The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (21 page)

Feeling it, Cob decided it was time to try out the tectonic lever.  He had been examining the lay of the land through his bare feet, trying to find somewhere that felt like a good camp-site, but the rough hillsides and dense tree-cover did not provide many options.  Deeper though, below snow and rock and gnarled roots, he felt caverns—including one that nearly touched the surface.

“Don't follow me,” he said, and headed up the icy slope as if it was a staircase. 

Hillside hunched over most of his target cavern, but a section had sheared away in the recent past, leaving thinner stone.  He stood a while, contemplating how the cavern would react when it was breached.  The walls felt firm, the ceiling solid, but he had never tried this before.

He looked to where his friends waited on the trail, then scanned the slope above them.  Rocks, snow, frozen soil, tall but tenuously-rooted trees.  Big avalanche danger.

“Go back further,” he called to them.  “Ilshenrir, put wards up.  Whatever you'd use for big rocks.  This could get bad.”

He heard Lark squawk an objection, but they all scuttled back until he could barely see them through the trees.  He still felt them, dimly, but since he did not know if he could control the lever and guard them at the same time, it was best to rely on the wraith.

Taking a deep breath, he touched the chisel-end to the stone at his feet.

The lever felt somehow alive in his grip.  At just a touch, cracks formed within his mind's eye: where the stone would rupture and cave inward, where it would stay standing.  He drew the chisel-end along the rock, intrigued by how the pattern changed with each new position.  This was not an earthquake-maker; it was a precision tool, as delicate as his concentration.

Holding the image of what he wanted in his head, he raised it over the proper spot and struck.

The hillside shivered, trees shedding great sheets of snow and ice.  The tip of the lever punctured the rock like a needle, and he felt cracks vein out wildly from its point of impact, following the strictures he had set.  Eyes closed, he switched his grip and pulled, both feeling and seeing the rock break into the required patterns.  The sound of collapsing stone was deafening.

As the last pebble dropped, he opened his eyes to find a ragged hole in the rock wall, punched five feet wide and three deep before expanding into musty darkness.  To the left, a section of hill had subsided inward but felt stable.

Looking back, he saw rubble covering the path, a patch of barren hillside above.  At the fringe of the damage, a piled-up circle of debris surrounded a shimmering bubble of force.

“Cob!  You suck goat balls!”
came Lark's sharp voice from within.

With a sigh, he beckoned, and saw the bubble start to move.  Debris tumbled into the hole it vacated, and with some squinting he managed to see the figures inside, struggling along the irregular rocks.  Turning the lever over, he planted the blunt end down and concentrated on the landscape, fixing every stone and icicle and fleck of snow in place.  By the time they reached him, they were red-faced from exertion and he ached dully, his back knotted like he had been trying to hold up a beam.

“What the pike was that?” hissed Lark, wild-eyed behind her scarf.  “You trying to get us killed before we even reach the Palace?”

“I made a shelter,” he said, nodding to the hole.

The Shadow girl looked from the cavern to him incredulously, then made a sound of annoyance as Arik brushed past to peek in.  The skinchanger sniffed, then set a paw on the rubble slope, and Cob made sure his footing stayed firm.

“I will investigate,” said Arik, and disappeared inside.

“This is crazy,” said Lark.  “You want us to sleep down there?  What if it all falls in?  What were they thinking, giving you that thing?”

Cob scowled.  “I'm still learnin'.  You don't wanna go in, you can sleep outside.”

They contemplated the hole until Arik yawped his all-clear, then one by one they filed in, until only Lark remained.  Cob offered his arm to her and she leveled a glare that could have stripped paint.  “You're crazy, they're crazy, and I'm crazy for staying with you people.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“But if I give up, then you'll just get your crazy selves killed.  If you could steer us toward a nice inn room and a hot bath, though, I'd be much obliged.”

“I'll try.  Now get in the pikin' hole.”

She made an obnoxious face at him, then took his arm and stepped down.  He followed.

Ilshenrir had summoned a mage-light, and in its glow Cob saw that the chamber he had breached was the first in a network, shallow and debris-filled but feeding into a larger room with a smooth bowl-like floor.  From there, a water-worn cut led into a third chamber, barely four feet high and tapering down to a crack.

“I suppose this isn't bad,” said Lark as she moved inward, running a gloved hand along the smooth wall.  “It cuts out the wind, and nothing will melt on us when we start a fire.”

“I will set wards to divert the smoke,” said Ilshenrir.

“Aw, and I was looking forward to asphyxiating in my sleep.”

Cob slumped down at the foot of a wall as the others bustled around him, divesting themselves of gear and setting up camp.  This had been their routine since bypassing Akarridi, him guiding the way to their night's shelter and them doing the rest.  He was not tired, not really; constant contact with the earth seemed to renew him, so that every long stride buoyed the next.  It was the frustration that drained him.

Several times on this day's trek, he had pried at the Guardians' secrets.  Only Vina and Jeronek responded, and while he had spent some time in Vina's memories of the ancient world, nothing seemed relevant.  Interesting, yes—a pre-human perspective on a world teeming with active and tangible spirits, back before the Spirit Realm had been pulled away from the physical.  But nothing he could use against the Palace, or Enkhaelen.

The other three Guardians remained closed.  He understood Erosei acting like that, the insufferable bastard, but why Haurah or his father would refuse him, he could not guess.

Still, there was time.  Short days of hiking, long nights of waiting.  He didn't need sleep anymore, not really.  He would wrestle the Guardians until they gave in.

“Cob, wakey wakey,” said Lark from close by, and he blinked up and realized he had missed most of the preparations.  Food was already cooking in a shallow, spider-legged pot the hog-folk had given them, and the girls were down to their lounging-clothes.  The chamber felt insulated, practically warm.

“Wasn't asleep,” he mumbled, rubbing his face with the heel of his hand.  “Was jus'...”

“Brooding?”

He glowered, and Lark flashed him a grin in return.  “C'mon, don't make us wait.”

Reluctantly he moved to the fire, leaving the tectonic lever against the wall as if stuck there.  Fiora gave him a gauging look as he settled, and after a moment he lifted his arm and let her shimmy over to rest against his side.  It felt good to have her there, especially without the layers of overdress and armor, but he was still annoyed.  He hadn't expected to be mediating between her and Dasira all the time.

Lark doled out a stew of winter vegetables and beans, and when Dasira commented on the lack of meat, Arik said, “You don't want what the wolves had.  Traveler sausages—made from travelers.”

“Weren't that bad,” said Dasira.  The other women stared at her.

“Right.  Never accept meat products from a skinchanger,” Lark muttered, then threatened Arik with the ladle when he leered.

The conversation descended into the gutter after that, and Cob tried not to pay attention.  It boggled him how similar these conversations were to the ones he had grimaced through in the Crimson camp.  Women were supposed to balk and swoon at such topics, not laugh so hard they nearly choked.

His fellow men were no help.  Ilshenrir just sat and listened, occasionally miming a drink from his empty cup.  Meanwhile, Arik took the opportunity to flirt with everyone, even making eyes at Cob and the wraith.  Cob's dourest glare could not stop him.

Finally, after even Ilshenrir managed to slide a carefully crafted innuendo into conversation, Cob gave up.  “I'm goin' to bed,” he said, rising.

Fiora caught his arm, but instead of pulling him down, she pulled herself up.  Her eyes glimmered in the low firelight.  “I'll come with you.”

A rush of heat went through him, one that no amount of jokes and entendres could have sparked.  “All right,” he said, hooking his arm around her waist and looking to the smaller chamber.  “Um...we'll jus'...”

“I will ward the inner area from sound and sight,” said Ilshenrir blandly.

Reddening, Cob said, “Yeah, thanks,” then quickly pulled Fiora toward the inner chamber.  She slipped him for just a moment to grab her pack, then followed, and as they got down and slid through the crack, he felt the others' eyes on his back.

Then the light dimmed and the sound of the flames muted to nothing.  Glancing back, he saw a wavery obstruction in the opening, like a wall of water.

“He's so useful,” said Fiora in admiration.  Then she looked up at him, and in the faint light he just made out her smile.  He reached up to touch it, to trace the line of her lips, and felt the smile widen beneath his fingers.

“C'mon, let's make ourselves comfortable,” she murmured into his palm.  “As much as we can be.  Watch your head.”

The ceiling lowered as they scooted deeper in, from four feet to maybe three.  She pulled the pack along, and when she started fumbling at the straps, he realized that as little as he could see, she saw much less.  He took it away, undid the buckles, then unrolled the blanket that had been bound on top.  It provided no padding, but at least kept the stone from grating on his shoulders as they tucked close.

“I'm mad at you,” he murmured as she tugged at his belt.

“I know.  I'm sorry.”

“But y'keep doin' it.  You and her.”

She sighed against his neck.  “I can't help it.  I don't trust her.”

“Then trust me, all right?”

“You keep letting her back in.”

“She hasn't hurt us.”  After a moment, he amended, “You.  She hasn't hurt any of you.”

Fiora fixed him with a look.  “She tried to kill me outside the manor.  She says it was an accident, but even now there's murder in her eyes.  Don't pretend you can't see it.  I'm allowed to defend myself.”

“Jus'....  Maybe you can jus' not talk to each other.  I can't handle it, Fiora.  The anger, the demands, the lies, the pikin' hog-crap—“

He stopped himself, sucking in a ragged breath.  It was wrong to take out his frustrations on her.  Even if he couldn't let his responsibilities lapse, he had to keep them separate from how he treated his friends.

“Cob?” said Fiora softly.  “Are you all right?”

“'M fine,” he muttered.  “Fantastic.”

“Because you're squeezing me pretty hard.”

He let go immediately, chagrined, but she pulled his arm back into place just as fast.  “Don't,” she said.  “It doesn't have to be all or nothing.  It can be somewhere in the middle.”

“I—  I'm jus' tired,” he said, and tried to lay back.  As much as he wanted her, he wanted to be alone too.  Away from everything.

She let him, but then slithered on top, and he pretended it was her slight weight on his chest that made his breath come short.  Her curly hair tickled against his throat as she tucked her head under his chin.  “We can sleep,” she murmured.  “This is better than the floor though, if you don't mind.”

Her finger traced a line along his collarbone, and he swallowed thickly as the fire concentrated down below.  “Yeah,” he rasped.  “I don't mind.”

“Then I'll just get comfortable.”

He felt her sit up, and opened his eyes to find her lifting her tunic, rosy skin pale in the gloom.

They did not sleep.

*****

“He's so uptight, I don't know how she can stand it,” said Lark as the ward sealed.

“Not enough anymore,” Dasira muttered.

Grinning, the Shadow girl elbowed her.  “You're so jealous.  What did I say earlier?”

Dasira scowled over her cup of tea.  Across the fire, Ilshenrir watched them like a carved owl; Arik was scraping the last of the stew from the small pot and groaning like a creature in pain.  “I'm not jealous,” she said.  “Arik, what is with you?”

“Too many vegetables,” said the skinchanger as he sank back with the spoon still hanging from his mouth.  He patted his stomach through the chiton, then stretched long furry legs.  “Must hunt later or I will be terrible, smelly company.”

“You already make everything smell like wet dog,” said Lark.  Arik pouted.  “But you,” she went on, pointing her cup at Dasira.  “You have some explaining to do.”

“What now?”

“I didn't want to get into it back when you and Fiora were yelling at each other, but seriously, you're wolf-kin?”

All eyes on her, Dasira sighed and shrugged.  “More snake, actually.  The northwestern clans border the swamp, so there's also lizard and wader and toad-blood.  But we're not skinchangers.  I've fought some, but I'd never talked to one until Arik.”