Her tone was acidic, but Darilan smiled. “He might, if you asked him nicely. He's seventeen and doesn’t have much experience with women. But that’s not an option; he’s supposed to go to the Imperial Palace.”
Annia pursed her lips and steepled her fingers. A thread of anger still lingered in her expression but Darilan saw now what he had hoped to see: intrigue. He kept his own smile carefully in check.
“And what does the Emperor want with him? What exactly is he?”
“A gift. A special talent,” he said, playing with the truth. “Attuned to growth and life, sort of a spirit in a man’s body. That’s why we felt uncomfortable when he was angry. You know how the spirits affect us.”
Annia frowned, but nodded. “He’s a spiritist then? A…what do they call them, a shaman?”
“A healer. Shamans speak with spirits; he’s been imbued by one. He’s not quite human anymore. You know those old tales, like Gwydren and the Lion? Humans who accept help from the spirit-world and are changed by it? He’s like that.”
“Is he an enemy?”
“If you keep sticking pins in him, yes.”
Annia rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, gesturing curtly, her remaining rings twinkling in the lamplight. “Honestly, Dasira, please. Is he an enemy of the Empire?”
“He worships the Light.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Fine. No, I don’t think he is. He ran away from us but what slave wouldn’t? He hasn’t hurt anyone.” Which is true, Darilan thought. It’s all been the Guardian. Or me.
“And he’s just…a gift? Tied up with a little bow on his head and presented to the Emperor?”
“More or less.”
“So what can he do? You must know, if you’re gifting him.”
“Well, like you saw,” Darilan said, ticking off imaginary talents on his fingers. “Heal flesh, make plants grow, cleanse poisons, regenerate parts—lost eyes, fingers, et cetera. Banish disease. Heal burns, soothe arcane backlash. Possibly revive the dead but we never got him to a newly-dead man fast enough.”
Annia blinked. “All that and you’re giving him away?”
“Well. You know the General— The Crown Prince and his father. Kelturin is trying to mend their relationship, I think. Not that this will help. The Emperor will probably just…”
He gestured vaguely, and she smiled a rueful, knowing smile. An answering smile touched his lips. For a moment he felt the tether between them—the bond of shared life and tragedy, the years of working side-by-side in the Imperial Court.
Then he shook his head, banishing it with an act of will. He was not here to be friends.
“Anyway, I suppose the boy panicked,” he said. “Who knows. He ran off and got picked up by some madman, and ended up in your hands. Kel wants him back so he can present him to his father.”
Annia pressed her lips together. “That is an awful waste of a talent.”
“I know.”
“Does the Emperor know about him?”
“I don’t think so. Not really a surprise gift if he does.”
Nodding slightly, Annia fell silent, her gilded nails tapping a rhythm against her cheek. Darilan slumped back and tried to appear tired, not tense. He could practically see the machinery turning behind her eyes, winnowing through the options for the one that would most benefit her position. He knew what he wanted her to pick: any option that would remove Cob from the chamber for a while, and preferably take him outdoors. But with Annia it was like throwing dice, with no idea whether love or loyalty or avarice would come out on top.
“It’s unfortunate,” she said at last. “Being used as a pawn. Don’t you think?”
Darilan just raised a brow, not sure where she was headed. Sympathy was unlike her.
“Used and sacrificed when the need arises. Ah well, I suppose that’s the fate of all the little people. Do you think Kelturin would hate me if I didn’t give him back?”
“No,” said Darilan, trying not to get excited. Getting Cob sent back to the Crimson would have been bad. “I don’t think he can hate you. Us. We raised him.”
“Well, so did his father, and we’ve seen how that turned out.”
“It’s not the same. We actually cared for him. The lot of you slept with him—“
“Oh now what do you expect? He’s a prince like any other, and he’s not a danger to us.”
“I know, I know. I’m not sniping about it for once. I’m saying of course he won’t hate you. He’ll be annoyed--he did send me to get the boy back—but it’s hardly a matter of life and death.”
“And you?” She tilted her head, her golden hair sweeping across her shoulders. “Will he be mad at you?”
Darilan sighed, and gave her a shrug. “Probably. A mission is a mission.”
“But he won’t…demote you or anything?”
‘If you fail at this, I will be forced to send you to be decommissioned.’
“No,” Darilan said. “He won’t demote me.”
“Well, good,” said Annia. “That settles it. Now, what do you think? Should I keep the boy for my king, or send him to the Emperor myself?”
Darilan’s hands clamped spasmodically on the arms of the chair. He saw Annia notice it, saw her eyes light with interest, and cursed himself furiously for reacting. Despite every attempt at control, his heart tripped fearfully in his chest. “You said it would be a waste of a talent,” he managed.
“Of course, but it could have great benefits for me.” She was smiling now, a nasty amused little thing. “Who knows what they could make from him? A whole new type of ‘abomination’?”
Darilan was out of his seat and halfway to her before he realized it, his hand on Serindas’ hilt. Her thrall guards barred his way but behind them she just laughed. “Oh!” she said, gazing up at him with bright eyes, “Oh Throne, you like him. You like a boy!”
He snarled and backed off, yanking his hand from Serindas. Horror and anger boiled through his veins—horror at the memories, anger at the thought that Annia could even speak of sending another to the same fate that had befallen them. Especially Cob. At that moment, Darilan hated her more than anything in the world.
He forced himself to sit, still snarling, still imagining himself tearing her pretty face off. The thralls moved to flank him, staring down with their blank eyes. He ignored them to glare at Annia. “He was a friend.”
“My, my. The ice-queen finally thaws.”
“Shut up, bitch.”
“I’ll let that go this time. I know how protective you can be. So, I take it you’d vote for ‘keep the boy for my king’.”
Darilan just stared at her, face twisted with fury, until she sighed and said, “Very well. I won’t send him onward. But you have got to tell me about this! You like a boy!”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Oh come on, can’t you indulge me just once?” She leaned forward, giving him an importuning look. “I know we’ve grown apart, but we were good friends once, and now we’re all that’s left. Let me share in your life. I can even ask Kel to transfer you here, to the Gold Army. I can give you a great position, a new body, whatever you need. Sweetheart, you know me. You know what I’d do for my sisters.”
Darilan looked away, not wanting to hear this. Not wanting to consider the option. It’s not like that, he told himself. It’s not what he deserves. I’ve already set things in motion and I have to see them through.
But out loud, he said, “Yes. I know what we’ve both done. It’s just…been a long time.”
“You were always the different one. The difficult one,” Annia said, in warm tones of nostalgia. “But it’s all right, dear. You’ve run yourself ragged but now you can relax and rejoin the flow of life. You can pick any body you want—man, woman, I don’t mind, only please keep it to the staff. None of the nobles. We don’t even have to tell Kel, if you’re worried he’ll recall you to the Crimson.”
“Mm.”
“And…about the boy
.”
“What?”
“Do you think he’d work for us? Of his own free will? I’d like that. Poor thing, he’s probably as ragged as you.”
Darilan looked at her, frozen by the very idea. For a moment it loomed in his mind—to live, to both live, side by side under Annia’s formidable aegis.
But…
Slowly, carefully, he said, “Maybe. But you need to stop hurting him. He doesn’t want to wake up right now, because he’s a prisoner. Take him somewhere safe, somewhere…full of life. The garden, maybe. Even though it’s winter. Bring him to the garden and let him wake.”
Annia tilted her head, then smiled. “I just might. Certainly there is no need to antagonize him further.”
Then she waved a hand to one of her thralls, and he offered his arm and drew her up. As if following silent orders, the thralls that had bracketed Darilan stepped away and returned to her side. “Well, you think on it, dear,” she said, smoothing the skirts of her velvet gown. “And when you decide, we’ll have tea and a proper chat. Now, though, I’m afraid I must attend to His Majesty at dinner. You’ll be given a room, a nice one. I do hope you’ll decide to stay.”
And with that, she turned and glided away with her escorts, leaving Darilan alone with his thoughts.
Chapter 22 – Preparations
The Inquisition had come for Weshker not long after Lieutenant Sarovy had left. Now he was shackled to a chair in a military-police interrogation room, and he was glad for it because the other options seemed to be the wall-shackles or the pillory. Or maybe the table with all the spikes.
Two royal guards bracketed the barred door. They did not frighten him. What did were the three Inquisition mages before him, the robed ogrekin by the table, and the Crimson General watching from his seat at the corner of Weshker’s vision.
He was terrified by the attention. He knew he had encountered something he should not have survived, and he was quite sure they meant to rectify that oversight.
“Shall we?” said the mage in charge. Weshker recognized him as the Inquisitor Archmagus—distinct in his black-and-indigo robes, but rather shorter than Weshker had expected for someone with such a fearsome reputation.
“Yes, Archmagus,” said the lady-mage in Inquisition white, and came forward to press her fingertips to Weshker’s temples. For a moment he was comforted—she blocked the view of the others and smelled of lavender, her breasts right at eye-level—but then a current went through his head and his eyes rolled up against his will to meet hers.
It was like staring into two black wells. He fell in, and the room vanished.
“No resistance,” said a flat voice from somewhere outside.
“Descend,” said another.
In a jolt, he was laying horizontal, staring at a white ceiling. The infirmary. Faces intruded—the medics, the lieutenant who had helped him. His throat hurt like he had been gargling sand.
Bands of sunlight skipped backward across the white ceiling. Darkness fell. The world wobbled, then he was no longer in the infirmary-cot but in a red circle, chest on fire, gut seething as he retched up strands of blood-flecked grey substance.
“Should we deal with the Trifolders?” said the first voice.
“No. They’re useful,” said the second.
He felt distant, and that was good. Emotions battered like moth-wings on a windowpane, locked outside where he could look at them but not touch. Terror, exhaustion, shame, the undercurrent of adrenaline ramping up slowly as he found himself in the street again, in the sheeting rain. The lieutenant’s grip was firm, dragging him away from the bad thing.
Then he was down in the mud, on his knees. Harsh faces and the edge of a sword showed in the thin lantern-light.
“The lieutenant, Archmagus?”
“We’ll speak with him. And with the colonel about discretion.”
He was in the dark alley, surrounded by feathers. Crows—
“What in the world?”
“Pause.”
All was still, the rain captured in midair, the crows with wings flexed, claws just exiting his skin. He stared through a thin veil of red and saw what he had not seen before, when they had torn the grey monstrosity off of him: they were twisted. All of them the same. Heads cocked at a bizarre angle, feathered chests sunken in places and bulging in others, like paintings warped by water.
“Is that a ‘V’?”
“Keep going.”
The clay was on his skin, in his mouth, clogging his nose and throat. The nub of its head loomed over him, its former features erased and reforming into his own face as he suffocated. Gritty tendrils under his clothes, locked at the nape of his neck to make him look--
“Stop. Skip this.”
“Archmagus, we—“
“Skip it.”
He was on his ass in the alley, staring up at Horrum. Surprised. There was no reason for Horrum to be there, with that weird look on his face.
“Better. Keep going from here.”
The hidden door to the warehouse. The gathering. The many faces touched by tiny blots of light in the shelter of the crates. He saw everyone—not only Maevor and Erevard but the men from the other camps and those he knew by reputation or face or not at all. Slaves and support-staff and treasonous freesoldiers. The resistance.
“Nothing we haven’t already seen from the others.”
“Are we done then, Archmagus?”
“No. I’m curious. Skip back a few years. Say…ten.”
“Sir? What are we looking for?”
“Crows.”
The world leapt, and then there was smoke coiling up from the hut below him, his footing growing hotter and more precarious with each moment. Behind him, the clan-hall blazed like a torch. His arms ached from drawing the bow, too big for him still, and sweat stung his eyes as he nocked another black-fletched arrow. In the sky, the crows screamed madly, and on the ground below, his sisters and cousins fought the Gold Army soldiers that poured through the breach in the wall. He was eleven, and he would never see his family again.
“No, no. Further back. Let me do it.”
“Sir, you’re not—“
“I know what I’m looking for. Just follow my lead.”
With a sickening wrench, the memory vanished and Weshker was left suspended in darkness, the void pulsing around him like a black heart. Terror surged. He could not feel his body or sense the presence of the Inquisitors. There was no chair, no room, no observers, just nothing, endless soundless nothing, no up or down or self or outside, only the quaver of his panic as if he was the bowstring upon release, vibrating helplessly. Worthless without the arrow.
Then he heard the wings. Old, slow, massive, swimming through the darkness like a mother following the cry of her child. Closer they came, closer and closer until he felt the feathers unfold him in a soft caress—
—and he was face-down on the hides, his left arm pulled sideways to expose his shoulder, his father’s knees pressed into his back to keep him from thrashing. The whole den sat in circles around him, filling the ritual cave with their chant and their heat, the flutter of their hands and flow of their writhing torsos. The crow shaman, the Black Corvishman, sat with bowls of ink and long needles, and gripped his arm just below the shoulder as he stippled the last mark of the tattoo.
It did not hurt. His head reeled with the heat and the noise and the dream-seeds he had eaten. He could still sense the spirits that had followed him home from his quest: the foxes sitting among the singers, the whirl of volcano-dancers in the fire, the piper outside making the wind shriek.
But most furious of all were the mob of crows that reeled about the cave ceiling. Cheek flat to the floor, he watched from one delirious eye as they spun and screeched and fought in an endless torrent, a blurring black mass of wings and claws and eyes born from the smoke and fire of the sacred mountain Aekhaeleisgeria. His blood had chosen their path, the path of his great-grandfather. The Ascending Path, the path of sight.
The needle withdrew, and t
he storm of crows spiraled suddenly down, the wind of their wings ruffling braids and scalp-locks and fanning the ritual fire to a roar. Weshker felt his father lurch back, then the wings poured into him and the pain arrived, stab by stab, each crow plunging into a black pinspot like a needle of fire. He bucked on the hides but their sheer numbers held him down until finally, blurry-eyed, he felt the last of them slip beneath his skin.
“Archmagus, that’s—“
Until the voice, it had been only a memory. But suddenly he was not the dream-addled boy: he was himself still pinned, the cave empty around him, and from his shoulder—from the black tattoo warped so long ago by his slave-brand—emerged the beak, then the head, then the razor wings of a twisted crow. It launched itself upward—
—and he was in the chair, aching, a warm wet trickle coming from his nose, and the lady-mage was screaming as a black mass of feathers and claws tore at her face. Frozen by shock, the others only stared.
Except the Inquisitor Archmagus. In one smooth motion, he reached into the furious mass and yanked. Something snapped. The wings spasmed, then fell still.
As the lady-mage collapsed, weeping, the crow evaporated into black motes and spun back into Weshker’s shoulder like a patter of hot rain.
The third mage rushed to the lady’s side, and the General stood from his chair to shout at the military police for a medic, but the Inquisitor Archmagus ignored all that. Smiling faintly, he stepped past the woman and set one hand to Weshker’s face. It was ice-cold in the lukewarm room.
“Kav ninnet daraved,” he said, and brushed the blood from Weshker’s lip with his thumb. Weshker shuddered and heard the ogrekin chuckle from nearby. It was only after a moment’s buzzing, fearful thought that he recognized his native tongue and the meaning of the words.
You will be useful.
*****
Evening in the Crimson Army camp.
Lieutenant Sarovy watched the entrance to the meeting-hall as the light faded from the cloud-thick sky. Military police stood guard beside the steps, their faces stiff. More of them undoubtedly guarded the door from inside.
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 51
