The circle shimmered like a soap-bubble, then clarified just enough to see a different darkness—not the starlit night but somewhere indoors. He reached through, felt around for a moment with a frown, then withdrew two objects that looked like silver pitons. In his wake, the circle popped.
“Portal stakes,” he said, setting them point-up, their flat triangular bases stable on the rock. “Already connected to the frame at my sanctum. All I have to do is power them, and then we can—“ He froze, a strange expression crossing his face.
“What?” said Cob.
“The sword.”
“What about— Oh.”
The sword that would unravel Enkhaelen's magic. The sword they desperately needed to keep, lest it fall into enemy hands. The sword Cob had promised to return to its fallen owner.
“It can't go through the portal?” he hazarded.
Enkhaelen rubbed the bridge of his nose with his good fingers. “Not in the slightest. Any contact will disrupt the spell. But we can't leave it, we can't—“
“We could go back down the Needle. Walk it outta the swamp.”
The necromancer laughed curtly. “I suppose. But I doubt the White Road is faring any better than the Palace right now, and with the Seals closed, the unseasonal warmth here will fade. Shall we walk in darkness through a freezing swamp, you without the Guardian, your friend injured and myself incapacitated?”
Cob stared out at the darkness. It had taken several days to cross the swamp with his antlers up, and he knew from experience that there were no animals there and very few edible plants. And what had been edible to the Guardian might not be so for him. “If it's our only option...”
“There is the spirit realm,” Arik rumbled.
Enkhaelen shook his head. “The spirits are...not fond of me right now. Or of you, Cob. I don't have the strength for a struggle.”
“Y'say it like you're the only one who can fight.”
“Yes.”
Bristling, Cob opened his mouth to object—then thought twice. Arik was too hurt to be brought into battle; he'd struggled through the assault on the Throne but that had been chaos and necessity. As for himself, he had lost the Guardian, the Dark, the tectonic lever, and the full use of his right arm. Though he had Darilan's akarriden blade, Serindas, he was leery of touching it, let alone trying to fight with it.
At least Enkhaelen could still use his magic. Somewhat.
“Then what d'we pikin' do?” he said.
Enkhaelen shook his head. “No good options. And I won't leave it behind. It pained me enough to cede it to you at the manor. To have it in anyone else's hands...”
“I can carry it,” said Arik. “Take it to the spirit realm and meet you elsewhere.”
“No. No,” said Cob. “That sends you off alone. I can't do that.”
The skinchanger regarded him through unusually cool eyes, and he felt a shock, as if something else was looking at him through Arik, or some part of his friend had surfaced that he'd never been shown before. “I have often been alone. Sometimes it is best.”
I'm sorry I hit you, he wanted to say. I'm sorry I'm such an irrational, angry fool that I'd fight you—that I'd hurt you so bad it injured your spirit.
But he couldn't. Not in front of Enkhaelen.
“Is it safe for you?” he said instead, feeling ill at the prospect. “I mean, you're associated with us. If some of the spirits hate us now...”
“He's in far less danger than any human would be,” Enkhaelen interjected. “Associated or not— Wait. Human. Human?”
Cob eyed him.
The necromancer returned the look. “You're fully human now, aren't you? No more puppet-masters. Nothing to restrict your soul.”
“What?“
“You can do magic.”
Cob's jaw moved but no sound came out. After a moment, he repeated, “What?”
The necromancer shifted aside from the portal-stakes, then beckoned. “Come. Sit. I saw you fight; you already know how to manipulate energy. You can activate the stakes.”
Cob glanced to Arik for support, but the skinchanger wore a thoughtful look. “I can't do magic,” he protested. “I only ever commanded the Guardian.”
“Don't be dense. The Guardian may have given you access to its reservoir but the control was yours by the end. Sit! I won't bite.”
With deep trepidation, Cob moved to sit cross-legged by the necromancer. The air close to him was bitterly cold, but the hand he set on Cob's wrist felt feverish. It took all Cob's will not to flinch away.
“All humans can work magic,” said Enkhaelen. “They just have to be taught. At its base, it's simply the absorption and expulsion of ambient energy, much like breathing is the absorption and expulsion of air. My enchantments are already written into the stakes; you don't need to shape anything, just power them.”
“But the sword,” Cob said, “won't it hurt the enchantments?”
“Yes, I imagine so. But the enchantments only provide the link, the...thread, as it were. Think of a portal as two distant holes in one piece of cloth. You can fold them together, but they fall apart as soon as you let go. If you stitch them instead, they stay together for as long as you maintain the stitch, and you can pass things through the gap. My 'thread' will decay rapidly once the sword enters the portal, but if its passage is swift, it shouldn't be ejected into nil space.”
“So...I power the portal, then we throw the sword through?”
“It seems our best option.”
“And it's jus'...pushin' energy at it?”
Enkhaelen motioned to the stakes. “Set a hand on each. Most mages are taught to draw energy through their off-hand and project it through their main, but I know how the Guardian works. You draw energy from below—through your feet or whatever contacts the earth, to your core, and then outward. The Guardian isn't what allowed you to do that. It merely showed you something you could already do. Now try.”
Cob stared at him, then at the stakes. He remembered the feel of the Guardian's power moving through him, to construct his stone-and-bark armor and for finer work like mending flesh and blessing fertility. But to do it without the spirit? To wield magic on his own?
It frightened him. The last power he'd touched had been the Dark.
But Enkhaelen was watching him expectantly, as was Arik, so he focused his attention on the stakes. They were cool to the touch, made of rune-etched silver and approximately the length of his hand, with tapered tips that looked like they could punch through flesh. Immediately he felt a chill in his fingers like something was sipping at him—not insistent, just there.
Closing his eyes, he let his senses sink to the stone below.
He'd always felt at home surrounded by rock—though the idea of home, by now, was tinged with painful nostalgia. The Guardian had manipulated his memories of his parents and of Kerrindryr's caves and cliffs for its own ends, and he couldn't dismiss his bitterness.
Still, he felt rooted in that landscape: cold and wind-swept, austere, aloof. He could almost pretend he was there now, with the spine of the mountain beneath him and the slow, enduring strength of it in his veins.
This wasn't the same, of course. The Hag's Needles were a lopsided ring of narrow stone spires that protruded from Daecia Swamp as if trying to pierce the sky, and though this one was the largest, it felt nothing like a mountain. The tensions inside it were not tectonic but erosive, the whole thing shivering with the residual impact of the Seal.
He frowned. It was strange enough that he could sense the earth, though like his night-vision he supposed it was a lingering result of the Guardian's tamperings. Stranger to think that he could harness it.
“We wield magic with our souls, like we wield weapons with our bodies,” said Enkhaelen beside him. “You've done it before. Reach out, grip, pull. Be careful not to get too much.”
Cob started to release the stakes, then stopped. He didn't need to touch the stone with his hands. He'd grappled with the Guardian before, so if it was just like th
at...
The resonance in the stone—the Seal's aftershocks—rippled against him like slow waves. Cautiously, he let his attention move with the pattern, then when it reached its apex he pulled.
It flooded into him, blood-hot. He gasped and almost let go—but there were the stakes beneath his fingers, still sipping at his life, and he saw the pathway imprinted on the insides of his eyes. It was water and he was the pipe; all he had to do was direct it.
As its surge touched the stakes, they snapped awake, and the portal unfurled before him. Even with his eyes closed, he saw it stitching itself into existence with the energy he fed it, drawing together disparate dimensions into a single pane as dangerous as a fault-line.
“Throw it through,” he heard the necromancer say through the rushing in his ears. Something tugged at his shoulder, shifted, then lifted, and Arik gave a grunt of effort—
The arch caved in, unraveling wildly. In his grip, universes sheared apart, pulling his soul in all directions, and—
Short nails bit into his neck, cutting off the flow. Residual power battered around him like storm-waves at a pier, his hands burning then freezing as it fled through them. Then it was gone, and he slumped forward and barely caught himself, gasping through lungs that felt frost-bitten.
“You're a bit too open,” said Enkhaelen calmly, hand still resting on his nape. “I suppose that's the Void's doing.”
He couldn't find his breath. His teeth chattered spasmodically, and the stone under his hands felt like nothing because he'd lost track of his fingers.
“Arik, pull him aside, please. I can't do anything else for him until we're in my sanctum.”
A muscular arm caught him around the ribs. He didn't resist as he was moved, too focused on clinging to consciousness as exhaustion tried to sweep him away. Through half-cracked eyelids he saw the portal rise again, unpleasantly shredded at the edges—then Arik heaved him over his shoulder and he saw only fur. A disjunctive spasm passed through him from feet to gut to head, and if not for the emptiness of his stomach he would have puked down Arik's back. As it was, he choked and kicked once, no longer sure what was happening, just afraid.
The world swung. He landed in a pile of cushions, agony shocking up his entire right arm, and he curled as best he could to protect it.
“Help me through,” he heard Enkhaelen say, then, “Oh shit—throw the sword out the door. Throw it out!”
Claws scuffed on stone. Something flared bright on the other side of his eyelids, accompanied by a crackle and the smell of lightning. A cold, fresh wind swept in, making him realize that for a moment he had been in a tepid environment which had now been punctured.
He cracked his eyes open to see Enkhaelen crawling through the shred-edged portal, cursing fitfully. Arik was at an open doorway, staring into the night; the only light was the necromancer's little wisp, now hanging at the peak of the low domed ceiling. Crates and furniture and a shrouded hulk that might have been a desk threw sharp shadows across the floor; behind the hulk hung a painting, its face turned to the wall.
Enkhaelen pulled his legs free, then turned and reached through the portal to retrieve the stakes. As he brought them through, it collapsed, nearly snipping off his fingers in its haste.
“Flaming pikes,” the necromancer rasped, tossing the stakes aside with weary negligence. “It would be so much easier to be dead.”
“Firebird!” shouted someone outside.
Cob pushed himself up on his good arm, alarmed. He had no idea where they were, but from the unease on Enkhaelen's face, being called out had not been part of his plan. The necromancer grabbed the nearest crate and tried to lever himself to his feet, but his legs refused to hold him; with trepidation, Cob rose and caught him under the armpit for support.
Enkhaelen shot him an inscrutable look but didn't object. “To the door,” he muttered, and Cob nodded.
The wisp-light whisked out ahead of them, illuminating a field of snow greatly marked by paw-prints. A trampled section near the entry showed a partial imprint of the silver sword, but the weapon itself was not there. Instead, it gleamed in the hands of a wolf-woman who stood a few strides further back, squinting against the pallid light.
“Ressah?” Cob said hesitantly, remembering her from the Garnet Mountain wolf-pack.
She was far more wolf than woman now, bipedal but thoroughly furred, her vest and laced breeches incongruous and her jaw elongated, toothy. Behind her were dozens more of the wolf-folk, some in bestial form but most hybrid and all with blood on their mouths. All favoring the same fore-limb.
A growl rolled through the crowd as they spotted Cob. His stomach sank.
Next to him, Arik stood bristled, tense as a wire.
“Firebird,” said the wolf-woman again, yellow gaze sliding from him to Enkhaelen, “we have awaited your return.”
The necromancer grasped the door-frame, and Cob saw his knuckles go white as he tried to hold himself up with it. A jerk of his other arm almost shrugged Cob off, but couldn't; he was still too unsteady. Carefully Cob stepped back, keeping his grip but trying to be less conspicuous. If the wolves were angry, it wouldn't do to let their front-man seem weak.
“Glad to be here,” rasped the necromancer dryly. “You can go home now.”
Ressah growled. “You said that you would mend us. Mend our spirit.”
“Yes. As a kindness. And in my own time.”
A flicker of cloth made Cob look down. The necromancer's fingers were moving beneath his overhanging sleeve, blue spell-light hidden from the wolves by its position. As he watched, radiant threads ran up the backs of the necromancer's legs, and the man subtly straightened.
“As an obligation,” the wolf-woman rejoined. “You are the Great Spirit of Predators. You must fix what the prey-spirit has done to us.” Her gaze strayed to Cob again and her furred lips peeled back from her teeth. “And you must give us the offender. He has betrayed our goodwill.”
Cold fear uncoiled in Cob's stomach. He deserved their rage—he knew he did—and there was nowhere to run. Arik might fight for him, but against that mob...
“I do not take orders,” said Enkhaelen tightly.
Ressah raised the silver sword. “We know this thing. It has value to you. You will mend us, and you will give us the young stag, or you will not see it again.”
Sparks rose from where Enkhaelen's fingers curled on the door-frame. On the inner wall, out of sight of the wolves, blue runes flared and dissolved, their energy converging into lines that ran into Enkhaelen's waiting hand. The bracework on his legs strengthened and spread upward, luminescing across his back.
The hairs on Cob's arm crackled with static. He let go and stepped away, leaving the necromancer to stand on his own.
“You threaten me?” said Enkhaelen, low and deliberate.
“We demand our vengeance. We demand your loyalty. You, who betrayed the whole world when you let the lying Light in. You, who allowed us to be forced from our lands and slaughtered. You, who have broken every pact the Ravager made with us.”
Ressah's last words resonated with an unnatural timbre, and Cob realized in alarm that all the wolves' mouths had moved. His nerves screamed as the wolf-shaped ones rose en masse, shifting into their long-clawed and red-mawed hybrid forms. New blood dripped from inch-long fangs; a hundred eyes stared balefully.
“You, reckless traitor,” said the Great Wolf through their mouths. “You, Firebird. Give me my prey and fulfill your promise.”
“Do you realize where you're standing?”
Enkhaelen's voice was surprisingly light, given the threat. Cob eyed him, then glanced to Arik and felt a shock as he saw that same malevolence in his friend's stare. Arik had not spoken with the other wolves, but as their eyes met, he revealed his teeth in a threatening grin.
“This is my territory, not yours,” Enkhaelen said, and stepped out, more energy peeling from the walls to join him. Cob couldn't watch because Arik was moving too—raising his good hand with its nasty claws, grinnin
g wider...
“I protected you once,” the necromancer continued. “Don't make me change my mind. Just put down the sword and go, and I will mend you when I have time.”
The wolves laughed, harsh and choral, a nasty chuff echoing from Arik as well. “Your time is over, traitor-bird,” said the Wolf. “We will take the Ravager for ourselves.”
Arik lunged, wild-eyed, maw wide. Cob raised his arm in reflex and screamed as his friend's jaws clamped down on it, teeth piercing deep into flesh. Claws raked for his belly and he twisted aside with panicked instinct, feeling them scrape across bare skin but not catch. He raised his fist for a throat-punch but hesitated, flashing on their crippling last fight.
Claws tore into his shoulder and scored his neck. A furred heel hooked behind his and tripped him backward, a heavy body slamming him off his feet.
He hit the floor in a thrashing, kicking frenzy, desperate to wedge at least one leg up to protect his guts. The skinchanger's good hand raked across his blocking shoulder again, the other still tucked against his own side; Cob used that opening to pound his fist into Arik's injured ribs. Blood coughed out from the snarling muzzle, but Arik just jerked his head side-to-side as if trying to remove Cob's arm at the elbow.
Desperate, Cob punched at his head and felt teeth scrape along the bones of his forearm. A hind-claw bit into his upper thigh, a thumb-claw pierced the side of his neck—
Redness filled his vision. The thunder in his ears was deafening, pulse after pulse like a hammer in his skull. He pummeled anything he could hit, the air coming in like needles through his teeth, but the huge wolfmonster stayed atop him, clamped on and determined to make the kill. His right arm sang with agony, blood running down his throat in hot runnels.
Then a sharp blue light punctured his ruddy veil, and he blinked up to see Enkhaelen above them, one hand pinched on the back of Arik's neck, face taut and eyes fiery. The skinchanger's expression flickered from murderous to confused to despairing, and the jaws unlocked completely as he slumped off to the side with a whimper.
“Flaming pikes,” the necromancer said, looking down at Cob, then dropped to one knee half-over him. Blue light still flickered around his hands, and Cob recoiled automatically, raising his mangled arm in self-defense.
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 2
