“Why are you here?” he said through his fingers.
“To protect you.”
“Who sent you?”
She hesitated, then raised her head, washed-out eyes meeting his. “Morshoc.”
His heart lurched. For a long moment, all he heard was its thunder in his ears, all he felt were the hot and cold frissons moving up his spine—the horror and fury so tightly enmeshed that they paralyzed him. “Since when?” he hissed.
“Since the beginning. Long before we met.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, then she blinked. “You didn’t realize…”
“Didn’t realize what?” Cob said, stepping back, so overwhelmed that he had to consciously plant the staff in the snow lest he start swinging. He had wanted a reason to kill her, but this was too much. “I know he…he locked the Guardian in me,” he stammered, mind whirling, “but how did you—“
“Cob,” she said calmly, “did you not listen to me in the forest before you killed me? I was assigned to you by my maker, Inquisitor Archmagus Enkhaelen, who forged your bonds. It seems Morshoc is one of his pseudonyms.”
He clenched his jaw so tightly it felt like his teeth would shatter. “No, you didn’t say that,” he gritted out. “You didn’t— I never heard that name until yesterday. But how can he be the Inquisitor Archmagus? He’s the Ravager, a necromancer, he can’t be—“
“I know you’re confused. I owe you all the explanation I can possibly give. But we must not talk about him out here.”
Cob swallowed and looked around as if the necromancer might have appeared in a new corpse-body while he rambled. “Yeah, understood. But they can’t be the same person. That’s insane. The Inquisitor Archmagus serves the Emperor, doesn’t he?”
“Given the evidence, I’d say no,” said Dasira dryly.
He stared at her, shocked that she could joke, but by the grim look on her frostbitten face, she found it no funnier than he did. “If you know his real name,” she continued, “that makes you a threat to him. Did he seek you out in Haaraka?”
“Yeah. Tried to get me to go with him.”
“And you denied him. Good.”
“Why is that ‘good’?”
“He can’t be trusted.”
“But you’re his agent—“
“I want him dead. Not just for you; for myself. He’s the reason—“ She sucked in a short breath, evidently thinking better of it, then said, “He needs to die. Whatever he wants from you, you can’t let him have it. No deal with him ever turns out well.”
“How can I trust you?” he said, struggling not to give in.
She smiled faintly and spread her hands, fingers blue-white against the snow. “After what I’ve done? You can’t. And I don’t want you to. He still has his hooks in me, Cob, and will until I die. Perhaps even afterward. I’ve done everything I can to help you, but if you don’t consider me worth the risk, then strike me down. I won’t resist.”
Cob took another step back and looked away, head swimming. He could not attack her now, not like this, even though he wanted desperately to be rid of that part of his past. To expel her from his life, taking all the pain she had spawned with her.
But she knew things. That much was obvious from the gleam in her eyes, the curl of her cracked lips. And Morshoc—Enkhaelen—seemed capable of finding him no matter where he was, of calling up some splinter of himself from inside Cob to do his bidding. Having Enkhaelen’s agent at his side could do no further harm, and could provide much benefit.
If she had spoken honestly about burning her bridges. About being only on Cob’s side.
“I already killed you once,” he said roughly. “It didn’t take. So your offer doesn’t mean much.”
She looked down. “I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to…let you go. I directed you wrong. But I’ve seen you looking at me. You can see the threads.” She touched her stiff cheek, then the bracer on her left arm. “This is where I am. If you want me dead, I’m sure you can figure out how.”
She held out her arm, palm up, and he saw the slit that ran down the center of the bracer and all the black hooks that stitched it together. Grey flesh edged the black material, dead but not rotting, and when he closed his hand over it he felt the stuff recoil as if it could sense the Guardian slumbering within him. Dasira winced but did not move.
Then he exhaled through his teeth and pulled her up by the arm, switching his grip to her ice-coated shoulder as she staggered. “We’re not doin’ this shit again,” he said to her questioning expression. “No more lyin’ or sneakin’, no more twisted feelings in my gut. Make me feel like that again and I’ll bury you for the worms to find. You understand me?”
She tried to nod but could barely move her head. With a deep scowl, Cob cast the staff aside and pressed his hand to her forehead, remembering how he had drawn the ice to himself. The Guardian’s power bloomed within him, and the rime that coated her began to slough away, withdrawing its frozen fingers from her skin and clothes.
Immediately she began to spasm and clutched at his arm, pale eyes wide as her monstrous nature reacted to his Guardian aura. She did not try to escape though, and as the ice dissipated she managed to brace her feet and stand steadier, soon just shivering like a leaf in the wind. Color came back to her face blotchily, and even her fingers seemed to thaw.
“Pike me,” she rasped, “that was— That was not fun. Can we go inside? I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”
Still gripping her by the shoulders, he looked into her eyes and saw the sick fear roiling in their greyish depths. Under her skin, the spider’s web of threads and spikes and artificial muscle fibers trembled in his presence, on the verge of tearing to shreds. After knowing Darilan for so long as a murk-eyed menace, this sudden fragility came as a shock. He had been called a bully before, and a thug, and had started his share of fights, but never had someone been so much at his mercy.
All he could do was release her and watch as she staggered for balance. For a moment he thought she would lose it and tumble down the ridge, but she finally caught herself and straightened as if trying to recapture some measure of dignity. With a wary look for him, she nodded toward the discarded dagger. “I wanted you to know I meant no harm, but I should—“
“Go ahead,” he said. Nasty as the blade was, it was never what had bothered him.
She hobbled over to retrieve it and fumbled it into a sheath under her coat. Then she returned to him, looking dubiously down the ridge to the caravan-shelter. “I feel like I’ve been here before.”
“Lark thought it was weird too.”
“Smart girl.”
“You swear t’ tell me everythin’, right?”
“Everything I can say in front of a Trifolder. You don’t want to start that fight.”
Oh yeah? Cob thought, but nodded. “All right. So...”
“So?”
“…Have you always been a girl?”
She looked up at him with the amused exasperation Darilan had shown on his kindest days, the expression that said ‘you’re ridiculous, but I like you anyway’. That smile on this new face finally struck the truth home, and he blinked water from his eyes.
“Just help me down the hill, Cob,” she said. “There are some things you don’t need to know.”
*****
Sitting in the glow of the fire with her five companions, Dasira was not sure what to feel. She had a cup of tea in hand, boots and socks and breeches off, and a long shirt on—courtesy of Lark, who had declared her torn shirt and coat victims of the Curse of the Tunicslayer. Cob had grumbled at that, but his own tunic had a deep slice in the arm and a hole in the shoulder and now he was patching it, hunched over as if embarrassed to be bare-chested as he fiddled with Fiora’s needle and thread.
Fiora’s eyes stayed on him, moving from his haphazard stitching to his scars to his face, and Dasira watched her, annoyed at how close she was sitting. Annoyed at herself for feeling protective of him. He was a grown man who could make his own decisions, and by the
flustered but warm look he gave Fiora when she set a hand on his leg, Dasira could guess what had happened between them.
It was not something to seethe over. He had a right to his own life.
On Cob’s left lay Arik in wolf-form, sleepy-eyed but attentive. Closer to Dasira sat Ilshenrir, his cloak thrown back to show an actual body beneath, clad in pearly-scaled armor and incongruous grey gloves. She was fairly sure that only the gloves were the same from before. He had a cup too, but it was empty, his sips merely companionable mimicry. On Dasira’s other side was Lark, cup in one hand and long-handled spoon in the other. Occasionally she leaned in to stir the contents of the pot over the fire.
“Cob, let me do that,” Fiora said finally, reaching for the tunic.
Scowling, Cob held it away. “I’m fine. I’ve done this plenty. Jus’ feels like m’fingers got all big while I wasn’t lookin’.”
“They’re not the only thing,” said Lark in an undertone.
Dasira gave the Shadow girl a dour look, but Lark just raised her brows as if to say ‘you know I’m right’. Disregarding the girl's dirty mind, Dasira had to admit it. Even hunched over the stitches, Cob's shoulders looked broader than she remembered, his hair shaggier, his frame more filled out. He had always been tall, but for a long time in camp he had been a gangly colt, all arms and legs—even if he put those to use in headlocks and chasing Weshker. Still, she knew she was not just overlaying memory on the man. She had seen him shirtless in the Damiels’ house, and could swear he had changed even in that short time.
Lark seemed appreciative but Dasira just found it unnerving.
“Did you free the Guardian?” she said, the only explanation she could find.
Cob glanced up and nodded. “Mostly. They say they can access all their power now, but, heh. I guess it doesn’t work in some places. They’re not totally free but they can probably wiggle away in time.”
“So now what do we do?” said Lark. “Go east until your imaginary friend says stop?”
“Imaginary friend?” said Dasira suspiciously.
Cob gave her a slight smile and tapped his forehead, and a chill went through her. “Old friend. My oldest. He’s got ties to the Ravager, I guess, but I trust him. He wants me t’ go east to find somethin’.”
Lerien. You trust Lerien? As if he could read the incredulity in her face across the fire-pit, Cob nodded. His eyes reflected the light like polished stones.
“I need to figure this out, and the Guardian agrees. Morshoc— I mean, Enkhaelen’s supposed t’ lair in Daecia City, but that was years ago. Maybe things have changed, or maybe…. I dunno. But they think it’s important.”
“Important enough to send you haring off through the most dangerous stretch of the Empire?” said Dasira, more curtly than she had intended. Despite the half-mark spent drying and warming up and trying to relax, she still felt tense from the four-way battle, and if she could have kicked them all into their gear and out the door to get more distance from Akarridi, she would have.
Cob grimaced, but shrugged. “Not like I knew that’d happen. Did you?”
Mouth open, Dasira forced herself to consider her words. She could not speak freely in front of Fiora, in part because the girl did not know about her but also because she still suspected Fiora of…something. Erestoia, the arrowhead, her invisible sword-wielding ally. The prayer-book. It made no sense but she still planned to watch her tongue.
“No,” she said. “I went to the Gold patrol as one of their own, undercover in Turo. Told them you’d gone east, since I thought you’d piking go north if anywhere. How was I supposed to know you’d flitter off like that?”
“So you don’t know of anythin’ in the east?”
“Only Trivestes. Or the Garnets. But that’s wild territory and has been for hundreds of years. No roads, no towns, no Imperial outposts. If Enkhaelen has a lair out there…”
“Sounds like the ideal place for a necromancer,” said Fiora.
“He’s not just that.”
They all looked to her, even the sleepy wolf perking his ears. Dasira took a deep breath, trying to sort her thoughts, then stared across the fire at Cob as she said, “If he answered to Enkhaelen, then he could be Inquisitor Archmagus Shaidaxi Enkhaelen, the Emperor’s right-hand mage and a Councilor of the Silent Circle. Our intelligence also suggests that he’s the Emperor’s monster-maker—the creator of the abominations that riddle the Imperial Armies.”
She glanced sidelong to Lark, who looked momentarily shocked, then started nodding supportively as if it was common Shadow knowledge. Making a mental note to thank the girl, Dasira continued, “If he is the necromancer, then he’s possibly the hardest target in the Empire. He commands the Inquisition, holds the Energies chair and has the Emperor’s ear, and it’s impossible to say where he’ll be at any given time.”
“Or if he’s ever in his real body,” said Cob darkly, then frowned. “Wait. The Emperor’s monster-maker? The Emperor knows about this?”
Oh Cob, she thought.
“Of course he does,” said Fiora, gesturing with her cup. “The abominations act at the Emperor’s command, they’re not some kind of anti-Imperial infiltration. Though if they’re wrought by necromancy, I guess that explains why they can’t tolerate Trifold areas…”
Cob started to speak, but Lark overrode him to address Fiora. “That’s not necessarily true, the Emperor thing. I mean, we’ve been watching the Imperials for a long time, and the normal soldiers don’t run with the abominations. When they see abominations, they freeze up. This officer I talked to, Lieutenant something, I was trying to tell him about…this abomination in his patrol and he got this glazed look on his face, like he was being kept from thinking about it. I’m pretty sure they use the mentalists to keep the normal humans in the dark, so if the monster-maker is also the head of the Inquisition, who can say if anyone in the armies actually knows what’s going on?”
“So…the Emperor might not be aware of the monsters,” Cob said. The poorly concealed hope in his eyes made Dasira’s head hurt.
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” she interjected, unsure how to squelch the idea without giving away too much—not just to Fiora but to all of them. Some things she was too ashamed to say. “The abominations are too widespread for the Inquisition to keep down all knowledge of them, and the first person anyone would tell is the Emperor.”
“But what if he’s bein’ mindwashed too?” said Cob. He leaned forward, gaze intent on her, and she tried not to squirm. “What if Enkhaelen has everyone under mind-control and is slowly takin’ over the world?”
“Trust me, there’s no way the Emperor can’t already know about this. Even if he’s not aware of the full extent of it, he still permits it to happen. So don’t think you can run off to the Palace and tell him, then have him turn around and smite Enkhaelen. He’ll laugh in your face.”
Cob sat back, brooding, and Fiora touched his arm comfortingly. “Even if he didn’t know, that wouldn’t make him a good man,” she said. “He’s subjugated most of the north and driven my people and Lark’s underground, wiped out the remnants of spirit-worship in the Heartlands, made alliances with the haelhene…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” mumbled Cob.
“So if we chase Enkhaelen to the Palace and happen to get close to the Emperor…”
“We’re not talkin’ about that. All right?”
Fiora sighed. “If you say so.”
Silence fell for a time, broken only by the occasional sniffle or sip of tea. Then Cob lifted his head and looked to the door. “How safe is this place?”
“It’s blessed by Iroliyale the Traveler,” Lark said, pointing at the big charcoal sigil with her spoon. “From what I’ve heard, that means no violence is allowed here.”
“Doesn’t mean people can’t come up our backtrail and burn the place down, though.”
“I can take care of that,” said Ilshenrir, rising. His cloak slipped over his shoulders to close neatly in front of him, almost as if
acting on its own.
“No, wait. Sit.” Cob gestured him down. “Not yet. Can we be scryed-on here?”
The wraith did not sit, instead tilting his head to regard Cob. “I do not believe so. This place has emanations similar to Turo, in that it is not expressly enchanted to evade scrying but produces interference significant enough to prevent such a delicate arcane breach. If you are concerned about the gods, I imagine that they are likewise barred from spying upon others’ blessed places.”
“See, I’m telling you this shelter can’t have been here before we arrived,” said Lark. “It has to be some kind of sneaky god-thing. They’re watching us, just like the Imperials.”
“Good thing Iroliyale is on your side,” said Fiora.
“Yeah. I think.”
“Ilshenrir, is there anythin’ else you can tell us? About anythin’?” said Cob.
With a faint smile, the wraith said, “It would take you a lifetime to hear it. But on this matter, no. I do not know of this Enkhaelen, nor will I voice an opinion on your Emperor. Shall I erase our trail now?”
“Yeah, if y’don’t mind. Oh, and…nice work out there.”
“Thank you, Guardian. I do my part.”
They watched the wraith sweep out, then settled again into thoughtful silence. Lark excused herself to dig for dishes among the junk they had pulled from the bins. The contents of the pot were bubbling now, filling the air with the scent of herbs and beans, and Dasira’s stomach growled; despite her nature and her ability to draw energy from Serindas, she still had to eat.
As Lark returned with bowls and spoons, Fiora said, “Strange thing. That name, Enkhaelen, it reminds me of Brigydde’s title, Ecaeline. ‘Of the fire’. Enkhaelen sounds a bit more Gheshvan though, which makes sense since that’s where Brinvan came from…”
At Cob’s baffled look, she added, “Brinvan, that’s our liturgical language. From when the religion was being formed, back when humans were all still slaves of the ogres.”
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 56
