Above Ilshenrir, the wraith that had designated itself the weavemaster began forming a net. The others fell in with it; at such a perilous moment, with such great prizes at risk, there was no time for the usual positional struggles. They could wait until after the prey was secure.
Ilshenrir feigned assistance, trying to siphon from his neighbors as much as he could. They would notice incompetence as quickly as an outright refusal, but were inured to a certain amount of delicate undermining. At another time, his nearest neighbor might have bolted him in the face, but instead it just tightened up its aura.
Such pettiness wouldn't be enough, he knew, and the Ravager wasn't helping with the way it fluttered in place. He suspected a conflict between goblin and spirit, but what he could do about it or how he could aid them, he did not know.
He could not turn against his kin, not yet. The Guardian's safety came first, and with the black water still rising, closing the Dark door was second. The rest of his companions came third.
As for the goblin—
The Ravager's wings tucked tight. He saw its trajectory and its shining claws, saw the weavemaster fling the net outward. The probabilities tangled: the spirit might strike; it might be caught; it might fall upon Cob and break his fugue only for both of them to be taken.
He could not allow any of those things.
Shaking free of the weave, Ilshenrir leveled a beam of power at the falling figure, and loosed it.
*****
The point of the silver sword pierced through water and darkness, through peeling salt-bark, and into Cob's chest. It lifted him toward the descending light, and suddenly he could feel the waterfall battering against his shoulders and neck, the brine sliding down from his cheeks. His face came free, and he breathed—
Her fist caught him in the mouth, mashing his lips against his teeth. His head snapped back and he realized he was standing upright just as he began to topple. Above, through the pain-stars, a streak of light knocked away the wings, and then there was a net falling over him—
The Guardian's presence surged up, cold and angry, and he lashed his hands out to either side to shred the net as it settled. Some strands snatched at him individually, but he yanked and bucked and felt the salt-floe under him lurch. As the last sparks of magic scattered off his armor, the water elemental that had clung to him slid back into his lungs.
A half-step down, the strange woman snarled at him. The silvery mesh that held her hair back had separated into whip-like strands which coiled at her cheeks, waiting; more narrow protrusions split her boots to act like crampons on the unstable floe. A roiling gauntlet locked her hand to the hilt of the silver sword, and Cob braced himself as he saw blue-green energy arc up her arm to the weapon.
It surged in through the gap in his armor and lit up his insides. He doubled over, choking, heart spasming, and she grabbed him by an antler and shoved the sword in deeper. He fumbled at her arm and felt the current coursing through it—tried to push her away but couldn't, his limbs weak and head spinning as the Guardian struggled to keep his guts from cooking.
Then her hand left his head and buried itself in his side again, catching the frantic Guardian by the tail.
Desperate, he swung a leaden arm up to grab her shoulder, then rammed his forehead into her face.
She made a sound of rage, needles striking at his brow and cheeks: the strands of her headdress. But he was still armored there, and the points skipped off his eyelids, while he managed to jam his thumb in her mouth and wrench her head aside. Her nails left his scar to rake at his face, then his wrist; her teeth sank into his thumb like a spring-loaded trap.
He flung himself upon her and felt her crampons lose their grip, the current ceasing as his stony weight slammed her to the floe. The sword jerked upward in his side, splitting flesh, but without the electricity the Guardian mended him swiftly.
Rather than release the hilt, she tried to roll him over. He resisted, leaving them scuffling on their sides. She alternated punches to his temple with gouges at his eyes and a good lot of kicking with those spikes, and while his armor took the brunt of it, his skull rang like a bell. The only reason she didn't take his thumb off with her teeth was a thickening of the salt; even then, he had to pull away because she didn't seem to care if he smothered her as long as she could mangle him.
Any doubt he had about her identity was gone.
The black water still seethed beneath them. He heard it crooning to him, the sword the only barrier, and as wraith-magic stabbed at his armor again, he thought about rolling them both in. Offering her to it, then raising the water to wipe this place clean.
Then he remembered his friends, and knew that he couldn't.
Instead, he locked his hand around the sword's quillons, grew salt over it, then reached for the lever. It stuck out from the other side of the floe where his shadow-self had planted it, but under his influence, the salt slithered it closer. The woman battered at his face and neck with her metal-coated fist, and he endured it, until finally the lever fell into his hand.
She took one look at the chisel-end, released the sword, and kicked away into the water.
Slowly, Cob turned it blunt-end down and wedged himself up to one knee. If he withdrew the sword, he knew he'd fall right back into the Dark, but already he felt the first zaps of magic as the wraiths targeted it to defeat his armor.
Lifting his head, he saw them arrayed above him, their backs to the spire, hands weaving another capture-net. With the sword in him, he wasn't sure if he could resist. And who knew when the strange woman would emerge next?
At the end of the line, the last wraith was not weaving, but had hiked up its robe to withdraw a long prism from beneath. When it caught his eye, it gave him a nod.
He blinked.
*****
Ilshenrir had seen his beam hit the Ravager, seen the wings fade and the small figure fall—and so had the other wraiths. They hadn't moved on him yet, but they'd blocked him from the weave. It was just a matter of time.
He had no chance against a dozen of his kin in close quarters, but he hoped one or two would be enough. With a leap, he gained the level of his nearest neighbor, but found the wraith ready for him, one hand holding the weave and the other forming an offensive bolt.
His green crystal blade, cut from the spire Syllastria, absorbed the blast then took his foe beneath the mask, shattering its brittle shell. Its essence trembled within the falling pieces, then coalesced and was sucked down through a crack in the salt-roof to join the spire.
The next two turned their heads to regard him, breaking from the weave. They were up even higher—no easy reach with flight restricted underground—and as they coordinated a bright bolt, Ilshenrir hesitated. Fight, run, or do something crazy?
In the human world, crazy seemed to win, so he tried that.
The green crystal blade easily breached the salt that sheathed the spire. As thick sheets fell away, he wondered why his kin had not done this themselves. He felt their attention and the tingle of a bolt's tracer-line, but they did not release it—perhaps confused, perhaps disbelieving.
Three feet in, the salt gave way to red crystal. Ilshenrir shoved the blade at it.
Once before, he had done this, and disrupted the resonance of Erestoia By-The-Sea. But that was a small spire, and this a flagship. Before the blade could even make contact, it whiplashed back on him hard enough to crack his shoulder, and the angry red light of Hlacaasteia changed.
So he did it again.
The section before him partially unfurled, its defensive mechanisms sending panes and spikes of solidifying essence out through the salt walls. As the center of the disturbance, Ilshenrir took the brunt of it, bright razors transfixing his chest and legs. He began to slide apart, his essence bleeding from the gashes toward the magnetism of the spire.
There was no pain, only a sense of going home. Distantly he felt the weave collapsing, other haelhene speared and swirling back into the spire; the roar and slither of dislodged salt
-sheets filled the air.
With effort, he squirmed backward, fixing his attention on the dissenting throb of the green blade. His lower left leg fell away, but he had enough fluidity of substance to extrude a new one, and as he pulled himself off Hlacaasteia's razors, he forced more radiant ichor to plug the other, larger gaps.
Too late, he realized the roof beneath his feet was gone, those razors all that held him up.
He dropped like a broken doll into the roiling water below.
*****
Bloody light burned the blackness from the water and sent out waves that made the salt-floe shiver beneath Cob's feet. With the sword still locked inside him, he clutched the lever with both hands and pushed harder, the makeshift paddle on its end moving him all-too-slowly toward the cavern wall.
Dark things still lurked in the depths: energies or entities that had slipped through the door he'd opened. He wanted to scream, to rage, but there wasn't time. The threads in his grip were fading, Fiora's the fastest.
Sand sifted down on him—then a pebble plinked off his antlers, and suddenly debris was falling everywhere. The water kicked at his floe again, and he considered jumping off. Swimming might be faster. But he couldn't trust himself in its clutches, not after what he'd done, so as stalactites began to rain down from the cavern roof, he just paddled.
It felt like an eternity before he reached the wall. Cracks had formed in it from the intermittent shaking. He dared not look back but by the way the water lurched beneath him, he guessed something was happening with the spire—all the better if it distracted the wraiths. Fetching up against the wall, he anchored in with salt, then raised the lever and planted the chisel-end deep.
This was not stone—not yet. In a few eons it might have become so, but for now it was still frangible within its mineral-salt matrix. Great portions had already been chewed-up below the waterline, but the damage had not yet punctured through to the lower, empty caverns.
Steeling himself, he pulled on his friends' threads, trying to fetch them up against stable walls. Then he sent his will down to the lowest point in the cavern and broke through.
The punch of the first great air-bubble flung his raft into the wall, shattering it. He clung to the lever as the lake became a roiling whirlpool, concentrated first at the center but swiftly expanding to pull at the wrecked buildings and the sandy walls. Eyes closed, he didn't watch, just felt as Lark's hands locked onto a jutting ledge, as Arik's claws caught an exposed stalagmite. As Fiora came to the surface for the first time since she'd gone in.
As the water-level dropped precipitously, he struggled to guide her toward him and strengthen the others. Another body caught his attention, and he pulled it along too though it made his stomach sink: Rian. More distantly, like dying fires, he felt the wraiths caught up in the gyre, but couldn't sense the elementals or that woman at all.
And still the sand rained down on him, and the walls shivered. He tried to pull material from the wall to make a plateau or at least a cubbyhole, but the water wouldn't let him; every effort just did more damage to the destabilized cavern. When paler light began to paint the walls around him, he looked up to see sky.
A huge chunk of ceiling broke free. The spire shifted, then slumped sideways.
It must have pierced another cavern, because the roiling stopped and the water changed direction, scraping the basin clear in a matter of heartbeats. In the aftermath, silver folk and wraiths lay scattered across the chamber floor, few moving. Cob, left hanging forty feet in the air, let some of his attention turn to making footholds while the rest stayed on Fiora, insensate below. His other friends were either stable, or—
He winced as he heard Lark's wail.
*****
Bruises were nothing. Fractures were nothing. Stinging salt, toxic vapors, pain, dampness, cold, they were nothing.
All Lark saw was Rian, laying on the scoured floor as if dropped. His spindly limbs were out-flung in all directions, his head turned at a bad angle, but still she told herself it was fine. They'd been through worse. Even if all the world shook down around them, they would survive.
Her hands found his harness, the cloth all torn away from beneath it to expose cold, scorched flesh. No breath, no pulse, no light in those open eyes.
Sand trickled along her scalp, down her neck. She felt the beams against her shoulders, the earth closing in, and then she was in the tunnel again, his tiny body cradled against her breast, his fingers just long enough to wrap around one of hers, his mewling cries slowly subsiding in her embrace.
Softer, softer, then gone.
*****
Cob planted the lever and dropped to Fiora's side. Her face was drowned-white, her lips blistered, but in his fist that thin cord still flamed. Slowly he drew the sword from his flesh, then tossed it aside as the Guardian's presence settled around him. If the strange woman came for it now, she could have it.
Gathering her into his arms, he pushed his senses through her skin as he had done with the hog-folk and sought out the source of the problem. Water in her lungs, and chemical damage—he could fix that. But what about the bad air when she came clear?
He'd find a way. Focusing, he drew the water from her lips, felt her lungs spasm in response and encouraged them. The flicker of her heart grew stronger. Out, out, dredging sand and mucus along with the brine, until she was retching under her own power, her fingers digging into his arm with convulsive strength. Her eyelids fluttered, then flared wide, and for a moment showed only animal panic.
Then she inhaled, coughed, inhaled again, and he realized there was a stir in the air around them. A clean current, drawn down from above.
Hugging her close, he looked over his shoulder to see Ilshenrir limping toward them. The wraith was a tattered thing, one leg just a glassy knob, thick melted patterns on his side and chest, face once again immobile. In one hand he held a green crystal; with the other he drew a current of air from the broken ceiling. Arik padded behind him, soaked to the bone and distressed but whole, with an air-serpent still fluttering at his muzzle.
Just out of arm's reach, Lark huddled and shook, Rian a lifeless bundle in her arms.
Dull anger rose in Cob's chest. He'd seen the fatal blast and knew who'd cast it—but he'd also seen the wings. He could blame the wraith all he wanted, but it was clear that Ilshenrir had acted to defend him.
Or was it? Jeronek's memories identified him as a student of the Ravager Kuthra. Ilshenrir had taught him everything he knew about the wraiths and their ways, and if he had lied, not even the Guardian knew enough to gainsay him. If Enkhaelen had spared him at the manor for a reason other than nostalgia...
No. There would be no reason to shoot the goblin. Ilshenrir wasn't a spy.
“We must go,” said the wraith. “My kin will rally soon.”
“They did this,” Lark rasped. “Let them come.”
Cob coughed the water elemental from his lungs in case he had to start yelling. He owed Lark, but they didn't need this right now. That she blamed the other haelhene was good, but—
“I did it,” said Ilshenrir softly. “I loosed the bolt. I am sorry, but I saw no other way.”
For a moment, all was silent. Tension filled the air like smoke; behind the wraith, Arik curled his clawed hands, gaze fixed on that vulnerable neck. In Cob's arms, Fiora made a questioning noise, and he squeezed her tighter, unsure what to do.
Lark set Rian down on the floor, then slowly rose to her feet. She managed two steady, deliberate steps before her control broke—but rather than flinging herself at Ilshenrir, she grabbed the tectonic lever and tried to wrench it from the ground. It wouldn't budge, and at the contact, the air-serpent that had sustained her fled. Teeth bared, eyes wild with rage and grief, she turned on the unmoving wraith only to be intercepted by Arik, who caught her around the waist and hoisted her as she struggled.
“Coward! Killer! Monster!” she shrieked. “How could you? I just got him back! My baby! How dare you!”
“My sincerest apologi
es.”
“Apologies? Apologies?”
At a look from Arik, Cob pulled himself and Fiora upright and grabbed the tectonic lever. “Lark, we can't do this,” he said. “He's right, we need to leave.”
Lark's kicking and bucking suddenly ceased, but the look in her eyes was pure malevolence. “Not with him.”
“Yes with him. We need his help, and... It was a bad choice, but—“
Her glare burned the words from his tongue. “You,” she growled. “This is your piking fault, your Dark thing, your constant—piking—trail of destruction. He came here for you—we all came here for you, and this is what we get?”
“I cannot reach much more fresh air,” said Ilshenrir quietly.
“You should have died! You should have died a hundred times and left us out of this!”
Cob swallowed thickly. Even now he could feel the black water tickling in the back of his throat, the cold phantom fingers at the nape of his neck. This was not a safe place to talk, or think, or feel; at any moment it might come surging back up and they would all be lost.
“We have to go,” he said huskily. “I'll make a staircase or somethin'. Anythin'.”
“We are in Crystal Valley,” said the wraith.
“But once we're up, y'can keep the air comin', right? Or we can call more elementals.”
“They do not heed me.”
“Raun the Wolf called them for us,” rasped Arik. “We should return to the spirit realm. Neither wraiths nor elementals can reach us there.”
Cob shook his head. “Another realm-shift could— I don't want t' take any chances.”
“Could what?” growled the skinchanger. Lark still squirmed in his arms, trying to pry his huge clawed fingers off, but he gripped her as easily as a doll; still, his ears had flattened down and his tail was tight between his legs, his gaze skipping from wraith to goblin to Cob. “What does the Guardian have to fear in the spirit realm?”
Cob wanted to explain, but he didn't understand it himself. So instead he nodded. If it came after him in the spirit realm, at least there wouldn't be other enemies around.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 45
