“Maybe they can advise us on fighting Morshoc.”
“Yeah. Not sure how to kill a man who runs around already dead.”
Fiora furrowed her dark brows at him. “Already dead?”
“He possesses bodies like the Guardian possesses me. Corpses, I think. He was always ice-cold. The one time I fought him, he kept talkin’ right up ‘til I broke his neck.”
“You… You say that so casually.”
He glanced sidelong to her, stomach sinking as he read the unease on her face. It had been a while since someone had stared at him like that—since he had spoken so carelessly. He remembered Ammala’s rigid shoulders as he talked about sacrifice and the Light. “I…look, it’s not what I wanted,” he said, bitterly aware that he had planned his attack on Morshoc. “I jus’ couldn’t let him keep doin’ what he was doin’, and there was no other way. Anyhow, like I said, he was already dead.”
“Well, maybe, but you just…” She made vague neck-breaking motions.
He shrugged and looked forward.
“Don’t get me wrong, I understand,” said Fiora quickly. “I’m here to fight beside you. I’ve just never…you know. Killed someone. That I’m aware of. There were the fights we had with the Golds, but I don’t think I really connected on anyone. I was too busy trying to guard your back.”
The way she said it was strangely apologetic, like she regretted not killing people. He shook his head. “It’s fine. We got out alive—and you heard the Mother Matriarch. Lots of Golds, probably lots of Crimsons and Sapphires are your own people, and the rest are gettin’ paid. There’s no reason to kill ‘em for doin’ their job, even if their job is gettin’ in our way.”
“But if they’re trying to kill us—“
“If it’s not necessary to bloody your hands, Fiora, don’t.”
She sighed, but nodded. “I just feel like I’m not doing enough for the cause.”
“There's nothin' t’ do. Once we’re outta here, though…” He looked ahead, across the softly shifting grasses and hillocks of thorn. It was impossible to see what awaited them. “You’ll be useful,” he continued quietly. “You’re an Amand, a Heartlander. Me, Lark, Arik, Ilshenrir, we’re all strangers here, and maybe we can fight when people attack us but we don’t know how to act to not get attacked. To blend in. We’ll need you for that. At the very least, you look like a local. You can do stuff we’d get caught out for jus’ because we’re different.”
“What about Dasira?”
“Dunno her well enough to say.”
She raised her brows at him but he kept his gaze ahead and pretended he had not noticed. Anyway, it was the truth. Five years of friendship and yet he knew next to nothing about Darilan—Dasira—and what he had believed now seemed a blatant lie. The very thought made him want to burst back through the barrier and confront her, but he knew she’d just run.
He had to get free. Then he could hunt her down and get all the answers he needed.
“Oh. I didn’t think so, but you seemed more familiar with her after you woke up…”
Cob grunted.
Fiora fell silent, and for a long time they just walked. With his mood gone sour, Cob tried to distract himself by watching the wildlife, wracking his memory for their names. Before the Guardian, he had never paid much attention to animals, just kept an eye out for the dangerous ones. Wildcats, snakes, scorpions, bears. The myriad birds here reminded him of the Mist Forest's flocks—yellow and green and rusty orange, bright red, cold blue. Revanons and ribbonchasers and needlewings.
But no raptors. He scanned the treetops for the telltale silhouettes of hawks or eagles, trellingils, songkillers, but there were none. Nor crows or vultures either, just small bright birds in ridiculous profusion.
Guess that means the animals are locked, otherwise there’d at least be some raptors here for the songbird buffet.
He started to ponder what it meant that there were no predators, but then a bush rustled just behind him and he half-turned, realizing for the first time that he had no weapons. Fiora blinked at him, one hand on a springy briar branch while the other lifted a just-plucked berry toward her lips.
Alarmed, he grabbed for her arm. “What’re you doin’?”
“The same thing I’ve been doing this whole time,” she said, baffled. She tried to pull away but he tightened his grip, so she flicked the berry at his face. “Not like it’s poisonous.”
“Y’don’t know that.”
“The birds are eating them.”
“You’re not a bird!”
“I’m not writhing on the ground in agony either!”
He let go of her with a sound of disgust and turned away, wiping the spot the berry had hit. A moment later, a soft rain of them pattered against the back of his head, some sliding down his collar.
He stood very still and told himself it was a bad idea to strangle her.
Another berry hit him in the ear and stuck juicily. His jaw twitched.
He took one step forward, then another, and was just getting back into his stride when another handful of half-squashed berries thwipped against his neck and shoulders. He rounded instantly to find Fiora already fleeing through the expansive field beyond the briars.
He knew he should ignore her but his legs took over. He broke through the shin-level brush and hit the grassland at a run, boots digging divots into the soft turf, the stalks of weeds and wildflowers bending and snapping beneath him. Fiora had the lead but she was shorter and the weeds were thick; they caught at Cob’s coat and pack but he saw them catch at her too, and snag at the sword that clattered at her belt.
Still, she kept her lead by running madly, dodging tussocks and thorn-bushes and yanking free of all snares through pure momentum. He saw her leap outward, arms outspread, then vanish beneath the level of the grass, and a moment later he jerked to a halt at the lip of a stream-cut gully. On the other side, Fiora was just straightening her clothes from having hauled herself up from the ledge, and looked back long enough to taunt him with a gesture. Then she was racing away again.
Cob skittered back, then crossed the gully in one wild leap, boots crunching down the stalks Fiora had already flattened. His heart thundered, and despite himself, he knew he was grinning. That was further than he had ever jumped before, but it had come so smoothly, so effortlessly. Not all the Guardian’s changes were troubling.
Snatching up handfuls of grass and loam, he lunged back into the chase, determined to do Fiora one better.
Birds exploded from the grass ahead of her, shrieking their indignation. She cut through a stand of trees just ahead of his first flung dirt-wad, which spattered on the trunk. Determined, Cob charged after her, thinking of how if he was barefoot now, he could pull on the vines and grasses and catch her with them in an instant. Millions of fingers at his command.
But it was not just his boots that impeded him here. Even with them on, he should have felt some connection to the earth, but in the middle of cocking his arm for another fling, he hit a concealed root and went down face-first among the weeds. Cursing, he lurched up and saw her halted ahead, looking for him. When their eyes met, she grinned broadly, then chucked a wad of moss at him. He ducked, straightened, and took the next wad in the eyebrow.
“That’s it! You’re dead!” he hollered. She laughed madly and plunged through the field.
She was starting to tire; he could see it in her gait. His legs burned but he was used to this kind of exertion and rapidly closed the distance, so focused that he did not even think when she suddenly stopped. He just leapt forward in a tackle.
She went down, and then they both went down. Down, down, down the hill that had halted her, crashing through bushes and bracken along the way.
They came to rest at last, dizzied and tangled, Cob face-down on the bottom of the mess of backpacks and limbs. He heard her groan and his heart clenched, but then that groan turned into a breathless, ragged laugh, and she squirmed and jabbed him with her elbow until they finally managed to extricate
from each other.
“Are you all right?” she said, bending over him as he rolled onto his back—just close enough to get grass in the mouth when he flung it. With a sound between laughter and fury, she leapt atop him and he was fending her dirty hands from his face when a throat cleared softly nearby.
They looked up to find a strange woman observing them. A veil covered her features from brow to chin, but the rest of her was unrestricted—her long dark hair unbound, her patterned sarong and blouse flowing loosely around her as she moved closer. Strings of red clay beads adorned her neck and wrists, and in her arms she carried a woven basket full of fruit.
“Honored visitors,” she said in oddly accented but impeccable Imperial, “it is more proper to enter by the path.”
Cob let go of Fiora immediately, all the blood rushing to his cheeks. The girl wobbled and planted a hand on his face accidentally, then caught her balance and stood. Cob struggled up as well.
“Uh, sorry, ma’am,” Cob said, feeling thoroughly foolish. He traded a glance with Fiora. They were both covered in bits of grass and flowers and streaks of dirt, their gear torn, hair in disarray, but he could not deny that it had been fun.
By her sneaky grin, she thought so too.
“Uh, we’re here from Turo,” he told the veiled woman, then glanced past her. They had rolled into a cleft in the landscape; here, the briars thinned around a small, oblong lake, and further down the cleft he saw a cluster of low shapes growing from the sod, irregular and furred over with green yet obviously some kind of dwellings. A thick stand of fruit-trees shaded them, uncultivated, as if the homestead had been formed around them rather than vice versa. Other occupants were emerging from the dwellings.
“You should speak with my husband,” said the veiled woman.
Cob nodded and looked to the approaching others, then flinched reflexively. They appeared human—men and women with fine plaited hair and ruddy faces, loosely garbed—but there was something wrong with them, and as they drew closer he realized what it was.
Their eyes. Their skin. ‘Ruddy’ was not correct. They looked fevered, their complexions pale as milk with an unsettling red undertone—eyes red-rimmed as if from crying, the irises themselves a deep vermilion, their mouths red, the rims of their nostrils and the edges of their ears and their fingertips the same. In the light, even their dark hair had a bloody sheen to it. When their lips parted, Cob expected to see fangs.
But they had normal human teeth, and if they were offended by his reaction, the Haarakash did not show it. Five had emerged in all: two men and three women, all in sarongs and sandals, the women in blouses and the men in vests. None bore a weapon or tool, and their clothes blended with the fern and foliage.
One man stepped before the veiled woman like a bodyguard. He wore thick armbands and bracelets of carved wood, his body muscled in a lean way, his dark hair swept back smoothly. Pressing his fists together, he bowed to Cob and Fiora and said, “Honored visitors, I am Adram Kemithos, head of this steading. What brings you from the changing lands to our home this fortunate day?” Behind him, the other men bowed in the same way; the women pressed their palms together instead.
Cob peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and said, “I’m Cob, this’s Fiora. We’ve come from Turo, lookin’ for some help. We been told that your people know, uh…soul magic.”
“Necromancy,” said Fiora. “Cob’s possessed.”
Cob shot her a look, but Adram just nodded. He was closer to Fiora’s height than Cob’s, his face lined but his hair untouched by white, and his expression was nothing but placid. “You have been told truly, but this is merely my family’s home. We can not assist you here. Please allow me to escort you to the hub to consult the Magistrate and the necromancers.” He bowed again formally.
“Uh, that’s all right, we don’t wanna trouble you,” Cob said. It felt rude but these people unnerved him.
Adram straightened and shook his head. “It is no trouble. I enjoy the task. We have few opportunities to speak with those from outside.”
Cob traded another glance with Fiora, who nodded sharply. He looked out at the grassy hills and thorn-hedges and considered the vastness of this place. It was not a little bubble covering a town. It was a whole realm of nearly-trackless wilderness, and he had no idea where he was supposed to go.
Reluctantly, he said, “Very well.”
Adram smiled. “Would you care to refresh yourselves before we go?”
Cob shifted self-consciously, aware of the scratches and dirt-stains, but said, “No. We’ll be fine.”
“As you say. Allow me to take my leave.”
Cob watched as the Haarakash man turned to his family, who gave their farewells in a weirdly formal manner, all bowing and murmuring ritualized words. The veiled woman came last, and Adram broke form long enough to slide his hand beneath the veil to touch her concealed cheek. Then they bowed their heads too, and she withdrew silently. Cob made a face; except for that touch, it all seemed creepily impersonal.
Turning back to them, Adram smiled and said, “Shall we?”
Cob gestured for him to lead.
The Haarakash man led them past the moss-shrouded dwellings and out to where the footpath bisected the cleft-like valley. They turned eastward, where in the distance there still seemed nothing more than shaggy hills and the occasional stand of trees.
“How far is this hub?” Cob said.
“Half a day’s walk.”
“And you can’t jus’…call a necromancer to us, or somethin’? I thought you folk were magic.”
Adram glanced back, smiling slightly. “I am not magic. Nor is anyone in my steading. We must be old-fashioned and use our feet.”
“But…” Cob trailed off, frowning. He had not known what to expect, but certainly it was not this. The only part of Haaraka that seemed appropriately necromantic was the people, but their clothes were wrong, their behavior was wrong—nothing as threatening as he had expected. It was almost disappointing to come this far and find that the dreaded Haarakash were polite, over-formal rural folk.
“So…what’s the hub?” he said as they walked, Fiora at his side.
“It is the community seat for this section of the realm,” said Adram. “The Magistrate can summon our High Necromancer, should she be away on business, or refer you to a wide selection of the local junior necromancers if your possession is not so dire.”
“It’s dire.”
“Then the High Necromancer will aid you. Do not be concerned. We deal with such matters regularly.”
“I thought you were all possessed,” said Fiora.
Cob shot her a look, not sure how sensitive a subject this was, but the girl shrugged as Adram answered, “Not all. There are far fewer wraiths imprisoned here than there are mortals to host them. Our numbers increase with every generation; theirs do not.”
“How does that work?” Cob asked cautiously. “We’ve heard some stories…”
“Oh?”
“That you’re all just wraiths in human skins,” said Fiora. “Not really humans at all. But I guess that can’t be true, if there aren’t enough wraiths to go around. Do you know any?”
“I know Lliancandrien sa Salanar, who lives inside of me.”
The hairs on the back of Cob’s neck rose. “You’re a wraith?”
Though Adram did not turn, his smile was obvious in his voice. “No, honored one, I am not a wraith. I bear the soul of a wraith in tandem to my own. Lliancandrien is my advisor, my tutor, through whose eyes I can see memories of the glorious world from which the wraiths fell. In return, I am the hands, the heart. Like those before me, I teach Lliancandrien what it is to be mortal. To love and fear, to have family, children. To feel compassion for the creatures they once tried to extinguish.”
Cob stared at the back of his head, at the sleek dark hair he could not help but think of as blood-slicked. “But you’re not a mage?”
“That is not my calling. Lliancandrien could teach me, but I am not inc
lined. I am a craftsman,” he said, extending one arm to rattle his wooden cuffs. “The Thorn provides our food, our shelter, and so we are left to be dreamers. Musicians, poets, wanderers. Haaraka covers the shore from fallen Teshen to the Garnet Mountains, across the sea-caves and islands and open waters there, and up the foothills to the outskirts of the Trivestean Plateau. It is filled with old ruins—ogrish, elemental, human, all the land the Thorn consumed as it expanded its territory. Many of us simply travel, explore. There is always more to see.”
“Jus’ peacefully tour around? Your folk don’t ever fight?”
“No, not often.”
“Not even the white wraiths and the grey wraiths?”
Adram sighed. “The Thorn Protector does not like conflict, but yes, there is some residual anger between the haelhene and airahene souls. It is our purpose to contain that hatred, to transfer that passion into something more productive. Our ancestors were drawn here by their suffering—to soothe it, mend it—and we have come far in these many generations, but most of us live apart from the hubs so that our wraiths do not conflict with the wraiths of others. Some seek out such confrontations in the hope of putting grudges to rest, but they are rare.”
“And the necromancers, they’re mostly haelhene?” Cob guessed.
“In the beginning, yes. But no longer. Our wraiths do not control us, they simply aid and influence us. If we do not wish to follow the paths of magic, they can not force us. There are more unhosts practicing the art now than hosts.”
Cob nodded slowly. That, more than anything, helped soothe his nerves, but he reminded himself not to accept it unquestioningly. Just because they weren’t wraith-controlled did not mean they would not turn on him of their own volition.
“And…do your folk still fight with the spirits?” he said.
Adram shook his head. “The Thorn Protector does not permit such conflict. It is one of them. But I imagine your concern is due to your own possession. It is a beast-spirit?”
“More or less.”
“If the Magistrate thinks that it will be a problem, he will advise us. The High Necromancer is very tolerant, though. I would not worry.”
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 40