The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (7 page)

Cob scowled, but shucked off his pack and coat, then his tunic.  Even though it was warm down here, he had not wanted to part with anything, and being bare-skinned in front of a crowd was not his idea of fun.

He felt the stares of the Trifolders keenly as the tunic came off.  He knew what they were looking at: the silvery exit-scar on his back.  Its mate marked him between navel and hipbone, a patch of discolored flesh where a wraith arrow had struck him through.  He had worn the arrowhead as a talisman of his survival, but like all of his former belongings, it was lost.

Steeling himself, he swung onto the altar, avoiding the unlit candles as he stretched out.  The draping-cloths were thin and stitched with metallic thread, and through them he felt circular etchings in the stone under his shoulders.  His skin prickled as he looked up at the three women, all too aware of the weapons they held.

Then his gaze strayed past them to the ceiling, to the metal circles embedded in the plaster there, and his fears of being sacrificed fled before the sensation of being watched.  The simple interlocking rings—one silver, one iron, one bronze—matched the etchings beneath him, but they were more than just symbols.  They felt like eyes.  There was nothing about them to explain why he felt that way, but he knew with certainty that something could see him.

The women shifted around him, Sister Talla taking up a position at his left shoulder, Sister Merrow at his right.  The Mother Matriarch moved from one corner of the altar to the next, bells chiming softly as she lit the candles in sequence, until she ended at his head.  The flame of the bronze torch bathed her face in warm light and reflected faintly from the metal circles in the ceiling.  At her word, the two Sisters turned Cob’s hands upward to place hammer-haft and sword-hilt in his palms, and he clutched the weapons automatically, no less uneasy for their presence.

The Mother Matriarch set one hand to Cob’s brow as if testing him for fever, her other lifting the torch high.  The Sisters pressed their hands to his chest, not forcefully but not comfortably either.  Being touched was alien to him even though one wore gloves and the other gauntlets.

“
Let us begin,” said the Mother Matriarch.

“
In the name of Breana Eranine, Maiden of Martyrs, Sword of the Defender, I invoke protection upon this vessel,” said Sister Merrow, her voice low and neutral.  “May he be shielded from harm both physical and spiritual, and divided from all that cling to him. 
Sei-don Uvadha.
”

“
Sei-don Uvadha
,” murmured the crowd, then subsided into a soft hum.

The iron sword became heavy, pinning his right hand to the altar, while above the iron circle glowed with a cherry light.  Heat radiated from the empty etching under him, spreading a stinging sensation across him like flesh thawing from frostbite.  Sweat sprang up on his face with the effort to not move, to not scratch or twitch.  Slowly the sting concentrated in three spots—forehead, breastbone and arrow-scar—and in a sudden wrench, he felt his riders.

The Guardian was heaviest, wrapped around and inside him like a massive serpent, its head nested at the hollow of his throat and its tail just above his hip, at the scar where it had entered him.  On his brow he felt the lighter touch of claws, and saw phantom wings before his eyes, stark white.  And in his chest—

It was small and faint, whatever it was.  He could barely feel it beneath the Guardian.

“
In the name of Brigydde Ecaeline, Mother of Humanity, Prophet of Peace, Keeper of the Hearth and Seer of Souls, I invoke the sight upon this vessel,” said the Mother Matriarch, lowering the torch toward his chest.  “May his bonds be revealed. 
Sei-shalassa Uvadha
.”

“
Sei-shalassa Uvadha.
”

Lines of cold fire raced across him, and he flinched and tried to lift his head, but the Mother Matriarch pressed him back down.  Still he felt them everywhere, stitched through his skin and innards like spiderwebs, and saw their blue-white radiance from the corners of his eyes.  Around him, the candles dimmed, as did the torch, and even the heat of the etchings under his back dampened.  Above, the bronze circle kindled with an eerie orange glow.

The Mother Matriarch frowned, her blind eyes tracing the lines.  “Necromancy, yes,” she said, “but not the simple kind.  Your soul has been altered.  These superficial bonds are not the problem.”

“
Altered?” said Cob, his mouth dry.

“
He who did this has molded you into a shape that would bind you to any spirit that entered.  It is as if you are made up of thousands of fishhooks, all of them locked into the essence of your riders.  They can not escape without tearing themselves—or you—apart.  As for the bonds, they appear to keep the riders from struggling or communicating much.”

Cob thought of his punishing headaches when the Guardian took over, and wondered if that was his soul being slowly shredded.  “Can you fix it?”

The Mother Matriarch sighed.  “The bonds, perhaps, but our way is not delicate, and I do not wish to harm you.  And we have no power over the shape of your soul.”

Closing his eyes, Cob weighed the options.  If removing the bonds would not free the Guardian but give it the power to tear him apart with its thrashing…

But it could speak to me.  It could guide me with something other than dreams and hallucinations.  And my father…

My father wouldn’t let it kill me.

“I’m not scared of pain,” he said.  “Do what you can.”

The Mother Matriarch smiled ruefully and stroked his brow, making him blush despite the situation.  “You are a brave young man.  A good vessel for Aesangat.”  Then she turned her empty gaze to Sister Talla and said, “Proceed.”

Sister Talla nodded and curled her gauntleted hands into fists, one over his heart and the other above the first.  “In the name of Brancir Sufrece Etracine, Matron of Judgment, Hammer of the Faith, I invoke my verdict upon this vessel.  May he be freed of all bonds and chains inflicted upon him by the work of magic. 
Sei-aenka Uvadha, ahranxan
.”

“
Sei-aenka Uvadha, ahranxan
,” echoed the crowd.  As the words faded, Cob realized that only some of them had spoken; the others were harmonizing with the low hum that had begun after the first echo, and now a third note joined the first two.  The air seemed to shiver with their voices, male and female, young and old, impeccably disciplined to the task.

Sister Talla raised one fist toward the ceiling and the silver circle flared, joining its glow to the others.  Its etching burned beneath him, and the hammer’s weight anchored his left hand to the stone.  His eyes followed the torch as the Mother Matriarch lifted it high, its flame flickering at the junction of the circles, and all at once the voices of the crowd rose in a wave.

Then Sister Talla brought her fist down upon the other, slamming hard over Cob’s heart.

Stopping it—

—a sense of falling—

—
blackness, stillness—

There was no sound.  No sensation, not even pain.  No thought, no fear, no sight but for the torch-flame and the circles which in the darkness had become wheels, turning, burning above and beneath him.  Awake now.  Aware.

Something struck through the darkness, and blue light flashed in an intricate web around his insensate self, a single thread glowing red where his slave-brand would be.  First one strike, then two, like a hammer pounding metal, sending ripples of damage through the layered bonds.

Three, and a blue strand fractured.  Something flexed in the darkness—below him, within him, it was impossible to say.

Four.  Five.

Blue strands frayed.  Some snapped.

Six.  The flame above grew dimmer. 

Seven.

A net of threads shattered, sending motes of light to vanish in the void.  But there were many more, and the wheels were rising away from him, falling away beneath.  Fading.  The torch-flame had shrunk to a pinspot.

Eight.

The flame winked out.

In its wake, the darkness poured in, thrusting the wheels away until they too vanished in the distance.  Cold encased him and now he felt fear, for it was not natural, not physical but searing in its absolute emptiness, the anathema of life.  Even his necromantic bonds were warm in comparison—and those were fading fast, unraveled by the draw of the dark, leaving him exposed to the void that sought to penetrate his soul—

Two bright threads, one at brow, one at chest.  Two sets of white wings.  Talons.  Blazing eyes.  Pain. 
Painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain
—

His eyes snapped open and he gasped in a breath of raw, cold air.  Heart thudding arrhythmically, lungs burning, ribs on fire, he stared into the darkness in horror and confusion until he caught the whiff of snuffed candles, the blur of frightened voices, the solid reality of the hand on his brow, chilled though it was.

“What happened?” he croaked.

The Mother Matriarch inhaled a breath of relief.  “Thank the Goddess.  Something came for you.  We had to drive you into the stillness so that we could break the bonds without harming you, but it was waiting there.  I thought we had lost you.”

His heart clenched in his chest, and he remembered Thynbell: the darkness beneath the pounding waterfall, the hunger that had swallowed the energy he drained from the imprisoning circles.  The frigid grasp of it.  He tried to sit up, but his muscles were stiff from cold, his hands locked like claws around the icy sword and hammer.  A gauntlet gripped one arm, a glove the other, and slowly they wedged him up.  From the crowd came the sound of prayers and striking flint, and first sparks blossomed, then light.

Cob looked down upon the frightened faces of men, women and children, their breath making plumes in the frosted air.  The entire atmosphere of warmth and harmony had evaporated, and he knew by the blanched looks on the faces of the two Sisters that such a thing was not supposed to happen.

Arik was waiting at the edge of the dais, fidgeting as if it was a barrier instead of a step.  His face had gone wolfish, his ears laid flat, body covered with fur and quills beneath the loose chiton, and as soon as their eyes met, he leapt the distance and loomed at the altar to sniff Cob over critically.  Sister Talla stood back quickly, but Cob just made a face and tried to elbow him away, still unable to relax his hold on the hammer.  The skinchanger evaded him and sniffed again.

“
Watcher.  Dark watcher,” he said in a rough voice.  “Cold hunter.  Endless hunger.  Bad, Cob.  Bad, bad.”

“
Yeah, no shit.”

The skinchanger’s ears lifted slightly, then with visible effort he returned to human form, the fur and quills retracting into his skin, his jaw crunching and shortening, his ears receding beneath his thick mane of hair.  He patted Cob’s shoulder awkwardly, then chafed Cob’s fingers with his until they were warm enough to release the hammer.

Cob looked past him to the crowd, which was starting to disperse under the commands of Sister Talla and Sister Merrow.  The candles and braziers that had lit the room had all been snuffed, but a grey-haired man stood by the entry with a little oil lamp he had lit with a handheld sparker, and one by one the Trifolders stopped at him with candles taken from around the room, then moved out to spread light through the darkened complex.  Though subdued, they were all steady, their panic gone.

He saw Fiora pull Sister Merrow aside, but then the Mother Matriarch set a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to her narrow, weary face.  “I wish that we could have done more for you, Guardian,” she said softly.  “But I fear that we must send you onward.  To the Haarakash, I think.  The Sisters will not approve, but they are…overprotective.  The Haarakash practice a sort of necromancy but they have always been good neighbors to our enclave at Turo, and they should be able to unbind you—perhaps even remold your soul.  We will arrange passage for you.  It is some distance, but our followers will see you there in safety.”

“Thanks, but…what are the Haarakash?” said Cob.  With Arik’s help, he had let go of the sword, and now moved to shrug his tunic back on.  The Mother Matriarch’s grip tightened on his shoulder as he tried, though, and he looked again to see her eyelids fluttering as she wavered on her feet.  He slid from the altar quickly and caught her around the waist, steadying her.  She was painfully frail under the thick cloth of her brown dress.

“
Y’all right?” he said.

“
I…  It has been a drain on me,” she said faintly.  “The emptiness that touched you.  I think that you must not try your bonds while underground again.  We knew no better, but it came in from all around us, and our lights could not stop it.  Daylight, morning light, heat and sun that it can not quench—that is what you require.  The Haarakash can give that to you.  Their land is called Accursed, but also the Summerland, and their ways are those of light though they do terrible things.”

“
I’m sorry.  I dunno what—“

“
It is well, Guardian.  But you must take care.  As your wolf says, you are hunted.”

Cob frowned and started to speak, but Sister Talla swept in like a shining knight to wrap her arm around the Mother Matriarch and tug her away.  “You must rest, Mother,” she said, casting Cob a look that verged on hostile.  “Others will see to our guests.”