The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3)

by H. Anthe Davis

  The pre-Mirrimane wardcraft tomes were enlightening, but not for what they said about Enkhaelen. Geraad had opted for the Warder path after six years of mentalist training, and had since spent twenty-two years in study and practice, but he had only ever been exposed to the Modern Consolidated style with its rigid terminology, formalized gestures and theory of interchangeable sectionality. In Modern Consolidated, all but the skintight wards were built in panels of energy, whether square or wedge or hemispheric. This made them easy to piece together around large groups or large objects, or use in a multi-mage gestalt, or replace damaged portions on the fly. However, they were weak at the joints and had limited energy-fluidity; power dedicated to one panel could not be shifted to another without seriously compromising the first.

  Pre-Mirrimane wardcraft was messy, cluttered and pieced together from at least four different sources, but it contained all of Modern Consolidated plus so much more. Layered skins, flowing wards, bioselective permeability, ambient regeneration, and entire new disciplines like reformative envirogenesis and subdimensional architecture. It was like Mirrimane had chopped off the entire top tier of true wardcraft and sent the Warders back to remedial classes, where they practiced the techniques most useful to the Imperial war-machine and forgot about theory or innovation.

  Suddenly everything that any military Warder had ever complained about made sense. In their drive toward efficiency and ease of training, the Silent Circle had lost half a millennium of progress that the rest of the world still remembered. No wonder they could not hold the borders.

  It took Geraad a great effort to put those books aside. He wanted to marinate in their knowledge thoroughly, but it had to wait, because he had more important things to read.

  The histories.

  Since his entry into the Citadel at the age of ten, he had been trained and educated to the highest Imperial standard. No common citizen had such resources to draw on, such books and teachers and lectures and experiments. No one in the Empire knew more about the world than a Silent Circle mage.

  And yet, according to these histories, he knew nothing. Not only did the ancient histories astound him with details of the Ogre Dominion, the Northern Uprising, the Gods' Wars, the Five Great Empires, and the devastating Great Wars which had culminated in the Sealing, but the modern histories were full of things he had never been told.

  Like the Heartlands wars of unification.

  With his memory, it was easy to recall what he had learned in lectures and compare it to the text. The disparity frightened him. The oldest Heartlands tomes were critical of the growth of the Risen Phoenix Empire, comparing it to its fallen precursor-empires and referencing a Firebird cult from the Khaeleokiel mountains. They detailed the political and cultural upheavals going on in the Heartlands kingdoms: kings being deposed, shamans blamed for outbreaks of plague, the mass assassinations of influential mages and anti-Imperial activists.

  The later volumes changed their tunes dramatically. They waxed ecstatic about the Emperor and his expanding influence, about the glory of the Imperial Light, about the rightness of reunifying the Heartlands—and perhaps every land—under a single banner. It was those that the Valent curriculum followed.

  Geraad knew a mindwash when he saw one. He'd just never had the context before.

  And he still didn't. For all the maps and footnotes, these tomes were like artifacts from a distant world, difficult to root in his reality. Too many place-names had changed, and too many borders: Daiki to Daecia City, Anan Kingdom to the protectorate of Amandon, Tevin Kingdom to Trivestes and part of Riddian. It was difficult to keep the details straight even with his mentalist talent. And the people referenced, and the notes from old folklore and dead faiths...

  He needed to talk to Enkhaelen.

  It was a bad idea, obviously. He had gone behind the necromancer's back to get this knowledge, and who knew what would happen if he admitted that? But a part of him sensed that this was no accident, no stroke of luck. Perhaps Enkhaelen didn't want to be what he was. Perhaps he would be willing to talk—or to change.

  I'm quite the optimist, he thought sourly, but forced himself up from the bed anyway. He couldn't just ruminate. He had to take the chance while he saw it.

  Rian was elsewhere, exploring, so he did not need to dissuade the goblin from keeping him company. He passed a few black-robes in the rune-lit halls and exchanged polite nods, or sometimes a greeting; no one tried to bar his way, or questioned where he was going. Even as he headed down the hall to the laboratory, the black-robes he encountered were either pleasant or disinterested, and the doors opened at his touch.

  The traffic in the hall told him that Enkhaelen was still in residence and finished with his grand spell, so he wasn't surprised to see the laboratory door still open, or the collection of black-robes beyond its arch. He peeked inside, cautious, and saw Enkhaelen closing down a portal-frame while several black-robes used the empty slabs as desks on which to fill out forms.

  “Leave them on the far counter when you're done,” Enkhaelen said blandly, obviously repeating it. “Then if you're not seriously injured, you're dismissed.”

  A black-robe placed her finished parchment on the indicated pile, set her quill and ink-bottle among the collection, then headed for the door. Geraad slipped in to let her pass, and she shot him a weary smile; one side of her face was scorched and peeling, with black veins running up from under her collar as if to reach it, and she trailed the distinct scent of burnt hair.

  “Iskaen?” said the necromancer.

  Geraad twitched, then steeled himself and approached. Enkhaelen's brows were up, his glacier gaze mild, and as Geraad halted just beyond arm's reach and fumbled for the right words, he smiled. “Office time, hm? Very well. All of you! Quills down, you're dismissed!”

  There were some murmurs of question, but no one disobeyed, and in short order all the parchments were stacked and the black-robes gone, the laboratory door spiraling shut behind them. Geraad stayed in place throughout, though he couldn't help but clasp his hands behind his back, wringing fingers together.

  “Come,” said Enkhaelen, heading off among the slabs. “You have something to ask?”

  “I— Yes, master. I have lots of things, actually, but I—“ Don't want to die. “—Don't wish to offend with any of them...”

  “I am not easily offended. Just don't ask about this.” Enkhaelen's gesture seemed to encompass the lab, the corpses, the casting circle and all the complex beyond. “Or that,” he said, pointing upward at the Citadel.

  Though disappointed, Geraad nodded; the Citadel seemed the least of his concerns. “It's more about...the Palace. And the Empire.”

  “Ah.”

  “I learned our history in my introductory courses, but I wonder if—“

  “It's fabricated.” Enkhaelen spoke flatly, motioning for Geraad to stay at one side of a covered slab as he moved to the other. There, he folded back the overlapping edges of the two sheets to expose a corpse's torso, the chest-cavity emptied of organs. A partial spiderweb of silver thread ran between the exposed ribs. Geraad recoiled.

  “Not completely,” the necromancer continued. “And not far beyond the norm, either. Most governments manipulate the facts of their creation. Bloody coups become revolutions, oppression becomes peace-keeping, genocide becomes righteous conquest.”

  Frowning, Geraad said, “I worked for Count Varen for decades, so I've seen my share of politics. But the Emperor...I though he was a man. The Scion of the Light, not...”

  Enkhaelen reached into the chest cavity to withdraw the loose end of the silver thread. As he spoke, he began winding it between bones and piercing it through muscle, and Geraad looked away, stomach roiling. “He pretended, initially. Back when the Empire was new-born. You wish to know what I know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep in mind that much of it is hearsay. I've been around a while, as I'm sure you can guess, but I'm not omnipresent, and there are...gaps. But I know that this started long before
the Empire's official founding. You've heard of the Seals?”

  Geraad nodded, then said, “Actually, I had a question about that too. I remember them from class, but we learned that they were made to keep out Night Herself—that the God of Law and the God of Light forged them to protect us. That the Sealing Disasters were Night's last strike against us. But I've...recently read more and found talk of a Portal and an Outsider and...well, really it's all different.”

  Enkhaelen chuckled. “I remember those classes. Such crap. There is no 'Night Herself'.”

  “But how do you explain the Eye of Night?”

  “I don't know, I'm not an astronomer. Perhaps she's a conflation of the Dread Triad. Do you know much of the gods?”

  “I know Law, the Light, ah...the witch-goddess...the Shadow Lord...”

  “Three great gods. Six great goddesses. Half of them in the Trifold, the other half—the Nemesis of Seeking, the Blood Goddess of Frenzy, the Lady of Ruin—in the Dread Triad. A few lesser deities, mostly the Blood Goddess's so-called sons: Daenivar of Nightmares, Rhehevrok of Massacres. And then the quiet gods. Surou, Kurthiten, Moon-Shadow.”

  Geraad blinked. “I had no idea.”

  “Not many do. Why would we, when the Imperial Light is all we need?”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Geraad said, “What does this have to do with the Seals?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. The gods didn't do it; we did.”

  “We?”

  “A group of mages, spiritists, a few priests and wraiths. No direct godly intervention; that's been outlawed since the Gods' Pact.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “What did the histories tell you about the Portal? The Outsider?”

  Geraad squinted, consulting his memory. “That it wasn't dark but radiant—so bright that it could be seen from hundreds of miles away. That its hordes swept across the empire of Lisalhan and threatened all the others, and when the Seals came down, that whole territory and all of the invaders were crushed into the sea.”

  “Did it mention that the Lisalhanians made the Portal?”

  “Yes. By accessing old forbidden magics. I'd thought they were Dark cultists, but they were mages?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And the Outsider was—“

  He stopped, dire heresy on the tip of his tongue. It was too much of a leap, too fantastical—too horrific—to entertain. Just because the Outsider was described as radiant, it didn't mean...

  “For a long time, the Seals stayed closed,” said Enkhaelen. “Empires rose and fell, people fought as they always do, and the world moved on. But the Seals weren't perfect. There were gaps—tiny gaps, just big enough for whispers to slip through.

  “And the Outsider was still there. Watching, waiting, trying to get back in. It was only a matter of time before someone listened. Actually—“ Enkhaelen chuckled. “Someone probably listened immediately. Not all the Outsider's cultists died in the wars or the disasters. But there were only a few people who had influence over the Seals, and as the mortals died off, the pool of candidates shrank to one: the Ravager.”

  “Who?” said Geraad. “Or...what? I've seen references, but...”

  “A spirit. A shard of the original Great Spirit that gave birth to all animal life. Once it had been like a god, but by the time the Seals were made it had lost much of its relevance and was more of a...roving personality. Still, it was powerful, and had participated in the Sealing—designed it actually. And most importantly, it was bound to the will of its vessel.

  “The Outsider whispered to the vessel. The Outsider made...offers. And the vessel used the Ravager to tamper with the Seals and let the Outsider back in.”

  Cautiously, Geraad looked to Enkhaelen. He was fixated on his work, head bent, unruly hair caught back by silver pins, and the bland detachment in his voice could have meant anything. As desperately as Geraad wanted to ask, Was it you? he dared not.

  “When was this?” he asked instead.

  “Four hundred and thirteen years ago.”

  “But the Empire isn't even half that old. What does it have to do with—“

  Enkhaelen held up a hand for silence, some kind of hooked tool pinched between his fingers. Geraad hadn't seen him get it. “Remember the Outsider's cultists? There were never many, and they were endlessly persecuted, so by the time the Outsider returned, there were only a few left hiding in forsaken little enclaves. It takes time to build an empire from nothing.”

  “But the Portal... Couldn't the Outsider just have come through?”

  “The Portal is still shut. The vessel didn't remove the Seals, just shifted them. The Outsider had to work through its agents. Luckily for it, the War of the Lion and Eagle had just ended, so the land it entered was a shambles.”

  Now that was a reference Geraad understood. The War of the Lion and Eagle had been the last gasp of two empires: Ruen Wyn, which had stood where the Risen Phoenix Empire was now, and its western enemy Altaera, since renamed Jernizan. Ruen Wyn had been a degenerate land full of spiritist tribes and beastfolk, hostile to the arcane arts; according to his history classes, the Silent Circle had sided with Altaera in the war and helped break the will of the beasts, allowing Altaera's civilizing and humanizing forces into the Heartlands.

  Most of the population of Wyndon, his home, were direct descendants of those Altaeran soldiers and settlers. They had driven the barbaric natives into the mountains, and had been consolidating their hold on the inner Heartlands when the main body of the Altaeran Empire collapsed into civil war. Cut off by the Rift and abandoned by their leaders, the settlers had retreated to their fortresses in Wyndon to resist the depredations of the mountain tribes, now called the Corvish—a struggle that continued to this day.

  Still hesitant to connect this Outsider with his god, Geraad said, “I thought the Altaerans brought the Light here with them. Back before they started worshiping a cat.”

  Enkhaelen shook his head. “They were the people of Law, not Light. They turned to Athalarr the Lion when Law was slain. The true followers of the Light are in the south—what's now Yezad and Padras.”

  “The heretics we're fighting now? But that's the False Light.”

  Enkhaelen glanced up slightly, expression wry. “Is it?”

  “You've seen the Emperor. You've experienced his...his... You said he's a god.”

  “Mm.”

  “Are you saying it's a lie?”

  Looking back to his work, Enkhaelen said, “I'm not a follower. I don't really...understand religious feeling. And I haven't met many gods. Is he powerful? Yes. Is he worshiped? Obviously. Can he grant his followers' desires? Sometimes. Is this what makes a god?”

  Geraad shook his head. “It's beyond that. You don't feel anything when you think of the Light? Or when he...looks into you?”

  “Most times, I don't feel anything at all.”

  Now that was a lie. The sheer force of Enkhaelen's emotions had nearly overwhelmed Geraad in the Palace, and there was animation to his expression even when his mood seemed muted. A corpse-face should have been the perfect mask, but the man could not contain himself.

  “Well, about the cult?” Geraad said finally, retreating to safe ground.

  “Cult. Yes.” Enkhaelen leaned in with the hooked implement to tug at the wires strung between bones, then twist them tight. “The cultists were mostly in Daecia Swamp, where there happens to be a Seal. Perhaps the Outsider had been whispering to them through it. But with the Outsider's return, they started building, expanding, recruiting. Spreading their influence to the neighboring settlements.

  “These are the parts I'm not sure on. I know that there were plagues, mostly blamed on the Swamp Hag and other spirits. I know that the swamp expanded, and that Daecia City was relocated because of it. I know that the whole kingdom progressively cut itself off from the outside world, and when it reopened its borders, it had a king named Aradys.

  “I know that the Long Darkness came near the middle of his reign, which had already seen
mass murders of Silent Circle mages and the death of the God of Law. I have heard that he brought the Light back to the world with some great ritual and subsequently declared himself Risen Phoenix Emperor. I know he spent another forty years wearing that title, bending the Heartland kingdoms to his will, and presiding over the Shamanic Purges before passing the crown to Aradys II.”

  “I've heard of the Shamanic Purges,” said Geraad. “Because the spiritists had been killing the mages, right?”

  “I wouldn't know.”

  “So you weren't...um. You weren't there?”

  “Why would I have been there, Geraad?”

  “Because—“ You use your minions to kill mages now. “Because you're old enough.”

  Enkhaelen smiled slightly, not unamused. As nervous as Geraad felt about these questions, the necromancer's current mood made him feel like they were permitted. Like he wanted to talk. “'Old enough'... Yes, true. But no, I wasn't there.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask...why you're here now?”

  Enkhaelen gestured around the laboratory. “I have my uses.”

  Questions swarmed—about the corpses, the black-robes, the Citadel—but Geraad knew he couldn't ask them. Instead, he said slowly, “Like what you did to those women in the Palace?”

  Tension crossed the necromancer's face, and Geraad's stomach dipped. “Have you ever worked with the Imperial specialists?” said Enkhaelen. “Or the White Flame?”

  “No.”

  “Then you haven't seen them—my projects. They call me 'Maker'. The Emperor wanted me to recreate his old subjects from the flesh of his new ones, so that they would be ready for a brighter, harsher world. And I tried. I enjoyed the process. Designing, adapting, troubleshooting, field-testing. It was a great challenge.

  “But I...made some mistakes. And when I tried to fix them, he wouldn't let me. He didn't care about the damage involved, as long as his subjects worked to his specifications. And now my errors have become the way. No one here has ever known anything but the Light.”