Golden Age (The Shifting Tides Book 1) (17 page)

‘Behold, Chloe of Phalesia,’ Solon said, gesturing to the pyramid. ‘This is the gateway to the afterlife. Helios has spoken. The pyramid must be completed before my death.’

‘Sun king,’ Chloe said hesitantly. ‘Could you not still enter without it? Don’t people enter paradise without a pyramid?’

‘Are you a devout person?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sun king. But I worship Aeris, goddess of music and healing. I don’t understand . . .’

‘There is one belief we share: when a man dies his deeds are weighed. I am the ruler of a great empire. I have taken Ilea into a new age. I have done good deeds and I have done things that may be considered cruel. I must never show weakness. It is no easy feat to unite five nations into a single empire.’

‘Perhaps if you atoned . . .’

‘Atoned?’ he asked, curious.

‘It means to make a change. To do good deeds in order to restore the balance of one’s life and gain entrance to heaven.’

He barked a laugh. ‘It is an interesting idea. But I prefer to deal with absolutes. This guarantees my entry and I can continue to be the ruler I must be, suppressing rebels and building a civilization that will stand the test of time. I have brought peace and wealth to almost all of Salesia. If I let that fall into chaos because of soft-heartedness and weakness, would that not weigh against me?’

Chloe gazed at the pyramid. She tried to count the bare stones, but soon gave up; all she could see was that, while there were more surfaces of gold than those unclad, there were still many remaining. ‘But will you ever have enough gold?’

‘There are nations in the east still unconquered. There are tributes I await. There are places across the Maltherean Sea, places like your Phalesia.’ He suddenly looked exhausted by so much speech. ‘Enough. The gods have spoken to me. Slaves!’

Chloe frowned as she saw slaves coming forward, each carrying an item in his or her hands. She realized what the items were as they placed instruments onto a mat on the ground nearby. She saw lyres and trumpets, tambourines and citharas, with an astonishing variety of each. Some were big and some small; there were instruments displaying fine workmanship while others were ancient relics.

‘The gods have revealed a way to test your skills and your training. You listed music as one of your talents. Take your instrument and play. If the sun god is angered here, in this place, we will know.’

Chloe knew she wasn’t being given a choice. She scanned the assortment until she found a copper flute, a little larger than she was used to, but not dissimilar to her own.

‘Play,’ Solon instructed as she crouched to pick it up.

Chloe straightened, swallowed, and put the mouthpiece to her lips. She began to play.

The first notes were uncertain and Solon frowned, but then she found her rhythm. As she had done so many times before, she made herself forget about where she was, playing for herself alone. Closing her eyes, her chest rose and fell as she played a song of her own devising, moving up the scale to find the key she felt most accustomed to with the unfamiliar instrument.

Each note bled into another as she used a breathing technique she had learned at the temple to make continuous sound without interruption. Her cheeks ballooned as she used a last puff of air at the end of each breath to inhale the next, evacuating the air in her cheeks to eke out the music while she expanded her chest.

Finding her key, she moved into the ‘Ballad of Aeris’, a song about the goddess’s love for the heroic warrior Korax. When Korax died defending the Temple of Aeris in Sarsica from the ravaging of northern barbarians, Aeris tried to bring him back to life but his wounds were too dire even for the goddess. Her heartbreak was evident in the low bass while the trickling away of his blood formed a sad lilting melody of high notes.

Chloe opened her eyes as she approached the end of the ballad. She saw that Solon was watching intently, his expression thoughtful but giving nothing away. The dark clouds overhead had continued to gather, casting the pyramid in shadow.

Without halting, she continued on to the ‘Tragedy of Aleuthea’, a complex song describing the sinking of the great king Palemon’s civilization beneath the waves. It was at the limit of her skill to execute the dancing trills and low throaty rumbles. Without the words, she had to tell the story entirely with the flute, hearing the stanzas in her mind but conducting them with her instrument.

Still Solon merely watched, and now Chloe made up the melody as she went, eyes once more closed, her fingers working furiously on the flute, combining mournful low notes with bright trills, adding a repeating coda to her song and weaving it through. She slowed and then filled the air with a series of long, slow, drawn-out notes in a minor scale.

Finally she let the music fade away and opened her eyes. As she took the flute away from her lips the clouds parted and the sun shone directly through the gap, striking the glittering pyramid’s facets where one side met the next. The diagonal line formed by the meeting point flared with golden fire.

Chloe forgot all about the music as she stared in awe at the glistening gold, so bright her senses could take in nothing else.

Solon nodded. ‘The sun god has spoken. It is a good omen.’

He didn’t look at her; his eyes were on his tomb. Chloe felt suddenly drained.

‘I will give you your chance. You will be assigned a bodyguard. Each night you will be confined with the women, but you may venture into the city to get the materials you need to make your potions. You may leave.’

He made no mention of the music. Solon continued his inspection of the pyramid, frowning at the places where the stone was bare.

26

Dion had sailed through two days and two sleepless nights, determined not to return home in failure. His vision wavered as he kept the
Calypso
on course, trimming the sail and sending the incredible vessel leaping over every crest.

When he sighted land, he knew he had finally crossed the Maltherean Sea.

But finding Lamara was another task altogether. He knew that if he headed directly south from Athos he should strike the coast higher than the city, and should be able to travel, hugging the shore, until he came to the sun king’s capital. Yet he was worried, for he had little knowledge of what he was actually looking for.

He passed the third day scouting inlets and rocky bays, brow creased as he looked for the signs of a city. His only encouraging thought was that Lamara was reputed to be huge, and must therefore have fishing and trade vessels leaving and returning to the city in numbers. But as the day wore on and the sun passed the sky’s midpoint, beginning to fall back down to the horizon, he wondered if he’d missed Lamara altogether.

Then he saw a ship.

It was a distant merchant vessel, with a fat belly and wide beam, but he could tell from the set of the sails which way it was heading, and he followed the same course. Keeping a wide distance between them, he skirted the rust-colored coastline until the merchantman turned to head toward shore.

A wide bay opened up ahead, and when he saw a tall lighthouse at the extreme end of a promontory he felt his hopes rise. At the opposite end of the bay another lighthouse marked a safe passage between the two and now he saw more ships, all heading in the same direction.

He spurred the
Calypso
forward, getting every bit of speed from her that he could. Overtaking the merchant ship, he saw that the other vessels were all heading into a wide inlet. A gigantic stone statue appeared on the left bank and Dion recognized the sun god.

His spirits soared. He had come to the right place.

He now saw galleys and fishing boats, dozens of vessels returning to safe harbor before the day’s end. Heading into a wide brown river, he passed tiny coves and the occasional shack. A huge wall rose ahead, the longest and tallest he had ever seen. He stood up in the boat, holding onto the mast as he peered at it, though the city behind was mostly hidden behind.

Dion decided not to venture closer; he would hide the boat outside the city.

He worried about the danger underneath the
Calypso
as he turned into shore and scouted an inlet, before changing his mind and deciding the place wasn’t hidden enough. A second cove was worse still, rocks poking up from the water making the peril clear. Finally he found a little bay, curving in on itself, a mile or so from the high city wall. Scraggly bushes grew along the sides of a little stream with steep banks on both sides, a place he knew he would be able to hide his boat.

He dropped the sail and allowed the
Calypso
to gently coast to the rocky bank. Moments later he was out of the boat and pulling the vessel into the stream, shoving the bushes aside. He fetched his bow
– the string was ruined, but the bow might still be serviceable –
and a satchel with supplies. Placing them on the bank, he then resumed his work to conceal the painted hull, not content until the
Calypso
was well hidden in the cleft where a casual observer wouldn’t notice her. He would be leaving the same way he came.

With his bow in the satchel, he climbed out from the bay until he was on open ground high above the river, looking at the indomitable city wall, with hexagonal towers at regular intervals along its length.

He reminded himself of his quest. He needed to learn what he could about this land, about its ruler, warships, and army. He had to find and rescue the first consul’s daughter.

Back in Xanthos, Nikolas would be building up the army. His father, King Markos of Xanthos, would be trying to arrange a military alliance with Phalesia. Taking Chloe made clear the sun king’s hostile intentions. He desired the Ark of Revelation. He was a war king, a ruler of conquest. He would return.

Back in Phalesia, the Assembly would be preparing to appease the sun king, which would only prove their weakness. Aristocles would be aware that his daughter’s life hung in the balance, even as he tried to convince his people to prepare for war.

Dion started walking toward Lamara. On the way, he began to think how he might gain entry through the city gates.

In the end, nothing could have been easier.

He simply reached a dusty road, joining throngs of people of all description, and walked through Lamara’s wide gates.

He had seen the ziggurat as he approached and marveled at the walled palace on the highest tier, evidently the residence of the sun king. A triangular peak in the distance, on the far side of the city near the river, filled him with bemusement as to its purpose. The massive city walls went on and on, yellow and ancient. Initially concerned, as his gaze took in the crowd entering through the gates, he realized what a cosmopolitan city he was walking into, the bustling heart of an empire.

Aware that he was staring at everything around him, Dion lowered his gaze and tried to walk with purpose as he followed the crowd onto a wide boulevard with two-storied brick houses on both sides. When the road forked he took the left fork, though he had no idea where it led. The crowd now thinned and he rubbed his chin as he stopped in his tracks.

‘Lodgings?’ a piping voice called from nearby.

He ignored the query as he tried to formulate a plan. Something tugged on the sleeve of his tunic and, glancing to the side, he saw a small boy looking up at him, grinning hopefully.

‘Lodgings?’ the boy said again.

He had a round face and eager smile – a small urchin with a snub nose and dazzlingly bright white teeth. He wore loose, dirty trousers and a tight vest. His brown eyes sparkled from underneath tousled strands of black hair.

‘You need a place to sleep? You want something from the bazaar?’

Dion shook himself loose. ‘Not interested,’ he muttered.

He continued up the road and climbed a series of steps, deciding to try to get closer to the palace. Turning into an alleyway, he wrinkled his nose at a smoky stench and saw two youths huddled in a doorway, furtively passing a pipe between them. They were both stick thin; in another place Dion would have assumed they were deathly ill. One sighed with apparent exhaustion, slumping as he let out a stream of thick smoke while another leaned back and stared at the sky as if seeing deep meaning above.

The youth with the pipe looked up, saw Dion, and scowled, revealing a face with a feverish cast. Deciding to try a different path, Dion went back the way he came. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the youth had returned his attention to the pipe.

Dion climbed until he emerged onto another avenue, home to a small fruit market. His stomach rumbled at the sight of all the bright fruits and vegetables. The magi from Athos had gifted him with food, but he hadn’t had a proper meal since leaving Xanthos.

He realized he was standing in the wrong place when the peo
ple shopping at the market scurried out of the way and a marching column of soldiers in yellow cloaks pushed through. Narrowly avoiding them, he inspected them carefully as they passed. They wore leather skirts over cloth trousers and leather breastplates above tunics. Each carried a triangular shield and a spear, with a curved sword at his waist, longer than the swords worn by the hoplites of Xanthos. These were professional soldiers, he saw. His brother’s warriors were better armed, but the sun king’s men marched in tight formation and their hands were scarred from regular practice.

Dion’s bow was in his satchel but he had seen several Ileans with swords at their sides. He decided he would be safe to carry his bow openly, if he needed to.

Resuming his climb as he searched for the palace, he left the square and followed a steep road leading to a wealthy residential district. Heading up to the ziggurat’s highest tier, he finally came to a tall red wall the height of three men. A wide road followed the wall, curving with it, and he knew he was skirting the exterior of the palace.

He traveled along the wall, looking for the entrance, noting the sharp wooden spikes at regular intervals along the top. He walked for a time but still couldn’t see any gates. Rounding a corner, he stopped and stared as the ground ahead dropped away, revealing the lower city all the way to the wide brown river.

He struggled to take in what he was looking at now. He saw the residences of the nobility give way to workshops and then a broad boulevard with gates dividing it from the city. The section within the gate was evidently a temple quarter, but it was the immense structure between the temple quarter and the river that drew his gaze.

A perfectly proportioned pyramid rose from the dusty plain of the city’s outskirts, but still within the guarding walls and towers. Although Dion had traveled in Phalesia, Sarsica, and the islands of the Maltherean Sea, he couldn’t believe mere humans were capable of building such a thing. Only the worn obelisks said to be remnants of the vanished Aleuthean civilization rivaled it in size, but they were ancient, and this was new.

He could see slaves climbing scaffolding and huge stone blocks on platforms of wooden logs hovering in the air, work teams lifting them by means of pulleys. He suddenly understood the sun king’s obsession with gold: most of the blocks were faced with shining yellow metal, set against the stone steps both horizontally and vertically, cladding the pyramid’s exterior.

The sun king must have exhausted every treasury in his empire. Every ingot from every mine must have fed his lust for the precious metal. It was either the greatest folly the world had ever seen, or a creation of utter simplicity and beauty. No matter which it was, it demonstrated the sun king’s power for all to see.

Dion watched for a time, seeing priests in yellow robes standing near the overseers with whips directing the work. As he looked at the intense activity he tried to come up with a plan.

He needed to spend time in the city, preferably somewhere he could watch the palace. No doubt its gates would be guarded, so it was probably for the best that he hadn’t stumbled across them. He had a few silver coins sewn into his tunic, but he would need more if he intended to remain longer than a couple of days.

Dion turned around, and there was the young boy from the main city gates, watching and smiling as he hovered near a side street. He had his hands out, showing he meant no harm. The boy looked a little fearful as Dion approached, but he was bold and persistent, and stood fast.

‘What’s your name, boy?’ Dion asked.

‘Anoush, master,’ he said, clasping his hands together and making little nodding bows.

‘Anoush, I need a place to sleep. Somewhere not too expensive but close to the palace. I want a high room where I can watch the city.’

Anoush nodded enthusiastically, smiling so that little dimples formed on his round cheeks. ‘The House of Algar. Please, let me take you, master. You will have very fine views.’

Dion wondered if he could trust him. Anoush was about thirteen, and although he was skinny his clothes weren’t the ragged garments of a beggar, which meant that he was either a good thief or a resourceful guide.

‘Where are your parents, Anoush?’

‘Parents are dead, master. I am an orphan. I came to Lamara when I was six. I know the city well. I can help you with anything you require.’

Dion rubbed his chin. ‘We’ll start with lodgings and take it from there.’

‘Come.’ Anoush took Dion’s hand and started to lead him down the side street. ‘It is not a long way. Come, come.’

The House of Algar was well located within the nobles’ quarter, not far from the palace. The roofs in the area were crowded close together, each building either leaning against the next or joined together, making the alleys a maze of twisting pathways. Dion saw a three-storied terraced house with a set of cleanly swept steps leading into a dark, cool interior. It was on the same side of the palace as the city gate and he nodded approvingly; he may need to make a swift exit. There was nothing to mark it out as a guesthouse other than a representation of a man lying on his back carved into the stone near the entrance.

‘The House of Algar,’ Anoush said proudly. ‘Come.’

‘Wait,’ Dion said. He hesitated. ‘Can I trust you, Anoush?’

‘Yes, master.’ The boy nodded.

Dion unpicked the three silver coins from the rough pocket sewn on the inner hem of his tunic. He showed them to the boy. ‘Will these be accepted here?’

Anoush frowned. ‘Strange coins.’ He held out his hand. Dion placed a Phalesian silver coin into his palm. The boy bit onto it and examined the imprint of an eagle pressed into one side to demonstrate that the coin was solid. ‘Good silver, though. Algar will accept them, but if he says he will not I can change them at the bazaar.’

‘How much should I pay for the room?’

‘Algar will ask for one of these silver coins, for one week’s lodging.’