The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Read online

  “Are you all right?”

  That got one pale eye focused on him, and a slow nod. “The Wolf will be angry with me, but that is not new. I chose you. First as the Guardian, and now as a human. I have always chosen humans. To other wolves, this is my great flaw, but they would not have me when I needed them, so now that they would use me...” He huffed, soft and scornfully. “Piss on them.”

  “You're not mad?”

  “At you? No. The Ravager? It would be like yelling at a tornado. This is...” He sighed through his fangs. “This is maybe a gift, right now. I will not turn against you. The Wolf cannot make me.”

  “I'm sorry it went like this. And...attackin' you, before.”

  The wolfman snorted and bumped him with a shoulder. “You have said, yes. I forgive it. I have been hurt worse by friends.”

  That statement brought to the fore all the questions Cob had been brewing over. “I never asked about...your life before,” he said quietly. “But if this's a bad time...”

  The wolfman's ears tilted again, then settled to a neutral position. “It is fine. I'm just edgy. Many spirits out here. Splinter-drifters, decomposers, dream-scavengers, pain-worms...not dangerous, usually, but you never know. The wards keep them distant.”

  Frowning, Cob squinted at their surroundings. Beside the eerie light, the woods and rock-falls looked normal enough: skeletal deciduous trees, dense evergreens, thick snow-cover and icicles in overhangs. Toward the ruins, though, the snow thinned to permit moss and grass in patches, until within the phantasmal boundary he caught glimpses of flowerbeds, gardens and blooming trees. The violet glow made them difficult to identify, but he'd never known much about plants anyway, and without the Guardian's memories—

  His thoughts stuttered to a halt as a dozen cup-shaped yellow blossoms turned toward him. Clustered in their centers were not the typical pollen-dispensing flower-parts, but tiny silvery eyes that rippled open and shut in slow waves.

  “Um,” he said. “The flowers...”

  “Sunny watchlings.” The wolfman pointed with a claw toward another moss-padded region, covered in a strange rippling tide of red flecks. “Soulsoothe. Thorny heartvine, behind it. Blood-creep. Crying iris. All decomposers. They grow everywhere people are, really. They're meant to eat up emotional overspill, but to still be here after so long... Probably the nightmare.”

  “So they're normal?”

  “Those, yes. I can smell others, further away. Sleep-not and firethorn and trapweed, and the worms, the soul-mites, heart-leeches. They only come when there are ghosts.”

  Cob swallowed thickly. As if spirits weren't bad enough. “But souls go to their gods. Or their spirits, I guess. Or the Grey. Right?”

  “Most. Not all. Some slip through to here.” The wolfman gestured at the ruins. “Mortal people live in both sides at once, but cannot see both. Not since the Ravager pulled the realms apart. Now the body is on one side, the soul on the other, but they remain tightly connected. Sometimes when a person is spirit-touched but not spirit-bound, the soul falls through to here, where Death can neither see nor reach. It becomes a ghost, and stays until it is eaten away by decomposers and soul-parasites.”

  Cob frowned. “Are they dangerous to living people? The parasites.”

  “Not usually. Living people move too much, makes them hard to latch onto. Plus parasites cannot pass through wards or god-barriers—won't even approach them. But going into a ghost-place, standing still for more than a few moments… They will attach to you.”

  “Enkhaelen warded this area, though. The whole thing.”

  Arik pointed toward the edge of the ruins, and Cob squinted but couldn't pick out what he was supposed to see. “The grey line,” Arik supplied—and there it was, a thick band of dead-looking moss and grass running along the outskirts. “Wards don't last forever. The form was there, but without energy, things grew in. Maybe it is why the ghosts linger. Took a long time for the decomposers to reach.”

  Cob chewed his lip, then nodded. “Did you see this the first time we were here?”

  “I wasn't looking. Should have. I felt uneasy but didn't know why. But I was...wolf-shy, then.” He hung his head. “I knew this was pack territory and didn't want to see or be seen. Sorry.”

  With a grimace, Cob reached up to clasp that furry shoulder. “It's fine. Don't think it woulda changed anything if you'd seen it. I'd still've gone into the manor.”

  Arik nodded.

  “So...you know a lot. You've seen this kinda thing before?”

  The wolfman exhaled and sank down to his haunches, pressing his furry back to the chipped stone wall. Cob copied him. “A few times,” said Arik. “Not much. I know because Raun knows.”

  “You know everythin' your spirit does?”

  “Not all. What it considers important. Instincts, enemies, prey and dangers. Otherwise, we have more or less free rein on our opinions, for we are children, not copies. But sometimes this means we are treated like children. Told what to do. Made to do it, if we object.”

  “That happen often?”

  “No. Sometimes not for many years. The last time I felt something as widespread, as angry as attacking you...” His lips curled weirdly over his teeth, into an expression that was not quite a snarl—possibly a grimace. “I was young, very young. I thought I was a dog.”

  Cob blinked. “What?”

  “I knew no better. I thought I had always been there, in the kennel.” His ears tucked down flat, fur bristling across his shoulders; the points of his stubby new quills stuck up like thorns. “I never knew my family, my pack. My shape and color tell me I am northern, but my first memories are the dogs and the men. The hunters. They raised me—I don't know why. They knew what I was, because even then I could shift. I would be a boy when I felt like it, a wolf when I didn't, but I always slept in the kennel with the dogs, and ate with them. Ran with them. They were my pack.”

  Unnerved, Cob watched his friend sidelong in silence. Arik wouldn't look at him; his attention had skittered off into the woods, just his cheek and ruff presented.

  “I do not know who they were,” the wolfman said slowly. “I can barely remember their faces now. Wynds—that much I recall. And one was Volkarn, so I took that name. But the rest...” He shrugged his furry shoulders. “We hunted deer, boar, trapped smaller creatures. Kept hares and gartos. There was always meat. It must have been corner-land, or it would not have been so rich; too much fighting in the center, Wynd on Corvish, all the time. I would smell them now and then, the fox-folk, in the woods around the camp, but they never showed themselves. Never attacked.

  “I was still very young when the rage came. I remember only scraps. By the time it passed, I was in the woods—must have run off. Covered in blood, not much mine. I went back, but it had been...days, I think. The bodies were...” He shook his head slowly. “There was flesh in my mouth when I woke. Blood in my throat. But by the time I returned, the scavengers had picked everything over. I could not tell if I had...eaten.”

  Cob stared at his flattened ears. It was the last thing he'd expected to hear, but with what he'd seen of the Great Wolf's influence, it made sense. “D'you think it was directed at them? Or jus' some accidental thing?”

  “Accident. The men could be cruel, yes; they beat me sometimes when they drank. Beat all of us dogs. But it did not come from that. Raun was already in me when the man took up the rod. I think I was trying to fight my spirit. Scared the dogs. And when he hit me, I...”

  The wolfman broke off, still turned away. Cob couldn't think of anything to say.

  For a time, they stayed in place, the spirit realm quiet around them. Above the cliff, the fire-colors waxed and waned—the only real motion in the world.

  “I'm sorry I never asked,” Cob said finally. “...Didn't ask anyone much of anythin'. I was all bound up in my own problems. Enkhaelen says I care but I don't much show it, do I?”

  The wolfman turned to look at him from the corner of an eye. “You stay. You don't yell.”
/>   “That's not enough, though. It didn't—“ Help with Fiora. “I endangered everyone. I didn't listen. I let the Darkness in, and it nearly drowned you—twice! I don't know why you follow me.”

  “Wolves don't want me, and you smell nice.”

  Cob snorted. “By 'nice', you mean tasty.”

  “Delicious stag,” the wolfman agreed, and made a show of licking his fangs.

  An eye-roll, a shoulder-shove, and suddenly everything felt a little better. Arik's ears came back up, his quills settling down; a playful glint lit his eyes.

  Before they could have a brawl, though, Cob said, “What happened then? After you left.”

  The glint faded, and Arik sighed. “I roamed alone. Sought packs, but was too human for the wolves, too wolf for foxes or bears. Scavenged around human towns, learned to mimic them better. Tried to live with them, but...I was always too wolfish. I could only hide my tail for so long. Had friends, lovers… Lost them. Got chased off many times. I was scraping by in the woods when I caught your scent.”

  “And you jus' decided it'd be a good idea to come find me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ever regret it?”

  “Never.” Shifting closer, the wolfman leaned into him. Cob automatically returned the push and made a face as Arik rubbed a furry cheek against his brow. “My delicious stag,” he crooned. “No one else can have you.”

  “I'm serious.”

  “Yesss. All mine.”

  “You never thought maybe I— Don't lick me!”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  Arik made a thoughtful sound and hooked an arm around his shoulders instead. “Only licking when in full wolf-form,” he conceded. “I'll wait 'til then.”

  “Raun will let you back?”

  “Maybe. If not, I'll lick you when you're not looking.”

  As much as Cob wanted to be aggravated, he couldn't deny that he was comfortable like this—even if Arik liked draping on him a bit too much. He could put up with that for friendship.

  “D'you think we can handle Enkhaelen?” he asked. “Scared me a little… I was jus' thinkin' about bangin' his head against the desk, and then he goes and does it to himself.”

  “Mm… He has his issues, yes.”

  “And I don't have the Guardian anymore, so if he tries to do somethin' worse...”

  “To himself? Or us?”

  “Either. If you can't shift, you can't heal—and maybe I can figure out how to do it, but I'll never be as good as the Guardian. If he turns on us...”

  “To do what?”

  “I dunno. Try killin' himself again, or mess with the Seals. He didn't know he'd bring this darkness, and it's bad for him. What if he changes his mind about fixin' things?”

  Arik rumbled thoughtfully. “The Seals are closed. One is reset. He could not just open them again. And he is dangerous, yes, but...I think he likes you.”

  “What?”

  “Is amused, at least. Finds you interesting. Entertaining.”

  “That's—“ He wanted to say ridiculous, stupid, creepy, but he was all too aware that to get anywhere in this mission, they needed Enkhaelen agreeable. “Well I'm not tryin' to entertain him,” he mumbled, “and I'm not gonna start either. He better jus' be happy with what he gets.”

  “Good,” said Arik. “You can't roll over. The blood of raptors is strong in him. They do not respect submission. You must lead without alienating him.”

  Cob scowled at the stony ground. “S'pose it's too late to jus' kill him.”

  Arik didn't answer. After a moment, Cob glanced up to see those pale eyes fixed on him, very close and very serious. “If you ask,” he said, “I will do it. I will do anything you need.”

  Cob's mouth went dry. “But it's the Ravager...”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  “Arik, no. I can't order that. He's already done enough to you.” Shaking his head, he forced down the frustration and said, “It's the worst option anyway. We already know that. We jus' gotta get him to the places, let him set the Seals, and then we can be quit of each other.”

  Arik nodded.

  After that, there seemed nothing to add. They stared at the phantom inferno a bit longer, and watched an unfelt wind stir the trees and flick the snow around their feet. Despite his unease about the nightmare-light and its strange shadows, Cob had to admit that down here, by the warded wall, it was peaceful. He wished he felt safe enough to sleep.

  “C'mon,” he said finally, shrugging off Arik's arm and rising. “We should pack some gear. Don't wanna stay much longer; feels like it'd be rude to pee in the spirit realm.”

  The wolfman snorted, but followed.

  *****

  They tried to be quiet as they dug through the crates and trunks, but it didn't seem to matter. Even when Cob dropped one by accident, Enkhaelen didn't stir.

  The supplies were many and varied. Most crates held the typical necessities: travel food; fuel in the form of charcoal and oil; tins of tea and herbs; piles and piles of clothes and blankets. There were the expected mage-things: trunks full of books, crates of specimen-jars carefully packed in straw, leather rolls of weird tools and writing implements.

  And then there were the treasures.

  Cob had lost his grip on the one trunk because it was much heavier than he'd expected, and when he opened it up, he understood why. It wasn't big—maybe three feet long and one wide—but inside, padded with old cloths, were fifteen solid gold wheels. Each more than two inches thick, they nearly filled the space, and when he pulled one out, he saw its faces were covered in bas-relief serpents and pictograms.

  It took a long time for him to stop staring. He'd only ever seen gold on nobles, mages and specialists, in the form of jewelry or gilt or embroidery-thread. Normal gold coins were said to be small, the size of his thumbnail.

  One of these wheels could buy a town. Maybe a city.

  And they weren't all. The chest beneath it made metallic slithering sounds as he hauled it down, so it didn't surprise him that it was brimful of coins, but his heart hammered hard at the sight of more gold and heavy silver. Some bore the Imperial crest, their denominations indicated by the flower on the other side, but many were odd-sized and unfamiliar, marked with a mix of scripts and styles that included more pictograms.

  Under that was a huge iron-banded chest filled with rough garnets, some the size of a fist. Next to it, a similar chest filled with bags of uncut gemstones; nestled within, a smaller hinged box that folded open into trays of finished stones.

  And then there were the silver bars, the iron bars, the bright-iron and copper and bronze bars. The metal beads: thousands of them, collected in long strings according to type. The pierced coins: mostly copper and what appeared to be ivory or shell, also strung. The bags of faceted obsidian stones, inscribed with unfamiliar runes; the thick glass disks stacked on their spindles, each one containing something insect-like that shimmered and skittered within.

  Prisms. Crystals. Rings and bracelets. Arm-bands, pectorals, chains and collars. Hair-pins, circlets, cloak clasps, buckles, ear-hooks, bangles, combs.

  A part of him wanted to stuff his pockets and run, but he squelched it; he'd never really used money. Never been in a position where he needed it, city entry tax notwithstanding. His old camp-mates would have pissed themselves, but all he could do was shake his head and wonder why all of this was here.

  It hadn't been for him. He was probably the last person Enkhaelen had expected to bring home. But Enkhaelen hadn't expected to live either—so the food, the fuel, the clothes and coin, they couldn't have been his post-Palace plan.

  The only one else was…

  Geraad Iskaen.

  He winced, remembering the mage dead on the dais. Enkhaelen claimed he hadn't meant for Geraad to follow, so perhaps all this gear, this wealth, had been intended for him.

  Then why had Geraad pursued Enkhaelen to the Palace?

  Cob touched the arrowhead pendant through the fabric of his tunic. It he
ld memories and impressions the earnest mage had dared to send to him—information that had proven invaluable. Without it, Cob might not have realized that Enkhaelen was a prisoner, might not have questioned the Guardians or seen their deaths. Might have chosen wrong.

  “Sorry I got you into this,” he mumbled, feeling that faint mental imprint like he'd once felt the Guardian's presence. “Sorry y'couldn't get out. You were too nice, maybe. Tried too much t' help. Shoulda cut your ties and run while you had the chance.”

  No answer came from the pendant—not that he'd expected one. It wasn't a mind, after all, just a series of visions. The man it had come from was dead and burned, and he could do nothing to fix that. He just had to press on.

  He started to turn away, then remembered the dagger. Enkhaelen's gift to Geraad. It didn't seem right to carry it, even with Enkhaelen's permission, so he drew it from his belt and set it among the gems and trinkets. The amber remnants in the pommel glinted as if they belonged.

  That done, Cob assembled himself a traveling pack, trying to anticipate what he'd need. Food, obviously, and a canteen, and clothing. Surprisingly, there were garments in his size—a bit short in the arms and tight at the shoulders, but good enough. Plenty of cloaks and wraps and socks and scarves and gloves, and even some boots, which felt like a foreign concept after going barefoot for so long. They didn't fit very well, so he set the largest aside to work with later and kept foraging.

  Between him and Arik, they'd soon bundled as much food as they could carry, and found some basic tools among Enkhaelen's kits: a hatchet, utility knives, sewing material, fire-sparkers and a shuttered lantern. No rucksacks, but Cob had been without one before, and rigged up basic replacements from blankets and oilcloth. He also gathered a purse's-worth of smaller coins and rough garnets; flashing gold would just entice someone to knife him.