Ash and Silver (23 page)

Dunlin waved and vanished down the stair. I took my formal stance, back straight, legs spread, lance extended. The bluster whipped my cloak and pelted my back with rain.

Three hours left. I should ask the gods to guide Cormorant in his decision. If he chose to stay, the rest of us would witness his Rite of Breaking, as he hammered his past life to dust. We'd see him presented with new sword, armor, and knight's tabard, and share a feast unmatched on any other occasion at Evanide.

If he chose to leave the Order, he would announce whether or not he had decided to retain the memory of his life here. No matter which, he would leave the fortress in the same hour. The rest of us would still feast, raising our cups to his good service and his free choice, wishing him well on his life's journey.

Thunder crashed and cold wind gusted behind me. “Greenshank! At last . . .”

I whirled around. Cormorant stood just behind me, dark hair dripping, his normally lean face pinched.

“Sorry if we disturbed you.” I said. “Are you—?”

“You've got to find Inek.”

The worry lurking in my gut took fire. “The Marshal said duty interrupted his vigil yesterday.”

“I doubt that. Listen”—he drew me away from the arch and across the Aerie into a cove of giant slabs. The cove offered a bit of shelter from the rain and wind, and no one lurking on the stair or in the passage would be able to see us, much less eavesdrop on our conversation.

He leaned his back on the slabs, drawing his sodden cloak around him. “A few days ago, Inek asked me to name you as my vigil companion. As you were in-mission and not expected back, he intended to take your place.”

“Whyever?”

“He admitted it was a strange request and unseemly to trespass on the rite, but he asked me to trust him that he'd no alternative. If you're like me, you'd trust him with your mother's life. . . .”

I nodded, though yet confused. “Go on.”

“He told me only that he had business regarding
the most important mission he'd ever undertaken
, and that I was to speak of it to no one but you.” He threw up his hands. “I didn't know a Knight Commander took on missions beyond training! I even suspected it might be some part of my final testing. They throw some hard things at you in these last days. . . .”

Like the lightning, Cormorant's brilliant grin—the kind that could lift a man's spirits in the most desperate hour—flashed and faded quickly.

“Naturally, I agreed,” he said. “We paraded through the Hall, spent a few difficult hours in the archives, and then came up here as the rite dictates. The Marshal roused me with his usual
call to excellence
, as I was a bit of a wreck, and then left, taking everyone but Inek. That was at seventh hour of the evening watch, two days ago. A few hours later, near midnight I think, when the fortress was quiet, Inek left, saying he'd return by midday at the latest. They bring me water at midday.” He glanced up as if to ask if I understood.

“He intended to be back before anyone knew he was gone.”

“That was my thought. He swore me to secrecy yet again, and gave me his most solemn oath that his business was honorable and necessary. And he said that if he didn't come back, something had gone very wrong, and I was to send you after him, as soon as you joined me here.”

“And he didn't come back,” I said, “and the water carrier noted it. So Dunlin was sent.”

“Aye. So the Marshal must know what's going on. That's good, but I promised . . .”

But the Marshal had failed to tell me that Inek was missing—which could have perfectly honorable reasons.

I didn't believe that. “Where were you to send me?”

“To the Knights' Relictory. You're to go undetected and look for anything out of order. If you cannot find him—and only then—speak to the Archivist. And he added the strangest thing. ‘Tell Greenshank that if the occasion arises, he should draw me.' Which made no sense at all, as he didn't say what you were supposed to draw him into or out of.”

I ducked my head, so he could not note my astonishment . . . or my
understanding of the danger Inek feared. My guide didn't want me to draw him into anything, but to
draw
him. To seek the truth with my bent. Desperation . . . and so much faith in me. Inek knew of my bent, but not that Osriel's ravaging had opened the possibility of its use. He thought he was going to die.

“Certainly, I'll go. I hope you're wrong to worry. And I'll do my best to be back to escort you to your night of glory—whatever you decide.”

“Find him, Greenshank. He was afraid.”

H
ood and cloak drawn close, I took a circuitous way through the fortress. The paratus supposed to be standing vigil watch with Cormorant must not be seen flitting about the halls. Inek had installed himself and then me in one of the few duties at Evanide unlikely to be interrupted.

Inek . . . who had allowed Cormorant to see his fear.
Draw me.
It was all I could do not to run.

Unusual for afternoon, only a few were abroad. A servant swabbed a wet floor. A paratus limped toward the barracks wing, sweating and bloody. A knight commander—not Inek—herded a trio of soggy, exhausted tyros just come in from a dunking in the bay. I slumped to disguise my height and strode purposefully into the Archive Tower.

No guards or locked gates barred entry. A variety of spellwork webbed the precincts—spells of preservation, illumination, magnification, the occasional piercing bent of a knight or adjutant who was scribe, cartographer, or historian. A few warded rooms required the Archivist's permission to enter, but I knew those, and none were my objective. Unfortunately, I had no idea where to find my objective.

The Knight's Relictory held the Order's most precious trust—the memories of those who trained here. None below the rank of commander were allowed to know its location. Not even rumor made a guess, save the occasional speculation that it was up the testy Archivist's backside. Though entering without permission could get him dismissed from the Order, I suspected why Inek had gone there. He'd sworn that night on the seaward wall that he would discover what I was.

So where was the place? The second, third, and fourth levels were warrens of small chambers furnished with writing desks, book chests, scroll cases, and presses stuffed with documents. The fifth was a single large room, containing the map repository and long tables for spreading them out. A
quick inspection confirmed that there were no masked doorways and all space was accounted for.

The Seeing Chamber occupied most of the ground level. Two centuries of archived missions sat in their own relictory behind a heavily warded door.

A scattering of squires and parati worked here and there throughout the Tower. None had looked up as I whisked by in search of the hidden relictory and
something out of order
. Curiously, neither the Knight Archivist, easily identifiable in his rust-colored mantle, hood, and mask, nor his second, similarly garbed in dusky blue, was anywhere to be seen.
That
was definitely out of order.

The two men lived in this tower and rarely left it. That served the balance of the Order, the same that kept the Marshal in his windowed chambers and the Knight Defender wherever he lurked. So where were the Archivist's personal quarters? The only place I'd not searched was a slate-roofed structure that joined the square tower to the seaward wall.

A door in the wall next to a coal store, easily overlooked, opened into the auxiliary passage. Lamps illuminated several doorways hung with woven rugs. Two led into cells scarce larger than the one where I slept. A rust-colored cloak and mask hung on pegs in the first, ones of dusky blue in the second. The Archivist's cell held the luxury of a padded armchair, a footstool, and a small writing desk. The second's pallet was covered with a thick quilt of sewn-together scraps. A basket of scraps and a spool of cotton suggested the man was making another. Neither cell was occupied.

A kettle sat on the cold hob in a third chamber. A cheese rind, half-empty cups, and unwashed soup bowls littered a table of scrubbed pine. A fourth chamber was a storeroom, its presses filled with neatly ordered ink horns, cups, pens, and the like.

Draw me
. I snatched up a pen, a stoppered ink cup, and a tied roll of clean parchment and stuffed them into my pockets. But when I returned to the passage, I felt a fool. There were no more doorways.

Rain drizzled from an overhead grate at the end of the passage. Neither the lightning flashes nor magelight penetrated the heavy blackness, and yet boring hours on the seaward wall insisted a full third of the passage remained beyond that grate.

I squeezed past the dripping water and found the hidden stair mostly by feel, as every common light spell failed. The stair twisted downward in a
tight, steep spiral, three times blocked with subtle wards that needed untangling. So carefully hidden, this had to be the relictory.

The last twist in the stair brought me to a vestibule so small as to hold a single man. Surprisingly, unnervingly, a thick iron door snarled with stinging enchantments stood wide-open.

I stretched my senses through the blackness beyond the opening. . . .

White daggers speared my eyes with such blazing ferocity, it was all I could do to stay upright. My sword flew from its sheath, clattering against stone and iron.

Staggering sideways, I fumbled for my bracelets, but mitons of ice sheathed my hands.

“Greenshank! I'd given up on you.” Too rough a voice, and too . . . old . . . for Inek. Demanding. Impatient. Rusty.

“Knight Archivist?” I shielded my eyes with my club of an arm.

“First Inek, now you, blundering into forbidden places like scoundrel boys stealing apricots. I might have expected such indiscipline from a paratus, but by the Sky Lord's lance, not Inek.”

“What in damnation is going on here? Where is Commander Inek?”

I wasn't feeling very respectful. He'd muted his beam, but I could see naught but molten steel against a yellow haze. I'd swear two holes had been burnt into my face.

“
What is going on here
is an excellent question—which your
rectoré
asked just before I sent him into a sleep from which he may never waken. And which Second asked, just before I put him into a state from which I may or may not revive him. Here”—clamping cold hands about my arm, he shoved me into a chair—“stop rubbing them or you'll go blind. I'll get the salve.”

Glassware rattled somewhere I couldn't see. My hands regained feeling as I sat on them, the only way I could avoid touching my scalded eyes.

A rustle of slippers and the Archivist bent over me. “This will sting, but you'll be seeing quicker. All to the good, yes? Better than Silverdrake fared.”

“Silverdrake?” I thought I knew all the parati and squires.

“Inek. Even as a tyro his hair was silver.”

Inek as a tyro.
My mind stretched . . . and brought me to my senses before a man I didn't know and couldn't see put more enchantments in my eyes.

I freed a hand and shoved the Archivist's arm aside before he could dispense his salve. “First, if you would, Knight Archivist, tell me where is Commander Inek.”

“Inek is resting comfortably out of his mind not fifty paces from here.
Out of his mind
because there was some alteration in the infernal trap and I don't know how to repair the damage it's done. Cursed pattern's entirely crosswise, like to finding thorns on ivy.”

“Out of his mind!”

“I've put him in stasis, hoping the damage is arrested as well, but I've no way to tell. He says you might. Were it anyone else . . . I ought to have you drowned for harboring such skills without me knowing of them.”

Inek had told Cormorant that if I couldn't find Inek himself, I should consult the Archivist. Which meant he had some measure of trust in the man. “So
you
didn't harm him?”

“Deunor's fire, he told me you were intelligent! I am the Knight Archivist of Evanide. I could have fractured his memory in a hundred different ways at any time I wished over the last thirty years—a bit longer if you count the last year of our training together, the year we studied Evanide's greatest magic together, and I discovered it was my calling and certainly not his.”

Which answer, I noted, was neither yes nor no.

“Late last night,” he continued with wounded patience, “a concussive magic drew me to this chamber. It wasn't the door wards. Inek let himself in very easily, because he recognized the spellwork on the door—maybe years ago, maybe sometime in between, maybe in the same hour he came creeping in here to steal your relict. We developed the ward together. I should have created something different when I was named Archivist, but I had far too many other things to learn, and Inek is imminently trustworthy. . . .”

Steal your relict!
“Please, Knight Archivist. Dispense your salve and start at the beginning, if you would. I'll be missed when seventh hour rings.”

I'd no sense to follow his meanderings with my eyes smoldering like a dragon's gut.

“Head back.” Just as he always commanded in the Seeing Chamber.

I tilted my head back obediently. The gooey globs of salve he dropped into my eye sockets spiked needles of ice into my skull, and when he wiped it off, the pressure drove them deep. I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead. “You were speaking of my memory relict. . . .”

“Inek sneaked in here night before last, evidently to steal it, though I don't at all understand why. He's been bothering me about it for two years,
which makes no sense at all, as he knew it was interdicted. But then who ever tells the Archivist anything of importance?”

He paused his rattling narrative. I felt more than saw his accusing glare, as if my very existence offended him.

“In his search he encountered a trap,” he continued. “A nasty, dreadful bit of spellwork that began snarling his memory.
Like snakes
, he told me when I found him. His cries were terrible. It was the convulsive energy of the trap spell that drew me here, you see. I tried to reverse the damage, but concluded quickly that I'd no idea how to do so. It was a cleanly worked trap spell, but damaged somehow . . . perverse . . . difficult to read— Well, it had no business being where he encountered it. The Order's discipline is falling to ruin.”

Distress was tearing at the old man, whether due to the Order's lacks or Inek's condition or his own incapacity was unclear. But it had shaken loose more words than I'd ever heard from him.

“Before I put him in stasis, Inek had enough sense remaining to tell me that his mewling paratus Greenshank might have the magic to help sort him out, and that he'd left orders for you to find him. I questioned Second, of course, as he can access the relictory at any time. He denied altering the trap, but he had a memory hole where your name should have been. I put him down for the time being, until I could probe deeper. Then I waited. Either you would show up or . . . someone else . . .”

Perhaps the person who set the damnable thing? Did he suspect someone? Feathers stroked my spine.

“Is it common for a trainee's name to be excised from someone's mind?”

“Not common at all. But then nothing's been usual since—” He stuffed a linen square in my hand. “Such matters are beyond a paratus's concern.”

Blotting sticky tears, I rose. The leather straps dangling from the chair I'd just vacated choked off argument, especially when I noted similar straps binding the limp Second Archivist to another chair.

“Please take me to Commander Inek. I'll try my best to help him.”

“I should hope so. You're an oath-sworn paratus of the
Equites Cineré
.”

He led me past an alchemist's bench to a desk burdened with a hundredweight of books and papers. He retrieved the seven silver medallions that were the symbol of his office from a glass box, pulled their silver chains over his head, and flicked a hand at the ceiling. Lamps flared into life, one and then the next, into the depths of the chamber.

The blooming light revealed a sight that staggered me. The rear half of
the chamber was filled with bronze racks, row upon row of them, one stacked atop another. Arrayed on the racks, each in a frame of its own, were identical cubes of thick glass, each edge the length of my finger.

Only as I looked on them—thousands of them, stacked ten racks high—did the subtle majesty of their massed enchantments settle on me. Each cube was bound in layers of spells, designed to protect the intricate, powerful enchantment that held a man's memory—the black-and-white relicts just visible through the cloudy glass. Some cubes were empty, though, save for wisps of flame that spread a golden glow through the glass walls like stray sunlight.

“Memories,” I whispered, as if these scraps of souls might hear me. “There must be one of these for every tyro to train at Evanide. How in the name of the gods do you keep them straight?”

“They are as individual as every man. And we key them with magic, of course, bound to the tyro's soul.”

The touch of his finger caused silver tracings and sigils to appear along the bronze rails. Some I recognized from my studies here; others were strange.

“Some say we should toss out the relicts of those who fail or die. But I agree with my predecessors. They are holy, in the way a man's or woman's bones are holy, no matter the person's worthiness in life. So they remain.”

“What are the cubes with a flame?”

“Those of the knights, of course. In our early years, the residue of a knight's destroyed relict was returned to its vessel. But terrible spells can be worked with fragments of a soul.”

“That's why the knight throws the dust of his relict into the sea.”

To move between the stacks was like swimming through liquid glass. At the far end of the chamber Inek lay on a pallet of blankets and cloaks. His eyes were closed, skin flushed, hands clenched. But he did not breathe.

My own breath halted, as if one of the massive pillars supporting the fortress had collapsed. “Dead . . .”

“No. In stasis, as I told you. Unchanging until I wake him and the snakes devour him from the inside out, or he remains in this state for more than a month and his body hardens and crumbles. So what is it you do? How can you possibly help?”

Something . . . gods, please . . .

“At one time my magic could reveal secrets. I'm not sure I can—”