Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades

by Brian Staveley

  “I will … consider it,” he said unsteadily, his head still spinning. “For now, I would like a time to mourn.” Then, turning to the abbot, “May I meet you in your study?”

  “Of course,” the old monk replied.

  “This is a sad time for us all, and for you more than any,” Adiv put in smoothly. “Please don’t hesitate to call upon either of us if we can be of service or consolation. The slaves will be arriving shortly to erect your pavilion and prepare dinner. Perhaps, while you put your affairs in order, the abbot would be kind enough to ask one of the brothers here to provide us with a tour of the monastery.”

  “Naturally,” Scial Nin said. “I will have Chalmer Oleki meet you in your chambers. He knows more of Ashk’lan’s history than any.”

  “We are grateful,” Adiv replied with a nod. “Until tonight, then, Your Radiance.” Once again he knelt, his head bowed, while Ut did the same at his side.

  “Rise,” Kaden said, feeling all at once just how wearying it would be to utter that simple word again and again to men and women of all stations for the rest of his life.

  Only as they withdrew to their quarters and silence descended on the courtyard once again did Kaden realize he did not know how his father had died. Oddly, he had not thought to ask.

  38

  I’m not ready.

  The thought plagued Kaden like the fragment of an inane tune reeling about in his head. I’m not ready. He sat in the same chair from three nights before, and as on that night, the abbot sat silently behind his desk. A small fire burned on the hearth, filling the room with the scent of smoke and juniper while keeping the mountain chill at bay. Outside the windows, Kaden could hear the bleating of goats as Phirum Prumm and Henter Leng shepherded them toward the pens for milking. Nothing was different, but everything had changed. The old monk hadn’t begun falling to his knees or calling him Your Radiance, a fact for which Kaden was profoundly grateful, but there was a new distance in Nin’s steady blue gaze, as though the old abbot had already let him go.

  “I guess I won’t make a good monk after all,” Kaden began at last, laughing weakly.

  “Life is long,” the abbot replied, “and the paths through it are many.”

  Kaden shook his head at the absurdity of the past hour. “I’m not ready.”

  There. He had said it, and having said it, the other words came out in a rush, as though the stopper had been pulled from the base of a large cask. “I haven’t learned anything. I don’t know anything. You’ve trained me to be a monk, not an Emperor.”

  The old man raised an eyebrow at the outburst, but that was all. A week prior, the rant would have earned Kaden five laps on the Circuit of Ravens or a night on the Talon, and he found himself wishing the abbot would snap at him as he had in the past, tell him to stop being a child, to master his emotions, then send him out to haul water from the black pool. But you don’t send an Emperor to haul water, Kaden thought, and indeed, Nin’s response was calm and measured.

  “As I have already explained, you were not sent here to become a monk.”

  Kaden opened his mouth to respond, then closed it when he found he had nothing to say.

  “I’m doubly sorry for your loss,” the old monk began after a time. “First, because every son should have a chance to know his father, not as a child knows his protector, but as a man knows another man. More pressingly, however, I worry for the empire. As you have observed, Sanlitun died before he could complete your education. He would have taught you the intricacies of politics, intricacies of which we know nothing here. Annur is the most powerful empire since the fall of the Atmani. The fates of thousands, millions, depend on your knowledge.”

  “And the gates,” Kaden added, glancing out the window as though there were some escape in the serrated mountains beyond. “I still haven’t learned the vaniate. I can’t use the gates.”

  The abbot nodded somberly. “You’re close, very close, but close is irrelevant. If you tried to pass the kenta without achieving the vaniate—” He shook his head, gestured to the air around them with one mottled hand.

  “The Blank God,” Kaden concluded.

  “The Blank God.”

  Kaden hesitated before his next question. “Is there one here?” He asked finally. “A kenta? Could I see it?”

  The abbot shook his head. “The Ishien used to build their fortresses by the gates in order to guard them, but Ashk’lan … we don’t know who laid the foundations, but there is no kenta. If there were, your father could have visited you whenever he pleased. Many have been lost, but to the best of my knowledge, there is not a Csestriim gate within a hundred leagues of here.”

  “So … what?” Kaden asked. “I have to return to Annur—it’ll take months, even if we travel by ship from the Bend—and Adiv says I don’t have months.”

  “It’s unusual,” Nin replied. “Both your father and his father completed their training here. Perhaps we could convince Rampuri Tan to accompany you.”

  Kaden stifled a desperate laugh, but Scial Nin caught the expression.

  “You find the idea troublesome?” he asked.

  “I’m just trying to imagine holding court while buried up to my nose in gravel,” Kaden replied. “My subjects might have difficulty looking up to me if I’m constantly scouring the privy.”

  “It will be difficult,” the abbot agreed, nodding his bald head, “and yet, I can see no other way.”

  “What about Akiil?” Kaden asked, remembering his friend for the first time.

  Nin raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”

  “Can he…” Kaden trailed off. It was one thing for Rampuri Tan to accompany the delegation. It was quite another to expect Akiil to simply leave the monastery. Monks were free to come and go as they chose, but Akiil was still an acolyte. Until he completed his training, he was bound to the Bone Mountains. “Never mind.”

  “Do not grasp things so tightly,” the abbot suggested, his voice a shade more gentle than normal. “You must be prepared to let go of homes, friends, family, even yourself. Only then will you be free.”

  “The vaniate,” Kaden said wearily.

  The abbot nodded.

  “Tell me something,” Kaden continued after a long silence. “Do you really believe that there are Csestriim out there, lurking somewhere, plotting?”

  “I believe,” the abbot replied, “what I can observe. What I observe is that the world is ruled by men—good men and bad, desperate men and those with principles. I may be wrong—Ae knows it would not be the first time—but I see no Csestriim.”

  “But Tan—”

  Before Kaden could finish the sentence, the door burst open, and as though summoned by the mention of his name, Rampuri Tan strode into the room, a parchment in one hand, the strange naczal spear in the other. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his jaw was tight.

  The abbot looked over. “Kaden and I were speaking in private, brother,” he began, voice severe.

  “It will have to wait,” Tan replied curtly. “Altaf caught a glimpse of what’s been killing the goats. Down in the lower meadow. He painted it.”

  The monk slapped the parchment down on the table and spread it open. Kaden struggled to make sense of the image—black lines slashed across the page in a jumble of limbs and claws. The smith had drawn something like a spider—eight legs, heavy carapace, segmented body—except whatever killed the goats was too big to be a spider.

  “What’s the scale on this?” the abbot asked.

  “It’s the size of a large dog.”

  And the size was the least of it. The creature looked like something out of the depths of nightmare, with legs like blades or shears, savage hacking members designed by some cruel god to cut and to crush. Worse, dozens of eyes, glassy orbs the color of spilled blood, protruded from it everywhere, even from the limbs, as though they had been grafted on by some unholy kenning. Kaden had studied a thousand species during his time at Ashk’lan, creatures as strange as the albino stream crab and the flame moth, plan
ts he couldn’t have dreamed up in a year of dreaming. They had been bizarre, but not unnatural. If Altaf’s painting was anything to go by, there was something wrong about this creature. Something twisted.

  “I’ve never come across anything like it,” the abbot said after a long silence, steepling his fingers and turning his gaze to the other monk.

  “That’s because it should have been extinct thousands of years ago,” Tan replied.

  “I gather you know what it is?” Nin asked.

  “If I’m right,” the monk said grimly, “and I hope I am not, it is an abomination. An abomination and an impossibility.”

  Kaden frowned. The word abomination wasn’t part of the Shin lexicon. It implied hatred, emotion.

  Tan grimaced at the painting, as though trying to accept what he saw, then went on. “What Altaf has drawn looks like an ak’hanath.” He indicated the serrated legs, the claws. “A creature of the Csestriim.”

  Kaden drew in a sharp breath.

  “So they are still around,” he said. Then, when no one responded, “But we won. Remmick Ironheart killed the last of the Csestriim on the fields of Ai.”

  “Maybe,” Tan said.

  “Maybe,” Nin acknowledged with a weary nod.

  “And now that Altaf has seen this thing,” Kaden interjected, “this ak’hanath, you think the Csestriim have returned.” It was impossible, like hearing that the young gods had come to walk the earth once again.

  “It’s hard to say,” Nin said. For once, he almost looked his age, his eyes weary beneath his weathered brow. “I believe what I can observe, and I have not observed everything. Perhaps your umial is mistaken. Perhaps he is correct, but even so, a Csestriim creature does not mean that the Csestriim themselves still walk the earth. Certainty is hard to come by.”

  “Certainty is impossible,” Tan added, a flat, hard light in his eyes. “The world is a shifting, dangerous place. Those who wait for certitude before they act almost always wait too long.”

  “But what is it?” Kaden asked, returning his gaze to the painting with horrified fascination.

  “The Csestriim made them,” Tan replied. “No one is quite sure how. Bedisa weaves the souls of all living things, spinning them into existence at their birth, but the ak’hanath were not born. They were made.” He paused. “It should not have been possible.”

  “Made?” Kaden asked. “Made for what?”

  “To sniff out,” Tan said, his eyes hardening, “to track. To harry, and to hunt.”

  39

  Kaden almost hadn’t recognized the refectory when he entered. Adiv described the meal as “a small, informal dinner,” and the Mizran Councillor had brought only a half dozen slaves up the mountain, but they must have been run off their feet all afternoon. Long ivory banners hung from the rafters, stitched in gold thread with the rising sun of the Malkeenian line. Someone had lugged in a huge Si’ite carpet, all swirls and patterns, spreading it over the uneven flagstone floor. The rough sconces on the wall were replaced with silver lanterns, and ornate silver candlesticks graced a lacy tablecloth ringed by six settings of Basc porcelain.

  Kaden glanced warily at the empty chair to his left, wondering who would occupy it. A day ago the question would have filled him with excitement, but the odd string of visitors to the monastery had not proved auspicious, and he was reluctant to meet another unfamiliar face. The world beyond Ashk’lan, which only a few days before had beckoned so brightly, now seemed a dark place, filled with treachery and confusion, death and disappointment.

  Tarik Adiv sat just around the corner of the table to his right, leaning forward slightly in his straight-backed wooden chair. The Mizran Councillor still wore the bloodred blindfold around his eyes, although at the moment he seemed to be staring directly at Kaden, as though he could see right through the cloth. Micijah Ut occupied one of the two seats across the table, his back straight as his broadblade, which leaned against the wooden chair within easy reach. As far as Kaden knew, Nin and Tan had told no one about the ak’hanath, but then, it was the Aedolian’s job to be vigilant, regardless of the situation.

  Scial Nin joined them, of course; Adiv could scarcely leave the abbot out of his invitation, although the old monk in his old robe looked small and poor beside the massive Aedolian at his side. Kaden had insisted on Rampuri Tan’s presence as well, an insistence to which Adiv had acquiesced with far greater grace than Tan himself. “You should be studying,” the monk had said, “not feasting.”

  The rest of the Shin had been politely asked to spend the evening fasting, a request that Kaden was sure would mean some kind of retribution from Akiil. Kaden hadn’t seen his friend so prickly for years; clearly the arrival of the imperial delegation had dragged to the surface all the old animosity that their time at Ashk’lan had done so much to bury. It was hard to know how to talk to Akiil about this sudden elevation, and Kaden worried about it almost as much as he worried about leaving the monastery and returning to Annur.

  Now, however, he had to concentrate on playing the Emperor without making an ass of himself, a task he was not at all sure he was ready for. He looked over at the empty seat again.

  “Will someone else be joining us?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light.

  Adiv smiled a sly smile beneath his blindfold. “As I said, Your Radiance, we come bearing gifts.”

  Kaden had to remind himself that, while news of his father’s death was fresh as an open wound for him, Adiv and Ut, everyone from Annur, in fact, had had months to accustom themselves to the fact. Doubtless they had done their mourning long ago, and yet still, it was hard to sit down to a festive dinner with others while his own grief—or what meager grief his years of training had not effaced—was still so fresh.

  One servant stood behind each seat, and the man behind Kaden’s chair had kept his eyes downcast as he pulled it back. Kaden had taken his place somewhat uncomfortably. After eight years sitting on hard benches and fetching his own stew and bread from the kitchen, he found the habits of the imperial court alien and unnecessary. He was Emperor now, though, and certain things were expected of the Emperor.

  Despite his blindfold, Adiv seemed to miss little, and a small smile played around the corners of his mouth. Kaden was beginning to think the man not only noticed his awkwardness, but enjoyed it as well. As the silence stretched out, the minister’s smile widened.

  “It would be inappropriate for the Emperor to dine alone,” he said finally, spreading his hands in invitation before bringing them together in a crisp clap. The twin wooden doors at the end of the refectory swung open.

  Kaden’s eyes widened. Alone in the doorway, half in darkness, half illuminated by the lanterns inside the hall, stood a young woman. That would have been reason enough to take notice. After all, Ashk’lan was a monastic community and Kaden had not left it for eight years; Pyrre had already occasioned a good deal of glancing and chatter among the acolytes, but if Akiil had seen this …

  While the merchant had a certain rough elegance, the woman in the doorway looked as though she had stepped straight from a vision of opulence, a dream of beauty made flesh. She wore a long gown of Si’ite silk, the fabric red as arterial blood and supple as water. The dressmaker had known his art, cutting the cloth to emphasize the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her hip, while a separate loop of fabric ringed her neck, tied below her chin in an elaborate bow.

  Even more striking than the presentation was the girl herself: the Dawn Palace had been filled with attractive women—the wives of atreps, well-known courtesans, priestesses and princesses by the dozen—but Kaden was certain he had never seen one so beautiful. Night-black hair cascaded past her shoulders, framing a pale face with full lips and high cheekbones. She might have been one of the Nevariim he read about as a child—an impossibly beautiful, infinitely graceful creature from the tales told at his bedside. Of course, the Nevariim were long dead, if they had ever lived at all, and this woman was very real. Kaden put the children’s stories out his mind.
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  Adiv had cocked his ear to one side, as though listening to the stunned silence. After a moment he grinned, evidently satisfied with the reaction, then spoke: “She is called Triste, and the bow around her neck is yours to untie. Although,” he added, turning to face Kaden with that disconcertingly blank blindfold, “I would leave her at least partly packaged until after the meal. The Shin are famed for their asceticism, but I fear our dinner conversation might suffer if she sat here just as Bedisa made her. Triste,” he said, beckoning imperiously, “come closer that the Emperor might admire you.”

  The young woman kept her eyes fixed on the rough stone floor as she approached, but there was nothing bashful about her stride, a languorous swaying of the hips that arrested Kaden’s gaze. He stood hastily, almost knocking over his chair in the process, grabbing at it with his hand to keep it from falling and cursing himself silently for an idiot as he did so. From the length of the hall, the ripeness of Triste’s body had led him to believe she was older than him, a woman grown. This close, he could see how young she was—sixteen at the most. He wondered absently if someone had lit a fire in the hearth. He was sweating beneath his robe as though he had been running for hours.

  “You should greet the Emperor, Triste,” Adiv urged. “Be thankful you have been given to a great man.”

  She raised her head slowly, and Kaden saw that her round violet eyes were full of fear.

  “It is an honor, Your Radiance,” she said, the hint of a quaver in her voice, and suddenly he felt shame mixed with his desire, shame for drinking in the sight of her so fully and shame for thinking that she might be his, packaged up and delivered like a new suit. He bent to free her from the bow at her throat, and her perfume, a concoction of sandalwood and jasmine, made his head reel.