“We can't kill him. The Seals—“
“He's too dangerous alive!”
She strode forward, reaching for the sword, and he turned his hip away to prevent it. “Fiora,” he said carefully, “if there was any other option, I'd take it. But he needs to fix what he broke. He can't do that if he's dead.”
“The next Ravager can!”
“No, not really.”
Glaring up at him, she said, “You won't succeed. The moment he's strong enough, he'll kill you.”
“He didn't.”
“That's because he knew we were here.”
Ignoring Enkhaelen's faint scoff, Cob said, “We can't fight about this. It doesn't matter how any of us feel; he has to do it. We can talk about justice or judgment afterward.”
Her eyes narrowed. He wanted to say something more—I agree with you, or I understand, or I love you—but before he could speak, she said, “I'm leaving.”
His mouth wouldn't form words.
“I need to report to my temple,” she continued, then nodded toward the prince's mob. “Heard them talking about portals. I'm gonna ask if they can make one to Cantorin. You should have a day or two before we start hunting you.”
“Wh— What?”
“He's one of our oldest enemies,” she said, withdrawing a step. “Our leadership won't take kindly to hearing that he's been freed.”
“Fiora—“
“Sorry. Best of luck.”
With that, she turned away to quick-walk toward the Imperials. He stared after her open-mouthed, terrified by what might happen but unable to cry out. There were mages among them now, and priests, and two familiar women with their arms around a third. As Fiora approached, the lot of them turned to look at her—then made way at the prince's gesture.
She disappeared among them.
Cob felt his chest constrict. The air came thin through his teeth, and the itch of his eyes made him raise his hand to scrub them—then flinch as his burns flared. Everything was dry and brittle and painful, and though he tried to choke it down, the hurt took over his tongue. He kept from spitting curses after her, but mumbled, “Nothing I do is right.”
Enkhaelen snorted.
It took Cob's last ounce of will to resist dropping him on his face. Instead, he lowered him gently, then moved out of arm's reach to sit with Arik, who immediately rested his wolfy head against Cob's shoulder. As the lights of the prince's group moved off down a corridor, he stared into the pit and tried not to feel the red cord's tug.
A period of silence followed, with nothing to see but the expanding edge of the pit and the few survivors who climbed out and slunk away. None approached them, for which Cob was glad. He'd already done too much, and he wasn't finished yet.
Finally, with a grunt of effort, Enkhaelen rolled himself over. “If you're serious about this, we need to start with the Seal of Air,” he said. “It's there, all the way at the top, and I'll need energy to replace it.”
Cob followed the man's pointing finger to the ceiling above the throne. “How d'we get there?”
“Spiral walkway up the central Needle. Covered in Palace gunk right now. It should slough off eventually, so while we wait, I'd appreciate if you'd fetch me Geraad.”
Eyes narrowing, Cob said, “Why? He's—“
Then a thought occurred that flipped his heart in his chest. He choked on his eagerness the first time he tried to speak, but on the second time managed, “You're a necromancer, you mess with souls. Can you bring him back? Or Das?”
“Das?” Enkhaelen sighed. “Shouldn't be surprised. No. In different circumstances, perhaps, but it's already been too long. Death Herself will have them, and I've not the strength to wrestle with her.”
“Then why?”
“To harvest him for energy. Them, if you'll bring her too.”
Cob lurched to his feet, incensed. “It's not enough you got them killed, you have to—“
The necromancer's laugh halted him. Wedging up on his elbows, the man fixed a cold eye on him and said, “You jump at the thought of using my skills, but would refuse me the fuel I need? They're gone, Cob. I can't hurt them anymore, and what's the use of leaving them to rot? We could drag them along with us until I regained the strength to fight off Death's minions, but it would still be too late. Just get them and let me put them to rest, for both our sakes.”
“They're— She was my friend. I can't let you jus' defile her.”
“The corpse is not her. Even had it been her original body, it's still not her. You said it yourself when we met: this is just meat.” He exhaled, then said, “Think of it as sky burial, and the Ravager as a very large bird.”
Cob grimaced, but could find no other argument than I don't want this. It took a few moments to steel himself, but then he headed for the dais without a word, waving Arik off as the skinchanger started to rise to his aid.
The effort of going up and then climbing back down with the scorched body made his right arm throb. He laid it down as carefully as he could, then pulled Dasira over as well, trying not to look. By the time he finished, Enkhaelen had managed to get up on his knees, and set a hand on each cold face as Cob stepped back.
He took a deep breath, and the harvest began.
It was not the blue-black nimbus of shadow and skeletization Cob had seen at Riftwatch. Instead, a glow began at Enkhaelen's fingertips and then stretched out through each body in a lattice of warm light, strengthening until it filled both of the fallen with ethereal fire. Every detail came into stark relief—every nail, scratch, eyelash, a perfect image of them both.
Then the bright lattices contracted, retreating by inches from the limbs to the torsos and leaving fine ash in their wake. As they shrank, the light intensified until Cob could barely look at them. A glance up showed him thin fiery threads worming through Enkhaelen's arms—perhaps his veins, taking in the power as the bodies burned. Soon he couldn't look at the necromancer either, and turned away, the afterimages imprinted sharply on his eyes.
It took some time for the glow to fade. When he finally looked back, the pyres were out, nothing left of the bodies but clothes and ash. A faint radiance was dying on Enkhaelen's skin. He looked better—not so waxen—but it still pained Cob to know that those deaths had fed him.
As if aware of his thoughts, Enkhaelen glanced up at him. “They were my comrades too,” he said quietly. “Longer than they were yours. I could have done better by them, but she refused to take a new body and he insisted on following me. I won't let their loyalty mean nothing.”
Cob bit back a hard retort, all too aware that Dasira had probably declined the offer for his sake. Instead he caught the necromancer under the arm and hauled him upright.
“Stop it, I can— Oh,” said Enkhaelen as his legs unhinged. “Or not.”
Bone-thin, he wasn't difficult for Cob to drag away and plant by the wolf. “Ravager can't fix you?” he said as he stood over them, not wanting to sit—not yet capable of making nice—but knowing he should try.
“Muscle atrophy is not an injury. It won't be remedied so easily.”
“I better not have to ca—aaaa!” he yelped as Enkhaelen suddenly nabbed his burnt wrist. His first instinct was to punch the necromancer in the head, but the man's grip lightened, becoming exploratory, and his face held consideration rather than malice.
“Painful?” he said, pressing along the inside of Cob's forearm.
“Very,” Cob responded through his teeth.
The necromancer made a thoughtful sound, but as he explored toward Cob's palm, the pain lessened—becoming more of a tight discomfort. “Partial thickness burn,” he mumbled, “fairly deep. Peeling. Light eschar on the finger-pads. Can you feel this?”
Cob's stomach did a slow roll as he realized the necromancer was pinching his fingertips without causing any sensation. “No.”
“Kneel down, I need to see your face.”
Obeying, Cob fixed his stare over the necromancer's shoulder as those unnaturally warm fingers prodded his ch
eeks and pressed painfully at the bridge of his nose. “You're lucky you're dark-skinned,” Enkhaelen said after a while. “And that you didn't take a beam in the eyes. Though why you blocked it with the palest place on your body, I don't know.”
“So it's not bad?”
“Not on your face. I can't do anything for your hand in my current state, but after I replace this Seal, if I have the energy...” He shrugged slightly. “If you were alone, you might lose the whole hand, but with me you'll lose the tips of your fingers at most.”
He looked down at them, skin crawling. “But they don't hurt.”
“That's the problem. Still...” Enkhaelen's brows furrowed slightly. “You shouldn't have gotten off so easily. Perhaps the Guardian left enough of itself in you to ward off the worst. Or else the Void did.”
Cob refused to think of that. “What about Arik? Can y'help the Wolf?”
“I can, but...again, after the Seal.”
“So that's it, then? We wait?”
The necromancer smirked. “You don't know how to rest, do you. I, for one, don't do well in the dark, so I am going to close my eyes and pretend to be dead.”
With that, he settled back, and Cob sighed and climbed to his feet again. Enkhaelen was right; an agitated energy still flowed through him, undaunted by the night and the pain and the quiet, and soon he found himself pacing around the slumping dais as if he could will it down.
A red glint caught his eye.
Serindas.
It lay where its wielder had fallen, unlit but for a single rune by its tip. As he approached, he could swear it shifted as if aware of him, and recalled with unease the other akarriden blades that had touched him.
Detouring, he crouched beside the ashes to unbelt the blade's sheath. No matter how necessary it had been, he couldn't bring himself to look at the rest of Dasira's remains—though there wasn't much, not even bones. Just empty clothes, and something shiny and black, like a scale...
Puzzlement forced his eyes to it, and he realized it was an unburnt scrap of the bracer, about three fingers across and still faintly emblazoned with the scouts' crescent-moon crest. He turned it over but the underside had been scoured clean, no life left in it.
He tucked it into his belt anyway, then took the sheath and caught the akarriden blade with it, not interested in touching the hilt. Even through the leather he could feel its hunger.
Not comforted but at least reminded, he strapped the malevolent blade on and forced himself to sit by the others, and stare into the dark, and wait.
*****
Where the crowd went, Weshker followed. He didn't know what else to do. He had blacked out from the pain of the Guardian's exit, only to wake up in mage-lit darkness, the battle apparently over—the Emperor vanished, and the throne a ruin.
He walked now among the Crown Prince's entourage, unnoticed or just unimportant. That was fine; he didn't want to fight. All his limbs were still attached, which was more than he'd expected, but his skin seethed under his scout uniform like a thousand wings and the air that entered him did so through a dozen hidden throats. The crows hissed in his head, demanding he break apart and fly after his great enemy, Field Marshal Rackmar—but who knew where that bastard had gone?
He didn't care about anything else. Getting back to the Crimson camp and freeing the little girl was all that mattered now, and if he had to die for it, that was fine. If he had to be transformed into this bizarre conglomerate of feathers and claws and black sludge and weak flesh, that was fine too. The crows beneath his skin were welcome to take over as long as they got the job done.
And so he followed, past the battle-dead and into the corridors and chambers beyond, where corpses lay rot-eaten or unmarked—the latter mostly White Flames but some more standard abominations, bodythief and senvraka and ruengriin. Cowering pilgrims crept out to join the crowd, and sometimes surviving White Flames did the same, but just as often they stood away, holding their heads or retching out from their peeled-off faceplates.
He almost felt bad.
The crows did not. They gabbled about eyeballs, and he took care to steer clear of corpses lest they decide to make him go for some. When none were around, they gave him visions of flying over the crowd, clawing at faces and necks, ripping out gobbets of flesh. Fantasizing, he guessed, because they exerted no pressure on him.
Finally the winding corridors opened into a circular chamber, with a portal-frame at the center.
Small and compact, he managed to squeeze toward the front as the mass of followers pressed in. Soon he was just a few paces behind the prince, who stood surrounded by women as he directed his mages in their magics. None were familiar, though one woman stood out due to her dark Illanic features, and the youngest due to the tongue-lashing she was giving the prince.
“We cannot open a portal to a Watchtower that has been destroyed,” the prince told her wearily. “And as far as I know, they've all been destroyed.”
“I won't go to a garrison,” she responded. “I don't trust your soldiers. I will speak to my superiors on your behalf, but not if you have me marched to the temple.”
“Then we're at an impasse. Unless someone here has the coordinates to a civilian portal, I can't offer you any non-military option.”
“Valent is down,” said one mage. “No help there.”
“My patron keeps a portal room, but it's in Silverton,” said another.
The girl made a face, but then shrugged. “Silverton...that's better than piking Thynbell or some badlands camp. Thank you.”
At the prince's gesture, the mage stepped forward to access the frame.
“Anyone else who requires a general portal, speak up,” called the prince, his voice cutting easily through the murmurs of the crowd. “I and mine are heading for the Crimson camp outside of Kanrodi. This young woman is heading to Silverton. I believe Thynbell Castle has a working portal, as well as several of the Sapphire fortresses.”
Weshker bit his lip, torn. In his uniform and with his hair covered, he might be able to pass through Thynbell Castle; from there, it was just a short jaunt north to Corvia, his homeland. He hadn't seen it in eleven years, and the sudden homesickness made his eyes water.
No. Not yet. There's Jesalle to free, and Sanava. I can't run away.
So he stood his ground as the portal opened into some merchant-lord's keep, letting the girl through along with a handful of others, and stayed that way as another clump of people crossed over into the garishly decorated second option. A tall blonde woman at the front asked the prince if she and her two companions should go—one the dark woman and the other an older lady who hung between them—but the prince shook his head.
“I want to keep you close,” he said.
The third time, the portal opened into a familiar whitewashed chamber, and Weshker felt his shoulders settle in relief. The Crimson camp. No occupants showed on that side, and the room's runes were dim. By his guess, it should be well past midnight.
“Take the rest wherever you can,” the prince told one of the mages, who nodded. Then he stepped through, followed by the three women and a few White Flames.
Then it was Weshker's turn. His approach was confident, but a foot from the portal he suddenly got queasy—not only in his own stomach but in the dozens or hundreds that now filled his altered flesh. Though his previous portal-trips hadn't been pleasant, he couldn't think why this one suddenly scared him.
And there were people waiting behind him, so he stepped through, bracing himself against the disjunction and trying not to think about what he'd do if Rackmar—
Oh.
Oh shit.
He dropped through, choking down nausea, and tried to call out.
But it was already too late. Only half of the chamber was unlit; at the back of the portal stood dozens of armored men and mages, swords out and hands sparking with energy. In the middle of the mob stood Field Marshal Rackmar, grinning viciously with the good half of his face.
The portal went out.
> Panic took Weshker over. He heard the Field Marshal speaking but the crows screamed louder, and as he leapt away, they tore from his body until he became a cloud of them—a roiling torrent of wings and claws, feathers and shrieks. For a moment he swirled en masse through the chamber, disoriented, but then one crow spotted the door and all others followed.
They hit it like a battering ram, shattering ward-magic and hinges alike. Pale magic reached after him, but he burst into the sky ahead of it, scattering to freedom. Only a last few crows saw the ranks close in on the prince and his retainers.
Then they too fled, lofting through the dark air to rejoin their throng. They would seek shelter somewhere and reassemble into their man-form, useless though it was.
Recovery first, reassessment, and then revenge.
*****
The change in Hlacaasteia's resonance snapped Mariss from her reverie. She sat up from the hard pane of crystal the haelhene laughably termed a bed and squinted in the dim vermillion light, confused. The spire had been at low ebb ever since its fall into the cavern, with no alteration of its facets for what felt like days.
Has something happened?
The unusual resonance hadn't ebbed, but it didn't feel hostile. Not a war-tone, then—more like a sudden vigor. An alertness.
Awakening.
No, that's silly, she thought. The flight key was lost long ago.
But this was a time of change, and so she slung herself off the bed and rebraided her long hair with a thought. On the bedside protrusion that was meant to be a table, the green crystal blade hummed its own tune, blocked from contact with the spire by the cloak beneath it; she picked up both, deciding that even if this was nothing, she'd still get some fresh air.
Before she took two steps toward the door, it opened. She stopped short.
“Master Caernahon?” she said, alarmed, because he never came to the spire. Not since she was just a student; not since he made his deal with the Emperor.
His aged face crinkled into a smile. Unlike the other haelhene, he knew how to look human, and she had learned much from him in that regard. “Mariss, my dear.”
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 110
