The Complete Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns

I sheathed my sword and pulled the knife from my belt. Moving in close, I scratched at the strange patch and managed to score a line across the surface. It left me little wiser. Not wood.

‘What?’ The torches threw Gorgoth’s shadow over me.

‘I hoped you could tell me,’ I said. ‘Or at least open it.’ I struck my fist on the panel. It gave the faintest hint at some hollow behind.

Gorgoth pushed past and felt out the edges. It was about a yard by half a yard. He struck it a blow that would have caved in an oak door. The panel hardly shook, but the edge on the left lifted ever so slightly. He set the three thick fingers of each hand to the edge, digging in with dark red talons. Beneath his scarred hide the muscles seemed to fight each other, one surging over the next in a furious game of King of the Mountain. For the longest time nothing happened. I watched him strain, then realized I’d forgotten to breathe. As I released my breath, something gave inside the wall. With a snap and then a tortured groan the panel came free. The empty cupboard behind it proved to be somewhat of an anti-climax.

‘Jorg!’ The hammering had stopped.

I turned to see Rike wiping sweat and dust from his face, and Burlow beckoning me over.

I crossed the room slowly, though half of me wanted to run, and the other half not to go at all.

‘Doesn’t look like you’re through yet, Burlow.’ I shook my head in mock disappointment.

‘Not going to be neither.’ Rike spat on the floor.

Burlow brushed the dust from the shallow hole their labour had forged. Two twisted metal bars showed through, bedded in the Builder-stone. ‘Reckon these run through the whole wall,’ he said.

My eyes strayed to the knife I held clenched in one fist. I have, on occasion, punished the messenger. There are few things more satisfying than taking out your frustrations upon the bearer of bad tidings.

‘Reckon they might at that.’ I pushed the words through gritted teeth.

Quickly, before Fat Burlow could open his mouth again and earn himself the name Dead Burlow, I turned and went back to the secret compartment. Just enough space to hold a folded corpse. Empty save for dust. I drew my sword and reached in to check the back of the compartment. As I did a strange chime sounded.

‘External sensors malfunctioning. Biometrics offline.’ The voice came from the empty cupboard, the tone calm and reasonable.

I looked to either side, then back to the space before me. The brothers looked up and started to get to their feet.

‘What language is that?’ Makin asked. The others were looking for ghosts, but Makin always asked good questions.

‘Damned if I know.’ I knew a few languages, six fluent enough for conversation and another six well enough to recognize when spoken.

‘Password?’ The voice came again.

I recognized that. ‘So you can speak Empire Tongue, spirit.’ I kept my sword raised, looking all around to find the speaker. ‘Show yourself.’

‘State your name and password.’

Beneath the dust on the back wall of the compartment I could see lights moving, like bright green worms.

‘Can you open that door?’ I asked.

‘That information is classified. Do you have clearance?’

‘Yes.’ Four foot of edged steel is clearance enough in my book.

‘State your name and password.’

‘How long have you been trapped in there, spirit?’ I asked.

The brothers gathered around me, peering into the compartment. Makin made the sign of the cross, Red Kent fingered his charms, Liar pulled his self-collected reliquary from beneath his mail shirt.

A long moment passed while the green worms marched down the back wall, a flood of light beneath the dust. ‘One thousand one hundred and eleven years.’

‘What’s it going to take for you to open that door? Gold? Blood?’

‘Your name and password.’

‘My name is Honorus Jorg Ancrath, my password is divine right. Now open the fecking door.’

‘I don’t recognize you.’ Something about the spirit’s calmness infuriated me. If it had been visible I’d have run it through right there and then.

‘You haven’t recognized anything but the back of this panel for eleven hundred years.’ I kicked the panel in question for emphasis and sent it skittering across the room.

‘You are not authorized for chamber twelve.’

I looked to the brothers for inspiration. A more blank sea of faces is hard to imagine.

‘Eleven hundred years is a long time,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t it lonely there in the dark, all those long years?’

‘I was alone.’

‘You were alone. And you could be again. We could wall you up so you’d never be found.’

‘No.’ The tone remained calm, but there was something frenzied in the pattern of lights.

‘… or, we could set you free.’ I lowered my sword.

‘There is no freedom.’

‘What do you want then?’

No reply. I leaned into the compartment, far enough that I could set my fingers to the far wall. The surface beneath the dust felt glassy and cool.

‘You were alone,’ I said. ‘Trammelled in the thousand-year dark with only memories for company.’

What had it witnessed, this ancient spirit, trapped by the Builders? It had lived through the Day of A Thousand Suns, it had seen the end of the greatest empire, heard the scream of millions.

‘My creator gave me awareness, for a “flexible and robust response to unforeseen situations”,’ the spirit said. ‘Awareness has proved to be a weakness in periods of prolonged isolation. Memory limitations become significant.’

‘Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you’ll find an edge to cut you.’ I looked into my own darkness. I knew what it was to be trapped, and to watch ruination. ‘Each day the memories weigh a little heavier. Each day they drag you down that bit further. You wind them around you, a single thread at a time, and you weave your own shroud, you build a cocoon, and in it madness grows.’ The lights pulsed beneath my fingers, ebbing and flowing to the beat of my voice. ‘You sit here with your yesterdays queuing at your shoulder. You listen to their reproach and curse those that gave you life.’

Veins of light spread through the glass beneath my palm, miniature lightning reaching across the wall. My hand tingled. I felt a moment of kinship.

‘I know what you want,’ I said. ‘You want an end.’

‘Yes.’