Free Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 by Daniel Polansky

elsewhere in the city, those I have made welcome may rest comfortably in the full certainty of my hospitality, entitled to all the dignity due them.’ It did not take a woman of Eudokia’s subtlety to recognise to whom this last had been addressed.
    Nor was the Lord of the Ebony Towers confused on the issue. ‘And the Red Keep is within the Roost, and the Roost has been the home of the Eternal for a dozen generations before the coming of this … woman, and in none of them has the Prime ever lowered themselves to welcome a locust with such courtesy.’
    ‘It is no surprise to me, sibling, that you demonstrate confusion as to the essential quality of magnanimity. The dictates of honour are not to be cast aside according to whim, nor is it a treasure to be reserved for the deserving – it is a kindness one does oneself, a reminder and a demonstration of one’s own personal worth. That you have not yet grasped this fact I can only attribute to youthful folly.’
    ‘Well spoken, my Lord Prime,’ Eudokia said fondly. ‘Epigrammatic, dare I say.’
    ‘Does one offer hospitality to the rats in one’s pantry? Or the lice on those rats?’
    ‘Is that such a problem for my Lord of the Ebony Towers?’ Eudokia asked. ‘In Aeleria we use a certain sort of a poison; it’s very effective against rodents of all sorts. Perhaps I might be so bold as to send my Lord a bottle?’
    ‘In the Ebony Towers, we know well how to deal with pests. And I assure you none are so fortunate as to expire via poison. There are entire chambers within my house which are dedicated to nothing but the slow extermination of those creatures which I find unwanted.’
    ‘It seems an awful lot of trouble to go through just to rid your pantries of vermin, but then the Lord of the Ebony Towers may arrange his eponymous domicile as he sees fit. Are there iron maidens for the cockroaches? Have you constructed very tiny racks for the mice?’
    The Lord of the Ebony Towers loomed over her as an adult does a child, and his eyes were the colour of his home. His face was white as broken bone, and each of his four fingers would have run from Eudokia’s wrist to her elbow. Jahan tensed ever so slightly beside her, though for once she did not suppose even the savage Parthan would be much help should the Shrike choose to give vent to his hate.
    If Eudokia had not been Eudokia, she might even have been frightened.
    She could hear the Aubade rise from behind her, feel him at her back like the noonday sun. He hissed something in their strange tongue, sounding more like the rustling of the leaves than human speech. The Lord of the Ebony Towers responded in kind, and in truth had she not been witness to the conversation prior, indeed if she had not directed it, then Eudokia would not have supposed them in the midst of dispute. But then, conflict is the universal constant, evident in all sentient creatures, many-branched stags bullying each other in the fields, alley cats in the trash heaps of the capital, and Eudokia knew it as well as anything that had ever lived. When it was over the Lord of the Ebony Towers had such hate in his eyes as would kindle a bonfire, but it was the sort of rage that would never pass beyond them.
    He turned his loathing on Eudokia full-bore for a moment, then stomped away without farewell.
    Eudokia turned slowly to the Prime, smiled her ineffable smile. ‘Has the Lord of the Ebony Towers retired for the evening? Pity – I was so enjoying our conversation.’

7
    T here had been a time before the Roost – before the mountain was hollowed, before the first drop of water blessed the summit. Before the towers and citadels of the Eternal caressed the sun and scraped the full belly of the moon. Before the Source, before the canals. Before the slopes were graded into Rungs, before the walls were erected to separate them. Before the slurp. A time when Those Above roamed across the continent, unhindered, unfettered by home or the obligations of