He did not look down. Whatever it was, it came from the hollow center where the magic went. Deeper, far deeper than the Guardian’s well.
Instead he pushed forward, dragging the soldiers along, their weight barely registering. The third ring of sigils gleamed before him but all else was black, like they had been inscribed on the substance midnight, and as he planted his feet on the wards, the flood of power shoved him under. The waking world flew away, once a chamber and now a skylight, and the stinging waves of energy poured over him like hot water, forcing him deeper. He reached frantically for walls, hand-holds, anything, but there was no wood, no rock, not even the sea. The scales cinched tight around him but he felt them straining—eroding a little more with each strand of energy that rushed over him and disintegrated, glittering, into the nothingness below.
He could not feel his physical body. Somehow he had fallen out of it. Everything around him was empty. No sight, no thought, no sensation—
Just the cold fingers that pervaded him, seeping into his essence, his soul.
For an instant the black tree spread before him, its silver branches tarnishing, cracking.
Then, in a last gush, the flood was gone, the punishing energy sliding from his shoulders. A cry split the darkness and claws bit in where the water had been, and he felt the cold grip clench on him but saw white wings above, flexing against the black. The ringhawk. Its talons hurt, but the sensation of scales resumed around him as well, and with its help, the ringhawk pulled him free.
His knees unhinged and he hit the floor. Below him, the circle of sigils lay dull and cracked. Armored hands hauled him upright and golden spell-light wound around him, fogging his mind and making his joints ache. The Guardian withdrew.
He looked back. Geraad was watching through the bars, an expression of terror on his wan face. But there was no one near the cell now, no one yet dealing with the burnt-out wards, and in their consternation they seemed to have forgotten their remaining prisoner. As the guards dragged Cob from the chamber, every mage in the area followed.
He wished he could be pleased, but with every step on the cold stone floor, he felt that tug at his bones.
*****
Geraad reached a hesitant hand through the bars, waiting for the pain, but none came. The wards were down. “Now or never,” he whispered, and looked to the goblin.
He had never been so close to one, and had not thought he would want to, but as the goblin squeezed through the bars with its lockpicks, he could not help but feel grateful. He would not think about what he had just seen, or what would happen to Cob. He had been told to escape, and he would do so. Analysis could come later.
The lock clicked, and the goblin pulled the door open with the beaming pride of a clever toddler. Cautiously, Geraad crept free. There were no scrying eyes here—it was impossible with the amount of magic that usually infused this place—but he knew that his captors could return at any moment.
For the first time in a week, he stood up straight and unchained.
Hope fluttered in his chest. With his hands broken, he could not shape magic, but it was not necessary. Every mage who trained at the Citadel could return there with a word. With the wards down, it was just a matter of speaking it.
He looked down at the goblin, meaning to thank it, then realized something. “Can you get out?”
The goblin blinked, and they both looked toward the arcanely sealed chamber door. Above the door-frame Geraad glimpsed finger-marks in the plaster, and tracked them across the bare ceiling. It must have gotten in by sneaking behind the guards, he thought. Then climbed along there like a spider until it hit the inner ward. But now this spider is as caged as I am.
“No telling when they’ll come back,” he said. “And if I’m gone, there will be scrutiny. Perhaps you should—“
The door opened.
For one moment, Geraad could only stare at the lady-mage, his jailer, as she stopped in the doorway, startled. Then her hands moved in the first flickers of spell-weaving.
Geraad crouched and wrapped his arms around the surprised goblin. It did not struggle, but locked its skinny limbs around his neck.
It’s small enough, he thought hopefully. It will get through.
Aloud, he said, “Sanctuary.”
*****
Rian clung to the mage with all four limbs and prehensile tail, and shrieked as the world warped and lurched. A magnetic force tried to tear him away, but he drew on all his wiry strength and in only a heartbeat it was over.
The mage crumpled to his knees, groaning. Rian wiggled from his weak grip and stared around wild-eyed.
They had arrived in a small, dusty room that reeked of magic. A quilt-covered bed, a clothes chest and some bookshelves stood as the only furnishings. Light filtered in through a single narrow window over the bed, and on the opposite wall was a curtained archway. Looking down, Rian saw a ring of sigils around them and sprang out of it in terror.
“Hallo?” called a man’s voice from beyond the archway.
Rian leapt onto the bed and then to the window. The view from there froze him in the act of scuttling out.
There was no ground—not that he could see. Directly above, the sky burned bright and clear, but was swiftly horizoned by the black wall that surrounded the city. Spires and towers and curlicues of obsidian rose within its confines like a forest of arcane growth, festooned with banners and gleaming windows and whitewash and graffiti that tried to alleviate the black. A few incongruous flower-boxes and high terraced gardens helped. Here and there, specks of color moved along ribbonlike walkways: people, tiny in the distance. Looking down, Rian saw only a dizzying drop into darkness.
“Hallo? Iskaen, is that you?” called the voice again.
Rian skittered under the bed just as the curtain parted. He heard a gasp, then the man yelled, “Hoi! Call a warder, fast!” A muffled query came from outside, and the stranger repeated it in a panicky voice.
Huddled in the shadows, the goblin stayed hidden and silent in the center of the Citadel at Valent, city of mages.
*****
By the time they dragged Cob into the portal chamber he was somewhat recovered. The mages bickered around him furiously but after wrapping him in their web-like spells, they seemed to forget he had been a threat.
He would have smiled had he not felt so sick. His head reeled, his stomach ached, and he could barely keep his feet--not the way he had planned to feel when he had plotted a window-related escape. And he dared not open himself to the Dark again, not with that presence waiting to draw him down. He had managed to shake the sensation but felt now like he was walking on thin ice, with some great obscure shadow following him from below. Lerien had saved him, but he did not know if that would work a second time.
It might have to, he thought. The portal shimmered in the center of another circular chamber, this one not only warded in concentric rings but full of odd objects and structures that thrummed with channeled magic. Orbs on tall stands, strange apparatuses of gears and lenses, metal spikes driven into the rings in regular intervals, and the portal-frame itself: a bracket of wrought silver in the center of a low bronze dais, the magic crackling from its manifold hooks and spikes like threads in a tapestry.
The energy washed around him like warm, charged water, and he sensed that all he had to do was pull out the stopper. Let it flow through him and drain away. But the serpentine shape of the Guardian was coiled tight in his chest, uneasy, and he sensed that if he tried to bleed away this much energy, he would go down with it. There was no choice.
Up on the dais stood Annia, beautiful again with the pendant gleaming around her neck, and Darilan in shackles, held by more soldiers. Their eyes met and Cob’s anger flamed anew, but he looked away.
Through the portal he saw a white room full of white-robed and –armored figures, like a monochrome reflection of here. End of the road, he thought as they led him closer. That was Daecia City on the other side. The Imperial Palace.
A part of him w
anted desperately to step through, to submit himself to punishment for carrying such darkness in his heart. But the rest of him—the anger, the deepening suspicion of how much he had been lied to—refused.
He narrowed his eyes at the portal. It was stretched like spun light between the brackets of its frame, as tense as a skin drawn over a drum. He saw the way all the objects in the room, all the circles and orbs and lenses, directed energy into the frame and from there into the weave. He saw the subtle crisscross they made beneath the image of the Imperial Palace, every strand strung painfully tight. Every bit interconnected.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
You see this too? he thought at the Guardian, and felt it nod. He closed his eyes, and though it made him feel ill, he let the finest thread of emptiness reach through him like a needle. Too fine to disturb his bonds, too fine to alert the mages. They shoved him forward, and as he touched the shimmering web, it popped like a soap bubble.
In the silence that followed, Darilan laughed.
*****
Six portal attempts, two Annia screaming-fits and a few marks of preparation later, the guards led Cob and Darilan down the steps toward the waiting coaches. There were eight of them: two prison-coaches, a fancy noble’s one, and five pulled by heavy Tasgard horses and packed with guards and mages.
The waiting guards hid their playing-cards and pocketed their dice swiftly as the prisoners were led to their separate coaches. Darilan, watching Cob, saw his gaze follow the flash of cards and a peculiar expression cross his face. He stopped in his tracks to give the assassin a long look; though shackled and dressed again in a tunic and breeches but no shoes, he suddenly seemed unbothered by their situation. The questions in his eyes were personal.
Darilan returned his stare blankly, incapable of a response, and in moments the guards had manhandled both of them into their separate coaches. As his guard planted him on the hard bench-seat and connected his shackles to the chain bolted to the floor, Darilan saw a flutter of black over his shoulder: a crow, alighting onto the edge of a nearby roof.
Their eyes met, and he thought he saw it wink.
Then it leapt back into the air and winged away to the forest beyond the palace wall, and the assassin allowed himself a smile.
Chapter 25 – Best-Laid Plans
Lark had a pain in her chest that felt like a spear, but she kept running. The Red Corvish ranged ahead of her easily, only Radha hanging back to keep pace. Lark did not have the breath to thank her.
The crows had alerted them to the caravan half a mark ago, and they had been running ever since. Lark’s boots were soaked with slush, her clothes with sweat, and her bear-hide coat flapped annoyingly against her shins as she ran the fox-paths toward the ambush point. Why they could not have just attacked while it was in the palace forest, she did not know.
Well… She did. Too many mages far too close, both from the palace and the Hawk’s Pride. So the crows had set the ambush at an overlook on the Imperial Road several miles east of Thynbell.
Problem being, the crows could fly.
She had not run this far or this long in years—not since the Kheri had taken her in. When your organization effectively controlled the city, there was no reason to run. It made her eyes sting, not just from the unaccustomed effort but from the memories.
She tried to concentrate on the path to keep from tripping. It was crooked and jaggy but all downhill, winding between trees and winter-killed shrubs several yards from the forest verge, beyond which the Imperial Road cut deeply like a dry riverbed. She could not see it well but figured that anyone on a wagon would be able to spot them. Fortunately, none had passed yet. The weather was still mild for winter, the trees dripping, but she had seen neither horse nor cart since they converged on the road. She wondered if the crows were doing something to keep them away. Scaring the crap out of the carters, maybe.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. She glanced up but between the spindly fingers of the trees, the sky remained clear.
“Faster,” said Radha, and sprinted forward. Her arrows shuffed together in the closed quiver across her back. Lark tried to pick up the pace but the pain felt like a massive tick burrowing under her breasts, its barbed legs clamped tight as it sucked at her heart.
She was definitely going to puke when they stopped.
Up ahead, the land rose slightly. Rocks protruded from the slushy earth and the tree-cover thinned. Lark groaned; the constant decline had been the only thing keeping her going, but the Corvish raced up the rocks like sticky-footed lizards and she knew she had to follow.
At the top of the rise, two huge chunks of stone sat like dragon eggs, half-shrouded by spindly trees.
Is this the place? she thought. Did I make it?
Radha went up the side of the rocks like it was level ground. Lark tried to do the same but slid immediately and caught herself on a spindly tree, then tried again on hands and feet. That worked better, but the end of her longbow kept clipping her in the ear.
Small price to pay for connections with the Corvish, she told herself. She mostly believed it.
When she reached the top, she was startled to see that the trees around the boulders did not belong. Though evergreens typical to the area, their roots were cragged up bizarrely on the rocky surface as if trying but failing to find purchase, and around each was a circle of sticks and paint. Several Black Corvish lay on the rock ledge with long poles in their hands, watching to the west; others tested the trees with light nudges, making them sway unnervingly. A firm push would send any of them toppling down into the road.
Imports from further in the woods, Lark guessed, being used as temporary cover. She was amazed that the Corvish had brought trees and rocks here so quickly, but from the urgency and fervor in them, she got the feeling that they had wanted to drop big rocks on Wynds for a long time.
Radha waved her back from the edge to where more Corvish of mixed color waited within the normal forest fringe, whispering amongst themselves. Many were dressed like Radha in barely more than scraps of leather and strings of beads and war-paint, but others were more fully-clad and had masks pulled down over their pale faces: carved wooden visages of foxes and crows, the former with sharp ears and red war-markings, the latter all black except for long white beaks that looked like they could take eyes out. As Lark joined, a few of the Corvish broke off to move down either side of the overlook, stringing their bows as they went. Only the masked ones wore boots; the others went barefoot despite the slush.
Skinchangers, Lark thought. Anyone else would have frostbite by now.
“Take the coat off,” Radha said as Lark crouched beside her. “Yeh not about t’ get cold.”
Still panting for breath, Lark just nodded and started shrugging things off. She tossed the bear-hide coat over a tree limb, leaving herself in the plain travel-clothes the Crimsons had put her in, then swung her quiver back on and flexed her own bow, preparing to string it. She would have liked a crossbow but the Corvish had none; it had been hard enough for them to find a bow that suited her style, as almost all of them used shortbows. After watching them at practice with bows half-drawn and arrows clutched between their fingers, puncturing their targets repeatedly on the move like it was mere reflex, she wished she could copy them, but it would take more than a few days’ training to match their professionalism.
Still, she figured she could hit the broad side of a soldier if she kept her cool.
One of the Black Corvish on the overlook whistled sharply, and the whispers fell silent. Radha pointed down the far side of the outcropping and started that way, and Lark followed, looking back at the road. What she had thought was thunder came louder now, and through the trees she glimpsed the first horses of a caravan coming into view.
Her heart tripped over itself, and she swallowed down the surge of anxious nausea. On Radha’s heels, she slipped into the shadow of the overlook and crept through the trees toward the road’s edge, where another two Black Corvish lay in the brush by an orb
-topped mile marker. More sticks and paint and feathers lay in a circle around its base. The orb looked milky and blind.
“Wait fer the rocks,” Radha hissed. “Then shoot anyone but Aesangat.”
Lark swallowed and nodded, unsurprised. Pushing back the cap on her quiver, she drew one of the long obsidian-tipped arrows and nocked it to the bow. Then she crouched low, told her stomach to behave, and waited.
*****
In his prison carriage, Darilan made ready.
The guard bench opposite him sat empty. Annia knew how his bracer worked, and she was too smart to let him make use of it. While he mostly felt annoyed, a little part of him thanked her; with all the battering this body had taken during the long hunt, he did not know if he could have resisted the urge to take a new one.
He wanted to face Cob in this skin, not a stranger’s.
Bereft of other options, he concentrated on preparing himself for whatever conflict was to come. The bracer throbbed on his arm, its embedded tendrils sending chemicals deep into his bloodstream: pain-inhibitors, stimulants, deliverable toxins, and a cocktail of others he could not name or comprehend. His maker had designed them into the bracer’s functions, like the black ichor-of-last-resort that had kept him on his feet in Bahlaer; all he could say was that they worked.
His nerves tingled with steady energy, hands jitterless, heart fleet in his chest. Every breath seemed to take in more air. The surge passed through his muscles and he felt the numb spaces where the bracer had repaired his wounds and the many artificial fibers that crisscrossed them to allow him proper function. As his senses broadened, he tasted the sweat of the horses through the wooden walls, the tang of thralldom on the men who guarded his carriage.
Oh Annia, he thought. Is that wise? You know thralls aren’t as clever as the men they once were.
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 56
