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

by H. Anthe Davis

  Pike this, she thought, and pushed everything she had into the crystal, feeling the wards drain from her robe and down her arm as well. The black sphere bulged bigger, thinner, as if repulsed by the glow, and within the crystal's structure she suddenly felt...hinges. Folded seams. Hidden portions she could unfurl.

  So she did, though the sudden agony in her hand almost made her drop it. Crystal spikes punched through the grasping black sphere, making it tear away in response; as it released her, she saw one glassy spike had gone straight through her palm. The power hummed in her bones, and from the corners of her eyes she saw other versions of herself: black-eyed and bloody-mouthed, bright-haloed and floating; burning, drowning, dead.

  Then those distorted mirrors snapped shut around her, reality reasserting itself. She staggered back and saw the scorpion-tendril rise, too close to dodge—

  The fountain-spout gurgled, spat, then disgorged a massive gout of slushy water, which arced expertly to strike the tendril down flat. More water poured after it, coating the blackness in a clear second skin, and as she flinched back, Lark saw the other tendrils sag as if some structure had gone out of them. In moments, the gushing waters had covered the hole, the darkness swirling away like filth to show the pitted earth below.

  “Ripple?” she said, surprised and amazed. A clear tendril rose from the flowing mass, bobbed at her, then turned its attention toward the unwarded street.

  Turning that way, she saw Lahngi on his feet with Izelina's support, struggling to direct his cloud-serpents as the Trifolders sang at the Dark. While its mass couldn't pass their line, it was pushing them back, bulking higher and higher and extruding more and more tentacles until it looked like a roiling black wall of worms. On the other side, the ward was holding but the tendrils had thickened into beams, smacking soldiers and shieldwomen down with bone-crunching blows each time it struck.

  “Go help,” said Lark, but even with the water still pouring out in Ripple's wake, she knew they were lost. The buildings between the two tainted cross-streets were crumbling slowly into the morass; soon a full quarter of the square would be Dark, and there was no way they could hold it. They could run, but it would just grow behind them until the whole of the city was devoured—and then keep going.

  Pikes, if Ardent did this by mistake, what about the Void cults?

  Not a thought she could entertain with the greyness infringing her vision again. She had to move forward, had to stem the tide, no matter what it took. This was her city. Her home.

  But the energy Maevor had spiked into her was gone, and her limbs felt like lead, her punctured hand throbbing around the crystal spine still in it. Her robe dragged at her shoulders, all the little aches and pains she'd picked up in her flight now magnified. It took effort to raise her head—effort to even feel the emptiness inside, the strength she needed but had already used up.

  Another shock went through the street, strong enough to judder her nerves. Building collapse, she figured—but then someone gasped ahead, and someone else whooped, and she raised her head to see the bulge of the black wave deflating. Ripple's slushy barrage hit it a moment later, driving it down among the ruins of the road, but it wasn't the reason.

  That was in the sky: a streak of light arching up from a far corner of the city to draw a great sigil above the shadowed bulk of Old Crown. From another quarter, a second streak arose, and the ground shuddered again—except it wasn't the ground but the Dark mass itself, its hidden Void structure collapsing. She understood suddenly that if portals crossed dimensions, they must cut through places like the Void in their travels, and that blocking such magic could block it out too. Assert an unbending, unbreachable reality.

  A third streak of spell-light rose from yet another corner. Lark tried to remember how many they needed, but couldn't. A little shock went up her spine, and she realized she'd sat down in place, but she couldn't muster the coordination to get back up. Couldn't see the point when the sky looked so lovely like this, crowned with light and sprinkled with stars.

  Her eyes shut. Opened. Then shut again.

  *****

  “Sir?” said Rallant, squinting at the sky.

  The Field Marshal followed his gaze and frowned deeply. “What am I seeing?” he directed at a wraith, which halted when he did and turned its masked face upward.

  “A barrier,” it intoned, its voice fluting, inhuman. “A restriction of dimensional warping within its area of effect.”

  “Which means…?”

  “It will collapse our portals and prevent further scry.”

  A rumble of aggravation filled Rackmar's throat—then his right lung twinged, turning it into a cough. He'd spat out more than a few grey chunks since that altercation with the sarisigi-captain, and felt others worming their way around as if they owned him. That wouldn't last much longer; Caernahon would dredge them from him, incinerate them, and then the entirety of that fool's legacy would be gone.

  Losing the portals, though… That would trap him here, with Caernahon far away.

  “Make another, swiftly. We're going back. Enkhaelen isn't here and we have a brain to pick; the rest of this place can burn later.”

  The wraith bowed its hooded head, then hummed something to its comrades. Immediately they moved into formation, planting crystal shards in the ground then bracing an invisible arch with their hands. Through gloves and sleeves, their glassy flesh began to shine.

  He squinted up to see a fifth line join the previous four. Sigils were sketching themselves in between the panes, huge yet incomprehensible to him. He closed his good eye for a moment and let the street wash red, the crystal in his other socket interpreting the world in its own way: the sky blank beyond those bars, starless, the cityscape rippling and twitching like a coverlet being smoothed over a lumpy bed.

  “Quickly,” the wraith called, and he turned to see the portal opening into the familiar confines of the casting-chamber. With a nod, he strode for it, his followers falling in behind.

  He glanced back once to verify that Rallant and the thrall were right on his heels, then he plunged through. The disjunction felt different this time, like pushing through some kind of membrane—something that yielded in an uncomfortably jellied way, leaving him to stumble a few steps past the threshold into the Crimson mages' portal chamber. Rallant and his thrall lurched after, then a White Flame, and another.

  A third entered the weirdly attenuated space—then vanished, the pane of energy winking out to leave just the frame.

  “Annoying,” he muttered. “We'll have to scry the outside of the city, set up new portals, break down the gates…” Another twinge pushed a cough from his chest, and it was all he could do to keep from spitting on the floor. “Feh. Later. Rallant, I expect a report from you shortly.”

  When no response came, he eyed the senvraka, who was staring at the portal-frame with an odd strained expression. “Rallant!”

  “Sir! Yes—yessir. Sorry, sir. A report, yes. But...the wraiths, the others...”

  “Wraiths can fly. The others, well, they'll have to make their own escape. Can't be helped.” It stung to lose a handful of his empowered White Flames, but if they couldn't make their way out of that blasted little city, they weren't worthy of the Light.

  With that, Rackmar turned away, already picking at the buckles of his armor. He'd have himself cleansed, take a nice bath, then plan a new assault. This insult would not go unpunished.

  Before he'd gone two steps, though, a staff-mage rushed up with a stricken look on his face. “Field Marshal, sir—“

  “Can't it wait?” he snapped. “I'm trying to relish my few scraps of victory.”

  “Yes, sir, of course, but...sir… The Prince's containment...”

  Sudden fear lanced through him, and he grabbed the mage by the throat. “What? Finish!”

  Wide-eyed, the mage scrabbled at his white-webbed gauntlet, and he reluctantly loosened his grip. The man gasped a few times, then managed, “Someone's broken the wards. Just...just now, right after
you came through.”

  Rackmar drew breath to bellow, but pain stabbed through his lungs at the same time, turning his inhale into a choke. Through wrenching coughs, he ordered, “Fix it! And get—Caernahon—for me—now!”

  The staff-mage nodded and rushed away, calling out to the nearest White Flame guards. Rackmar gestured for them to go, still coughing. He could feel his pulse like a drum-beat in his skull, his chest constricting like he'd been strapped into a corset. Visions danced and flickered in his crystal eye: himself puking blood, dropping dead on the warded floor.

  No. He wouldn't be defeated by some petty captain.

  “Caernahon!” he bellowed again, sending a ripple of flinches through his staff. Then Rallant was there, gripping his arm in support, and as much as he hated it, he let himself lean on the senvraka's shoulder.

  “Good man,” he mumbled as Rallant steered him toward the portal-chamber's door. “Only one with any spine here.”

  “I'll thank you to remember that, sir, when judging the rewards for my mission.”

  His huff of amusement came out as a gurgle, but the pain in his lungs was ebbing. “Mercenary,” he scoffed. “Opportunist.”

  “No, sir. A loyalist. But I do like my comforts.”

  Rackmar glanced back at the trailing thrall and snorted. “Well. We'll see.”

  *****

  They'd been almost to the designated jailhouse, Sergeant Vangale in the lead with the sorceress—Mariss—invisible at his heels and Sanava at hers, when a shiver of light went up from the mages' dome. It was only a few blocks away, close enough for Sanava to feel its enervating pull, and Mariss had cursed and strode past Gale.

  The fool had tried to stop her, but too late. The veil had rippled from her as her hand filled with blue-green fire—and then she'd launched it at the jailhouse door, blowing it in with a whump! of rending wood and bursting wards.

  Now they were all inside. The fight had ended almost immediately, Mariss's green crystal blade making the red-tinged White Flame armor peel right off its wearers to escape. Two stabs for each guard was all it took; several lay crumpled in the ruins of the guard-post, bared chests oozing blood from heart-wounds, while another was pinned upright at the end of the hall by a bright pane of energy, his armor retracted to expose gaping wounds the threads had previously secured. Mariss hadn't even bothered stabbing him; his own undone stitchwork was letting him bleed out.

  The sorceress stood by indifferently, squinting into the last cell. Sanava started toward her, but paused as she caught a murmur from the second one. Witnesses, she thought coldly, and peered through the window-slit.

  The light from the remaining wards cast thin beams inside, just enough to pick out two figures huddled against the far wall and another on the pallet-bed. There was a peculiar stink to the cell—not the unwashed reek of humanity but something honeyed or floral overlaid upon fleshy rot. From down the hall came another crunch of wood and wards, then Mariss said, "Prince? Crown Prince? Gale, what was his name?"

  Gale didn't answer, too busy making horrible sounds by the guard-post.

  Sanava frowned. She was sure Vesha had mentioned the Prince's name at some point, but she couldn't remember it. Hadn't cared. "Hsst," she said at the other prisoners. "D'yeh know the Prince's name?"

  Instantly one of the figures stiffened, and she caught a stronger waft of that honey-like scent. It made her nose itch. "Whatever yeh doin', stop," she growled. "Behave an' yeh maybe get out."

  There were some murmurs, too low to make out. Then one of the figures rose and stumbled to the door.

  As light fell on that face, Sanava recoiled. Its eyes were segmented, bug-like, its skin a mottled bronze, and the hands that gripped the window-bars held long, thick, claw-like nails. "Where...where are you?" croaked a woman's voice from its lips—the only thing that kept Sanava from drawing a blade.

  Still veiled? she wondered, and waved her hand in front of the bars. That honeycomb gaze twitched as if trying to follow it, but the woman-thing's brows furrowed in confusion; evidently it was difficult. Sanava shot another look down the hall, but Mariss had gone into the cell, so curiosity turned her attention back to the creature. "Imperial monster? Why yeh in there?"

  The creature sneered, showing needle-fangs behind her normal teeth. "I'm no Imperial. I was just a farmer but they came for me, took my children, changed me against my will. Let me out. I'll use their 'gifts' against them."

  Even with the weird buzz in her voice, Sanava believed her. The creature's rage reminded her of her own. "Yeh friends?" she asked, trying to squint by.

  "Lady Annia volunteered without understanding the cost."

  "An' the other one?"

  The creature grimaced and looked away. "She's...gone. Has been for some time. They just left her with us—the Prince's own mother, the Empress—"

  "Hoi, right, his name?"

  "What? The Prince? Kelturin Aradysson."

  "Good." She backed away, watching those strange eyes try futilely to track her, then quick-stepped down the hall to the end. Blood painted the floor here, the stink of entrails hanging thick as mist; Sanava screwed up her face, slipped past the dying man and peeked through the broken door.

  Mariss stood in the middle of the tiny chamber, staring down at the shape on the pallet. It looked like it was sitting, maybe: the bulk of it semi-upright with some portions spilling onto the floor, others bracing it from either side. But what it was, Sanava couldn't fathom. It didn't have anything she could definitively call arms or legs, or even a head—just bundles of twitching feelers, saw-edged protrusions, hooks, spikes, tendrils and glossy insect wings. Scattered facets throbbed with light whenever it shifted; plates of chitin scraped together with the sound of glass on glass.

  The sorceress had one hand out, long silver nails almost touching its upper mass, expression inscrutable in the fluxing light. If the creature cared about her presence, it didn't show; all that came from it was a slow choral wheeze.

  "Named Kelturin," she hissed to Mariss, but neither woman nor creature reacted. They just held that pose until, with a near-convulsive motion, Mariss wrenched herself away.

  "What?" Sanava started, only to be brushed past brusquely. Scowling, she followed the sorceress out and saw her halt by the other door.

  "You know what's wrong with him?" she asked the creatures within.

  Sanava caught one say, 'since the wraith-lord's first visit'. It made Mariss's face go mask-like. "Stand back," she said, then raised her foot and slammed it into the door. The lock mechanism shattered, tearing halfway out from the wood in a burst of sparks. Mariss beckoned curtly through the opening, then continued her march.

  Guess the rescue's postponed, thought Sanava.

  She drifted in at the rear as first the bronzy woman and then a gold-toned one stumbled free. They both wore slaves' dresses, once white but now stained dark, their long hair in greasy tangles, their shoulder-bones visible through the thin cloth. Sizing up the blonde, Sanava felt an automatic hatred rise: she had to be a Wynd. Those old, old enemies.

  Not now, she told herself. Not while there's probably guards coming. Cut throats only when they've lost their use.

  Still, the desire shivered through her with every step she took in the woman's wake.

  Mariss glanced back once, made a weaving motion that sent the veil tingling across them all, then ducked out into the street. Gale was already gone, Sanava noted—to tattle on them or just disappear from their lives, she couldn't guess. Not that she'd miss him. He was too like Vesha—squeamish, emotional—without Vesha's spirit-ties to recommend him.

  The street was blessedly quiet, but it didn't stay that way for long. By the time they neared the women's section, it felt like they'd run a gauntlet of hounds and White Flames and human soldiers and mages. Fortunately there were no wraiths in evidence, and Mariss kept casting small spells that seemed to throw the patrols off the scent, but Sanava was quite ready to be quit of the ordeal and den up underneath her bunk.

  Still, sh
e hated the way her heart lifted at the sight of the hanging sheets that marked their border. It wasn't safe, wasn't home, no matter how familiar routine had made it. Mariss brushed past the first sheet, then the bronze woman reached to do the same.

  And halted, sucking in a harsh and painful breath. The golden one stopped at her heels.

  "What?" snapped Sanava, glancing around quickly for any sign of danger. Then a thought occurred, and she peeked at the ground.

  The red line of protection ran right under the bronze woman's foot.

  That's right, they're monsters, she thought, letting her hands fall to her blades' hilts.

  Then the bronze woman took a deep breath and stepped across the line. Nothing happened: no goddess-flame, no shriek of pain, no sudden vomit of blood. Her shoulders were drawn tight with tension, but she reached back to her companion without hesitation. The blonde one clasped her hand, braced herself, and crossed.

  "Pikes," Sanava muttered, "that dun bode well.”

  Chapter 30 – Recovery

  When Lark first awoke, she couldn't remember where she was or what she had been doing. Voices swam in a haze around her, asking questions she couldn't answer; faces veered in and out of view. She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off nausea and felt everything drift away again, sleep taking her in a wave.

  The next time she came awake dry-mouthed and coughing, squinting in the dim light. A round-faced woman in a medic's stripes bustled over, helped her into a sitting position and pressed a cup to her lips. After the first few swallows of tepid tea, she managed to take over; her right hand was heavily bandaged, but ached only dully. The woman beamed at her, placed a little teapot on the floor by her pallet, then swept off to help someone else.

  She was in a makeshift barrack, she saw: a former tavern common-room now lined with cots and pallets and sheet-covered tables, housing men and women in tattered black and red uniforms. Some were asleep, a few clustered together to play cards; more stood just outside the open door, talking in low voices and letting the cold air sweep away some of the smoke and massed human stink. Fires flickered in the two hearths and braziers were positioned here and there, with orange Shadow Folk lanterns dangling from the rafters. That familiar mellow glow eased her nerves, as did some recognizable faces: Magus Lahngi asleep on the pallet next to her, Enforcer Zhahri in a card game nearby.