The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (44 page)

“He probably can't sense things in the air anyway.  That's unfortunate.  And if we had ground-pursuit, he would have told us by now, or done that running trick.  Unless he's concerned about you.  You probably couldn't keep up.”

“Eh.”

“Is there anything else out there?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Fiora made a sound of frustration, and Dasira shot her a bland sidelong look.  The girl wore her hood up and eye-guard on like everyone else, but her scarf hung loose beneath her chin, showing cracked lips and a few loose tendrils of curly dark hair.  Her grimace made a crack split, a bead of blood welling up and smearing away.

They were all like that: wind-chapped, borderline dehydrated, constantly abraded by the sand and salt that snuck into their clothes.  Cob could ward off the chill but not the rest of it.  After a month on the road, Dasira had become accustomed to being dirty, but this lifted discomfort to a level in which she fantasized about bathtubs and comfy chairs.  Civilization of any kind.

Yet by her estimation, they were less than halfway through the desert.  Then on to Finrarden, and Keceirnden, and the Imperial Road...

The girl sighed heavily.  “What else could he be looking for?  More water elementals?”

Dasira made a noncommittal noise.

“I think we'd need a bigger barrel.  And it worries me.  What if we drank it?”

“Summoners do it all the time.”

“Really?  It doesn't hurt them?”

“Mostly.”

She worked to suppress a smile at Fiora's deeply dubious look.  They didn't get along any better than before; no amount of apologies could bridge the gap.  But they were functional.  The realization that they were all willingly racing toward their doom made Dasira less inclined to smash the girl's face into a salt-pillar.

A refreshing silence fell, only to be broken again by Fiora's voice.  “Do you think he's angry with me?”

Dasira sighed.

“He's...  We haven't been as close.  He doesn't want to talk, doesn't want to touch...  Not since we came down from the mountains.”

“Good.”  When the girl gave her a peevish look, she clarified, “Sand, salt, it's bad enough under your clothes.”

Fiora's face scrunched in horror.  “Oh.  Oh, right.  But it's not just that.  He hasn't kissed me.  He barely even holds my hand.”

“Do you really think I want to talk about this with you?”

“Well, who else?  Lark's never been with a man, and you've known him for so long...”

Dasira blinked.  “She hasn't?  Look, he's a private person, and we don't even have tents.  He curls up with you; isn't that enough?”

“No, it's just—“

“Fiora. 
I don't care.
”

“No, listen.  He's not himself.  Everything was fine until that last day in the mountains, but after that, he got strange.  I think he's been having nightmares.”

Dasira bit off an automatic retort and narrowed her eyes.  The last time she remembered him having nightmares was back when the Guardian started to break through his Imperial conditioning.  As far as she knew, he now communed with the Guardian while he slept.

“How can you tell?” she said warily.

“Because he twitches awake and won't touch me, or let me touch him, and he looks at me like I'm someone else.”  Her sigh fluttered the edge of the scarf.  “And when we settle down together, he's so tense, like he's afraid of what will happen.  I've asked but he just won't talk.”

Dasira grimaced.  That certainly sounded like him.  The only reason he had reported his Guardian dreams to Darilan was that he'd feared being tainted by the Dark and desperately needed someone to laugh it off.  Now, it seemed he had no such impetus.

“Just leave him be,” she said.  “Do you want him prying into all your secrets?”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“No?  What about your tea?”

The girl's lips compressed, then she lifted her chin defiantly.  “Nothing wrong with my tea.  The Trifold sends all of its operatives out with herbal contraception; it's just practical.”

Dasira snorted.  She'd figured as much, but it was nice to have verification.  “So I shouldn't take that as an indication that you'd had designs on him?”

“What?  Why would I?  They sent me to protect him, not sleep with him.”

“So why did you?”

“Because I like him.”

“Not because he's the Guardian?”

“No.  Honestly, we all thought the Guardian was supposed to be a girl.”

“Would you prefer that?”

“
What?
” she spluttered, cheeks crimson below her eye-guard.  “No, no, he's fine how he is.  And I'm sorry I asked about your, um, interests.  It was rude of me.  I just—  I mean, it's not like we planned for the Guardian to show up on our doorstep.  The Trifold hasn't had contact with any spirit beside Athalarr in ages.  It was a surprise to everyone.”

Dasira said nothing, just kept an eye on the girl, whose expression suddenly went incredulous.

“You—  You think I'm trying to trap him,” she said.  “That I'm some kind of seductress.”

“I've known a few.”

“Do I look like one?  Pikes, if we were trying that, I can think of two score of my sisters better for the job than me.  You and I have a personal thing, and I shouldn't've brought Cob into it, but it wasn't because of...”  She made an angry noise and waved dismissively with her free hand.  “Just...pike that idea, all right?  I like him and he...he seemed like he needed someone.  He's been happier, hasn't he?”

Dasira looked away.  She couldn't deny it.

“I'm just trying to say that something's wrong now, and I thought you should know, or maybe you had some advice.  If not, we don't have to discuss it.”

“Good.”

“It's just that I—“

“Stop.”

Fiora fell silent, and together they fixed their attention on Cob's back and the unknown destination before them.

*****

In his mind's eye, murky water churned around his shins.  The reek of brine and dying plant life filled his nostrils, and lumpy shapes floated among the tussocks, buoyed by the salinity of the fading sea.  Reeds, rimed into blades by the salt, chattered and clacked together as the wind pushed through them.

“Why do we have to do this?” he muttered, uneasy.  Below the vision, he could swear he felt the lurking Dark.

'It was like this in my time, though I never saw it,'
said Erosei, wading beside him.  His warrior's crest sagged in the phantom humidity, his bare arms sheened with sweat, the goat-hide vest and breeches marked black with murk.  The scabbards of his twin swords rasped together against his back, just out of reach of the water. 
'Right before Enkhaelen cracked the Seals.'

Cob ground his teeth.  He had fallen into the Guardian state to distract himself from his dreams, only to find them echoed in this unsettling landscape.  “So?”

'It was already shrinking,'
said Vina from his other side.  The dark-skinned ogress towered over the other Guardians, and moved through the thick water as if she had been made for it, showing no distaste.  The snakes that coiled across her shoulders flicked their tongues to test the air. 
'But his tampering with the Seals made it drain away in a rush, we know not where.'

“I know.  Ilshenrir told us.  I asked for your memories, not this.”

'You require context,'
said Jeronek from behind.  He sounded solemn, and Cob did not need to look back to know the tension that would be on his square face.  He did not seem to like the water.  Cob could sympathize. 
'What you do in the Palace will reorder the world once again.'

“Isn't that the idea?”

Ahead, Haurah the skinchanger glanced back, her legs murked up to the thigh, chestnut hair stippled with spatters.  A few drops marked her feral face. 
'It's up to you, really.  So you should know this.'

“I should know about your pikin' pasts,” he muttered.  “I know you lied.”

'I never lied,'
said Haurah,
'I just...didn't show you everything.  And I am sorry for it, Ko Vrin.  But we are merely here to support you.  We are not important in ourselves.'

“Then why you, specifically?  Why not them?”  He waved toward the vast horde of shades that paralleled him through the ancient sea, more distant and less solid than the ones who guided him but still there.  Still former Guardians.  “I know why my—  Why Dernyel is here.  And the rest of you have shown me some interestin' things.  But why not the others?”

'We are the strongest,'
murmured Vina. 
'We had the most impact upon the world at its most crucial points.  You object to being shown the Sealing?'

“No, but y'only showed me flickers of it.  Jeronek—“  Cob turned to face the trailing Guardians and made an effort to focus on the stone-armored Padrastan and not the man beside him.  “Jeronek, you were there.  You showed me the Pillar and the Ravager you knew, and the magic.  But right after the Seal is placed, the memory stops.  There's no...”  He struggled to find the words, then sighed.  “There's no reason for it to just stop.”

Jeronek looked away. 
'The Guardian parted from me.'

“So y'don't know what happened?”

'I am the Guardian's piece of Jeronek.  I can not see what it was not there to witness.'

Shaking his head, Cob turned forward again.  He knew his real comrades were following at his heels but when he was in a Guardian fugue he could not see them, only sense them dimly through his contact with the ground.  All his other senses dreamed.  “I dunno,” he said, gazing across the dark water, “it jus' feels like I'm missin' somethin'.  Maybe you're tryin' to protect me, but there could be details somewhere that would help.”

'We understand your concern,'
said Vina,
'but we cannot mesh with you, and without that, there is no way for you to see our whole truth.'

“Still, there must be somethin' you can show me.  I know you were Guardians for longer than those little glimpses.  Erosei, you said Enkhaelen threw you off of Howling Spire, but then you only showed me that little bit on that island.  How long was the Guardian with you?”

The Kerrindrixi warrior snorted and slashed at the water with a broken reed. 
'Months, but it was dull stuff, chasing the piker over land and sea.  Worst time of my life.'

“Then show me the island.  You fought him, right?”

'Looking for some tips, kid?'

“Might as well.”

'Then you're out of luck.  There's nothing to see.  We have power over water and earth, but he got there first and prepared the ground with his magics.  I barely managed to draw my swords before he got me.'

“Then what does it matter if you show me?”

'Do you like reliving your mistakes?  Oh wait, you must, because you keep making them.'

Cob gritted his teeth.  Of all the Guardians, he liked Erosei the least, and to be shrugged off like that...

It occurred to him suddenly that he didn't have to play nice.

“Erosei,” he said coldly, striding toward him through the murk, “I'm not askin'.  You lot may shoulder some of the danger but I'm the one who'll die if we fail, so you better get used to this.”

The Kerrindrixi sneered as he drew close and raised the reed like a whip.  Cob ignored it.  Erosei was a phantasm, and even if he could strike, Cob had never been afraid of pain.

When his menacing affect had no impact, Erosei tried to back up, but Cob was already too close.  He grabbed the man by the face, and as Erosei squawked and yanked on his arm, he focused his will and—

—stared into the blue line of the horizon, ignoring the water as it foamed around the ship's prow.  All his attention, all his rage and desire were fixed on the dark fleck slowly resolving from the waters: the island he and his quarry both sought.

The thread of smoke there told him Enkhaelen had made it first.

It felt like a slap in the face, and his hands twitched from the railing toward his paired swords.  He had the sea on his side; it should have been him who raced faster, who closed the distance between their ships to board and cut that awful, presumptuous little monster to bloody ribbons.

But no, and now the day darkened, which pleased the Guardian but did not please him.

In the dark, he would not be able to see the look on that bastard's face when he killed him.

He closed his eyes, focusing on his last image of the quarry: pale near to hypothermic at the top of Howling Spire even with the Ravager's wings blazing at his back, pupils blown so wide that his eyes looked black, the sword of bone and ash trembling in his grip.  So near to breaking, and yet he had sunk his claws into Erosei's shoulders and torn him from the rock, then soared away as Erosei tumbled down, down, down.  It had taken him far too long to hit bottom.

The words had been the worst, though.  'I thought you'd understand revenge.'

Of course he did.  Had he not earned this title by breaching Muria like his namesake and demanding their aid, their blades?  Had he not brought justice down upon the blasted Altaerans who had taken everything?