The Pleasure of Memory (57 page)

The chair shifted again, dropping several inches into the crystal dais. Before he could scream, it stopped.

As he struggled to reclaim his breath, he looked down at the dais. He was right where he’d been all along. The chair hadn’t moved at all! It was some kind of bizarre illusion.

He looked up at the Vaemyn still standing out on the glassy black floor. He yelled at the bastard to release him, but the warrior only stood there grinning.

Then the floor dropped completely out from beneath him, and he was plummeting toward the rising sun.

∞

Beam opened his eyes. He recoiled as the sword fell toward him, catching it an instant before it dented his brow. He lowered it to his lap and looked up to find Chance standing over him. The man was dressed. He looked dry now. His silvery mail shimmered like firelight in the fading glow of the caeyl.

Beam dragged a hand across his mouth and tried to find his moxie.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked him.

Beam studied the moisture on the back of his hand. “Let me guess,” he said, “Another nightmare, compliments of my sidearm there.”

“You’re awake now,” Chance said seriously.

“Yeah? You’re certain of that, are you?”

“Yes, quite certain.”

“That’s good, because I’m starting to have a little trouble telling the difference.”

The previous night’s events rushed into his mind. He remembered his fight with the Vaemyd up in the turret that ended with their communal fall into the water. He couldn’t remember ever getting hit so hard, so fast, or with such conviction. The bitch could dance; he had to give her that.

Then he remembered the crowning blow, the one that’d practically knocked the fight out of him. He carefully probed his nose. “Is it broken?” he asked.

Chance squatted down and inspected Beam’s face. He took Beam’s chin and turned his face into the torchlight. “Not anymore,” he said.

Beam gripped the tooth loosened by the warrior and gave it a tentative wiggle. It was as tight as the rest of them. He offered up a silent prayer of relief.

“The Blood Caeyl,” Chance said, “It’s done its magic on you again.”

“Magic,” Beam said, “Don’t even—”

Before he could finish, he spied the Vaemyd sitting across the fire from him. She was awake. More than that, she was untethered and glaring at him with blood in her eyes!

He was on his knees in an instant with his blade leveled across the torch flames at her. “What the hell is that?” he yelled.

Chance pushed Beam’s blade off to the side. “She’s restrained,” he said carefully, “I lashed her arms behind her back with a length of bone I found down the tunnel a bit.”

Her face was bruised and pale. Dark rings gouged a pit beneath her eyes, one of which was swollen nearly shut. Beam took some solace in the fact that she looked nearly as bad as he did. Or, at least, as bad as he had.

Chance crossed around to her. “I gave her a drop of the elixir,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“I gave her only enough to soothe the panic. Enough to wake her, but not so much that she’d be a threat.”

Beam wasn’t convinced. “Are you good with knots, Brother? Because these stinking savages are devilish with them.”

“Her name’s Koonta’ar. She’s a kadeer, an officer in the Vaemysh—”

“I know what a kadeer is!” Beam snapped, “I’m not a bloody idiot.”

“I never meant—”

“Those goddamn knots better be tight. I’m not in the mood to kick the shit out of her again today.”

Chance laughed. “You mean like you did last night?”

Beam sent him a look. Then he made to stand up, but quickly realized he was practically naked. He pulled the blanket up around himself. “Grab my britches there, will you?”

“She won’t care. The Vaemysh have different standards of modesty than the Parhronii”

“Well, I’m not a goddamned Vaemyn, am I?”

Chance just looked at him.

“Goddamn you, Chance! Don’t you start on me already!”

∞

Beam fingered the last of his cheese as he watched Goonta or Boonta or whatever the hell the savage’s name was. She was kneeling across the fire from him, though he couldn’t fathom how she’d managed to twist herself into that position with her legs tied at the knees that way. Damned savages were nimble as monkeys.

Her failed braids slithered along the sides of her face like dirty roots groping for purchase around a rock. Beam was disappointed to see she still had all her teeth, and he knew she did because they were all standing at attention behind her sneer. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him since he woke up.

He popped the last of the mushy cheese in his mouth and gagged it down. Then he stood up. He walked around the fire, keeping his eyes locked on her, and she tracked him right back. He grabbed one of the torches and then squatted beside her. She didn’t wince or recoil as he held the flames a bit closer than was polite, but he could see in her eyes that she sure as hell wanted to.

She looked much better in the light. The bruises painting her brow and cheeks were breathtaking. The split lip was a masterful touch.

Beam glanced back at Chance and grinned. “Damn me,” he said, “Looks like I got a few good shots in last night, yeah?”

“You should’ve seen your face before the caeyl blessed you.”

Beam threw him a scowl, but got no satisfaction for it. He turned back to the Vaemyd. “Are you hungry?” he asked her.

Her answer was a cold, lethal stare.

He jabbed a finger at his mouth, repeating. “Are. You. Hungry?”

She didn’t break his gaze.

Beam shrugged and stood up. “Suit yourself, then. Either she doesn’t speak standard or she’s being stubborn.”

“She was cursing you in perfect standard last night,” Chance said as he fussed with the pack, “Do you have a problem with your memory?”

The question cut as sharply as a shaving nick. The dream warrior had asked him the same thing. Or was it the other way around?

Chance dug through the pack. “I’m going to give her another drop.”

The words slapped Beam back to the present. “Of the elixir?”

“No, Beam. Swamp water.”

“And why the hell would I allow that?” Beam asked. He couldn’t believe he even had to ask.

“Why would you let her suffer when we can stop it?”

“Because she’s the enemy, Brother. Because she’s less dangerous this way. In fact, I suggest we withhold the elixir altogether and just leave her here.”

Chance stopped digging and looked up at him. “What did you say?”

“What do you mean, what did I say? We should leave her here. Let her fend for herself. Tactically, it’s the smartest thing we could do.”

Chance studied him like he was a breath away from delivering him a good slap.

Beam threw his hands out to his side. “What?”

“I’m not withholding the elixir,” Chance said, “And I’m not leaving her here.”

Beam watched Chance rummage through the pack. “Were you there last night?” he asked him, “Did you see what the savages did to me? Or maybe you just don’t care? Bastards nearly cut my bloody finger off, and I still have the stinking cut as evidence!” He threw his hand up, but the once offended finger was now smooth as birth. He quickly hid it behind himself.

Chance pulled the vial from the pack. “I saw it,” he said without looking up.

“I’m won’t allow this, Chance.”

Chance stood up. “I didn’t beg your permission,” he said seriously, “I won’t sit idly by and watch her suffer. You of all people should understand what she’s going through.”

The anger radiating from Chance’s eyes felt as physical as a bite. It was the same look he’d worn back at the house, back at the fight with that thing in the armor. With that, Beam decided it might be best to avoid riling the man any further.

“Fine,” he surrendered, “What do we do when she’s her old self and pissed as hell?”

“We’ll take her to the next hatch. Then we’ll let her go.”

The words bounced manically through Beam’s skull. “Did you say let her go?” he said more than asked, “You ask me if I’m insane and then you propose we just let her go?”

“What would you prefer, Beam? That we kill her? Perhaps slit her throat?”

“Nothing so melodramatic! I’ve already told you. We’ll just leave her here.”

Chance took a pace toward him. His fists were knots. His eyes were portraits of murder. Beam braced himself for the worst, but then the man stopped and simply shook his head in obvious disgust. “And you call them savages,” he muttered as he turned away.

“You cut me to the quick,” Beam said as he followed the man, “You know what I’ve been through. You know what I’ve suffered at their hands. You know better than any other living soul. Yeah, I hate them and I’m not ashamed to admit it. But what about you?”

Chance stopped and turned to face him. “Me? What about me?”

“Where’s your boy, Chance?”

Chance flushed at that. “I’m too tired to play your games, Beam.”

“Survival isn’t a game, Brother.”

“Killing her in battle is one thing. It’s honorable, perhaps even reasonable. But abandoning her here to die is simple murder, plain and dirty. So let me say this clearly enough that even a heathen like you may understand it. I won’t allow it.”

Beam opened his mouth to speak, but found an empty tongue. The mage was good and pissed. Still, Beam figured he could take him even in a fair fight. Especially in his current condition. Yet, even as he considered it, he knew he was just talking shit. The sorry truth was he simply didn’t have the stomach for fighting a friend.

And there it was. There was the humiliating, mortifying, god-awful truth of it all. He was beginning to see Chance as a friend.

“Fine,” Beam said just because he felt he had to say something, “It’s your party. Just don’t come crying to me when the hangover lands.”

Chance knelt before the warrior. He bit the cork free and cupped a hand behind the Vaemyd’s head. He didn’t look back at Beam.

“But the restraints stay!” Beam added for punctuation, “And don’t look to me to cover your ass when she throws another fit.”

“This is going to help,” Chance said to the Vaemyd, “I only gave you enough before to soften the edge of your terror, but what I give you now will make you feel almost normal again.”

As Beam watched them, he felt the wind die in his sails. He felt like a fool. Chance was right. He of all people did understand what she was going through. In truth, there weren’t a handful of people in the entire world he’d wish such misery on, and none of them were here in this wretched tunnel with him now.

“If you betray my trust, I’ll turn this elixir to water,” Chance said to the waiting Vaemyd, “I’ll destroy it, so help me gods, and you’ll die down here in this black tomb, alone and terrified, and without honor. I swear it before Calina. Do you agree?”

She glared up at him with eyes that could set coal to flame. Beam had just about had his fill of her stubborn attitude. Didn’t she see how generous he was being with her, with a prisoner of war? He was just about to launch into a tirade when she offered them a barely perceptible nod.

XXIX

THE TRAILS

AWBY RESTED IN THE MORNING SHADE OF A FOUGH TREE.

He studied a thick root snaking its way back into the earth beside him. He probed the deep grooves of the coarse bark with his fingers. Had it really only been three days since he’d sat with Koo beneath that last great tree? Had it only been three days since he’d forced her to hear the godless news, that her brother was almost certainly a hack?

The memory felt strangely unreal, and yet it was as physical as a choke. It was like the realization of a brother’s death that hits you like a kick in the stomach before fading away to a dreamlike numbness. And now they were all gone. Pa’ana and Koo and Maeryc, all painful memories that could never be dulled, memories carrying the sentence of lifelong guilt.

He wiped his eyes and pushed the pain back out of reach. There wasn’t time for it now. Instead, he focused on dressing the gouge Maeryc left on his ribs. It was deep, but could’ve been worse. The torn flesh began just at his armpit, the cut running several inches down his ribs toward his sternum. It’d cut deep enough to expose a couple ribs. If Maeryc had been a quarter of the man he’d been a month ago, that blade would’ve severed the pipes of his heart just as surely as the sun shines. Still, it was bad enough. Even after stitching it as best he could manage, it didn’t seem to want to stop bleeding.

Koo was right about the fough tree; he’d made a salve from the sap and was dressing his wounds with its leaves. The salve numbed the burns of his face nearly on contact. Judging by the fluid weeping so profusely from his cheek, he knew it had to be bad. He thanked Calina that he could still see with both eye and oteuryn. It can always be worse.

Following Maeryc’s trail had been about as hard as following a rolling boulder. Ven had been exactly right. The hack made a straight line south by southeast through the swamp. Once clear of the swamp, he’d found both Maeryc’s and Goudt’s trails within minutes. There was so much blood, he could’ve followed the trail by scent alone. It seemed Maeryc wasn’t even trying to hide his tracks.

He slipped an arm through his sleeveless flax shirt. The pain was deep and intimate. It felt like the knife was still wedged between his ribs and twisting every time he moved. He could barely draw a solid breath. It took as much strength as he could summon just to finish pulling the shirt on.

As he waited for the pain to subside, he considered his mail shirt draped across the large root beside him. It was a stiff wad of metal, and it was going to be one hell of a fight to don it. Then he thought about pulling it back off to change the dressing later. The notion was dispiriting at best. In the end, he abandoned the entire idea. He’d simply leave the mail behind. He needed speed now more than ever.

Besides, he had no faith the armor would make any difference in his survival odds. He was within spitting distance of the Baeldonian border now. If a band of Baeldon soldiers came across him out here in the plains, he’d be a dead man, armor or not.