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

by H. Anthe Davis

  Cob nodded slowly. “Then Mariss is elemental enough t' be attached to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And her powers—you figure they'll spread through this collective and taint everythin'.”

  “They will. We watched it happen to other Houses, those which did not sever themselves from the apostates in their midst. They looked upon our internal war as foolishness, but when the mages among them overreached, trying to claim the power of the stars, they were struck down, and their whole Houses with them. Those few who did not perish were pervaded by that power, which controls them even now.”

  Cob blinked and looked automatically toward the ceiling, where crystals glinted like false constellations. “The stars—like the wraiths?”

  “No. A power far greater than their kind. Our Spire was the only one not destroyed by that grand and disastrous working. That it could be used to Seal our world was a welcome thing, and your comrade's later tampering an act of war.”

  Though it hadn't raised its voice, the attitude in the room was tense, prompting Cob to lift his good hand defensively. “We're here to put the Seal back where it belongs. But destroyin' Mariss, I can't—”

  “We will not go through the schism again,” it rasped, leaning over him, its eye-sockets crackling. “It shattered the great Metal Primordial, leaving us with our single shard. All others are dead or mad or piteously weak, unable to protect their people from the predatory wraiths and gods. The Primordial of Gold fell to the Lady of Knowledge, the Houses of Iron and Copper have debased themselves in alloys, and our exiled brethren have been consumed by the impurities in their amalgam. They are no longer of the Silver.”

  Cob swallowed, but nodded slowly. He remembered the quicksilver mages and their alliance with the Hlacaasteian wraiths. Whether or not they were being controlled, they were definitely enemies, and the way they'd moved en masse, almost mindlessly… He could understand wanting to keep such influences out. Still…

  His daughter. He'll kill me. If she doesn't kill him first.

  Maybe that would be for the best. Enkhaelen dead at Mariss's hands, and then Mariss at his…

  He could envision it. The necromancer sprawled upon the cold earth, silver sword through his chest, while Mariss stood paralyzed above him as Serindas extracted her soul via the wound in her back. It came to him with such power that he could taste his own regret and the sizzle of magic in the air, the hot tang of metal and blood. They'd both lived well past their era, and done too much damage. No one would mourn them.

  Still, he had questions. Looking up at the spokesmetal, he said, “How did y'know about her when Enkhaelen didn't?”

  “We know many things he has missed during his confinement.”

  “Y'knew where he was too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why didn't you—“ He cut himself off before he could say something nasty, took a breath, and tried again. “Two Guardians've walked your halls since then. Two at least. You coulda told them.”

  It shook its head slowly, braid coiling and relaxing like an independent creature. “This is not the Guardian's business. We do not associate with it, nor do we have interest in mortals' petty struggles. In time, they will all fade and die, but we will remain. We have watched many such ages pass.”

  For a moment, Cob just stared up at the elemental, astounded by its indifference. What about Brancir? he wanted to say. What about the Trifold, your alliances, your worshipers? But it had taken the goddess's push to make them cooperate last time—and he doubted she'd intercede on Enkhaelen's behalf.

  “If I promise t'kill her, will you help us?” he hazarded. “I know you hate him, but we need him. I can't let him die, not yet.”

  The silver elemental tilted its head slightly, regarding him. “It will depend upon his responses once we awaken him.”

  “I've got no way t' find her if he's dead. No way t' bring her to me. And if I'm right, she'll gladly take your revenge for you.”

  A pause, then it nodded curtly. “Fair exchange. You will have his life, for now. But if you do not follow through, both of yours are forfeit. We will hunt you to the ends of the earth. For now, mend yourself. We must speak to him.”

  Cob looked down at his legs, ice-cold in this chilly chamber, and couldn't help the twinge of terror that went through him. The bags had been stripped from his feet during transit, and the flesh was hard again, the color mottled-dark from toes to ankles. Pulling them in cross-legged, he gripped one with both hands and shuddered at the feel of it: dead and dormant nerves, pinched-off capillaries, penetrating ice-crystals.

  A tingling started immediately where he touched, and he grimaced in concern when it ran all the way down to his heel and across the top but didn't reach his sole or toes. The skin looked black in the flickery pastel light, worse than he'd ever seen.

  Still a core of life pulsed there, bone-deep, and as he ran his spirit-hand back and forth along those threads of heat and sensation, they spread, the agony stitching its way across the top of his foot. Skin paled, then flushed as circulation returned to it, and he cautiously moderated the flow of new-thawed blood to keep it from freezing his heart. Inch by painful inch, that awful tingling gripped him, causing spasms through all the small muscles. Skin split, but no blood came, and soon he was peeling away blackened strips from his toes and sole that had once been his walking calluses. His toenails came off too, tender pink flesh visible beneath it all.

  It could have been much, much worse, he told the panicky little voice inside. Without the Guardian's adjustments and his own new skills, he would have lost both feet—if not his life.

  Even now, it was in question. His lungs tremored when he breathed in, and his bones felt liquified, the effort of healing himself sapping away what little reserves he had. But he needed to get this done now, before the damage became irreversible, so he drew the other leg up and continued his work.

  In the midst of it, he realized the Muriae were moving toward Enkhaelen, and glanced that way as he coaxed the blood along.

  Dozens had gathered already, with even more drifting or skittering in from the side-chambers. The tense cluster in front of the necromancer was debating something in a grating, screeching tongue, the sounds coming not from their mouths but from processes in their throats, or torsos or thoraxes. While their façades remained calm, some of their gestures were sharp, violent; as more approached, Cob had to wonder what they intended. Some trial? A judgment?

  Not an execution. The spokesmetal had promised that.

  Still, he couldn't quell his worry as several of them stepped up onto the cords of silver at the base of the 'hand' and reached needle-like fingers toward the necromancer's exposed flesh. He was small compared to them, pinioned there like a dead bird.

  The air crackled, sparks jumping along the cords and surging up across the Muriae at the hand—then lancing from them into Enkhaelen. He jerked in his bonds, muscles gone rigid, then began convulsing as the current continued to flow. Electricity crawled across his skin on spider-legs and outlined his veins from within, a ghastly network of radiance suddenly outdone by the flare of the Seals in his chest. Though the Muriae flinched at that, they didn't stop: more power, and more and more poured up from them and into him, until sparks sizzled between his bared teeth and the cloud-serpent shot free, hissing its ire.

  In one instant, his eyes snapped open and the arcs of electricity inverted, disappearing into his flesh as if swallowed. The venous glow contracted and was snuffed, leaving just the Seals to pulse rapidly in time with his heart.

  The Muriae pulled away, and for a moment Enkhaelen's panting gasps were the only sound in the silent chamber. Then he spat onto the cords, pulled in a shuddering breath, and snarled, “Fun, was it? Did you like that? Let me down.”

  The spokesmetal began to address him in that scraping metallic language, but Enkhaelen yanked at his bonds and snapped, “Altaerai. Let the boy hear. Oh Cob, don't you look well! I see you completely ignored my suggestion to wake me up.”

/>   Cob grimaced. In hindsight, it had been a bad idea, yes.

  “Corrupter,” the spokesmetal began, “we have awaited this for long centuries—“

  “'And now we have you! Time for torture and revenge and incredibly boring lectures!' Oh spare me,” Enkhaelen snapped, wriggling persistently in his unyielding bonds. “You know what I did, I know what I did, and I'm sure you've nagged poor Cob about it too. So just get on with it.”

  One of the Muriae raised a bladed hand toward Enkhaelen, but the spokesmetal gestured it to stop. “Your work has endangered us all,” it intoned, “as well as misleading and destroying two of our best. You are judged solely responsible for the deaths of Yesai Miun and Ou Ris—“

  “Ugh, what? I didn't kill him. If anyone did, it was the quicksilvers.”

  “—and of creating an abomination the likes of which should be impossible. You are additionally judged responsible for the deaths of three hundred and sixteen of our Primordial's human devotees—“

  “Some of those were in self-defense.”

  “—and the willful destruction of manifold outposts and places of power. You are permitted no plea. It is our judgment, and that of our Primordial Brancir, that you be sentenced to entombment within the depths of the earth until the time that you have repented your crimes.”

  “Oh not this again! Wasn't that piking sword enough? Don't you know what the haelhene did with it, you stupid tarnish-faced isolationist cowards? Pike your purity of essence! You call yourselves noble metals, why don't you act like it?”

  “Insults are unwarranted,” grated another silver.

  “You persecuted us for years! Through your knights, through your human pets, through other metals! All we wanted was to escape the war and make a family, and you ruined us because you didn't like how that family was formed! You could have asked me, at any time, to cut Mariss off from the silver essence, but no—you sent Orrith after us, again and again and again, until everything burned and everyone I loved was dead!”

  His shriek echoed through the silent cavern. On the floor, Cob sat stiff, nerves primed by the hostility around him; electric sparks hissed and popped in a hundred Muriae bodies, pulled from the grand sprawling mass of native silver and ready to be released. Maybe it would hurt Enkhaelen, or maybe it wouldn't, but he blasted well didn't want to be stuck in the midst of it.

  At the same time, he was remembering things, even with the warming-aches turning his feet to fire. That waking nightmare he'd walked through at Enkhaelen's manor, past and present blurring together, rage and sorrow clashing... He remembered seeing the Muriae man collapse on the steps by Jessamyn's corpse, burning, melting—but he remembered him riding from the yard too, carrying Mariss away. Eventually she'd ended up with the quicksilvers, but how? Had she ever been in the burning house, or had that just been Enkhaelen's fear?

  Which vision was real?

  “What you made was an abomination,” intoned the spokesmetal. “Mortal flesh and elemental essence were not made to mesh—as you should know. Your lineage has always been monstrous, mad, living far beyond the bounds of humanity yet still all too human. You should have learned from your own suffering, yet you chose to inflict it anew upon the world—to reach beyond the heinous acts of your progenitors to create a monster beyond even your grasp. We very much doubt that you can sever her from her elemental heritage. Or can you cut yourself from yours?”

  Enkhaelen grimaced, no longer thrashing, just hanging among the wires like a bug in a web. “My uncle knew how. He cut the fire from my mother—but not enough, so it still bred true. I know his methods. I could have replicated them if you'd given me a chance. Instead you destroyed my family because it was easier than talking to us.”

  Behind the imprisoning hand, the great face stirred, the whorls of its eyelids lifting slightly to show solid silver orbs beneath. Cob held his breath as the spokesmetal said, “We believed you would not listen. That it was...deliberate.”

  “Why, because your rust-hearted Primordial locked the Fire in the center of the world?” Enkhaelen laughed sharply, wildly. “Do you think I'm some agent of it? Pikes, I suppose you must, what with that awful Firebird cult—but no. I don't care about you. I never have, except when you've impeded me. My vendetta stems completely from the fate of my daughter. And now she hates me. Do you know why? Because she was raised by your enemies!”

  A murmur went through the Muriae, quelled swiftly by a gesture from the spokesmetal. “Be that as it may,” it said, “you are responsible. Do you admit your guilt?”

  “For making her?” Enkhaelen sneered. “Yes. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. She was my joy, and you had no right to her. No right to any of us. You—“

  “And the deaths of the Brancirans?”

  “Yes, fine, obviously I killed them.”

  “And those of Yesai Miun and Ou Ris.”

  All spite drained from him. His eyes, previously wild with rage, went distant, his expression clenching with still-fresh sorrow. “She stepped in the way. I knew she would, some day, but she… I believed she would protect him over me. She'd always argued his side when we fought, said his nasty opinions were to be expected from her kin. So I thought… I never expected that she would defend me. I'd been waiting for years for her to tire of my...my issues, and strike me down herself. I would have accepted it. She was everything to me.”

  “And you killed her?”

  “I didn't mean to. But by the time I realized...it was already too late.”

  “And Ou Ris?”

  “I...” Enkhaelen frowned, brows beetling. “I must have. But I remember him riding away—I saw him in the yard. ...Except the yard was on fire, everything was on fire, and nothing could get out, no one. Not my comrades, not the Brancirans, not their horses. They all died in the yard or in the maze. So how could I have seen him...”

  “I saw it too,” said Cob, and tried not to flinch when ranks of Muriae turned to look at him. He fixed his gaze on Enkhaelen instead, and kept kneading at his tingling feet with both sets of fingers. “When I was at your manor,” he explained. “The nightmare-god was there, guardin' it—I dunno why—but it showed me your nightmares through that splinter y'put in me. I saw it all burn, yeah, and Orrith dead on the steps. And from the garret I saw him ridin' away through unburnt hedges. I think one of 'em's a ruse. Did you dream while you were stuck in the Palace?”

  Enkhaelen's frown deepened. “All the time. It's why I begged Aradys to let me out, let me possess a body and be of use to him. So I wouldn't just see those things over and over—so I could do something, have some kind of purpose. That wasn't my only nightmare, but I remember...having it a lot, yes.”

  “Because the Emperor was involved with the Blood Goddess somehow,” Cob reasoned slowly, “and she's linked with the nightmare-god, right? He was waitin' for you at the manor. I didn't talk to him, but Fiora said somethin' about it. Wish I could remember. If all y'did in the Palace was dream, could he have put that nightmare in you?”

  The necromancer blinked. “I don't know. I'm mind-blind, so my defenses are minimal, but surely at some point I'd have sensed a fabrication.”

  “While you were sleepin'?”

  Enkhaelen fell silent, staring into space.

  “So if y'did kill Orrith,” Cob continued, “and if all the other knights died in the fire, who took your daughter?”

  No one answered. In the grip of the silver hand, Enkhaelen looked lost; behind him, the great face seemed to frown, then slowly closed its eyes, expression smoothing.

  The spokesmetal regarded Cob briefly, then rasped a command to its fellow Muriae. One by one, they stepped forward to grasp strands of the great hand and peel them away, until the remaining frame bowed beneath Enkhaelen's minimal weight and his feet touched the cords at its base. The coils dropped from his arms and chest, and he took a step, staggered, then caught his balance and continued down from the collapsing prison with a stiff, bitter sort of dignity.

  Cob rose to meet him, grimacing at the hot pains an
d the chill that seeped into his soft new soles from the stone. The silver sword and Serindas still hung captive nearby, and he saw Enkhaelen's gaze slide to them before returning to him.

  “Well. You're alive at least,” he said dryly. “The girl, the bodythief?”

  Cob grimaced. “Turned on us.”

  “Probably because you wouldn't wake me up.”

  “Actually I think we were bein' scryed on. She kinda warned me. So...sorry.”

  The necromancer smirked, then turned back to regard the Muriae, who had formed into a ring around them. Though none looked pleased, no silver strands moved to restrain them.

  “So. Are we done?” said Enkhaelen.

  The spokesmetal inclined its head slightly. “It is the judgment of the council that you shall be imprisoned for four centuries—less time served.”

  Enkhaelen's mouth twitched. “If you mean that, you should have busted me out thirteen years ago. But I accept your judgment. I think, gentlebeings, that we have been played against each other by a set of common enemies we had not known were allied. I am glad we can call this resolved and move on to the next war.”

  “Then you will need your sword,” said the spokesmetal.

  The necromancer raised his brows, then looked to the silver sword with an expression Cob could only call relieved. “Thank you. I'd thought you wouldn't let me—“

  “Not that one. That is not yours.”

  His face froze. “It is as much mine as it is yours,” he said through his teeth, “if not more. I am her survivor, never mind that I was her killer. The enchantments upon it are my work, my property. You don't want magic in your midst, do you?”

  The spokesmetal ignored the taunt. “It is an object of value to you, and one that can slay you. Thus we reserve all right to it as both our flesh and our leverage against your bad behavior. We cannot trust you, and so—“