All was silent, for a time. Or not quite silent – there was the heavy and constant sound of water being pulled upslope, and there was Pyre’s blood beating loudly in his veins. It was not the insult they had done him, an insult that stemmed as much from their own cowardice as from their contempt for him as a downslope thug, the demon’s poison having worked its way into their minds, having polluted everything it touched, thinking him inferior despite Edom’s words, despite Edom’s promises of and demands for solidarity. This was annoying, this was unpleasant – but this was not what Pyre held against them. It was that they had wasted his time, and his time was not his time any longer, his time was the species’, was humanity’s, and every instant of it needed to be called to strict account. He would no more be removed from his position than he would sprout wings and fly up to the First, it was nothing but posturing, and this while battle was being joined, this while his own men were fighting and bleeding and dying in the gutters.
‘Brothers,’ Edom said finally, ‘this is not the behaviour of those who would usher in the dawn. Pyre’s service these last years has been … commendable, and more than commendable. His passion and skill have seen us go from strength to strength. If this enthusiasm has, perhaps in recent days, somewhat outstripped itself, well, passion in defence of the species is not so terrible a sin, and it is one that he will no doubt seek to curb in the coming days.’
Those blue eyes firm on him, and after a moment Pyre found his shoulders slumped. ‘Forgive me, brothers. The day has been a very long one, and perhaps my patience is not what it ought to be. I will make sure to coordinate more closely with the council in the future.’
It made no one happy. Ten men left the room as distrustful of Pyre as when they had entered it, though it would be Pyre’s soldiers who saw them safely back to their homes on the Second Rung and the Third. Pyre’s soldiers who would die for them, if it came to that.
The eleventh was Edom, and for a moment, for a happy moment, it was only the two of them, Edom with his eyes that saw and understood and forgave. ‘Were those the words of a man called Pyre?’
‘They were not. They were the words of a boy named Thistle, and I regret them.’
‘The council fears you, Pyre,’ he said simply. ‘They see the esteem in which the Dead Pigeons hold you, the Dead Pigeons and half the lower Rungs. They see Pyre’s name scrawled on the walls beside our handprints, they hear Pyre’s name spoken in tones of reverence or fear. They grow jealous, and they grow frightened.’
‘Nonsense. All nonsense. I have no aims beyond the redemption of the species. The dawn and the dawn alone is my sole concern. If I thought it would bring it forward an hour or a moment or even a single instant, I would open a vein without hesitation.’
Edom’s smile hung in place for a long time. It was a steady thing, that smile, it was a stone facade, or the still surface of an underground well. ‘Of course,’ Edom said, taking Pyre’s hand and walking him towards the door. ‘I know that, have no fear. Your presence within the organisation is invaluable, none could replace you. You must be careful, Pyre, the First of His Line. It would be a terrible thing if your talents were lost to us by virtue of your courage.’
‘Martyr’s blood is fine fertiliser,’ Pyre said quietly.
‘The best,’ Edom agreed. ‘The very best.’
19
Calla stood at the stone cusp of the Sidereal Citadel, a spring breeze caressing her bared shoulders. It was more than two years since the Wright’s first attempt at directed flight had failed in fiery and spectacular fashion, a thousand clove of metal and wood and silk and steamwork tumbling from the sky, dozens dying in the ship itself, who knew how many more when the thing crashed amidst the busy thoroughfares of the Second Rung. It had not forestalled progress – the death of a few humans here and there was seen as small sacrifice to this sanguinary deity. In this, at least, the Roost was not so different from the rest of the world.
And in fairness, the Wright had perfected his marvellous creations swiftly enough. An expedition six months after the catastrophe had seen the Wright and those of his human coterie who had survived the destruction of the first aeroship spend a miraculous if brief period gliding cleanly through a late morning sky and, moreover, landing safely. In the fashion of the Eternal, whose passion for novelties and diversion of all kinds bordered on mania, this second, successful expedition had set off a panicked enthusiasm for flight among all the Lords and Ladies of the First Rung. Half of his species had come to ask for the schematic, the less skilled of the Eternal resorting to begging the Wright or some other of their brethren to manufacture one in their stead. The Prime had received his first, a miraculous-looking thing of crimson and gold that the Aubade had accepted with the most elaborate expressions of courtesy, and had occasionally even enjoyed the use of, though never in the company of his seneschal. After what she had seen, nothing short of a direct order could convince Calla to embark upon it, and the Prime was kind enough not to insist. There were few among the Four-Fingered who shared her reticence, and these days any clear afternoon saw a small swarm of aeroships floating high above the First Rung, bright spots of saffron and maroon and chartreuse against a blue sky.
Today would see the first test of a new iteration, some variant of the original the specifics of which Calla was less than clear on. A larger air sack, or a more effective means of manoeuvring. It was, like most of what the Eternal did, little more than an opportunity to celebrate their own existence, every occasion demanding a feast and a party.
Occupied with her thoughts, she was slow to notice him standing behind her, looking, as they all did, ageless and unknowable. ‘Calla of the Red Keep,’ the Wright began. ‘I hope the sun finds you well this day.’
‘My Lord of the Sidereal Citadel,’ Calla said, the Eternal greeting offered second-nature. ‘May the moon bless you with its touch.’
It was difficult and near impossible to determine the age of an Other, at least if one was not a member of the species. They reached their maturity nearly as swiftly as human children, remaining atop this sunlit peak for – who could say with certainty? The Eternal did not share the humans’ conception of, or obsession with, time, thought in generations and epochs rather than weeks and seasons. But Calla knew the Wright to be among the elder generation of Eternal, old enough to have known the Prime’s father, in some past so distant as to be scarcely imaginable. Regardless, he wore his centuries or millennia casually, his face unlined, the perfect brow, the chin as if carved from ore. ‘I take it the Prime has not seen fit to accompany you?’
‘Lamentably, the Lord of the Red Keep has other responsibilities that keep his attention occupied fully.’
‘Then you are here to play shepherd to our Aelerian guests?’
‘To accompany them, yes.’
‘He rarely leaves his demesne, these days.’
‘Except to visit the courses. He has kept up with his weapon training daily.’
This did not seem to comfort the Wright to any great degree. ‘And his … mood?’
‘There is much to weigh down the head of the Prime,’ Calla remarked after a moment. ‘Being responsible for the well-being of Those Above and Below.’
‘It does no good to brood,’ he answered. ‘And eyes turned inward lead swiftly enough to blindness. You will come speak to me, Calla of the Red Keep, if there is any … depreciation in this condition, yes? You will not hesitate.’
‘I’m not sure I take your meaning, my Lord,’ Calla said, keeping the umbrage off her face.
‘I think you understand entirely.’
And then one of the Wright’s servants called him over for a last inspection of some part of the craft, and Calla was left alone, staring out at the skyline of the First.
Though not for long. ‘That was our host?’ Leon asked from behind her, and she suppressed a smile and turned to answer.
‘That was the Lord of the Sidereal Citadel, the greatest genius and craftsman the Roost has produced in generations.’
‘I’ve had long practice,’ Calla admitted. ‘But you’re right – perfection allows for little by way of variety. Except in the eyes.’
Behind Leon, languid and unenthusiastic as ever, stood the dark-eyed Parthan slave whose name she had forgotten if it had ever been offered. He was wrapped in loose overlaid robes of a fashion Calla had never seen before, and they gave full vent to his odour, which was less than fresh. The wonders of the First Rung, the towers stretching out for ever into the distant sky, the craft that bobbed along beside them in violation of all natural law, provoked no hint of interest from his heavy chocolate eyes. He masticated aimlessly over some forgotten piece of cud, and occasionally scratched his buttocks.
‘Can he understand us?’
‘Jahan? Oh, yes. Parthan, Aelerian, Roost Speech. Probably others, though it’s hard to say with certainty.’
‘Is he mute?’
‘No, he just …’ Leon shrugged. ‘Holds speech in low regard.’
‘How long has he served the Revered Mother?’
‘How long have you served my aunt, Jahan?’.
His eyes, Calla noted, seemed always about to blink, though they never quite completed this intention. ‘Years.’ The syllables rumbled up his broad chest like bitter water from a deep well.
‘See? Years. A regular orator, our Jahan.’
‘He’s a slave?’
‘He does my aunt’s bidding,’ Leon admitted. ‘But then, so does most of Aeleria. I would think it more accurate to say he is … a sort of a counsellor.’
‘And what sort of counsel does he offer your aunt?’
‘I can’t say with certainty. My aunt keeps her secrets tight in hand, and Jahan, believe or disbelieve this at your discretion, is little given to intimacies.’
‘I believe it,’ Calla said.
‘Yes, I supposed you might. But then again, I have never had occasion to ask him directly. Tell me, Jahan, what services do you render my aunt, apart from your obvious and indisputable value as a bodyguard?
A shrug of his bovine shoulders, a blink of his false-docile eyes.
Something about his blunt disinterest, or perhaps the conversation that she had just finished with the Wright, spurred her towards uncharacteristic rudeness. ‘Strange, for I had thought that in Aeleria, women are held in low regard, and that it would be a source of shame for a man to serve one freely.’
It was an insult rather than a question, and Calla did not suppose to hear an answer. Jahan stared out at the city below and the sky above with his equanimous glower. ‘The dog bows to the jackal, the jackal bows to wolf, the wolf bows to the tiger. To whom does the tiger bow?’
‘A riddle beyond me,’ Leon admitted.
‘Bigger tigers,’ Jahan said, and his mantle of silence again descended.
Eudokia returned then, as if on cue, smiled with dubious sincerity, executed the Eternal greeting with perfect competence. ‘A pleasure to see you again, Calla of the Red Keep. I take it the Prime has chosen not to attend?’
‘The Prime is very busy,’ she said, not sure why she felt it necessary to defend him. ‘There are many matters which require his attention.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Eudokia said, turning to face the skyline arrayed before them. ‘A magnificent view,’ she said. ‘A season here and I admit I haven’t yet grown used to the city, it remains as wondrous and confusing as it was when I first arrived. What is that building?’ she asked, pointing a long finger at one of the castles gracing the skyline.
‘The House of Sweet Balm,’ Calla explained. ‘The Lady there is famed for the excellence of her gardens and orchards, and has incorporated her obsession into the very structure of her home. There are trees sprouting from her walls which were planted a thousand years before the Founding of Aeleria.’
‘And that one?’
‘The Prismatic Ziggurat,’ Calla continued, enjoying the exercise. ‘The stones were, so it is said at least, quarried from a mountain range in the very north of the continent, many weeks’ journey from Hyrcania. Its rainbow hue is the result of some geological peculiarity.’
‘And when was this?’
Calla laughed. ‘Centuries. Millennia. Who can say?’
‘And that one, Calla of the Red Keep?’ Eudokia asked, pointing towards a distant peak, taller and perhaps a bit less grand than the others. ‘What is that one called?’
‘That is the Perpetual peak, one of the very oldest of the seats of the Eternal,’ Calla explained. ‘One of the few that can be traced back to the Founding. It reaches into the depths of the mountain, down even into the lower Rungs – or such at least is my understanding.
‘And who lives there, Calla? What Lord or Lady is graced with so magnificent a seat?’
‘None reside there any longer.’
‘Such grandeur, allowed to go fallow?’
‘One of the Unforgotten,’ Calla explained. ‘That is to say, a line which has fallen out of use.’
‘By which you mean there are no longer any Eternal alive to claim it?’
‘That’s what I meant.’
‘A curious thing, do you not suppose? Surely there must be some or other who could make use of it?’
‘It would be … blasphemous for anyone not of the line to attempt it. In any case, there are more castles than there are Eternal to fill them.’
‘Do you suppose that an auspicious augury for the species, Calla of the Red Keep?’
But Calla did not have the opportunity to answer. The craft was launched without fanfare, drifting slowly from where it was anchored out into the open sky. A few links into the ether and an array of pinions sprung outwards from within the substructure, fins of silk and light wood, wings draping streamers of cloth and silver, the whole vast apparatus resembling one of the creatures that could be found in the Lord’s aquariums, something bright and beautiful swimming through the firmament. Some further artifice was then engaged, and the craft turned upward on a current of wind, listing gracefully. Leon laughed loudly, and Calla clapped her hands, as did most of the other humans present.
‘What is the range of these aeroships?’ Eudokia asked.
Calla shrugged. ‘I have no idea. You would need to ask the Lord of the Sidereal Citadel, and I think it unlikely he would offer answer. The point is a moot one, of course. Those Above would no sooner leave the Roost by aeroship than they would walk.’
‘Then it is used solely for recreation?’
‘You might at least scruple to hide your contempt.’
‘Have I caused insult?’ Eudokia asked, one hand against her breast as if the suggestion had caused her some physical pain. ‘Forgive me, though I hardly suppose your offence is warranted – is that not how they themselves imagine their existence? An endless dance, a continuous celebration of their own divinity?’
‘Do the people of Aeleria paint the surface of the sky? Do the people of Aeleria drift amidst the clouds? You speak contemptuously of creations which are as far beyond your understanding as fire is to a dog. A thousand of your people working for a hundred years could build nothing of the like.’
‘I would not think to dispute it,’ Eudokia admitted. ‘They are an extraordinarily clever species, Those Above, so clever and yet so blind. What a dream, to fly, and how pointlessly they waste their gifts!’
‘What would you use them for?’
‘For a thousand things! For transport and for communication, for surveillance, for exploration, for war. Imagine a fleet of these, carrying soldiers to the corners of the Commonwealth, putting down rebellions, appearing sudden and swift as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.’
‘You must forgive my aunt,’ Leon interrupted, in a vain effort at peace. ‘She has a tendency to slaver.’
‘What need have the Eternal for transporting troops? What need have the Eternal for any of these alterations which you are so desperate to see made? For untold millennia the Roost has stood inviolate, has remai
ned perfect and unchanging. The Eternal have followed the traditions of their forefathers for thousands of years before the Aelerians ever came to the continent, before your throne was emptied. They have no need of improvement, for the simple reason that they have already discovered perfection – they need only maintain their divine stasis.’
The Wright’s distant bubble of colour diminished towards the horizon, flitting past the Red Plum House and the Castle of the Sun’s Grace, moving further into the city, a flickering shadow running over the pedestrians of the Second Rung.
‘Stasis!’ Eudokia repeated. ‘How happy they would be if existence offered them the same courtesy! But I’m afraid it does not, Calla of the Red Keep, I am afraid it does nothing like that at all. Autumn follows summer, and winter after autumn.’
‘And spring comes next, and then we’re back to winter.’
‘True. But the leaves are not around to see it.’
20
When the priest of Eloha had finished offering the last blessing – the sentences intoned swiftly and without any excess of emotion, there being other men to bring the god’s peace to that day, that day as every day – Bas folded Theophilus’s hands across his chest, and made sure that his eyes were closed. He sat next to the body for a long time, however, listening to the moans from the other cots, the silhouettes of the dying tossed against the thin layer of cotton that surrounded the bed, which offered some semblance of privacy for the last moments of a man who had once breathed, and spoken, and walked above the ground.
It was not a surprise. Theophilus had been battling that thick, wet cough for the better part of a month, since a few days after the battle at Actria, though he never complained of it as he had never complained of anything in all the years since Bas had met him, a noble youth gone west to fight for the safety of the Commonwealth and the glory of the Empty Throne. Losing weight also, not the soft outer shell of a civilian but the gristle beneath it, the flesh draining off him until it had distorted his handsome, patrician face, made him look ten years older and hard as bruised flint.
Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Page 17
