nathem, and Westen waited. Catrell, Darryn, and Regin were already down at the wharf seeing to the last minute details of the three trading ships and their escorts.

  Avrell drew in a sharp breath, began to say, “You look completely diff—” but then caught Eryn’s eye and halted. Keven looked slightly stunned and confused, as if he didn’t recognize me. Westen’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow. They were all dressed formally—the guardsmen in maroon uniforms with glints of armor showing here and there; Avrell and Nathem in the deep-blue-and-gold robes of the palace.

  “Let’s go,” I said curtly, not willing to acknowledge the nervous sweat that suddenly prickled the palms of my hands and back of my neck.

  An escort of no less than twenty guards on horseback led the three carriages down through the cleared streets of Amenkor. It was the first time I’d ridden in a carriage, but the dress made it impossible to ride a horse as I usually did when moving through the city. I found it . . . bruising, the cobbles of
the street rough, and remembered my first sight of a carriage, after killing Bloodmark and fleeing the slums, crossing the River to the lower city. I’d thought it strange, a room on wheels, so far removed from anything I’d experienced on the Dredge that I’d hidden deeper in the familiar territory of the alley until it had passed.

  Now, I stared out of the small rectangular window and watched the alleys drift by. We passed through the wards, the broken walls, just now beginning to see signs of repair, glowing in the late afternoon sunlight. A few people still remained in the upper city, most obviously heading down toward the wharf and the festival. The windows and doorways of the buildings we passed were decorated with garlands of grass or boughs of pine and aspen from the forests, tied with ribbons that fluttered in the light wind. Banners hung from poles erected at the corners of the streets, or jutted out from above shopkeepers’ doorways. The citizens of Amenkor had leaped at the news of the festival, decorations appearing within hours of the general announcement.

  Then we passed into the lower city. I turned away from the heaps of rubble and charred buildings with a grimace.

  “You saved the city.”

  I glanced up at Westen, seated across from me. He watched me intently, jostled by the rough ride. Keven and Marielle also rode with us, the others divided between the other two carriages. “Did I?”

  He smiled. “Yes. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, ever doubt that.”

  “But—”

  “No,” he said, cutting me off, shaking his head. “There is always a price—buildings, ships . . . lives. You can never escape that. You did what had to be done.”

  “But we lost the throne.”

  His smile faltered, grew grim. “Was there any other way?”

  I turned back to the window, thought about those last few moments in the throne room, in the throne itself, as the Ochean attempted to seize control. “No.”

  “Then the throne was part of the price.”

  We’d passed through the worst of the damaged streets, were coming up on the wharf. People were already crowded on the docks, and the carriage was forced to slow. Men and women danced, tankards and cups raised to the sky, laughter and screams combining into a low roar of frenzied noise. Someone slapped the side of the carriage, bellowed something slurred and unintelligible but obviously ribald into the window, then spun away, lost almost instantly. Marielle blushed and laughed.

  I turned toward her, caught her gaze, and grinned as well.

  Then we were at the wharf, the carriage drawing to a halt as the guardsmen pushed the riotous crowd back and Westen opened the door and helped me down. A cheer broke over us in a wave as Westen escorted me to the open area that had been cordoned off on one of the docks. Chairs had been brought down from the palace, along with tables now lined with platters of food, all set up on a raised platform. Music from at least three different sources merged into a cacophony of sound almost subsumed by the crowd itself, and somewhere someone was roasting a pig, the scent of sizzling meat and smoke making my stomach growl.

  Regin, a few of his apprentices, Borund, Catrell, and Darryn were waiting on the platform.

  Along with William.

  My stomach clenched and I tensed, suddenly conscious of my dress, enough that Westen glanced toward me out of the corner of his eye. William straightened where he stood at Regin’s side, as far from Borund as possible. I could feel the tension on the river between the two, saw Borund cast William a glance, then turn his attention toward the docks, toward the crowd. William was dressed in the crisp white shirt of an apprentice, with breeches and a plain long brown jacket; Regin must not have told him he was to be made a full merchant yet. Regin wore his own merchant’s jacket—dark blue, riddled with the gold embroidery that signified his power within the merchants’ guild, the symbols indicating what resources he traded. Borund’s jacket was blood-red.

  I gave Borund and William both a sharp frown.

  Regin stepped forward. “We’ll have to launch immediately, if we’re going to catch the tide,” he said. Behind him, I could see the crew of the trading ship lined up at the dock already getting ready to depart, men scrambling in the rigging, others releasing the ties to the dock. The two other ships had already pulled away from the wharf to either side, the refurbished Chorl ships that were to be their escorts waiting out in the harbor. “You should make your speech now.”

  I froze. “Speech?”

  “You have to say something to the crowd,” Avrell said. The rest of the group had come up behind us. “They’ll be expecting it.”

  I turned back to the wharf, saw the docks lined with people, packed into the small space so tightly the guardsmen were having a hard time keeping them away from the platform where we stood. The entire city must have come, including those from the Dredge. I felt a hand seize my heart, felt fresh sweat break out on my forehead.

  Someone touched my arm, leaned in close to murmur, “Make it short. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Remember, most of them are already half drunk.”

  Eryn.

  I pressed my lips into a thin line, not amused. Reaching for the river, I threw a net out over the crowd, as far as I could spread it. Not as far as I’d been able to in the marketplace when I’d condemned Yvan as a traitor, when I’d had the power of the throne behind me, but that hardly mattered. Only those closest to the platform needed to hear.

  I stepped forward, and with a low murmur, the crowd closest grew quiet. The festival continued farther out, raucous and loud, but here, on the edge of the dock, it was dead quiet.

  Raising both arms, using the net to project my voice, I said, “To Amenkor’s survival.”

  There was a pause.

  And then the crowd erupted into a deafening roar. Bells and horns from all sides of the harbor joined the tumult. Through the crash of sound, I heard the captain of Regin’s ship bellow a command, turned to see sails belling out with the wind, a familiar sense of excitement seeping through me at the sight. I watched as the trader began to pull away from the dock, echoing the movements of the other two on either side. The roar spread along the wharf in both directions, subsiding only when the ships had cleared the pier and pulled out into the center of the harbor, the sun behind them, setting the clouds afire. The musicians broke out into a dance and the wharf degenerated into a seething mass of people dancing, drinking, eating, and celebrating.

  I wondered how many of those from the Dredge were picking pockets. It’s what I would have done, if I’d even risked coming down from the Dredge at all.

  I grinned, the energy of the festival infectious.

  William cleared his throat beside me. I’d felt him approach. His presence made my skin tingle.

  “Nice speech.”

  I snorted. “Avrell is going to kill me.”

  “I know.”

  I turned, caught William’s malicious grin, and hit him on the shoulder. I saw Borund behind him, watching his back with a strange expression on his face—hope and sadness and regret all mixed together—as he spoke to Regin.

  I glanced back toward William, who stood rubbing the spot where I’d struck him. “Borund’s been busy.”

  William stilled, the grin vanishing from his face, his expression a wall. “Yes.”

  I thought William would say more, but he stood staring out at the crowd. Behind, some of those on the platform had begun to dance.

  I sighed. “What do you expect him to do, William? He can’t change the fact that he ran on the wharf. He can’t change the fact that he left you.”

  “I know that.” Tight. Angry.

  “Then what more do you want?”

  He held that anger in for a long moment, then heaved a sigh of exasperation. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “I’ve done what needed to be done for the guild. I’ve done what he’s asked o
f me. But we haven’t spoken about that.”

  I nodded. I’d seen the two on the wharf, in the palace, knew that they hadn’t. “Maybe you should.”

  William didn’t say anything. Far out in the harbor, the ships were passing through the protective arms of land that jutted into the water, slipping out into the ocean, two of the traders turning south toward Venitte, the other heading north.

  As soon as the ships passed from view, Regin broke away from Borund, headed toward where William and I stood. I straightened, William doing the same as he saw Regin’s approach.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  Regin nodded, his expression neutral. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Give me a moment, and then you can begin.”

  Regin nodded and stepped away, motioning Borund forward. William shot me a confused glance that I ignored, turning instead to face the crowd, reaching out again with the net I’d used before, capturing as many of those that surrounded the platform as possible.

  Then I nodded toward Regin.

  “Citizens of Amenkor,” he bellowed, and I could feel his voice reaching out over the noise of the crowd, reaching all of those touched by the net. Those nearest quieted, those farther out too caught up in the celebration to care. On the platform, the musicians brought their song to a close, and those dancing slowed.

  Regin waited until he thought he had most of the people’s attention, then continued. “We have all survived a rough winter, and the attack of the Chorl, as the Mistress said. And during these past long months we’ve suffered significant losses. Many of us are still grieving. But we have survived. The wharf has been rebuilt. The streets have been cleared. And we have just sent out the first ships from our harbor since the attack!” At this a cheer rose from the audience, a cheer that spread outward from the platform and beyond the net I’d placed over them. Regin nodded, raised his hand to calm the sudden enthusiasm.