The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (70 page)

Cob flushed.  He had vague memories from childhood, of breeding their goats and helping birth the kids, but otherwise...  “I guess.”

“You
guess?
”

They both turned to stare at him.  He fumbled for an answer.  “Look, I—  Come on, it wasn't somethin' I thought about!  The Guardian didn't say shit to me until jus' the other day!”

“When?” snapped Fiora.

“The day of Hlacaasteia.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “We've been walking for two days, and you didn't tell me?”

“I—“

“And the Guardian, why didn't it alert you sooner?”

“They said they didn't want to hurt me, if it didn't live—“

“Hurt you?  Hurt
you?  Did they do this to me?
”

His mouth dropped open.  “No, that's...ridiculous,” he said, looking around for any sign of the Guardian phantasms.  They were nowhere to be seen.  He tried to reach inside and drag them out, but they evaded his fingers, and his stomach sank.  Either they didn't want to confess to the accident, or—

Did you do it on purpose?  So I'd send her away?

“Listen, maybe this is a sign to all of us,” said Lark.  “I'm already leaving, and the rest of you should too.  Fiora, you've been hobbled.   Arik, you have a chance with the Great Wolf.  Cob, you need to let go before you drown us all.  The Guardian isn't trapped any more.  Kick it out and let it find a new vessel.  We're not winning this fight.”

Looking at his friends, bedraggled and worn and whittled down to just three, Cob was tempted.  But when he closed his eyes, he saw all the others awaiting him in the darkness: those he'd hurt or who had been hurt because of him, those he'd lost.  He saw the Ravager at the entry to his childhood home, its wings filling the gap—its presence within Enkhaelen the death-knell to any normal life he might have had.

“I can't,” he rasped.  “I need to kill him.  And I can't get there without the Guardian.”

Fiora laughed curtly.  “Now you know how I feel.  My family, my city, my faith...  We owe the Emperor in blood.  I won't let this stop me.”

“You crazy pikers deserve each other,” said Lark.  “Let's get to town so I can be quit of you.”

*****

Marks later, weary of bickering over their plans, they stood together beneath the child moon's thin glow and laid Rian to rest.  The mother moon had set not long ago, as if unwilling to watch as Lark lowered the small body into the hole Cob had excavated.

No one spoke.  They'd run out of words, both kind and cruel.  Instead, Lark cut off a braid to lay across the goblin's shoulders, and Cob removed the armband he had worn for so long, that Jasper had said would protect him.  He slipped it onto Rian's wrist instead, and Fiora draped her chainmail shirt over him; they'd already decided it was too conspicuous to keep.  Arik, with nothing else to give, set a wolf-quill in his little hand.

They didn't talk afterward either.  Wary of enemies and with no food to cook, they eschewed fire-stones to just rest in a hollowed-out dune, none sleeping.

Cob focused on his task.  For their infiltration of the upcoming city, Lark had chosen the role of a traveling Circle mage, with Fiora and Cob as her servants and Arik a fashionable pet.  He had already cleaned their clothes with the water elementals, then transferred one to Lark, where it coiled around her arm like a friendly snake.  Now he worked to form rough jewelry from the sand and stone around him plus the minerals that still rimed the tectonic lever.  That was Lark's idea too—both to support her role and to sell once they were in the city.

It was strangely comforting to have her bossing him around.  Not that she wasn't still grieving; he could see it in the glassy way she stared past the elemental—past all of them.  But she was thinking rationally again.  He hadn't realized how much he valued that.

Fiora rested against him in equal silence, hands clenched on the silver sword.  He wanted to put an arm around her, but doubted she'd welcome it.

A part of him couldn't understand how swiftly everything had broken down.  It conjured shapes in the shadows, of Dasira and Ilshenrir and Rian—here and alive and together.  When he concentrated, he could almost hear their voices, their laughter, and remember the play of firelight on their eyes.

But there were other voices, and so he focused on rolling beads from softened stone and pulling glassy fused-sand bangles from around the end of the lever.  He had a lot to make before they'd look sufficiently fancy, and not much time.

Not much time at all.

*****

Late afternoon of the next day found them crouched behind the brow of a hill, peering down onto a well-kept road and the city beyond.  It was a curious-looking place, small to Lark's eyes but encapsulated by a high wall, with its center-point a rocky spur too narrow for a fortress.  Dozens of tall spiky buildings clustered to its south side as if trying to emulate it, but elsewhere everything was low-slung and flat.

For several miles behind them stretched saltbrush scrub, dotted with goats and their keepers—the desert just an unpleasant memory.  They'd passed no homesteads on the way in, but saw some now on the other side of the road: heavy shed-like buildings that led into underground dens, their territory firmly delineated by stakes and fences.  No farms, not that they could tell, but a proliferation of herd-animals, fortified pens, and the occasional pair or trio of hunters returning through the scrub.

“Any idea where we are?” hissed Lark, glancing back at the others.

They all shook their heads.  She had fixed them up as best she could with what little supplies she had.  Fiora wore a scarf-kerchief and a skirt and vest made from Lark's Riddish robe, with her red Trifolder tunic repurposed into a blouse.  Cob's tunic, as usual, had been unsalvageable and thus cut up to use in patching his breeches, with Arik's chiton over it plus both of Fiora's swords on straps.  His boots were long gone, but he'd quick-formed a pair of clogs from the bracken.  Lark thought they looked awful but she couldn't afford to be picky.

Arik had surprised them all by shedding his quills and somehow darkening himself.  Now he was no longer a pewter-grey wolf but a greyish-brown one—a passable mixed-breed.  “Other wolves can smell that I'm not Riddish,” he'd told them, “but it should fool the humans.”

Lark almost wished she was a skinchanger just to be so malleable.

They were all bedecked in glassy ropes, beads and bracelets, which though earth-toned were sufficiently sparkly for Lark's tastes.  She'd braided everyone's hair too, and thought they looked as good as they possibly could, in the circumstances.

The concern now was whether they were expected.

“We have enough for a standard entry tax, but no bribes—at least not on a level that would protect us,” she murmured, patting the coin-pouch Fiora had ceded to her.  “If the guards start pushing for one...  Well, the door is made of wood.  I'm sure you can open it for us, Cob.”

He grunted.

“Lots of watchmen on the walls,” said Fiora.  “And we don't know the layout of the city.  We can't afford to start a fight.”

“True.  Backing off would be suspicious though.”  Chewing her lip, Lark considered it, then shook her head.  “No other option.  Let's go, and hope for the best.”

“Oh yeah, that's a plan.”

Ignoring the Trifolder, Lark rose and started down the hill, trying to inject as much confidence into her walk as possible.  With luck, she could bluff their way in, pawn the jewelry, get some pilgrim robes, then hitch a ride on the next westbound caravan and escape this forsaken land and its people.  It would be a pleasure to be alone.

I'll always be alone, now.

She steeled herself against tears.  There would be time enough to weep and wail once she reached Bahlaer.  Here, now, she had a mission, and she would carry it out with aplomb.

The others kept at her heels, quiet but for the jingle of Arik's bead-bedecked 'leash'.  Under her left sleeve, the water elemental coiled restlessly as if it could sense her nerves; she had managed to teach it some simple commands, but didn't know if it would perform on cue.

The uncertainty gave her a little thrill.  As much as she prized security, there was something to be said for living by her wits.

Their approach did not go unnoticed.  She saw men moving on the walls, the tips of their bows poking above the crenelations, and wondered how often they were called to use them.  Even without a map, she knew they were somewhere within the Riddish interior, and thus presumably protected from enemy incursions—yet no structures spilled out beyond the walls, the city and countryside cleanly divided.

Dasira could have explained it
, she thought grimly. 
Dasira would have been a lot of help.

The lowering sun threw the wall's shadow toward them.  She took that as a good omen and crossed into the shade at a swift clip, squinting to make out the men who emerged from the gate-house.  The great gate was shut—again, odd for an interior city—but when she saw the low dunes that had collected against the walls, she realized why.

“Declare yourselves,” called one of the guards, raising a lantern.  Lark halted at the edge of its beam and raised a hand to shade her eyes.  Beyond the light, she thought they wore Sapphire blue, and wasn't sure whether to be concerned.  Was this a military outpost, or...?

“Dzurena Setara Yenasi of the Silent Circle, with my attendants,” she declared.  “I request entry into your fair city.”  It felt strange to use her birth-name, but that was what she'd had printed on her travel papers.

“You come from the Salt Wastes?” said the guard.

“Yes, an expedition.  I think we've gone a bit off track.  This doesn't look like the capital...”

She was fishing, and took pains not to show her relief when the man gestured toward the road.  “Thyda's a good three days north, walking.  This is Finrarden.”

“I see.  That's acceptable, I suppose.”

Someone on the wall gave a mutter, someone else a coughing laugh.  “Come forward then, and show your papers,” said the spokesman.

“Yes, yes,” she said, drawing her papers from her cleavage where she'd stuffed them.  From behind, she heard the others retrieving theirs, and the scuff of Arik's nails on the pavings, the occasional clonk of Cob's staff.  He'd coated it in bark to hide the stone.

By the lantern's light, she saw the two guardsmen eye her up.  Her orange robe didn't show as well as in sunshine, but its silver embroidery and her jewelry glittered sufficiently, especially the bangles and the big necklace of sand-glass.

Holding the papers out, she said, “Here, you see?”  On cue, the water elemental peeked its blunt head out from her sleeve, liquid skin shimmering even better than her jewelry, and the hatchet-nosed guard who'd started to reach for them recoiled in alarm.

Feigning bafflement, Lark shook the pages, then glanced down at her arm.  “Oh, I'm terribly sorry.  Ripple, stop that.  Really.  Yes, you've suffered terribly in the desert, but you still can't hydrate off of people.  No, not even strangers.”

“Ah, is that thing dangerous, madam?” said the guard as the elemental retreated meekly up her sleeve.  His partner took a subtle step back as if to leave him to it.

“Oh no,” she said, “not as arcane vipers go, really.  He's just very thirsty.  It's been a pain to keep him off of my attendants.  You do have a wellspring, I hope.”

“Er, yes.  Finrarden was built here because of—“

“Good, wonderful, is there a bathhouse?  Or an inn with private baths?”

“The Giant's Head.  North side of town, built up the hill.”

“Have you got porters?  Horse-carts?”

“This...isn't horse land, madam.  And the cart-runners stick to the merchant quarter.”

“Ugh, and this is meant to be civilization?  Pass us in.”  She waved the travel papers at him and he took them gingerly, read off the name, point of origin and reference for the man with the logbook, then handed them back.

“Your attendants, madam?”

She nodded them forward.  Fiora went first, hands folded demurely as she waited.  They'd gotten hers made under her sister's name, Elana, no surname.  Then came Cob with his swords and his wolf, under the name Aloyan Erosei of Darronwy.  The guard scrutinized the pages, then squinted at him, and Cob stared over his shoulder like a soldier at line-up.  “Merc?” the guard said finally.

“Bodyguard and tracker,” said Lark.  “Might I pay the travel tax now?  I have plans to make.”

The guard grunted, but passed the pages back, and Lark felt her nerves ease.  She hadn't feared for the Shadow Folk's forgeries, but there was always the chance of being challenged.  “Passage for the Circle is free.  Two attendants, one licensed beast, no trade goods—eight nar.”

Lark sniffed, then picked through Fiora's purse, which she had filled out with the surplus beads.  Eight nar would normally be a pittance but the girl only had five, plus a few bronze rakar and a measly two bright-iron vor.

“Here,” she said, plucking out a rakar on impulse.  It was worth twice the fee, stamped with a goat-mint flower on one side and the Imperial crest on the other.  “For your town coffers.  This place could use some upkeep.”