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

by H. Anthe Davis

  After the meal, the grey-haired sisters wanted to chat, but even with Kina translating obligingly, Cob couldn't concentrate on them. He kept seeing the mountain in his mind's eye, looming somewhere ahead—awaiting him. Still, he put on a polite face and dredged up some inoffensive stories of the lowlands, trying to ignore the intensity of Kina's stare.

  Finally, after a score of questions and enough butter tea to make his back teeth float, he decided he was done. He wanted to be away from these cozy accommodations, away from the familiar scents and the pleasant warmth, back to the night and the chill and the road. It was irresponsible to linger while four Seals still hung before him and the sun hid from the sky.

  Maybe when he was done, he could find his way home. Wherever it was.

  “Give them my apologies,” he said, rising from the pallet-bench. “I need to— We need to go, to finish our work.”

  Kina blinked at him. “You won't even wait until the Maker wakes up?”

  “Don't worry about it. He'll wake when he's ready.” Unsure how to confer his goodbyes, Cob tried bowing to the old women, who fluttered in amusement then offered their hands. He held his own out cautiously and had it caught between the first sister's, who inclined her head over it and murmured something warmly, then passed it to her sibling who did the same. With a last pat to his hand, she released him, and both beamed in their gap-toothed way.

  “Mountain blessings,” Kina noted before rising for the same treatment.

  Nodding, Cob turned to gather his gear. He felt steady again, if still a little off: achy, anxious, and oddly heavy like his muscles had forgotten their job. The residue of fatigue, he figured. It would go away once he started walking.

  His hand paused on the purse he'd filled from Enkhaelen's stash. Payment seemed necessary, but he knew some people took it as an insult—particularly those who prided themselves on their hospitality. He couldn't remember if that was so among the Kerrindrixi, but if they were devotees of the Muriae and their Primordial Brancir, surely they shared the Trifold code of conduct—the Way of the Hearth.

  He couldn't just present them with coins then, and when he stealthily opened the purse, he realized most of them were silver. Those wouldn't be welcome here.

  In his haze of indecision, he felt a gaze on his back, and almost tossed the purse into his pack and called it quits. Then Kina picked up some thread of conversation and the sisters chimed in, attention drawn. He exhaled, thought, then sifted out a gold coin and several bright-iron vor and carefully set them inside a bowl among the clutter. With luck, they wouldn't find them until he and his companions were long gone.

  After that, it was just a matter of wrapping up. Enkhaelen, still solidly asleep, presented no resistance to being bundled and lashed to the sled again, and though Kina watched this narrowly, she made no comment. Cob would have appreciated her help, but refused to ask for it; anyway, he was getting pretty good at doing things one-handed, using both his teeth and his tingling spirit-edged stump to assist. They pulled on their gloves, settled their scarves, then moved out the door with the sled in tow, ducking their heads against the knives of the wind.

  Behind them, the old women said something that he knew meant 'farewell', even though he hadn't heard it in years. He mumbled a response through his scarf, hardly knowing what it was, and Kina raised her hand in a wave. Then the door closed, sealing away that warm, comforting light.

  Cob waited for his eyes to adjust. The mother moon hung low, ready to sleep among the western peaks; the child moon's bright face scudded through the clouds as if playing hide-and-seek. For the moment, the two-toned glow made for fair traveling, but how far they could go after moon-set, he didn't know.

  Still, he couldn't wait for it to rise again. He had to move.

  Kina seemed to understand, for she stepped past him to start down the path again. With her in the lead and the sled scraping at his heels, he let his gaze drift among the mountains, and planned.

  *****

  When he'd started the trek, he'd thought it would be long stretches of wandering through the wilderness, climbing rocks and ice sheets and braving all the hazards of the high mountains. At Kina's heels, though, he found himself drawn progressively down from the hinterlands toward the center of Kerrindrixi civilization. Night by night, the hermit shacks gave way to valley villages and then to terrace-bordered towns, and the paths went from goat-tracks to rugged cart trails to well-kept stone roads, complete with sturdy bridges and tunnels chipped into the cliffs. There were even lantern-pots closer to the towns.

  “It's like this on purpose,” Kina replied to one of his mumbled queries, perhaps two days out from the Kri sisters' home. “You're not wrong; there's a wild belt wrapped around the High Country from Senket's Scars to the last of the Old Man's Bones. Few villages in there, and none that could support an Imperial outpost. The one I was assigned to was the deepest in the country.”

  “To keep enemies from settlin'?”

  “Basically. Try to push an army through the wild belt and they'll starve, freeze, fall into crevasses… It's like having a hundred-mile-wide rocky death-trap ringin' the true capital. The Jernizen managed the trek only three times in three thousand years, and only once did they reach Thul Rei Tenko. That was when Aul Yian Eiros went to the Muriae for aid.”

  “Erosei? Aloyan Erosei?”

  Even under her eye-guard, he could sense her scathing look. “If y'can't say it like a proper Kirin Diuxi, don't say it at all.”

  He bit his tongue and quit asking. It didn't matter if she didn't like him; all she had to do was guide, and if she changed her mind about that, she could leave. So he told himself as the mother moon waned and their interactions grew tenser, less frequent—as she grew more dubious of him.

  He didn't know how to reverse that and wasn't sure he should try. Awakening Enkhaelen would presumably help, but the longer he went without dealing with the necromancer, the less he wanted to. If he could have set the Seals himself and just drowned the man in a river…

  You can, said that voice in the back of his head. His death will snap them into place automatically. Be rid of him and find peace.

  But it would put too many people in danger, and they still didn't know what was wrong with the sun. No matter his personal feelings, he needed Enkhaelen. The world needed him.

  So he trekked onward, keeping in Kina's footsteps and taking shelter where she directed, eating what food she bartered his coins and trade-gems for, until the fifth night out from the Kris. The moon had just set, the way illuminated by stars alone, when suddenly the cliff-path they were following ended and he saw, spread out in the valley below, the glinting lights of Thul Rei Tenko.

  Beyond it, the great mountain: Ratrangas Garta. Howling Spire.

  “Some marks yet,” said Kina, glancing back at him. “You're sure you don't want to go to the Door? You can see it there, barely.” She pointed toward the lower third of the mountain, where a cleared path lay like a thin black thread, leading to a pinhole of darkness.

  For the first time, Cob considered it. Even from afar, the mountain intimidated him, its angles sharp and faces sheer, its whole surface stark white with snow. Beyond it hulked several sister-peaks, their ridges reaching for it like beseeching arms, but none of their summits touched the clouds—whereas Ratrangas Garta wore them like a cloak, hiding its broad shoulders and anything that might loom above. He couldn't begin to estimate its height.

  Nor could he get a good view of its features from this far, under this little light. The idea of climbing it under a half-moon or less gave him a chill even through the comfortable insulation of his layers. Fortunately the child moon had already waned away; the dual light would cast strange and confusing shadows on so much snow, so he was glad not to have it.

  “At moonrise,” he murmured into his scarf. That would give them time to descend the nasty switchback path and cross the city, with its rings of hunched stone buildings and its broad terraces, its frozen streets, its thin chains of lantern-light. Never
mind that he was already tired, footsore, semi-numb. The sooner this was done, the better.

  “To the Door?” Kina prodded.

  “No. Up the mountain.”

  He heard her sigh. “Well, suit yourself.”

  Their descent to the city took them back below the tree-line, the forest unbending itself step by step until it was no longer wind-wracked shrubbery but proper firs and rhins again—neither tall nor proud but persistent. The presence of their spreading boughs soothed him in a way he couldn't put into words, as if they somehow kept him from floating off into that dark sky.

  Soon enough though, they peeled back from the path, replaced by old frozen stumps and then rock walls—for livestock, for terracing, for gardens, and finally for the houses themselves, the few windows south-facing and heavily shuttered, the stones painted with symbols in rust-red and ochre, the heavy doors carved with intricate patterns.

  The city was smaller than it had looked from above—hardly a city at all, and certainly no Bahlaer or Thynbell or Keceirnden. The buildings topped off at two stories and didn't sprawl much: some were no bigger than a caravan wagon, with most the size of a farmer's cottage and only a few as big as two. All were oval or rounded rectangles, with outgrowths of pens or covered work-spaces or fenced yards behind them, and as they moved deeper into the city, the press grew denser, the yards narrower.

  Despite the stone lanterns that dotted the walkways, all was quiet but for the occasional groan of a goat or the thump of a distant door. A few figures moved through the cleared streets, toward the city center and the strange noduled structure that hunched there—a government building, probably, but one that seemed to have expanded like a living thing, its edges made up of the remnants of old houses joined by new walls, its second floor a buttressed monstrosity lumped atop them.

  “The Tenko Enren,” Kina named it as they trudged closer, sled scraping along behind them. “Sort of an inn, council-house, school and temple all in one. We'll rest there, and if you really mean to climb the mountain, we'll part there. I won't help you with that.”

  Cob grimaced, but nodded his understanding. “You've done plenty. The… The Maker will appreciate it.”

  “You'll wake him now, yes?”

  He didn't want to. He couldn't imagine Enkhaelen being of much use on the mountain, even if they did contact Drakisa Snowfoot and get those wards replaced. And explaining to either of them why he had waited five days to revive the necromancer wasn't something he wanted to do. Once he was on top of the mountain, it would be fine, but…

  Don't be an idiot. How are you going to light a big enough fire at the summit to wake him up? You can't carry that much firewood. Just get it done.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled resentfully.

  “Good. I have questions for him. There is so much I don't understand.”

  “About what?”

  “Me. The Light. The world.”

  Join the crowd, he thought, but nodded. He owed her that much.

  The lanterns led up the stone steps to the great double-doors of the Enren, which stood firmly shut. A smaller entry was ajar at the side, and Kina went right to it, calling a greeting; after a moment, a dark head peeked out, a bangle-clad arm waving them in.

  Cob remembered to duck his head this time, the low lintel skimming his hair. Boots littered the antechamber, some in cubbies, some just kicked into a corner; the stout woman who had greeted them seemed far more interested in her knitting than in tidying up. Her brows rose as she took in Cob's size though, and the sled he dragged in behind, and she chattered a question in Kiri Va that Kina answered in the same. Whatever she said made the woman abandon her knitwork, grab a small lamp and beckon them onward, through a goat-hide flap into the large oblong room beyond.

  Benches filled the far end of it, populated heavily by locals engaged in some sort of civic discussion. Three—one man and two women, all grey and grizzled—sat on a central bench, fielding questions from the others; the woman in the middle held a silver-headed rod like a cane, ring-heavy fingers clenched over it as she listened. The air was thick with brazier-smoke and the steam of teapots nestled in their coals, and the low light glinted on tin and glass charms, on knife sheaths, and on dark eyes as they turned toward the intrusion.

  Despite that, what Cob noticed most was the plastered wall behind them, painted to depict the uncloaked mountain in daylight. There was a notch at its summit, with thin silvery lines ascending into the sky…

  The elder woman thumped her cane and barked a query, which their guide responded to with an apologetic flap of the hands and a gesture toward a side-passage. Kina said something as well, and bowed her head formally; Cob copied her, hoping not to be stopped.

  Luck was with them, for after a moment of scrutinizing their attire and Cob's gear and Enkhaelen on the sled, the old woman gave a command that sent their guide bustling onward. Kina strode in pursuit, and Cob followed, feeling the hairs stick up on his neck at all the eyes still on him.

  The passageway led through another large egg-shaped chamber, unoccupied and lit only by a little oil lamp on a stand. In the shadows of the narrow end, Cob glimpsed more benches turned toward the walls, which held three strange black squares on their white plaster surfaces—perhaps writing slates. He'd seen those before, at the quarry office. On the outside edge were more archways hung with curtains or goat-hides, leading into unseen rooms.

  Another passageway, another oblong chamber—this one with pallets along the walls, and folding screens and drapery frames for privacy. A few older men sat on benches at the center of the room, where another kettle bubbled on a low stove and a pot simmered over coals; from some of the curtained-off areas, Cob caught children's giggles and women's chatter.

  Instead of heading that way, their guide turned toward one of those outer rooms, pulling aside the curtain and gesturing in. Beyond was an unlit chamber almost the size of the Kri house, with a broad pallet-bed covered in blankets and hides, a raised fire-pit area with a waiting kettle, and a stone-rimmed basin half-sunk into the floor, big enough for bathing. The window-notch above the bed had been covered with hide to keep out the cold.

  “It's a sick-room,” Kina answered Cob's look of question. “I told them our friend had taken ill. Best not wake him in public, right?”

  “Right,” Cob said, surprised but relieved. “Thanks.”

  She waved it off, then turned to say something to the hovering guide, who made a counter-comment and gestured at the room again. With a shake of her head and a word, Kina ended the discussion; nevertheless their guide handed over the lamp and they clasped hands pleasantly before the woman bustled off. “She'll be back later to see if we need anythin',” said the bodythief. “I told her no healer, we can manage it ourselves.”

  Cob grunted and wedged the sled through the doorway, then got to work unstrapping everything and taking stock. There had been a few risky maneuvers on the mountains, and not much space in their caves and snow-shelters to check things over afterward, so he was relieved to find the silver sword still wrapped up tight, the climbing gear intact, the portal stakes where they belonged. Enkhaelen seemed no worse for wear; his brow was fever-hot against the back of Cob's hand, but that was normal.

  Building a big enough fire in here seemed doubtful though. There was a smoke-hole in the ceiling, but the pit wasn't sized for a whole man, and he dared not pile the charcoal on top of Enkhaelen in case he thrashed at some point and kicked it into the bedding.

  The basin, though… If he put Enkhaelen in the basin and then covered him with coals...

  He glanced to the sled and the small bundle of firewood tied to it. Not enough. “We'll need more wood,” he said. “A good amount of it. We can pay whatever they ask.”

  “For?”

  He glanced up at Kina, who had moved closer to light his work with the lamp. With the glow on her face from below, she looked threatening, her eyes just dark circles. He hesitated—then sighed, not sure why he'd been keeping it a secret anyway. “Your Maker's got fire i
n his blood. Means the cold and the dark are bad for him, but enough heat and light will even him out. I'm not sure how much it'll take to get him up again, but once he's conscious, we'll contact his ally and get his wards fixed. That mage of yours blew off the special protections he was usin'.”

  Kina nodded slowly, then offered him the lamp. “I'll see to it. You get him ready. Oh, and give me your boots; we're not supposed to wear them inside.”

  Cob grimaced but pulled them off, and she accepted them with nose wrinkled. Then she headed out, leaving Cob with the unpleasant prospect of undressing the necromancer. He told himself not to be a baby; it wasn't like this was new. But any time he reached out to unbutton or untie something, his skin crawled and he had to stop.

  Quit it, Cob. Just wake him up and get on with this. Pikes, maybe he can fly us up the mountain and we'll be done in a few marks.

  He tried again, but doing it one-handed was difficult, and any accidental contact by his spirit-fingers filled his senses with the necromancer's aura. It wasn't as terrible as he'd expected—no blood-drenched visions, no malice or rage or madness—but then, he was sleeping. In that state, he seemed made up of old pain and exhaustion, enervation, emptiness. Far too familiar for Cob's comfort.

  He was just considering giving up and asking Kina to do it when he realized that the lamp was flickering low, and the bodythief had not returned.

  I can't have been dithering that long. Lamp was probably low when I got it.

  Still… Where'd she go?

  Leaving the lamp by Enkhaelen, he rose to peer through the door-curtain. The common area hadn't changed, the old men still bent over their tea, a few children playing a skipping game on the far side. Kina was nowhere in sight, nor was the woman who had greeted them at the door.

  Cob frowned and stepped out fully, a nervous feeling curdling his stomach. There was no reason for her to have run off or turned on them—not now, not when she could have done it a hundred times on the trail. Still, he didn't like her sudden absence on the cusp of awakening Enkhaelen.