Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

‘You—’

‘Your afterlife is what you expect it to be, what the thousands, the millions around you expect, what legend builds, told, retold, refined, evolving. In this place, amongst the sands, they fashion themselves a different paradise and different paths to it, some dark, some light. All of it is fabrication, constructed over the reality my people lived in. Whatever waited for a man after his death in those times, it was not mentioned in our calculations. Our priests, when they could find anyone to listen, described something more subtle, more profound, and more wonderful than the mishmash of medieval superstition your kind have built upon.’

‘We made it?’ It didn’t seem possible. ‘We built heaven and hell?’

‘Oh yes. If your priests ever discover what power lies at their fingertips with the will of their flock behind them … well pray that they do not, or every word of fire and brimstone, of last judgments and devils with pitchforks, will become the gospel truth, rising up on all sides. Why do you think we have worked so hard to reinforce the church’s hatred of “magic” and its practice?’

The worst of it was that I believed him. It sounded like truth. Without pause, I took the book of calculus and set it down on the view-ring, hard. Fexler’s image vanished like a spot of light when you put your hand over the hole that casts it. There’s only so much truth I can listen to in one go.

Qalasadi and Yusuf came to the edge of Hamada to see me off into the desert. I had made my farewells to Ibn Fayed in the coolness of his throne room, accepting gifts of gold, diamonds, amber, and of clove-spice for the journey. ‘There is always pain,’ the caliph told me, closing my hand around the spice.

Omal waited with the camels, ten altogether, three tall, white ones – gifts to me from the caliph – good breeders and from fine bloodlines by all accounts. To me they were as ill-tempered, ungainly, and foul-smelling as the rest of them. Along with Omal we had three more drovers and a guard of five Ha’tari.

‘Safe journey, King Jorg.’ Qalasadi bowed, one hand folded across his stomach.

‘I’ve yet to have one of those, but let’s hope this will be it.’ I grinned and inclined my head a fraction.

‘Next time you will come to my house, meet my wife, see what I have to suffer,’ Yusuf said, a smile on him, eyes bright.

‘Next time I will.’ I turned to go, but paused. ‘And the Prince of Arrow? Don’t your predictions tell you to erase me so that he might have a clear run?’ For a cold moment I wondered if the nine men accompanying me had orders to bury my corpse in a dune.

Yusuf’s grin became a little fixed and he shot an embarrassed glance at Qalasadi. The older man laced his fingers and brought both hands to his chin.

‘Our projections show no significant probability of you impeding the Prince of Arrow, King Jorg. As such we are rescued from having to wrestle with the problems of the one over the many and the many over the one.’

‘If he comes to Renar, Jorg, don’t get in his way.’ An edge of pleading in Yusuf’s voice. ‘It would not be wise.’

‘Well.’ The revelation left me a little nonplussed despite saving me from conflict with the mathmagicians. ‘That’s good then.’ And I went to mount my camel.





37


Chella’s Story


Keres had left a brittle feeling in her wake. The carriage creaked like an old man’s joints and every place she had touched lay rough, discoloured, dry enough to suck the moisture from skin.

‘She’ll find her way back to the Dead King.’ Chella turned away from the road, Kai kept close at her shoulder.

The lichkin would follow fractures and fault-lines, places where the veils hung threadbare between the world and death’s dry dominion. She would travel in coffins, shadow the sick, drift with plague spores, and in time she would enter the Dead King’s court, wrapped again in unquiet spirits, snatched up on her journey.

‘We should be moving, delegate.’ Captain Axtis of the Gilden Guard had marshalled his troops a mile down the road whilst the necromancers tended to Keres’ needs. Although the guard remained ignorant of the lichkin its presence unsettled them, sapping morale. Axtis seemed keen to move on, to leave Gottering to the dead.

‘Let us do that.’ Chella hauled herself back into the carriage. ‘Be as quick as you like, driver.’

They lurched into motion even before Kai shut the door behind him. He caught the side of the bench to stop the fall carrying him into Chella’s lap, and held himself for a moment, twelve inches separating their swaying bodies. Her pulse beat fierce in the veins of her wrists.