The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1)

by Davis, H. Anthe

  This meeting-hall served as a makeshift court when necessary, and from a friend in the police ranks Sarovy had learned that this was such a time. Inside were slaves and freesoldiers who had been taken in a raid on a secret cult meeting. The Corvishman, Weshker, was there too.

  Sarovy knew he should not be here. He had duties to complete—not the least of them his appointment with the mentalists. Captain Terrant had managed to get him and his men bumped up the list to this evening, which was no mean feat when the Inquisition was in camp for a heretic-hunt. They tended to monopolize the Crimson mentalists’ time for weeks on end.

  But Sarovy needed to know.

  There were undercurrents within the Army. Secrets. A week ago, he had dismissed the idea of monsters in the camp as ridiculous--never mind whatever Trevere was--and if he had only heard about the grey thing from Weshker he would have scoffed at it the same way. But he had seen it, and could not stop seeing it. The brief glimpse of it plagued him with a persistence only a mentalist could suppress.

  He had returned to the infirmary to find Weshker gone and the medics distressed beyond words. All they could tell him was that it had been the Inquisition. That had been yesterday, and his attempts to discover what had become of the slave had led him here. His friend in the police had told him that the raid that had netted these cultists had also been run by the Inquisition, and that they had taken the men from the Green Six slave camp at the same time.

  He burned with questions he could not ask. Nor could he tell anyone—not his captain and certainly not Lancer Linciard, whom he kept spotting in his vicinity, acting casual. As a spy, the lancer was not a subtle one.

  But he was not here now, not that Sarovy could see. The population of the yard consisted of officers who had overseen the slave camp on earlier rotations, nervous comrades of the accused freesoldiers, several off-duty curiosity-seekers and two slave women with a police escort—some freesoldiers’ common-law wives. The women held hands and took pains not to meet the eyes of the waiting men. One was Corvish, which was odd. Few would trust their balls to a Corvishwoman.

  The door swung outward then, and the knots of conversation hushed, the men all standing to attention. Sarovy straightened though he hoped not to be noticed; he was the furthest from the door, practically in the opposite alley. Over the heads of the crowd he watched the court-participants descend the steps.

  First came a wave of military police to push back the curious onlookers. After them, the condemned men: a long string of shackled slaves and ex-freesoldiers, all dull-eyed from mindwash, alternating with more police. They split off into two groups—one heading toward the nearest jail-building, the other toward the mages’ dome to be sent to Daecia City. That was the punishment reserved for the worst offenders: to stand before the Emperor himself and be scoured by the Light.

  Most slaves were in the Daecia City group, most ex-soldiers in the other. Sarovy squinted in the evening gloom, trying to spot Weshker, but what should have been an easy task came up empty. The Corvishman was nowhere to be seen.

  He stared at the doorway, frowning. There were still people inside the hall, the lantern-light showing their moving shadows on the doorstep. In front, one slave-woman had collapsed, weeping, and the Corvish wench was comforting her; their police escort kept the other onlookers away. Already some were drifting from the gathering, either to return to their barracks or follow the solemn chains of prisoners.

  A royal guard stepped out from the hall, shield in one hand and lantern in the other, the light glazing his blood-red armor. Behind him came two more with swords cocked against their pauldrons, and at the sight of them the gathered soldiers raised their curled right hands to their foreheads in the claw salute. Sarovy did the same. As the guards stepped down and separated, the General himself came into view, his armored shoulders nearly brushing the door-frame.

  Helm off, face up-lit by the lantern, the Crimson General did not look happy. His eyes glittered as he scanned the gathering, and his jaw set tight. For a moment he seemed every inch the lion, proud and vicious, and he raised his gauntleted hand to return the salute.

  Then his eyes locked on Sarovy and he halted.

  Sweat sprang up on Sarovy’s brow. Between them, all the soldiers stayed stiff and straight, but his knees went watery with the need to flee. He could not hold the General’s stare and looked away, and as the General stepped down to the road he glimpsed the Corvish wench off to the side, her eyes following the General but her hand sliding through a slit in the thigh of her skirt.

  A dagger’s hilt appeared through the slit, glinting between her fingers. Assassin, Sarovy thought in shock, and as the General came abreast of her, his heart clenched. His mouth would not work.

  But her head turned suddenly, her attention captured by something in the hall, and an instant later the General was out of range, striding straight through the crowd.

  Sarovy forced himself to breathe as the General approached, looming large in his formal armor like a bladed ruby statue. He had not often been in the General’s presence—his report of barely two days ago notwithstanding—and never so close that he had been this aware of how tall the General was, or how imposing in his full armor. Even with the phoenix-faced helm off, he overtopped Sarovy by a head. His guards rushed to bracket him, as always a bit behind the General’s long strides, and the rest of the crowd hushed to watch the encounter.

  “Lieutenant,” the General said, his voice a growl that carried no further than his circle of guards. “It seems you have been asking questions.”

  Sarovy fishmouthed, unable to find words. This is it, jabbered the little voice of panic, this is where I get demoted to Lancer. Again.

  At the same time, he could not help but see the gold chain around the General’s neck, and the edge of the teardrop pendant that peeked above his gorget. He could not help but think about the glint of gold he had caught at Colonel Wreth’s throat on that dreary night.

  This is where I get myself executed.

  Before he could find his tongue, then General turned to regard the crowd. “Dismissed,” he said. “Return to your quarters. This is not a carnival show.” His hand flicked the salute and immediately the soldiers broke away, the military police moving to see that they obeyed.

  “Who are you toying with now, Kelturin?” came another voice as the General returned his stare to Sarovy. For a moment the General’s face convulsed with hatred—pure, vivid, violent—then he composed himself.

  “Enkhaelen,” he said without looking. “This is not your business.”

  “No?” A black-gloved hand slipped in to whack one of the royal guard’s arms, and when the guard stood his ground, the hand’s owner gripped his shoulder and stood on tiptoes to peer over. Sarovy, eyes averted, only saw him as a black-and-white blotch, but sensed his toothy grin. “Oh, it’s that one,” he said. “Remember what we discussed, hm?”

  “Please leave,” said the General.

  “Fine, fine, I do have enough on my plate as it is. But remember, Voorkei!”

  Sarovy blinked, wondering what the ogrekin Voorkei had to do with this.

  “Yes. Leave.”

  With a light laugh, the man disappeared behind the guards again.

  The General waited a long moment, face tightly composed as the sound of footsteps receded. Then, still low, he said, “You have three options.”

  Sarovy swallowed. “Sir?”

  “One: you and your men are mindwashed. You are permanently demoted to Lancer. No more command decisions, no privileges. You serve out your remaining time with cut pay.”

  Sarovy lifted his chin and locked his hands together behind his back, determined to stand strong. This was not unexpected.

  “Two: you and your men are mindwashed, and you are dismissed. You return to Trivestes as a civilian.”

  That stung. He gritted his teeth, knowing he could never do that. Not to his House, and not to his faithless wife. Better to be a Lancer and die on the field.

  “Three: you accept
a new commission. You and the men from your retrieval mission join a new company, with a very specific goal requiring some of the excesses of thinking you seem to do. No mindwashing involved.”

  “I accept.”

  The General arched one golden brow. “You’re not interested in the details, Lieutenant?”

  Heart beating in his throat, Sarovy said, “No, sir. If you consider me capable, then I accept your will.” Thinking, No time to question. Take it now before he retracts it.

  “Not even for the sake of your men?”

  He felt a bit light-headed, and the way the General smiled made him think of a cat over a downed bird. No mindwashing involved for any of us. Everything we’ve seen—I’ve seen—put to use.

  A chill went up his spine. In the ranks. The monsters are in the ranks. He knows it, and he wants me to know it. Colonel Wreth. Hunter Trevere. And the General himself…?

  “You see?” said the General in his low lion’s voice, eyes hooded. “Excess of thinking.”

  “Sir… Sir, I—“

  “You accept the third option, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir, but—“

  “Good.”

  A big gauntleted hand clamped on Sarovy’s shoulder, squeezing hard through his plain uniform. Sarovy flinched and stared up at the General, and that little panicky voice whispered, They’re yellow. His eyes. They’re not supposed to be yellow.

  “Then let me show you to your new office, Captain Sarovy.”

  Sarovy choked on nothing. Captain?

  The guards broke apart as the General steered him through, then reformed around them. “I’d like you to choose a lieutenant from your men,” the General said as he drew Sarovy along. “You’ll be heading Blaze Company, Ninth Combat Battalion. It’s new, just being formed. You’ll have your insignias within a few days, and the files in the morning. You’d have them now but I hadn’t expected to catch you so quickly. I suppose I should have. You’ve been nosy.”

  “Sir—“

  “No need to apologize. It’s why I’ve selected you.”

  Sarovy could think of nothing more to say. His head felt like an empty bubble trying to float off his neck. There should have been euphoria, but he knew too much for it.

  ‘For the sake of your men’…

  Abruptly he realized that though they walked in a tight clump, they were not alone in the street. Ahead lingered an odd group: a few of the General’s advisors, some guards, the black-robed mage and Voorkei, and—

  —Weshker.

  Undeniably, unfathomably Weshker. The lantern-light shone on his brushed copper hair and the buttons of his new specialist’s uniform. He was staring up the road, and Sarovy followed his gaze to another small group disappearing into the distance. The military police and the two slave women.

  He remembered the dagger then, and thought to speak, but at that moment Weshker looked his way. He was still pale as death, and there was a plea in his eyes, the same that Sarovy had seen on the rainy street.

  And so Sarovy closed his mouth, though it pained him. He knew he would regret it. Still, there would be time to drag the knowledge from the Corvishman—he would see to it. If he was to be a captain, free of the fear of mindwashing and somehow entrenched in the army’s troubles, he would make sure he knew everything.

  And from the new uniform, it seemed that Weshker was not going anywhere.

  *****

  In the night, the crows flew. It was not their preferred time of travel, but the spirit led them straight as an arrow from the high hills to the Thynbell valley. They arrived in the deep dark, the mother moon not yet risen and the child moon long since set, and as they descended from the sky to the forest that lay imprisoned around the Thynbell palace, a grey shape squirmed out of one’s talons and dropped lightly to a branch.

  The goblin watched as the flock settled into the trees to wait. Then, at the call of the spirit-crow, he swung through the branches toward the low palace wall.

  *****

  In the shadow of a bluff overlooking Thynbell, a deeper shadow opened. A dozen large foxes sped from it like their tails were on fire. Small blots of blackness clung to the last few before falling off and scuttling back through the snow to the eiyenbridge.

  Lark exited last, her head turned as she said farewell to the bridge-maker. From a belt-pouch she dug out handfuls of obsidian chips and flung them into the darkness, which fractured into hundreds of tiny, scrambling shapes. One by one, they vanished with their prizes, until only the natural shadows remained.

  A shivering fox gave a yap, then trotted ahead along the bluff’s base. The others perked their ears and followed, and Lark trailed after them, tugging down the edges of her hat. A gash in the stone wall marked a cave opening, with a single crow perched on a nearby rock like a sentinel.

  In the valley below, the walls and windows of the Wyndish palace lay somnolent, only a few late lights burning. Her breath frosting in the air, Lark glanced into the cave as a lamp was lit and saw the bundles and racks that lined it. Not a den but a cache, a staging-point for raids.

  Lark’s mouth curved in a smile. She was beginning to like the Corvish.

  Chapter 23 – Influences

  In his dream, Cob stood before a black tree. It was too tall to belong here in the uplands, its branches bare of leaves but sturdy, its trunk wide and scaled with tight-clinging bark. Its roots made knobby, grotesque arches across the rocks and disappeared into tiny fissures, like hands clutching desperately at the earth.

  Half of its mass had been sheared away by lightning. From that great gash grew a second tree—a shining, twisting mass of native silver reaching up from the scorched wood into the sky. On an upper branch perched a white ringhawk, watching him.

  This is not Kerrindryr, Cob thought.

  And yet it was. It had the feel of Kerrindryr. The thin air, the persistent chill. Beyond the tree rose a sheer grey cliff that glimmered with ice. A notch had been carved into it by some ancient glacier, and from that notch came the dim, otherworldly glow of the firebird.

  To either side, the land sloped away, all rock and lichen and ground-hugging alpine brush. Behind him lay a black lake like a staring eye, rafted with unmoving ice.

  And a forest. A vast, dark forest that should not be here.

  “What do you want?” he asked the hawk in the silver tree.

  It shimmered faintly, and there was Lerien on the bough, kicking his feet. “It’s not what I want,” the boy said. “It’s what you want.”

  Cob stared at him, wishing his father had never told him that Lerien was not real. Now it seemed so obvious. The boy was too fair for Kerrindryr—nearly as blond as a Daecian—and when Cob tried to dredge up the details of his existence, he found he had no idea who Lerien’s parents were, or where in Risholnis he had lived, or how they had met. Certainly no real village boy would have climbed up to Cob’s cliff-home day after day; even if he had been allowed, there were better and more productive things for a village child to do than hang out with a lonely goat-herder.

  In the light of that realization, all of Cob’s childhood memories felt hollow. The laughter echoing from the cliffs, the adventures up and down the mossy slopes, the stupid antics in the freezing glacial lakes and along that narrow ravine path—imaginary. The shared jokes and lunches and bruises and plans for the future—never happened.

  Here in this artificial homeland, freshly transformed from a bird and speaking as cryptically as Jasper or Morshoc, Lerien seemed little like the boy he remembered. Cob had never felt so alone.

  “My father was right, wasn’t he? You’re not real,” he said.

  Lerien shrugged loosely. “Does it matter? I’m trying to help you, Cob, in a way that you’ll accept. But you need to rest. They’ve stopped hurting you for now, but I can’t say what they’ll do next. My master—“

  “Your master?” A horrible suspicion hit him. “Morshoc?”

  “That’s one of his names.”

  Were Cob awake, he might have fractured his teeth, so
hard did his jaws clench. “He killed my friend,” he said tightly. “He’s my enemy. Whatever he wants you to do, you have to stop.”

  Lerien’s fair brows lifted, and he laughed softly, exasperated. “You barely knew Paol. You knew his family for all of two days. They’re not your friends, Cob, and neither are the Guardians. They want to use you against us. I’m not allowed to let that happen.”

  Us? Which ‘us’? Hurt and anger tightened Cob’s chest. “So what’re you gonna do, fight me?”

  “I don’t have to fight you. You fight yourself enough already.”

  “I do not!”

  “Look at this tree,” said Lerien, patting a silver branch. “This is part of you. This whole place is part of you—not like those memories the Guardians impose upon you. Here, you have cliffs and forests, glaciers and grazing land, a broad sky and a deep lake. And yet the place you’ve dreamt me into, out of all those Dark places and all those Light ones, is a black tree that’s growing silver. Dying from silver.”

  Cob frowned and eyed the tree. Down among the roots, in the rocky crevices that they gripped, he espied the dull gleam of metal: thin ropes of silver twisting up into the wood to climb it from within.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “I suppose you don’t,” said Lerien. “I don’t think you’re stupid, but you don’t look at yourself much. You just charge on forward. You would have made a great Imperial if not for this whole Guardian thing.”

  Cob scowled. “What does a pikin’ tree have to do with the Empire?”

  “It’s like a knife in your heart. You stuck it in there when you were twelve, and it’s been killing you ever since. And not just killing you--growing into something else inside you. Do you know what you could have been? What you’re going to be?”

  For an instant, Cob saw it. Two branches, one black, one white. Himself crouched in the shadow of the cliffs, shaggy-haired and wild-eyed like a mountain hermit, a twisted staff in one hand and his other on the rocks as he watched a troop of Imperials pass beneath his ledge. Except his hand was not on the rocks, but in them--buried beneath the surface to touch the living stone—and with his grip on the mountain he knew he could crush them all.