As it passed, the many natural crows in the trees below paused and tipped their heads. Visions flashed behind the seeker-crow’s yellow eyes—carrion, winter berries, a scrap of ribbon stuck in a hedge, the glint of light off the bolts in a passing wagon wheel. Avian interests. It thought wolf, and collected snatches of memory that resonated with the hair it carried. A pewter tail, a flash of teeth.
Onward, faster and faster as it caught the trail and flickered into the spirit realm. There, the wolf’s path lay like a silver thread, fraying with time. The rocks and trees that bordered the road slept deeply, and the crow passed through them as if they were mist. So much of the forest slept now.
Down, down the long eastward decline. What had taken the wolf days to travel took the seeker-crow no time at all; the faded circle of the sun had hardly moved when the city came into sight.
It slept too—an entity in its own right, a spiny urchin of stone and wood and steel. The wolf’s silver thread crossed with the myriad tracks of other living creatures, and as the crow swooped down through an alley, it flickered back into the physical world. The skein would become too tangled to follow; it had to rely on the hair pinched in its beak.
And the eyes of its fellows. Crows dotted the rooftops and perched on clotheslines and store signs and statues. They were hated here, the targets of rocks and arrows, but such things rarely dissuaded them. They were scavengers and opportunists, and what the Wynds believed of them was true: they were also spies. But they held no malice. The foxes were the hunted ones, the ones that struck back with their pained snarls and their sharp little teeth. The crows just liked to observe.
To know the enemy.
Flashes of memory came to the seeker-crow as it connected with its little siblings. Silvery fur becoming skin and hair, paws becoming hands. Garments yanked from a clothesline. Furtive looks along the street, a keen nose scenting the air. A wide, toothy grin.
Alley by alley, rooftop by rooftop, the crow sought and thought and listened. And finally, when the spires of the temple and garrison loomed ahead, it saw the wolf.
He was not a wolf now. He sat on a bench on the far side of the amphitheater, heavy shoulders hunched, watching the gates that led into the royal compound. Dark pewter hair spilled down his back, loosely caught with a cord, and his ears peeked out slightly through the shag as if perked. As the crow winged down toward him from behind, his head tilted, then he turned.
His eyes alone would have set most men back on their heels. Pale and predatory, they watched the crow’s descent from a sharp-honed face—a handsome face had it not been so inhuman, so lacking warmth. His bristly, villainous brows arched, then he stretched out an arm.
After a moment’s uneasy flutter, the crow alighted. They considered each other warily.
“Spirit,” he said at last. His voice was low and rough from disuse. “You come from the shadow girl.”
The crow bobbed its head.
“You can not find the abomination?”
Shake shake.
He gestured toward the gates with one long, sinewy hand. “In the king’s land. I can not pass. All is walled. The Great Spirit is there; I feel it. I smell it. I want to tear through the gates but I restrain myself.”
The crow bobbed its head again. It felt the wolf in the man, held carefully in check; under its claws it felt the fur hiding shallowly beneath the skin. A grey shadow lined the man’s jaw and a few guard-hairs peeked out from under his collar and sleeves, his human mimicry imperfect, but he had come this far through a human city, and that was impressive. These days, most wolves did not bother with restraint.
“How do I help you, spirit?” he said.
The crow looked toward the gates and the palace beyond. It could seek there, but not for long. The mages could spot it if they knew how, and then could catch it. It was a small spirit, a tiny fragment of the Old Crow, and it would not put up much of a fight.
And the palace was large. There was not enough time.
“I know their scents,” said the man. “Both of them, the abomination and the Great Spirit’s vessel. And I know how you learn. If it will help, then I will think of them, and you will do as crows do.”
The crow cocked its head, surprised. Rarely was it offered that. But the man drew the crow in close to his face and closed one eye, the other fixed in the middle distance, cloudy with memory. With a shrug of its wings, the crow dropped the hair and snapped forward to pluck out the eye.
Twist, snip, swallow.
It heard the snarl, saw the blood as the man clapped his hand over the empty socket, but the images and sensations that pelted it took precedence. Not just sight or scent but the whole tapestry of memory, embroidered with thoughts.
Stag musk and fear-sweat, misery, determination. A bare glimpse of the fallen vessel before he was taken. Then the abomination: ichor and atrophy and an odd undertone of snake, not a scent but a wisp of soul. Fair and angry on the outside, bone-brittle within. And beneath those, a hollow, restless hunger—the wolf’s own impulse. Hope and need and desperation. A pack-hunter without a pack.
The crow blinked, and now it caught that whiff of ichor that hung in the air. The abomination’s trail. Clacking its beak with satisfaction, it looked to the man.
He was shivering, not from pain or fury but from the change. Beneath the crow’s claws, his wrist furred and then smoothed to skin again, his drawn-back lips showing nasty canines for a moment before they retracted. A ripple went along his scalp, fluffing his hair out briefly, and the trickle of blood from under his hand ceased.
He peeled his fingers away and blinked his bloodshot new eye, the sclera clearing as it focused. “It worked?”
The crow bobbed its head cheerfully.
“Then go. Before I give in and eat you.”
With a squawk like laughter, the crow hopped off his arm and took to the air, knifing toward the palace.
*****
Left behind, Arik muttered to himself and wiped the blood from his cheek, then licked his fingers. No point in wasting it.
*****
A soldier on the wall took aim idly as the crow flew over, but did not shoot. In return, the crow did not crap on him, though it was tempted. It dove down among the trees and skimmed the floor of the captured forest, feeling its little siblings stir as they sensed it.
The natural crows took off from their perches as it passed, first five, then ten, then a full score of them winging along. At the head of the flock, the seeker-crow thought at them and received memories in return: the abomination being escorted down the road and into the palace.
It gave its orders and the flock separated into solitaires, some flying low toward the walls and some arching into the air, higher than a crossbow shot and with a grand view. The seeker-crow flickered to the spirit side, where the trees were misty shadows and the wall of the palace just a veil.
This place was too new to have a spirit. The crow passed through its stones and glided down a hall, invisible, taking in the view from all angles as its little siblings spied. They perched on window ledges, swooped into the gardens, peeked down cold chimneys.
One of them caught the abomination’s scent.
The crow veered that way, passing through doors and columns like nothing. More of the little spies fluttered to that part of the palace, lining the windows to try to catch a glimpse. Through their eyes the crow saw room upon room, some occupied, some empty, and one spy saw the abomination pass by an open door, flanked by guards.
The crow angled in that direction but found a group of warded rooms in the way. On the spirit side, their walls were solid—sealed by magic—and as the crow navigated around them, a burning eye opened on each door. They shifted in their sockets as though they sensed the crow but could not see it.
Wary, the crow swung wide and abruptly sensed more warded spaces near the center of the palace. It had not caught the Great Spirit’s scent yet, and that told it why. If it was here, it was imprisoned.
The path toward the abomination cl
eared, and it dove through the walls in pursuit.
*****
Darilan stripped down, relieved to be free of his dirty clothes despite the circumstances. The washroom was small, with a thin high window in the far wall that even he could not have squeezed through, so this was also a moment of privacy as his ‘escorts’ guarded the door from outside.
He was glad of Annia’s discretion. She might be a raging bitch, but she understood the need to be free of scrutiny sometimes.
They had not even taken away Serindas, though Darilan knew she remembered it. He had carried the blade for a long time. That she still trusted him gave him a little twinge of guilt, but he took pains to discard it. He was not here to hurt her. If she got in his way, that was her own fault.
You tell yourself that, but then you ignore a perfect opportunity to end this, he thought sourly. Discarding the last of his clothes, he moved to the tub and trailed his hand in the hot water. Runes along the rim glowed softly, maintaining the temperature. One of those luxuries afforded to kings and their toadies.
He was about to swing in when a crow appeared on the edge of the tub.
It stared at him, and he stared at it. Then he looked to the window, which was closed. He looked to the door but that was shut tight and made of thick-enough wood that he could not hear the traffic of the corridor beyond.
The crow tilted its head sideways and said, “Awrk.”
“Shh.” He eyed the bird. It was a small crow, black-feathered with a white beak and claws and intelligent yellow eyes. Too small to be a skinchanger but certainly not normal. “Can you speak?” he said.
“Wark.”
“That’s a no.” Grimacing, he raked a hand through his hair and looked to the door again. He did not know how sharp the thralls’ hearing was. “So,” he said quietly, leaning in toward the crow, “if you’re here, that means Lark reached the Corvish and convinced them. Are there others with you? Just nod or shake.”
The crow shook its head.
“Then you’re a scout.”
Nod.
“Have you found Cob? The Guardian? Can you get to him?”
Much shaking of the head.
Darilan sighed heavily and drummed his fingers on his brow, staring into the water. “I saw where they’re keeping him,” he said. “It’s on the floor above this. Wards everywhere. I was hoping you could slide through them.”
The crow bowed its head regretfully.
“No, it’s fine. We’ll think of something. It’s in the middle of the mages’ quarters though. Suites and laboratories and casting chambers, probably all warded. Wards on the hallway too. Pikes, I hate mages.”
The crow shifted on its claws and pointed its beak at the window.
“No, internal suites. No windows.”
A slump of feathered shoulders. Darilan regarded the bird for a moment, then shook his head and climbed into the bath. The hot water stung everywhere except the grey marks that striped his body. Those were numb.
“They told me Cob is comatose,” he said as he settled in, grimacing. “The Guardian is in there, and it’s aware, but it wouldn’t come up. Not for more than a moment. I don’t know why. I might have jeopardized the whole maneuver, but if I can convince Annia to get him out of the mages’ wing… That might be the only way. I deal with the mages and your people deal with the Guardian.”
The crow nodded slightly.
“And yours will do that? They’ll kill him?”
The crow hesitated for a moment. Then, slowly, it nodded again. Darilan eyed it.
“I know you have no reason to play fair with me,” he said. “But I’m not asking for that. She told you the Guardian is trapped, right? Bound into him. It’s not normal magic. There’s some mentalist stuff keeping Cob from being able to contact the Guardian, but there’s also the bonds keeping the spirit inside him—and from what I can tell, the normal mages can’t even see those. But there’s someone who can, and he’s been here, and him taking an interest is never a good sign. If you want your Guardian to be free, it’s not a matter of rescuing Cob and unraveling what’s been done to him. I don’t think it can be fixed.
“The only option is to remove the body and thus remove the bond.”
The crow bobbed its head quickly, and Darilan watched it, hoping he was right. The Guardian had a long history of hopping from body to body, leaving its vessels alive when it fled. To him, that meant that it neither consumed nor meshed with its vessel’s soul; Cob would go to his own place when he died.
But the Inquisitor Archmagus had been here. That made Darilan worry.
He closed his eyes and purposefully recalled the infirmary. Himself on the chair next to the bed, Cob’s limp hand in his. The medics going about their business on the other side of the curtains, quietly, as if respectful of his mourning though the boy was not yet dead.
And Inquisitor Archmagus Enkhaelen parting those curtains and approaching the bedside.
Darilan had looked up at him, face fixed in the blank mask he had long cultivated but feeling weak inside from fear and loss. He remembered how Enkhaelen’s eyes had glassed, his attention fixed on the beyond, and how he had smiled in that crooked way of his.
‘He is fortunate,’ the Inquisitor Archmagus had said. ‘His bonds must have absorbed the wraiths’ attack. I can see them, but there is nothing trapped in them. Still, if he survives, we can try again. You may continue your mission.’
He remembered wondering, even then, why Enkhaelen would smile when they had failed.
His eyes popped open, and he shivered despite the heat of the water.
Game. It’s one of his games again.
Pike him. I won’t let this continue.
“I’ll convince Annia somehow,” he told the crow, which was staring at him oddly. “Get her to take him out of containment. Maybe into the gardens. Maybe—“ He laughed shortly, bitterly. “Maybe to her rooms. She was always like that. You can all fly in for the assault. Can’t you?”
The crow tilted its head, then shrugged its glossy wings.
“Well, we’ll do something. Anything. The sooner the better. If that bastard comes back to do whatever he’s planning, it’s all over. The end.”
“Werk?” the crow said.
“I can’t talk about it. They say he hears you if you say his name.” His fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the runes that rimmed the tub. “It’s probably nonsense but I don’t know. Sometimes he just shows up. This needs to happen before he appears again and sees me here.”
The crow tilted its head.
Because he’ll know my intentions, Darilan thought. He’ll know I’m going against his plan—whatever it is. He’ll know that I’m aware that he’s lying to us—me, the General. He said we would catch the Guardian and sacrifice it to the Emperor.
But he’s up to something else.
“Go,” he said to the crow. “Tell your people to watch for an opening, and I’ll try to make one. Are they near? No? Give me a signal then, when they are. I’ll do what I can.”
The crow nodded and spread its wings, and vanished.
Darilan sank deeper into the water, letting it creep up the nape of his neck and lave across his mouth. He thought of going under, of opening his lungs to the luxurious heat, but that would not kill him. It would only kill this body.
He could not let himself go yet.
Eyes closed, he dunked under and came up quickly, then reached for the soap. If he was going to get anywhere, he needed to be convincing. Sly. Quick-witted. But most of all, in Annia’s court, presentable.
*****
A candlemark later, he was dry and combed and trying not to fiddle with the buttons of his borrowed doublet. It had been a long time since he had worn finery, and the brush of silk over his stripes of numbness and sensation felt shiveringly strange.
The maids had taken away everything but Serindas and its sheath, and of course his bracer. He wore the dagger on a new belt of brass and bleached leather, and the bracer itself clamped tight under the s
leeve of the silk undershirt and cream-colored doublet. His fawn-brown breeches tucked into boots with brass fastenings, the soles too soft for unpaved ground. After wearing the plain black of the scouts’ company for five years, he felt foppish, but this was far from the worst Annia could have done.
The paleness of the cloth did not help him to look well. The mirror showed a young man with dark smudges under his eyes, wan beneath his badlands-tan as if sick or insomniac. He tried a smile, but it looked manic. Tried his usual scowl, then dropped it. Wished idly for a pendant like Annia’s.
Then the door opened, and he watched in the mirror as Annia and her bodyguards stepped in.
She had discarded much of the jewelry and let her hair down, only a few pins holding it back. Like this, she looked more as he remembered—the lady-in-waiting rather than the royal mistress. The expression of seething insult was just as familiar.
“Sit down,” she said sharply. He took a chair and did so.
She stayed standing at first, staring down at him with her hands on her hips and a peevish look on her face. “I was hoping we’d matured beyond tricks,” she said tightly. “You weren’t one of the catty ones. You were always so loyal.”
“It wasn’t a trick.”
“No? What was it, then?” Scowling, she gestured at a thrall, who pulled a chair over for her and helped her into it.
Darilan arched a brow but that was typical Annia, demanding to be waited on when she was in a mood. “Just what I said. I was trying to wake him up.”
“And what, exactly, was that ghastly sensation?”
“He was angry. How would you feel if someone kept sticking pins in your chest while you were trying to get better? That whole experiment is a bad idea, Annia, and worse than that, it’s unnecessary.”
“Oh? Do you think he’d submit gladly?”
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 50