The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  Mal looked upstream. He studied the boulder-strewn bank twisting out of sight a quarter mile back. The angled rocks climbed the bank fifteen feet and better above the river. He looked over to the forest. “Point taken,” he said, “River’s too aggressive here. We’ll have to backtrack. That’ll take us out into the plains and south around the forest.”

  “Belay that!” Tree said, “It’s all exposed land through that route. No cover. Easy pickings for any mobs of prodes that might be sailing above us.”

  “Aye,” Mal said, shaking his head, “You’re right, Tree. What’s our next best option?”

  “Consider this for one minute before you throw a fit,” Tree said directly to Lucifeus, “Recall that point you showed us on that map from your steel jar?”

  “The Drayma,” Mal said.

  “I don’t give a singing shit what you call it. The point on it indicating the cave or whatever foolery we’re driving toward, you recall that?”

  Mal just looked at her. He’d remember that map the rest of his days.

  “It’s maybe a day’s march due east after we cross the river,” she pressed, “Assuming the map is accurate, taking the army that far south to cross in comfort will cost us days, maybe a couple weeks. One way or another, we need to cross right here near this spot. Once we’re over, the wagons won’t be much more than a half day’s use to us.”

  “What are you saying?” Lucifeus said.

  “I’m saying,” Tree replied as carefully as explaining suckling to an infant, “That all we have holding up our crossing within a half mile of here is the wagons. And once across, there’s little more than a day’s hike to the feet of the mountains where we’ll have to abandon them anyway. Terrain’s too rough after that. You ask me, we cut a route straight south through the trees to a calmer point upstream, maybe a mile or so, maybe less. Once there, we can bust up most of the wagons and make rafts to ferry the crew and horses across.”

  Mal looked over at Freer. “You on board with this plan?”

  Freer nodded. “Aye, Cap’n. Barging ye way through disobliging forest may likely expense ye full weeks effort short of bill paid due upon kissing distant shore. Won’t be easy, felling sorry woods to welcoming road, but time saved may be deemed invaluable.”

  Mal looked over at Tree. “How soon?”

  “We’ll start clearing a path within the hour,” Tree said, “We have plenty of lumberers in the team. We could even start breaking up some wagons here and float them upstream by rope. Shouldn’t take long to build rafts. We’ve some experience with hobbling boats together from flotsam, jh’ven?” She sent Mal a telling wink.

  “That bloody well better not be a reference to the Laughing Molly,” Mal said to her.

  Tree laughed and threw her fists down on her hips. “Nay, Cap’n Fark. I’d sooner keelhaul Freer here than side with the dandy against you.”

  Even Lucifeus laughed at that.

  “Fine,” Mal said, “Send the necessary crew and supplies upstream to set a base camp on the other side. Tree, you select who goes. I want everyone else across that river in three days. Do you understand me? Three days, not a minute longer.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” Tree said with a nod, “She’s a sound plan.”

  “God’s hooks!” Lucifeus said suddenly, “Just you hold up a minute here! Do I get a vote on any of this? I realize I’m only the chief captain, but shouldn’t I at least be offered a ceremonial ‘by your leave’?”

  “Why, of course, Captain Fark, sir,” Mal said with as much sarcasm as he could muster, “How have we so miserably failed our charge as to fence His Royal Asshole out of the decision. Sink me! Sir, if your eminence deems this plan sound, would it please Him to pass His most sacred blessing onto to us, His most humble and undeserving subordinates?”

  Mal didn’t wait for the tirade that followed, but turned and marched back into the forest. In truth, he was more pissed at himself for making assumptions and not having the road ahead properly scouted. It was exactly that kind of fool’s mistake that was going to cost them a thousand years of planning.

  XXVIII

  THE CRYSTAL CAVE REDUX

  KOONTA PULLED HER HAIR BACK BEHIND HER HEAD AND BEGAN WEAVING THE PALE TRESSES INTO TIGHT, PRECISE BRAIDS.

  She’d braided it so many times in her life that her hands needed no direction as they worked it. It was a familiar and mundane task, a task performed by her mother and father and ancestors for a thousand years before her. And it was exactly the tedium she needed to help her stabilize the chaos of this overwhelmingly bizarre moment.

  The woman looking back at her from the crystalline mirror was a near stranger to her. Her sorry face was sallow and drawn, trampled and hollow. She watched her back from the eyes of an old woman, care-lined, sunken, and woeful. She looked like a woman who’d seen the darkest of Prae’s dungeons and had the grave misfortune of living to tell about it.

  But the strangest thing about the image was how it projected the perfect contrast to the way she felt physically. She felt comfortable, well rested, even vigorous. She hadn’t so much as an ache to complain about. It was a wonder that a person who felt so healthy and vital might project an image that looked to be tottering the grave.

  More than that, she felt preternaturally calm. Her natural warrior’s sense of caution, vigilance, and suspicion had deserted her company. Even more peculiar, she felt no motivation to track them down. She felt soothed and peaceful, even serene. It was similar to the effect the mage’s tonic had instilled in her back in those wretched tunnels, minus the bullying effect of the sedation. She couldn’t explain it and felt no need to try.

  This place felt uniquely familiar. Not like she’d been here before, but more like she should’ve been here long before this. She had no desire to do anything more than sit here tending her hair on this crystal bench that looked as if it’d grown out of the icy floor itself.

  A shiver seized her with that thought. This odd calm just wasn’t rational. She simply should not accept it so unconditionally.

  It wasn’t natural to be not afraid, or at least a little alarmed. She’d awoken in a lush, down-filled bed in a crystal room that sat in an equally crystalline fortress. She had no memory of her flight up from the tunnels, and only the vaguest memories of the trip here or of Beam directing her to this bedchamber. She couldn’t even say when that had happened. Was it hours ago? Days ago? Weeks? She should want to get away from this hallucination, should want to escape out into the daylight, to run just as fast as she could back to her people.

  Instead, she laid the brush down and broke free the braids she’d coerced her tresses into just moments ago. She shook her long, pale hair free and let it spill over her shoulders. Then she stood up and walked around the great bed and past the warm, bubbling mineral pool where she’d bathed earlier. She stopped before a wardrobe that beckoned from beneath a most benevolent glass arch. The closet was ridiculous in size, as deep and wide as her entire bedroom back home in Vaen.

  She sorted through the dozens of lush garments made from the smoothest satins, softest wools, and finest cottons she’d ever seen. The collection was a rainbow of colors, all cut from the same old-timey designs she’d seen in the ancient paintings and prints hanging in the temples and parliament buildings she’d visited in her youth. The gowns were lavish and extravagant and richly detailed, and smelled fresh and fragrant. And they were all far too garish for the tastes of a simple warrior.

  In the end, she found a matching set of tunic and breeches cut from the softest, most luscious leather she’d ever brushed fingers across. They were dyed in the sincere blue of an early spring sky. The seams along the arms and legs were delicately embroidered in a metallic lavender thread through which were woven a myriad of tiny gems of a dozen colors. The effects of these new trappings were nearly similar enough to a military uniform (minus the color, the gems, and the fancy stitching) that she believed she could be comfortable in them, at least for the time being.

  She looked at an array of sa
ndals and shoes aligned in perfect formation on a series of glassy shelves lining the closet’s side wall, but immediately decided against them. In stark contrast to the frozen appearance of the icy black floor, the surface felt warm and soothing beneath her bare feet.

  As she considered herself in the crystal mirror, she again wondered about the seductive nature of this narcotic dream. How else could she so easily succumb to a trance as indulgent and materialistic as this? Then again, wouldn’t she be a fool not to embrace it? If this were all some dark hallucination suffered as she slowly died in a venomous stupor back in those miserable tunnels, why shouldn’t she accept it? Maybe it was safe to abandon the warrior and let the woman walk free in these final delusions of indulgence, even if just for a bit.

  Her mind drifted to the rogue. She had a sudden compulsion to talk to him, to ask him questions and have him politely deliver the answers, though even in this delirious palsy she had no misconceptions that the dance would ever flow that smoothly. Not with dear old Beam. Of all the delusions imposed by this stupendous dream, that was the wildest and most unbelievable.

  With that, she shook her hair back over her shoulders and exited the room. The crystalline hall outside her chamber seemed endless. It was unnecessarily wide with a lofty, vaulted ceiling richly engraved with images of sprites and angels flitting through the delicate branches of an orchard. Despite the lack of torches or candles, the entire space shone with the soft light of a young dawn. A warm glow pooled in the icy black floor immediately below her feet. It followed her every step so that she was never in darkness.

  She walked down the tall corridor, passing door after door as she made her way to the great main chamber. The doors on these rooms were little more than sheets of silky glass with no handles, no hinges, not even seams where they met the jamb, just a point where the crystal of the door flowed into the floor like water gently streaming into a pool. Ornate, glassy tables and settees lined the walls between the rooms, each as glassy as if they’d simply grown up from the floor beneath them. The only items she’d seen that weren’t made of the peculiar crystal were her bed linens, the down mattress she’d slept on, the elegant garments hanging in the wardrobe, and the food.

  She stopped before a bowl of apples resting atop a tall, narrow table perched delicately between two rooms. She picked one up. It was large and flawless, its skin painted in a blush of red, pink, and golden yellow. She lifted it to her nose and drew in its sweet scent. It was far too early in the season for apples, yet these looked and smelled as fresh as if she’d just plucked them from the branch herself. How could fruit so fresh be produced so early in the season? Even more curiously, who put them here?

  That was the question that plagued her most. Who else was in this fortress with them? She’d been at Beam’s side when they entered the cave sometime in the past days. She was fairly certain he’d directed her to her room and abandoned her there without instructions, though the memories remained vague at best. Still, she was confident she’d seen no one else.

  Apple in hand, she proceeded on toward the grand hall. The corridor eventually ended at another large arch marking the entrance into the massive throne room.

  She didn’t actually know it was a throne room, but didn’t know what else to call it. The room was colossal with a high domed ceiling covered with naked gods and other deities dancing in some carnal ritual across its slippery surface. The images were so grotesque in their decadence, some ancient Parhronii must have carved them. The Vaemysh people would never degrade themselves with such an absurd act of self-indulgence.

  The same types of chairs and tables as she’d seen in the long hall adorned the curved wall of this vast room. Some tables held piles of carefully stacked scrolls, some were stacked with heavy books, while others boasted glassy bowls of fruits and cheeses and decanters of wines. In the very middle of the chamber rested a wide dais framed at the corners by four glassy pillars, each the size of ancient oaks, each covered from ceiling to floor in graceful, archaic runes, each hosting the carved image of one of the four dominant races. Squatting strangely in the midst of this dais was the throne. She remembered seeing this before. She had the haziest memory of seeing a corpse or skeleton somewhere around here when they’d passed the first time, though she couldn’t say when she’d seen it.

  Even as she thought it, the memories swelled. She squeezed the apple against her breast as she fought the vertigo washing in with the images. They’d ridden hard for two days. She remembered stopping only long enough for her to relieve herself and take sustenance, though the rogue had never done either so far as she could recall. She’d slept while they rode, which was easier than she could’ve imagined under the circumstances. In contrast, she never even saw him close his eyes.

  When the horse would become so worn and worrisome from its efforts that she was sure it’d never recover, he’d let it drink and eat for a bit before applying the light of his peculiar white caeyl to the animal’s brow, delivering it through the palm of his hand placed firmly against the animal’s brow. Within the hour, the beast would be nearly as good as new, and he’d drive it on at a lope for another half a day before stopping again. In all the time of their ride, he hadn’t spoken a word, hadn’t even looked at her. Not until they entered the cave. Not until they found the skeleton.

  She’d immediately recognized the corpse as that of a Vaemysh warrior. Long since dead and far beyond decay, it was identifiable only by its oteuryns and the long wisps of pale yellow hair still clinging to the mummified patches of skin on its skull. And yet, she’d somehow known it was one of her people even without those clues. It lay sprawled across a giant suit of obvious mudsteel, the same armor worn by wyrlaerds.

  It was an odd sight, made more so by the condition of the armor, which was slightly different from the remains of Wonugh, the demon killed by the rogue back at the mage’s house. This mudsteel looked older and rougher hewn, and was warped and twisted as if it’d been exposed to a great heat. The remains of the dead Vaemyn draped across the suit as if the two had met their demise together in a macabre and terminal dance.

  The memory of her first encounter with the skeleton fleshed with detail as she considered it. She remembered the rogue had grieved dearly at the sight. He looked to be gripped by a fit of melancholy. He’d collapsed to his knees beside it. His face betrayed an anguish that she knew well, having worn the same mask herself in the not so distant past at the loss of her own. It was the face of harsh grief, of a deep, dark grief that can only be brought on by a profound and irrecoverable loss.

  She remembered the rogue removing two rings from his own living fingers and slipping them onto the bony fingers of the corpse. Then he lowered his head and fell as still as the remains lying before him. He knelt there in silence for what had seemed like forever. He hadn’t muttered any prayers or offered any chants, hadn’t shown any of the usual platitudes of grief, but only knelt over the remains as if in a state of deep meditation. When he did finally speak, it was only to point to a corridor at the rear of the hall. Last room, left side was all he’d said.

  Now the skeleton was gone. The floor before the dais was occupied only by the mangled armor.

  She felt a sudden compulsion to see Beam. Her thoughts didn’t feel like her own. Odd images danced through her mind, elusive images cloaked in shadow and memory. She needed to talk to him, to touch him, to make him confirm that this wasn’t a delusion. She had questions that he must answer.

  She looked again at the mangled mudsteel. It took all her resolve not to kick the suit across the hall. Instead, she stepped over it.

  The rogue was nowhere to be seen.

  She stepped cautiously up onto the dais, pausing before the elaborate throne. Who was this man, she wondered for the thousandth time since awakening from the venom-induced delirium? What really was his role in this sorry mess? Was he the Father she’d heard her lover whisper of? Was he a demon? Or was he simply a crude rogue with a henchman’s stare who was more interested in profit than pro
phecy as she’d believed from the moment she’d met him back in the swamp?

  She prayed to Calina it wasn’t the latter. Anything else she could deal with, but not a disappointment as great as that, not after all she’d been through, after all she’d lost. Since their mutual awakening in the tunnels, and despite her natural suspicions and misgivings, he stirred something in her, something at once compelling and elusive. Something utterly terrifying.

  She spied a particularly large arch standing on the direct opposite side of the throne room from the corridor leading to her chambers. She didn’t remember seeing it when they’d first entered, though the hall was so large it would’ve been easy to miss. That and the fact that she was in a state of near sleepwalking at the time.

  She walked toward it.

  The arch was grand and massive, towering thirty feet above the floor. A door secured it, a door exactly like those in the corridor where her room resided (though four times its size). The door’s surface looked like a sheet of water frozen in place. As she studied it, she heard something beyond it, something like muttered words or soft invocations. She leaned closer. Someone was definitely whispering beyond them, though she couldn’t make out the essence of the words. She knelt and lowered her head to the floor, but found no taer-cael.

  After a bit, she pushed herself back to her knees. The sound was still there, a gentle susurration that seemed miles away. And yet she somehow recognized it to be a woman’s voice. Perhaps the owner belonged to the one who’d placed the apples. If so, it meant there was either another guest in this fortress or an intruder.

  She again pressed her ear to the door. The murmuring stopped. Had the intruder heard her? Or had she perhaps been mistaken? Maybe the voice was simply in her mind. Maybe it was part of this strange narcotic trance that’d held her captive since she’d awakened. Maybe it was the effect of air moving through the cave?

  She gripped her brow and willed away the confusion. No, she told herself. It’s exhaustion, nothing more. Just her fatigue playing tricks on the mind. Ignore it.