The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  Forgotten by him, but not by me. I reached for it—

  And walked through the Fire into the chamber beyond, out of memory and into the Council of Seven. For a moment that felt like eternity I tasted that night, tasted that pain, that horror. . . .

  And then the memory faded, and the Council chamber asserted itself.

  It appeared exactly as I remembered it: obsidian walls, obsidian marble floor, domed ceiling as black as night. Ambient white light emanated from the surrounding walls as it had over fifteen hundred years before. Except this light seemed pallid, less vibrant. Aged. Seven seats filled the chamber, circling the outer edges, each one different, each one . . . personal; the seats of the Seven who had ruled from here, the last of the Adepts—Cerrin, Liviann, Garus, Seth, Atreus, Silicia, and Alleryn.

  In the center of the room sat the throne. The Stone Throne, hidden for fifteen hundred years.

  It had never been moved, had never left Venitte. It had been hidden in plain sight.

  And seated in the throne, surrounded by a covey of Chorl warriors and priests, sat Haqtl.

  The warriors hadn’t seen me enter. Their attention was fixed on Haqtl, on the strange, intent expression on his face, the tension there. The Chorl priest—the man who had tortured Erick, who had held him prisoner and kept him in constant pain even after we had rescued him—sat perfectly rigid, back straight, hands on the arms of the granite throne. His brow was creased, his hands clenched. Sweat stood out on his forehead.

  Because the throne fought him. Because Sorrenti fought him.

  I felt the energy in the room shift, felt Erick pass through the White Fire behind me, followed by Baill, Warren, Patch, the others from the Band. I turned as they entered, saw some of them grimace in distaste or shudder convulsively, wondered briefly what memories the Fire called up for them, but then shrugged the thoughts aside. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Haqtl and the throne.

  And Erick.

  As they fell into place behind me, I turned toward the throne and stepped forward.

  The motion caught one of the Chorl warriors’ attention. He barked a curt warning.

  With a flurry of commands and the clatter of armor, the group of men encircled the throne, swords drawn. But they stayed back from the throne itself, keeping a distance of at least three paces.

  And then I noticed the bodies. Two of them, both Chorl, one a warrior, the other a priest. They lay against the marble two paces from Haqtl and the throne, their pale blue faces stark against the obsidian floor, their dark eyes wide with shock.

  There wasn’t a mark on them. No wounds, no blood. Nothing.

  I narrowed my eyes, shifted my gaze to the leader of the men.

  No one moved.

  Not letting my gaze waver from the Chorl captain, I said, “You’re outnumbered.”

  He didn’t understand the words, but he understood the intent. His gaze flickered over Baill and the Band, settled the longest on Erick, then came back to me. He said nothing.

  “Baill.”

  The ex-guardsman of Amenkor nodded at the command in my voice. Face locked into familiar stony creases, he ordered the Band forward.

  “Don’t get too close to the throne,” I warned as the Chorl tensed, those behind the leader readying for a fight. One of the Chorl priests waved his hand, sent something I couldn’t see flying toward Baill, but I deflected it with a shield, Baill never flinching. The priest frowned, but at a look from the leader, he halted another gesture in mid-motion.

  Keeping his eyes on me, the leader straightened, then lowered his sword. Moving carefully, he and the rest of the Chorl stepped to one side, keeping their backs to the wall of the obsidian chamber, their swords toward us.

  I turned my attention back to Haqtl, to the throne. Granite, like the Skewed Throne in Amenkor, and at the moment shaped like a simple chair. Fine lines, elegant, with subtle curves to the legs, to the arms and back. No ostentatious details, no real markings of any kind.

  I could see Sorrenti sitting in such a throne.

  “Are we in time?” Erick asked, and once again I remembered that he hadn’t been in the throne room when the Ochean arrived, hadn’t witnessed those events.

  “Sorrenti is still in control,” I said.

  “How do you know?” His voice was rough, threaded with hatred, with a raw need, with remembered pain.

  “Because that’s Sorrenti’s throne,” I said softly, trying to calm him, to ease the tension I felt bleeding from him. And it was like blood, from a wound that had not healed, that perhaps would never heal. “If the throne starts to change shape, then we’ll know Haqtl has begun to win.”

  He nodded. The hand gripping his dagger flexed as his attention shifted from Haqtl’s face to the throne itself. “Then we need to kill him before that happens.”

  He started forward.

  I sensed a sudden surge of anticipation from the Chorl, and my hand snapped out, latched onto Erick’s arm. “Wait.”

  He halted. “What is it?” he asked, no anger, no doubt in his voice. But his attention never wavered from the throne, from Haqtl, and I could sense his frustration.

  He wanted Haqtl dead, needed to see him dead.

  I glanced toward the Chorl leader, saw his eyes narrow. Then I stepped in front of Erick, forced him to meet my gaze.

  It was harder than I thought. And when he finally did look at me, I flinched back from the horror of memory I saw reflected there. I wanted to remove that pain, the terror that had bruised him, that I had sent him into by placing him on The Maiden, by putting him at risk.

  But I couldn’t. Instead, I swallowed, something hard clicking in my throat, and said in as calm a voice as possible, “There’s something surrounding the throne, a barrier of some kind. I can’t see it, but it’s there. I think it killed those two Chorl, the warrior and the priest lying dead on the floor.”

  “It did,” Baill said, his voice too loud, echoing in the chamber. “No one approached the Skewed Throne in Amenkor when someone was seated on it because they knew it would be their death. No one can get close. It’s how the throne protects itself, protects the person currently in control.” He glanced toward Haqtl. “Or trying to claim control. Otherwise, the person on the throne would be vulnerable.”

  Erick grunted, the skin around his eyes tightening. “Then how are we going to kill him?”

  I thought about the Skewed Throne, about Sorrenti, about Cerrin and the rest of the Seven. I thought about the memories from fifteen hundred years before, of the death of Cerrin’s wife and children, of the battles the Seven had fought against the Chorl and of their deaths here, in this room, as they created the thrones, as they forged them.

  Memories I could not possibly have. Not with the Skewed Throne destroyed.

  But memories I’d relived nonetheless. Because of the Stone Throne, this throne. Because somehow I was connected to it, bound to it, as I’d been bound to the Skewed Throne. Bound to it by the Skewed Throne. Sorrenti had felt that connection. The Seven had felt it, even though they hadn’t understood it. And I’d felt it, when I’d returned from speaking with Eryn, from Reaching, and had recovered far too fast from the effects of that Reaching.

  I turned away from Erick, stepped forward, and this time Erick reached out to halt me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice hard, like stone. Stern, but with a slight catch. Not the voice of a teacher, of a trainer.

  The voice of a father.

  “I’m the only one who can do this,” I said. “I’m the only one who can get close enough. I think the throne will recognize me. I think it will let me pass the barrier.”

  His brow furrowed, his eyes darkening as they gazed down at me. He wanted to refuse me, didn’t want me to take the risk.

  “I can feel it, Erick,” I added. “I can hear it.”

  His hand tightened a moment, the muscles of his jaw clenching, but then he relaxed, his hand dropping from my arm.

  He said nothing. He didn’t need to say anyth
ing.

  I turned back, moved to within two paces of the throne, to where the bodies of the two Chorl had fallen, and then hesitated. This close, I could feel the barrier, like a thousand needles pricking the skin of my face, my hands, my arms and torso, a sensation not unlike the blanket of needles that Haqtl had placed over Erick and used to torture him. And I could feel the presence of the throne, throbbing, pulsing with my own heartbeat beneath that prickling sensation, could hear the whisper of the throne itself, calling me.

  Dry leaves scraping against cobblestones.

  I raised my hands toward the barrier, drew in a slow breath—

  And then stepped forward.

  Pain lanced down my side and I cried out, heard at a distance Erick cry out as well. Daggers sliced down the lengths of my arms, down my shoulders, down my chest, blades cutting into flesh, flaying the skin from me. I heard a howling whirlwind of voices, the dry whispers I’d heard before escalating into a screaming frenzy, a cacophony of glee and rage and torment, of pain and suffering. The daggers dug deeper, sank into muscle, edges dragging through sinew as the tips of metal neared bone, as the voices grew louder, as a single voice began to roar above all of the others—

  And then abruptly the pain cut off. The daggers withdrew and, as I collapsed to my knees on the floor, panting, hands cupped over my head protectively, the single voice bellowing above all of the others slowly began to drown them all out. A voice I recognized. A voice I knew.

  Cerrin.

  When all of the voices of the throne had quieted, lost beneath his roar, he broke the battle cry off, let everything fall into silence.

  I heard a struggle, raised my head far enough through the last vestiges of the pain the barrier had inflicted to see Baill and Patch restraining Erick at the edge of the barrier itself.

  When Erick saw me move, his struggling ceased. But Baill and Patch didn’t back away, didn’t even relax. “Varis?”

  Varis? Cerrin echoed.

  I sat up, slid into a low crouch. A familiar crouch, one I’d used a thousand times on the Dredge. “I’m fine, Erick. It . . . took a moment for the throne to recognize me.”

  Sorrenti can’t hold out much longer, Varis. You haven’t got much time. Haqtl’s almost seized control.

  Help him, I growled. Stop Haqtl.

  Do you think we haven’t tried? Liviann demanded.

  We’ve done all that we can, Cerrin interceded, a note of warning in his voice, directed toward Liviann. Haqtl is more powerful than Sorrenti. He paused a moment, then added, Haqtl can control the Fire.

  Like me, I thought.

  I rose from my crouch, shifted my grip on my dagger, took the single step to the throne and stood before Haqtl, before the Chorl priest who had brought the Chorl armies here, to Venitte, before the man who had driven the poisoned spine into Erick’s chest with a slow, twisted smile and laid the blanket of needles over Erick’s body.

  My heart hardened.

  Kill him, Cerrin said. But don’t touch the throne. You were protected from the barrier because you were part of the Skewed Throne, but nothing can protect you from the Stone Throne itself, from direct contact with it.

  I frowned. The throne had a back, protecting Haqtl from my blade. I couldn’t cut him from behind, couldn’t slit his throat. I couldn’t stab him low in the back so that he’d die slowly, as I’d killed men before. And I wanted him to die slowly. I wanted him to suffer, as much as he’d made Erick suffer.

  But my choices were limited.

  I slid closer, leaned in toward Haqtl’s strained face, toward his blue skin, his black tattoos, until I could smell him. Sea salt. Seaweed. The stench of rotting fish.

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

  And then Cerrin shouted, Varis! and I felt the shudder as the throne began to change, the feet of the throne rippling, the stone morphing into the shape of reeds. The other voices of the throne cried out in dismay.

  And the intensity in Haqtl’s face relaxed, that slow smile touching his lips.

  The same smile he’d used while torturing Erick.

  I plunged the dagger into his stomach with a harsh, vicious grunt.

  When his eyes flew open, shocked, I said, too softly for anyone else except Haqtl and the voices in the throne to hear, “For Erick, you bastard.”

  Then I wrenched the dagger to the side, twisted it, felt it cut free, and stepped back, blood dripping from my hand, from the tip of the dagger where it hung slack at my side.

  Haqtl gasped. His hands flew to his gut as he hunched over, blood splashing, staining his breeches, his yellow shirt, pouring over his hands until they were black with it, until his blue skin and tattoos could no longer be seen. He sucked in a single, horrible breath, his lean becoming a tilt, the momentum carrying him forward. He bent over his own lap, blood beginning to slide down the legs of the stone throne, beginning to drip from the seat where it pooled beneath him. He tipped his head to one side, arms clutching his stomach now, his face contorted with pain.

  But then it transformed, the pain sliding into hatred, into rage, his jaw clenching, protruding forward slightly. It made him look cruel, barbaric. His eyes flashed, and the intensity there, the raw emotion, reminded me of his eyes as he’d stood over Erick and tortured him.

  “You . . .” he spat. Blood speckled his lips, drooled from the corner of his mouth.

  And with that one word, filled with all of his hatred, all of his derision and anger, he died.

  His body toppled forward, sliding from the throne in a bundle, his face hitting the obsidian floor first with a dull thud, then shifting forward as the weight of his hunched body pushed him downward.

  He came to rest, arms still folded across his stomach but loosely, body slightly curved. Blood began to pool beneath him.

  I turned, sought out Erick. I needed to see his face.

  He stood, Baill and Patch beside him and slightly behind. He stared at Haqtl’s body, his eyes impassive, empty. Lost.

  To one side, the remaining Chorl tensed, raised their swords. I thought about those we’d held captive after Amenkor, about their suicides, about what Ottul had told us of the Chorl themselves, and knew that these would not surrender.

  “Baill,” I said. “Try to keep as many of them alive as possible.”

  He understood immediately. Shoving Patch away from Erick, who didn’t move at all, he barked an order to the rest of the Band. They closed in on the Chorl. I heard the Chorl battle cry, the strange ululations, piercing and sharp, heard the subsequent clash of swords, but I didn’t take my eyes from Erick.

  I moved to stand before him, noted that the shield that had protected the throne while Haqtl sat on it was gone.

  “Erick.”

  When he didn’t respond, I reached forward and caught his arm with my free hand.

  He flinched, his gaze dropping to meet mine.

  He looked . . . haunted.

  “Erick,” I said, squeezing his arm. “This isn’t over. We still need to stop the fighting in the city, the battle in the harbor.”

  For a moment, his gaze held, the haunted, empty look remaining, as if he hadn’t heard me. But then he shuddered, the tremor running through his body. He closed his eyes.

  And when he opened them again, the emptiness had been shoved into the background, replaced by the coldness of a Seeker.

  “How do you intend to stop it?” he asked.

  I looked to where the fighting between the Band and the Chorl had ended—none of the Chorl had survived—and caught Baill’s look.

  “We’ll need Haqtl’s body.”

  We emerged from the Council building to find the Venittian and Amenkor forces searching through the bodies that littered the stone steps and the rectangular pool of water for survivors, slitting the throats of the Chorl and hauling the Venittians and those from the Band that had been wounded to one side, where Avrell and Brandan had organized a makeshift hospital. As soon as we exited into the early evening sunlight, Haqtl’s body in tow, a cheer roared through the pl
aza.

  Followed immediately by the dull thud of an explosion from outside the Wall, and a sizzling crack of thunder.

  Avrell moved immediately to my side, William, Brandan, Marielle, and Ottul behind him. A gash ran across William’s cheek, deep enough that it would leave a scar. Marielle and Ottul looked haggard and drained, but unharmed.

  All of them looked weary.

  “Where’s Sorrenti?” I asked Brandan, before any of them could speak.

  “Recovering,” Brandan said, his tone grim. He pointed to where Sorrenti sat with his back against one of the stone columns surrounding the body-clogged and bloody pool. “He woke a few moments ago, but he’s exhausted.”

  I remembered my own battle with the Ochean, remembered the sheer weariness I’d felt immediately afterward, and nodded. “What about Heddan and Gwenn?”

  “They’re helping with the wounded,” Marielle said.

  “We started triage as soon as the last of the Chorl were killed,” Avrell added.

  “Good.” I scanned the people of Venitte, saw one of the Protectorate approaching, stepping carefully through the dead. “Baill, get the Band ready. We’re heading toward the northern part of the city.”

  Baill moved away instantly, Warren and Patch following. Their piercing whistles broke through the moans of the wounded and the silence of the dead, the Band converging on the still standing black-and -red Skewed Throne banner.

  When the captain of the Protectorate drew close enough, I said, “The Chorl within the Council chambers are dead.”

  He nodded grimly, his eyes falling on Haqtl’s body, which the members of the Band that Baill had left behind had dropped unceremoniously to the ground. “Daeriun sends word that the Chorl at the gates have also been halted. Their priests and Servants caused massive damage in the first strike at the Wall, but he’s managed to overwhelm them with the Venittian Servants.” He shot a respectful glance toward Brandan, then continued his report to me. “He’s finishing off the last of the Chorl resistance there now, but there is still fighting to the north and in the harbor.”