Page 54 of The Devils

Rivers in the Sky

Brother Diaz stepped onto the top of the Pillar of Troy, and into another world.

The city below had been dry and dusty, walled in and paved over. Up here, in the royal grounds, all was shimmering green against dazzling blue. Trees majestic as any in a forest soared overhead, emerald lawns spread out in invitation, bushes offered up a treasure of blossom, all planted with such masterful artifice it seemed the seeds must have fallen from the hand of God.

A double row of immaculate guardsmen lined the paved road, and as Alex approached, they all stomped one heel with a single crash of military might, lowering gilded halberds to form a corridor of polished metal.

‘So many guards,’ murmured Brother Diaz, nodding in approval at all that armour.

‘So many guards,’ murmured Alex, peering nervously at the blades hovering overhead.

‘Being afraid … is a hard habit to break, I know. I’d always imagined our hardest tests would lie at the end of the journey.’ Brother Diaz let his hand trail through a frond of greenery, dewy leaves tickling the webs between his fingers. ‘Dare we imagine the worst might be behind us?’

‘Don’t count on it,’ grunted Jakob of Thorn. But even his flinty frown showed signs of softening. The city below had been airless, baking, thick with reek and flies. Up here, in the Hanging Gardens, a cooling breeze caressed the skin, making the bright sun flash and sparkle through leaves of a thousand shapes and colours.

Brother Diaz took a breath heavy with the fragrance of flowers and resin and let it sigh away. ‘As near as I’ve come to paradise.’

‘I’ve heard during Empress Diocletia’s reign, every plant God made was represented here.’ Alex held up her palms as a zephyr brought a fluttering rain of tiny pink petals down around her.

Duke Michael smiled as he watched. ‘Say what you will about Eudoxia – and she murdered my sister, usurped her throne, and was a tyrant and heretic who deservedly burns in hell – but she spared no expense on the Pillar and Aqueduct, and gave us a glimpse of the majesty of old.’ He grinned at the babbling waters as they crossed a bridge over a snaking channel. ‘When I was a boy there was nothing but a brackish trickle here, the gardens were reduced to thirsty palms, just one of the lifts worked, and only when it was in the right mood. But now? Listen.’

The city below had been raucous with cheering, the clatter of commerce, the bellows of beasts on four legs and two. Here there was only the murmur of foliage, the trill of birdsong, and everywhere the nearby chatter of running water, the far-off whisper of falling water.

‘Rivers,’ murmured Brother Diaz, ‘in the sky.’

‘The water floods down the aqueduct from springs in the mountains,’ said Duke Michael, ‘and flows through hidden pipes beneath us, or spreads out in channels to cascade down the Pillar’s sides, driving the lifts, flowing out through the districts below to water the gardens and fill the public baths. The scholars say it did much more, once, but those secrets are lost.’

‘The scale …’ breathed Balthazar, ‘beggars belief …’ Even he’d lost his usual detached superiority.

Duke Michael grinned. ‘The top of the Pillar is several hundred strides across. The Witch Engineers of Carthage did not lack ambition, and nor did my forebears, in building on their legacy. On the east side, they raised the Basilica of the Angelic Visitation.’ He pointed down a paved road, busy with hooded pilgrims. The towering facade of the Basilica at its end, framed by the blue heavens, was covered in geometric carvings and glittering images of the angels. The four spires at its corners were the size of bell towers, its two soaring bell towers taller yet.

Here was the grandeur Brother Diaz had hoped, and decidedly failed, to find in the Holy City. ‘Truly,’ he murmured, closing his eyes for a moment, ‘a place where one can feel the presence of God.’

‘On the Pillar’s west side, they built the Palace.’ Duke Michael pointed out a dizzying cluster of spires, striped with bands of dark stone, and set a fond hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘ Your palace, and at its top, Saint Natalia’s Flame, which for centuries has guided the children of Troy home.’ The Pharos gently tapered like the blade of a sword, the highest of all the great towers built on the great tower of the Pillar, the flame at its domed top gleaming brightly even in the sunlight.

Duke Michael pointed out more imposing architecture, glimpsed through the green. ‘They raised the grand dwellings of the noble families, and the headquarters of army and navy, fortresses to house the Emperor’s elite, and all the machinery of a great Empire. A city within the city!’

‘A city among the clouds …’ Balthazar was gazing at a building rising from the gardens beside them, its pediment held up on ten lofty pillars, carved with scenes of art and learning. ‘The famous Athenaeum?’

‘Desecrated and diminished.’ Duke Michael shook his head. ‘Eudoxia drove out the scholars, replaced them with sorcerers and alchemists, and gave the place over to the study of Black Art.’

‘The excavation of arcane mysteries,’ murmured Balthazar, ‘not cloaked in shameful secrecy, but proudly celebrated! Only imagine!’ He cleared his throat as he realised everyone was staring at him. ‘And … be utterly scandalised , of course.’

‘We faced a few of Eudoxia’s students on the road,’ said Jakob.

‘They were bad enough in ones and twos. The thought of a coven …’ And Brother Diaz hastily made the sign of the circle over his chest.

‘Some swore loyalty to one or another of the Empress’s sons,’ said Lady Severa. ‘The rest fled soon after her death.’

‘Like woodlice, they feared the light.’ Duke Michael smiled over at Alex. ‘No doubt they sensed the new dawn coming, and judgement with her! Like so much of the city, our Athenaeum yearns to be reborn. Its library remains one of the greatest in the world, by all accounts.’

Brother Diaz had scarcely thought of books in months, but memories of happy hours among the shelves now flooded back. ‘How many volumes?’ he asked.

‘Counting them would be a labour of itself,’ said Severa, ‘but well over a hundred thousand.’

Brother Diaz gaped. He’d often boasted that his monastery’s library held a thousand books, and knew he’d been stretching the truth. He struggled to picture what one hundred thousand might look like. Imagine the index alone! Sweet Saviour, what system of sliding ladders might they employ?

‘I would very much like to see that,’ he whispered.

‘I will make arrangements to have it opened to you. You must promise not to wander within, though. There are still … things left behind, from Eudoxia’s experiments …’ Severa looked warily towards low vaults cut into the foundations to either side of the front steps and sealed with barred gates. They reminded Brother Diaz more than was comfortable of the cells beneath the Chapel of the Holy Expediency. ‘Things we dare not disturb …’

‘My great-grandfather gathered a menagerie in the building’s basement,’ said Duke Michael. ‘Strange and wonderful creatures, from the ice of the Arctic, the deserts of Afrique. He had planned to study, delight, and educate.’

‘Eudoxia put the animals to a different purpose,’ said Severa.

Jakob narrowed his eyes. ‘This is where the things that fought for Marcian and Constans were made.’ Brother Diaz took a nervous step away. He thought he had seen something shift, deep in the shadows beyond the bars.

‘Where Sabbas got his wings,’ said Baptiste, ‘and set himself up as the Angel of Troy.’

‘The arrogance of those pampered dolts!’ snapped Lady Severa, with sudden venom. ‘The gifts they squandered, squabbling over what was never theirs! I should have done more …’

‘You can’t blame yourself for their sins,’ said Brother Diaz, softly.

‘If no one blamed themselves for the things they could not help …’ She gave him a faint smile as she turned away from the Athenaeum and led them on towards the Palace. ‘Wouldn’t the whole Church go out of business?’