The Tower of Living and Dying

by Anna Smith Spark

  “No. You’re not.”

  “No. It’ll be hard going, Thalia. A fast march, horse pace, no time to rest. Mud and rain and cold, I should think. We need to march light, keep the baggage to a minimum, but we’ll need to bring so much with us. If the reports are even half accurate …” He looked at his lists again. “Which is why it’s making my head hurt so much. But I’ll have some kind of wagon made up for you. A little queenly palace on wheels. Books and blankets and thick furs, servants, a bath tub.”

  It was odd, hearing him talk like this, Thalia thought. He had been trained in these things, he knew them. He was a king. Still strange. “I will be fine,” she said. “Stop worrying.”

  He grinned at her, no longer looking kingly. “I’m not worrying. I’m putting more thought to the logistics. Also, I might like the occasional bath and fur blanket myself. It’s such a wretchedly long way.” A thought seemed to strike him. “You haven’t even asked me where we’re going yet.”

  “I don’t need to ask.” Amusing that it hadn’t occurred to him already. Marith and Osen and Lord Stansel, they made war plans, counted off horses and ships and soldiers, thought they were being so secretive.

  “Where are we going, then? Tell me.”

  “Oh, I wonder. I wonder … Where in all the world would he who is called the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane go? He refuses to sit at rest by his hearth in his new won kingdom, enjoy his throne for a while, he wants to drag his new wedded wife through freezing cold mud at a fast hard pace. So where is it he is going, so urgently, so impatiently, that he cannot wait even a little while but must be rushing off to? Where is he going? Shall I tell you?”

  His face was glowing. He looked like a wide-eyed boy. Wriggling in his chair with excitement as she spoke. “Tell me.”

  Thalia said, “He is going to Illyr. He is going to win back Amrath’s kingdom. Amrath’s city. Ethalden. The Tower of Life and Death. Yes?”

  “Illyr. Ethalden, Amrath’s fortress, His temple, the seat of His power, the mustering place of His armies, the place where Eltheia was crowned queen, where Altrersys was born. The most beautiful building that was ever raised, the most glorious, it shone like a star, men fell down and wept at its beauty.”

  Thalia smiled. “I have read of it, Marith. The people of Sorlost, however, refuse to believe it could have been as beautiful as they say.”

  “The people of Sorlost are barbarians. And wrong. As you will see.” He leapt to his feet, almost dancing around the room. “Even its ruins are beautiful beyond imagining …” His eyes closed: he was seeing it, Thalia saw, seeing it as he spoke, as he had dreamed it. “Its walls were gold and mage glass. Its towers rose shining in the sun. Its gates were carved of white marble. Its chambers were adorned with silk and fur and gems. Throne rooms, banqueting halls, pleasure gardens, crystal fountains, orchards sweet with ripe fruit. A spire of pearl and silver like a knife blade, reflecting the fast running waters of the river Haliakmon and the breaking waves of the Bitter Sea. The city around it was razed to dust, so that not one stone of it now stands. But the ruins of the fortress itself remain. And somewhere in the ruins is Amrath’s body. To see Him! To bury Him, finally, after all this time, in a fitting tomb! Always, we have dreamed of it. Every child of the Altrersyr line. To rule in Ethalden, to raise again Amrath’s walls, Amrath’s throne … Oh, Thalia! To do it! Actually to do it!” His eyes opened joyfully, he pulled her to her feet also. “We will do it. You and I!”

  Five times, the Altrersyr kings had tried to retake Illyr. Nevethyn Marith’s grandfather’s failure just the last in a long series of defeats. Hilanis the Young raised a fleet of two hundred ships. A few planks of timber had been found floating far out in the Bitter Sea by Ithish fishermen. Something that might have been the mast of a ship. The wood was an odd colour. Spongy. Bad smelling. Unpleasantly broken up. Tareneth Whole Skin marched across the Wastes on foot. A hundred thousand men, he had with him. Three thousand at last came back. Did not speak of what they had seen.

  On the first day of the second moon after the last night of Sunreturn, the first day of the month called in Pernish Ianarm, the month of beginnings, in Literan Semerenthest, the month of the unchanged, Marith was crowned again at Malth Elelane with the crown of Altrersys, a fine plain band of silver like a ribbon around his head. Every lord of the White Isles came to do him fealty; Selerie came again from Ith, accompanied this time by his wife, thin and sour, heaped with gemstones, gold bullion crusted on the hem of her dress. She drank a cup of quicksilver every night and every morning: it turned her skin pallid, sparkling, her hair white and crisp as frost.

  Feasting after, three days of it, the fortress and the city running wild, fires lit again in the streets and in the courtyards of Malth Elelane, fires burning blue and smokeless on the grave mounds of the kings.

  On the dawn of the fourth they rode down to the ships at Morr Town harbour, to sail west to the coast of Ith.

  As before at Malth Calien, they sacrificed a horse, raised its body up on wooden stakes. Marith’s face was brilliant with fresh blood. The lords marched beneath it to the ships. Thalia as she passed with her guardsmen felt the metal of a knife hilt hard in her hand. The gulls screamed as they circled. A memory of utter darkness and utter cold.

  An ill omen, she thought, remembering the last time.

  “What is done,” said Osen Fiolt. “What is always done. It worked out well enough in the end, did it not?”

  Marith had given Osen everything Tiothlyn had owned, as well as all the lands that had belonged to the Relasts.

  “Yes,” she said, “it worked out well enough in the end.”

  Thirty ships jostled in the sweep of Morr Bay, riding white foam breakers. Low and fast, thin in the water, whipping like snakes. War ships, without shelters: even the king and queen and the great lords of the White Isles must sit all day uncovered around the oarsmen’s benches. The sails were the black-red of their king’s hair. More ships would come to meet them from the islands as they passed them. Two hundred, in total, promised to the king.

  Their masts made a forest. The water sang where their prows cut the waves.

  They sailed quickly, borne on Ranene the weather hand’s magic. Very soon they were clear of Seneth, racing past Third Isle. When they rounded Toreth Head, the scar of Malth Salene was visible in the earth, the land opened and bleeding. Thalia turned away from it. From Marith staring. She looked instead at the peak of Calen Mon, imagined she saw eagles dancing there on the wind.

  A seal head appeared in the water, watching them. Thalia thought: a selkie?

  “I’m glad I got to see it again,” Marith said softly, half to himself. “I gave him a great funeral pyre, in the end, didn’t I? Enough to satisfy anyone. Raised a mound such as will be remembered for a thousand years. If I should die, I used to want—” He blinked, ran his fingers through his hair, smiled. “Seserenthelae aus perhalish. Night comes. We survive. No matter. Let’s go to the prow instead. See what’s coming, not what’s gone.”

  Third disappeared beneath the horizon. A shout went up from the sailors, that they were in landless waters. No more land, now, until they reached Ith. They would disembark there and march on Illyr across the mountains. Even with a weather hand, Marith had told her shortly, no one sailed to Illyr. No one. The very sea itself was cursed. In Ith Selerie would give them further troops, more horses, supplies. Five days sailing, once they left Third, even with Master Ranene’s wind. Landfall north of Tyrenae, ten days across the mountains, another thirty perhaps across the Wastes.

  “Hail to the sea!” the sailors shouted. “Sea and sky, have mercy! Sea and sky and wave and wind!” The ship’s captain threw a cup of sweet water into the sea from the prow. “Have mercy!”

  A wooden cage was brought up to Marith. Within it, a hawk. Its taloned feet and its beak were bound with leather thongs.

  “What is it?” Thalia asked.

  “Sacrifices.” Osen laughed. “Good omens.”

  Marith opened the cage, drew out t
he hawk. It beat its wings, struggled violently, tried to bite and tear at his hands. Osen passed him a bronze knife.

  “Sea and sky and wind and wave,” said Marith. The hawk stopped struggling. Lay still in Marith’s hands. Marith cut its throat like the horse; Osen caught the blood in a gold cup. The blood was poured into the sea. A sailor scaled the mast and hung up the bird’s corpse.

  Thalia looked back again a moment towards the White Isles and there was bright light behind them on the water, golden and warm.

  A night at sea.

  Tents were rigged up across the decks, but there was little comfort to be had, packed in so tightly, the work of the ship to be kept to, lights on the water, cold as there could be no fires, and the ships and the tents and the men smelled. Even the king and queen must sleep rough with the men. Selerie of Ith and his wife had their comforts, on board their ship that was not a ship of war. But Thalia lay awake a long time listening to the creak of timbers, the voices giving watch, the sounds of the water, the sense of things moving under the ship. For a little while at first darkness the phosphorescence had come to the water in a thousand colours. A thousand colours too the light of the stars. These tiny ships on the vastness of the ocean. Things beneath the skin of the water of which men could not dream. A thousand years of darkness, sinking down. Some said the seas had no bottom, went on for ever into the depths. Thalia sat up suddenly, stifled. Marith lay sleeping, breathing slowly, his hands moving to his face. She made a little light.

  His sword lay beside him, the jewel in its hilt winking in the light. Joy, he had named it. She touched it. Cold. He had drawn it at his crowning and she had seen it glowing in her mind.

  She only need raise it. Plunge it into his heart. Roll his body over the side of the ship into the endless water. His beautiful hair streaming out in the currents. Down and down and down. It was not too late.

  She lay down again beside him, pressed her arms around him, felt him stir and smile at her touch.

  Five days sailing. The empty sea. The empty sky. The creak of the sails. The taste of salt spray.

  Eight days sailing. The mountains of Ith to the west small as a painting, rich in quicksilver and copper and gold and tin. Thick and darkly forested. White snow on the highest peaks. Dragons danced once between their summits, wild in the wind. The old kings of Ith tried to tame them, bind them to their will as the Godkings of Caltath their forefathers had once tried. Undyl Silver Eyes tamed the dragon Aesthel by feeding it the flesh of his own children, until his sister killed both man and dragon with a golden sword. Canenoth the Fool thought to do likewise, but the beast was wild and would not be broken, and half of Tyrenae burned. On the flanks of Mount Pelelion are riven great gorges, that are said to have been made by its body as it finally fell and died.

  Ten days sailing. The rich wooded hills of Ith. They made land towards evening in a wide bay six days’ hard march north of Malth Tyrenae. A village, half cut off from the land around it by marsh and a deep channel running out to a spithead of shingle, a long beach of pale muddy sand. At the very tip of the shingle, caught against the sea and the sky, a roofless building of white stone, a shrine place to the god powers of the sea. The black ships were drawn up on the beach well clear of the tideline; only Selerie’s few ships, smaller but deeper bellied, rode at anchor in the bay. Selerie came ashore with them; a troop of Ithish horsemen were waiting, camped close by the village, to be handed over to Marith for the campaign. These had drawn up in full formation on the spithead, flying the green and crimson standard of Ith and the red banner of the Altrersyr besides.

  “Palmest. It was a big town, once,” Thalia heard one of the Ithish tell one of the White Isles men. “Careful with that barrel there! That’s banefire, you fools! Careful! That’s better, that’s it. Anyway. A big town. Trade. Fishing. Whales. But the currents changed, the harbour silted …” He gestured at the channel. “That’s all that’s left. Mud choked. Careful, I said! Gods and demons, you all want to be burned? What was I saying? Ah, yes, mud choked. Like everything else in Ith. Why your marvellous lodestar of a king wants to come here …”

  The White Isles man shrugged. “The isle of Third is a fine land. “Cause everywhere else is mud and ash and shit. Doesn’t really matter where we start from, does it? It’s where we’re going that matters. And that’ll be worth the wait. Won’t be mud we’re choking on then. You’re blessed and lucky that we started here. Show some gratitude. Careful with that barrel there!”

  They noticed Thalia watching them, paled, hurried away.

  The tents were set up half an hour’s walk inland of the village, on a good flat spur of heath running down into boggy forests, rising again to the north up towards the distant mountain peaks. The air smelled strongly of leaf mould and green stuff growing, spring was coming fast and early, the trees putting out the first tiny budding leaves or covered with drifts of blossom or hung with yellow catkins that danced in the breeze. On the edge of the heath near the king’s tent a clump of birches shone pure white. Some of the men made offerings there, water poured around the trunks, a coin buried in the soil, a hair from their head tied to a branch. Osen tried to stop them, said they were coming too near the king and the queen, but Lord Stansel brushed him away. “Move the king’s tent, then, if you must.”

  “Let them stay,” said Thalia. She went up herself to the white trees, hung a silver chain from a branch. Her hand touched the wood and it felt cool and alive. Yes, indeed, she thought, a sacred thing. A holy thing.

  Servants were setting up, preparing hot water, fussing over furnishings for the tent. She was looking forward to a bath more than anything. Filthy and salt grimed after the days at sea, her hair all knots. Then a hot meal, and hot wine. Sleep in something resembling a proper bed. Then tomorrow there was the wagon for her to travel in, with cushions, braziers, screened windows, books. A very long way, very boring, a dull journey, Marith kept warning her, to reach the pain and wonder of Illyr. The maidservant poured sweet oil into the bathwater. Perfume of roses. Thalia began to unbind her hair ready to wash it.

  Suddenly there was a stir in the camp. A voice said something, quiet but firm. Men were getting to their feet, moving. Marith was there, his vile cloak over full armour, holding his sword. Her guards: Brychan; Garet; Tal, leading the pretty cream and gold horse. Osen moving over to Marith, smiling, drawing on his helm.

  “Marith? Marith, what’s—?”

  Marith said easily, “It’s all right. Your guards will take you down into the woods. There’s another clump of white trees, I think, about a half hour’s ride. Wait there. If I’m not back by nightfall, they’re to take you across country towards Immish, then back to Sorlost, if you wish. Or anywhere. There’s gold in the saddlebags, enough for you to live well.” He helped her up himself into the saddle, ran his fingers through her hair. “We’re not going to Illyr, beloved. Not yet.”

  A groom came up with his horse, the white stallion, its hooves gilded, its head plumed and armoured in red and gold. He swung up in the saddle, arranged his cloak behind him, the horse snorting eagerly at the scent of blood. “Not until I’ve taken Ith.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  His horse comes over the water flying, He feels the water on His legs and then they’re across on the opposite bank, throwing themselves into the camp, the others are behind Him, can’t keep up, for a few glorious heart beats He’s alone going forward at them, His horse rears and comes down with blood on its hooves, the camp is in confusion, men running, shouting, they don’t know what to think, what to do, He hears, incredulous, the words “treachery,” “traitor,” He almost wants to laugh at what they’re saying.

  Now His men are across. He feels the shock of the horses meeting the unarmed men, the shock of pleasure uncoiling as the swords come down. Pleasure at the killing. Pleasure at being killed. He takes a man at a run, drives His sword through; it’s so easy, back to this cutting of unarmed flesh, severing it, taking a man apart into pieces and showing him look, that’s you, that�
�s what you are, stinking meat and bone. There’s no glory, no wonder in the human form. Men are not gods. Look at your shit filled entrails spilling out on the ground: that’s you, that’s all you are. Meat and shit and it’ll be gone, all gone, your life nothing, worth nothing, nothing to remember, a fool’s lie.

  There. Gone.

  He aims higher next time, gets His man in the face. He likes cutting faces. The man’s alive for a moment after the sword peels his skin back, flays him open, showing him red and white down to the bones of skull. Noseless mouthless lump. The jaws work gurgling before the man falls. He rides on past, going so fast He’s come to the bounds of the camp already, the washing place they’ve dug, the latrine pit downriver, the horse lines. Shit again, stinking in the wet air. And memories: digging latrine pits for Skie and Tobias, nothing man, boy they laugh at, piss weak butt of their jokes. Men are running, struggling down into the water, He cuts one down through the back of the neck, cuts another’s head right off. It’s almost a shame there aren’t more of them, He thinks, it’ll all be over so quickly, He can hear the roar of the fighting behind him, His men killing. Only a hundred of them, the enemy has five times that, but they cut them all down. They will. They must.

  His men reach the horse lines and wheel back, more of a fight now, a few are even mounted coming on towards them. He meets one fighting, the white plumes on the bronze of his helm show he’s a commander, his sword has a curved blade like a hook. It crashes down hard on His arm, the curve of it pulls Him, drags His sword arm so He has no control. It has tiny, serrated teeth at the tip that sting. He twists and jerks His arm away, there’s blood on Him, the plumed helmet hisses out “Traitor! Betrayer!” as His own stroke is parried wide. Something crashes hard into the flank of His horse, making it stumble, He wards off the curved blade, another sword smashes into Him. Feels the blade tear at His armour and His skin. He whirls round again, brings His sword round hard into the weak area of the neck where the bronze helmet doesn’t quite meet the bronze plated coat. The impact jars His arm. A glorious, wet-sand crunch of flesh. Hot blood in the rain. He licks His lips and it tastes iron and lovely, the taint underneath of quicksilver: they drink quicksilver, the Ithish, the nobles, the gods alone know why.