The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (82 page)

Dry as dust, the Outsider intoned,
And what do you desire now?

“I take back my original request,” said Enkhaelen.  “It was spoken in haste.  In madness, perhaps.  But I still have enemies, and I've lost all my support.  You will empower me, protect me, call your cultists to my aid, and in exchange I will maintain this much of an entry.”

A mere two inches.  When I have had miles, realms, worlds.

“Take it or leave it, Aradys.”

Oh, I will take it.  But you, Shaidaxi...

Cords of incandescence surged up from the source of the filament, lashing across Enkhaelen's shoulders and torso, around his neck, over his head and down his legs.  He dropped the sword with a cry and tried to tear at them, but they braided tight, and his spasming fingers could form no spell.  Bracing his feet, he tried to lunge for the edge of the ritual circle, but the brilliant orb simply reeled him back in.

For a moment, twisted in the strands, he faced Erosei, and the Guardian-vessel saw the main tendril's origin: a blazing hole in the mage's chest, the innermost of the six concentric rings he'd scarred into his flesh.

You are not as clever as you think,
the Outsider continued as the brilliant bonds spun thicker around the thrashing man.
  I cannot kill you, true.  But you are now my door, so I must keep you very, very safe.

And as you know, I have other friends.

On cue, Erosei felt a disjunction in the air behind him, and craned his neck to see a mage-portal opening a few feet away.  Afterimages obscured his view of its makers; all he got was an overwhelming impression of white as first one, then many figures rustled by.

In the blinding prison, Enkhaelen had begun shouting, but his words were unintelligible.  The great orb reeled him in, engulfed him, then dimmed and settled, until all that remained was a twitching white cocoon.  The figures surrounded it, lifted it.

One of them paused above Erosei.

He felt the Guardian surge up his throat, and tried to swallow it down—to snap himself free of his broken prison and fight, or flee.  Anything to live.  But its essence gouted from his mouth and was—

Gone.

Cob blinked rapidly, then scrubbed at his eyes, which felt as dry as Erosei's. 
Come to me, all of you,
he thought. 
You need to explain this.

The Guardian tried to resist, but he still had a grip on it, the phantom scales cool against his palm.  Slowly, reluctantly, they manifested: Vina in a corner, head ducked to accommodate the low ceiling; Haurah at one side of the bed; Dernyel at the foot.

Frowning, Cob looked around but saw no others.  “Where's Jeronek?  Erosei?”

No answer.  Not a twitch of expression on any of the three faces.

“Well then pike you all.”  Snatching up the bright-iron coin from the bed, he shook it at Haurah.  “What were you thinkin', cuttin' out the important parts?  First with your abandonment, now Erosei's death—
not at Enkhaelen's hand!
  Y'don't have to try to make him look bad; I already know he is!  But to pikin' lie to me—“

'The light lies,'
intoned Vina. 
'The darkness merely conceals.'

“That's not pikin' helpful!”

At the end of the bed, Fiora grimaced and made quelling motions.  “Lower your voice.  There's people in the rooms around us.  Can't you just think at them?”

“Thinking's not enough in times like this,” he muttered, but nodded.  Fixing his gaze on Vina, he said more quietly, “You admit you've been coverin' things up on purpose.”

The ogress frowned around her nub-like tusks. 
'We have shown what you required...and what we could bear.  We do not enjoy revisiting these—'

“Hog-crap!  Haurah!  You and Erosei made me think that he killed you, so you could hide what actually happened!”

'It was essential,'
said the wolf-woman. 
'We had to be sure that you would not take his side.'

“You think I'd—  You honestly believe—“

'You worshiped the Light.  I think you still do.  He serves it, which makes him—'

“Did you not jus' see Erosei's memory?  Or Geraad's?  Enkhaelen and the Outsider are
not allies
.”  He took a deep breath, trying to modulate his voice again and not let the anger take over.  “The goal hasn't changed.  Pike's sake, he bound the Seals to his body; he has to die for them t' go back in place.  So why hide this shit?  Are you ashamed of it?  Because y'should be, but it's pikin' stupid to hold out on me now!”

'You know my fate,'
said Haurah. 
'I have nothing more to show you.'

'Nor I,'
said the ogress.

Dernyel was silent.

He hadn't expected an answer from his father, and part of him didn't want one.  If the man vanished entirely from his life and memory, he wouldn't mourn.  But his mother's voice challenged him from the Dark:
Ask him why, ask him why.
  And no matter how little he wanted to know, he had to.  The question wouldn't leave him alone.

But it could wait.  He didn't want to see it here, in front of Fiora and the other vessels.  He knew where it would take him, and he couldn't stand to cry.

Instead, he said, “Fine.  Now where the pike are Erosei and Jeronek?”

The Guardian women glanced at each other, then Vina said,
'They have been discharged.'

“What's that supposed t' mean?”

'The visions of their deaths were too much for them.  They have retreated among our brethren to recover.'

Cob remembered the collection of shades he had seen among the trees, and shivered, but something about it didn't quite click.  “You're not souls,” he said.  “The Guardian doesn't take them with it when it leaves.  You're just memories.  Why do you need to recover?”

'Do you enjoy remembering all that you have done, all the time?'

And suddenly he was at the fringe of the woods, an arrow frozen in his side, the wraiths emerging from the mist—

And at the palisade wall, Darilan's face a garish moon-mask, the sword trembling in time with Fendil's rasps—

And at the Riftwatch tower, paralyzed, as men succumbed to Morshoc's midnight bolts—

And in the forest, over Darilan—

At the river, imagining the caravan swept away and all the soldiers drowned—

In the air, coughing blood, crystal hooks protruding from his chest—

At the manor, walking the nightmare—

In the Dark—

“Stop.  Stop,” he said, clutching at his head.  Bile burned hot at the base of his throat, threatening to lurch up at any moment.  Even when the forcible memories ended, others swarmed to the fore—bits and pieces, glimpses of faces, blood-trails, muffled screams behind a door.  The creak of the rope and the swinging shadow...

By the time he managed to control his gasps and shake those visions, the Guardians had gone.

Fiora and Arik were there instead, both hovering cautiously beside him as if afraid to touch.  He opened his arms and suddenly his world was full of girl and wolf, enough almost to bury him, and he let out a watery chuckle as a cold wet nose crammed down his collar.  The wolf's thrashing tail neatly swept the coins from the bed.

They stayed like that for a while, Cob and Fiora intertwined, the wolf occasionally shifting position to better flatten them both.  In that silence, wet tracks formed on Cob's cheeks and then dried, unremarked upon.  He preferred it that way.

*****

It was late afternoon by the time Lark extricated herself from her rounds.  She'd spent a while at the caravan houses haggling over pilgrim prices and amenities, and had a good idea of the pilgrimage route from a mark spent in a mapmaker's shop.  Not a perfect one—since everything west of Riddian and north of Keceirnden was marked 'Imperial Daecia' and all-but-blank, even on the most detailed of maps—but better.

Now, with three passage-tokens for tomorrow's caravan and a bag full of pilgrim robes, she finally had time for herself.

Her purse still held a reasonable stock of silver, even after denting it with a proper meal—roast kid with mixed berry preserves and root-mash—plus a handful of nut-paste sweets.  It had been a great act of will not to buy something from every food-cart she passed, but she knew how the stomach shrank from disuse.  She'd learned that acrid lesson by stuffing her face full after Cayer picked her off the Bahlaer streets, only to puke it all up a quarter-mark later.

Even now, she felt a bit queasy, but the walking helped.  Weariness still gnawed at her; she would have liked to spend a week in bed, but figured she could handle whatever Bahlaer threw at her without it.  Once there, she'd be in her own territory, among familiar faces—whichever were left.  It wouldn't drain her like this excursion had.

Yet other options whispered.  The Citadel at Valent wasn't far, according to the map.  She didn't know the price of tuition, but if she could convince the Shadow Folk to finance it in order to get an agent within the walls...

Or she could grab another caravan token and buy another pilgrim's robe.  Go with her friends on their insane quest.

Pike that
, she thought, but a thread of guilt accompanied it.  Those three were inexperienced, sheltered outcasts.  That they had managed to rent an inn room was a good sign, but who knew how they'd do without her?

Could go as far as Keceirnden.  It's just a two-day trip...

But that would mean finding a Shadow connection there—and as the last stop before the White Road, it would be swarmed with Light-followers.  The shadow-signs she'd seen here in Finrarden were recent and minimal, done in charcoal instead of paint: a fly-by-night operation under a certain level of threat.  Closer to the Palace, conditions could only be worse.

Stick to the plan, Lark.  Go home and be done with this.

So when she spotted a shadow-sign, she followed it, cutting across a bustling street and past yet another crowd of clan-folk.  Their wolf-dogs sniffed after her, their
jeten
suspicious, but none approached or called after her as she cut down an alley between densely-packed shops.  She appreciated that about them.  The Riddish weren't friendly, but they understood personal space and didn't involve themselves in the business of outsiders.

The shadow-signs sent her across the next street then down a third, past vendors selling goat-hide and wolf-wool, carved bone tools and ornaments, glassware, beads, tea.  She was out of the snake-clan area now, back among the mixed crowds, but while a few people of ogrish descent loomed out from among their fellows, there wasn't nearly the diversity of Bahlaer, or even Turo.  Brown hair or black, slicked-back or shaggy, everyone was still Riddish or so integrated as to be indistinguishable, their faces the same dark tan, their pale eyes watchful.

As she followed the signs around another corner, she had to wonder if they reported what they saw, or let it pass just as indifferently as they stepped aside for her.  According to Dasira, their king had little interest in enforcing Imperial law; that was left to the Sapphire Army, led by Trivesteans whom the Riddish hated.  Would they tattle on a mage's suspicious behavior?  She suspected not, but still felt like she might draw unwanted attention to this Shadow cell.

Halfway down the alley, a sign just above head-height caught her eye.  Hand-sized and spiky, it pointed to a ladder of brickwork that ended at a second-floor door.

Lark checked both directions, then squinted up at it.  There were no windows here, and no definite evidence that the place was occupied.  A sudden fear took her: what if this was a trap?

For who?  All those Shadow Folk far from home, roaming around in Imperial territory with neither knowledge nor contacts?  Ha.

Still, her nerves stayed taut as she climbed the brick ladder to the four-inch ledge that inset the door.  It was plain wood, no handle; when she banged on it, she heard a bar on the other side rattle.  For a long moment, nothing else happened, and she checked the alley again to make sure no one had turned down it.

Then she caught the faint shuff of slippered footsteps, and tightened her grip on the alcove handhold.  The bar grated its withdrawal.

The first thing she saw was candlelight in the gap—then a man's face, both strange and surprisingly familiar.  Despite swept-back Snake-style hair and dark wool garb, his broad stubbled cheeks, sloe eyes and olive-brown skin marked him plainly as an Illanite, just as his bobbed ears declared him a thief.

“Wha—  Yes, magus?” he said, baffled.

His accent hammered it home.  “You're Bahlaeran!” she said.

He stared, evidently trying to process her appearance on his doorstep.  “Yes, magus, but I have legal living-papers.  If you insist, I—“

“No, no.”  She made one of the Kheri hand-speak signs, requesting entry, and when he kept staring, she did it again more slowly.  That seemed to snap him out of it, and he stepped back and pulled the door wide for her.

“This is just a costume,” she said as she slipped in and scanned the place.  Floor-cushions around a low table, an interrupted game of solitaire, a small stove that exuded a smoky goat-chip stink.  Crates with varied crests and labels lined the walls and stacked nearly to the ceiling, leaving only an unusually large window uncovered.  A curtain concealed the entry to a second room.