The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle)

by H. Anthe Davis

  Then Sister Talla brought her fist down upon the other, slamming hard over Cob’s heart.

  Stopping it—

  —a sense of falling—

  —blackness, stillness—

  There was no sound. No sensation, not even pain. No thought, no fear, no sight but for the torch-flame and the circles which in the darkness had become wheels, turning, burning above and beneath him. Awake now. Aware.

  Something struck through the darkness, and blue light flashed in an intricate web around his insensate self, a single thread glowing red where his slave-brand would be. First one strike, then two, like a hammer pounding metal, sending ripples of damage through the layered bonds.

  Three, and a blue strand fractured. Something flexed in the darkness—below him, within him, it was impossible to say.

  Four. Five.

  Blue strands frayed. Some snapped.

  Six. The flame above grew dimmer.

  Seven.

  A net of threads shattered, sending motes of light to vanish in the void. But there were many more, and the wheels were rising away from him, falling away beneath. Fading. The torch-flame had shrunk to a pinspot.

  Eight.

  The flame winked out.

  In its wake, the darkness poured in, thrusting the wheels away until they too vanished in the distance. Cold encased him and now he felt fear, for it was not natural, not physical but searing in its absolute emptiness, the anathema of life. Even his necromantic bonds were warm in comparison—and those were fading fast, unraveled by the draw of the dark, leaving him exposed to the void that sought to penetrate his soul—

  Two bright threads, one at brow, one at chest. Two sets of white wings. Talons. Blazing eyes. Pain. Painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain—

  His eyes snapped open and he gasped in a breath of raw, cold air. Heart thudding arrhythmically, lungs burning, ribs on fire, he stared into the darkness in horror and confusion until he caught the whiff of snuffed candles, the blur of frightened voices, the solid reality of the hand on his brow, chilled though it was.

  “What happened?” he croaked.

  The Mother Matriarch inhaled a breath of relief. “Thank the Goddess. Something came for you. We had to drive you into the stillness so that we could break the bonds without harming you, but it was waiting there. I thought we had lost you.”

  His heart clenched in his chest, and he remembered Thynbell: the darkness beneath the pounding waterfall, the hunger that had swallowed the energy he drained from the imprisoning circles. The frigid grasp of it. He tried to sit up, but his muscles were stiff from cold, his hands locked like claws around the icy sword and hammer. A gauntlet gripped one arm, a glove the other, and slowly they wedged him up. From the crowd came the sound of prayers and striking flint, and first sparks blossomed, then light.

  Cob looked down upon the frightened faces of men, women and children, their breath making plumes in the frosted air. The entire atmosphere of warmth and harmony had evaporated, and he knew by the blanched looks on the faces of the two Sisters that such a thing was not supposed to happen.

  Arik was waiting at the edge of the dais, fidgeting as if it was a barrier instead of a step. His face had gone wolfish, his ears laid flat, body covered with fur and quills beneath the loose chiton, and as soon as their eyes met, he leapt the distance and loomed at the altar to sniff Cob over critically. Sister Talla stood back quickly, but Cob just made a face and tried to elbow him away, still unable to relax his hold on the hammer. The skinchanger evaded him and sniffed again.

  “Watcher. Dark watcher,” he said in a rough voice. “Cold hunter. Endless hunger. Bad, Cob. Bad, bad.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  The skinchanger’s ears lifted slightly, then with visible effort he returned to human form, the fur and quills retracting into his skin, his jaw crunching and shortening, his ears receding beneath his thick mane of hair. He patted Cob’s shoulder awkwardly, then chafed Cob’s fingers with his until they were warm enough to release the hammer.

  Cob looked past him to the crowd, which was starting to disperse under the commands of Sister Talla and Sister Merrow. The candles and braziers that had lit the room had all been snuffed, but a grey-haired man stood by the entry with a little oil lamp he had lit with a handheld sparker, and one by one the Trifolders stopped at him with candles taken from around the room, then moved out to spread light through the darkened complex. Though subdued, they were all steady, their panic gone.

  He saw Fiora pull Sister Merrow aside, but then the Mother Matriarch set a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to her narrow, weary face. “I wish that we could have done more for you, Guardian,” she said softly. “But I fear that we must send you onward. To the Haarakash, I think. The Sisters will not approve, but they are…overprotective. The Haarakash practice a sort of necromancy but they have always been good neighbors to our enclave at Turo, and they should be able to unbind you—perhaps even remold your soul. We will arrange passage for you. It is some distance, but our followers will see you there in safety.”

  “Thanks, but…what are the Haarakash?” said Cob. With Arik’s help, he had let go of the sword, and now moved to shrug his tunic back on. The Mother Matriarch’s grip tightened on his shoulder as he tried, though, and he looked again to see her eyelids fluttering as she wavered on her feet. He slid from the altar quickly and caught her around the waist, steadying her. She was painfully frail under the thick cloth of her brown dress.

  “Y’all right?” he said.

  “I… It has been a drain on me,” she said faintly. “The emptiness that touched you. I think that you must not try your bonds while underground again. We knew no better, but it came in from all around us, and our lights could not stop it. Daylight, morning light, heat and sun that it can not quench—that is what you require. The Haarakash can give that to you. Their land is called Accursed, but also the Summerland, and their ways are those of light though they do terrible things.”

  “I’m sorry. I dunno what—“

  “It is well, Guardian. But you must take care. As your wolf says, you are hunted.”

  Cob frowned and started to speak, but Sister Talla swept in like a shining knight to wrap her arm around the Mother Matriarch and tug her away. “You must rest, Mother,” she said, casting Cob a look that verged on hostile. “Others will see to our guests.”

  “Talla...Talla, I am well,” said the Mother Matriarch, but the strain in her face was obvious. “We must send him to Turo—“

  “We will, Mother. Be at peace.” With a sharp word, Sister Talla summoned another young priestess, who bustled up with a candle and bowed her head to Cob and Arik. “See them to their accommodations—or perhaps the bathing room first,” Sister Talla said, “and then continue rekindling the flames. We have much work to do to make this place a shelter again.”

  “Yes, Sister,” said the priestess, and beckoned to Cob and Arik.

  Cob nodded, then pulled his tunic on properly and slung his coat over it. The chill in the chamber had not dissipated. The way this place had gone from stiflingly warm to freezing in mere moments frightened him, not least because he knew it was his fault.

  When he closed his eyes, he could see the prison circles again. See himself reaching out to touch them, break them, send the magic away.

  Into the Dark.

  His scar twinged, and he pressed his hand over it, wincing. The Guardian was silent and still, as if sensing a predator, but if something really lingered in the temple complex, Cob could not feel it. All he felt was cold and tired and scared.

  With Arik close at his side, he stepped down from the dais and followed the priestess into the shadowed hall.

  Chapter 3 – Arrow’s Flight

  Deep in the uplands of Corvia, Lark huddled in the leafless brush and took another swig from the leather flask. Pungent bitterstar liquor burned down her throat, but it was a welcome burn. The rest of her felt frozen.

  Dimly she knew that she should not be drinking—not while out in th
e cold and certainly not while perched on an overlook high above the valley floor—but it was the way of life with the Corvish, and she was adapting to it. Anyway, she had plenty of reasons to drink, like being abandoned here by the Shadow Folk while her goblin child, Rian, was lost elsewhere.

  Perhaps ‘abandoned’ was a strong word. The shadowbloods did still whisper to her from time to time, requesting updates and giving new orders. But they would not tell her where Rian was or let her into the Shadow Realm, and refused to assign her back to Bahlaer’s kai. She had a sneaking suspicion that Cayer’s unblood control of the kai was being challenged.

  When Radha’s painted hand reached for the flask, she yielded it reluctantly and tugged the scarf back over her nose and mouth.

  Ever since attacking the convoy that had carried Cob and Darilan, Lark and her Corvish hosts had been on the run. Nothing barred them from retreating to the cave-fort of Kanrath-Neirai, but the Gold Army was on their tail, and Corvishfolk did not stand still for sieges. The plan had been to trek high into the Khaeleokiel Mountains where the thick snow and biting cold would dissuade the soft lowland Golds, but it was like they had kicked a hornet’s nest. No matter how far they went, a swarm of yellow uniforms followed them.

  Lark could see them now among the scrub forest at the edge of the valley. She and the Corvish were situated at the top of a sheared granite cliff, concealed by snow and brush; it was not the first time they had waited in ambush, and by the Golds’ reticence to leave the shelter of the trees, it seemed they were learning from their mistakes.

  She touched the fletchings of her arrows absently. Crow-feathered, with obsidian heads, they shattered on Gold armor as often as they penetrated, but the Corvish had plenty; runners came upon the war party every day, laden with gifts and supplies and news from allied clans. Some said that there were other bands harrying the Golds from the flanks, but if so, the fighting was too far away to see.

  She wished she had her crossbow. She was better with it than the shortbow the Corvish had given her, plus she had a bit of special ammunition: the pouch of Trifold-treated bolts that Darilan had left with her. They were meant to kill abominations like him, and she suspected that there were some among their Gold pursuit, but could not be sure. She had not seen the obvious one—the lagalaina woman—since the caravan attack.

  Which was good. The lagalaina’s seduction-aura had nearly killed them all.

  Radha waggled the flask at her again and Lark waved it away. Further down the overlook, a few knots of Corvish had cuddled up for warmth, and the sound of smothered giggles and the occasional rhythmic grunt reached her. She rolled her eyes. This was the problem with waiting on the Golds. The Corvish were easily distracted.

  “Think they scryin’ us?” said Radha, pointing her narrow chin toward the yellow blotches in the trees. She was covered in whorls of red and black paint, bone amulets, a few strips of leather and a white fur cloak for camouflage, yet somehow did not shiver. One of the khirinain, the fox skinchangers, she seemed impervious to the cold.

  “I’d assume so,” said Lark through her scarf. “They have the mages for it. And they’ve gotten more cautious. What do the spirits say?”

  The red-haired woman shrugged and gestured with the flask, indicating the winter forest and cliffs and the ridges of great smoking mountains to the north. “They quiet. Listenin’. This not magic territory, but still magic-smell in the air.”

  Lark frowned and took a deep breath. It just smelled cold to her. She had felt a difference in the atmosphere down in the Forest of Mists—a tingle on the nerves, a strange astringent taste to the air—but up here it was too subtle to catch.

  “Well, whatever they do, I hope it’s soon,” she mumbled. “Before my fingers freeze.”

  Radha put her hand over Lark’s. Her fingers were rough but warm, her nails sharp like little claws, and her sidelong look was bright though her eyes were black as inkspots. “Yeh shoot bad enough already,” she said. “Shoot any worse an’ yeh’ll be on their side.”

  Cheeks heating, Lark slipped her hand away. Out of all the Corvish, only Radha paid her much attention, and though it was usually brusque, she remembered how Radha had fallen under the lagalaina’s control at the caravan ambush. She knew what that meant. It made things awkward.

  Though to judge by the Corvishwoman’s amused look, it was only awkward for Lark.

  “Thanks, I guess,” she said.

  Radha snorted.

  “Hss! Ysanix ko!” said someone suddenly, and Radha’s attention snapped to the woods behind them. Lark, who had yet to get the hang of their language, squinted after her.

  Her heart leapt into her throat.

  Thick mist descended through the evergreens on the slope, swift and silent like a cloudbank falling to earth. Before anyone could move, it poured in among them. The world vanished behind a veil of vapor, and Lark held her breath superstitiously, shivering as it touched her face through the scarf. For a moment Radha was a silhouette beside her, then she was gone.

  Lark reached out in a panic but felt nothing but air. “Radha?” she said, but her voice fell flat, like she had spoken into a muffle.

  No answer.

  Fear fluttered in her chest. She swept her hands out only to see them vanish inches away. Beneath her, the ground felt strange, and when she touched it there was no snow but bare stone—not cold, not warm, just neutral. Indifferent. Like there had been something in the land that had felt wintry toward her, but now no longer cared.

  “Hoi?” she whispered. Her voice went nowhere.

  The mist stirred faintly. In her mind’s eye she saw phantoms—monsters, abominations, every terrible story she had ever heard—and whimpered low in her throat, drawing her obsidian knife. There were no shadows here, no way to call to her people, and the Corvish were gone. She was alone.

  Her other hand, still extended, brushed something smooth and flowing. Something that had not been there before.

  With a shriek, she lurched backward, falling on her rear where the concealing bushes should have been. Knife raised, she stared ahead, heart hammering in her chest.

  Slowly, a figure resolved through the fog, tall and hooded, its all-covering grey cloak as featureless as the blank landscape. Only the lower part of its face showed beneath the hood—a fine jaw, the delicate curve of a white mouth—but though it was humanlike, it was in the way of a porcelain doll or a well-made mask. A work of art, not of flesh.

  A wraith, she thought. Her stomach did a terrified flip.

  “You bear the tracer,” it said in a soft, inflectionless voice. “Give it to me.”

  She stared uncomprehendingly, the obsidian knife trembling in her hand.

  “The arrowhead,” said the wraith.

  “The—“ Lark’s other hand lifted toward the collar of her bear-hide coat. The silvery arrowhead lay beneath, buried between several layers of shirts to keep its chill from her skin. She had taken it from Darilan’s corpse, thinking to sell it at some point or tie it to a shaft if she ever needed a special arrow. “What, why? Who—“

  The wraith extended one grey-gloved hand to her. It had all five fingers, but they were unusually long and slightly crooked, spidery. She leaned away, panting softly. Instinct screamed at her to slice those fingers with the knife but she dared not. Wraiths were monstrously powerful. Anything she could do would only annoy it.

  Its fine white mouth thinned slightly. It stepped closer, the smooth fabric of its cloak rippling against her bent knees like the mist itself, and looked down on her from above. In the hollow of its hood, its eyes were crystalline slits, pale gold like champagne and holding their own inner light. There was nothing human about them.

  “Give it to me,” it said again.

  Lark did not consider herself brave. She had fantasized about heroism, but those daydreams always dissipated upon contact with reality. Her few moments of valor—firing on the lagalaina and upon Darilan at the Bahlaer tavern, fighting alongside the Corvish—had been from cover, from a distance
, for survival and for rank among the Shadow Folk. She had no desire to put herself in pointless danger.

  Defying a wraith would be just that.

  She fumbled at her collar, trying to find the cord among the mess of straps and shirts and vests she wore. “Why…why do you want it?” she said to buy time.

  “That is not your concern.”

  “No, of course not. But— It’s a tracer? Like to find someone?”

  The wraith said nothing. Lark stared up at it, still feeling around for the cord. “The abomination’s dead,” she said. “The one who had this.”

  Still nothing. She found the right cord and started to draw it out when suddenly a thought struck: Not Darilan, but—

  Cob.

  She saw his face for a moment, thin and tired and angry. Stubborn, like when she had met him in the tavern. She barely knew him, had been willing to go along with Darilan’s plan to kill him, but that had been with the Corvish at her back and the promise that the Great Spirit inside him would go free.

  Her hand shook.

  “You’re gonna kill it. The Guardian,” she whispered. “I can’t give this to you.”

  The wraith’s head tilted marginally. “You are misinformed.”

  “Then what do you want from it?”

  “That is not your—“

  “Yes it is,” she said. Somehow her voice did not quaver. Her insides were a knot of fear, but she knew that if she aided in the Guardian’s destruction, her people would never take her back. Even the Corvish would reject her. The arrowhead hung like a lump of ice between her breasts, presaging her doom.

  For a long moment, the wraith stared down at her, statue-still, expressionless, unblinking. Then it lifted its head to stare into the misty distance, narrow form going stiff. Lark glanced that way but saw nothing—no earth, no sky, just grey.

  “They approach,” it said. “Give me the tracer now.”

  Lark shifted backward, feeling with her knife-hand for the cliff’s edge behind her. It was gone. “Who approaches?”

  “The haelhene.”

  “The— You’re not haelhene?” she said, surprised. She only knew of the wraiths from stories, but with its pallor and threatening demeanor, she had been sure this was a white wraith. A haelhene, an Imperial servitor.