The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (72 page)

“
And this…”  Enkhaelen paused to gather the blue darkness again, and again Geraad’s damaged hand sagged limply.  Working his thumbs along the splintered bones, Enkhaelen continued, “This works on the dead as well as the living.  More difficult on the dead because I have to provide the spark of life to make the flesh knit properly, whereas here that spark is provided by you.  Some call this ‘fleshweaving’ but it’s not so different from the talent the skinchangers use to shift their forms.  People find it unsettling, though, so into the necromancy bin it goes.

“
I’ve done so much with this that people don’t like.  I've crafted wings, tails, retractable claws—plus all the appropriate muscle-memory to make them work naturally.  Instinctively.  I’ve shaped subjects to fly, to run on all fours, to leap further than they could throw.  I’ve made bodies that can repair themselves almost instantly, bodies that can withstand the most brutal shocks and impacts, bodies that can live without food or air or sleep, merely absorbing the ambient energy in their surroundings.

“
And despite all these improvements, despite all the work I’ve put in—all the study, the experiments, the specimens, all the botched projects and interferences—all they say is ‘necromancy’ and throw it out.  They don’t protest when I bring their enemies low before them.  They don’t protest when they make use of the skills I’ve taught them, the entire curriculum I distilled into something anyone with patience and diligence can digest.  They don’t protest when I rescue them from their self-made doom and salve their wounds!

“
But show a flash of insight, something new, and they say ‘You are a monster.’  Four hundred and sixty-three years, Iskaen, and with a much longer memory, and they think to tell me what I am.  They don’t know anything.  Half of them don’t know of Altaera and Ruen Wyn, and almost no one remembers Lisalhan as anything other than an ocean.  They can’t see where we’ve come from or how much we’ve lost—how much has been thrown on the pyre because of a twinge of distaste.  Do you know what we would be without me?”

Geraad stared up at the necromancer as those blue eyes fixated on him.  He had sat rigid throughout the tirade, hardly certain whether Enkhaelen was talking to himself or to him, but now pinned by that glare, he had no answer.  The swift devolution from academics into ranting frightened him, and as much as he wanted to pull his half-mended hand away, he dared not.  What little he understood of the monologue told him that Enkhaelen would not respond kindly.

“No, sir,” he whispered.

“
Dust,” said Enkhaelen, face pinched in bitter anger.  “Ashes and dust.”

He had no response, but it seemed Enkhaelen did not want one, for the necromancer’s attention went back to his work and his expression smoothed to blank.  Soon enough, he was chafing Geraad’s other hand between his, bringing a new invasion of pins and needles.

“One more thing,” said Enkhaelen as Geraad tried to pull away.  Those cold fingers kept a tight grip around his wrist as the necromancer reached toward Geraad’s throat.  For a moment Geraad thought Enkhaelen meant to strangle him, but he touched the teleport-blocking collar instead and Geraad felt all the magic drain from it.  Its arcane lock unsealed and it fell away in two pieces, bouncing off his shoulders to chime on the floor.

Enkhaelen released him, gave a faint smile, then slid down from the desk and brushed by, headed for the door.  “I have business to attend to—always busy these days, with the wheels in motion—but I’ll have one of my minions find you a room.  Something less sulfurous, I think.”

Geraad rose to stare after Enkhaelen, barely noticing when the goblin clamped around his leg.  A flood of questions rose to his lips, tumbling over each other in their need to escape, but the only one that made its way out was, “Why?”

Enkhaelen glanced back, expression too complex to read.  “Because I prefer games to cages,” he said.  “Though I recommend you not go topside.  The Golds will be…unhappy.”

Then he gestured the basalt door open and strode into the cold laboratory, and Geraad could only follow.

Crimson General Kelturin Aradysson noticed the runes on the portal frame glowing again and stepped aside just in time to avoid a collision with Enkhaelen.  The short Archmagus smoothed his robes, raised a scarred brow, then strode from the portal array.

“He’s called you too?” Kelturin said.

The Archmagus glanced back.  “Naturally.  Are you coming?”

Kelturin grimaced.  Even with the welcoming aura this place beamed at him, he hated being here.  If it had been possible to ignore the summons, he would have.  “Yes, I suppose,” he said, and reluctantly crossed the concentric circles that guarded the array.

The room they had entered was the sole portal-destination in the entire Imperial Palace complex, a tiny circular chamber with no apparent exit.  As Archmagus Enkhaelen approached the smooth white wall, a dimple formed, then punctured into the white corridor beyond.  Kelturin followed, trying not to bristle under his formal armor, trying to remember that he was a general summoned by his commander.  Not a little boy being called to the carpet before his father.

“Any idea what this is about?” he said.

Enkhaelen sighed, slowing his brisk pace to let Kelturin fall in beside him.  “I have many ideas.  You’ve done as we discussed, yes?”

“The project has been removed from camp as you requested, though I still don’t understand why.  Blaze Company—“

“
Don’t say more than you must.  Remember where we are.”

As if I could forget.
  “No, listen.  I promised them orders, but you need to tell me what you want first.  If it's just training maneuvers, that's fine, but I need to be included.  You know what it means to me.”

“
Apparently it means you won’t shut up.”

Kelturin scowled, used to Enkhaelen's snide brush-offs but still stung.  He hated the cold shoulder Enkhaelen had shown him since his appointment as Crimson General even more than he hated being the low man in the Emperor’s hierarchy.

Things had been different once.  Back when he was young, when his mother’s handmaidens were still at court and he was still in training, he thought he had been happy.  Coddled maybe, but no more than any noble child, and his teachers had done their best to whip the spoiled brat out of him.  Enkhaelen his arcane tutor and personal physician, Vedaceirra his weapons trainer, Anniavela his court liaison and eventual lover, and all of his practical tutors—the tactician and historian and orator and the others—had known better than to let him laze around, and he had excelled in his studies with their guidance.

He had also slept his way through the female side of the court, but that had been less satisfying.  He was the Crown Prince, after all.  They came after him more often than he pursued them.

Since the Emperor had sent him out into the world, the glittering court he remembered had been disbanded.  His mother’s handmaidens were gone, all but Annia dead from their duties.  Enkhaelen was always occupied, his old tutors had vanished and even Vedaceirra—who had been his closest friend since he could remember—was gone.  He had sent her out at Enkhaelen’s bidding and she had never returned.

He had no one to trust.  No inner circle that had not been assigned to him.

Some days, he felt he would like to see the Palace burn down around his father’s ears.

But he had his army to worry about now.  His men.  They had been given to him nine years ago, after the previous Crimson General had been executed for botching the greater Kerrindrixi campaign, and though he tried to do his best by them, it was difficult.  The other Generals did not support his policies, his father had barred the Circle from filling his requisitions, and most of his professional troops were rejects from the other Armies.  He had pioneered the use of slave troops not because he liked it but because he desperately needed to fill his ranks—and because he detested sending his prisoners to the Palace for conversion.  The choice had bitten him in the ass already, but he clung to it.  He knew he was being set up for failure, but he refused to abandon his ethics.

Still, his campaign was on the rocks.  The deadlock at Kanrodi had killed his momentum and sapped his supplies, and it was slowly annihilating his mage squad.  If he withdrew and let the teleport-blocks on the city fall, the Padrastans and their serpent-mages would be on his camp within marks.  He did not have enough troops to circumvent Kanrodi yet keep it under guard; he was already strung too thin trying to contain the unrest in the Illanic city-states.

There seemed no option but truce, and his father had repeatedly refused that.

He had racked his brain for a new plan, but beside the spark of possibility that was Blaze Company, every suggestion he forwarded had been smacked down.  He owed his troops and the conquered people more than to let his territory fall into chaos, but his hands were fast becoming tied.

Perhaps this meeting would change things, but he had given up hope of convincing his father to see things his way.

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring your lover along,” said Enkhaelen abruptly.  “The little one, the Riddish scryer.  What was her name?”

Kelturin glanced sidelong at him, surprised by the personal question.  “Makoura.  We’re not together anymore.  She could read my tattoos.”

“I see.  And your new lover?”

The jibe hit home.  His habits were no secret but he did not bed-hop out of restlessness.  The problem was trust.

“Lilinya,” he said grudgingly.  “Couldn’t contact her.  Anyway, this seems too official.”

Enkhaelen made a noise of agreement, then lapsed into silence.  Kelturin stared at the walls.  Some part of him had missed this aesthetic: the organic flow of the endless corridors, the softly luminous ivory material with its faint pale network of veins.  Nacreous, meandering, changeable, alive in its own strange way, it had been his home for decades and still seemed to recognize his presence.

He supposed that others might consider it miraculous—those gawking pilgrims, the visiting nobles and worshipful Sapphire and White Flame soldiers—but they could not feel it the way he did.  For them, it radiated reverence, even rapture, but for him it was like being trapped in a womb again.  Smothered in nostalgia.

It irked him, too, that for all his father’s mastery over this place, he could not create a simple, clear path from portal-chamber to throne-room.

But then it was always like that with Aradys.

The Archmagus did not speak again, having fallen into his own thoughts.  Though the path wandered and split around them, neither hesitated at the forks; the way changed at the Emperor’s whim, but when Kelturin concentrated he could feel the new route like a map drawn behind his eyes, and he supposed Enkhaelen had a similar connection.  The man had certainly dwelt here long enough.

Beyond the shifting tunnels, though, Kelturin sensed that much of the Palace had not changed since his last visit.  That boded ill.  It meant that the Emperor was bored.

It took some time, but they found the door.  Today it stood double: two massive panels of ivory covered in bas reliefs of flowers and trees and birds, with twin lion-heads gripping pull-rings in their massive jaws.  A pair of petitioners waited before it, dwarfed by its bulk, and as the golden-haired female of the pair turned, Kelturin smiled involuntarily in recognition.

Her face lit up.  “Kel!” she squealed, and rushed over to fling her arms around his neck.  His hands went automatically to her green-gowned hips, neither pushing her away as he knew he should nor embracing her as he wished.

“
Annia,” he said roughly.

Anniavela te’Couran, former lagalaina mistress of the Wyndish king, pulled back to kiss him warmly on the cheek, then beamed.  Her pretty face was flushed from the usual effect of the Palace.  “Oh, you look so handsome in that armor.  Your mother would be proud.”

That decided for him.  Firmly, he detached her and pushed her to arm’s-length.  She pouted but straightened her shoulders in a way that brought attention directly to her ample, velvet-bordered cleavage and the teardrop pendant that hung in the center.  He fixed his gaze on her face sternly.

“
How’s your back?” said Enkhaelen, inserting himself as a conversational rescuer.

“
Oh, fine,” said Annia, pulling away reluctantly to flutter at the Archmagus.  “Doesn’t hurt at all, but it’s fortunate you were so quick to the scene.  That body-swapping bitch used something poisonous.  I could hardly breathe!  The Queen wrote me to say they’d had to replace me with some fourth-generation whore.”

“
Did she.”

“
Oh, not in those words, but the sentiment was there.  I quite like her.”

“
Well, Vedaceirra was always volatile,” Enkhaelen said, nodding methodically.  “Still, such outright treachery was surprising.  Don’t you think, General?”

Kelturin eyed the Archmagus.  He knew that Vedaceirra had served her maker more than she had ever served him, and was certain that Enkhaelen was behind her decision to ignore her orders and keep chasing the Guardian vessel.  He would not forgive Enkhaelen for it.

“Very surprising,” he said tightly.  “I had always relied upon her loyalty.”

“
That one, loyal?” Annia interjected with a sniff.  “She was always a viper.  I’m glad she’s dead.”

Kelturin’s hands fisted automatically.  Seeing his expression, Annia recoiled, her smirk vanishing, and he managed to master the urge to strike her to the floor.  Tightly, he said, “She was a good friend, a good soldier, and a great asset to me.  I am not glad.  Save the venom for your gossip circle, Annia.”

For a moment Annia’s face fell, her youthful illusion belied by a flash of envy and an unexpected touch of grief.  Then she composed herself and lifted her chin haughtily.  “Yes, of course.  Because you only have use for soldiers.”

He stared her down and was not surprised to feel nothing.  That flash of old fire when she had embraced him was gone, leaving him as hollow as before.

“I will not discuss this further,” he said sternly.  “I have been summoned and have no time for…this.”

“
Oh, I think you do.”  Annia waved a hand at her silent partner.  “We were set as your escorts, don’t ask me why.  This is…  Oh, I forget your name.”

“
Specialist Erevard, my lady,” said the man in a low, hoarse voice.  Kelturin glanced to him and frowned.  He looked familiar, the pocked scars that riddled his face quite distinctive, but his expression was unusual; no reverence, no rapture, just the cold stillness of a sealed-up well.  The black-hilted sword at his side explained it—a new akarriden wielder, influenced by the blade—but did not tell him why the man was plain-clothed, or…

“
You,” Kelturin said as the association clicked.  “I sent you for conversion, didn’t I.”

The soldier met his gaze impassively.  Eyes that had once been human were now caustic yellow even through the illusion cast by his pendant.  “Yes, sir, you did.  Almost a month ago.”

“You’ve risen swiftly in the world.  Which army?”

“
None yet assigned, sir.”

“
And what are your orders now?”

“
To escort you and the Inquisitor Archmagus before the Emperor, sir, and to restate my last report.”

“
Which would be?”

“
I am to report it only at the Emperor’s command, sir.  My apologies.”

“
That’s fine,” Kelturin said, though the implications made him uneasy.  To set this soldier out here—someone he had sent to the Palace personally, and recently—was a direct jab from his father.  He looked down to Enkhaelen, who seemed just as intrigued as him, then sighed.

“
Let’s see what my father wants,” he said, and gestured the doors open.

They swung wide to reveal the vast audience chamber beyond.  Pearlescent as the rest of the Palace, its relentless pale-on-pale architecture troubled even Kelturin’s acclimated eyes; with not a single shadow present, the glow suffused all surfaces equally, annihilating the easy perception of depth and position and allowing no refuge for the gaze.  Only the presence of petitioners and pilgrims lent it any sense of space, any scale, their white-shrouded yet undeniably physical forms providing perspective on the attenuated columns, the great rib-like arches, the staggered steps and insets, the intaglios and bas reliefs that seemed specifically shaped to confuse the eye.

As Kelturin stepped out, he noted filigreed panels extending from either side of the doorway, with more panels beyond them to create a constant blur of shapes and figures in his peripheral vision.  It made his skin crawl, and knowing that not all of those figures were optical illusions did not help.  His father had always stationed his White Flame soldiers in the strangest places, their matte armor and face-plates blending in with the Palace.  Without turning to look, it was impossible to say which shapes were filigree and which were men with swords.

This convoluted creativity at least reassured Kelturin that his father had not gone stir-crazy again.  A constant threat, since he could not leave.

Through the shifting field of pillars and screens Kelturin saw the throne on its high dais, a thick wedge of wall backing it, the pilgrims clustered dozens deep around the lowest step.  Their keening song echoed from every cupola and nook, reflecting back in disjointed fragments, and the columns and tiles seemed to breathe in time with them—a constant faint heave that Kelturin sometimes doubted anyone else could feel.