No. Not 'til the summit. Don't have enough wood for—
His heart froze. The firewood had been on the sled.
He'd left it behind.
Pikes. Flaming pikes, I didn't think this through.
Fear gripped him, sinking its talons into his heart. He was still below the clouds, in the murky dark, with an invisible span of mountain to climb and no way to awaken Enkhaelen at the top. Even if he somehow lit a fire from their remaining gear, it wouldn't be enough to energize the necromancer, and he couldn't go back down. But if it was pointless to go up…
Wait. The portal stakes.
Momentary relief tensed again into terror as he felt at his belt with his spirit-hand and didn't immediately find them. Then he realized they were pinned under Enkhaelen, and managed to wedge a spirit-finger in to verify that at least one of them was still there. Should've done that down at the couloir, he thought, but he hadn't been in his right mind then. Still wasn't, probably, but all he needed to do now was get to that notch, plant them, and reach out to Drakisa.
He was just pushing himself into motion when he heard Lerien's hiss of alarm.
A glance showed him the young man staring back down the way they'd come. “What?” he said as he eased into a turn, not trusting himself to be quick.
“Pursuit,” said Lerien. “Piking wraiths.”
His sluggish heart lurched, and he peered as best he could down the darkened slope. In moonlight, against the snow, he might have missed them, but now they stood out like fireflies: six thin streaks of white light flying in formation up the mountainside.
He looked to the ledge and the notch he wanted. Suddenly it seemed a world away.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself forward anyway. He wasn't going to give up—not now, not ever. “Keep an eye on them,” he muttered, and Lerien snorted a nervous affirmative.
On, up, over, Serindas stabbing into rock, his phantom hand pulling weakly at ice. His feet slipping, kicking, only to recover somehow—a steady succession of small miracles. Auroral colors glittered in the corners of his eyes, eating away his sight until he was in a dark tunnel with the notch at its end, nothing else in the universe but him and it, his arrival a foregone conclusion. Rock, ice, snow; footstep, hand-grip, dagger-strike. Inch by inch by inch, every muscle straining, shoulders and back on fire, head swimming with lights and sounds that weren't there.
He felt it approaching through the black space that crimped his vision: his limit. No more strength, no more will. Still, he refused to stop. These dregs might not be enough to activate the portal stakes, but as long as he had anything at all, he would try. That was the new tenet he set for himself: no more purification through sacrifice, just perseverance despite adversity. Success, no matter the cost.
The ledge loomed within reach. He pulled up, bent himself across bare rock, raised a leg over it and felt the contact shock the sleepy nerves awake. Heaved forward, heart thrilling when the rock didn't snap away; hauled himself onto it with a colossal effort, then upright, then forward, lurching toward the dark space of the notch.
“Not fast enough,” Lerien groaned at his side. He couldn't look back, but through the howl of the wind he thought he heard humming, or singing. A choral resonance rising from below.
Jaw tight, attention fixed, he kept going. His senses had drawn down to the span of his spirit-fingers and the knot of his fist on Serindas' hilt. He fumbled ahead with his phantom hand and felt a lip of rock, a space beyond it—the notch?—and sent his mind into the stone to verify it.
—cold gap in ancient flesh, skin bared to the world by the loss of the white cloak, aching old fissure and behind it the bore-hole, the spidery bright tendrils of otherness riddling it like a cancer—
His eyes flashed open. There was something else in his notch, something alien.
But he had no time to think—not with the blurred chorus rising behind him—so with a last effort of body, he half-thrust, half-jerked himself into the notch, numb feet hammering on flat stone, hands scraping at ragged walls.
It wasn't a huge space, thrice his shoulder-width and twice as deep, but it had a worn-smooth floor and was open to the sky—nothing to whack his head on. Shadows filled its depth, but still he saw the glint of metal at the back: a twisted knot of native silver, half his size and flexing slowly like an anemone in a current. He balked as it began extruding wires toward him, and saw again the streaks above the couloir that his failing mind had painted as trees but which could easily have been these. The Muriae watching his ascent, waiting for him to come within reach? All too aware of his purpose.
Behind him, wraith-song echoed off the mountain. At his heels was the edge—so easy just to step backward and avoid all the pain and horror that now seemed inevitable. He had nowhere to run but down, through thin air to the rocks below.
A memory struck: not even his but one he'd experienced through the Guardian's eyes— No, his father's. Darkness, rushing wind and rain, terror, abandonment; the white shape of the Ravager above, wings folded tight as it chased his descent.
His trembling stilled. He couldn't—wouldn't—surrender. Not now.
Ignoring Lerien's sound of distress, he stepped forward among the unreeling wires, and let them embrace him.
Chapter 23 – Blood and Silver
Constriction. Tearing—not of flesh but of fabric and leather, all the burdens falling away from him. Pain like pinpricks on his legs, his arms, hands—both of them. Movement, strange movement, something between being dragged and being swallowed, the wire of the walls cording together like muscle fibers, the ones around him like cables. Pulling, flexing, squeezing him along through a limited space, the rasp of metal on metal filling his ears, thin filaments of it wrapped over his face and binding his arms to his sides. No light, no air—no air, NO AIR—
Expulsion, sudden, shocking, his shoulders screaming as he was pulled free of the silver tunnel by the armpits. Thin air brushed his cheeks and he inhaled all he could through his nose, jaw still clamped shut by the wires, eyelids unable to push them away. Something ropy and incredibly strong had him like a fly in a spider's cocoon; it was fast as well, to judge by the current that passed over him. He smelled ice, minerals, cold stone and the tang of lightning, none of which comforted him.
At least no wraiths, he thought.
Then the bonds tightened around his chest again, squeezing the air from his lungs, and the silver-wire tunnel closed over him. Colored lights burst within his closed eyes. Whatever this method of travel, it wasn't meant for humans and had no care for their needs.
How long it lasted—in and out of hollow chambers and airless tunnels—he couldn't begin to guess. He greyed out several times only to be jerked awake by another sudden exit, a precipitous descent, a stomach-churning corkscrew of motion. When he could, he fixated on keeping down the nausea, knowing well that if he vomited he'd likely choke on it.
At last, after one final hideous wrench, he felt his transit slow, then stop. His bonds loosened, the wires around his eyes and mouth relaxing, and he sucked in the biggest breath possible and immediately began to cough. The chemical stink was strong here, lining his throat and stinging his lungs, his eyes watering even before he could open them.
A voice like a file on steel spoke unintelligible words above him. He couldn't answer, could only cough, each ragged inhale just spreading the pain further.
Then a breeze touched his face, wafting the toxins away. He breathed it in and felt flutters in his throat, in his sinuses, down his lungs. Invisible wings flicked away his tears. The rush of it was so heady that if he hadn't already been laying down, he might have collapsed, his whole body straining to take in the rich life-giving air.
The voice spoke again, and this time he managed to raise his head and peel his eyelids apart.
The first thing he saw was the face, fine-detailed in whorls of silver wire, with eye-sockets but no eyes in them—only a mess of metal filaments that twitched and twisted as if to peek in all directions. More wire sp
illed back from the scalp like hair, forming a thick braid that flicked like a cat's tail. Below the neck, its material became metal plating, formed to resemble some sort of infantry armor; the sheer number and intricacy of the interlocked pieces would have rendered it priceless even if it hadn't been made of solid silver.
Beyond the speaker rose a stalactite-riddled ceiling, bright glints reflecting off wires and gemstones like stars. Cob traced the wires down to the walls of the cavern, where they covered the stone like wild vines, only parting to allow facets of pale radiant crystal to peek through. The crystals' illumination wasn't steady; instead, they pulsed with the squeeze of the wires around them, creating a dreamlike play of ever-shifting color.
Below the crystals, the wires continued down to the cut-smooth floor to spill across it in cords and knots. Silvery figures moved among them, some armored, some in cloth garments and some bare skeletal accumulations of wire, some not even humanoid at all—more like long-limbed crabs or spiders, clambering along the walls or stilt-walking among the others. Even among the humanoids, there was frightening variance: some had faces but others bore featureless fibrous knots for heads, and only a few handfuls wore facsimile skin like he had seen in Enkhaelen's memories. Kerrindrixi dusky, Jernizen tawny, Gejaran olive and rust.
All were moving toward him slowly, some drifting, some scuttling, their eyes or sight-wires fixated. He saw no weapons but doubted he could put up any defense against their metallic nails and claws—not as numb and exhausted as he was.
“Vanvan kiri va?” rasped the one above him. “Do you speak Altaerai? Zhesa tor tali—”
“Altaerai. Altaerai,” he managed through the fluttering in his lungs. “Where's m' companion?”
The creature made a grating sound of contempt and gestured behind Cob. As he forced himself up on his elbows, he realized he was no longer being restrained; the cords and cables had retreated from his limbs to slither back into the main silvery masses. His whole body ached, but he dared not complain.
Carefully, grimacing, he turned to look at what the elemental indicated, then froze.
Enkhaelen hung there in the grip of a great upthrust of silver, limp and insensate like a doll in a massive hand. His garments had been slit down the front to expose the Seals, the two outermost rings gone to scar but the others throbbing slowly in time with his heart: earth-brown, metallic silver, tree-green, water-blue. His eyes were closed, goggles gone, head yanked back by a cable under his chin and more in his hair. His limbs were just dim outlines within the metal that bound them.
Beyond him, the silver ropes mounted the far wall like strokes from an artist's brush, detailing cords of muscle, locks of hair, the wisp of lashes and the curve of lips, until together their great coiled mass formed one titanic face, as high from chin to brow as a three-story building. It—she—might have been sleeping, eyes closed and features smooth. He recognized her from the Trifold temples' depictions: Brancir the Forge Matron, elder goddess, Silver Primordial.
Enemy?
Before the Cantorin temple, he wouldn't have doubted it. Now, though, Enkhaelen was chained but not dead, and Cob himself wasn't even bound—not that he could fight the Muriae, but it was still an unexpected consideration. They had called a cloud-serpent to save his life, and he saw another glinting around Enkhaelen's nose and mouth, feeding him air.
“You were waitin' for us,” he managed. “Atop that climb. I saw you...”
“Yes,” it said. “We have been aware of you since you arrived in Thul Rei Tenko.”
His heart lurched at the mention of the city. “The wraiths, the people, what—“
“All threats have been eliminated. The wraiths that pursued you were the last loose ends. Your people are not without their resources, shamanic and otherwise.”
He swallowed thickly, wanting but not daring to ask about Kina. The bodythief had tried to help him at the last, but that wouldn't wipe out the crime of her existence. Whether the Thul Rei folk could forgive her, if they caught her, he couldn't guess.
“What… What now?” he tried instead.
The elemental tilted its head, looking down at him, then made a gesture. A sword rose to its hand, uplifted by wires: Enkhaelen's wife's, still half-contained in its sheath of fur and hide but with the hilt stripped bare. For a moment, he was absurdly glad to see it, sure he had lost it somewhere on the trail. Then he looked from it to Enkhaelen and swallowed thickly.
“We're not here for trouble,” he mumbled through cold-chapped lips. “We would've knocked on your door if we thought you'd let us in. But we need to undo what he did last time—fix what he broke—and for that, he needs t' be alive, or else… The Rift, it's a fault-line, if the Seal snaps back to it instead of bein' replaced...”
“You are a child of the mountains,” the creature intoned, its filament-eyes pinching together to examine him. “Yet you defend him, despite what he is and what he has done.”
“I know all that better'n you do,” Cob snapped, then sat back, surprised at himself. The elemental did not respond, so after a moment he added, “I hate him. But I'm not so wrapped up in my hate that I'd hurt others t' get back at him.”
“You believe that we have sympathy for your kind?”
“It's not jus' my kind at risk here. Not jus' the Seals either. The sun—“
“We do not need its light,” the elemental grated. “We need nothing beyond the skin of the world: not humans, not skinchangers, not spirits, not sunlight. Not magic, to twist us to other forms and bind our will; not flesh, that foolish affectation. Not prayers, not offerings, not followers.”
Cob stared. “So...y'don't care what happens out there? Even to the Kerrindrixi—the Thul Rei folk?”
“Mortal. Ephemeral. We have seen many such creatures rise and fall, in the waxing and waning of the lights, and we will see many, many more. What we do not see often is a murderer returned to us. A thief and killer of our kind.”
Fear rose in Cob's throat, but he forced himself to focus past it. The cloud serpent's infusion of fresh air had revived his thought processes, and it seemed to him that the elemental told one story in words but another in actions. For all its perceived hostility, it was calm, and neither he nor Enkhaelen had been hurt. If it was simply airing its grievances…
“I understand,” he responded. “He was supposed t' be an ally to you, yeah? The Ravager, tied to air and fire and metal? But things went wrong with the wraith-Ravager who set the Seals, then again with Enkhaelen himself, right? So you're angry, you're betrayed—“
“He corrupted us,” it snarled like shredding wires. “Stole substance from us and braided it with himself, with magic, until it meshed. Created an abomination and set it loose upon the world, with enough connection to us that some day it will return and we will be infected by it.”
Cob blinked slowly. He couldn't argue with its assessment of Mariss as a threat. Still, he knew Enkhaelen's reasons now—and they hadn't been malicious.
With a twinge, he thought of his own child, and of Fiora, wherever she was. He would do a lot for them even now, just for the existence of that bond. Even if she didn't want him—even if he could never meet his child.
“It wasn't like that,” he managed. “He wasn't takin' a stab at you. He jus' wanted a family. Does that mean anythin' to you, family? For a long time, mine was jus' painful memories, but now I get it, I think. He's not a bad guy. Pikin' insane, but...he wasn't tryin' to hurt you.”
Strange electricity crackled between the elemental's fibers, filling its eye-strands with a wild blue light. “Willful ignorance is no excuse,” it intoned. “We will not be brought down like our quicksilver brethren. She is no longer hidden from us, but we cannot simply kill her—no, she must be annihilated, flesh and soul alike, so that she will not return to taint us. You will do this.”
Cob's mouth fell open. “I— I can't. I don't have that kinda power.”
“Your blade does.” It gestured again, and another tendril rose, Serindas gripped in its coils by the hilt.
The akarriden blade burned angrily, twitching. “This is a soul-eater. It powers itself with the essence of those it strikes. Drive it in deep, and it will eventually devour her.”
Dry-mouthed, Cob looked to Enkhaelen, but he was still unconscious in his wire-strand prison. “I don't understand,” he protested. “What d'you think magic will do to you? I mean—don't you already use it? The cloud-serpents, your lightning...”
“This?” It gestured at the sparks rippling through its interior. “This is not magic, merely loose energy. Our Spire harvests the wind and the storm passively; we do not force our will upon it. As for the serpents, they are our neighbors. They aid us sometimes with humans who would seek our Primordial's attention.”
“All right, but...what can she do t' you? She's one soul among...how many?”
The elemental's face twisted, wires scraping over each other harshly. “Even one is too many. We banished our quicksilver kin from this place when they refused to abandon their foolish pursuits, and so survived when the other magic-afflicted Houses died. That she was raised by our fallen brethren is another strike against her, but even were she not, we would see her eradicated.”
“Died? But you're metal.”
“You question this while bearing a shard of Yesai Miun's flesh?”
Yesai Miun… Jessamyn, he guessed. Imperialized. How many of us are out there, trekking through life under names that don't fit? “Yeah, but that was an attack made especially to kill one of you. And she's not really dead, because your essences go back to your Primordial, like the skinchangers go to their spirits. Right?”
“It is still a death,” intoned the elemental gravely. “We are subsumed by our Primordial and will not be extruded in the same form again. Our memories are sifted and filed away into the collective, a resource for all without the remnants of their carrier. We mourn the loss of Yesai Miun as an individual, no matter that we are not fully parted.”
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 66
