The corridor opened up to an antechamber full of people, all of them well dressed. Some sat at small tables, playing a game that involved small pieces made of sculpted rock. Some sat on long couches covered in what I assumed was sealskin.
“Their peerage,” said River to the rest of us.
The nobles watched as we walked through the antechamber to double doors made of wood that had been painted white. They were impressive not because they were ornate but because they were so tall and wide and the wall on this side of the antechamber was broad, not giving way to any other corridors, whereas, several other corridors lead to this antechamber. We were about to enter the throne room.
20. Sharks
Four guards in the Tintarian black stood, two on either side of the doors.
“You are expected to enter when you arrive,” one said to Zinnia, but his tone was less ordering and more deferential. We had spent our morning with a higher-ranking member of the keep’s staff.
The four guards pushed the white doors inward and we walked inside, to the throne room, in the hall of the Shark King.
It occurred to me that this room was like our scriptorium only ten times the size and two stories tall. It was closer to the outer side of the bluff, six of the narrow windows providing gray sunlight streaming down on the people and furniture inside. And the monumental collection of shark bones.
Their bones and their teeth, some the size of a fist, were everywhere. They were fused together into their original alignments, turned into grisly, unlit chandeliers strung from the ceiling, looking as if they were swimming in the air above. Full skeletons, articulated and assembled with copious copper wires, sat on plinths of white rock all around the room. Some of them were as big as two men and some were as big as a cottage. I had never seen such a large animal in my life, let alone a living shark, outside of drawings in books.
I could sense the shock of the other women. Looking around, I realized the walls in here were not just gray and blue but peeling with a moldy wallpapering, which only added to the grotesque atmosphere. From where we stood, I thought they were strips of chipping paint, twisting in the breeze.
Ten rows of benches and desks, made up of the same pale rock as the plinths, lined either side of an aisle, much like, I thought, our scriptorium. Each row sat five to six men, all well-dressed with papers and maps strewn in front of them.
At the end of the aisle sat two high tables with four figures sitting at each. The four figures to the left each wore an elaborate open robe over the black cotton. One man had short white hair and milky eyes, his robe a cool green the same color as the wall sconces. One man’s robe was red and orange. A third man with silvery blond hair, younger than the other two men, wore a robe of browns and warm greens. At the end of the table, an old woman, tall and regal in her high-backed seat was clad in a robe of cerulean blue.
At the table to the right, sat four men, all in the black Tintarian armor, the one closest to the throne, younger and handsome, the others older and more seasoned-looking men.
In the center, behind the tables, on a dais, sat the legendary Shark King, his highness, Hinnom the First.
River had been right. His throne did sit in the center of an open shark’s jaw, the teeth, which were the size of melons, still intact in the bone. He would have had to step over them to the throne inside, also made of fused together bones, these smaller and shaped to accommodate a human seat.
Zinnia had led us down the aisle to the end of the rows of desks, standing before the two high tables. To the right, near the table of men in armor, stood Alric, Thatcher and Perch, agleam in polished black armor, this time with chainmail beneath it, with even more weaponry on them, their shields strapped to their backs giving their heads that same black half-moon backdrop as when they had stormed into our chapel.
All three of them stared at us and I met Alric’s gaze, questions on my face.
I looked back to the shark’s jaw and the throne within. The man on the throne stood. He was tall, perhaps a whole hand taller than Perch, who was quite tall. He stepped over the jaw’s teeth and walked down the steps to stand between the two tables. He could have been forty winters or seventy. His hair was long and pitch black over his shoulders, but his beard was short and trimmed. His face was nearly gaunt, the hollows of his cheeks making him appear not quite royal, too savage, too wild to be a king. His eyes and brows were also dark. His hands were devoid of jewelry and rested on his arms as he had now crossed them. His dress was no more fine than his soldiers, all in black and leather, but without their armor.
He tilted his head towards Zinnia and she and her women gently pushed the nine of us forward so that the rows of men were behind us.
“Zinnia,” said Hinnom the First, eyes glittering as he assessed us. “You may go.”
Behind us, I heard her and her women leave, the creak of those large white doors opening inward and then again, closing behind them.
“Alric,” said the Shark King, walking away from the steps that led up to the dais of his throne and drawing nearer to us. “I asked you for ten men. You bring me nine women. I’m sorry—” and here he interrupted himself. He stopped and turned towards the three Procurers. “Ninepriestesses.”
I thought I saw the captain swallow.
Hinnom turned back to us. “And one of you is the leader, I take it?”
I could feel the fullness of my bladder from the water I had drunk with our luncheon.
“Well!” shouted Hinnom, but his shout was not angry, only impatient. “Which one of you Ecclestonians hypnotized my best men? Step forward!”
We all stayed where we stood.
Alric raised his brows at me, as if to say,you must.
I do not remember exactly how I propelled myself forward but I did. That was the repeated refrain of this entire journey, putting one foot in front of the other, taking one step, a second step and so on. Stupid and blind, unsure of our future, we had endured days under the sun in that pig’s wagon, then on horseback without the comfort of saddles, sleeping rough, eating one meal a day, pissing in the wild, tearing our clothes to rags for our courses. Perhaps that is why I eventually stepped forward, because I was used to the practice.
“Ah!” cried the Shark King. “You’re the one, the Saint Agnes devotee. Closer.”
