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

by H. Anthe Davis

  “Why do I have t' carry you at all? Why can't I jus' go up with Arik and some stakes and call you in at the top?”

  “You could, but if our enemies managed to trace you, attack you...”

  Cob winced. That was the stinger. Without the Guardian, he couldn't easily defend himself from things like wraiths or mages or Imperial monsters. Enkhaelen could.

  “Beside that, this will be as much a hit-and-run action as Aekhaelesgeria was. We need Arik away with the stakes to bring us to safety. So while I understand your concerns, Cob, we have to go on despite them. Now, shall we?”

  Cob mustered his last argument. “But Raun's still hurt, right?”

  “Let's see.”

  Enkhaelen slid out from behind the mirror, Arik and Drakisa following. With trepidation, Cob pursued them from the parlor into the hall, then further to a large ward-filled space bracketed on two sides by storage and on another by the exterior wall. No windows looked out from it, and from the ceiling of the entryway poked the tips of a broad portcullis. Enkhaelen gestured for the other two to stay in the hall as he and Arik crossed the threshold; Cob obeyed, then balked as Drakisa reached up and pulled that metal grate down to separate the space.

  "This is for your protection," said the necromancer.

  "I don't need protectin'!"

  "That's a lie and you know it."

  Fuming, Cob watched as Enkhaelen directed Arik to stand in the center of the chamber, amid the concentric rings of arcane runes. The wolfman complied, then bent his head at Enkhaelen's gesture, allowing the necromancer to set his hand against that furry brow.

  Dimly, distantly, Cob felt something shift in the atmosphere, like a door opening into another space. Runes lit up on the portcullis. Drakisa's gaze was fixed on Arik, and after a moment Cob squinted too, wanting to see what must be there: the spirit connection being made, the magic he was supposed to know.

  It was like trying to cross his eyes. Things wobbled in and out of focus, the runes on the bars intensifying, the glow of the ones inside the casting chamber limning the two figures with faint light. Were there wings stretching from Enkhaelen's back, shimmery as heat-haze, sharp as knives? Was there a shadow behind Arik, titanic, wolf-shaped, with blazing eyes narrowed to slits as they stared down at their summoner?

  Tension thrummed the air and sent flickers across the runed floor. The portcullis rattled in its setting. Cob felt a pressure against his cheeks, his eyeballs, his entire front, like blunt questing fingers. Beside him, Drakisa sucked in a breath; through the bars, nothing moved but the flux of fur and quills on Arik's skin.

  Then, as abruptly as it had come, the tension broke. The shadow vanished from Arik's back, the runes dimming from their stressed state, and Enkhaelen's wings flexed once, twice, then folded inward and were gone. Without them, his form was the same as Cob had seen in the spirit realm: a humanoid inferno wrapped tightly in runed bands, fiery patterns roiling beneath the thick opalescence at the surface, the Seals in his chest standing out as if incised.

  In comparison, Arik's self misted out from his skin to blend with the world, no barrier between what he was and where he belonged. Shadow-shapes moved within that mist: echoes of his other forms, here a paw, here a hand, here bare skin or full-furred pelt. Another set of eyes sat above his own, lids nearly shut; another set of ears backed his like nested shells.

  His breath came easy, no slash of pain running through his spirit as he inhaled. His arm, once broken, shifted from wolfman to wolf, to completely human, without a sign of harm.

  “The Guardian found you,” said Enkhaelen thoughtfully. “Good. I'm glad she's decided to make some sort of amends. But I know you haven't forgiven us. I can taste it. So I apologize, but I'll be excluding your child from my business this time.”

  Arik made no comment, and the stronger spirit-presence did not return. With a nod, Enkhaelen backed away from the skinchanger, gesturing for him to stay put. Arik complied, and Drakisa started to lift the gate.

  “Don't,” said Enkhaelen. “Not until we're gone. I don't want to have to do this again.”

  “How will you—“

  Enkhaelen vanished in mid-stride, leaving a fading smear of energy behind. Something ghostly moved from where he had been: not a blur or an afterimage but an impression of presence that passed through the bars as if they were shadows, the runes never flickering. He snapped back into being on the near side, brows arched expectantly. “Shall we go?”

  “How did you—“

  “Temporal bypass. Wraith trick.”

  “That's—“

  “We can't jus' leave him there,” Cob interrupted. “He's… I mean, we don't even get t' hug goodbye?”

  Enkhaelen fixed him with a cool look. “Best not.”

  Cob scowled, about to say something bitter, but movement within the chamber turned him toward the gate to find Arik approaching in full man-form. There was no regret or anger in his expression, just resolve, and sadness as he pressed his palms to the bars and leaned his shaggy head close. “Be good,” he said gruffly. “Be watchful. I'll see you soon.”

  Eyes stinging, Cob planted his hands—living and spirit—opposite Arik's, but an unseen barrier kept his fingers from curling through the gaps. “'M sorry,” he mumbled. “I don't wanna do this, even if it's necessary.”

  “I know. I wish I could go with you. But it would kill me to hurt you again.”

  Thick emotion filled his throat, but he knew there was no time for it. Nor would he bare such a raw spot in front of Enkhaelen. The necromancer didn't deserve to witness it.

  “See you soon,” he echoed instead, and forced himself to step away.

  Drakisa immediately resumed questioning Enkhaelen about his tricks, but even without the mage-babble, it would have been difficult for Cob to focus after that. Even when they returned to the parlor area, he could feel Arik in that other chamber, trapped, listening to what little of their conversation he could catch.

  It hurt him somewhere vital.

  He went where the mages directed without comment, accepted what garments and tools and packs they gave him without question, and just waited. Waited for that horrid moment when he'd cross through the portal and lose all sense of his friend, too many spells and too much distance between them to reach out. He didn't even have a red thread to clutch at—not that he could feel the one that connected him to Fiora, but at least he knew it still existed.

  Between him and Arik, what was there?

  Only when the portal opened in the parlor did his attention return to reality. Just a few strides away was the path he'd trod a thousand times, with the goats or his mother or, very rarely, his father. Far beyond were the heights he had to climb.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” said Enkhaelen to Drakisa. “We'll make contact when we can. In the meantime, I would appreciate if you could check in with Voorkei now and then, make sure that everything with Blaze Company is going well.”

  “I'll be called before the Senivaten soon anyway,” she said with a rueful laugh, “so I'll ask them about intercession if they don't censure me immediately.”

  “It's appreciated. And I'm sorry I ate your friend.”

  “Van Varrol wouldn't have backed off for any reason. We both know that. It's a shame though. She could have been your Jernizen contact; then we wouldn't have to be doing this.”

  Enkhaelen shrugged. “What's done is done.”

  If Drakisa felt anything about that statement, she didn't show it, just gestured to the portal. Enkhaelen inclined his head, then stepped through to stand among the cold, dark stones.

  Heavy of heart, Cob gave the scryer a nod, then followed.

  Cold wind washed over him, sending icy fingers under his collar and up past the cuff of his good sleeve. He hunched instinctively against it, ears suddenly full of its nostalgic rush: a thousand notes hissing through the limbs of stunted trees and whispering across the snow and weathered rock. Star-flecked darkness pressed down upon him, encircling him on all but the cliff's side, an
d in a moment of vertigo he reached for the wall with the hand that wasn't there.

  —trudging feet—

  —ice-plated ledge, glimpses of firelight through the gaps of the skins—

  —voices, blood—

  —white wings—

  He jerked back in horror and felt one foot slide on ice, the other leg buckle. For a hideous moment, he was falling toward the black edge and the chasm where his father had gone.

  Then instinct kicked in, and he lurched toward the wall with all his strength even as his feet went out from under him. His knees hit the ledge, good hand latched to the rock, cheek pressed to it too, his lungs tight as fists in his chest.

  In front of him, Enkhaelen said, “All right?”

  “Fine,” he rasped. “Fine.”

  “Mm. I think those wards could be stronger. One moment...” A touch to his parka-covered shoulder and the press of the wind dulled, the cold ebbing to let his body heat take over. “Come on then. Duck inside, have your moment, then we'll go.”

  He forced himself to rise and stagger into the gaping dark cave-mouth. The roof scraped against his scalp, pushing him into a hunch; at his side, Enkhaelen stood straight but only barely. A flick of his fingers sent a blue-white wisp ahead of them.

  Its light fell on icicles and dripstone knobs, smashed crockery and old char. Where the bedding-pile had once been, there were only leaves and potsherds, and the baskets were gone, the low table, the mats, everything that had made it livable. The hide covers had been stripped from the entryway, only their peg-holes remaining; ice clogged the fireplace and spilled across the floor. On the opposite wall, the gap that led to the goats' cave—where he'd tried to hide when they came for him and his mother—was blocked with rotting debris, as if something had tried to make a nest but had given up.

  Here and there, the symbols and pictures his parents had chipped into the rock remained, but he couldn't understand them. Didn't remember anything about them, all those good memories washed away in the torrent of bad that had followed. He reached out to touch one, not with his real hand but the phantom, and felt—

  —laughter, bright and lovely, low and hearty, one of those brief moments when they were together—

  —cradle-song, wordless—

  —the flicker of firelight, soft breath against skin, gentle weight—

  —comfort, safety—

  —and flinched back, eyes welling again. The cave constricted around him, belying all those warm moments, all the hopes that had dared to dwell here.

  “You can't return,” came Enkhaelen's voice from behind him. “You grow and the past contracts until it's so small that you can barely fit in it. And then, one day, you find yourself locked out. It's over. It's gone. But you're young. You'll find a new place to be.”

  Cob swallowed thickly. It felt like he should say something, but he had no words. Just the pain in his chest, low and dull like an old wound.

  His gaze fell to the fireplace, to the ice-flow. Through the wisp's blue-white reflection he glimpsed something embedded in there: a black playing-piece from his father's game.

  Crouching, he touched the ice. It was an inch thick at least, the piece held captive at the lowest layer, and for a moment he wondered where the others had gone. Had storm-water pushed them from the cave, or had this place been ransacked by animals or villagers? Did anything of his family remain in the hands and memories of others, or was it all lost to that chasm, like his father's bones?

  Then he sighed and drew back his hand. He carried enough with him. This could stay.

  “C'mon,” he said. “Let's get this done.”

  Enkhaelen nodded, and led the way into the wind.

  Chapter 21 – Black Blade

  In the wake of the cave, Cob bestirred himself to check over his gear. Beside new clothes with buttons instead of drawstrings, he'd been given a warded parka and boots that, though deer-hide and too large for normal Kerrindrixi, fit him well and were typical of their winter-wear—plus a thick leather harness, rucksack, ice axe, pitons, crampons and various other steel tools. The Kerrindrixi of the Thundercloaks lived atop a prime source of metals, but their efforts had always been bent on keeping it locked within the mountains; in some ways Cob felt disrespectful to be walking his people's paths while clad in taboo materials, but he didn’t fit here anyway. Not anymore.

  Drakisa had also supplied them with snowshoes and poles and a small sled for hauling equipment—or Enkhaelen, for when the necromancer inevitably collapsed. At the moment, it held those snowshoes plus the silver sword, their bed-furs, rope, and oilcloth-wrapped firewood, and Cob had hitched it to his harness so as not to have to drag it with his good hand. If it went astray on the narrow ledge, it wasn't quite heavy enough to dislodge him. Enkhaelen carried no gear, having stashed it all into the transdimensional pockets of his under-robe, but wore every piece of clothing he’d been given. The only slice of flesh that peeked out from his layers and scarves was the area around his eyes, and his glass-fronted goggles covered that.

  He walked ahead of Cob now, his wisp transmuted into a low red light that illuminated the icy rocks without stealing Cob's night-vision. For the moment, he seemed peppy enough, his pace careful but steady. If he could keep a firm grip on his energy-reserves, he might not need much carrying.

  Personally, Cob felt like he could still use a few weeks in bed. It wasn't just the arm or the pressure of this unabating night: it was also everything that had come before, and all the rough plans he had yet to straighten out. No matter how he tried to focus on their surroundings, worries plagued him.

  And the past. With Risholnis village now visible in the valley below, he couldn’t push away the memory of being dragged through it in chains, or of walking the crooked little streets with his father before that, painfully excited to be at the side of the man he idolized but rarely saw. He could still remember when Risholnis had seemed large and frightening and distant, his daily world consisting of no more than the rocky hills and hidden meadows where he grazed the goats.

  Now it all felt claustrophobic. Peaks cut the sky around them and erased the horizon; icefalls filled the gaps and overflowed the clefts. Even the little valley was carved so deep that permanent winter darkness was neither a surprise nor a change.

  Thin air burned his lungs with each breath. When he’d descended to the Low Country quarry at age eight, he’d felt as if weights had fallen from his limbs. Now, returning to a height he hadn't lived in for a decade made his head swim and his steps slow, his heart pounding in his chest like a hare's.

  It was not a comfortable homecoming.

  And this was only the beginning. Risholnis was nestled at the very edge of the High Country. Beyond its encircling mountains rose more and taller peaks, the villages more isolated, the people smaller but hardier—until they crossed that indefinable line where no human habitation could persist, the only populace a few euphoric hermits and handfuls of petitioners struggling to reach the cloud-scraping shrines.

  Thinking of it that way, Cob wasn’t surprised he'd fallen in with the Light. The trek to a shrine was no different from a pilgrimage to the Palace: each a test of hardship culminating in a searing glimpse of the cosmos. It brought out an instinct to push higher, to dedicate oneself to a task that could bring glory but might just as well end in death.

  His mother had made the trek to Howling Spire. His father as well. It was in his blood.

  An ill-kept trail ran down from the cave ledge to join the village road, which then cut through the wooded valley beyond to link to the next town and the next, like beads on a string. As Enkhaelen peered down the treacherous descent, Cob said, “Not that way. Over there, through that gap in the cliff. The high path.”

  Enkhaelen looked to the gap—merely a black seam in the ice-clad rock—then stared at Cob, his goggles' lenses reflecting red wisp-light. Then he sighed through his scarf and nodded.

  The high path led them to a crazed switchback trail that touched upon half a dozen narrow, slanted meadow
s gouged from the cliff walls. They were the Talons, named for Senket the Eagle's disastrous attempt to assault a northern wraith bastion by hauling his silver sword over the Thundercloaks. After flying too low and getting his sword stuck in the mountains, the raptor-spirit had supposedly gripped these cliffs as leverage, tearing rock and sword away as he heaved into the air. The chasm outside Risholnis was the result of the sword's enlodgement, the broken-looking peak of a neighboring mountain another casualty of the spirit's skyward thrust.

  For a long time, Cob had barred such stories from his mind, and with them the soft cadence of his mother’s voice. Now both came back, telling him the names of the peaks and cliffs and trails in terms of the spirits that resided in them. The Old Man's Shoulders, the Summer Snake, the Goat's Teeth, the Dawn Sister's Overlook. But even remembering them, he didn't know much of the land beyond—nor did Enkhaelen. The necromancer had relied on foreigners for his previous trek, and while he could point to Howling Spire like a compass, that was all.

  A guide would be essential. Seeking one in Risholnis would have been wisest, but Cob couldn't bear going down there. He didn't want to see it up close or have it be known that there were travelers on the mountain. Their enemies would be seeking them, and already knew their destination. Involving the villagers…

  Even though they'd once stood by while he and his mother were enslaved, he couldn't do that.

  So he bent his head into the wind and walked, the snow crunching underfoot, Enkhaelen's red light painting his path bloody. Into the unknown heights; into the night.

  *****

  From his leaning pose against the mountain-painted wall, Erevard worked to contain his impatience. He wasn't the leader here, even though his was the driving mission. He couldn't simply charge out into the night.

  “A glow on the mountain, near one of the points of interest,” said the bodythief again as the soldiers finally gathered. It wore the flesh of a Kerrindrixi girl, small and slim with large dark eyes, her goat-hide robe shrugged partly off in the warmth of the outpost to show the patterned shoulders of her traditional dress. “It followed one of the upward paths and disappeared beyond the Old Man.”