The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

ALSO BY DJANGO WEXLER

The Thousand Names

ROC

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright © Django Wexler, 2014

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Map illustration by Cortney Skinner

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Wexler, Django.

The shadow throne / Django Wexler.

pages cm.—(Shadow campaigns; bk. 2)

ISBN 978-1-101-60952-1

1. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. 2. Fantasy fiction. I. Title.

PS3623.E94S53 2014

813'.6—dc23 2014004574

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Mom and Dad, as always.

T
he advantage of writing the acknowledgments for the second volume in a series is that I can, in some sense, pick up where I left off. In the first volume, I wrote a little bit about the road that led to these books, and the people who helped me along it. Let me, then, briefly add to the list.

This time around, my invaluable history text was Simon Schama’s
Citizens
. While the events of
The Shadow Throne
are not a particularly close fit with history, Schama’s wonderful portrait of the French Revolution provided a storehouse of inspiration and detail that I have shamelessly raided.

Elisabeth Fracalossi continued in her task as alpha reader, a crucial role to fill for any writer. Cat Rambo heroically devoured the entire massive manuscript in a single gulp in order to talk it over with me when I’d gotten myself in a pickle. No less heroic are my beta readers, Konstantin Koptev and Lu Huan, whose feedback was, as always, invaluable.

At this point, we can take it as read that my agent, Seth Fishman, is accomplishing wonders. The rest of the team at the Gernert Company, Will Roberts, Rebecca Gardener, and Andy Kifer, has also done great, and it’s thanks to them (and their hardworking coagents!) that we’ll soon see
The Thousand Names
in French, German, Polish, and Italian.

My editors, Jessica Wade at Roc and Michael Rowley at Del Rey UK, were their usual incredibly talented and helpful selves. In particular, thanks go to Jessica for working literally up until the last day before her maternity leave, and to Michael for the apt suggestion that Marcus’ life should be more like
Yes Minister
. Again, too, I’d like to recognize all the people at both publishers who help transform my Word document into an actual
thing
(or e-thing) and who don’t get nearly enough praise.

Lastly, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who enjoyed
The Thousand Names
and took the time to talk about it: in e-mails to me, on Twitter, in book reviews, or in the multifarious corners of the blogosphere. You make it a lot easier to convince myself to get up in the morning and get to work.

THE LAST DUKE

T
here were stories about what went on inside the Ministry of Information. The building—dubbed “the Cobweb”—was innocuous enough on the outside, another example of Farus VI’s fondness for marble, classical columns, and elaborately decorated facades. Inside, the stories ran, it was a place of dust and shadows, full of hidden archives, rat-infested cells, and elaborate death traps. More than one adventure serial had featured some hero rescuing his ladylove from its forgotten oubliettes.

Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko, Minister of Information and head of the Concordat, found all of this faintly offensive. In reality the Cobweb was lit by thousands of standing lamps, day and night, and a whole corps of junior servants was employed refilling oil and replacing wicks. There was no point in having the clerks ruin their eyesight trying to squint by candlelight, after all. And if one thought about it logically for a moment, it would be much
harder
to sneak into a brightly lit building bustling with activity than a moldering dungeon full of death traps. As for cells, there were a few, of course, but they were hardly rat-infested. Orlanko tolerated no vermin in his domain.

It was yet another example of the popular taste for colorful fantasy over prosaic reality. In Orlanko’s opinion, if the Vordanai as a people could be said to have a fault, it was an excess of imagination outweighing proper sense. Not that the duke was complaining. He’d become an expert at playing on that imagination over the years.

His private office, at the top of the building, was a remarkably small and well-organized one. If an outsider had wandered in—though of course none
were ever allowed to do so—he might have wondered where all the books and papers had gotten to. This was, after all, the heart of the Ministry of Information, the nerve center of the Concordat, the omniscient (again, in the popular imagination) secret police who knew everything about everyone. And yet here was the Last Duke himself, sitting behind a modest oak desk with only a few clipped bundles of paper, and not even a bookshelf to decorate the walls or a leather-bound tome full of dark secrets.

Again, the duke thought, a failure of common sense. What was the point of turning his office into a library? The whole
building
was his library, and all he really needed to do his business was the little copper bell on his desk. Ringing it would send in a clerk—there was always a queue of them waiting outside—who would silently accept the Last Duke’s instructions and take them down into the archives, deputizing subclerks and sub-subclerks to break his order into manageable tasks. Files would be read, copied, summarized, and collated, until the original clerk returned to Orlanko’s desk with another neat clipped bundle of paper. It was a machine for
knowing
things, for carrying out the will of the man sitting behind the desk, and Orlanko was immensely proud of it. Building it had been his life’s work.

In that sense, Andreas bothered him. Not the man specifically, but the need for him, and others like him. Duke Orlanko wished that everything was like his Ministry, where he could just ring a little bell and speak a few words to set the whole vast apparatus clicking into motion. Beyond the walls of the Cobweb, unfortunately, things were messier, and required the employment of those who, like Andreas, had . . . special talents.

Andreas was in his middle thirties, with an average build and a forgettable face, both assets in his line of work. He wore one of the black, floor-length leather greatcoats that were the unofficial uniform of the Concordat. The coat had become a symbol. Parents frightened their children with it. This was useful, since if everyone knew what a Concordat agent looked like, it made it all the easier
not
to look like one when that was what was required.

Orlanko shifted in his special chair, which creaked slightly as hidden springs took up his weight. He adjusted his spectacles and pretended to notice Andreas for the first time, though the man had been waiting patiently for at least a quarter of an hour.

“Ah, Andreas.”

“Sir.”

“Any progress with your investigation of the Gray Rose?”

Some things were too delicate to trust to the machine. The Gray Rose had been another of Orlanko’s special employees, one of the best, but she’d slipped the leash several years back and disappeared without a trace. As a matter of principle, the duke couldn’t allow that sort of thing. Andreas had been pursuing her ever since, patiently following the faintest traces with a persistence that would have done credit to a bloodhound. Andreas, the duke sometimes thought, was a bit like an automaton himself.

“I have several promising leads, sir,” Andreas said. “My people are following them up.”

“You’re still convinced she hasn’t left the country?”

“The balance of evidence seems to suggest she remains in the city, sir.”

Damn the woman, Orlanko thought. If she’d done the logical thing and fled beyond his supposedly all-powerful reach, he would have happily called off the hunt. She knew nothing that would damage him, not at this stage. But by remaining close by, she implicitly challenged his authority, and that could not be tolerated. It was an irritating waste of resources.

“Well, I’m sure your men can proceed without you for a time. There are other matters that require our attention.”

“Yes, sir.” Andreas waited patiently, hands crossed behind his back.

“Have you heard the news from Khandar?”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Vhalnich appears to have won a great victory. The Vermillion Throne is secure, and newly indebted to His Majesty.”

“So the papers would have us believe,” Orlanko said sourly. Vhalnich was already well on his way to becoming a popular hero. Such stories were usually exaggerations, but the duke’s own agents reported that the broadsheets were, if anything, understating the case. “Vhalnich is on his way back here, apparently. He’s expected any day.”

“And the special asset you sent with him?”

“I’ve heard nothing.” Orlanko’s finger tap-tap-tapped on the report. “Which, in itself, speaks volumes. If we assume the worst, she’s been eliminated.”

“And the Thousand Names may be in Vhalnich’s hands.” A hint of animation entered Andreas’ face. “Would you like him removed upon arrival?”

The duke stifled a sigh. If Andreas had a fault, it was a definite tendency to resort to drastic measures too quickly. It was an odd failing in someone so patient in every other respect. Orlanko suspected that Andreas simply liked to kill people.

“That would be a bit obvious, don’t you think?” Orlanko shook his head. “No, Vhalnich will undoubtedly enjoy the favor of the king and the adoration of the mob. For the moment, we dare not touch him. But His Majesty is
very
ill. If he dies . . . we shall see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We need to know what happened in Khandar, Andreas. If these Names our Elysian friends are so interested in really exist, and whether or not Vhalnich has them. Whether he even understands their importance.” He leaned back in his chair, springs creaking. “Find out.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Vhalnich is a very clever man, and he’ll be on his guard. Concentrate on the people around him. Nothing too obvious, of course.”

“Yes, sir.” Andreas betrayed only a hint of disappointment.

“And I may have another assignment for you soon, depending on how the king’s health progresses. There are quite a few little cabals out there hoping to capitalize on the confusion. We have them all infiltrated, naturally, and there’s nothing
terribly
dangerous. But a few well-timed disappearances should put the fear of God into them.” Or rather, he thought, the fear of the Last Duke. That was better. “Make sure your people are ready.”

“Of course, sir.”

“That will be all.”

Andreas ghosted out. Orlanko looked at the stack of reports, adjusted his glasses, and unclipped the top pile.

What nobody understood was how
hard
his job was. Riding herd on the city sometimes felt like trying to keep his seat on an unruly stallion. Yes, he knew about everything of importance practically before it happened, and yes, he could whisper a name and Andreas or someone like him would drag that person into a cell where they’d never see the light of day again. But really, what good was that? You couldn’t lock
everybody
up. His task was much trickier—to make them forge a prison in their own minds, out of their own fears, in which they would lock themselves and throw away the key. He’d been working at it for years, and he liked to think he’d done a fair job. The black coats were part of it. The occasional vanishing, the odd body found floating in the river, those just helped to grease the hinges. Fear would populate every shadow with hooded figures, when even he couldn’t possibly employ enough agents to do the job.

He wasn’t afraid of conspiracies. No conspiracy could survive exposure and
decapitation, after all, and he was an expert at both. But Orlanko had learned to feel the
mood
of the city, as though it were a single vast organism. Sometimes it was sleepy and complacent, when times were good and people were fat and happy. When times were lean, it was snappy and irritable, prone to sudden rages and panics. And the death of a king always put people on edge.

He could feel something coming. The city was like a dog growling deep in its throat, not quite ready to leap but not far from it. It was his job to calm it, with either a nice bloody steak or a well-placed boot. Which it would be, Duke Orlanko had not yet decided.

But once the king died, after the chaos subsided, he would finally have what he’d dreamed of all these years. A ruler who would
listen
.

She’ll listen.
Orlanko smiled to himself.
Or else . . .