The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle)

by H. Anthe Davis

  “But they control the Heartlands. There aren't enough of us to change that, and haven't been for a long time. And so we're forced to hide behind the skirts of the Brigyddians, because the Imperials know the populace relies on them and so won't move to eradicate them. The Brigyddians are the only reason the whole Trifold hasn't been wiped out.

  “So us Breanans are stuck. Some live with our parents if they’re in the faith, but you can’t live alone up there as a young woman. You’re not allowed. The rest of us congregate here.”

  “Can’t live alone as a young man either,” said Cob, thinking of the Army recruiters.

  “I suppose not. But the Imperial Army won't take women. You can join the Army and work it from the inside, but I'd get taken as a ward of the Empire and married off as some fat old man's third wife.”

  Cob blinked at her, then decided not to touch that last comment. “Uh. What d’you mean, ‘work it from the inside’?”

  Fiora shrugged. “This isn’t just a women’s faith. You met Jasper, right? We have plenty of men. They can’t be Brigyddians because they can’t be mothers, but the other ranks are full of them. Almost all of the Breanan men join the Imperial Army, and some of us girls too, if we can pass for boys. We’re trying to win it to our side, since we can't oppose it directly.”

  “You’re not worried about the Inquisition?”

  “We’re aware of the dangers.”

  Privately Cob doubted that, as he doubted the Trifolders could have any hold over the Gold Army. From what little he knew, it was by far the most mage-dominated of the three Imperial Armies—which really meant mentalist-dominated—and it oversaw the arcane communication network that linked the Imperial provinces together and monitored them for threats. He and Morshoc had run afoul of its beacons on the Imperial Road, and though he had successfully resisted Gold mind-probes and portal-magics afterward, it was only because of the Guardian. Even then, he sensed that resisting could have destroyed him.

  In the Crimson Army, the Inquisition visited rarely and was feared like the plague. In the Gold, it would be ever-present. He wondered if any of the Trifolders who had joined up still owned their own minds.

  “It doesn’t seem smart,” he said.

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Well, what do you suppose we should do? Sit back and wait for things to change on their own? They won’t—not in the direction we want them to. So we have to take action. Not everyone here gets that, but I’d have thought the Guardian would.”

  “The Guardian and I don’t talk much.”

  “And you don’t agree?”

  “I just wanna be free of this.”

  “As long as you’re in the Empire, you’re not free. No one is.”

  He gave her a flat look. He had heard those words from too many slaves to count—though Maevor had said it most often, rabble-rouser that he was. What Maevor would raise up in the Empire’s place, he had never said, though Cob had always suspected him of being a Shadow Cultist and thus a proponent of unrestrained thievery. While changing things from the inside sounded better than overthrowing the Empire in the name of the Shadow God, he did not see how a bunch of goddesses would be better than the Light.

  “That’s hog-crap,” he said. “No one here’s a slave.”

  “Just because everyone enslaved for a ‘crime’ get shipped to the Crimson Army doesn’t—“

  “So everyone here is free.”

  “We are not!”

  “You’re alive. They let y’live down here even though you’re heretics, or up top if you’re bein’ productive. If you follow the law, you don’t get enslaved. If you act like a citizen, you get treated like one. Am I right?”

  “Follow the law? Our men can't even go into the city—you should know! We all have to hide or the Empire takes us! Marries us off, conscripts us—”

  “You jus’ said you people get married or volunteer y’selves. What’s the problem?”

  Her hands clenched around her mug, and for a moment he thought she would fling it at him. There was a flinty gleam in her eyes that did not go away, even when she forced herself to relax. “It’s not freedom if you don’t have a choice,” she said through her teeth.

  “Y'could leave.”

  “This is my home! —Wait. Did you just call us heretics?”

  Cob flinched. Somehow he could not control his tongue when it came to that word. At least the dining room had cleared out somewhat; there were a few women knitting on a couch while several trainees ate at another table, but no one was close or visibly paying attention. Fumbling for an excuse, he glanced to Arik—who had finished licking the plates clean and now watched him with sad, disappointed eyes—then back to Fiora. “Uh,” he said, “from the Empire’s perspective…”

  Her eyes narrowed, then widened in horror. “That’s why you want the Guardian out? You’re a—“

  “Wait, wait, listen,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. She glared at him but paused. In a lower voice, he continued, “Yeah, I’m of the Light. But I’m not your enemy, all right? If I was, I wouldn’t be here, I’d be on the pilgrimage. I jus’ wanna be free too.”

  For a long moment she just stared at him. Then she sighed and planted her chin in her palm again, skepticism written clearly on her face. “Fine. The wards let you in, so you have no ill intent. But you’re crazy. Carrying the Guardian and you can’t get it through your head that the Imperial Light is trouble?”

  “The Imperial Light ended the Long Darkness—”

  She laughed shortly. “So the stories say, but that was what? Two hundred years ago? Who remembers that? Who can say if it really happened, or if it’s just some legend the Emperor spread around to make himself look good? You said you’re from Kerrindryr, right? That means you’re not a proper Imperial. You don’t live in the Heartlands, you don’t know—“

  “Fine, I don’t know, all right? I don’t wanna fight.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it and nodded curtly. “Right. Well. Look, it’ll probably take a while for them to set up for the cleansing and get Sister Merrow back. I can take you the guest area so you can nap…”

  Next to Cob, Arik nodded vigorously, then unleashed a massive yawn.

  Cob shrugged. He felt irritable now, and far from tired. Even if he had been exhausted he did not know if he could sleep in a heretic place.

  “Or I could show you around,” said Fiora. “If you’re bored.”

  He took in the bland expression on her broad, rosy face and scowled. “Y’don’t have to be my watchdog.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Arik heaved from the bench and hauled him up by one arm before he could speak. “Go. See the sights,” the skinchanger said, smiling widely, and nudged him around the table toward Fiora. “I will find a place to sleep.”

  “Two chambers north, then one east,” said Fiora, pointing.

  The big skinchanger nodded to her, thumped Cob on the back, then ambled off in that direction. Cob glared after him, face heating; from what Arik had been saying before, he could guess what ‘sights’ he meant.

  Not gonna happen, he thought as he turned to the girl. She planted her hands on her hips and stared up at him as if calculating how best to take him down, then cracked a smile.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see if we can’t educate you about the Empire.”

  “Jus’ kill me now,” he mumbled. She grinned and grabbed his arm, and with great reluctance, he let himself be led onward.

  *****

  By the time the tour ended, Cob was ready to leave. To what destination, he did not know, but staying in the stifling confines of this faux crypt being lectured at by someone who was far too focused on Imperial round-ups and massacres of civilians, desecration of temples, rapes of priestesses and public burning of heretics was more than he could stand.

  Not that he disbelieved Fiora’s tales. She read most of them straight from the plaques on the walls, and he had marched with the Crimson Army; he had participated in the Fellen riots. He kn
ew what could happen when soldiers or slaves slipped their leashes. By Fiora’s telling, the Gold Army did not bother with restraint.

  But she rarely said ‘Golds’. More often, she said ‘Imperials’. And despite the weight of the Guardian on his shoulders, Cob still considered himself one of them. It was bitter to hear such vitriol repeated over and over and not be allowed a response.

  They were in an armory chamber—the third so far, all uncomfortably well-stocked—when a plump priestess cut into Fiora’s monologue about historical Trifold uprisings with a brisk, “The Mother Matriarch sends for you, Guardian.” Cob looked to her with relief, and she gave him a slight smile.

  Fiora glanced at Cob. He took a deep breath and tried to master himself. Politeness dictated that he thank her for her time, but what he really wanted was to take her outside and bury her in a snowdrift. Maybe pile rocks on top.

  He opened his mouth to speak.

  “Go on, and good luck,” Fiora preempted. “I only hope you find the freedom you desire.”

  A muscle under his eye twitched. He wanted to stay angry at her, at all of them, but they made it difficult. Instead, he grunted and started down the hall after the priestess. Fiora’s footsteps followed him. There were no doors to slam in his wake—no doors here at all, only a few privacy-curtains—so he had to tolerate her pursuit.

  All the life and bustle on the way back annoyed him. The crypt plan was so straightforward that he hardly needed a guide, but he kept on the priestess’s heels as they cut through a crowded kitchen and dining hall and skirted past trainees in a sparring room. Everyone stared after him as he passed, the same way they had stared when Fiora led him through the first time. He wanted to yell at them to quit it, to just leave him alone.

  But it had been his idea to come here.

  Arik bounded up as he and his guide turned a corner toward the ritual room. The skinchanger’s wide smile vanished as he caught the look on Cob’s face, but he fell into step just behind him, and with his presence Cob managed to let his temper go. He felt more secure with the skinchanger at his back.

  Ahead, the ritual room had gathered its own crowd. Priestesses in brown and men and women in grey or red parted for him as he stalked in. On the dais, the altar had been set with unlit candles, and three women stood behind it: the Mother Matriarch in her bell-trimmed dress, her thin hands wrapped around an etched bronze torch; Sister Talla in her armor and holding a ceremonial silver hammer; and a lean woman in red chainmail, her dark hair tied back in a severe tail, her expression stiff. Cob assumed she was Sister Sentinel Merrow. The sword she clasped was not steel but old, pitted iron.

  “Be welcome, Guardian,” the Mother Matriarch said, her blind eyes finding him unerringly. “Please, join us here. Your friend may await you below.”

  Cob glanced back to Arik, who gave him a close-mouthed smile. The skinchanger was obviously nervous, his shoulders hunched and his stance edgy, but he folded down to the mat and Cob ruffled his hair reassuringly. Someone in the crowd made a sound of amusement, but the skinchanger beamed, which was worth it.

  Resolving to ignore everyone else, Cob headed up the dais to the three leaders.

  “Please remove your tunic and lay down on the altar,” said the Mother Matriarch. “I apologize for any discomfort, but padding and clothing would interfere with our work. We are not sorcerers, and thus must minimize the barriers between our power and your bonds.”

  Cob scowled, but shucked off his pack and coat, then his tunic. Even though it was warm down here, he had not wanted to part with anything, and being bare-skinned in front of a crowd was not his idea of fun.

  He felt the stares of the Trifolders keenly as the tunic came off. He knew what they were looking at: the silvery exit-scar on his back. Its mate marked him between navel and hipbone, a patch of discolored flesh where a wraith arrow had struck him through. He had worn the arrowhead as a talisman of his survival, but like all of his former belongings, it was lost.

  Steeling himself, he swung onto the altar, avoiding the unlit candles as he stretched out. The draping-cloths were thin and stitched with metallic thread, and through them he felt circular etchings in the stone under his shoulders. His skin prickled as he looked up at the three women, all too aware of the weapons they held.

  Then his gaze strayed past them to the ceiling, to the metal circles embedded in the plaster there, and his fears of being sacrificed fled before the sensation of being watched. The simple interlocking rings—one silver, one iron, one bronze—matched the etchings beneath him, but they were more than just symbols. They felt like eyes. There was nothing about them to explain why he felt that way, but he knew with certainty that something could see him.

  The women shifted around him, Sister Talla taking up a position at his left shoulder, Sister Merrow at his right. The Mother Matriarch moved from one corner of the altar to the next, bells chiming softly as she lit the candles in sequence, until she ended at his head. The flame of the bronze torch bathed her face in warm light and reflected faintly from the metal circles in the ceiling. At her word, the two Sisters turned Cob’s hands upward to place hammer-haft and sword-hilt in his palms, and he clutched the weapons automatically, no less uneasy for their presence.

  The Mother Matriarch set one hand to Cob’s brow as if testing him for fever, her other lifting the torch high. The Sisters pressed their hands to his chest, not forcefully but not comfortably either. Being touched was alien to him even though one wore gloves and the other gauntlets.

  “Let us begin,” said the Mother Matriarch.

  “In the name of Breana Eranine, Maiden of Martyrs, Sword of the Defender, I invoke protection upon this vessel,” said Sister Merrow, her voice low and neutral. “May he be shielded from harm both physical and spiritual, and divided from all that cling to him. Sei-don Uvadha.”

  “Sei-don Uvadha,” murmured the crowd, then subsided into a soft hum.

  The iron sword became heavy, pinning his right hand to the altar, while above the iron circle glowed with a cherry light. Heat radiated from the empty etching under him, spreading a stinging sensation across him like flesh thawing from frostbite. Sweat sprang up on his face with the effort to not move, to not scratch or twitch. Slowly the sting concentrated in three spots—forehead, breastbone and arrow-scar—and in a sudden wrench, he felt his riders.

  The Guardian was heaviest, wrapped around and inside him like a massive serpent, its head nested at the hollow of his throat and its tail just above his hip, at the scar where it had entered him. On his brow he felt the lighter touch of claws, and saw phantom wings before his eyes, stark white. And in his chest—

  It was small and faint, whatever it was. He could barely feel it beneath the Guardian.

  “In the name of Brigydde Ecaeline, Mother of Humanity, Prophet of Peace, Keeper of the Hearth and Seer of Souls, I invoke the sight upon this vessel,” said the Mother Matriarch, lowering the torch toward his chest. “May his bonds be revealed. Sei-shalassa Uvadha.”

  “Sei-shalassa Uvadha.”

  Lines of cold fire raced across him, and he flinched and tried to lift his head, but the Mother Matriarch pressed him back down. Still he felt them everywhere, stitched through his skin and innards like spiderwebs, and saw their blue-white radiance from the corners of his eyes. Around him, the candles dimmed, as did the torch, and even the heat of the etchings under his back dampened. Above, the bronze circle kindled with an eerie orange glow.

  The Mother Matriarch frowned, her blind eyes tracing the lines. “Necromancy, yes,” she said, “but not the simple kind. Your soul has been altered. These superficial bonds are not the problem.”

  “Altered?” said Cob, his mouth dry.

  “He who did this has molded you into a shape that would bind you to any spirit that entered. It is as if you are made up of thousands of fishhooks, all of them locked into the essence of your riders. They can not escape without tearing themselves—or you—apart. As for the bonds, they appear to keep the riders from struggling or commu
nicating much.”

  Cob thought of his punishing headaches when the Guardian took over, and wondered if that was his soul being slowly shredded. “Can you fix it?”

  The Mother Matriarch sighed. “The bonds, perhaps, but our way is not delicate, and I do not wish to harm you. And we have no power over the shape of your soul.”

  Closing his eyes, Cob weighed the options. If removing the bonds would not free the Guardian but give it the power to tear him apart with its thrashing…

  But it could speak to me. It could guide me with something other than dreams and hallucinations. And my father…

  My father wouldn’t let it kill me.

  “I’m not scared of pain,” he said. “Do what you can.”

  The Mother Matriarch smiled ruefully and stroked his brow, making him blush despite the situation. “You are a brave young man. A good vessel for Aesangat.” Then she turned her empty gaze to Sister Talla and said, “Proceed.”

  Sister Talla nodded and curled her gauntleted hands into fists, one over his heart and the other above the first. “In the name of Brancir Sufrece Etracine, Matron of Judgment, Hammer of the Faith, I invoke my verdict upon this vessel. May he be freed of all bonds and chains inflicted upon him by the work of magic. Sei-aenka Uvadha, ahranxan.”

  “Sei-aenka Uvadha, ahranxan,” echoed the crowd. As the words faded, Cob realized that only some of them had spoken; the others were harmonizing with the low hum that had begun after the first echo, and now a third note joined the first two. The air seemed to shiver with their voices, male and female, young and old, impeccably disciplined to the task.

  Sister Talla raised one fist toward the ceiling and the silver circle flared, joining its glow to the others. Its etching burned beneath him, and the hammer’s weight anchored his left hand to the stone. His eyes followed the torch as the Mother Matriarch lifted it high, its flame flickering at the junction of the circles, and all at once the voices of the crowd rose in a wave.