The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4)

by H. Anthe Davis

  Cob saw no such need. It seemed like a waste of supplies to do so at every stop, plus he didn't want to be given any more reason to strangle the man. With miles to go before they reached the foot of the peak, he chose to let Enkhaelen sleep.

  Himself, he only slept as much as his dreams would let him. He couldn't blame them on the Guardian anymore; these were no historic visions, no spirit-sendings, just nightmares. His friends dissolving in the Palace-glare, blown to ash and sand; or himself in a maze of canyons, running, running, finding no outlet; or that old familiar climb—the cliff-trail leading to the waterfall and the white trees, all bent now before a dark and seething wind.

  Or Fiora.

  The last were always the worst. He would wake, clutching for a red thread that was no longer there, and stare for a while into the insensate dark, not sure what to feel about it. Sad? That was foolish; he hadn't been happy with her, their relationship a tug-of-war that had ended with his loss. Worried? She'd insisted she could take care of herself, and maybe she was right.

  Lost?

  He tried not to think about it. Arik was right there if he'd wanted to talk, and Enkhaelen was far too deep a sleeper to interrupt them, but he'd never been good with words. He didn't want to fumble at them in front of a friend, or really acknowledge his feelings at all.

  So they trekked onward into moon-set and then full darkness, the Chain of Ydgys wheeling slowly below the horizon as well. The Eye of Night rose, a glowering hole in the sky, until it hung directly over the peak they sought.

  Cob called another halt then, leading them down into a hollow below the ridge they'd been walking because he couldn't stand to look at it. That black circle set all his hairs on end, and he was tired, and achy, and numbed from the silence. He set his back to it instead, and as Arik settled across from him, pale fur standing out against the dark rock of the hollow and ears perked forward in attentive question, he found himself wishing his other friends were here. He loved Arik, but Arik wouldn't ask what was wrong, and he couldn't speak.

  They broke down a sheltered bramble-bush to make their fire and started drying frozen branches at its side. Cob tried to eat, but without the mental effort of route-planning, his thoughts slipped to the volcano ahead. Eruptions made the earth shake, and any shaking would cause avalanches, and—

  Stop.

  —Arik had mentioned hot-springs, which meant there was fire under the earth at least far enough to affect the ogre village, and—

  Stop.

  —they hadn't listened, and—

  Stop!

  He rubbed the crooked bridge of his nose, trying to banish his destructive visions. As much as he hated to admit it, Enkhaelen was right. If the villagers wouldn't move, he couldn't make them, and he had to do this—had to reset the Seals before something killed Enkhaelen and snapped them all back to their spots.

  The Pillar wave, the Rift's rise… That couldn't happen again.

  On the other side of the fire, the bundle of Enkhaelen stirred, then bucked. Cob blinked, surprised; normally it took effort on their part to raise the necromancer to consciousness, but as he stared, a booted foot pushed out from the swaddle of blankets and oilcloth. An arm tried to follow suit at the other end.

  “Y'need some help?” he said, watching the arm flail ineffectually.

  An aggravated sound came from within. He took that as a yes.

  “Why did you roll me up like a rug?” the necromancer complained muzzily as Cob started to peel him out.

  “Convenient,” said Arik.

  “Considerin' you're usually dead t' the world once y'pass out, we didn't think it was a big deal.” Pulling the last layer away, Cob tried to draw the necromancer into a sitting position, but Enkhaelen slapped weakly at his arm then flopped onto his side to stare into the flames. “Fine, be that way,” Cob muttered, and retook his place.

  The necromancer blinked slowly as if trying to organize his faculties. He didn't look entirely conscious, his pupils over-wide and vague. “Why am I awake?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Did something change?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Where are we?”

  Cob looked over his shoulder to the gap in their rocky hollow and the half-obscured mountain beyond. “Some miles out from the base still. Got a wide valley t'cross, then whatever path we can find to the summit. It's no Thundercloak peak, but I can't see it proper with the moon down. Hard t' tell what route t' take, or if there even is one.”

  “There is,” murmured Enkhaelen. “I've been in the caldera before.”

  “Yeah, in daylight, and probably in summer. That's a bit different than—“

  “There are tunnels.”

  “Where?”

  Enkhaelen lifted his hand just enough to gesture mountain-ward, then let it flop back down. “Wyndon side. South. Probably others here, though. Saw a lot of tunnels when I went up there to get the Seal.”

  “But you don't know where they are.”

  “Mh. You should try sounding the earth. Be productive, learn things.”

  Frowning, Cob glanced again toward the peak. In the Garnet Mountains, he'd used the tectonic lever to sound for caves to make into shelters for his friends, but he had neither the lever nor the Guardian's strength now. Still...

  He set his palm to the rock beneath him, remembering how it had felt to be a part of it—fissures like veins and soil like skin, thick layers of sandstone and granite like muscle and bone. Now his senses were locked within his skull, jailed by the confines of his body, but he knew how to push energy into the portal-stakes. If he pushed himself into the stone that same way…

  It felt like extending another set of fingers from his palm: fine, thin things that lengthened the longer he concentrated. The stone here was riddled with hairline fractures which let him pass more easily than the rock itself, and as he slid his way down he caught the tang of each mineral layer. It was like sticking his hand into a stony crevice, if only his hand had taste-buds.

  There were roots too, fitting into even the smallest of cracks, but they petered out eventually. Then it was nothing but darkness, damp, and the strange flavors in his mind: a lick of limestone, an ashy tuff, a dry cord of basalt.

  Then brine. Black brine—

  He yanked free by reflex and struck the wall behind him, heels scraping fiercely at the ground to push away. It took a scrabbling, panting moment to remember where he was, and to acknowledge the fire and the figures of his companions, the absence of the black water.

  His arm tingled, and he scratched it through his sleeve.

  Enkhaelen, propped half-up, said, “Are you all right?” The firelight painted his face sincere, his eyes sharper. Wary. “I didn't mean you should do it now. We're still far off.”

  “No, no, it's fine,” said Cob, and slumped away from the wall, toward the fire. Sweat rolled off his face, either from the panic or the effort of magic—he couldn't tell. “I need t'practice. I jus'… The Dark...”

  “Wait until we're closer,” said Enkhaelen. “You let it in once, so it will seek you forever, but when we're near the volcano the magma will keep it away.”

  Cob looked down at his hands. He remembered being in those crushing depths, halfway through the gate, his mother's hair entwining like seaweed around him. The whole of his body being hollowed out. He didn't need to dream it; that horrid sensation was still with him all the time. That lack. The knowledge that some part of him had been carved away.

  “You'll be all right,” Enkhaelen continued, perhaps reading his expression. “As long as you don't touch it, you'll eventually mend. It sucks the souls from its victims like snails from their shells—but yours is still there. Just damaged, not removed.”

  “It took a lot outta me,” he murmured.

  “Apparently not enough.”

  He shot a hard look at the necromancer, who flapped his hand in distress. “Not what I meant! I'm not being sarcastic, I'm saying it didn't take enough to win. It didn't beat you, so don't act like it did.”<
br />
  “I'm not.”

  “Not now, no. But sometimes you do.”

  They matched stares for a moment, Cob glowering, Enkhaelen wry and weary. “Anyway,” said the necromancer, “it's been a long time since I shifted the Seal, but it's barely a blink of an eye for a mountain. Most of the tunnels are probably still there. Ice-filled, maybe, or collapsed—that would be irritating. But any time we spend underground will shield us from our foes.”

  “Y'still think the Trifolders tattled on us?”

  “Not the Trifolders. The Blood Goddess cultists among them.”

  Cob eyed him suspiciously. “First y'say it's the Trifolders...”

  “You can't expect me to speak plainly about inter-deity espionage while we're inside a temple.” He sighed. “Listen. Some of the gods mean well. I can accept that about the Trifold, I suppose. But others do not, and they take advantage of the gods and holy orders that do. They can't act upon the world directly, as that would violate the Gods' Pact, but they can send agents into their rival priesthoods as spies, saboteurs, assassins. It's been going on for millennia.”

  “And you think the Trifold…?”

  “Oh, they're riddled with parasites. I don't doubt that. How they keep themselves hidden from the priestesses, I don't know, but I've been watching for a while and I've seen many a temple implode. They have no great global hierarchy, which shields them from the sort of swift corruption Rackmar worked on the Phoenix Light, but still…”

  “So some cultist in the Cantorin temple told the Empire about me last time?”

  “Yes. Might have been your girlfriend.”

  Cob's heart lurched into his throat, but the expected rage didn't come. Instead, he felt leaden, heavy, as if he could sink into the earth. “What?”

  “I told you, I heard things when she came up the dais to attack me. Aradys seemed to believe she was on his side—or had been—and she reacted when he used the Blood Goddess's name.”

  “That doesn't mean anythin',” he murmured, but in his mind's eye he saw her dismounting the courier's horse on the caravan road, beaming at him around the draft-hog. Claiming she'd overheard a plot against him, then come immediately to warn him. He'd accepted it so easily.

  No. No, Enkhaelen can't be right. I cared for her, and she for me.

  Until the Guardian fled. Until the Palace was broken. Then she'd turned away with barely a word.

  “But if it was her,” he reasoned weakly, “she couldn't have told on us this time.”

  “Where there is one, there are generally a handful.”

  “How do you know?”

  Enkhaelen shook his head. “I can't be perfectly sure, it's true. Nor do I know anyone who could confirm or clear my suspicions. —Well, Gwydren, I suppose, but piss on him.”

  “What's your grudge there?” Cob asked, but perfunctorily. It meant nothing to his slowly-freezing heart.

  Enkhaelen didn't answer. After a moment, Cob dredged his gaze up from the fire to find the necromancer staring back. “What?” he prompted.

  “I forget how young you are.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have this stolid demeanor and you're probably twice my weight, but you're still a child. Soft on the inside.”

  Cob controlled a snarl with effort. “What, like you're so much better?”

  “Not better. Different. Crystal versus clay. I just punched you flat; I see that. I apologize. But you'll find a new shape. Hopefully a wiser one.”

  The anger kicked in again, swelling his chest. “Wiser?” he snapped. “What, like you? Wise enough to let go, maybe? Wise enough not to blaze a path through the entire pikin' Empire and burn down everythin' around you?”

  Holding his stare, Enkhaelen said, “Yes.”

  “Go shove it up your ass!”

  “No thank you. Too much effort involved.”

  Cob threw a stick at him for that, harder than he should have. The necromancer ducked behind his arms and hissed as it bounced off them. A part of him wanted to follow it with fists and kicks—to let all the bottled-up anger and pain and fear out, to take some physical revenge on the man who had mangled the world. Who could well be lying to get a rise out of him, to turn him against the Trifold and Fiora, to bend him to his will.

  But that rang false. For all his nastiness, Enkhaelen wasn't manipulative; he'd rather insult someone to his own detriment than try to twist them to his side. Maybe it was a conscious attempt to avoid behaving like the Emperor, or maybe he couldn't help that automatic defiance. Either way, Cob believed him. He hated it—hated the man too—but didn't think he was being played.

  What that meant about Fiora, though, he couldn't bear to contemplate.

  Across the fire, Enkhaelen lowered his arms, but didn't prod again.

  *****

  Later, once the Eye of Night had abandoned its ominous position, they struck camp and moved on. Enkhaelen lapsed back into sleep, and Arik wrapped him up the same way, with a shrug to Cob as if to say 'does it matter?' Cob couldn't argue.

  They climbed back up to the top of the ridge, wincing at the wind and the crystalline snow it kicked at them. The evergreens there were too thin and stunted to provide much relief, but the wind had raked the peak mostly clear, making it the easiest route.

  So they walked and walked, watching the mountain swell slowly ahead. An eternity passed in which there was only the clink and creak of ice, the groan of stressed branches, the sound of breath escaping through fangs or caught inside hood and face-wraps. When the child moon peeked over the eastern range again, Cob stopped in his tracks, stricken by a sense of déjà vu. It took a moment for him to recall that it made its golden transit several times a day.

  Eventually the ridge bent down to blend with the valley below. Taller trees eclipsed the sky, ice-freighted. Broken branches littered the understory, protruding from snowbanks and crushed bushes; glossy scales covered many a trunk.

  So much ice above made every step a danger, the canopy a constant threat. Shards pattered down on Cob's hood each time the wind rose. Worse, there were rivers running here, in networks of narrow ravines bordered by rocky outcrops, some with whole trees downed in them to create frozen plugs, others still rushing turbulent-white around the debris. Cold mist had turned their rock walls to icefalls.

  Soon there were so many that there was no way to bypass them. Since they all ran out from the volcano, Cob picked a thickly frozen one and shimmied carefully down to its slick surface, then braced Arik as he followed. Lantern-light reflected a false warmth from the frozen walls; at some distance, he could hear a larger river rushing, and wondered how high they rose in spring. How high when the volcano erupted?

  Had there been a river by the ogrish village?

  Arik's claws scraped on the glassy ground as he shifted his sleeping burden. The enclosed space echoed with their breathing, tree-limbs hanging overhead like skeletal hands, and for a moment Cob's thoughts skidded backward to his delirious flight into the Forest of Mists, the very start of his exile. He clutched the frozen wall as dizziness struck him.

  “Cob?” said Arik beside him.

  He moved his lips but no sound came out. So much had changed since then. The world he'd known had crashed down around him, and here he was, still walking the same narrow path, blind to where he was headed. It made his chest ache.

  Deliberately, he drew in a deep breath, then exhaled it to shove away the gloom. This wasn't the time for such things. His only option was to keep on moving—so he did, and heard Arik's steps pursue him faithfully. It was a blessing to not have to explain himself.

  The gorge rose raggedly over ice-smooth rocks, the sound of nearby water growing louder all the time. Cob warmed his hands on the lantern between rises, glad for the stepped nature of this stream; he had no tools for proper ice-climbing, which he'd have to rectify for Howling Spire. The thought of tackling that peak in this season terrified him, but there was no choice.

  Eventually though, the path tilted too much toward the vertical, the ic
e like layers of wax spilled from a candle. Squinting up, Cob saw the great dark bulk of the mountain looming above, the golden moon gone, a halo of stars lighting the world.

  Lower, warm embers burned on the mountainside.

  “Y'see that?” he hissed to Arik, the first words he'd spoken in marks.

  “Campfires,” the wolfman rumbled speculatively.

  “Think so? Not volcano stuff?”

  “Spiritists come here sometimes, to venerate Fire and Firebird. Perhaps they are praying for the sun, or sheltering in the warmth.”

  Exactly what he needed: more people in the path of danger. “Pikes,” he muttered, then took the lantern's ring in his teeth and started up the side of the gorge.

  It wasn't the best place for it, the rock walls high and slick, and he hadn't free-climbed in a long time. He cursed around the ring as he found himself hesitating on a ledge, knees wobbly, fingers frozen and arms shaking. The longer he waited, the worse it would get, so he threw himself upward and nearly missed the next handhold.

  By the time he reached the top, he felt like his heart would rip itself out through his throat. A part of him missed the Guardian desperately; another part hated it for having made everything so easy, for coddling him and letting his skills get rusty. Looking down, he saw Arik and Enkhaelen small below, and knew they wouldn't be able to get up this way. Fortunately, the Trifold had supplied them with rope.

  One extended hauling-session later and they were up top, staring toward the lights. With no moon, the face of the mountain was unreadable, only the alternating patches of snow and stone providing any detail. There was no way to chart a route, nor to find one of Enkhaelen's tunnels without tripping over it.

  “Maybe those fires mark the entries,” Cob guessed. “If they worship the volcano, they'd do it at the summit, yeah?”

  “Unless it is too dangerous there.”

  “But they should know the path. We could ask. And warn them.”