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

by H. Anthe Davis

  By now, Erosei knew better than to think him weak. He drew sandy armor around himself and surged forward with more sand at his heels, pulling at the sea concurrently. Enkhaelen held up a hand, but the blue ward that appeared between them split against Erosei on impact, impeding his charge not at all.

  Enkhaelen curled his fingers inward.

  On the cusp of a leap, blue bands reached from behind to yank Erosei's feet out from under him. Snarling, he caught himself with one hand and affixed his feet to the sand, forcing the energy-lasso to drain away into the depths. Sand and water converged on Enkhaelen without him, again hitting dividing wards before they could reach the bloody circles on the floor.

  Another burst of air hit him, thick with sand. He chuckled, unbothered; the grains merely accreted onto his armor, reinforcing its plates. Two kicks freed him from the remains of the lasso, and then he was approaching again. Enkhaelen's gestures brought a haze of dust and sea-spume between them, but he did not need sight to locate the bastard. He could feel him like a hot coal, singeing the skin of the world.

  There—pale eyes wild, neck just within sword's-reach—

  A force struck him, not searing like the wind but soft, like being smacked by a door-sized pillow. His heels dredged through the sand as he was pushed backward, and in confusion he struggled to connect with the ground, to arrest himself. It was there—he felt it—but—

  Spikes of agony pierced him at the neck, the wrists, the shins and ankles, thighs and belly. Still held by the force, he looked down to see glassy patches spreading across his armor, each centered on a red spot: a bloodstained sand-grain. Raising his gaze, he realized that the ground around the Pillar was stippled with such spots, most dried to inconspicuous brown.

  Enkhaelen's bloody hand smouldered as he made another pushing gesture, and Erosei slid further back, his connection with the earth fraying. The sand he'd gathered became a prison as it fused, and he couldn't shed it. The glass encasement tightened further. In moments, the sand beneath his feet had glassed, and his connection broke completely.

  The needles of pain became anchors. Vitreous cords drew him down and bound him flat, more glass flowing to cover all but his face. He struggled uselessly, spitting imprecations. Somehow the heat didn't touch his skin, but all his hairs were fused into it, making each twitch a ridiculous agony. Throughout it, Enkhaelen stood in place, gashed arm blooming with smoke instead of blood, a dull glow emanating from the wound.

  “Quit fighting,” he rasped. “I'll let you up once I'm done.”

  For a moment, Erosei couldn't formulate a response, too surprised and furious to think straight. Then he spat, “Let me up? I will kill you! Don't you know what you're doing?”

  “You've tried to kill me many times. It's always the same. First the armor, then the fists—or staff, or sword, or claws. You're so afraid to shift that you—“ The mage shook his head. “I've no time for this. Just stay quiet. It will be over soon.”

  Turning away, he paced slowly back into his ritual circle. The smoke from his arm guttered, then dissipated, and as blood began to flow from it again, the glass encasement cooled.

  Cautiously, Erosei flexed his hands and felt cracks form in the material. He was still bound by his short-hairs, so he concentrated on dampening the pain as he turned and twisted, flexed and stretched. The thick glass beneath him blocked his ability to connect with earth or water, though, so as the mage began adding new sigils to the circle, he fell back on distraction.

  “Hoi!” he shouted. “Hoi, you piker, whatever you think you're accomplishing here, you're wrong! The Outsider's played you for a fool!”

  “No. I have a plan.”

  “We shut it out for a reason! Jeronek's sacrifice, Kuthrallan's, do they mean nothing to—“

  “Do not speak to me of Kuthrallan!” For the first time in their whole pursuit, the mage's voice held anger—or perhaps pain. Either way, it was as sharp and thin as his transfixing needles. “You have no understanding of him, or of— Gods and spirits, you left us. You knew we couldn't escape our vessel and you left us in the sea to die. Have you any idea what it's like to see you cast off your victims and escape while I stay behind? And yes, they are victims. The way they look at me after you abandon them... I'm surprised you're still here. Usually you don't stay any longer than you must.”

  He sensed the Guardian stirring, and a chill went through him. It was not often that it acted or spoke or even felt like a separate entity; for all these months he had been chasing Enkhaelen, it had behaved more like memories of lives he'd once lived, with skills he'd once known. Rusty but easily recovered, fully his.

  Now it opened dark eyes behind his own, and listened with alien ears—thought strange obscured thoughts. Still more chained than free, Erosei snapped, “Don't talk to it, talk to me.”

  Enkhaelen laughed curtly. “You didn't listen to me when I warned you on the mountain. Didn't listen to me in the forest. Why should I bother now? You're not in control, Aloyan Erosei the Younger. You're just a puppet on a string.”

  “And what are you?” sneered Erosei. “Not the piking Ravager, not even Kuthrallan, just some pitiful widower with a grudge against—who? The Muriae? The Trifold? The world? You've broken the Ravager's covenant with the Metals, destroyed your own life, killed your wife, and for what? Some experimental monster you think is a child?“

  “Shut up.”

  “The Outsider has you by the balls, just like you have the Ravager. Whatever it's promised you, it lied—and maybe you can survive its touch because of your blood, but there will be nothing left for you to rule over, or avenge yourself upon, or anything, if you let it back in!”

  “You think I don't know that?”

  “Then what in pike's name are you—“

  “Hush now. I need to concentrate.”

  Erosei opened his mouth again, but Enkhaelen rose abruptly and stretched his arms out toward the sea and the five distant Seals. The blood circle around his feet kindled with a weird colorless radiance which somehow canceled out the sunlight to leave him lit as if by lightning-flare. Great curls of smoke arose from the edges, followed by spiders of electricity that stitched new runes inward until they reached the mage's bare feet, whereupon they meshed and crawled up his legs, bursting blood-vessels under his skin as they went. In moments, he was held in a nimbus of cold, pallid energy not entirely his own.

  And Erosei realized that they were doomed. If the fire-blooded Ravager vessel had been pushed so far that energy could injure him, then he was down to his very dregs—and yet he would not stop. Even in profile, his face was fixed like stone, his fingers tremoring their way through the final sigils. The blood on the Pillar floor, and on the sand, and boiling away from his arm made Erosei wonder how much he had left.

  Stop him. Stop him, he thought, but no matter how he thrashed, he barely cracked the heavy glass.

  Then a seizure took the mage—a single spine-bending jerk, as if some invisible hand had grabbed him by the breastbone and yanked upward. His arms flailed out; his heels left the ground. Erosei caught the rictus look of surprise and terror on his face.

  A filament of light pierced up from the center of his chest, rising vertically for perhaps three yards then slitting open like a giant eye. The glare and heat that poured through the new Portal made Erosei flinch; he pressed his mouth shut and squinted hard, the moisture already evaporating from his skin and eyes. Somehow, the glass encasement stayed cool.

  At last, came the Outsider's voice, more an impression than a sound.

  The mage struggled, his robe in flames, hands making brief shadows against the glare as he grappled uselessly at the suspending tendril. “Let me down...let me down,” he rasped.

  Perhaps the entity examined him, or looked around; Erosei sensed motion but it was hard to extrapolate when all he could see was a shapeless blob of light that washed out the entirety of the beach. The Seals are not open, it noted in a toneless manner that nevertheless expressed disappointment.

  “...sur
e they are.”

  No. They have not been removed, merely pushed askew.

  “About two inches.” The mage's mouth twitched in a valiant attempt at a smirk. “Still counts as open.”

  We had a deal, Shaidaxi. I require entry.

  “You have it. You just...don't have the reins. I do.”

  You think you can dictate terms to me?

  “The Seals are displaced by my strength alone. Kill me and they will snap back into position, and you will be shut out. No other Ravager will do this for you, and no one else knows how. So yes, I will dictate terms.”

  The incandescent tendril holding Enkhaelen aloft eased slightly, allowing him to stand on his own. For a moment it seemed he might fail at that, but managed to stabilize by planting the black sword point-down on the Pillar floor. It was all that remained of his garb and gear, the rest just soot on bruising skin.

  Dry as dust, the Outsider intoned, And what do you desire now?

  “I take back my original request,” said Enkhaelen. “It was spoken in haste. In madness, perhaps. But I still have enemies, and I've lost all my support. You will empower me, protect me, call your cultists to my aid, and in exchange I will maintain this much of an entry.”

  A mere two inches. When I have had miles, realms, worlds.

  “Take it or leave it, Aradys.”

  Oh, I will take it. But you, Shaidaxi...

  Cords of incandescence surged up from the source of the filament, lashing across Enkhaelen's shoulders and torso, around his neck, over his head and down his legs. He dropped the sword with a cry and tried to tear at them, but they braided tight, and his spasming fingers could form no spell. Bracing his feet, he tried to lunge for the edge of the ritual circle, but the brilliant orb simply reeled him back in.

  For a moment, twisted in the strands, he faced Erosei, and the Guardian-vessel saw the main tendril's origin: a blazing hole in the mage's chest, the innermost of the six concentric rings he'd scarred into his flesh.

  You are not as clever as you think, the Outsider continued as the brilliant bonds spun thicker around the thrashing man. I cannot kill you, true. But you are now my door, so I must keep you very, very safe.

  And as you know, I have other friends.

  On cue, Erosei felt a disjunction in the air behind him, and craned his neck to see a mage-portal opening a few feet away. Afterimages obscured his view of its makers; all he got was an overwhelming impression of white as first one, then many figures rustled by.

  In the blinding prison, Enkhaelen had begun shouting, but his words were unintelligible. The great orb reeled him in, engulfed him, then dimmed and settled, until all that remained was a twitching white cocoon. The figures surrounded it, lifted it.

  One of them paused above Erosei.

  He felt the Guardian surge up his throat, and tried to swallow it down—to snap himself free of his broken prison and fight, or flee. Anything to live. But its essence gouted from his mouth and was—

  Gone.

  Cob blinked rapidly, then scrubbed at his eyes, which felt as dry as Erosei's. Come to me, all of you, he thought. You need to explain this.

  The Guardian tried to resist, but he still had a grip on it, the phantom scales cool against his palm. Slowly, reluctantly, they manifested: Vina in a corner, head ducked to accommodate the low ceiling; Haurah at one side of the bed; Dernyel at the foot.

  Frowning, Cob looked around but saw no others. “Where's Jeronek? Erosei?”

  No answer. Not a twitch of expression on any of the three faces.

  “Well then pike you all.” Snatching up the bright-iron coin from the bed, he shook it at Haurah. “What were you thinkin', cuttin' out the important parts? First with your abandonment, now Erosei's death—not at Enkhaelen's hand! Y'don't have to try to make him look bad; I already know he is! But to pikin' lie to me—“

  'The light lies,' intoned Vina. 'The darkness merely conceals.'

  “That's not pikin' helpful!”

  At the end of the bed, Fiora grimaced and made quelling motions. “Lower your voice. There's people in the rooms around us. Can't you just think at them?”

  “Thinking's not enough in times like this,” he muttered, but nodded. Fixing his gaze on Vina, he said more quietly, “You admit you've been coverin' things up on purpose.”

  The ogress frowned around her nub-like tusks. 'We have shown what you required...and what we could bear. We do not enjoy revisiting these—'

  “Hog-crap! Haurah! You and Erosei made me think that he killed you, so you could hide what actually happened!”

  'It was essential,' said the wolf-woman. 'We had to be sure that you would not take his side.'

  “You think I'd— You honestly believe—“

  'You worshiped the Light. I think you still do. He serves it, which makes him—'

  “Did you not jus' see Erosei's memory? Or Geraad's? Enkhaelen and the Outsider are not allies.” He took a deep breath, trying to modulate his voice again and not let the anger take over. “The goal hasn't changed. Pike's sake, he bound the Seals to his body; he has to die for them t' go back in place. So why hide this shit? Are you ashamed of it? Because y'should be, but it's pikin' stupid to hold out on me now!”

  'You know my fate,' said Haurah. 'I have nothing more to show you.'

  'Nor I,' said the ogress.

  Dernyel was silent.

  He hadn't expected an answer from his father, and part of him didn't want one. If the man vanished entirely from his life and memory, he wouldn't mourn. But his mother's voice challenged him from the Dark: Ask him why, ask him why. And no matter how little he wanted to know, he had to. The question wouldn't leave him alone.

  But it could wait. He didn't want to see it here, in front of Fiora and the other vessels. He knew where it would take him, and he couldn't stand to cry.

  Instead, he said, “Fine. Now where the pike are Erosei and Jeronek?”

  The Guardian women glanced at each other, then Vina said, 'They have been discharged.'

  “What's that supposed t' mean?”

  'The visions of their deaths were too much for them. They have retreated among our brethren to recover.'

  Cob remembered the collection of shades he had seen among the trees, and shivered, but something about it didn't quite click. “You're not souls,” he said. “The Guardian doesn't take them with it when it leaves. You're just memories. Why do you need to recover?”

  'Do you enjoy remembering all that you have done, all the time?'

  And suddenly he was at the fringe of the woods, an arrow frozen in his side, the wraiths emerging from the mist—

  And at the palisade wall, Darilan's face a garish moon-mask, the sword trembling in time with Fendil's rasps—

  And at the Riftwatch tower, paralyzed, as men succumbed to Morshoc's midnight bolts—

  And in the forest, over Darilan—

  At the river, imagining the caravan swept away and all the soldiers drowned—

  In the air, coughing blood, crystal hooks protruding from his chest—

  At the manor, walking the nightmare—

  In the Dark—

  “Stop. Stop,” he said, clutching at his head. Bile burned hot at the base of his throat, threatening to lurch up at any moment. Even when the forcible memories ended, others swarmed to the fore—bits and pieces, glimpses of faces, blood-trails, muffled screams behind a door. The creak of the rope and the swinging shadow...

  By the time he managed to control his gasps and shake those visions, the Guardians had gone.

  Fiora and Arik were there instead, both hovering cautiously beside him as if afraid to touch. He opened his arms and suddenly his world was full of girl and wolf, enough almost to bury him, and he let out a watery chuckle as a cold wet nose crammed down his collar. The wolf's thrashing tail neatly swept the coins from the bed.

  They stayed like that for a while, Cob and Fiora intertwined, the wolf occasionally shifting position to better flatten them both. In that silence, wet tracks formed on Cob's ch
eeks and then dried, unremarked upon. He preferred it that way.

  *****

  It was late afternoon by the time Lark extricated herself from her rounds. She'd spent a while at the caravan houses haggling over pilgrim prices and amenities, and had a good idea of the pilgrimage route from a mark spent in a mapmaker's shop. Not a perfect one—since everything west of Riddian and north of Keceirnden was marked 'Imperial Daecia' and all-but-blank, even on the most detailed of maps—but better.

  Now, with three passage-tokens for tomorrow's caravan and a bag full of pilgrim robes, she finally had time for herself.

  Her purse still held a reasonable stock of silver, even after denting it with a proper meal—roast kid with mixed berry preserves and root-mash—plus a handful of nut-paste sweets. It had been a great act of will not to buy something from every food-cart she passed, but she knew how the stomach shrank from disuse. She'd learned that acrid lesson by stuffing her face full after Cayer picked her off the Bahlaer streets, only to puke it all up a quarter-mark later.

  Even now, she felt a bit queasy, but the walking helped. Weariness still gnawed at her; she would have liked to spend a week in bed, but figured she could handle whatever Bahlaer threw at her without it. Once there, she'd be in her own territory, among familiar faces—whichever were left. It wouldn't drain her like this excursion had.

  Yet other options whispered. The Citadel at Valent wasn't far, according to the map. She didn't know the price of tuition, but if she could convince the Shadow Folk to finance it in order to get an agent within the walls...

  Or she could grab another caravan token and buy another pilgrim's robe. Go with her friends on their insane quest.

  Pike that, she thought, but a thread of guilt accompanied it. Those three were inexperienced, sheltered outcasts. That they had managed to rent an inn room was a good sign, but who knew how they'd do without her?

  Could go as far as Keceirnden. It's just a two-day trip...

  But that would mean finding a Shadow connection there—and as the last stop before the White Road, it would be swarmed with Light-followers. The shadow-signs she'd seen here in Finrarden were recent and minimal, done in charcoal instead of paint: a fly-by-night operation under a certain level of threat. Closer to the Palace, conditions could only be worse.