The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3)

by H. Anthe Davis

  Perhaps it had only ever been a monster.

  That hadn't bothered it before. There was no one around it had cared to impress or befriend; no one whose opinion mattered. But now...

  It wanted to drop down upon the two. To destroy them, one for his actions in the past and the other for his misfortune of choosing this employer. But Cob was out there somewhere, perhaps worrying—perhaps mourning.

  It wanted to be worthy of that.

  So it hunched in place and listened as the men discussed the reports. Most were dull business and civic material, and it recognized few of the given names. Even some of the clan names were new, and the honorifics ever-shifting.

  Finally came the Watchtower reports. Disturbances along the tundra beacon-line, perhaps indicating a start to the winter raids from Krovichanka; a few pings along the desert line, but nothing of interest; a continuing White Flame presence in the desert, the Sapphires ordered to keep away. A few rumors about what they were seeking, but no solid information.

  No mention of Cob or his friends.

  As the aide began to pack up, the bodythief rubbed its hooks together thoughtfully. This was the capital of Riddian, and the lord magistrate a close associate of the king. If he and the Sapphires were out of the loop, then the only locals who would know what was going on were the Watchtower mages—and the bodythief dared not approach them. Likewise, even if it could find a White Flame agent, it dared not approach. They were immune to its influence.

  The aide left, and for a brief time the magistrate was alone. Though the bodythief had no eyes, its upper surface was light-sensitive, allowing it to track the man's movements around the room. Fretful pacing gave way to a long pause at the window, and it allowed itself to wonder what he saw. Was he proud of this kingdom, yoked to its neighbors and the Empire? Did he have designs of his own? Did he still dream?

  Few of the perpetrators had come as far as this one. Most were dead; some were hermits now, holed up in filthy little dens, afraid to let anyone get close. Two or three had families, grandchildren, and while the urge to eradicate their lineage still gnawed at the bodythief, it had thus far refrained. Raping a man while in the body of his best friend was one thing. Taking over his wife to kill his grandchildren...

  No. There were limits.

  Once he had left, it crept free of the cabinet and scuttled across the wall to the window-ledge. It was much easier to operate the latch and lever from this side; to break in, it had needed to bore a hole at the top with its marrow-spike and let down a thread—never comfortable, as it was basically a sticky exposed nerve.

  Out the cracked window and down the fortress wall it went, senses alert for patrols below. The government compound was well-guarded but not particularly well-warded; because of Riddian's secessionist leanings, the Empire put limits on the number of mages allowed to serve the king and clans. The rest were remanded to the Sapphire Army or simply stayed in Valent, pretending to be apolitical.

  It took some skittering and a few close calls with the guard-dogs, but soon the bodythief was beyond the outer wall and following its Call-markers through the city's alleys and byways. Once, a grig alighted on it and tried to bite, but it stung the obnoxious vermin-bird with its spike. Its essence tasted of dust and sewage.

  Finally, the last marker loomed. It scrambled up to the open window and paused there on the sill, hunched, listening. The room beyond was dark, no sound but a sleeper's faint breathing.

  A short leap took it to the bed, its hooks hitching easily on the blanket. Again it paused, for there was danger in disengagement—not just from those who might stumble upon the helpless, soulless shell, but—

  Red light kindled, then leapt toward it.

  The bodythief was prepared, and hopped back as Serindas sliced a glowing line through the air. For a moment the blade remained extended, quivering in the hand it was tied to, but then reluctantly dipped in recognition of its master.

  Untrusting, the bodythief skirted its reach to approach the other side of the body. Finding its proper arm, it clamped on, the marrow-spike extending from its center to push through the grey circle in the arm and seat itself home.

  Threads extended, reengaged. The knots in the brain and heart that had been keeping the body alive gave a kick as they were connected, and the body jerked, gasped. Senses returned: sight, hearing, taste.

  A metallic taste in the back of her throat. Serindas' irritated throbbing. The ache in her calf, where the branch she had phased into was gone but not forgotten.

  Licking dry lips, she sat up slowly in the dark.

  It had been a wasted effort, so all she could do now was fall back to the original plan: Keceirnden. If her friends were alive and free, they'd be headed there; if not, she had nowhere better to be. She could walk her vengeance to the Palace personally.

  A caravan would be too slow, and she had too little coinage to bribe a mage for a portal. Steal a horse, then; they were rare in the east, but as the Riddish capital, Thyda had its share. Race down the road to Keceirnden, and pray that she found them in time.

  She grimaced and flexed her hand slowly, the threads still seating themselves in her fingers. It felt abhorrent to rely on luck, but what else did she have? No contacts left in this land, no other friends—only enemies and relatives to whom she was a stranger. There was a te'Navrin compound somewhere in this city, but she would never approach it. She hadn't done so in forty-five years.

  They hadn't come to her aid when she was imprisoned. They hadn't been there in the Palace. In fact, the only people who had shown her any kindness in those horrific days when even her 'sisters' turned against her had been—

  She blinked.

  —had been three women dressed like Trifolders. She remembered them standing at the bars, two in armor and one in a long dress, severe of face yet bright of eye. Remembered wondering how they had gotten in, and why they had no escort, why they were in Imperial Light territory at all.

  'We can help you,' the woman in the dress had said.

  'We can avenge you,' had echoed the one in plate.

  And the youngest, in chainmail, had smiled and added, 'Give us your vow and we will slaughter all who oppose you.'

  She remembered refusing, though she couldn't recall why. Perhaps it had been the baby kicking in her belly, or the simple weight of her experiences. She'd closed her eyes, and when she'd opened them again, the women were gone.

  For the longest time, she'd thought it had been a dream.

  Now, here in the dark, with the moonlight slanting in, she realized what had been gnawing at her since the moment she cracked open Fiora's holy book. Those women had given her the same exact chill, the same frisson up the spine as had the girl's harsh prayers.

  She didn't know who they were, but they weren't the Trifold.

  She had to get back to Cob.

  *****

  Lark's return to consciousness centered first on the strain in her shoulders, and then on the realization that her wrists were bound back and trussed to her ankles. There was padding under her, but it did not alleviate the ache or the fear. Neither did the voices.

  “There's no way we can turn her and not have it be noticed,” said one she recognized as Maevor, though his accent was gone. Maevor-plus-bodythief, it seemed. “The Guardian is aware of us, so—“

  “An incubation, then.” The new voice was reedy, almost fluting, and not distinctly male or female. “I plant the seed and we step back, wait for it to take over...”

  “Look, if this was a typical situation, I'd say yes. Absolutely. But the experience of our brethren says that he can sense us keenly. Do you think he couldn't sense a seed?”

  “If it is dormant—“

  “It's still there! No, we can't be ambitious now. We need to play it safe and report her capture as ordered. Get the mentalists to pry their location from her.”

  “You would give up our advantage?”

  “Are you kidding me? There's no way I'm getting near the Guardian, and you can't think you can
take him. All we can do is turn her over.”

  “Pah. And get a pat on the head while our superiors reap the reward?”

  “That's the way it works, Kyleen.”

  A musical sigh, a clicking like hard heels on the floorboards. A papery rustle, like two huge sheets being rubbed together. “It agitates me.”

  “Well, don't take it out on me. A job is a job, and we piking succeeded.”

  “In part. But you will get all the credit, and my nights of flying the cutting winds gain me nothing.”

  “They'll be fair.”

  “They are never fair. Not from the moment of our conversion. You—look at the freedom you have. A new face whenever you like, a new life, the ability to walk the streets in daylight.”

  “Let's not have a pity party now. You volunteered, same as I did.”

  “Not for this!”

  “Yes, for this! For whatever the Light saw fit to grant! Or did you forget that part?”

  “Spend thirty years like this and we shall see how you feel.”

  “Oh, sure, I'll just get right on that.”

  Loath to see what the fuss was about, Lark nevertheless slitted one eye open. The room was dim, lit by the single candle, making the false Maevor little more than a shadow.

  Standing by the window, though, was a lean white figure brushed faintly with luminescence, like moonglow behind heavy clouds. It was not human. From the back-sprung legs with their ivory claws to the second set curled tight against its abdomen, and from the wings that started just below its narrow shoulder-blades to the long, thorned arms, it looked like some nasty leaping insect if such things grew to six feet tall. Only the mane of wavy white hair looked human; when it turned toward Maevor, she glimpsed the near-vertical teardrops of its eyes, the slight nasal ridge, the cheek-to-cheek zigzag of its closed mouth.

  It wore a loincloth. To Lark, that was the strangest part.

  “Perhaps they assigned me here to fight him,” the creature mused, gesturing with one of its carapaced hands. Lark counted two fingers and a thumb in the moment before the creature's arm jerked, adding a foot-long scythe-like appendage with the speed of a switchblade. “Where the thieves fail, they send a reaper.”

  “Don't be an idiot. Even the White Flames had trouble with him.”

  The creature's unnaturally thin shoulders sagged. “I never get to fight.”

  “Just loom over her when she wakes. Maybe you can scare some answers out of her.”

  With a harmonious sound of disgust, the creature clicked over in her direction. She eased her eye shut. She had few options. The bonds on her wrists and ankles were tight, and though she could feel the water elemental's presence against her skin, it was sleeping. The samarlit must have affected it too.

  Ilshenrir's crystal was useless. She'd had a holdout knife in her boot, but by the feel, false Maevor had already removed it. Perhaps she could push energy into the ropes, but she had no idea what that would do: light them? Blow them up? Probably a bad idea.

  Anyway, those scythe-sharp limbs were not something she could fight.

  One of them prodded her in the side, sending out a ripple of protection from her robe. “Oh!” the creature said above her. “I thought she was not a mage.”

  “She's not. She can't be.” False Maevor sounded puzzled, almost offended. “The Shadow Folk hate magic, and she said she was a kai lieutenant.”

  “Perhaps you have been misinformed.”

  “I consumed the accursed man. I know what he knew, and he was an insider.”

  “Hm.” Another poke, another faint spill of magic. Lark feigned a grimace and fluttered her lashes as if just waking.

  She heard a creak of sinews, felt a sudden faint warmth, and opened her eyes to find the scythe-creature's bizarre face barely inches away. It had carapace there too, from the hairline to the upper lip: smooth, faintly radiant, almost pretty. The eyes bore long marks that looked like vertical pupils, but were actually just darker spots in the pale hexwork. A twist of slightly pinkish material gave it the illusion of a lower lip, but as she watched, the pink unfurled into two tiny grasping limbs and the creature's maw opened into corrugated darkness.

  She stared, then said slowly, “What are those extra bits for?”

  The creature's head tilted, but the black spots in its eyes stayed fixed on her. “...What?”

  “Your little mouth-fingers.”

  “...Are you certain you do not wish to scream?”

  She did. Oh, she very much did. But there was no point, so she said, “No, thanks. They look like they'd be useful to pick your teeth, only you don't seem to have teeth.”

  The creature swiveled its head almost the whole way around to stare at Maevor, whom she glimpsed past its shoulder, trying to hold a straight face. “Is the Shadow Cult normally this...accepting?” it said.

  “We— They see some strange things,” said Maevor dryly.

  Lark almost smiled, because it was true. There were the eiyets and the eiyensuriel of Oretcht'ke, the stranger things in the shadows, and their allies: goblins, elementals, skinchangers, other faiths. Coupled with what she had seen at Cob's side, this creature's face was peculiar but not inherently forbidding.

  But it meant an end, for her. She felt weirdly calm. Perhaps it was the lingering lassitude of the samarlit, or perhaps the effect of Rian's death, but the thing inside her that had been vacillating between possibilities for a future and moody reflection on the past now stuck at not giving a shit. She had been tricked. Trapped. She was going to be dragged into Imperial custody to confess and die.

  There was no need to make it easy for them.

  “Would one of you untie my legs, please?” she said. “This is undignified.”

  “You're not here for dignity,” said false Maevor.

  “No? Then why?”

  “I know you were listening. I saw your breathing change.”

  Lark smirked. Whoever he really was, false Maevor was at least competent. The creature he had called Kyleen still crouched over her with what she supposed would be a puzzled expression if its face could change. It kept tilting its head back and forth, staring at her body. She hoped it was looking at the robe.

  “Fine. I recognize why I'm here. But why are you?” she said. “You don't seem to like it.”

  “I hate being around humans,” said Kyleen. If not for its comment about thirty years of service, she would have pegged it as an adolescent.

  “Job is a job,” said false Maevor. “Don't make me gag you.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “Woman—“ he started, then sighed and turned to rummage through a crate. “Maybe they left us some alcohol,” she heard him mutter.

  “He is here to lure you,” said Kyleen, pointing a scythe-finger at the bodythief. “And I am here to protect him, in case you are difficult. Also to fly the sands and find you if you are still in the Salt Wastes. Which...you are not.”

  She dredged for a lie that would convince it that the others were still in the desert, but she had told Maevor too much earlier. Still, there was no reason not to try. “I'm not, true. But the others know better than to come to town.”

  The creature looked to Maevor, who had indeed found a bottle and was wrestling with the cork, his back to them. To her, it said, “I am not so foolish as to believe that. You smell of foreigners, and recently. If this place was not so filled with the stink of wolves, I would track them down personally. Instead, you must tell us where they are.” It traced its scythe-finger up her robe, between her breasts, to the hollow of her throat. “Or else.”

  Against her will, she swallowed. “Or else what?”

  “Don't ask,” said false Maevor.

  The creature gave a dry cackle, mouth-fingers twitching. “Or else many things! Or else I nip off unnecessary parts. Or else the Inquisition takes your memories. Or else I plant the reaper's seed in you, and you become one of us.”

  “That takes too long,” said false Maevor. “Drink?”

  “I'll hav
e one,” said Lark.

  Kyleen sat back, mouth-fingers curling tight inward. “You make light of me.”

  “Never,” said false Maevor.

  “Yes, you do! Always! I hate city assignments! I wish to return to the Daecian nest, or to the northern front where I may fight with honor, but no, I am assigned to you again!”

  Maevor poured a slug of liquor into his teacup wordlessly.

  “And you, as always, are being erratic! A new body, I understand, but—“

  “Look,” said the bodythief, “I'm still adjusting. I've had to absorb more from this one than usual. Pikers are hard to mimic.”

  The creature hissed its disdain, then turned to Lark and jabbed her vigorously between the ribs. “Tell—us—what—you—know!”

  Lark's robe shimmered with protections, absorbing most of the force, but she curled up anyway, wincing in fear as much as pain. “Stop, stop, Kyleen, shit,” said false Maevor at the same time, and stalked over to grab the carapaced creature by the shoulder. Shaking it briskly, he said, “If you kill her, we are piked. So calm down.”

  “You're a bitter lot, aren't you,” Lark gritted through her teeth.

  Maevor gave her a hard look, and pulled at Kyleen's shoulder until it reluctantly unfolded itself to move with him. Even with its legs partially bent, it was a good head taller than him, and its weird gait would make it impossible to pass as human even if covered-up.

  She almost felt sorry for it. If what Dasira said was true, then it had been a person once. And so had false Maevor, though as a bodythief he was now just that bracer. How someone could go through such a horrible transformation and still retain their loyalty, if not their sanity, was beyond her.

  But then, Dasira had also mentioned how bodythieves went rogue...

  “Fellows. Fellows,” she called to them, taking a chance. “Look, you don't have to keep doing this. Maevor, you ate up a comrade of mine, but there's still a piece of him inside you, right? The Kheri have always taken in strays. They might take you in, too.”