The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle)

by H. Anthe Davis

  “Because she’s mine,” Enkhaelen said flatly. Through the glitter of pain, Dasira saw Fiora’s shock.

  “Son of a bitch,” she growled as electricity surged from the stud, heart stuttering despite her bracer's influence. If this was it—if he meant to expose her and kill her now... “Who’s your other agent, you bastard?”

  The grip on her head relaxed slightly, and those cold eyes turned to her. “What?” said Enkhaelen with blank incomprehension.

  Dasira spat in the snow, unsurprised to see pink bloom in the white. “The other agent you sent. When you came and gave me this piking assignment.”

  He stared at her for another long moment, then the faintest of smiles cracked his façade. “Oh,” he said. “I made that up. You’re too easy to manipulate, Vedaceirra.”

  With that, he twisted his hand again and she collapsed to her side in the snow, paralyzed by the repeating, agonizing electrical surges.

  “You’d best not get up,” he said. “I am angry with you right now. You’ve forced me to show my hand, which will cause no end of trouble, so don’t blame me when it comes down on you like a vengeful fist.” As an afterthought, he added, “Though I thank you for breaching Daenivar’s blockade.”

  His boots crunched through the snow, receding. “Stand aside, the rest of you,” she heard him say as he approached the gates. “I have no care for your lives and I would rather you not waste my time. I assume the boy is inside.”

  “You can’t have him!” Fiora said defiantly. “I won’t let you—“

  A crack of light washed out all vision, followed by shuddering thunder. Dasira flinched and covered her ears, then realized that her limbs were responding again—if twitchily. She shifted to one knee and blinked against the floating afterimages, expecting with both dread and satisfaction to see the scorched corpse of the Trifolder in the snow.

  But Fiora was not dead. Dasira saw her dimly, crouched behind her shield, which in turn was sheltered behind a faint pane of golden light. Ilshenrir’s magic.

  Near her, Ilshenrir wove more ethereal threads between his crooked fingers. Enkhaelen rounded on him and swept a tendril of smooth dark energy straight at his head.

  It impacted Ilshenrir’s ward in a clash of blue and gold, but instead of shattering the protective ward, it stuck fast. In an instant, golden energy began to surge down the tendril, pulling sparks from Ilshenrir’s robe and skin. The energy spiraled up the whip to join the arcs already dancing across Enkhaelen’s shoulders.

  For a moment, Ilshenrir staggered beneath the draining force. Then, with a sharp gesture, he shattered the ward that the whip had stuck to, leaving the long tendril loose. Enkhaelen pulled his arm back to crack it again, and Ilshenrir drew swift sigils in the air. This time when the necromancer struck, the biting whip hit a wall that looked like yellow acid. The seething yellow substance was sucked up like the ward before, but seared through and disintegrated the whip as it drank.

  Enkhaelen released the energy-whip before the acid could reach him, letting it drop its hissing load to the flagstones. In its wake, Ilshenrir sent the remains of the acid wall at Enkhaelen like shrapnel, and the necromancer raised both hands to form a barrier a yard away. The shards splattered all over the fine blue ward, dissolving it along with the stones below.

  On the other side of the fight, Dasira spotted Lark struggling to string her shortbow.

  She wanted to yell a warning to the girl, but her teeth still chattered from the electric shock and she could not get the words out. Ilshenrir and Enkhaelen traded another salvo to no effect, then the necromancer pulled two sizzling strands from the wing-like structures at his back and strode for the wraith.

  Shining afterimages hung in the wake of those whips, and the stink of ozone filled the small plaza. Enkhaelen lashed with one and it cut through Ilshenrir’s ward, and the ward behind it, and the ward behind that, like a knife dividing water. The swift haelhene had already twisted out of range though, sparks like static dancing on his form as he moved, one hand weaving while the other dipped under his cloak.

  The second whip slashed across at hip-level, slow but too long to evade, and would have cut Ilshenrir in half—wards and all—if not for the blade he drew. Expecting the green crystal one, Dasira was surprised to see the broad wooden one, and even more surprised when the wraith jammed it into the ground then leapt aside.

  Enkhaelen tried to reel the whip back, but too late; it hit the wooden sword and adhered. The enameled runes glowed a sudden emerald and sucked the whip from his hand, dragging a great arc of unformed energy with it. Releasing the other whip, the necromancer backstepped furiously and made sharp gestures to sever the connection. As the cruel whips sizzled into nothing, Ilshenrir snatched the wooden blade from the ground and advanced on him.

  Dasira watched as the necromancer’s back came in line with her, those crackling wings too dangerous to approach. She drew Serindas nevertheless, and the red blade lit with fierce hunger.

  You’re the cause of all this, she thought at Enkhaelen. I won’t let you at him again.

  Enkhaelen seemed to be circling toward the gates while keeping his distance from the wraith who had now drawn both blades. Ilshenrir maneuvered with him, though, never letting him gain much room, until they were both rushing for the wrought-iron wall, their eyes fixed on each other. As they converged, Ilshenrir brought up the green crystal in a sweep that reestablished layers of wards around him, preparing for an arcane strike.

  Enkhaelen did no such thing. From yards away, he leapt at the wraith like a maniacal cricket, and Ilshenrir brought both blades to bear.

  The wings snapped forward like anemone tendrils and hit Ilshenrir’s blades with a monstrous surge, blowing them to the sides as Enkhaelen’s dark form impacted the wards. His feet somehow found purchase on the golden energy, and as his wings enfolded the wraith’s protective cocoon, Dasira saw him bury his hands through it effortlessly. The wards shattered and she saw his boots hit Ilshenrir's chest, his hands clamp on the wraith's face—followed by his teeth.

  The Ravager eats wraiths, she remembered, and her mouth went dry.

  But Enkhaelen’s back was exposed now, his wings' filaments streaming over his shoulders and under his arms and around his waist to constrict the wraith rather than protect his rear. Ilshenrir bled color and light in his grip, both of them paralyzed by the act.

  She charged.

  Bitter cold stung her flesh as she entered the outer limits of Enkhaelen’s unleashed aura, but two steps later the icy ring turned hot—almost volcanic. She focused on the back of his neck where his enspelled coat could not protect him, Serindas singing massacre-songs in her mind.

  Then she hit an energized layer and pain lanced through the right side of her head, throwing her off-step. Light blossomed in the corner of that eye but she felt nothing, heard nothing. She lunged forward but something was wrong with the ground; it had moved from where it was supposed to be, and she planted her feet but they seemed miles away.

  Still she lunged again, desperate to sink the red blade into Enkhaelen’s spine, and this time the flash from her right came like a detonation, snapping her head sideways under its force.

  She blacked out even before the flagstones could rise to meet her.

  *****

  “Well now, who else wants to play?” said Enkhaelen as he shrugged his wings back and stepped down from thin air. The wraith collapsed before him like a broken doll.

  From their scattered positions, Arik, Lark and Fiora stared wordlessly. The Trifolder girl clung to her shield the way Lark clung to her bow, but neither dared to move. On the ground behind the necromancer, Dasira laid motionless, right ear gone and face scorched by the explosion from her ear-stud. Her fair hair smoldered faintly.

  Enkhaelen smudged opalescent ichor from his mouth with the back of a hand. His eyes gleamed like glacier ice, and though his horrible wings had dulled—no longer six but two, with shimmering sketches of the others sagging below them—none of the remaining companions doubt
ed that he could destroy them.

  The gate creaked open.

  Enkhaelen’s gaze snapped to it.

  In the darkness among the hedges stood a darker shape, hulking and armored, antlered, its eyes black pits. It held up a strange silver sword, and Enkhaelen stiffened as if he had just been jabbed. For a moment his face clenched with fury. Then, without a second thought, he stepped over the downed wraith and gave chase.

  The Guardian vanished into the maze.

  Chapter 24 – Firebird Garden

  The white hawk had led Cob to the gate.

  But the gate he saw was not sealed. It was open, both sides flung wide to permit entry into the corridor of dense foliage beyond. The leaves shivered as he approached, making an eerie susurrus in the still air.

  The white hawk flitted through and disappeared into the overgrowth.

  Cob halted before the gate, struck by a strange sense of familiarity. He had never seen this place before, not even dreamed it, yet it felt like…

  Home.

  He touched the wrought metal cautiously and found it warm, as if steeped in summer sun. What surprised him, though, was his hand: not armored but bare, slim, refined—an artist's hand. The sleeve bright blue, rough-spun but thickly embroidered; the rest of the garment long and concealing despite the weather, belted with silver, slit up the middle. A riding robe.

  Not an artist's hand. A mage's. His body replaced by someone else’s.

  For a moment he panicked and yanked at the clothes, but beneath his hands he felt his bark layer instead of the robe, his own muscled arms instead of the skinny ones he saw. Confused, he shook his head and felt the weight of the antlers at his brow, but when he looked up, they were not there.

  "Shaidaxi?" said a woman's voice, and he turned.

  His companions were gone. In their place stood strangers: rough-garbed, shaggy-haired men and women with unnervingly feral eyes, some in piecemeal metal armor and others in good leather, most with shortbows or spears at hand. Behind and to the side lurked huge grey-brown wolves with saddles strapped between their shoulder-blades, some with spears or axes tied against their flanks. Several men carried poles hung with game animals—small boars, waterfowl, a mountain deer. Their expressions were questioning, but they did not speak.

  Beside him stood a dusky-skinned woman in hunting leathers, with metallic silver hair bound into a braid that nearly reached her ankles and eyes the color of verdigris. Her statuesque bearing, Kerrindrixi coloring and features, and her height—nearly a foot taller than the mirage he wore—told him she was Muriae, one of the elemental Silver Folk from the Thundercloak Mountains.

  The sudden lift of his heart at the sight of her told him that the mage who possessed him—Shaidaxi—loved her. His Jessamyn.

  It was the strangest feeling, so swift and intense that it nearly made him move toward her. So different from the confusion he felt about Fiora. But an instant later, the love switched to rage as his mirage-self pointed at the ground before the gates.

  "Your brother again," he heard himself say coldly. He squinted down to see the marks of shod hooves on the flagstones.

  "Let me talk to him," said the Muriae woman, touching his arm.

  Against his will, he withdrew from her, the anger smothering all else. "No. I warned him last time. If he's here again..." Rather than complete the threat, he turned and stalked through the gates.

  "Shaidaxi," the woman snapped, but he ignored her. Cob did not want to go, did not want to leave his friends to whatever magic had taken them, but he was not in control.

  Winter fell away, the dry summer air coaxing him inward. He scanned his environs as his legs moved automatically, the muffled steps of his strange companions following. The hedges were well past head-height, and the path bent out of sight in either direction, no straight route available. While nothing seemed amiss, he heard no birdsong and felt no animal life; the earth was frozen beneath his bare feet, belying what he saw.

  His possessor's urgent stride turned him down the right-hand path, where the hedges curved deeper into the maze. Cob ran his fingers along the hedge wall, initially just feeling through the root-system and trying to ignore his phantom clothes, but he soon noticed that the leaves were flaking away beneath his touch. He tried to halt but his body refused. While his real fingers felt withered winter leaves clinging tenaciously to their branches, what he saw were ash-grey ones disintegrating to nothing.

  Then he caught a whiff of burning. A faint, old scent, like around an extinguished campfire. He inhaled deeply but it was already gone, and when he glanced at the leaves, they were green and pristine again.

  "Odd," he murmured.

  After a few turns, they began to pass alcoves with statuary—some new and clean, some ash-covered, some so weather-worn that it was impossible to tell if the truncated torsos and chipped faces had been male or female. They baffled him; it was like walking through three different mazes all mixed together somehow. He had the feeling that only the weather-worn ones were real, but his possessor never paused long enough for him to check.

  And then, around another bend, he saw the first corpse.

  He tried to move toward it, concerned, but the mage’s gait would not let him stray. He stared instead as he passed. The body was fresh, dressed in mixed armor with an unsheathed sword lying beside its hand, ragged hair visible beneath a leather skullcap. It seemed as if it had been crawling toward the exit. As he glimpsed its face, he realized that it looked like one of the strangers accompanying him.

  He glanced back to see the man crumble to ash and cinders. No one reacted, and when he looked down, the body was gone. Only a rough black smudge remained on the stones.

  “Bloody pikes,” he muttered, then looked forward—just as something white disappeared around the next bend in the hedge.

  It had been maybe three or four feet tall. Lerien? he thought. What's going on?

  The mage who possessed him seemed to know this place well, moving unerringly through the twists and turns. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides unless Cob made a mental effort to retake them. A thick silver ring gleamed on his left hand, a wedding band perhaps, though what that indicated—that a human could marry one of the Muriae—boggled his mind as much as anything else.

  He had half-resolved to just go with this strange experience—as it seemed he could not escape—when they rounded another corner and hit a pall of smoke. It rolled over him in an instant, filling his lungs and stinging his eyes. The mage tried to move forward but Cob fought for control and managed to crouch low, coughing, tasting the reek of burning ivy. Through the smoke he saw flames leap along the leafy corridor and more corpses sprawled beneath the falling cinders—

  No, not corpses. Living men, struggling to crawl free before the fire reached them or the smoke strangled them. Some in piecemeal armor like the mage's companions, and some in polished plate.

  His heart labored in his chest. The mage kept pulling at him, but with the flames stabbing up from the hedge-tops like a crown of fire, he refused to move. The sheer heat that pressed on him felt enough to roast the flesh from his bones.

  He tried to get lower, tried to sip the minimal clear air by the flagstones, but his throat and lungs felt scalded and though he gasped desperately, he drew nothing. The men down the corridor ceased crawling and lay still.

  Then the smoke vanished, and with it the flames. Cob's lungs heaved and he drew in a huge breath of summery air, exhaled, then slumped against the hedge.

  Down the corridor, the bodies lay where they had fallen.

  Slowly, Cob stood and felt himself mesh with the mage, but to his surprise it did not pull. As if he had halted it at a precipice, it stayed very still, and when he looked down at his false hands, he realized they were trembling. A shadow of a feeling touched him, distant and strange, somehow older than those earlier bursts of fervor.

  Hoi? he thought at it, but it did not answer.

  He stared at the bodies as he regained his breath. A few he recognized fro
m the group that followed him, but the figures in full plate armor looked like traditional knights—how he had always envisioned the Knights of Law. Their surcoats had been burned away, leaving no identifying insignia, and why they would be here, dying in the same black smoke as these mercenary types, he could not guess.

  Finally his possessor seemed to recover itself, and he went with its pull, watching the plated corpses crumble at his approach. Another alien twinge went through him at the sight—vindication? Spite?

  Hard to tell.

  But he knew then that this wasn't his vision. It belonged to one of the splinters that rode in his head, one of the things that could take him over at will. Shaidaxi, Shaidaxi...

  "Enkhaelen. Morshoc," he breathed, and felt a tiny flicker of acknowledgment.

  Before he could fling himself into a struggle with it, another fire surged from the deepest hedges. Phantom shouts and screams arose, unintelligible. Through the roar of the flames, he thought he heard the clash of steel, and then—

  A small white hand emerged from the end of the hedge-corridor. A small white face.

  A fist clenched around his heart: the chest-compressing paralysis of a waking nightmare. Everything went watery and slow, his ears ringing with oppressive silence. The child—a black-haired girl in a white-dress—stepped out before the wall of withering greenery, her diminutive form wreathed in smoke and backlit by flames. Her gaze pierced right through to his soul.

  "Mariss!" his possessor shrieked with his throat, and lunged forward. The girl vanished into the smoke. He followed, gripped by alien desperation, his bare feet striking the flagstones with a sound like metal on rock as he turned the corner.

  Into the courtyard.

  —which was ablaze, empty, a battlefield all at once: three realities vying for dominance. A broken fountain and a flowing one shared the same space, overhung by billows of smoke, while mercenaries fought knights over crumpled and blackened versions of themselves. Flames devoured the flowerbeds and left behind weed and thorn; horses huddled in a far corner of the yard or raced around madly, or lay charred among the fallen men. Their bronze-colored tabards and tack showed the Trifold insignia, hammer high: Brancir, spirit of metal, goddess of judgment.