The wolf sprang after him eagerly, and together they crunched toward the interior. The snow deepened to mid-shin, and Cob angled toward the nearest ruined wall, wanting to stay out of sight in case the guards looked back. It would be frighteningly easy for someone to track him. The wolf let him break trail, occasionally peeking past his waist to see where they were going, and Cob did his best to keep the position of the banner fixed in his mind.
That this had once been an ogre place amazed him. He dimly remembered his dream of Vina and her army and their long march past the red rocks of Varaku; evidently the ogres had once spread their influence far and wide. Now they were found only in the northern lands—mostly Krovichanka and Gejara—and no full-blooded ogre had passed through the Pinch in a hundred years. Gejaran ogrekin sometimes found employment with the Imperial Armies as mercenaries, and evidently there was some of the bloodline in Darronwy, but it was strange to think that things had once been so different.
Then again, much of what the Guardian showed him was different. Swamps where arid grassland now grew, mountains turned to islands, the plateaus of Varaku standing unbroken, the Rift gone—to say nothing of the cities, the people. Thousands of years of upheaval lurked in his head, and it troubled him.
He navigated cautiously among the crumbled buildings. It was colder in their shadows, and he drew his coat tighter; two years spent in the scorched plains of Illane had taken the edge from his Kerrindrixi cold-tolerance and he had yet to get it back. All was silent beside the crunch of his boots in the snow, but when he reached the turn that Vina had gone down, he spotted another set of tracks.
He blinked. Certainly those were not Vina’s prints.
Peeking around the corner, he saw nothing but ruins, no movement but the distant flick of the banner. No sound but his breath and the wolf’s soft panting. Warily, he moved to the new tracks and felt their edges. The snow inside was still soft, neither melted nor refrozen, and the boot-prints were small but deeply impressed: a woman or a child carrying a heavy burden. The trail seemed to run parallel to the road, toward the banner.
“That means someone’s there,” he told the wolf softly. “Suppose that’s a good thing.”
The wolf leaned in to sniff the tracks, then nudged Cob banner-ward with his head.
They followed the trail to the entryway of a roofless stone ruin, its broken walls shellacked with ice. The inside was shadowed, and Cob sidled in carefully, feeling more ice on the floor. Shattered columns littered the interior, and from their placement he guessed that this had been a banquet hall or temple—no inner walls, just a vast gallery. If there had been furniture, it had rotted away long ago.
The banner hung from a surviving column that jutted from a platform at the rear of the building like a tusk in a ruined jaw. It had a mark on it of three crossed lines, the same as the etching on the bronze band Jasper had given him in Bahlaer. Cob had lost that in Thynbell along with everything else he had owned, but he still remembered it. Jasper had told him it would protect him.
A Trifold place, then.
The ice showed no tracks, so Cob picked his way through the rubble toward the banner. There was no further to go—the back wall loomed, a cyclopean hole gaping where its window had been—but as he approached the column he saw a square chiseled from the ice on the floor behind it. A trapdoor lay there, almost blending in with the stone.
He crouched before it, and the wolf sniffed the edge. A slight indent in the stone showed him where to grip.
“What do you think?” he murmured.
The wolf huffed, then chewed at his paw.
“You’re too helpful.”
Regarding the trapdoor, he noted that the rim of the gripping indent was painted red. In his mind’s eye he saw Ammala Cray’s house in Illane, its doorway painted the same.
“Protection,” he said. “Definitely Trifolders. So it should be safe, right?” The wolf did not answer, so with a deep breath, Cob wedged his hands into the gap and hauled the trapdoor open.
Warm air gusted up and dissipated in the chill. Beneath was a square hole edged in red. Slick, rough-hewn steps descended into dimness.
The wolf sidled forward and gingerly extended a paw to touch the first step. When nothing happened, he slunk in, nails clicking on the stone. Cob waited for him to get a few steps down, then slid in after, lowering the door behind him. As the light from above faded, a faint warm glow bloomed from below.
Another step down, and Cob bumped into the wolf, who had paused. “What?” he whispered.
The wolf huffed again, then Cob heard the pop of joints and creak of stretching sinews. He grimaced; however familiar this had become, it was still unnerving. He reached back to pull the rolled-up chiton from the top of his pack as the wolf rose onto two legs, blocking the glow. “So now you wanna be human?”
“Yes,” came Arik’s voice in the dark, rusty from disuse. “It is warm enough in here.”
“Want your boots?”
“Not yet.”
Cob passed the chiton into the skinchanger’s hairy-knuckled hand, then leaned away while he pulled it on. As a wolf, Arik had come to Cob’s rescue twelve days ago when he had been fleeing the ambushed caravan with Gold soldiers on his heels. He had never met a skinchanger before, and at first it was terrifying, but now it was just awkward when Arik decided to walk around naked. Cob had improvised the chiton out of a blanket to deal with that problem.
After a few moments, a tug came at Cob’s wrist, and he followed it down the stairs, squinting in the gloom. It took him a few steps to register that this meant Arik was leading, and he scowled and grabbed the skinchanger’s arm. Arik paused; Cob could almost sense his ears perk.
“We talked about this,” Cob said softly. “I’m the leader, so I lead.” He moved to slip by.
Arik squished him against the tunnel wall with hulking, muscular ease. Cob was tall but in human form Arik was taller, and broader, and heavier—a full adult, though bony, whereas Cob’s seventeen years had not yet filled him out. “Too dangerous,” Arik growled, his breath stinking of marrow.
Cob grimaced and pushed at Arik’s face with one hand. “We agreed,” he said through his teeth. “I’m the Guardian. If I say I go first—“
“Yes, you are alpha. But you are deer,” said the skinchanger, adjusting to keep Cob from wiggling past. “I must put myself between delicious deer and other predators. You must lead from behind.” Then he licked Cob across the eyebrow and stepped down.
Cob scowled and wiped his forehead vigorously. He hated when Arik did that in man-form. It was much easier to deal with him as a wolf.
Pushing the annoyance from his mind, he squinted ahead. The stairs ended not far below, becoming a corridor etched with channels to divert meltwater. At the end stood an archway that gave a glimpse of a pillared chamber, bright with the flicker of firelight. Arik’s silhouette stood out against the light, prowling and wary, and to spite him, Cob called out, “Hoi!” and saw him wince.
A moment passed, then figures moved to block the light. “Who goes there?” came a flat female voice.
“A friend of Jasper’s,” Cob said.
More silhouetted figures moved in, and Cob caught the faint buzz of conversation. At the base of the steps, Arik stood still as a hare beneath a hawk’s eye.
Finally the first woman said, “Come on then, don’t lurk.”
Cob stepped down, feeling smug, but as he came level with Arik, he saw the Trifolders and stopped short.
First in line was the one who must have answered his call: a lean older woman, her iron-grey hair pulled back tight, her polished armor reflecting the glow of the braziers inset in the chamber walls beyond. She held a heavy crossbow pointed at Cob, and the haft of a two-handed maul stuck up over her plated shoulder. To either side of her were women in red-painted chainmail, younger but no less severe, with crossbows of their own. Beyond them, a small crowd had withdrawn toward the opposite end of the room, consisting mostly of women in brown dresses, girls and a few boys i
n pants and white tunics, and grim-looking old folk.
Cob had known Ammala Cray the farm-woman, Jasper the tinker, and Jasper’s Bahlaeran Trifolder constituents. This was not what he had expected, and suddenly he was all too aware of how disreputable he must look. Twelve days’ worth of grime and stubble did not make for a good first impression.
“And where is Jasper these days?” the stern woman prompted.
“Midland Illane, last I saw him,” Cob said cautiously. “Near Bahlaer.”
“Far away. Who are you, then?”
“Cob. This’s Arik. We’re lookin’ for help.”
“And how did you find us?”
“Uh… I had a vision.”
The woman’s left eyebrow cocked, and she lowered the crossbow slightly. “A vision.”
“Yeah. I’m shelterin’ a spirit. It shows me stuff sometimes.”
Whispers rippled through the crowd at the word ‘spirit’, and the stern woman tilted her head, then lowered the crossbow. The others followed her lead. “Well, you haven’t tripped the wards,” she said. “Do you seek guidance or aid?”
“Both?”
“Come along, then. We’ll talk to the Mother Matriarch.”
With that, the woman turned and strode toward the corridor that led from the room. Cob blinked after her, surprised by the brusque reception, and as the younger guards retook their posts to either side of the arch, he traded a glance with Arik.
The skinchanger did not look happy. In the irregular light his chiseled features and heavy brows made him seem cruel, his shaggy grey hair wild, his slanted eyes reflecting like blue steel, but when he met Cob’s gaze he smiled a weak close-mouthed smile and sidled over to bump shoulders with him reassuringly.
Swallowing his trepidation, Cob gave Arik a nod and led the way after the guard-captain. The women and children withdrew from his path, whispering behind their hands; he tried not to notice that and instead focused on his surroundings. The first chamber was plain and square, built of fitted stone and crammed with baskets and cushions and looms, but the hall beyond was lined with semicircular cubbies holding bronze-footed caskets and lit by votive lamps and candles, as were the walls of the next chamber, and the next. Etched into each casket was one of three symbols: sword, torch or hammer.
A crypt, he thought, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. The floors were swept, the plaques polished, and the rooms they passed through were filled with life—a chamber lined with red and brown couches on which knitting women chatted together, a dining room full of children and their minders, a glimpse of a busy kitchen down one hall and a playroom down another—but the caskets were everywhere. The dead were everywhere, and no one seemed bothered.
In Kerrindryr, with its limited arable land, the practice was sky burial. In the Crimson Army it was the barrow mounds. The idea of living among the dead unnerved Cob thoroughly.
Another chamber, another hallway, and the guard-captain’s brisk steps finally slowed. Cob closed the distance as a new room opened ahead of them, square like the others but larger, with no other entrances and no caskets. A low dais edged the far wall, with a stone slab draped in broad swaths of red, brown and grey cloth as its center-point. Archaic swords, censers, hammers, hauberks and helms hung from hooks driven into the wall behind it, encircled by viney coils of red paint, but it was no armory; many of the objects were gouged and broken, and each had a small bronze plaque nailed beneath. Candles and lamps festooned the chamber, casting glints on the broken relics and picking out metallic threads in the cloth on the altar.
Three large cushions lay on the floor before the dais, with woven mats carpeting the rest of the room. On the central cushion, a dark-haired woman sat cross-legged, her face upturned and her eyes closed as if meditating. She was of middle years and painfully thin, the skin tight across her cheeks and the blade of her nose, and her drab brown dress draped loose on her, its sleeves and hem trimmed with tiny bronze bells.
“Mother Matriarch,” said the stern woman, moving to kneel before her.
The Mother Matriarch opened her eyes, and Cob sucked in an involuntary breath. They were milky white, so heavily cataracted that they almost looked blank, as if irises and pupils had simply not been included. His mind went to his first glimpse of the shadowbloods in Bahlaer, their eyes utterly black. “Yes, Sister Talla?” she said, her voice slow and serene, dreamy.
“We have visitors, Mother. Two outsiders, men named Cob and Arik. They say they know Jasper, and seek aid and guidance.”
The blind woman’s placid face brightened and she smiled, her blank gaze somehow seeking out Cob’s. “Oh, how is the old lion? He hasn’t visited in quite a while. Off in the west, I think.”
“He seemed fine, ma’am,” said Cob cautiously. Sister Talla shot him a reproving look, which he met with furrowed brows before he clued in. “Uh…Mother.” The title felt strange on his lips.
“I’m sure he is. He always is,” said the Mother Matriarch warmly. She gestured to the mats before her, the bells on her sleeve chiming softly. “Do make yourselves comfortable.”
Cob glanced to Arik, who nodded slightly, then looked over his shoulder at the sound of whispers. A small mob of Trifolders clogged the hall they had just come down—men, women and children in the colors of the altar cloths, their expressions a mix of interest and unease. Self-conscious, Cob turned his back to them and sank down on the mat, and Arik crouched at his side.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the blind woman as Sister Talla took up a vigilant position by her cushion. “I am Mother Matriarch Aglavyn of the Trifold Temple of Shared Light. You have met my Lady of the Forge, Sister Justiciar Talla, and I hear that a few of our little sisters and brothers have gathered…”
A girl in the crowd stifled a nervous giggle. Cob took a deep breath as the Mother Matriarch’s white gaze turned back to him expectantly.
“Thanks for seein' us so quick,” he said. “I’m Cob. Cobrin son of Dernyel, from Kerrindryr. With me’s my friend Arik from Wyndon. I think.” Beside him, Arik shrugged as if to say ‘close enough’, and the Mother Matriarch smiled.
“It is a pleasure to have you in our humble temple,” she said. “All who seek sanctuary are welcome here, be they within the faith or not. It is the Way of the Hearth. And your other companion? Shall she introduce herself?”
“Her—?” Cob started, but swallowed the word as the Guardian’s weighty coils shifted in his chest. For a moment twin spots on his forehead twinged: the place where the Guardian’s antlers manifested. He willed it to settle down. This was his plan, and though he did not think it could take him over on a whim, he did not want to test that theory.
To his surprise, it subsided without fuss.
“No, I’ll do that,” said Cob. “I’m carryin’ the Guardian, Aesangat, one of the Great Spirits of the shiftin’ folk. It’s the reason I’m here.”
Murmurs chorused through the crowd, but the Mother Matriarch just raised her eyebrows. The bells in her sleeves shivered as she gestured for quiet. “Then it is no wonder that you would encounter Jasper. On behalf of the temple, I bid you welcome, Aesangat. It has been far too long. How may we serve you?”
“Serve me?” Cob said, glancing around. The small chamber was filled to the brim with Trifolders, all eyes upon him, and though some faces were wary, many showed awe and reverence. He had expected help but not such instant and overwhelming attention, and it made his face heat. To have so many people—so many women—watching him like that…
He looked away, squashing untoward thoughts. “What d’you mean?”
“It is our duty to aid the Guardian,” said Sister Talla flatly. He focused on her; she was more what he had expected, her square face sober, eyes sharp as knives. Ammala Cray had been that stern when she was angry. “Aesangat has been our ally since the joining of the three goddesses many centuries ago. Sword Maiden Breana and Hearth Mother Brigydde were once human, but Forge Matron Brancir is a spirit, one of the Guardian’s kin.”
Cob stared. He knew that last name. Brancir was the Silver One, the Mountain Queen—a heretic goddess of Kerrindryr whose worship had been banned by the Empire upon its annexation. She was the creator of the Muriae who lived within the Thundercloak Mountains and whose historical exploits had been the bedrock of his childhood, and she had imbued Aloyan Erosei the Elder—Kerrindryr’s national hero—with the power to hold back Kerrindryr’s ancestral enemies, the Jernizen and the northern ogrekin. Cob had been raised in her faith and that of Senket the Sky King until his father’s death, and had officially renounced it at age twelve when he converted to the Imperial Light.
He still remembered the stories, but they were faint and far away. He had never associated them with the Trifold, or even heard the other goddesses’ names before.
“But…Brancir’s a spirit of metal. Silver,” he managed finally. “She should be on the Ravager’s side, not mine.”
“They are the same side,” said the Mother Matriarch gently. “The Guardian and Ravager are meant to keep the balance of the spirit world, just as the Trifold Goddess seeks to mediate between spirits and deities and the God of Law once oversaw the balance of deific power.”
But the God of Law is dead, Cob thought, and the Ravager is insane. Don’t you know that?
He was opening his mouth to voice that question when he realized that perhaps there was a reason they did not know. According to what he had learned, the Guardian and the Ravager were spirits of beasts and skinchangers—not elementals like Brancir, and not even humans. They were predator and prey, beholden only to their instincts and responsible only for their people.
Perhaps they thought their fight was no one else’s business.
Well, too bad.
“The balance is already broken,” he said aloud. “The Ravager attacked me, almost killed me. He’s been killin’ other Guardian vessels for hundreds of years, but now the Guardian is trapped inside me because the Imperials caught it with magic. It can’t leave, can’t talk, can’t act on its own. We want to be free of each other before the Ravager or the Empire finds us again. That’s why it brought me here.”
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 3
