Cob looked away, contemplating the cart’s edge. He liked Jasper well enough but the man was a cultist and therefore could offer him nothing. He had no reason to stay. Toivo the dog lay between him and escape though, tattered ears half-perked, and his hand automatically drifted to the furry head. A whuff of breath, a flick of doggy tongue, then Toivo lay a soft paw on his knee and his heart contracted with the need to just be here in silence with a creature that would speak no hog-crap.
“Let me tell you a story,” said Jasper.
Up on the bench, Morshoc groaned, but Cob said nothing; he just stared at the way the dog’s fur flattened beneath his rubbing thumb, the way the ragged tail swished back and forth on the cart-bed. He wanted to go home, to forget, but he could do neither.
“It’s about a young lad, angry with the world,” Jasper continued. “With his people, his homeland, all those who should have cared for him but could not. Left alone but for a voice that whispered in his dreams—a voice he feared yet was drawn to, a voice that spoke in opposition to all he had been taught.
“For a long time, he ignored the voice. He clung to what he thought he knew, and refined his belief until it was pure and bright as the sun. But staring into the sun is not wise, and the more he did, the more he was blinded by it. The harder it became to see his path.
“And the voice kept whispering. It said it knew another truth: an ancient, deeper truth that could take away his pain, erase his past. And so, tempted, he turned toward it, though he could not see the shape of it…”
“No, he didn’t,” Cob interrupted curtly. “And I’m not blinded by the Light.”
“See?” said Morshoc. “His stories are stupid.”
Jasper tilted his head, regarding Cob. “You don’t think so, lad? You’ve never longed to shade your eyes?”
“No. The right way is always painful. The Dark whispers only lies.”
“Ah. ‘The right way is always painful’. Wouldn’t you agree, Morshoc?”
Morshoc just snapped the reins. The cart rattled on, picking up speed.
“I don’t see what this pikin’ well has to do with him knowin’ my father,” Cob said, jerking his chin at Morshoc. “Or why I’m here, or…or anythin’ else. I was goin’ to a safehouse.”
“You fell asleep,” said Morshoc calmly. “I picked you up from the Shadow Folk. Needed to get you far from the Imperials.”
Cob looked to Jasper for confirmation. The old man frowned, but said, “You have to stay away from the Army.”
“I know. They—“ Cob narrowed his eyes at Jasper, a new suspicion rising as he remembered what the two men had been talking about while he ate. “You knew about me. About the…the problem I’ve been havin’. Before you met me. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it—you were huntin’ me. Both of you. What do you want?”
Jasper grimaced and looked away. From the bench, Morshoc said, “Don’t ask him that. There are some questions he can’t answer without swathing them in ridiculous stories. But yes, I was looking for you. I’m here to help.”
“I don’t want help, I want cleansin’, and you don’t look like a Light priest,” Cob snapped, drawing his legs up defensively. The wad of bread and cheese sat in his stomach like lead, his gut heaving around it. Between Morshoc’s proclamation, Jasper’s oblique story and his own bad memories, he felt ready to hurl--ready to swing off the cart and vanish into the countryside. Run away from all of this.
But there was Darilan to think about. Monstrous Darilan, and the Dark horror that he had become.
The corners of his eyes burned, and he ducked his head and clenched his arms around his knees, hating to look like a child in front of them but hardly able to bite back tears. He wished he was anywhere but here. Back at the Army camp, or curled up on the pallet at Ammala’s house--or even home in Kerrindryr, with the rain drumming on the ledge outside and the thunder a somnolent grumble, the light from the banked hearth throwing soft shadows on the cave ceiling. Suddenly he missed that so much it hurt.
Digging his nails into his elbows, he forced his mind up from the mire. There was nowhere to shelter now; he was exposed here under the great bowl of sky, with the wind rushing through endless wild grass and clouds massing in the south like grey ships. Bahlaer had long receded, just a smudge of wall on the withdrawing horizon.
No other option.
“Are we goin’ to Daecia City or not?” he mumbled into his knees.
“Oh yes,” said Morshoc. “We’ll find our way there.”
Jasper was silent, eyes on Morshoc. Looking between them, Cob had the strange feeling that some other conversation had been going on over his head all this time; that Jasper’s story had been for Morshoc’s ears more than his, and their bickering barely to do with him.
He took a moment to swallow down the bitterness, to focus and think, to breathe. Then, into the uncomfortable hush, he said, “So. Why can’t Jasper be here? Not that I want him to stay.”
Morshoc shook his head. “It’s complicated. But it’s for your own good.”
“As much as I hate to agree, aye, it is,” said Jasper. He cast Cob a rueful look, half smile and half sad. “There are…troubles that travel with me. I can not keep you safe. Perhaps Morshoc can.”
Cob opened his mouth to say you seem safe enough, then changed his mind. Admitting to trusting Jasper was like saying the Light was wrong, and he knew too little about the cults to guess what kind of unmentionable problems the old man might have. “You’re jus’ gonna hand me off to another cultist?” he accused instead.
“I am not a cultist,” said Morshoc, “nor an Imperialist, nor anything else. Just think of me as a guide.”
“How can you not be anythin’?”
“I keep to myself.”
“But you’re here now.”
“Only to prevent you from getting killed.”
“Why d’you care?”
“Don’t you listen?”
“You never said—“
“We can discuss it later, Cob. Just know that I have your best interests in mind.”
Cob scowled, not believing that for an instant. By their own words, Jasper and Morshoc were not friends, and while he knew Jasper now—Justiciar, servant of some heretic goddess--Morshoc was still a stranger. An unpleasant stranger who had some connection to his father.
“You trust him?” he asked Jasper.
The old man grimaced, the lines on his face deepening further. “I believe that he would not involve himself unless it was necessary, and that he does not lie to me when he tells me he will protect you.”
“But you don’t trust him.”
“Lad, there is no trust with a bird of prey. It will turn on you by instinct if you’re fool enough to provoke it.”
Cob eyed Morshoc, but the man was an impassive silhouette on the bench. From their interactions so far, it seemed inevitable that Cob would pitch him into a river.
But from Jasper’s sad smile, he knew there was no other option. He could not strike out on his own—Bahlaer had taught him that much—and the argument between the two older men seemed to indicate that Jasper had already overstepped some rule in coming to his aid.
And in all honesty, Cob was ready to part from him. As a tinker, he had been kind and generous, but as a cultist he set Cob’s hackles up.
“I guess that’s it, then,” he said.
Jasper nodded soberly, and Morshoc drew in the reins and guided the cart to a rattling stop.
“You take care, lad,” said the old man as he clambered carefully off the cart. Toivo gave Cob a last lick before bounding off, raggedy tail wagging, and Cob regarded them worriedly: man and dog on the dusty road in the dark, nothing but hills and fields for miles and miles.
“Will you be all right?” he said.
Jasper chuckled and clapped his hat back on, pulling the brim as if to shade his bright eyes. “Don’t worry about us, lad. We’ll do fine. Oh, and Morshoc—give the lad back his armband, aye? It’ll do him more good than harm.”
; A grunt, then something metal clattered into the cart-bed next to Cob. He caught it before it could roll off the end: the bronze band he had lost in the collision in Bahlaer.
“You-- Why?” he said, but Morshoc was staring ahead, paying him no mind. With a sigh, Cob wiggled it onto his wrist and shoved it up under his sleeve. It was broad enough to go the whole way, finally seating comfortably on his upper arm over the old smooth smears of his slave brand.
“Thanks for everythin’,” he told Jasper, free of grudge now that they were parting. The old man smiled and touched the brim of his hat.
“Fair travels and welcoming hearths for you both,” he said, the warmth in his voice unmistakable. “If you need shelter, you know where to look.”
“We won’t,” said Morshoc, and snapped the reins.
As they pulled away, Cob scooted his back to the bench and tugged the bundle into his lap, still watching out the end of the cart. The old man had bowed his head against the plume of dust, hand on his hat and dog tucked behind his leg, but between one blink and the next, they were gone. Cob squinted, heart thudding oddly in his chest, but saw nothing but the fields and stars.
“Go back to sleep,” said Morshoc. “We have a long road ahead.”
“I’m not tired,” Cob muttered, but that was a lie. He felt cold, drained, and though he tried to fight it, the darkness pulled at him with soft fingers he could not resist.
Chapter 11 – Crimson and Shadow
Predawn in midland Illane.
Lark ran through the Shadow Realm with the others, grimly pleased to be part of the mission. Below them, the bulk of Oretcht’ke hung in the black, a spindle-shaped mass of stone spiked with towers and wrought with roads, suspended like a grand cocoon in the net of white pathways that stretched into the darkness.
She followed one of those pathways, close on the heels of the shadowblood ahead. With every step, her feet stuck to the white surface, the connection easily overcome by the pace of her run but still enough to keep her bound to the road. Which was a good thing; beyond the narrow width of the white ribbon lay only darkness. Half of the strike-team ran along the underside, their feet pounding in opposition to hers. Looking down at them was like looking into a reflection. Clothes straight, hair proper. Nothing to say which was the true up or down.
She had not been here often, and still found her heart racing at the strange view. Only shadowbloods could step through on their own, and only eiyets could open a portal. Most of the Kheri’s business relied on those talents, from smuggling goods and people to effecting rescues, terrorizing enemies and eavesdropping on secrets. Unbloods just performed the dayside operations.
Right now, their business was assassination.
Across her shoulder, Lark held the light crossbow she preferred. A pouch of special bolts jounced at her hip, Trifold-anointed, part of the many deals the Kheri made with that faith. If hearsay was correct, they should prove particularly effective against the Imperial abomination.
She had pulled a few other items from the armory—a skirt of stiffened leather and chain, a light cuirass, steel armguards. Less because she thought they would be useful than that they made her feel like she was a part of the assault, not just the management’s observer and hopeful sniper. None of the others wore armor; they were all shadowbloods and had better tactics than loading themselves down with gear.
“Almost there,” said the one ahead of her. She squinted past him but saw nothing but the shrouding gloom. Their path seemed to dead-end some yards ahead, the white length of it suddenly snipped; there was no landing, no place to stand. The most precarious part of a shadow maneuver, she knew, was the exit.
The ‘bloods ahead of her slowed and she followed suit, the gravity of the path sticking her feet more securely. It was still easy to pull free but she had the sense that if she was jostled on the shining surface, she would not dislodge; it read her intentions more than it did the force applied. Everything here was like that, subtly attuned to its denizens.
She suspected that it was alive, but no shadowblood would speak of it.
“From here, we take the eiyenbridge,” murmured the man in front of her. She quelled the urge to kick him in the ankle. She was not a gawking newcomer, she knew what was going on. But the habit of herding the unblooded was deeply ingrained in some agents, and she had to admit that stepping blindly off the edge into darkness was not something she would do without coaching.
By all appearances, that was what the ‘bloods in the lead were doing. One by one, they stepped to the very edge of the white path, reached out as if taking an invisible hand, and leapt into nothingness. Rather than plummeting away, they vanished as if yanked from existence.
Lark’s stomach knotted up as the line ahead of her thinned. It was an easy act for the ‘blooded, but this was no portal—no permanent entry-point between Oretcht’ke and the outside world. Eiyenbridges were off-the-cuff and fundamentally unstable, made to connect the realm to an impermanent shadow or two shadows to each other. They were built of eiyets and held together by the will of the ‘bloods alone, and were notorious for swallowing up those they had been meant to aid.
Then there was no one ahead of her, the helpful ‘blood having leapt out. Lark stepped to the verge, swallowed hard, and reached.
The hand was there to grip hers, and she clasped it and closed her eyes and lunged forward. In an instant, the dry cavernous emptiness of Oretcht’ke became the hissing, skittering, dead-black space of the eiyenbridge. Her feet touched down on shifting material like a thousand layers of rustling leaves.
The ‘bloods led onward, seeing where she could not, and the one ahead kept his grip on her hand. She was thankful for it now. Already she felt tiny fingers plucking at her clothes and running through her braids, and the hisses and chitters of the eiyets filled her ears.
They crossed the shuddering distance until suddenly, unexpectedly, Lark realized she could see.
Not her surroundings, and not even the ‘bloods except where they were silhouetted, but ahead there spanned a wide rectangle like a picture window filled with smoky glass. Through it, dimly, she saw the length of a corridor and part of a conference chamber, as if she was staring through the wall itself. On the other side, this splay of wall would be in shadow; only in the dark places could Oretcht’ke bleed through.
In the chamber, pillowing his head with his arms, was the Imperial abomination.
Light bathed that room—the searing arcane light that had turned the tide so easily in the tavern—but it was a clear shot. And there was no one else in view. Perfect.
“Lark,” called the team leader. “Can you hit him from here?”
“No problem.” She stepped forward, glad to get closer to the window, and dropped to one knee. With professional swiftness she cocked the crossbow and nocked a bolt, noting the herbal smell of the Trifold poultice on it as she tugged the paper from the tip. The shaft was marked with red paint. She nodded to the shadow leader, and he touched the false window.
A small hole opened in the smoky surface, letting in a trickle of light.
Around them, the eiyenbridge hissed with one voice. Lark moved quickly to position the bolt and block the light with her body. Sighting down the shaft, she took aim at the abomination’s head and fingered the trigger.
No movement. Still asleep.
She squeezed. The string snapped forward. The bolt flew--
His shoulder lifted just as the bolt left its perch. His chair slid back, his body down, and for an instant she thought I got him!
Then she saw the black fletches quivering in his upper arm, and the red-runed blade slithering from its sheath.
“Shit!” swore the team leader. “Prepare to flank.” Around her, the ‘bloods rushed to the window and placed their hands on the smoky surface. Lark sat back to recock the crossbow and saw the abomination yank the bolt out, teeth bared, his eyes scouring the entry and then locking on the hole.
“Decoy,” said the leader, and nodded to a ‘blood. The man return
ed the nod and crossed the barrier as if stepping through a sheet of water.
Lark saw the abomination’s gaze switch to the decoy, and then he rushed. His punctured arm was limp at his side but the red blade burned in his other hand, and as he flashed past Lark’s vantage, she tried to take aim but suddenly the ‘bloods were spilling through everywhere, foiling her shot.
This time, they had brought blades. Steel reflected the glow of the chamber until one ‘blood stepped up, grimacing, and slammed the door.
In the darkness that followed, the red blade was the only light. Lark squinted through the window, trying to follow the fray, but the ‘bloods had surrounded him; all she saw were red flickers between their flowing forms and on their swords as they rose and fell. Snarls and grunts filled the corridor, and from around her came the intensifying hiss of the eiyets.
She realized suddenly that she was alone on the eiyenbridge.
Not good.
She shoved her shoulder to the barrier and felt it yield slightly, like a firm gel. Her hand found the bolt-hole and wiggled through; on the other side, the wall felt solid, and she slapped her palm against it and used the leverage to slowly, slowly force her way past the obstruction. Her arm came free to the elbow, then the shoulder; as she bent her head against it, she felt tiny fingers on her neck, pinching. Along her other shoulder, more pinches. And now tuggings at her braids, at the edge of her armored skirt, at her boots.
Soon there would be teeth.
She forced her head through, the pressure of the barrier pushing at her eyelids like a pair of thumbs, and the sounds switched places; the hissing now faint, the clash of metal and shouts of pain now sharp and clear. Her knee went through, and now momentum was on her side, the gel of the barrier parting more rapidly. Though she held the crossbow close, she felt tiny fingers snatch away the bolt she had nocked.
She worked the crossbow free, tossed it down, planted both hands on the wall and pushed with all her might, as if trying to swing her legs up onto a high platform. For an instant she felt teeth in her calf, then they were torn away as she popped free. No longer hindered, she swung her feet forward and braced them on the floor before she could fall on her ass.
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 25
