The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (49 page)

If anyone could challenge Enkhaelen’s magic, it was him.

*****

The world changed before Cob’s eyes.

Where once had been the icy, indifferent hills, there now stretched a gently rolling plainsland, rich with wild grasses and late summer flowers.  The air was sweet and warm.  Water trickled from the gaps in the rock wall, forming tiny streamlets that wandered downhill, and trees dotted the landscape in patches of green and gold and red foliage.  In the distance the grasses thickened to thorny wilderness.

He looked back at the barrier and saw the others through it as if through a thin skin of water.  They appeared faded, their eyes evading him, and he guessed that he had vanished.  Fiora, emerging beside him, blinked rapidly in the warm light.

“
Oh my,” she said, staring around.  “It really is the Summerland.”

“
More like the Autumnland,” he murmured.  Already the Guardian had gone inert within him, just a dark stone at the bottom of a well, but the warmth was pleasant and as he looked out at the landscape, he found himself relaxing a bit.  It was not what he had expected from a land of fallen wraiths.

He admonished himself to be cautious.  Just because it was a nice place didn’t mean it was a kind one.

Near the border, the grass had been crimped short by the chill radiating from beyond the wall.  He spotted a footpath not far away and moved toward it, drawing Fiora along.

The grasses grew taller swiftly, interwoven with flowering thorn and berry brambles.  The sky was thick with clouds but here they felt welcome, like in Illane when they graciously blotted out the searing sun.  A mist of tiny raindrops touched him, remnants of the falling snow, and butterflies and fat bees flew up from the flowers as they passed.  Creeper roses clung tight to the trunks of trees and laced bushes with their dark red blooms.  Their perfume mingled with the smell of warm damp earth and clean water to brush away all his worries.

Despite everything, the peace felt natural.  Through their shrouds of leaves, all the trees hung heavy with fruit, and small birds flitted among them, livening the air with their calls.  Animals moved through the underbrush lazily, without the furtive or fearful sounds of predator and prey.

I could live here
, he thought.

“
Cob, you can let go now.”

He blinked and looked back at Fiora.  She nodded pointedly to his hand, still clasped on hers over the medallion.

Immediately he let go, blushing, and turned forward with a muttered apology.  Somehow his fingers still felt the press of hers, and he focused on hooking the medallion over his head and tucking it down his tunic.  It hung where the arrowhead used to be, making him wonder where that had gone.

She paced him briskly, her strides shorter but determined.  “It’s all right, you know.  I didn’t mind.  Just saying you don’t need to drag me around.”

“No, I jus’ wasn’t payin’ attention,” he said, fixing his gaze on a tree far ahead.  There seemed no sign of civilization in this place: no fields interrupting the sprawl of grass and briar, no pruning on the wild apple trees they passed, no regimented stands of orchard in the distance.  No houses, no gardens or vineyards, no rutted roads for carts.  The path itself was little more than a deer-track.

But then, they had just entered the realm.  He had not thought there would be wraiths awaiting them, but certainly there should have been some sign that this place was populated.  As it was, he could almost believe they were alone here.  Two travelers lost in a warm wilderness.

He tried not to think about that.  Arik’s prodding notwithstanding, he barely knew Fiora, and the idea of having to spend a night—or several—alone with her on the road made him uncomfortable.  Certainly she seemed nice, and they were alike in a lot of ways, but from their arguments back in the Cantorin temple he knew that there were some things they could never agree on.  It had been difficult for him to make friends with the Crimson slaves for just that reason, and he did not want to put his foot in his mouth with her any more than he already had.

Beside that, he had to focus on the plan.  First breaking the Guardian’s bonds, then killing Morshoc.  Everything else in his life was subordinate to those two tasks.

“So what do you think: are all the animals trapped in here or can they go through the barrier without magic?” said Fiora, striding purposefully at his side.  “If they could get through, you’d think there would be millions of birds wintering here.  But if they can’t, is that cruel?”

He blinked.  It was a good question.  “Dunno.  Guess it depends on how big this place is.”

She looked up at him curiously.  “You can’t sense it?”

“
No.  The Guardian’s sleepin’.  Ilshenrir said this place has a spirit of its own, and I guess we don’t wanna disturb it.  So while we’re in here, I’m just me.”

“
Oh.  That’s worrying,” she said, looking forward again.  “Does that mean you can’t use the crystal to contact the others?”

Cob shrugged.  That weird chunk of crystal was in his rucksack, since it made him feel strange when he wore it—not like the cold aura of the arrowhead but like he was wearing something subtly alive.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.  The Guardian’s just nappin’, I think.  If it wanted to, it could act, but it knows better.  Or it should, after messin’ with me in the woods.”

“When you tried to hurt Ilshenrir?”

He grunted.

“Did it take over?  Or…what did it do?”

“
Made me see things in the dark.  I dunno.  I thought he was…”  Cob sighed and shook his head.  “I saw he was a wraith but I thought I was dreamin’.  Still sparrin’ in my mind.  They tricked me.  They don’t like wraiths or wolves or godfollowers, I guess, so they tried t’ make me get rid of one.”

“
They?”

“
The former Guardians.  They…talk to me.”  He grimaced, knowing how crazy that sounded.

If she agreed, Fiora gave no sign.  “I guess that makes sense, given that it’s the spirit of prey, but you’d think it could get over that for the common good.  It’s not like any of us are against you.”

“I know that, and I’ve told ‘em that, but they don’t agree.  Suppose I’ll have to keep my guard up in case they try that again.”

“
That doesn’t sound like fun…having to mind your own mind.”

Cob gave her a slight smile.  It was nice to get some sympathy.  “Hopefully it won’t be a problem here.  Don’t wanna start trouble with the necromancers.  I need them.”

“Maybe they can advise us on fighting Morshoc.”

“
Yeah.  Not sure how to kill a man who runs around already dead.”

Fiora furrowed her dark brows at him.  “Already dead?”

“He possesses bodies like the Guardian possesses me.  Corpses, I think.  He was always ice-cold.  The one time I fought him, he kept talkin’ right up ‘til I broke his neck.”

“
You…  You say that so casually.”

He glanced sidelong to her, stomach sinking as he read the unease on her face.  It had been a while since someone had stared at him like that—since he had spoken so carelessly.  He remembered Ammala’s rigid shoulders as he talked about sacrifice and the Light.  “I…look, it’s not what I wanted,” he said, bitterly aware that he had planned his attack on Morshoc.  “I jus’ couldn’t let him keep doin’ what he was doin’, and there was no other way.  Anyhow, like I said, he was already dead.”

“Well, maybe, but you just…”  She made vague neck-breaking motions.

He shrugged and looked forward.

“Don’t get me wrong, I understand,” said Fiora quickly.  “I’m here to fight beside you.  I’ve just never…you know.  Killed someone.  That I’m aware of.  There were the fights we had with the Golds, but I don’t think I really connected on anyone.  I was too busy trying to guard your back.”

The way she said it was strangely apologetic, like she regretted not killing people.  He shook his head.  “It’s fine.  We got out alive—and you heard the Mother Matriarch.  Lots of Golds, probably lots of Crimsons and Sapphires are your own people, and the rest are gettin’ paid.  There’s no reason to kill ‘em for doin’ their job, even if their job is gettin’ in our way.”

“But if they’re trying to kill us—“

“
If it’s not necessary to bloody your hands, Fiora, don’t.”

She sighed, but nodded.  “I just feel like I’m not doing enough for the cause.”

“There's nothin' t’ do.  Once we’re outta here, though…”  He looked ahead, across the softly shifting grasses and hillocks of thorn.  It was impossible to see what awaited them.  “You’ll be useful,” he continued quietly.  “You’re an Amand, a Heartlander.  Me, Lark, Arik, Ilshenrir, we’re all strangers here, and maybe we can fight when people attack us but we don’t know how to act to not get attacked.  To blend in.  We’ll need you for that.  At the very least, you look like a local.  You can do stuff we’d get caught out for jus’ because we’re different.”

“
What about Dasira?”

“
Dunno her well enough to say.”

She raised her brows at him but he kept his gaze ahead and pretended he had not noticed.  Anyway, it was the truth.  Five years of friendship and yet he knew next to nothing about Darilan—Dasira—and what he had believed now seemed a blatant lie.  The very thought made him want to burst back through the barrier and confront her, but he knew she’d just run.

He had to get free.  Then he could hunt her down and get all the answers he needed.

“
Oh.  I didn’t think so, but you seemed more familiar with her after you woke up…”

Cob grunted.

Fiora fell silent, and for a long time they just walked.  With his mood gone sour, Cob tried to distract himself by watching the wildlife, wracking his memory for their names.  Before the Guardian, he had never paid much attention to animals, just kept an eye out for the dangerous ones.  Wildcats, snakes, scorpions, bears.  The myriad birds here reminded him of the Mist Forest's flocks—yellow and green and rusty orange, bright red, cold blue.  Revanons and ribbonchasers and needlewings.

But no raptors.  He scanned the treetops for the telltale silhouettes of hawks or eagles, trellingils, songkillers, but there were none.  Nor crows or vultures either, just small bright birds in ridiculous profusion.

Guess that means the animals are locked, otherwise there’d at least be some raptors here for the songbird buffet.

He started to ponder what it meant that there were no predators, but then a bush rustled just behind him and he half-turned, realizing for the first time that he had no weapons.  Fiora blinked at him, one hand on a springy briar branch while the other lifted a just-plucked berry toward her lips.

Alarmed, he grabbed for her arm.  “What’re you doin’?”

“
The same thing I’ve been doing this whole time,” she said, baffled.  She tried to pull away but he tightened his grip, so she flicked the berry at his face.  “Not like it’s poisonous.”

“
Y’don’t know that.”

“
The birds are eating them.”

“
You’re not a bird!”

“
I’m not writhing on the ground in agony either!”

He let go of her with a sound of disgust and turned away, wiping the spot the berry had hit.  A moment later, a soft rain of them pattered against the back of his head, some sliding down his collar.

He stood very still and told himself it was a bad idea to strangle her.

Another berry hit him in the ear and stuck juicily.  His jaw twitched.

He took one step forward, then another, and was just getting back into his stride when another handful of half-squashed berries thwipped against his neck and shoulders.  He rounded instantly to find Fiora already fleeing through the expansive field beyond the briars.

He knew he should ignore her but his legs took over.  He broke through the shin-level brush and hit the grassland at a run, boots digging divots into the soft turf, the stalks of weeds and wildflowers bending and snapping beneath him.  Fiora had the lead but she was shorter and the weeds were thick; they caught at Cob’s coat and pack but he saw them catch at her too, and snag at the sword that clattered at her belt.

Still, she kept her lead by running madly, dodging tussocks and thorn-bushes and yanking free of all snares through pure momentum.  He saw her leap outward, arms outspread, then vanish beneath the level of the grass, and a moment later he jerked to a halt at the lip of a stream-cut gully.  On the other side, Fiora was just straightening her clothes from having hauled herself up from the ledge, and looked back long enough to taunt him with a gesture.  Then she was racing away again.

Cob skittered back, then crossed the gully in one wild leap, boots crunching down the stalks Fiora had already flattened.  His heart thundered, and despite himself, he knew he was grinning.  That was further than he had ever jumped before, but it had come so smoothly, so effortlessly.  Not all the Guardian’s changes were troubling.

Snatching up handfuls of grass and loam, he lunged back into the chase, determined to do Fiora one better.

Birds exploded from the grass ahead of her, shrieking their indignation.  She cut through a stand of trees just ahead of his first flung dirt-wad, which spattered on the trunk.  Determined, Cob charged after her, thinking of how if he was barefoot now, he could pull on the vines and grasses and catch her with them in an instant.  Millions of fingers at his command.