The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  Hugh nodded, face becoming serious. “We should have enough to outfit the entire group of men currently in training. We’ve already started on the armor for the next contingent.” He led me a little deeper into the heat of the forge, pointing to the stacks of completed armor, then moved on. “Avrell and Catrell wanted us to start working on some shields as well. Then there’s the chain.” He halted before a heap of huge linked ovals, each link as tall as I was, and as thick as my waist.

  My eyes widened. I didn’t think I could lift one of the links by itself, let alone several of them together.

  “What’s the chain for?” I asked.

  Hugh grinned. “For the entrance to the harbor. Avrell and Regin think we can stretch it across the opening, hung close to the bottom so that it won’t interfere with the ships. They want the ends to be connected to some heavy-duty winches inside the new watchtowers. Then, when the Chorl return . . .” He mimed grappling with a winch, and in my mind’s eye I could see the heavy chain, strung across the harbor, rising until it was high enough that it would impede incoming ships. “Like a gate for the harbor,” Hugh finished.

  “An ingenious idea,” Brandan said, startling me. I hadn’t realized he’d followed us into the ironworks.

  Hugh nodded. “If we can get it to work.”

  It made me wonder what else Avrell and the others had been thinking up in the way of defenses.

  “And what’s all this,” I said, nodding toward a heap of unfamiliar objects to one side.

  “That is for Master Borund. For the new ships he’s building.”

  Surprised, I waved Hugh back to work, the large blacksmith bowing before ambling off toward the fire, pulling on heavy work gloves as he went. I hadn’t realized Borund had progressed so far. I knew he’d begun work on a portion of the wharf, redesigning it for his new ship-building operation, but other than that. . . .

  I’d have to ask William about that.

  Brandan and I carefully made our way back to the forge’s entrance, mounted up, and headed back toward the center of the city. As soon as we were away from the tumult of the smithy, Brandan said, “Many of the people have made that sign on their chest as we passed them on the street.” He mimicked the smith’s gesture. “What is it?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my saddle, the horse snorting as it picked up on my discomfort. I hadn’t noticed the people making the sign. “It’s the sign of the Skewed Throne. Don’t they have something similar in Venitte?”

  “Nothing like that. The people of Amenkor revere you as more than a leader, almost like a religious figure.”

  I didn’t answer. “Don’t they treat Lord March the same way? Doesn’t he have the Sight?”

  Brandan gave me a strange look. “Lord March isn’t one of the Servants. Servants serve as Protectors, and our Master, Sorrenti, serves on Lord March’s Council as an adviser, but Lord March isn’t one of us himself. The other Council members would never allow it. Someone with the Sight controlling the Council . . . it could never happen. They would have too much power. Even Lord Sorrenti’s presence on the Council is barely tolerated.”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand. Lord March doesn’t rule the city?”

  Brandan snorted. “The Council of Eight rules the city. Lord March is the head of the Council, and has enough power that he can generally do whatever he wants. But he has to get the Council to agree, since they control the key interests in the city—the trade, the lands, the guilds. For anything significant, Lord March has to have their approval.”

  “But if the Council members control the land and the guilds, where does Lord March’s power come from?”

  “The Protectorate,” Brandan said. “Lord March controls the Protectorate and the general guard. He controls the army.”

  We continued down to the Dredge, crossing over the River so that I could check on the kitchen and warehouse I’d kept running using the palace’s resources in the slums. While there, I noticed that those that worked in the kitchen—mostly women and children—all wore white dresses similar to the ones the palace servants wore, and all of them bowed or nodded their heads to me, signing across their chests.

  And the Dredge itself had changed. Near the River, some of the buildings had been damaged in the attack, but for the most part the slums had remained untouched by the fighting. However, the streets and alleys, niches and narrows, were all . . . clean. No heaps of piled stone and debris, blurring the edges of the buildings and crevices. Cobblestones were still cracked underfoot, uneven and broken, but all the garbage and detritus I’d come to know while living in the slums had been removed. Part of it was because Avrell had used the old stone of the crumbling buildings in the slums as part of the reconstruction efforts in the warehouse district near the wharf, the stone cheaper and closer than stone taken from the quarry. But that couldn’t account for all of it.

  Then I noticed the militia, those men under Darryn’s command who had taken it upon themselves to protect the kitchen and warehouse over the winter and who were now extending that protection to the rest of the slums. A rogue gutterscum thug—one not unlike what I’d once been—hovered near the entrance to an alley, watching those passing by on the street with sharp eyes. When he caught the militia man’s eye, the soldier simply frowned, and without a word the thug vanished into the alley, moving on to better hunting grounds.

  The two militia men moved farther down the Dredge. Before passing from sight, I noticed that the Skewed Throne symbol had been hand-stitched to the front of their shirts.

  As we crossed the bridge back into the lower city of Amenkor and began to head toward the wharf, I thought about what Eryn had said. Even without the throne, you are Amenkor. You became Amenkor this past winter, in the minds of its people.

  “You’re quiet,” Brandan said.

  I glanced toward him, noticed he was watching me carefully, realized he had been watching me carefully since the tour had first begun. I gave him a hesitant smile. “It’s . . . different. It’s not the same as when I lived there. It’s cleaner. Safer.”

  Brandan turned to look back toward the Dredge, brow furrowed in thought.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where were you before you were sent to become a Servant?”

  Brandan fell silent, a troubled look crossing his face. For a long moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he straightened in his saddle. “I was the fourth son of a shipwright in Venitte. My eldest brother was to take over my father’s work when he died, and both of my other brothers were apprenticed to guilds as favors to my father. I was to be put to work as a regular hand on one of the ships as a favor to its captain.” He looked down at his hands. “I would never have survived,” he said, almost under his breath. “It would have killed me.”

  I’d seen the hands of those that worked on the ships, the harshness of their skin, sunburned into tanned leather, scarred and callused. Those men contained a roughness I associated with the denizens of the Dredge. Gutterscum, like me.

  Brandan—with his pale skin, his fine features and thin build— would never have fit in.

  When Brandan looked up, there was a twisted smile on his face, and for the first time since the tour began, his expression was completely open and honest. “But they discovered I had the Sight after the first few hellish voyages. Sailors are a suspicious lot. They wanted nothing to do with me after that. Neither did the rest of my family. So I was shipped off to the palace.”

  We continued down to the docks in an awkward silence, Brandan intently surveying the damage to the lower city caused by the Chorl, although he’d already seen it numerous times since his arrival. Once we reached the wharf, Keven and the guardsmen turned south.

  “You captured a few of the Chorl ships,” Brandan said as we progressed down the docks through the crowd of people, mostly dockworkers, Zorelli shiphands, and carpenters. Men swarmed the decks of the ships at dock, the pounding of hammers and the shouts of orders barked acros
s the deck overriding almost all other sounds. Gulls and terns shrieked overhead, wheeling in the breeze, and water slapped against the ship’s hulls.

  He spoke as if he’d never mentioned his family, or how he’d become a Servant.

  After a moment, I said, “Once I killed the Ochean, the leader of the Chorl warriors, Atlatik, ordered a retreat. We harried them all the way down to the harbor and in their haste they left a few ships behind.”

  "How many?”

  “Five of the smaller attack ships, like those over there.” I pointed to one of the sleek black ships still at dock. Two others were waiting for repairs, anchored in the harbor. “There were two others, but we sent them out as escorts for some of our trading ships.”

  Brandan nodded. “With the Chorl presence, we’ll all have to have escorts for our trading ships. Either that or the ships will have to travel in convoys, to protect each other.” He frowned. “That’s going to affect trade pricing.”

  I was about to answer when someone ahead shouted.

  “It’s William,” Keven said, sidling his horse closer.

  And then William broke through the crowd on the dock and into sight. He was followed almost immediately by Borund and Captain Tristan, both locked in animated conversation.

  “Varis!” William shouted again, one arm raised to catch my attention. “Varis!” He pushed forward, almost knocking people over in his haste, then suddenly seemed to notice the escort of guardsmen . . . and Brandan.

  He drew up short, a dark frown passing over his face as his eyes flicked once toward me, then fixed on Brandan. “What are you doing?” he asked, the question directed toward me, his tone suspicious and strangely hostile.

  “I’m giving Brandan Vard a tour of Amenkor.”

  “I see.” On the river, I sensed William’s hurt, as if I’d betrayed him somehow. As Borund and Tristan approached behind him, Borund nodding seriously at something Tristan said, William stepped toward me, positioning himself between Brandan and me. He raised a hand to steady my horse as it shied away, but his eyes never left Brandan.

  “Mistress,” Captain Tristan said, giving a short bow. “I hope that Brandan has not been monopolizing all of your time.”

  “I was giving him a tour,” I said into the tension. “It was my idea.”

  “Ah, I see, very good.” Tristan and Brandan shared a glance and Brandan shifted in his seat.

  To one side, Keven coughed, his horse edging close enough it brushed up against me.

  I didn’t need the warning. All of the instincts I’d honed on the Dredge to warn me of danger had already begun to flare.

  Borund cleared his throat. “Tristan and I were just discussing Amenkor’s new fleet of trading ships. The one that I intend to build, anyway.”

  “The one you’ve already started building, you mean,” Tristan said.

  “Yes, well,” Borund began, but William cut in.

  “It will rival anything that Venitte has to offer,” he said stiffly. “The ships will have a larger hold, so we can carry more cargo. And we’ll be able to carry the cargo farther, without the need to stop into port as often.”

  Borund shot William an irritated glance. “We have to get the ships built first.”

  “You seem to have a decent start,” Tristan said, his tone dry. “And now, if the tour is finished?”

  Brandan glanced in my direction, his eyes unreadable, but with a tinge of disappointment about his lips. “Thank you, Mistress, for escorting me around Amenkor.” Then he dismounted, handing the horse’s leads off to one of the guardsmen. William stepped out of his way.

  Tristan turned to Borund. “I’ll have the papers drawn up for your mark. And I’ll want to discuss the terms on the tea from Marland at some point. I’m sure we can come to some kind of agreement.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “Mistress,” Tristan said.

  I nodded and watched the two head off down the wharf, Tristan taking hold of Brandan’s upper arm tightly just before they vanished into the crowd.

  William turned toward me, straightening, suddenly cold and formal. “I don’t think he ran into you by accident.”

  My brow creased in irritation, but before I could answer, Keven added, “Neither do I.”

  I thought about Brandan waiting for me outside of the garden entrance. He could have seen me there in the yard, working with the Servants. He could have hung around, waiting for me to finish.

  A page boy suddenly appeared at Keven’s side. He leaned down to listen, then straightened.

  “Catrell sends word that the scouting party to Temall will be ready to depart on the evening’s tide.”

  I stood at the end of the dock, the sun beginning to set on the horizon, the Chorl ship tied to the berth already mostly loaded, the contingent of guardsmen and Seekers that Westen and Catrell had worked out filing up onto the deck of the black ship. Westen stood beside me, Catrell on the other side, Keven and the rest of the guardsmen behind.

  “How are your wife and son?” I asked.

  Westen’s eyebrows rose. “Not many know I have a wife and son,” he said, clearly wanting to know how I knew.

  I didn’t answer.

  He smiled. “They’re fine. I said my good-byes earlier.”

  I nodded. Farther down the dock, the last of the guardsmen boarded. A bell clanged on the deck, orders issued, and dark-skinned Zorelli began untying the ship from the dock.

  “You’d better board,” Catrell said.

  “I’ll keep watch.” I caught Westen’s eye and he nodded, knowing that I meant I’d keep watch through the Fire I’d tagged him with before the Chorl attacked. I felt a twinge of worry, recalling how hard it had been to push myself into the Fire at Erick’s core at first, about how it had drained me to watch Ottul through Marielle’s eyes. I thought about mentioning it to Westen, but then thrust the concern aside. I needed to know what the Chorl were doing, how far they’d advanced toward Amenkor. This was the only way.

  Westen must have seen some of the worry in my eyes, for he gave me a reassuring smile and said, “I’ll return.”

  Then he moved down the dock and boarded the ship.

  Chapter 5

  Westen jumped out of the unsteady boat and splashed onto shore, seawater spilling down into his boots. He grimaced in distaste, slogging up onto the sand as groups of his men disembarked from three other boats to either side in the faint light of the moon and a few torches, another group already waiting for him—a scouting party that had been sent ashore the previous night.

  “Report,” he said, coming to a halt before the Seeker who led the party already on the beach.

  Watching through the Fire at Westen’s core, having Reached from the throne room of Amenkor with Marielle’s aid, I recognized Tomus, the Seeker who had been guarding Erick’s chamber. His dirty-blond hair gleamed in the light of the torches carried by the scouting party.

  “No sign of the Chorl. We went south as far as the outskirts of Temall, but saw nothing. I don’t think they’ve taken Temall yet.”

  “Good. We’ll set up a temporary camp here then, restock the ship with water, whatever food we can find. Then we’ll head south.”

  Tomas nodded, turned to pass the orders on.

  Westen remained on the beach, hands on his hips. He watched empty water casks being off-loaded and hauled inland to the stream that emptied into the cove where they’d decided to make landfall. Torchlight glared orange on the waves, leaving a trail of fire from the sand to the black ship hidden in the inlet. A sea breeze brought the scents of salt and seaweed, the trees behind rustling.

  He grunted, satisfied, then found the nearest rock and took off his boots, pouring water from each before setting them aside to dry.

  I pulled back from the Fire, feeling again that resistance I’d felt when I’d first attempted to Reach toward Erick. Piercing through the veil, drawing on some of the strength fed to me by Marielle, I rose high, sought out the Fire that burned inside me in Amenkor, and skimmed northwa
rd.

  I gasped as I entered my own body again, felt the tremors beginning in my arms before I’d managed to draw my first true breath, and silently cursed, felt Marielle releasing the conduit she’d used to link to me.

  “Mistress?” Marielle asked, leaning forward, although I could hear weakness in her own voice. She laid a hand over my hands where they rested in my lap.

  “I’m—” I swallowed, my throat dry. “—fine.”

  Marielle shifted where she sat on the top of the dais of the throne room, reaching for the tray containing a pitcher of sun-steeped tea and two glasses. I leaned back against the cracked throne behind me, let the tremors wash through me in waves.

  The first attempt to Reach for Westen had come the morning after his ship had left the harbor. Overnight, the Prize had managed to get significantly far down the coast, but then the winds had changed and their progress slowed.

  That Reaching had been difficult. Far more difficult than any of the Reaching I’d done while using the Skewed Throne. It had drained me, to the point that it had taken almost an hour before I could stand and walk from the throne room. Eryn had pointed out that I didn’t need to be sitting on the throne any longer, but I’d done almost all of my long distance Reaching before on the throne, because the throne had made it easier. Somehow, it felt wrong not to be in this room while Reaching outside the city, not to have its solid stone beneath me. Even if it was now dead.

  I’d tried again the next day, the effects of the Reaching worse because Westen had managed to get farther down the coast. After that, I didn’t think I’d be able to Reach again, that I’d have to wait for him to return to hear any news.

  But Marielle had suggested she link to me using the conduits, so she could share her strength with me, as Gwenn had shared with her in the gardens.

  The Reachings since had been much less draining.

  I lifted my hand, watched it tremble with the effort, then let it flop back down into my lap.

  “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to remain in contact with Westen,” I said, voice weary.