The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (58 page)

He let the dropcloth fall and moved to the first crate.  The top had been levered up from its nails but not removed, and he fumbled to get it down without harming himself.  Inside, he found not rags or protective wrappings but piles and piles of neatly-folded white robes.

He lifted one out and shook it loose, then stared.  It was a penitent's robe complete with cord, identical to those he had seen on the Palace's pilgrims.

Looking from the workbench to the crates and back, he felt an idea begin to coalesce.  There were enough, perhaps, for all the men and women who populated this complex—who served as Enkhaelen's assassins in exchange for the remission of their pain.  He imagined them in white robes with these strange blades in their hands, filling the space at the foot of the Throne.  A rebellion?  An arcane working?

He burned to ask Enkhaelen about it, but if the necromancer had assigned this peculiar task to him, that meant he wanted it to stay hidden from eavesdropping mentalists.  As he removed the dropcloths from the bench, he found a second task: a pile of tightly folded notes, each labeled with
When the tingle starts, read me
, and another note that said
One per bundle.

Geraad stared at them, then looked to Enkhaelen and found the necromancer slouched on a stool, desultorily directing the hawk in the mirror. 
What will happen if I read one now?
he wondered.

But they were not for him, and he had not the heart to spy.  He had done enough of it already.

So he set to work, pulling robes from the crates and inserting a blade and note into each, then binding them up with their pilgrim's cord.  The repetition made it easy for his mind to wander—to dwell on all the questions that still hung over him.  How he felt about this situation, these people, the necromancer.  The Circle.  The Empire.

“Master,” he said finally, working by reflex, “why am I the only true mage down here?”

It took so long for Enkhaelen to respond that Geraad glanced over to check if he had been yanked from his body again.  But he was still there, back turned, tapping at the mirror.  “I don't trust anyone,” he said at last.

“But you trust me?”  That was a surprise.

“You have no connection to me.  I didn't request you, I wasn't assigned you.  You've never been under my command.  I suppose you could've been bait; you could be communicating with superiors right now.  But I don't think so.”

“You don't trust the Inquisition?”

“I'm not stupid.”

“But you're their leader.”

Enkhaelen snorted.  “In name only.  I'm mind-blind.  Anyway, the Inquisition has its own agenda.  All I've done as its leader is keep it out of mine.”

“There are no other mages that you trust?”

“Not with my work, no.”

“And no non-mages?”

Silence.  Then, flatly, “What do you think?”

Geraad remembered the portrait of the stern, silver-haired woman.  “You're married.  Were married?”

“I am.”

“Where is she?”

“Dead.”

Geraad blinked.  “I'm sorry.  How did she...  No, I apologize, I shouldn't pry.“

“I killed her.”

Shocked by his bluntness, Geraad said, “You—“

“I made a mistake.  I've made many mistakes, but that was my greatest.”  Enkhaelen's voice was still flat, detached.  “I haven't had much opportunity for making friends since then.”

“What about your daughter...?”

His shoulders stiffened.  “Who told you?”

“No one.  When we were in the Palace, you asked the priestess about her.”

A long moment passed in which Geraad stared at the man's rigid back, wondering if he'd crossed the line.  Then, slowly, Enkhaelen's shoulders settled, and he said, “It wasn't a question.  Just a snide reflex.  They took her a long time ago.”

“Who?”

“Trifolders.  Brancirans—Muriae, specifically.  My wife's people.  They—“  He sighed and made a sharp gesture with one hand.  “I don't want to talk about it.  Suffice to say that she—  That both of them are long dead.”

“Is...that how you became a necromancer?”

“No.  And what part of 'don't want to talk about it' do you not understand?”

Geraad swallowed his many related questions.  Since Enkhaelen just sounded harassed and hadn't barred other topics, though, he tried, “Since then, you've just been working?”

“Pushing the boundaries of
dalurvykhe
takes time.”

Body-magic.
  “Hundreds of years?”

“Not exactly.  I've had more time to think than I've had to work—which is good.  I haven't always thought things through very well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I fox things up, Geraad.  I ruin all I touch.”  Enkhaelen's finger stabbed the mirror, rattling it on its stand.  “Sometimes on purpose.”

“...I don't understand.”

“The Emperor wanted to make his own minions.  Take the job off my hands so I'd be free to design ones closer to his stellar locusts.  So I made templates for the Palace to follow.  Stick victim in, press into shape.  I'd rather not be sidelined though, so I added...limitations.  Flaws.

“Aradys doesn't care.  He just keeps flinging people in and hoping some turn out useful.  And he won't let me fix the templates, because the last time I did, I removed fertility from the controllers because no, I was not allowing them to have babies that clawed their way free.  I told him it's not sustainable to have the females die every time, and he said fine, just restore fertility to the senvraka.  But I refused and now he won't let me touch any of them.

“And then he has the gall to complain about the conversion rates.  You saw what he and Rackmar are like.  They want more specialists but they go behind my back for it because they distrust the ones I do by hand.  Why?  Because I make them independent, and they don't get the Palace euphoria.”

Geraad frowned.  “What's that?”

“It's—  Well, you know mind-shock?”

“Yes.  From badly done conditioning.”

The necromancer chuckled faintly.  “The euphoria is like that, but they get it when they think about the Palace or the Light, or come in contact with it.  They tell me it's rapturous.  The ones I hand-make don't get it much—and they just plain
work better
.  But they're not the Emperor's ideal, so he just stuffs more hapless idiots into the templates and complains when they turn out wrong.”

Like the women and the bear-man
, Geraad thought, guilt clutching him.  He wished he could have done something—rescued them somehow, instead of cowering in his own receptivity.

But he had learned much from the experience, and hopefully it would help the others.  Hopefully Rian had reached Cob, and they were planning their assault.

Meanwhile, it wouldn't hurt to learn more.

“You said 'stellar locusts'...  What are those?”

“The Outsider's original people.  Great big radiant creatures, like bugs but with faces and hands, sometimes torsos.  Many types.  He says he was trying to find them a new home—that the whole Portal and invasion was his attempt to save them.  Never mind that they slaughtered their way through Lisalhan; no, they were refugees and we're the villains for closing them out.”

“What?”

“They're all dead, supposedly.  That's why I'm making 'new' ones.  But he's never happy.  He says they need to be more wraith-like, but I can't recreate a wraith—it's just not possible here.  They fell from a lighter realm and there is no method in this world that can replicate that.

“I've been a
dalurvykhagi
for centuries.  I've bonded elements with flesh, woven biology from glass and light, reworked humans and skinchangers and wraiths until they were unrecognizable.  I can create artificial spirits and deconstruct souls.  But I can't forge anything as high and bright as he needs.

“He thinks I'm lying.  He doesn't understand people or magic or limits, he just wants what he wants.  And when I told him the world isn't light enough, he said he'd make it so.”

Alarmed, Geraad said, “We spread the Light because he—”

“Wants to change the world.  Physically.”

“What...would it be like?”

Enkhaelen shrugged.  “Hotter.  Drier.  I don't know much about where the stellar locusts came from, but I don't think it had water.  The wraiths would be fine, but nothing originating here would survive.”

Geraad tried to wrap his mind around this.  “Why us?”

“Punishment, I think.  For closing the Seals against him.  You'd be surprised how petty a greater entity can be.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Until he transforms the world?”  Enkhaelen shrugged again.  “It's slow going.  He only has a small aperture.  But I know he hides things from me, so while I think we have a few millennia, it could be mere centuries.”

Not my problem, then
, thought the coward in Geraad.  He squelched it.  “If you disagree with him, why are you helping?”

“It's a nice distraction.”  Enkhaelen's voice was wry.  “We immortals need something to pass the time.  Games and projects and wars and children...  I crafted his son, you know.  The Crown Prince.  The Emperor delighted in him for years, but then he got bored.  Wish I could say it was more than that, but no.  So he shunted Kel to the army, shut down the Imperial Court, scattered the courtiers.  Focused on our game.  Except now he's gotten bored of this too.

“Next will probably be more projects like the White Flame armor.  The Emperor isn't fond of it, but Rackmar supports it because anyone can wear it and become a soldier.  It's an invasive encasement, sort of a step up from a bodythief's bracer: integrates with the nervous system, compensates for injury and deformity, absorbs energy, maintains homeostasis.  You can put it on someone who's just had their heart torn out and they'll thrive as long as they keep it on.  I'm proud of it.  I just wish...”

He trailed off, but it was easy for Geraad to finish the sentence:
I wish I wasn't working for these people.  I wish I wasn't doing this under duress.

After a moment, Enkhaelen added, “It's not pleasant, but it's progress.  And if the world does change, at least they should survive it.”

There were many things Geraad wanted to ask:
Is there no way to turn back the Emperor's work?  No way to escape?
  But he dared not say them lest the mentalists were listening.  As much as he wanted to help, he could not do so if he got Enkhaelen caught.

So he switched from the Imperial to the personal.  “How did you get involved in this?”

“I told you about the Ravager vessel.”

“Yes, but...
you
.”

Enkhaelen turned his head slightly, enough for Geraad to see his sharp profile and one cold blue eye.  “You don't want to know me, Geraad.”

“Maybe not.  I admit you're frightening.  But it seems like you want to talk.”

“Not really.”

“Not even about...”  Geraad flailed for some neutral topic.  “Why you're in the Circle?”

A sharp laugh, and Enkhaelen turned his gaze away again.  “What is there to tell?  I wanted an education.”

“What?  Just that?”

“Does it not seem like me?”

“Frankly, no.”

The necromancer waved a gloved hand vaguely.  “I have ulterior motives.  That's no secret.  But when I...came back from my time away, the world was so different.  This seemed like the best place to figure out how and why.”

“So you enrolled as a student?  Or did you, um...”

“Steal someone's body?”  Enkhaelen laughed.  “I was wearing a corpse, but I didn't kill a mage for it.  Sometimes corpses happen without my intervention.  But yes, I became Morshoc Rivent.”

He paused, then said, “You understand, I was taught
dalurvykhe
by my great-uncle.  Just him and me, alone in a tower—and then just me, after the Circle and the Trifolders killed him.  I thought I'd be among enemies here, that I'd be infiltrating, fighting.  But then I learned that the Inquisition had split off from the Circle, and I started taking classes, and...

“I suppose I got distracted.”

There was something almost like a smile in his tone, and Geraad's heart lifted.  “You like being here?  —Well, you must.  You've been here over a hundred years now, and you're one of our great heroes.  Er, several of our heroes.”

“Ugh.  I don't want to hear that.”

“It's true.  Rivent was important, but Mirrimane...  Actually, he was rather divisive.  Everyone appreciates Modern Consolidated Wardcraft, but I've been reading the old texts—“  He bit his tongue too late, but Enkhaelen showed no reaction, so after a moment he continued, “You streamlined it but you removed so much.  I wish I'd known some of the styles I've read about.  Do you practice them?  Would you teach me?”

“Perhaps another time.”

“Of course, of course,” said Geraad, privately thrilled.  He knew he should be wary, but the fact that Enkhaelen had been captivated by the Circle lifted a weight from his shoulders.  Ever since descending into these depths, he had feared what they meant for his friends and teachers above.  But if Enkhaelen just wanted control...