Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 (21 page)

They went down the line one by one, introducing themselves unnecessarily, unwilling to dispense with formality despite their claims to haste. It had long since ceased to interest Pyre. Ritual had its purpose in indoctrinating and inspiring the faithful, but ritual was a distant second to action. And in truth this meeting was far from being the most important of Pyre’s tasks that evening. At that very moment, some few cables to the east of them, Badger’s cell was leading a raid on one of the last of the Brotherhood Below’s safe houses. On the Third Rung, two members of Devotion’s cell were getting set to snatch up a particularly recalcitrant merchant, one of the few in the quadrant who had maintained his misguided allegiance to Those Above, who refused the modest tithe required of all humans who wished to see themselves unfettered, which was to say all right-thinking men. In a few minutes there would be an attack on one of the Cuckoo nests up on the Fourth – nothing serious, nothing major, a bottle of alcohol and a lit rag tossed through a window, just enough to keep their enemies wary, frightened, off balance. When the meeting finally ended Pyre would hear the reports of the evening’s activities, would plan the operations to come, would deal with the dozen other tasks yet required of him. Sleep that night would be a few stolen hours, no pleasure but a necessary oblivion, just enough to refresh his mind, just enough that when Hammer shook him awake the next morning he could go about the day with some semblance of reason.

‘Pyre, the First of His Line, bears witness,’ he answered when his time came.

‘Let’s break to the point of it,’ Wolf said. He was one of their financiers, son of a docker, born on the far corner of the Fifth, one of those rare downslopers who had made good. He had earned a fortune selling cheap things to men and women foolish enough to buy them, and he had given some portion of those riches to the Five-Fingers. ‘I object to the actions of Pyre, the First of His Line, actions that have brought us to the brink of open war, actions that were neither discussed nor agreed upon by the council.’

‘We have always been at war,’ Pyre said. ‘Nothing has changed.’

‘Nothing has changed? The entire Roost is up in arms. Our beclouded brethren on the higher Rungs walk fearfully, thinking the Five-Fingers their enemies. On the Third Rung, Cuckoos march in lockstep, and there are rumours that the demons themselves lead them.’

‘It is time, and past time, that our siblings upslope came to recognise their fetters and their own role in maintaining them. If I had known all that was required to bring them to enlightenment was to slit the throat of an old man wearing heavy make-up, I’d have done it long ago.’

‘Had you known,’ Steadfast chimed in. ‘Had you known? Last I had heard it was not Pyre who was in charge of setting policy for the revolution.’

‘You overstep your bounds,’ agreed Spectre, a grey-haired man wearing ill-cut robes. He had been a member of the Five-Fingered for long years before Pyre’s own, was one of the first to have heard the truth. As far as Pyre was concerned, seniority was the only virtue he possessed, an ageing pedant who preferred speech to action. This fairly summed up, in his estimation, most of the rest of the council. ‘It is one thing to assault a few guards on the Fourth, or to scrawl graffiti on a downslope wall, and quite another to assassinate the chief human political agent of the Birds.’

‘I call for a vote of censure upon Pyre, the First of His Name,’ said Wolf.

‘Seconded,’ Spectre said.

Edom cleared his throat softly, and the conversation stilled. ‘It would be premature to take any such action before first hearing of Brother Pyre’s explanation for the event itself.’

Though it took Pyre a solid twenty seconds before he felt calm enough to attempt one, willing his pulse to slow, shoving the rage back down into his chest, nor did he suppose the interim did anything particularly to help his cause. Pyre was many things but dissimulator was not one of them, and to judge by the faces of the other men at the table this fact was well appreciated.

When he finally spoke, his voice seemed calm. ‘For the last six months, the Dead Pigeons have been working to infiltrate the upper ranks of the Brotherhood Below.’

‘Why was the inner council not informed of any of this?’ asked Wolf.

‘It was felt that a matter of such delicacy was best to keep unknown to any parties not directly involved.’

‘Who felt this?’

‘Pyre felt this way. Pyre and Edom, the First of His Line.’

That shut them up quickly enough, by the gods. Though they might all maintain this happy facade of equality, there was no more real doubt in the mind of Wolf or Spectre or Steadfast who was truly in charge of the Five-Fingered.

‘You knew of this, Edom?’ Steadfast asked after a moment.

‘I was aware that we had … stratagems in place. I had not been informed that they were so near to fruition.’

‘There wasn’t time to alert you,’ Pyre said, for the first time feeling some slim sense of shame. ‘Savior, the First of His Line, who brought the coming age closer with his own life’s blood, informed me the very day of the meeting that he would be responsible for security. It was an opportunity which couldn’t be overlooked. In truth, I fail to understand how this can be regarded as anything but a great victory, an accelerant for the fire to come. The Brotherhood Below, the hidden hand by which the lower Rungs have been kept in bondage for centuries, is broken and soon to be eradicated. Even now my men are working to extinguish this plague which has so long choked our people. As for the chancellor …’ He shrugged. ‘I cannot see why his death is of any great importance one way or the other. The demons will install a new man shortly enough, one likely to remember his predecessor’s fate, one who will not perhaps be so swift to hinder the destiny of his species.’

‘To reveal our strength before it’s grown to fullness?’ Steadfast asked contemptuously. ‘Before we are equipped to bring it to bear? There are not yet so many of us as to afford retaliation.’

Pyre’s lip dragged itself up over his teeth. ‘A bared throat, a chink in the armour of our enemies – there was no time to bring the matter to the council. The chancellor had no intention of dealing with us honestly – he was no more capable of seeing the dawn than is the setting moon. He had arranged the meeting to bribe me, and if he could not bribe me to frighten me, and if he could not frighten me then to kill me. With his death, and the death of Ink, the Brotherhood Below has been thrown into chaos, and the custodians along with them. In the last two weeks alone our people have all but overrun the Fourth Rung, and made inroads into the Third. Where I was born, we consider the death of our enemies to be a thing worth celebrating.’

‘Bask in your victory,’ Wolf said, sneering, ‘just until the demons come knocking at your door. We are not yet strong enough to make a stand. The chancellor himself, by the Founders—’

‘By the gods,’ Pyre corrected him harshly. ‘And it was by the gods that I did it, that I felt his blood run down my hand and onto the floor, this enemy of his race, this – this – traitor to his species.’ Pyre could tell they were looking at him and he fell silent, worked to contain his anger, chewed it back down, caged it within his broad chest.

‘The chancellor’s guilt is not the issue at hand, Pyre,’ Edom said quietly, in that voice like a poultice on a seeping wound, like oil dropped over restless water. ‘Your assault may provoke a response we are not yet prepared to deal with.’

Wolf chimed in again. ‘The head of the Dead Pigeons is not the head of the Five-Fingers. I say that Pyre has overstepped the authority granted to him by the council. I once again request a vote of censure.’

‘Seconded,’ said Steadfast.

‘Fine,’ Pyre said. ‘I serve the species at the pleasure of Edom,’ he accentuated the last word firmly, ‘and of the council. Should my behaviour as leader of the Dead Pigeons not meet with their approval, it goes without saying that I would be happy to occupy any role they see fit. Though I suggest you have a suitable replacement in hand before dismissing me. Is there one among you who feels themselves more capable? Brother Wolf? Perhaps you would choose to leave your house on the Second and come live down here in the slurp? Brother Steadfast, how is your knife hand? Swift? Sure? You will have need of it, of that much I can tell you for a certainty.’

‘No doubt there are men within the Dead Pigeons who could perform your function adequately,’ Wolf said.

‘I’m afraid the members of the Dead Pigeons place a more substantial value on loyalty than the council. And whatever your feelings, among his own people Pyre is considered competent enough. I assure you, you will find no great thirst among the Dead Pigeons for new leadership – indeed, they might find the suggestion insulting.’

All was silent, for a time. Or not quite silent – there was the heavy and constant sound of water being pulled upslope, and there was Pyre’s blood beating loudly in his veins. It was not the insult they had done him, an insult that stemmed as much from their own cowardice as from their contempt for him as a downslope thug, the demon’s poison having worked its way into their minds, having polluted everything it touched, thinking him inferior despite Edom’s words, despite Edom’s promises of and demands for solidarity. This was annoying, this was unpleasant – but this was not what Pyre held against them. It was that they had wasted his time, and his time was not his time any longer, his time was the species’, was humanity’s, and every instant of it needed to be called to strict account. He would no more be removed from his position than he would sprout wings and fly up to the First, it was nothing but posturing, and this while battle was being joined, this while his own men were fighting and bleeding and dying in the gutters.

‘Brothers,’ Edom said finally, ‘this is not the behaviour of those who would usher in the dawn. Pyre’s service these last years has been … commendable, and more than commendable. His passion and skill have seen us go from strength to strength. If this enthusiasm has, perhaps in recent days, somewhat outstripped itself, well, passion in defence of the species is not so terrible a sin, and it is one that he will no doubt seek to curb in the coming days.’

Those blue eyes firm on him, and after a moment Pyre found his shoulders slumped. ‘Forgive me, brothers. The day has been a very long one, and perhaps my patience is not what it ought to be. I will make sure to coordinate more closely with the council in the future.’

It made no one happy. Ten men left the room as distrustful of Pyre as when they had entered it, though it would be Pyre’s soldiers who saw them safely back to their homes on the Second Rung and the Third. Pyre’s soldiers who would die for them, if it came to that.

The eleventh was Edom, and for a moment, for a happy moment, it was only the two of them, Edom with his eyes that saw and understood and forgave. ‘Were those the words of a man called Pyre?’

‘They were not. They were the words of a boy named Thistle, and I regret them.’

‘The council fears you, Pyre,’ he said simply. ‘They see the esteem in which the Dead Pigeons hold you, the Dead Pigeons and half the lower Rungs. They see Pyre’s name scrawled on the walls beside our handprints, they hear Pyre’s name spoken in tones of reverence or fear. They grow jealous, and they grow frightened.’

‘Nonsense. All nonsense. I have no aims beyond the redemption of the species. The dawn and the dawn alone is my sole concern. If I thought it would bring it forward an hour or a moment or even a single instant, I would open a vein without hesitation.’

Edom’s smile hung in place for a long time. It was a steady thing, that smile, it was a stone facade, or the still surface of an underground well. ‘Of course,’ Edom said, taking Pyre’s hand and walking him towards the door. ‘I know that, have no fear. Your presence within the organisation is invaluable, none could replace you. You must be careful, Pyre, the First of His Line. It would be a terrible thing if your talents were lost to us by virtue of your courage.’

‘Martyr’s blood is fine fertiliser,’ Pyre said quietly.

‘The best,’ Edom agreed. ‘The very best.’

C
alla stood at the stone cusp of the Sidereal Citadel, a spring breeze caressing her bared shoulders. It was more than two years since the Wright’s first attempt at directed flight had failed in fiery and spectacular fashion, a thousand clove of metal and wood and silk and steamwork tumbling from the sky, dozens dying in the ship itself, who knew how many more when the thing crashed amidst the busy thoroughfares of the Second Rung. It had not forestalled progress – the death of a few humans here and there was seen as small sacrifice to this sanguinary deity. In this, at least, the Roost was not so different from the rest of the world.

And in fairness, the Wright had perfected his marvellous creations swiftly enough. An expedition six months after the catastrophe had seen the Wright and those of his human coterie who had survived the destruction of the first aeroship spend a miraculous if brief period gliding cleanly through a late morning sky and, moreover, landing safely. In the fashion of the Eternal, whose passion for novelties and diversion of all kinds bordered on mania, this second, successful expedition had set off a panicked enthusiasm for flight among all the Lords and Ladies of the First Rung. Half of his species had come to ask for the schematic, the less skilled of the Eternal resorting to begging the Wright or some other of their brethren to manufacture one in their stead. The Prime had received his first, a miraculous-looking thing of crimson and gold that the Aubade had accepted with the most elaborate expressions of courtesy, and had occasionally even enjoyed the use of, though never in the company of his seneschal. After what she had seen, nothing short of a direct order could convince Calla to embark upon it, and the Prime was kind enough not to insist. There were few among the Four-Fingered who shared her reticence, and these days any clear afternoon saw a small swarm of aeroships floating high above the First Rung, bright spots of saffron and maroon and chartreuse against a blue sky.

Today would see the first test of a new iteration, some variant of the original the specifics of which Calla was less than clear on. A larger air sack, or a more effective means of manoeuvring. It was, like most of what the Eternal did, little more than an opportunity to celebrate their own existence, every occasion demanding a feast and a party.