The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (105 page)

And the voices were there, urging him onward.  Young, old, male, female, they whispered and giggled and hissed, and as his lumpy hand came closer, it began to attenuate against his will—to reach out pseudopods of grey substance that latched eagerly to Serinel's face.  The lancer bucked and shook his head in a frenzy, but to no avail.  The claylike stuff would not be dislodged.

Horror tightened its grip on Sarovy, but he forced through it.  More of his mutinous flesh was pouring out from his chainmail sleeve, flowing across the connection in lumps and cords and toothed tendrils, and it wasn't fair to any of them but mostly it wasn't fair to Serinel to draw this out.  The choice had been made, and the only one to suffer should be Sarovy.

So he stepped in and let the grey mass of his monstrosity flow freely: across the lancer's face, through his nostrils, then breaching the seal of his mouth.

Flickers began in his nerves.  Sense-impressions, emotions: terror, pain, betrayal; breathlessness; hideous immobility.  As he forced himself to stare into Serinel's contracting pupils, his vision doubled, and he saw himself like an unfinished bust: his mouth just a scalpel-slash, his eyes two pits, yet his expression still there.  Haggardly sad and recognizable even as sucker-mouths and tendrils bloomed and faded along his cheeks.

He wanted to pull away, but no.  There had to be mercy.  So he pushed forward instead, and Serinel shuddered, eyes twitching upward.  And in that airless space his not-fingers had made, Sarovy felt a sudden presence: a fracturing spark that bled into him when he clutched it, filling him with visions of the other man's life.  Keceirnden, a black-haired woman, an older couple, a horde of siblings and cousins whose names almost reached his lips...

The voices chorused their hunger, and in disgust he let go.  The spark fled through his fingers.

Serinel's eyes went glassy, and his tremors ceased.

Carefully, delicately, Sarovy extricated himself.  It was easier than he had anticipated; without the spark, the grey flesh ceased to care.  Not a physical hunger, then, but something fouler.  Something deeply predatory and spiritually destructive.

“Not going to absorb him?” said the colonel from behind.

He shook his head.

“Well, your choice.  Houndmaster, are you hungry?”

“...Already ate.”

Vrallek's voice sounded strained.  Without turning, Sarovy expanded his vision to the back of his head again and saw the Houndmaster standing rigid beyond the portal-frame, hands clasped behind his back.  He was staring at Sarovy, but seemed unaware that Sarovy could see him.  His expression looked almost disappointed.

No, not that.  Disheartened?  Resigned?

“Then feed it to your hounds,” said the colonel dismissively.  “The rest of them—put them back in their rooms.”

The prisoners were hauled up and shoved around, few struggling.  Even Garrenson had gone slack-shouldered, his cheeks wet as he was crammed into the first lancers' bunkroom.  Sarovy stood where he was, watching with his strange new vision as Vrallek made a wide circle around him in order to claim Serinel's corpse from the White Flames.  He kept even further away on the retreat, then slunk out the assembly yard door without a word.

“Now, there will be a few changes around here,” said the colonel.  “I don't expect much from you lot, but any who volunteer for my service before Darkness Day will be exempt from the Palace treatment.  In the interim, I'm naming your Sergeant Korr to the archer lieutenancy, with his lieutenant now a sergeant, and Corporal Herrick to the lieutenancy formerly held by Arlin.  Lieutenants Rallant, Linciard and Vrallek will stay as they are.  New lieutenants, you are responsible for discipline in your platoons, and I expect you to be ruthless in its enforcement.”

Sarovy shook his head wordlessly.  Herrick was a ruengriin specialist; how was he expected to run an infantry platoon?  Korr was a controller like Rallant and already had a foothold in his home platoon, but Herrick?

“We will also be replacing the wards,” said the colonel.  “The Scryer and the Gejaran have opposed us and must be executed, but as they are holding many of the protections on this place, it can wait.  If any of you see a dark spot on the walls, or flickering runes, inform your lieutenant immediately.  It is for the safety of your souls.”

Had he hands, he would have clenched them.

“As for your brethren and the witch down in the cells, do not concern yourselves.  Anyone who speaks of them should be whipped.”

Shuralla, and...who?  Without a tongue, he couldn't ask, but he could guess: anyone who had resisted the takeover of the garrison.

“Now, Messenger, if you believe you have this under control...”

“Yes, colonel.”  Cortine's voice was rather flat.  “Captain, do you require your medallion?”

No.  I should be destroyed.

But as the colonel and his White Flames began trooping out, Sarovy nodded and turned to the Messenger, who pressed the medallion into his palm without fear.  Immediately the fiery lines of the template snapped into full focus, and his flesh shivered and jerked as it resumed its proper shape.

The priest smiled faintly, and he had no doubt that those blank eyes could see him with perfect clarity.  “Perhaps you should consider wearing it somewhere less accessible, captain.  It took no more than a tug to remove.  You would not want such a thing to happen again.”

“No,” said Sarovy.  His voice felt rusty, as if he hadn't used it in years.  All throughout him, the familiar cords and hollows of the human form were remaking themselves, and he breathed in deeply—a comfort—then gave the priest the smallest of nods.  Cortine touched his arm, on the mail rather than the flesh, then broke away toward a bunkroom, evidently bent on ministering to the doomed.

For a time, he stayed where he was, staring at the pendant in his palm.  If he could have smashed it and dissolved into nothing, he would have.  But he had no freedom, and only now was he realizing it.

Finally, he pressed it to the base of his throat, and let the flesh swallow it smoothly.

If this was what they had made of him, then so be it.

*****

Scryer Mako caught Magus Voorkei's eye as they were led up the stairs toward the room where they'd been bunking, and where they would now be held.  Voorkei raised a brow at her, and she crossed her forefingers like the Gheshvan sigil for 'fight'.

He bared his tusks in a grin, then flung himself backward into the white-robe bringing up the rear.

Wards flashed and shattered as the two of them toppled in a mess of arms and legs.  The mages in front of her—Tanvolthene and two more white-robes—turned in alarm, and she scooted aside to let one go by then hooked her foot around his ankle at the last moment.  It was a smooth no-impact motion, the kind that most wards did not react to, and the mage tripped right over it with a satisfying yelp.

The enemies' blocks on her mentalism weakened briefly, but did not fall.

Pikes
, she thought as Tanvolthene turned on her, quick-shaping a ward that rammed her to the banister.  The disrupting collar they had placed on her prevented any non-mentalism and the wards pinned her arms down; no chance of drawing the dagger hidden under her robe.  While most non-Artificers disdained physical weapons, no Riddishwoman would be caught without a blade—like no wolf would be caught without teeth.  Mako was no exception.

Still, she could kick and squirm and headbutt the ward, which would force Tanvolthene to keep powering it.

“What do you think you're doing, woman?” he snapped, attention skipping from her to the thrashing melee on the stairs and back.  “The Empire needs mentalists.  They might not kill you if you behave!”

She snarled at him, then closed her eyes and focused her mind while her body maintained the struggle.  Voorkei would only be able to distract the white-robes for so long, and he had no mental protections beside his own will; the ones she had given him had been stripped away in the first few moments of their capture.  The enemy mentalist stood at the top of the stairs, unreachable but attention split, so if she could just bore a hole through the mind-blocks, maybe she could send a distress call.

A part of her wanted to obey Tanvolthene.  It whispered,
It's always been this way, Mako.  You didn't know it, but you've always served this horror.  From the Circle to the army to the company, you have aided and abetted the making of men into monsters.  And more—remember that mother and her children?  What do you think happened?

Why fight it now?

Because she'd thought they were better than this.  Blaze Company, the Crimson, the Empire itself.  She'd never been a militant woman—she was a Scryer, for pike's sake—but she'd believed in the need to protect the Empire, to expand its borders, to bring the pagans and heretics into the Light.  Not for any deep faith but for security.

But what she had seen here, and heard from Sarovy and Cortine and Wreth...

She could no longer be a part of this.

She had to warn someone.  Anyone.  She was starting to break through but there would only be one shot, and it had to be someone who could act—who wouldn't be torn apart the moment they voiced their intent—which meant no one in this garrison.  If only Presh was still out there...  If only she knew someone loose in the city...

Her eyes snapped open.

She needed an enemy.  Someone whose mind she had already touched.

Her drilling-thought broke through, and she grabbed for the psychic tether she had followed once before.  Since that day, she had checked it regularly, hoping to catch the Shadow bitch unaware, and it stood out bright and strong against her field of mind-blocked darkness.

Active!

*****

“A goodwill gesture changes nothing,” said Enforcer Ardent to the widow Rynher.  “I would advise taking that money and leaving the city like Mistress Beltras.”

“But it indicates that the company in the garrison and the ones on Old Crown are not in lockstep,” said Gwydren Greymark across the table.  He wore his lion-skin like a cloak now, the hood pushed back from his short steely hair and the foreclaws hooked into his chainmail between the heavy plates.  With the new Crimsons swarming the streets, they were all armored-up, him more than most.

“This is true, and unusual,” said Mother Matriarch Lirayen at his side.  Even she wore a bit of armor, though really it was padding: a quilted surcoat over her brown dress to keep the eiyets from pinching her black-and-blue every time she was moved to a new safehouse.

At the moment, they and a good two handfuls of councilors and district representatives were crammed into the back room of a West Ridge apartment, drinking weak tea and trading news.  The young girl that had come with Gwydren sat in a corner, cold-eyed but listening; the dog was asleep.

“Not so unusual as to make us change our minds,” Ardent said, tired of this argument.  “That one man regrets an execution means nothing.“

“That man is their leader,” said Lirayen.

“It does not matter.”

“Doesn't it?  They have been bottled up in that garrison ever since the others arrived, and even before that, they were not looting houses or arresting people.  I believe we can ignore them.  Focus our attention on the new threat and deal with those traumatized boys later.”

Ardent reached for her teacup, aggravated.  She normally agreed with Lirayen's vow of nonviolence, as it dovetailed with the overall Kheri policy of limiting bloodshed, but when it came to those piking Imperialists—especially the monster she'd put two crossbow bolts through...

Who cared that he'd shown some remorse?  It meant nothing.

“Look, I still need some time before I feel comfortable unleashing another Dark bite,” she said.  “So I'll give you that much leeway with them.  Maybe a week?  If you can pry them out from that shell, get them to deal with us, then maybe we won't have to kill them all.  But I make no promises about the—“

'You!  Shadow bitch!'

She sat bolt-upright at the mental voice, already reaching for the shadows.  The piking mentalist had been hounding her ever since their first contact, ignoring all deals in favor of hammering at her mind for Presh's location.  She thought she'd figured out the woman's shifts, but apparently—

'No, wait.  Listen.'

“Enforcer?” said Gwydren, leaning forward with a frown.  Ardent held up a quelling hand, still gathering shadows to herself.  It would be an instant's work to fall in.

What do you want?
she thought.

'No time.  Take this.'

Something hit her straight between the eyes: a swarm of visions, emotions, floor-plans and sigils, a seething tangle of conversations.  Before she could struggle, the connection snapped and the surge ebbed, the churning images coalescing into a sensation like a lidded box.  Something she could open or close at will.

She took a cautious peek.

Then another.

Then started unpacking it.

“Get me some parchment,” she said out loud, her eyes full of the garrison scene, her senses swimming with the mentalist's psychic annotations.  These were the wards powered by a Gejaran named Voorkei, these others by an Imperial named Tanvolthene...