The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (55 page)

And here I thought I was ahead in the arms-race.

His questions would have to wait, though he dearly wanted to know why Lord Chancellor Caernahon had never mentioned this.  But then, everyone around the Emperor had their own insane agenda.  Right now, his required him to get these idiots to safety.

Unfortunately, his great mistake had broken all his influence over the metal-folk.  Looking down at Cob buried in quicksilvers, all he could think was,
Lost this one.

The haelhene knew that the Emperor wanted Cob.  They would bring him in, and that would trigger the end-game.  It was too soon; Enkhaelen still had too much to prepare.

I should pull out.  Find the next-most-likely vessel and hope the Guardian jumps to it.

Shit.  Shit, shit, shit.

*****

Fiora fought for all she was worth.

Her regulation sword did not faze the elementals at all.  If not for Cob, she would already be dead; few paid any attention to her while he was there to be dog-piled.  The one that had granted her magical breath must have forgotten about it, because it persisted, and her wild swings and threatening stabs did not fend them off so much as her shouts for her goddess.

But Breana was not listening.

It was inconceivable that the Sword Maiden would abandon her while she fought fake Trifolders, yet her cries brought nothing.  No surge of protection, no holy presence.

Something's wrong.  Something—

No.  This place must be stifling her connection, as the Grey had.  She was loath to use the sacred name where others could hear, but it was necessary.

“
Brea Eranine!
” she shrieked, and this time she felt it catch and return to her on wings of fire.  The nearest elemental registered a look of alarm, then lurched forward, impaling itself on her blade and unraveling into silvery threads that cloaked her hands and arms.  She backstepped, alarmed, then realized it was meshing with her armor: creating a light second layer that sprouted with defensive spikes.

Brea and Brancir defend me
, she thought as she charged the next elemental.  It raised its hands in an expulsive gesture, arcs of bright white lightning jumping toward her.  They caught on her regulation sword and skipped up it, across her armor, and away.

It tried to retreat, babbling something unintelligible, but her sword came down on its head.  Silvery flesh split into wires that spun out to join her new armor.  Rather than weigh her down, the added material seemed to shoulder itself, like some armature moving in tandem with her.

The others retreated, but that was fine.  There were more targets: namely the mob that hung from Cob's limbs like shackles.  She could barely see him through their crush, his antlers silvered, his head dragged down.  Only the tectonic lever and the occasional salt pillar pierced the mass, and then only briefly.  Dark wolves swarmed around but could not free him.

She took a step toward him, but suddenly Mariss was between them, a web of blue-green light unfurling from her hands.  Fiora slashed at the spell, snarling.

Her sword stuck to it.  She jerked back, but that only pulled the energy along with her.

Mariss released the ends and they coiled in toward Fiora like a closing trap.  She felt the silver on her sword lose flexibility, and dropped it before it could seal her hands to the hilt.  As the spell snapped shut around the sword, the metal-blooded woman lunged for her, fingers driving toward her eyes.

She ducked her head and felt Mariss's nails lay open her quicksilver helm.  Setting her feet, she surged forward to shoulder-check the woman in the gut, but it was like ramming a wall: no give.  Still, she bent low even as she felt those nails at her neck, and grabbed Mariss by the calves then lifted with the aid of the silver armature.

Mariss toppled over Fiora's back to hit the salt with a crunch.  Ahead, the spell-trap had faded from the sword, so Fiora went for it.  The petrified quicksilver sloughed off at her touch.

Turning, she barely managed to deflect a sword's-point aimed at her throat.

Living silver coiled along Mariss's forearm to create a bladed gauntlet, continuing to extend even as she took another stab with the rapier-like tip.  Fiora stepped back, slapping aside the thrust.  Swordplay, she could handle—

Mariss's next lunge came complete with an energy-bolt projected from the tip of the sword.  It hit Fiora right in the face, washing out her vision with teal.

There was no pain.  Terror made her clutch at her eyes, her nose, sure she would find a hole where her features should be, yet somehow everything was still there.

Then she tried to breathe.

Lips and tongue stung.  Sinuses sealed shut.  Her lungs, formerly protected by magic, filled with toxic vapor.

Through tears, she saw a long-nailed hand descending toward her.  Then all went dark.

*****

Down on one knee, Cob struggled to hold it together.  Bile burned his throat, blocked by the water elemental in his lungs; he wanted to expel both but dared not.  There was mercury drilling at his nostrils, curving inside his ears, clawing at his armor, and while he could reinforce himself with salt, he felt the panes beneath him thin with each use.  He was so thoroughly clad by metals that he could barely shift the lever.

Down below, the voice said,
Open to me.  Join with me.  I will quench the vicious lights and sweep away all that would disturb us.  You will rest my arms, to sleep yet dream no more.

No
, he thought. 
My friends...

They will join us too.  They will rest beside you in peace and silence, preserved, eternal.

No.  No.

He felt it dragging at him, seeping into him despite his refusal.  In his throat, the bile became brine, and that felt better—that felt
soothing
, the pain suddenly gone.  The water elemental shivered in his lungs, then retracted, and as the darkness took its place, he felt better.

Numb.

No.  Stop.  Get out, get out!
he insisted.  Beneath the salt he felt the black water churning, stronger than earth, stronger than metal, stronger than wraiths, and knew that if he just reached, he could solve all his problems...

But he had given himself over before.  He knew what happened.  His friends were too close, and he had no way to protect them.  Their lives depended on—

Pain flared in one of them.  Fiora.  He felt the red thread fray.

No, I—

No.  No.

No—

Chapter 14 – Black Water

Everyone sensed it, but Lark saw it first.

The feeling came like nausea from below, and she doubled over, gagging through the air elemental in her throat.  Beneath her, the panes of salt were darkening, and for a moment she thought the spire's light had failed.

Then a bead of water welled up through a crack in the salt, black as midnight.

She looked up.  Behind her, Arik loosed another howl of pain and rage, and she felt the breeze of his movement as he caught and hurled another silver enemy.  Before her, more silvers jockeyed for position, staying just beyond arm's reach.  Their pale masks were gone, leaving featureless silver nubs or spiked maces, but their hands worked magic.  Arcane light danced across the runes wrought into their substance.

As she braced for some kind of blast or net, the nausea came again.  The silver creatures swayed like reeds, recoiling; their spells disintegrated into sparks.

Phantom movement passed through her: the spirit-wolves slinking out to take advantage of the lull.  She glanced back and saw the wraiths disordered, the mob of silvers on Cob beginning to bleed blackness, and beyond him—

Fiora, sprawled flat on the ground, the strange woman crouching over her with a sword.  The salt floor beneath them had gone dark, and as she watched, cracks formed like on thin ice.  The woman looked up once, gaze fixing on Cob's prison—then the salt caved in, plunging her and Fiora into the sudden surge of water.

“Void's Teeth,” Lark swore with feeling.

The silver prison fragmented, its component elementals retreating from the black shape that knelt at the center.  Slowly Cob raised his head, and she saw the lightless eyes, the slack mouth, and the streams of darkness that came from both.

She had been half a garden away last time, but she knew what the Hungry Dark looked like.  She had felt its breath.  The hollow, subterranean emanation that came from him as he began to rise was the same, and the blackness kept flowing as he braced the tectonic lever on the disintegrating salt floor.

The silver ones broke and ran.  The wraiths pulled away in a long chain, trying to keep connected even as they retreated.

Cob raised the lever, then brought the chisel-end down on the floor.

A massive crack shot across the chamber, branching into a million smaller fissures as it went.  Water surged from the gaps like grasping fingers, bulking into knuckles to force them wider before crawling onto the surface as fluid tendrils of black.

Elementals?
she thought. 
Like the salt-slimes?

But they didn't separate into globs.  They just stretched after the silver folk, reaching from every gap as salt-blocks began to wrench free of the main panes.  The briny flood surged upward; Cob, alone on a small salt raft, seemed to direct it with his gaze.

“Arik, we need to move,” said Lark as the rifts spread.  Every moment saw more water crawl up from below, more floor disintegrate.  A first unlucky silver person slid into the dark and sank like a stone, followed by others as a new section buckled.

The big wolf-man gave a huff of agreement and started for the nearest wall.  Lark eyed it.  Salt encrusted it like everywhere else but there might be rock underneath, and maybe a real ledge where they would be safe, because right now it looked like Cob meant to dissolve the entire cavern and send all its occupants into the depths.

Fiora...

No.  Surely Cob had her in his Guardian grasp and was protecting her.  Surely he could do the same for the rest of them if they fell in.  But after last time, when she'd ended up wrapped tight with Arik in a cocoon of rock and soil—a 'protection' against the water and Enkhaelen's fire—Lark would rather save herself.

Her gaze flashed up to the ragged ceiling where Rian had vanished.  He was probably safe there, but she hated not having him near.

Another thunderous crack and the salt pavings beneath her lurched drunkenly.  She flung herself the other way, feeling wet spray across her shoulder before she hit solid salt.  The pane she had landed on was already crumbling—

A big hairy hand caught her by the back of the robe, hauled her up, and then she was hanging over Arik's shoulder again, too relieved to kick.

She watched over his back as the chamber's center collapsed.  Water overflowed the edges, crawling after them and toward the stacked houses where the wraiths had retreated to stand on the first level of roofs, connected by strands of light.  Their hands focused beams of power at Cob.

She winced as they flared out, embarrassed at how she wanted them to hit—if only to stop this destruction.  Yet when her eyes cleared, she saw they'd done nothing, his saturated skin refracting them away uselessly.

With a contemptuous gesture, Cob sent the black water surging in all directions.  A crack raced past Arik's feet; she gripped tight to his quills as he stumbled and saw more cracks converge on them.  Inky tendrils rose through the gaps, and she opened her mouth to shriek, but they were falling—

*****

Enkhaelen stared, astonished by the upheaval.  He had felt Cob's connection to the Hungry Dark when they struggled in the forecourt of his old home, but it had been manageable then.  A small door, with a lock and key.

Now the door had been blown off its hinges along with half of the proverbial wall.  No stopgap would fix it.  He could see the Guardian struggling to retain its grip, but it had no more power over the Dark than Cob did; it was as dwarfed, in its way, as Enkhaelen was by the Scouring Light.

Surprisingly, the boy's soul was still in there, though he could see the Dark trying to suck it out.  That was both good and bad.  If the boy surrendered, the Guardian might be dragged down with him, thus scuttling both Enkhaelen's plans and the health of the world.  On the other hand, as long as Cob clung to his body, the Dark would be constricted by its physical dimensions.

Kill him.  That will release the Guardian and close the door.

He felt the goblin quail at the idea—and privately wasn't certain he could do it.  The moment he'd taken this vessel, he'd sensed Hook-Tailed Kingara's attention on him, ready to interfere.  Of all the things the goblin spirit hated, magic was the worst, and she would not tolerate Enkhaelen working it through one of her children.

But he was short on options.  Cob's friends were inaccessible to him while they were in the water, and taking over a wraith was too dangerous.  He couldn't risk Hlacaasteia trapping him.

What I wouldn't give for the spire's key, or my own body...

Pike it.  Kingara can't interfere if I just use my claws.

Below, the Darkness in Cob sent another wave against the stacked houses, black tendrils gaining ground against the wraiths' blasts.  There was only a thin ring of floor left, and by the change in Hlacaasteia's resonance Enkhaelen could tell that its salt encasement had weakened.  The water suppressed its energies, but once it subsided, there would be trouble.

One problem at a time.

Focusing, he pulled at the Ravager manifestation and felt it form over the goblin's flesh.

*****

Cob was in the depths.

Once, the water had pounded down on his shoulders like an endless storm.  Now it battered a surface far above, its faint thunder barely reaching him.  His face was turned away, his head bowed, legs twined with those of the body beneath him.

Her cool hands stroked his hair, nostalgic and soothing.  Against his brow, her breath traced patterns like frost.  She smelled of wet stone, of mountain lightning, and he tucked his head beneath her chin so that he would not be tempted to look at her face.  He could not bear it.

While her arms were tight around him, his hung loose.  From his fingers stretched the threads that maintained his friends.

Snuff them
, she murmured in his ear, and he wanted to obey.  They were all in the black water now, like toys sinking into a lake, discarded: pewter for Arik, vibrant orange-purple for Lark, red for Fiora and child.  Painted relics of another existence, a future he'd never wanted.

Snuff them and join with me.  Sleep.

His fingers twitched, and his friends rebounded slightly from the depths.  He didn't want to let them go.  For all the stress and trouble, he'd felt more alive in these past months than ever before.

Bring them down with us and we will all be at peace.

Around him, other relics fell.  Congealed quicksilvers, quenched stars.  He didn't mourn their passing, or reach for them; the ones he already held were heavy enough.  At his back, some shadow-self was moving like a conductor—pulling the enemies down with threads of its own—but that was not his concern.  He was glad to leave the killing to another.

It wearied him.

Her lips touched his brow.  Even within the numbing cold, he felt it, and his eyes stung with tears.  He wanted to embrace her; to abandon all else and apologize, to go backward somehow and undo the wrongs he'd done.  Everything that had happened since he'd first set foot on the path of the Light.

Bring them down
, she whispered. 
Drown the Guardian and let it answer to me.

A bitter smile touched his mouth.  He could feel the spirit, dimly—coiled inside him as if it feared the water.  As if it doubted it could escape.  The surface was far away and still receding, the current pulling gently down.  If it tried to flee, would it become a riptide?

He was angry with it.  Tired of it.  Wanted it to go away and let him sleep.

But he had a mission...

They
had a mission.  All those struggling threads within his grip, the hammering heartbeats, the frantic thoughts—they were bent in the same direction.  Survival, freedom, then bringing down the Light.

He couldn't deny it, not here.  The Light had failed him; the Light was his enemy.  All its manifestations and agents were turned against him, and as much as he had loved it—still loved it—he meant to kill it.

I need them
, he whispered against her throat. 
All of them, the Guardian too.  I need to wake up.  This is for you, mother.

Drown them
, she said.

Not these ones.  I need them against your enemy!  Let me keep them and I—

You need only me.

No.  Let them live and I'll bring down the Light for you.  I'll quench the Ravager for you.  I'll give up the Guardian—

He felt it twist in his flesh, but he didn't care.  It was a treacherous thing.  Perhaps the world would be better off without it.

The dark figure curved closer against him.  He felt so small in her arms. 
You would make a deal with me?
she murmured against his ear.

He tugged the threads again, desperate to raise his friends from the mire.  The cold made it hard to feel his hands, hard to move, and through the screen of her floating hair, he could not see them.  Despair wrapped its iron bands around his heart.

You are already mine
, she said,
but if you vow to bring more into my reach, to wash the land in darkness, I will let them go.

I—

Something sparkled in the depths, teal-green.  He squinted, then recognized the strange woman.  Devoid of thread, still she rose toward him, and at the same time he felt a light at his back, descending.  His shadow-self flinched.

His mother's arms curled tight around him, and he felt her push away from the surface to draw him deeper, protect him from that winged light.  He opened his mouth to warn her of the stranger, or to vow—he wasn't sure—but then closed it.  In the woman's hand was the silver sword, a gleaming answer.

He closed his eyes and let it come.

*****

Rian recognized the voice in his head and the sensation of puppet-strings yanking at his limbs.  It wasn't the first time.  As the wash of white feathers passed over him, he wondered if he should submit to it, for it had saved his friend Geraad and been a decent—if irritable—host.

Yet he remembered what the man had done at the Rift and to Cob, and could not trust him.  He had not asked permission, only took—as if Rian's body was merely a tool.  Even as the spirit's presence assuaged his worst injuries, the goblin gritted his teeth against its pull.  He would not be used against his friends!

He felt his own spirit watching, equally uncertain.  Kingara did not meddle, only inspired those who sought breakthroughs; as a caste-less wanderer, he had never felt her touch.  To receive it now gave him confidence, made him struggle harder against the alien control.

“
Stop it,
” said the Bad Man's voice from his own mouth.  “
If you want to save the rest of them, we have to kill one.  Don't worry, I'll do it for you.  Just let go.
”

He shook his head and tried to wrap his tail around the stalactite as well as his limbs, but the six blazing wings beat heavy at his back, beyond his control.  Bit by bit, they peeled him away, the salt-crust coming off in his grip until there was nothing left to catch.