The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (18 page)

“You have seen them?”

“I killed them just now.”

A spasm of anger and frustration crossed the old man's face.  “I see.  Is that all?”

“Apparently one of their sons is White Flame.  Oh, and that farm family...”

“The Crays?”

“Them too.”

“What, all of them?”  For a moment the man looked despairing, ancient, then he gave Enkhaelen a flinty stare.  “You do this out of spite.  Just because—“

“You weren't there.  Again.”

“I'm not a god, Shaidaxi.  And if I were, I would be bound by the Pact.  Unable to intervene at all.”

“It's no salve though, is it?  When you have to clean up the bodies.”  Enkhaelen's icy tone made Geraad shudder.  “Grandmother, mother and two children, all lost.”

“Only two?”

A moment of silence, then Enkhaelen said cautiously, “Yes, two.  Both the children.”

“There are three.  Two girls and a boy.”

Silence again.  Confused, Geraad watched as Enkhaelen looked away from the portal to stare into the depths of the laboratory, his face a mask.  Some calculation was going on behind those shallow eyes, but he couldn't read it.

“Well.  Interesting,” Enkhaelen said finally, turning back to the old man.  “Now we know.”

“No, I don't know.  What—“

“And isn't that better than wondering, for the rest of your life, what happened to them?  That's what you were doing, right?  Looks like Illane out there, mm, a few marks south of Bahlaer?  You need to stay away from there.”

“There must be a part of you that wants to help, or—“

“That's what she said, the Mother Matriarch, before I stopped her heart.  And she spoke of you.  They have such faith in you.  I could never fathom why.”

“Shaidaxi—“

“Gwydren.  I've told you this out of professional courtesy.  Now go weep over some empty graves.”

“Don't lie to me.  Who is this?”  The old man gestured at the still-paralyzed girl, who stood  almost within reach.  “Or him?  You there, are you a prisoner?”  Geraad realized the old man was addressing him, and laid down fast as the necromancer glanced back.

“None of your business,” said Enkhaelen, “and what could you do if he was?  Are you finally ready to raise your hammer against me?  Or is this another toothless bluff?”

“Perhaps I should.”

“Then by all means, step into my parlor.  My dear old friend.”

Geraad peeked up again and saw Enkhaelen bow theatrically, one arm sweeping out in a flourish toward the lab's clear experimental space.  In the frame, the old man stood stiffly, hands clenched before him as if gripping the haft of some invisible weapon.  Something just beginning to coalesce...

Then, with a heavy sigh, he spread his hands and the shimmer dissipated.  “No.  I made a promise.  But so did you.”

“I never—“

“You said you would protect the lad, yet look what you've done.”

“Me? 
Me?
”

“How much blood is on your hands since then?  How many more will suffer because you won't let me—“

“
Shut up!  I don't need your help!
”

“You contacted me.”

“I—“  Enkhaelen stiffened, then suddenly jerked his arm at the girl, who stumbled toward the portal like a badly strung marionette.  “Here, take this one, just take her,” he said, pushing her through into the old man's arms.  “Attach your piking parental urges to someone else.”

“Shaidaxi, you can—“

Enkhaelen smacked the portal-frame, and the image popped like a soap-bubble.

Left in the cool, clinical confines of the laboratory, Geraad stared at his jailor's back, not sure what to feel.  It took a small eternity before Enkhaelen's shoulders settled and he let go of the portal-frame, and when he turned, his face was studiously blank.

“Have you calmed down?” he said, moving toward the slab.

Geraad opened his mouth to say yes, or maybe to beg, but what came out was, “Will she be all right?”

“The girl?  Well enough, I imagine.  My puppetry will have faded by now.”

“But her mentalism—“

“Will be managed.  It's not like I could have sent her to the Inquisition or the Circle.  She's seen too much.”  Enkhaelen's gaze crawled the chamber, with its mortuary slabs stretching out in all directions beneath the cold stark light.  “And this place is an end, not a beginning.”

What about me?
Geraad dared not say.

Perhaps Enkhaelen saw it in his face, because he waved abruptly and the force that had pinned Geraad in place vanished.  As he turned away, he said, “Thank you for your assistance, Iskaen.  You are dismissed.”

Geraad sat up slowly, watching him head toward the office in the far corner.  Black robe, black hair, black gloves all blended in with the black obsidian walls, only the sharp blade of his face delineated from the background.  It made him think of the Palace, where all was reversed, and the man who controlled it.

“Master?” he called hesitantly.

Enkhaelen halted.

“Master...  The Emperor.  Is he...really the Light?  What his eyes did to me...  He saw inside of me, and I...”

Enkhaelen turned his head slightly, eyes reflecting the cold light like glass.  “He is our so-called god.  But he is no mentalist.  What you experienced when he gazed upon you was yours alone.  I think he can see guilt, or crime, like a stain on the soul—but memories?  No.

“You're all but clean, Geraad, and you should be proud of that.  He's told me I look like an abattoir floor.”

There was wryness in his voice, a self-deprecation, but Geraad knew fakery when he heard it.  Even without a connection to the necromancer's mood, it rang hollow.

The old man wanted to help you.  I think...I almost see why.  And I can't run.  There is work to be done here.  Something has to change.

“I could do better,” he said quietly.

Enkhaelen smiled.  “We'll see.”

Chapter 5 – Tectonic Lever

It was deep night when Cob returned to the hog-folk's bonfire.  The coals burned low; only a few sentries remained awake, and they nodded their ponderous heads to him but did not intrude.  He sat a while and watched his friends sleep, curled up in their blankets—all except Ilshenrir, who stood like a glass statue near the shelter of the cliff.  From his immobility, he might have slept too, but it was difficult to tell.

Dawn crept in eventually, making Cob restless for the road.  He accepted a hug and a scolding from Fiora but couldn't focus on her, no matter his desires; the others needed him too.  Lark seemed no better for a night's sleep, and Arik was edgy around the hogs as well as the wolves, but Dasira was steadier on her feet and Ilshenrir's features sharpened with the growing sunlight.  It was time.

They were in the middle of packing the supplies and offerings when the cliff shuddered beside them.  Cob reached instinctively to brace everyone, watching for fractures; he was used to Riftquakes, and though this was small, any tremor had its dangers.  As the hog-folk scampered around with their cooking gear, though, he realized that the vibrations were shallow and local.

A moment later, part of the cliff-wall shifted like a door to reveal the stone-folk.

Cob exhaled and released his grip on the crowd.  He'd known there were caves within the cliff-wall, but since they had no outlet he hadn't given them any thought; now he knew better.  Only as the stone-folk filed out did he sense their individuality.

They looked like they had tried to mimic humans without a proper grasp of what humans found important.  Their broad bodies were coated in sheets of mica, quartz chunks and smooth river stones patterned like jewels and armor, yet their faces were haphazardly hewn, with gash-like mouths and flat noses and huge dark garnets for eyes.  A few had hairstyles carved into their scalps, but most were rough with earth and grit.  They stared up at him without blinking, without breathing, and his skin crawled.

“Is there somethin' you need?” he said.

The one in the lead inclined its head as much as it could on its thick pillar of neck.  “Guardian Ko Vrin,” it grated, “we wish to give you a gift to aid against the firebird.”

Nodding slowly, Cob said, “Thanks, I'll take everythin' I can get.”

“We have observed you for some time,” said the spokes-rock, “both here and in your travel through Varaku, and we know that you have difficulty with stone.  It is not surprising; water and wood will bend to anyone, while stone resists even the spirits.  The water and wood in the Emperor's lands are poisoned, so you will need our strength more than ever.”

Though he kept nodding, Cob felt his hackles rise.  “You saw me on Varaku?”

“Yes, Guardian.  Do you not remember?”

He grimaced.  Darilan's original betrayal had sent him fleeing through the red rocks of Varaku until exhaustion forced him into a cave to sleep.  He'd dreamt of voices whispering from the depths, and when he woke, it was with sand in his hair and a black chasm at his back.  He'd run from that too, only to be caught in the Riftquake that entombed his Crimson pursuit.

Afterward, he'd found one of the soldiers' canteens in the middle of a flat open area, flecked with blood.  He'd taken it because he had no choice, and in the weeks after—through the Mist Forest and into the grasslands, up to Ammala Cray's doorstep—he had managed to forget it.  To shrug it off as sunstroke and bad mushrooms.

“I...yeah,” he mumbled.  “Thanks for helpin' me.  I probably wouldn't've made it without you.  Didn't even know I was carryin' the Guardian then.  I guess you figured that out.”

“We were puzzled at the time,” said the spokes-rock, “but we understand now, and we would aid you.  Give us your hands, and we will make you a tool for shaping the stone.”

Cob obeyed.  Mud, dirt and sand were all he had ever been able to affect before; he couldn't imagine the power required to shift the bedrock.  And yet others seemed to think he could do it.  Perhaps Jeronek, the earth-blooded Guardian, had given them a reputation.

The spokes-rock clasped his arms, and the others moved in around him.  “It would be best if we did this in concert with wood and water,” said the rock, “but the wood-kin fear the Thorn you carry, and the water sleeps in this season.  Should you meet either on better terms, they may add to this.”

“You're not afraid of the Thorn?”

“It may crawl all over us, but it cannot control us.  We do not see the need to care.  To the wood-folk, though, it is a killing threat, for its spirit forces theirs out in favor of its own.  All within its territory is itself, and its territory is ever-expanding.”

To include me
, Cob thought sourly.  He was starting to regret not squishing its great eyeball.

When he asked no more questions, the stone-folk reached blunt hands to touch his arms, his back, and the heads and shoulders of their comrades.  Though they had no fleshly life, he found he could feel them like links in a chain, and so when the energy began to flow through them, he felt that too.

It was a strange, uneven roll of power, like the coming of the dark water but with irregular interruptions—shudders, tremors, cracks and creaks.  Closing his eyes, he sensed the stone-folk like boulders, cragged with inclusions and hairline fractures, their makeshift joints grinding together, their pieces all juttering and scraping.  Under his feet, the exposed rock revealed itself less solid than he'd thought, full of gaps and pores and compacted grit.

Then, between heartbeats, his senses switched.  He was in the depths, staring up at the thin morning light, and he was whole.  His limbs, though heavy, could move as one; his body could rise in a great upheaval, shedding away all the parasites that clung to it.  His fingers—gathered now around the faint source of his mind—were good for fine-work, but they had only a fraction of his strength, and a finger alone could not move an arm.

As his thoughts sank deeper, he realized that this was not all.  Something greater held him like an infant in a mother's arms, or a stone clamped in a setting.  A solidity, a comfort, a brace, but one that he could shift from.  One nested among many, iterating out in all directions—unique yet intricately connected.

His fingers clenched around his source.  A finger could not move an arm, but a collection of them could gain leverage—could pull and twist until they controlled a hand, and use that to create change.  To direct far greater power than a finger alone.

As he tightened his grip, he felt the source tremble.

—and suddenly he was in the clutch, ribs compressed, lungs shuddering, skull caught between unyielding stones.  His eyes wouldn't open; his breath moved fitfully through his teeth, and against his lips he felt grit, tasted dry minerals.

He had never been claustrophobic.  Growing up in caves and tents made close quarters comfortable; it was harder for him to sleep in the open air than in a tight shelter.  Yet this constricting clasp sent some animal instinct haywire, and it was all he could do to clench his teeth and not scream, not buck, not piss himself in abject terror.

Stone-dust slid into his nostrils and trickled down the back of his throat.  He coughed and felt ribs creak against rock.  Was it his imagination, or was it getting tighter?

This can't be right.  Did I fail?  I can't feel the stone-people.  It's all just wall...

Oh no, oh Guardian.  Oh Light.  Light!

Panic hooked him.  He strained his shoulders, his back, but couldn't move more than a hair.  His legs didn't even feel there, and his hands were sealed in rock, close as gloves.  He fought anyway, until skin grated away, until hot rivers stung at his eyes.

Only then, with dust and blood thick in his throat, did he remember the fingers and the hand and the arm, and think down through his legs to where they had melded with the stone.  To the strength below, solid but moveable, delineated by a million tiny cracks.

He reached into it and shifted them.

It was like standing at the center of a cave-in, the sound punishing him from all sides, but slowly, slowly the walls separated.  Slowly the light slid in, along with cold air and anxious voices, and he made a mental effort to ensure that he was no longer bleeding.

The Guardian held him steady, noticeable now that his senses weren't embedded in rock.  He still felt a weight on his chest, though, and as the walls crumbled away to release the stone-kin, their leader stepped forward and plunged its hands into his core.

He scrabbled at its shoulders to no avail.  Slowly, inexorably, it dragged at his insides until that new connection with rock and earth and soil tore free of its moorings and left him.

“Grasp it,” the spokes-rock said.  Cob blinked dizzily at the narrow, hexagonal stone shaft it held, taller than him and near-black with faint red striations and glints of mica.  Then, with great effort, he lifted his leaden arms and obeyed.

The connection to the earth flooded back into him.  Wobbly-legged, he leaned on the staff and felt the ground lean with him—a slight, shallow shift that nevertheless had the hog-folk clutching for their pots and pans.  Alarm shot through him, and he straightened as slowly as possible, letting everything settle beneath his feet.

“Tectonic lever,” said the spokes-rock, garnet eyes gleaming.  “You are the will; it is the strength.  Take care when you use it, for stone is harsh.  It can not bend, but either stands or shatters—and it does not always shatter where you think it should.”

“I understand,” said Cob, and hefted the lever cautiously.  As soon as it left the ground, he lost that sense of earth.  It was lighter than he had expected, smooth without being slippery, and though the red bands had a different grain, the lever seemed no weaker for it.  One end was blunt, while the other tapered into a wide chisel.  In all, it was nearly seven feet long but as easy to swing as a wooden staff, and he figured he could crack heads with it ably.

He lowered it carefully, not wanting to chance another tremor.  “Thanks.  This'll help a lot.”

The spokes-rock inclined its head, then stamped hard enough to send a vibration through the ground.  On cue, the stone-folk turned and filed into the cliff, the makeshift door already grinding closed.  As the spokes-rock passed through, it sealed without a seam.

Cob risked a glance at his friends, concerned how they had taken this.  To his relief, only Dasira had that 'you are such an idiot' look on her face, and he considered it standard.  Fiora gave him a big grin, then bustled over with a rag and a canteen and started dabbing at his face.

“It's all mended,” he objected.

“Yes, but you look a mess.  Hold still.”

He suffered through it, staring over her head toward the hog-folk.  Of all the creatures that had attended the meeting, they alone had not asked for anything—and they were the ones most belonging to the Guardian.  The way they ducked their heads when they caught his glance made him think they were shy.

“Hoi,” he tried.  “I want to thank you for sheltering my friends, and for the food.  If there's somethin' you'd ask of me...”

A murmur of excitement went through them, and they immediately clustered up, muttering together in low voices.  Fiora gave him a curious look, and he shrugged.  “Gotta offer.  It's polite.”

Eventually, two stepped out from the group, both in the extended corsets of the females.  They were as war-painted as the rest, and he recognized the one in the lead as the brewer.  Her strings of beads and tusks clacked loudly against the metal structure of her garment.

“We have a request, Guardian,” she said as they came close enough to smell.  “We want for you to give us babies.”

Cob blanched, and heard Fiora choke—heard Lark muffle a laugh.  Up close, the sows loomed over him, his eyes on level with the top edge of their corsets, and he was suddenly all too aware of cleavage covered in short, fine bristles.  His first instinct was to flee into the woods.  “I, uh, I don't think that's a—“

“You are spirit of fertility,” said the lead sow, blinking beady black eyes down at him.  “We ask your blessing so we have many babies and grow Gnashed Tusk clan big and strong.  It can be done, yes?”

He wanted to kick himself. 
Horrible, stupid imagination.
  “Jus' bless?  Yeah, I...I can do that.”

The sow beamed, lips lifting to show the rest of her nasty teeth.  Then she and her subordinate reached to undo the buckles that kept their complex corsets in place.

“No, no no no, that's not—  Y' don't need to take anythin' off,” Cob said quickly, and almost sagged in relief as the Guardian's knowledge confirmed it.  “I jus' need to touch skin, any skin.  Hands are fine.”

They squinted doubtfully, but let go of the buckles and extended hands to him.  Carefully he set the tectonic lever down on its blunt end, then clasped them with as much professionalism as he could muster.  Each was four-fingered, the middle two thick and hard, the thumb truncated, the outermost finger unusually flexible.  He wondered how they worked.

“Jus' relax,” he said, and closed his eyes.

It took no effort to sense their hearts, strong and healthy, but from there the Guardian had to guide him into stranger territory.  He had blessed others with ease, and knew he could project a sort of mending aura, but those had been broad actions.  This was like navigating some dense organic labyrinth in search of the point that required attention.  He tried not to think about what, exactly, he was aiming for; as a child, he had helped his parents with birthing goats, so had an idea, but this felt awkward.  A fumbling intrusion into the realm of women.