The mage looked momentarily offended, then his shoulders slumped and he sighed. “No, only under their jurisdiction. I’m a civilian mage, not a military one; my employer is the Count, not the king or the Emperor or—Light forbid—the Inquisition. These mages that have us are Gold Army in service to the king, and they think I’m hiding something.”
“Like what?”
Geraad smiled wearily. “It’s nothing to do with you. I was happy to show them what happened on the road, and I wish they’d taken the memory away. But they’re paranoid and I wouldn’t show them my whole mind.” He held up his swollen, misshapen hands; it was obvious even through the swaddling bandages that all fingers and many of the longer bones were broken. “I have an obligation to my employer to keep his secrets, and they don’t like being blocked,” he continued quietly. “Like the king, they suspect everyone of everything. And so here I am.”
Cob stared at the mage’s fingers, gut roiling. It did not look like anyone had made any attempt to splint them—like the bandages were all that kept them from spilling out in chunks like sausages freed of their casings. When he focused on them, he could almost feel their shattered ache in his own fingers, and automatically clenched and unclenched his hands. By contrast, the mage appeared tired but not in agony, and his pupils were normal, not the pinspots Cob would have expected. “Y’seem so…calm.”
Inclining his head, Geraad said, “I have blocked out most of the pain. This angers them too; they don’t like their torments being ignored. But since this is illegal, they can’t call in the Inquisition, and so they turn their own—lesser—mentalists against me. Tie goes to the defender.”
“You’re a mentalist too?”
“Yes, not that it does me much good.” He gestured toward his collar, and Cob winced at the way his fingers flopped. “Power-locked. I can bulwark myself but not influence them, not make them stop. Still, I can hold out a while yet.”
The rueful resignation in Geraad’s voice sickened Cob as much as his injuries. He had never imagined that the Empire would torture its own citizens—and not even a criminal but a civilian, a mage. Even if this was just a Gold Army or Wyndish thing, it was wrong. He squinted at the mage’s weary face. “Don’t you have anyone to get you out? Your Count?”
“None return from the King’s dungeon.”
“But you didn’t do anythin’.”
“I resisted. Sometimes that is enough.”
Cob shook his head, mouth dry. It was all too much. First Morshoc’s madness and the dream-flight and Lerien, then the monstrous Lady Annia and the Guardian and Darilan, and now this prime, visceral evidence of an Imperial Army ruining a life for no reason. Nevermind that Geraad was a mage, a mentalist, and thus had probably invaded hundreds of minds himself; if they could lock up his mental powers, there was no need to smash his hands to pulp.
“You must be keepin’ some big secrets,” he mumbled.
“No. But I won’t bow to the likes of them.”
I can understand that, he thought, looking out through the bars. The pulsing rings of sigils made his head throb in time. He felt more trapped than ever, like he had spent his entire life stumbling from one pitfall to the next, and yet for all his mistakes and suffering, at least he still had hands. It was unsettling to think that his blunderings had harmed others more than himself.
Jas Fendil. Ammala Cray. Paol Cray. Lady Annia—though some might say she deserved it. He did not know what she had been trying to do, beside the obvious, but it did not seem like a good reason to beat her down, even if she was not a lady but a monster. Still, he could not blame the Guardian for that. Maybe it had been his father trying to look out for him.
Such a bitter thought.
And Mother. I hurt her too.
How do I fix this?
Obviously there was no way to bring back the dead. A large part of him still believed that it would be best to just let things happen: be brought to the Palace and burned clean of all darkness. But his definition of ‘darkness’ had wavered. Did the Guardian truly count? Had it already corrupted him, or was it unfairly maligned?
Could it be right?
He could not argue with its desire to kill Morshoc.
And it had dragged him back from the grey edge of death—twice—and healed him so thoroughly that he could breathe again. He owed it his nose, if not his life.
In the act of feeling up his still-busted nasal bridge, it occurred to Cob that maybe it could do the same for Geraad.
Squinting into nothing, he recalled how Rian’s wound had felt in that first weird moment of perception at the Riftwatch towers, when he had suddenly been able to feel the lives and heartbeats of everyone on the field. A short but deep gash--not at all like the shallow cut he had seen on the goblin’s side later. He doubted that anything could heal in Morshoc’s deleterious presence if not countered by an equal force, which meant that the Guardian had been working through him even then.
He wanted to be angry about it, but it was the first good thing to come from this miserable experience. Hoi, he thought at the deep-dwelling presence of the spirit, can you hear what I’m thinking? Can you help?
It stirred slowly, uncoiling with a slithery sensation that made his short hairs stand on end. He closed his eyes as it ascended and saw white threads flicker against his eyelids, but as it drew closer his senses expanded to once again feel the ache in the mage’s broken hands. No other pain registered, not even from the nasty bruises along his ribs, and Cob guessed that Geraad had suppressed everything—that the ache he felt was the overflow that not even a mentalist could contain.
Nothing existed beyond the edge of the cell.
Well, can you? he thought as the Guardian filled him and the usual headache clamped across his brow. He looked over at Geraad’s hands as a prompt, and saw suddenly all the splinters beneath the flesh—the small bones twisted until they cracked and split, the longer ones broken into segments, the nails gone, the cuticles crusted with blood and pus. The pads of fluid between crushed knuckles, the shreds of tendon still clinging uselessly to bone-shards. The awful jellyfish-convulsion caused by every twitch of a muscle.
And he saw how it could be. Bones fused where they lay, the swelling gone, the pain faded to something arthritic, yet all still clawlike and useless. A jumbled puzzle, glued in place.
“That’s the best you can do?” he muttered. Geraad gave him a wary look; inside, the Guardian seemed to shrug, then turned its attention toward the door. Dissatisfied, Cob glanced that way and felt something else.
A buoyant sensation, like a cork rising from the Guardian’s dark essence into his mind. He concentrated on it, and as it reached him it blossomed into a memory: the rest of the vision he had first seen while breaking Morshoc’s spells at the Riftwatch towers. He was in the tavern in Bahlaer, the fight swirling around him and the red and orange magic tearing apart under his armored hands. Some of it backwashed into the mages but the rest vanished into blackness beneath him as if draining into the earth.
He eyed the concentric circles of sigils through the bars.
We can’t heal him right, but we can take down these wards, is that what you’re saying? he thought at the Guardian. And then what? Run naked through the castle? It seemed amused, then he felt another memory float up: Morshoc’s weird disjunctive magic. Yeah, he was trying to move us with a spell. Some kind of portal. Can all mages do that?
The Guardian guided his gaze back to Geraad.
“Tell me somethin’,” Cob said aloud, not sure if this was wise but knowing he had to do it. “If that collar was off, could y’do magic?”
“Er…it depends on the kind.”
“Could y’leave?”
“No,” said Geraad, puzzled. “The wards outside are active. The furthest one is a teleport block, the nearest is a barrier, and the middle is a pain field. We can’t feel it because this cell nullifies its effect, but if we left—“
A screech from outside startled them both. Geraad cringed back while Cob leaned t
oward the bars to see. The chamber’s outer door was still closed, but the second and innermost rings of sigils were flaring wildly, and with another shriek, a small grey-and-black shape slid into view just beyond the inner circle, clinging to the side of an invisible dome.
Cob recognized the goblin at a glance and jammed his arm through the bars, trying to reach the innermost circle. It felt like being cooked in molten metal, but he pushed through all the way to the shoulder, ignoring the streaks of numbness as a bar pressed tight into his armpit. His fingers just brushed a sigil in the inner ring, and he closed his eyes and concentrated on the blackness in his memory.
It was there, far below. He sensed it waiting. He reached for it.
It rose up like a wave of emptiness, hollowing him out and thrusting the Guardian aside. Skull-cracking pain filled Cob’s head, silence roared in his ears, and in his mouth and lungs the cold of it burned. Terrified, he nearly let go, but the goblin still writhed on the other side of the invisible barrier, so he gritted his teeth and focused on the sigil.
The gold energy burst into a fury of sparks. Cob felt them splash mostly outward, but some of them funneled in, draining through his arm into his chest and then away into the black. Rian fell forward through the invisible dome, mewling, and pulled himself along Cob’s arm with hard little hands until he could wriggle through the bars and into the cell.
The moment Cob let go of the blackness, the first ring regained its glow. He drew back quickly, sweating and cursing, his heart beating like thunder, arm burning with pins-and-needles. White lines fissured his sight as the headache receded, and his gut clenched with startling hunger. Massaging his shoulder, he turned to eye Geraad, who stared in amazement at him and the sniffling goblin.
“What…” said the mage, then flinched as the main door of the chamber slammed open.
Quick as a bug, Rian tucked himself behind Cob, still whining faintly. Cob shifted to conceal him and watched through fading afterimages as a Gold mage stepped in and peered around the chamber. A few long moments of scrutiny and some quiet muttering, then the man shook his head and exited.
“What did you do?” Geraad hissed as soon as the door closed. “And what is that thing?”
“He’s not a thing,” Cob said, and patted the goblin behind his back. “And it’s…well…” I don’t know. It scared me too. “C’mere. I have an idea.”
Uneasily, the mage shifted closer, but leaned away when Cob reached toward him. Cob tried to look non-threatening, but from the way Geraad stared, he did not think he succeeded.
But the mage managed to still himself, and Cob touched the collar to feel the currents of energy moving through it, tingly beneath his fingers. It was silvered steel, with neither lock nor joint and engraved deeply with arcane symbols, clasped so close around Geraad’s neck that there was no way to slide anything under it. Practically bonded to his flesh.
Yet even with a touch, Cob felt its energy seeping toward him, as if his fingers had caused a leak in the channel it followed. Little thrills ran down his arm and dissipated.
Can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought. First time was bad enough, and what if it feeds the Dark? What if this lets it in so it can slowly eat my soul?
But I—we have to get out of here. They’ll kill us all, sooner or later.
He focused on that and closed his eyes.
This time there was no pain, and the emptiness was less a roaring tyrant than a whirlpool in a soft sea, drinking down the power that unwove from the collar. Scales of black and green and bruise-violet moved behind his eyes, lifting him up from the cold tug of the void. As the threads of magic spooled through his fingers, they lost their coherence and faded into the shadowy water, until the collar was left a seamless, mundane ornament.
Cob opened his eyes and shook off the darkness. His empty stomach twinged. The cloak of scales slid from him with a faint sense of approval, and he tried not to bristle.
This doesn’t mean we’re friends, he thought at the Guardian, just that we can work together if we must.
It seemed satisfied.
Cob let go of the collar and Geraad sat back heavily, eyes wide. “It’s gone,” he said. “You unlocked me. Why?”
Feeling awkward, Cob looked away, half wary of the mage now and half pleased to have fixed something after piking up so much. “It’s the right thing t’do,” he mumbled. “Can you get us outta here?”
“Not from this cell, and not with the wards still up.”
Skinny arms hooked around Cob’s neck from behind. “I help!” said the goblin in his ear, and the black tail swung forward, a lockpick held in its grip.
Cob pointed at it and raised his brows at Geraad, who looked flabbergasted. “I… Even then, I don’t have the strength to move all of us,” the mage said apologetically.
A moment’s disappointment, then Cob nodded slowly. He should have known it would not be so easy. Geraad’s magic probably required a lot of precision hand-waving, and even if it did not, the man was battered half to shit. So much for a portal. “Can you get y’self out?”
“Yes, but—“
“Then when the time comes, y’do that. All right?”
“I… Very well. Thank you. But—“
“Y’welcome. Now, what’re you doin’ here, Rian?” he said, turning his focus on the goblin. The mage fell silent and just stared at his hands, which suited Cob fine; he felt bad for the fellow, but he was still a mentalist—still the enemy, on some level. Cob was willing to spring him from this trap, but no more.
“Rescue!” said the goblin, flashing needle-like teeth.
“Is Lark here? Or the Shadow C-- Folk?”
“Ys, no! Us and crows!”
“Crows? What crows?” Cob said, noting Geraad’s startled glance.
“Crows, foxes!”
The mage cleared his throat softly, then said, “I think your…friend is talking about the Corvish.”
“Ys!”
Cob frowned. Weshker and Morshoc were the only Corvishfolk he had ever known, and he was not sure about Morshoc. Then again, the necromancer had been talking about taking him into Corvia—which meant that these ‘rescuers’ might well be his servants. “They’re comin’ here?”
“Are here!”
“Right now?”
“Soon!”
“How did—“ He stopped and just shook his head. “All right, well, I’m glad you came.”
If only because it gives me an extra reason to escape, he thought as the goblin beamed up at him. Lady Annia’s pissed off, Darilan’s here, Morshoc’s minions have found me… Best option might be climbing out a window and running off into the woods.
Not the Wyndish woods, though. Maybe the wraith woods? They didn’t shoot me last time—but I had my arrowhead then.
And Darilan would probably follow me even there.
Pikes.
He did not want to think about seeing Darilan again, or guess what he was up to. Encountering him had not been a shock; of course he was there, dogging Cob’s heels as ever, and if he happened to be dressed up like a nobleman, well, who said he wasn’t? Cob knew nothing of his history. He had asked before but Darilan had never answered, as if his past and motivations did not matter.
Now Cob knew why. And it was true: nothing else mattered.
“I guess we’ll see how this goes,” he mumbled.
“What exactly are you planning?” said Geraad. “Even outside of containment, there is not much I can do to help you…”
Cob shook his head at the mage. “Your job is to escape. You don’t owe me anythin’ for it, not help, not thanks. This’s my fault and I’m gonna handle it.”
Geraad started to respond, but the main door swung open again and he shut his mouth. Cob peered out and nodded to himself. Not just one mage this time but six, all in Gold robes and with four soldiers accompanying them. They strode forward, the wards diminishing as they approached, and the lady-mage in the lead drew out a keyring and handed it to a second mage, who stepped forward to
unlock the cell. The soldiers filled the gap as he pulled the door open. “You,” said one, pointing at Cob. “Out.”
The goblin clutched at his back, but Cob shrugged him off. This will work. Rian can skitter out after me, sneak away the same way he snuck in. Geraad can do whatever mages do. “All right, I’m comin’.”
They backed up as he stepped out, then two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and hauled him forward. He heard the barred door slam and lock behind him, but no outcry. The pain-barrier was down, its sigils just a faint shimmer on the floor.
Are you ready? he thought. The darkness swelled behind his eyes.
He put his feet down on the first ring of sigils and stood fast.
The emptiness opened within him, stealing all sensation. He heard shouts and felt the yanking on his arms, but it was distant, ineffectual; for this moment, he was a pillar of stone, a tree rooted to the floor, and the darkness bulwarked him from all sides. Golden energy crackled along his skin and sank into his veins, flowing down and disappearing into the void like it had never been. He felt the pressure of antlers at his brow, the squeeze of serpentine coils around his ribs, but held them back. He would not allow the Guardian to take control.
As the ring of sigils sputtered its last, he lunged forward, pulling the guards along like children, and stepped on the second ring.
The mages were casting. He felt their little spells as zaps of static and absorbed them too. The power poured in like a waterfall, and his shoulders were the cliff over which it washed, his throat and chest the empty abyss through which it plunged. More and more, the woven cords of it came undone and cascaded through him to vanish into the black.
Something tugged at his heels.
He jerked upright. It was like falling asleep, or just falling: a waver of instability triggering an instinctual snap of effort, awakening, self-correcting. Yet he still felt it there, delicate and cold, like slim fingers sliding through flesh to dandle the bones of his ankles and stroke the marrow of his shins. By contrast, the Guardian felt unusually external, wrapped tight around him yet entirely separate from the shallows of the dark sea into which the energy swirled, its snakey coils strong but superficial and now silent. Wary.
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 55
