“This will not be pleasant,” the High Necromancer said, and touched his face. In the red depths of her eyes, her pupils expanded like inkspots, and a thrill of hot energy ran through him. “But I will fix what I can.”
She pressed her nails into his skin, sending piercing points of pain through his face. That pain reverberated across his scalp, down his back, through his limbs and further, crisscrossing itself like ripples in a small pond and drawing into stark relief the network of fraying bonds. As the pain ebbed, the constriction remained. Her fingers moved from his face to the bonds themselves, and with a sympathetic grimace, she began to tear them away.
The world wheeled around him and he wished the skeletons were still holding him up. He saw the soul-surgery as much as felt it—blue stripes being wrenched from the darkness, sending spasms through the serrated hooks that covered him from head to heels. He wanted to puke but could not locate his mouth. Two lights screamed in his mind, high and glassy, and in the depths the Guardian stirred reluctantly. He felt the earth beneath him, imprisoning a kingdom of bones and broken blades, and tasted the blood that bound it together—old and thick and all-pervasive, pulsing through this accursed land under the thinnest of skins. Pulsing through the vines that served as its muscles and sinews.
In the depths, the sleeping eye opened.
And then the blue bonds were gone and there were hands on his shoulders, smoothing down the hooks. Gently, easily laying those jagged pieces of his soul to rest. He dared to open his eyes and saw the High Necromancer’s bloodstained face, placid as she ran her fingers through his and separated them from the Guardian.
Behind her, the thorny cage that held Enkhaelen shuddered. Enervating cold washed out as energy gathered into it. Cob opened his mouth, trying to find his tongue.
In that instant, the cage and the hedges around it disintegrated into a rain of shrapnel. Splinters spattered on the High Necromancer’s red ward, and she raised her head in alarm. The Haarakash shouted and started to weave new spells, but the ground heaved sickeningly and, with a sound like rending walls, the air filled with dirt and bone shards and metal.
The High Necromancer fell against Cob with a gasp as a rust-coated shortsword slammed through her weakened ward and into her back. He caught her and eased her to the ground, trying desperately to shield her with himself. Her arcane wheel dissipated into red mist, the ghostly wraiths vanishing along with her influence over the fallen skeletons.
Shards of steel and complete blades whistled past Cob to scythe into the crowd of Haarakash, drawing screams and flashes of light from those who had warded themselves. He looked the other way, to Fiora, who had thrown herself to the ground again. A few red scratches showed on her but the metal and bone had not been aimed at them.
From the ruins of the cage, Enkhaelen’s borrowed corpse rose again, the ground beneath him shaking and bucking as long-buried weapons tore free. “I am not happy,” he said as the ancient blades lifted into the air. Iron-veined crystal and rusted steel, they shivered with every motion of the corpse’s remaining hand. “After all I’ve done to allow you this refuge, you people insist on interfering with my work. It’s time to learn your lesson.”
Cob rose unsteadily, looking from the High Necromancer to the wounded Haarakash huddled along the path. More were coming from the plaza, their hands moving to enact protective wards, some bloody-faced and some blindfolded. He could not tell whose side anyone was on.
Between him and them, Enkhaelen swept a hand through the air, the broken blades rotating threateningly to hover points-forward at the crowd.
“Wait,” said Cob.
Enkhaelen’s hand stilled. He turned slightly to regard Cob with one red eye.
Cob stepped forward and offered his hand, careful to keep it open and not clench a fist like he wanted. The corpse’s head tilted, wearing a look of mingled doubt and satisfaction, and after a moment it turned toward him. The blades lowered.
With his other hand, Cob swung a haymaker punch at Enkhaelen’s head.
Inches away, his fist bounced off a sudden starburst of steel—a shield of crossed swords. The impact jarred up his arm and he bared his teeth, falling a step back.
“Ah, treachery,” said Enkhaelen. “You’re not very nice, are you, Cob?”
The blades swung in midair and descended upon him, one striking him flat across the chest, one at the knees, one at the throat, stapling him to the ground. Shrapnel whizzed like hornets to nail his clothes to the earth, and larger blades bent to make shackles around his arms and legs. Blood from the hundred tiny cuts and stings that Enkhaelen had not stitched now seeped through his clothes and into the dirt. He dug his fingers in, panting through gritted teeth as Enkhaelen moved to stand over him, frowning.
“I’m starting to wonder if I made the right choice,” he said. “But—“
Red light sizzled off a blue ward by his shoulder, and he sighed and turned, tugging at the air to bring blades up and direct them at the Haarakash.
Cob struggled against his bonds, cursing vehemently. Beneath his hands, the earth pulsed weirdly, and he sensed that blind, monstrous eye seeking him from somewhere far below. He could not get up, only stare at Enkhaelen’s back as the necromancer yanked more blades and bones from the grave-mound and flung them at the people who had tried to help him. Lances of red energy struck at the necromancer, but he simply laughed and brushed them away like so much dust.
A sarong eclipsed Cob’s vision then. A sword whistled through the still air and made an ugly kthunk as it hit meat.
The laughter died instantly. Metal rained to the ground.
“’Little girl’ that, you bastard,” said Fiora.
*****
In the undergrowth, a hare with a splinter through its skull reanimated and skittered away into the thorn.
*****
The force that had held the swords across Cob vanished. Panting, he kicked a few off and tried to sit up. The blades slid away but he was still bound, and he looked to his arms to see root-like red creepers twined around his wrists and poking through the slashes in his sleeves. They were hooking into him, prying his cuts wider. He yanked but had little leverage, and it hurt too much to keep trying. More red fibers wormed from the ground, and he felt them on his legs and through his tunic.
Needle-pricks ran up his back.
“A little help?” he called, hoarse with fear.
Before him, Fiora stood stock still, staring down at the beheaded corpse. A crystal-edge sword trembled in her grip, and he remembered that she had never killed before. Still, this was no time for philosophizing. “Hoi! Snap out of it!”
She turned her head slowly, wild-eyed, then shook herself with visible effort. Casting the blade aside, she moved to kneel down over Cob. “Goddess, what’s happening?” she said as she pulled her little knife out to saw at the roots.
“The Thorn Protector, the Carad Whatever,” Cob guessed, glancing down the path at the Haarakash. Enkhaelen’s blade-bombardment had dropped many and sent others into retreat, but those who were still mobile were hoisting their fallen comrades off the ground. Two lifted the wounded High Necromancer despite her cries of pain, and for good reason: the earth below her bloomed with hungry red roots which twisted upward with every drop of blood that fell.
Further down the walkway and onto the plaza, red energies sparked against each other as the factions dueled.
“We have to get out of here,” Fiora said as she cut through a big hank of filaments. Cob tore his left arm up, hissing as the last roots ripped away, and kicked at the ones trying to bind his legs until Fiora managed to cut his other arm free. Lurching to his feet, he pulled her up too. Shreds of plant fiber hung from him, rapidly greying.
“How? Where?” he said.
“This way,” came another voice.
Cob and Fiora looked over, both tensing, to see a blindfolded Haarakash man standing on the path the way they had been fleeing. He had a pack over each shoulder and a swordbelt in his hand. It took a moment for
Cob to recognize their erstwhile guide.
“Adram?” he said. “You all right?”
“These are yours,” responded Adram Kemithos, and tossed the swordbelt to Fiora. She caught it and buckled it on like reclaiming a piece of herself. He slung one of the packs at Cob. “I was by your rooms and saw the commotion. What happened? Did the unbinding fail?”
“The bad necromancer found me,” Cob said, nodding to the headless corpse. “And there were haelhene.”
“Ah. That is unfortunate. Come, this way,” he said, tossing the other pack to Fiora then turning on the path. “We must get you to the barrier. Haaraka is no longer safe for you.”
Cob looked in frustration to where the High Necromancer was being carried away. “Is there another hub, somewhere else I can—“
“You are bleeding. You have taken part in a conflict and are marked. If you do not wish to stay with us forever, you must leave now.”
“How can I trust you?”
Adram looked back, expression inscrutable. “It is your choice. Lliancandrien and I shade our eyes from the haelhene souls who would provoke us, not from you. Neither of us wish to join in the old wars. Now please follow. We know the way out.”
Jaw clenched, Cob stared down the blood-spattered path one more time, at the Haarakash fleeing with their wounded while the thorn reclaimed the bodies both new and old and while mage fought mage along the plaza. The noncombatants had all fled, leaving crushed fruit and forgotten baskets on the tiles, lost parchments drifting in the wind.
The top of the ritual tower burned like a tallow candle.
Cob shouldered his pack grimly, thinking, This is all my fault.
Then, with the red tendrils still reaching for his heels, he followed Adram and Fiora through the graveyard of thorn at a run.
*****
Magistrate Tarsem wiped his cheeks with a once-white cloth and peered around the corner of the tower, looking for his enemies. He had mostly recovered from the conflict with his wraith-soul, but had slivers of glass in his back that needed to be removed before they worked themselves deeper.
Unfortunately, he could not rest even though the fight had moved away. The haelhene were abroad and the High Necromancer’s adherents would have questions for him about his aid to Enkhaelen. The ritual tower might be safe—the people in there were just clerks trying to salvage papers and research materials and a few lesser mages using wards to contain the fire at the top—but he could not be sure. He did not know if he should chance it.
He did not see the hare hop awkwardly up to the plaza and skitter to the corpse nearby—one of the High Necromancer’s apprentices, struck down as he came to her aid. But he did see the corpse rise.
He lashed out at it automatically with a bolt of pain-fueled force, but the corpse took it with barely a stagger.
“Is that any way to treat a friend?” it said, raising its head.
Tarsem recoiled, grimacing. The strike that had killed the apprentice had torn part of his face away, leaving an avulsed flap over his right eye and a great gash across his cheek that showed teeth and jawbone. As the Magistrate watched, the dead apprentice reached up and cut a slash through his right eyebrow with a broken thumbnail.
“Honored Spirit,” Tarsem said, recognizing that mark. “I apologize, I did not—“
“It’s fine. I’m just here to inform you,” said the corpse. Tarsem’s stomach roiled as he watched its tongue move inside its torn mouth. “I will let our agreement stand regardless of your countrymen’s actions. Keep sending me the artifacts, weapons, everything, and I’ll keep the Empire off your back.”
Tarsem’s knees went weak, but not from relief. He gripped the edge of the tower to hold himself steady. “Honored Spirit, I fear that I will no longer be in a position to assist you.”
“Then your replacement, your aides, everyone who has taken part in this trade. I made the deal with your distant predecessor and I will remake it once you’ve had time to settle down again.”
Tarsem tasted copper in the back of his mouth, though whether it was from fear or injury, he could not tell. He shook his head slowly, too aware of the necromancer’s keen eyes on him. “No, Honored Spirit,” he said. “You have brought your war into our realm, assaulted our people and a petitioner to us, awakened the Carad Narath—“
“You say that like I did it all myself,” responded Enkhaelen acidly. “If I recall right, it was one of yours who started the fight, and a whole lot of yours who are waging war right now. This has very little to do with me. All I wanted was to extract that idiot from this place.”
“Nevertheless, Honored Spirit, you—“
“Stop. Just…don’t talk. I’m having a very bad day and it’s barely noon. Nod or shake your head only. Are you saying that you want me to dissolve our agreement?”
Grimacing, Tarsem nodded slowly.
“Even though it’s been a perfectly good partnership for more than a century? Even though I bought your people the time to raise your barrier when my Emperor was at your border? Even though all I ask for is haelhene relics that would only help your internal foes?”
“The Carad Narath—“
“I said silence.”
Tarsem closed his mouth but did not hang his head. He was not the first to handle dealings with this erratic Imperial servant, but never had they made him comfortable, and after this disaster he knew it was time to cease pandering. “Haaraka will stand or fall on its own merits, without your assistance,” he said despite the corpse’s burning glare. “We welcome the Risen Phoenix Empire's advance upon us. Every drop of blood you feed to the Carad Narath increases our rlkh—“
Lungs hitching, he doubled over, feeling liquid heat bubbling up his throat as one of the glass slivers cut through. Bright blood foamed from his lips, but he forced himself to look up at Enkhaelen in defiance.
And found Enkhaelen closing in, frowning with his tattered face. “Hold still,” the necromancer ordered, but Tarsem tried to withdraw only to feel a cold touch on his brow that locked his muscles rigid. His wraith-soul rattled within him, echoing his fear as Enkhaelen moved around to his back.
Icy needles prodded his wounds. Then the glass shards twitched and slid free of him to slip down his skin on trails of blood. Another cold, piercing, twisting feeling and the gash in his lung closed.
“I will give you some time to calm down and reconsider,” said Enkhaelen in his ear. “I have not been your enemy today, and trust me, you do not want that to change. For now, I will leave you with a warning. The disasters are coming. Prepare yourselves.”
Tarsem heard a wheezing sigh leave the corpse, then the meaty thud as it collapsed to the tiles. The chill that had frozen his muscles ebbed.
Straightening, he coughed a few more bright specks of blood from pained but unpunctured lungs and looked down upon the mangled face of his former associate. No animating force remained; Enkhaelen had abandoned it and, perhaps, Haaraka. Uncertain what to do, Tarsem passed a hand over his sweating face then looked out into the still-heaving garden, into the pitiless knotwork of thorns that was his master.
It had been a long day, and it seemed it would be longer yet.
Chapter 17 – Gate of Water
Dasira walked alone up the ice-slicked path from town, a rashi cheroot smouldering in the corner of her mouth. She had left Lark still in bed with a hangover, the Circle robe chit sitting on the bedside table waiting to be redeemed. They had netted some extra money in the evening’s card game, and Dasira had spent some time browsing the shops, not really desiring to wear Trifolder hand-me-downs. She had a new holdout knife now, and a coat, and a green-and-yellow sash to satisfy the little fragment of the laundress that still lingered in the back of her mind.
Now, she was taking the continued peace and quiet as an opportunity to check in on Ilshenrir.
She scanned the scruffy woodland, hands crammed in the pockets of her new coat. Leaving the boundary of Turo had lifted the hot weight from her shoulders, and her mind was clear. The ras
hi made it calm as well. She knew that she was risking Enkhaelen’s attention by being outside, which was why she had not camped out here just to be away from the stinging Trifolder aura, but someone had to make sure the two halves of the party kept in touch.
At first, she saw nothing. The snow had melted somewhat over the course of the day, and her boots squelched through it more than crunched, but now as the sun tilted into the west, clouds swarmed the sky. The low stone wall where Cob had vanished looked as dull as ever, and the evergreens hung thick with icicles, their afternoon drips already refrozen. A few winter birds flitted among the skeletal brush, but otherwise there was only crystalline silence.
She exhaled a smoky breath and paused on the path, squinting.
Grey. Something grey among the trees.
That was Ilshenrir, then, mostly hidden by the dark trunks nearest the wall, one hand outstretched to thin air as if touching an invisible barrier. As still as death.
Dasira flicked ash from her cheroot, contemplated him for a moment, then broke through the soft snow in his direction.
He heard her approach—she saw the faint twitch of his hooded head—but did not lower his hand or turn to look. As she drew closer, she squinted at the spot he touched. It was hard to see through the screen of trees, but there seemed to be something hanging in the air under his fingers.
A ripple of unease passed through her. She slid one hand under her coat to touch Serindas’ hilt, and the blade suffused her with its steady hunger. Could be a rashi hallucination, she told herself, but there was speculation as to whether those were hallucinations at all. They only happened around intense arcane workings, so might be magic coming clear to the normally-unseeing human eye.
As she closed in, she saw it better. A fine spidering of redness beneath Ilshenrir’s hand.
“What are you doing?” she called out, multi-threaded paranoia thrumming a soft symphony in her mind. Is he talking to the Haarakash? Is he Enkhaelen’s second agent?
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 49
