The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (68 page)

He wanted to believe it.

But he lifted the staff anyway, knowing he dared not accept.  Nothing had changed from the last time they faced each other.  Darilan was still a monster—still pursuing him, unable to let go.  Whatever his game, it had to end.

He stepped forward, raising the staff to strike.  Dasira made no move.

No.  I can’t.  Not like this.

“
Why?” he rasped, throat tight.  Inside he begged for anger—some spark, some reason to complete this execution, some malicious word from her that would make it merited.

She stirred slightly.  The ice over her lips cracked, and the frozen skin split beneath it, dabbing her mouth with red.  Her voice came slow and hoarse, almost too quiet to hear.  “I’ve burned so many bridges, Cob.  This is the only one I still want to cross.”

For a moment he felt stung, and hefted the staff higher. 
Last resort, am I?  Last one to crawl to when your crimes have caught up with you?
  But that faded into understanding.  She had fallen from the Empire, fallen from whatever secret society she belonged to, long before she had joined him in this skin.  Long before he had killed her the first time.  Perhaps even before he had realized they were friends.

“
Do you know why I’m angry with you?” he said.

Head still bowed, she nodded slowly.  “I hurt you.  I lied to you.  I forced you out into the world to face everything you thought you knew.  I’m not sorry for it, Cob.  It had to happen.  But I’m sorry for the…the way I did it.  I’m sorry that I sent you alone.  I wish I’d had the courage to go with you, instead of making you hate me.”

Cob clapped a hand over his mouth and breathed heavily into his fingers, the staff cocked back over his shoulder as he tried to control his emotions.  That memory dredged up by Erevard’s appearance loomed again—the camp wall, the quivering sword.  He felt sick to think that it had been unnecessary.  That they could have walked away from the army together and vanished into the Heretic Lands.

“
Why are you here?” he said through his fingers.

“
To protect you.”

“
Who sent you?”

She hesitated, then raised her head, washed-out eyes meeting his.  “Morshoc.”

His heart lurched.  For a long moment, all he heard was its thunder in his ears, all he felt were the hot and cold frissons moving up his spine—the horror and fury so tightly enmeshed that they paralyzed him.  “Since when?” he hissed.

“
Since the beginning.  Long before we met.”  Her eyes narrowed slightly, then she blinked.  “You didn’t realize…”

“
Didn’t realize what?” Cob said, stepping back, so overwhelmed that he had to consciously plant the staff in the snow lest he start swinging.  He had wanted a reason to kill her, but this was too much.  “I know he…he locked the Guardian in me,” he stammered, mind whirling, “but how did you—“

“
Cob,” she said calmly, “did you not listen to me in the forest before you killed me?  I was assigned to you by my maker, Inquisitor Archmagus Enkhaelen, who forged your bonds.  It seems Morshoc is one of his pseudonyms.”

He clenched his jaw so tightly it felt like his teeth would shatter.  “No, you didn’t say that,” he gritted out.  “You didn’t—  I never heard that name until yesterday.  But how can he be the Inquisitor Archmagus?  He’s the Ravager, a necromancer, he can’t be—“

“I know you’re confused.  I owe you all the explanation I can possibly give.  But we must not talk about him out here.”

Cob swallowed and looked around as if the necromancer might have appeared in a new corpse-body while he rambled.  “Yeah, understood.  But they can’t be the same person.  That’s insane.  The Inquisitor Archmagus serves the Emperor, doesn’t he?”

“Given the evidence, I’d say no,” said Dasira dryly.

He stared at her, shocked that she could joke, but by the grim look on her frostbitten face, she found it no funnier than he did.  “If you know his real name,” she continued, “that makes you a threat to him.  Did he seek you out in Haaraka?”

“Yeah.  Tried to get me to go with him.”

“
And you denied him.  Good.”

“
Why is that ‘good’?”

“
He can’t be trusted.”

“
But you’re his agent—“

“
I want him dead.  Not just for you; for myself.  He’s the reason—“  She sucked in a short breath, evidently thinking better of it, then said, “He needs to die.  Whatever he wants from you, you can’t let him have it.  No deal with him ever turns out well.”

“
How can I trust you?” he said, struggling not to give in.

She smiled faintly and spread her hands, fingers blue-white against the snow.  “After what I’ve done?  You can’t.  And I don’t want you to.  He still has his hooks in me, Cob, and will until I die.  Perhaps even afterward.   I’ve done everything I can to help you, but if you don’t consider me worth the risk, then strike me down.  I won’t resist.”

Cob took another step back and looked away, head swimming.  He could not attack her now, not like this, even though he wanted desperately to be rid of that part of his past.  To expel her from his life, taking all the pain she had spawned with her.

But she knew things.  That much was obvious from the gleam in her eyes, the curl of her cracked lips.  And Morshoc—Enkhaelen—seemed capable of finding him no matter where he was, of calling up some splinter of himself from inside Cob to do his bidding.  Having Enkhaelen’s agent at his side could do no further harm, and could provide much benefit.

If she had spoken honestly about burning her bridges.  About being only on Cob’s side.

“
I already killed you once,” he said roughly.  “It didn’t take.  So your offer doesn’t mean much.”

She looked down.  “I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to…let you go.  I directed you wrong.  But I’ve seen you looking at me.  You can see the threads.”  She touched her stiff cheek, then the bracer on her left arm.  “This is where I am.  If you want me dead, I’m sure you can figure out how.”

She held out her arm, palm up, and he saw the slit that ran down the center of the bracer and all the black hooks that stitched it together.  Grey flesh edged the black material, dead but not rotting, and when he closed his hand over it he felt the stuff recoil as if it could sense the Guardian slumbering within him.  Dasira winced but did not move.

Then he exhaled through his teeth and pulled her up by the arm, switching his grip to her ice-coated shoulder as she staggered.  “We’re not doin’ this shit again,” he said to her questioning expression.  “No more lyin’ or sneakin’, no more twisted feelings in my gut.  Make me feel like that again and I’ll bury you for the worms to find.  You understand me?”

She tried to nod but could barely move her head.  With a deep scowl, Cob cast the staff aside and pressed his hand to her forehead, remembering how he had drawn the ice to himself.  The Guardian’s power bloomed within him, and the rime that coated her began to slough away, withdrawing its frozen fingers from her skin and clothes.

Immediately she began to spasm and clutched at his arm, pale eyes wide as her monstrous nature reacted to his Guardian aura.  She did not try to escape though, and as the ice dissipated she managed to brace her feet and stand steadier, soon just shivering like a leaf in the wind.  Color came back to her face blotchily, and even her fingers seemed to thaw.

“Pike me,” she rasped, “that was—  That was not fun.  Can we go inside?  I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”

Still gripping her by the shoulders, he looked into her eyes and saw the sick fear roiling in their greyish depths.  Under her skin, the spider’s web of threads and spikes and artificial muscle fibers trembled in his presence, on the verge of tearing to shreds.  After knowing Darilan for so long as a murk-eyed menace, this sudden fragility came as a shock.  He had been called a bully before, and a thug, and had started his share of fights, but never had someone been so much at his mercy.

All he could do was release her and watch as she staggered for balance.  For a moment he thought she would lose it and tumble down the ridge, but she finally caught herself and straightened as if trying to recapture some measure of dignity.  With a wary look for him, she nodded toward the discarded dagger.  “I wanted you to know I meant no harm, but I should—“

“
Go ahead,” he said.  Nasty as the blade was, it was never what had bothered him.

She hobbled over to retrieve it and fumbled it into a sheath under her coat.  Then she returned to him, looking dubiously down the ridge to the caravan-shelter. 
“I feel like I’ve been here before.”

“
Lark thought it was weird too.”

“
Smart girl.”

“
You swear t’ tell me everythin’, right?”

“
Everything I can say in front of a Trifolder.  You don’t want to start that fight.”

Oh yeah?
Cob thought, but nodded.  “All right.  So...”

“
So?”

“…
Have you always been a girl?”

She looked up at him with the amused exasperation Darilan had shown on his kindest days, the expression that said ‘you’re ridiculous, but I like you anyway’.  That smile on this new face finally struck the truth home, and he blinked water from his eyes.

“Just help me down the hill, Cob,” she said.  “There are some things you don’t need to know.”

*****

Sitting in the glow of the fire with her five companions, Dasira was not sure what to feel.  She had a cup of tea in hand, boots and socks and breeches off, and a long shirt on—courtesy of Lark, who had declared her torn shirt and coat victims of the Curse of the Tunicslayer.  Cob had grumbled at that, but his own tunic had a deep slice in the arm and a hole in the shoulder and now he was patching it, hunched over as if embarrassed to be bare-chested as he fiddled with Fiora’s needle and thread.

Fiora’s eyes stayed on him, moving from his haphazard stitching to his scars to his face, and Dasira watched her, annoyed at how close she was sitting.  Annoyed at herself for feeling protective of him.  He was a grown man who could make his own decisions, and by the flustered but warm look he gave Fiora when she set a hand on his leg, Dasira could guess what had happened between them.

It was not something to seethe over.  He had a right to his own life.

On Cob’s left lay Arik in wolf-form, sleepy-eyed but attentive.  Closer to Dasira sat Ilshenrir, his cloak thrown back to show an actual body beneath, clad in pearly-scaled armor and incongruous grey gloves.  She was fairly sure that only the gloves were the same from before.  He had a cup too, but it was empty, his sips merely companionable mimicry.  On Dasira’s other side was Lark, cup in one hand and long-handled spoon in the other.  Occasionally she leaned in to stir the contents of the pot over the fire.

“Cob, let me do that,” Fiora said finally, reaching for the tunic.

Scowling, Cob held it away.  “I’m fine.  I’ve done this plenty.  Jus’ feels like m’fingers got all big while I wasn’t lookin’.”

“They’re not the only thing,” said Lark in an undertone.

Dasira gave the Shadow girl a dour look, but Lark just raised her brows as if to say ‘you know I’m right’. Disregarding the girl's dirty mind, Dasira had to admit it.  Even hunched over the stitches, Cob's shoulders looked broader than she remembered, his hair shaggier, his frame more filled out.  He had always been tall, but for a long time in camp he had been a gangly colt, all arms and legs—even if he put those to use in headlocks and chasing Weshker.  Still, she knew she was not just overlaying memory on the man.  She had seen him shirtless in the Damiels’ house, and could swear he had changed even in that short time.

Lark seemed appreciative but Dasira just found it unnerving.

“
Did you free the Guardian?” she said, the only explanation she could find.

Cob glanced up and nodded.  “Mostly.  They say they can access all their power now, but, heh.  I guess it doesn’t work in some places.  They’re not totally free but they can probably wiggle away in time.”

“So now what do we do?” said Lark.  “Go east until your imaginary friend says stop?”

“
Imaginary friend?” said Dasira suspiciously.

Cob gave her a slight smile and tapped his forehead, and a chill went through her.  “Old friend.  My oldest.  He’s got ties to the Ravager, I guess, but I trust him.  He wants me t’ go east to find somethin’.”

Lerien.  You trust Lerien?
  As if he could read the incredulity in her face across the fire-pit, Cob nodded.  His eyes reflected the light like polished stones.

“
I need to figure this out, and the Guardian agrees.  Morshoc—  I mean, Enkhaelen’s supposed t’ lair in Daecia City, but that was years ago.  Maybe things have changed, or maybe….  I dunno.  But they think it’s important.”

“
Important enough to send you haring off through the most dangerous stretch of the Empire?” said Dasira, more curtly than she had intended.  Despite the half-mark spent drying and warming up and trying to relax, she still felt tense from the four-way battle, and if she could have kicked them all into their gear and out the door to get more distance from Akarridi, she would have.