The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 16

  As for the rest of Enkhaelen's stuff, including anything magical, he dared not touch it. He'd bundled up clothes that seemed Enkhaelen's size, and packed some of the charcoal and oil, but didn't know what to do beyond that.

  Around them, the violet glow stayed steady. It felt like twilight all the time, which made him antsy and aimless: too awake to wait around but too tired to want to be on the road.

  And still Enkhaelen slept.

  “Should we wake him up?” he murmured to Arik. “Not sure he can actually do it on his own.”

  The wolfman shrugged. “Can't leave without him.”

  “Yeah, but he hasn't been sleepin' long. I think. Needs energy for magic...”

  Arik just shrugged again.

  Cob exhaled, then moved to shake Enkhaelen's shoulder. The necromancer made a sullen noise and curled up tighter. “Hoi,” Cob said, “we packed our stuff and some for you. We need t' get this all done so we can go get your legs fixed.”

  Another aggrieved sound, like a garto being strangled.

  “Hoi. C'mon. Sooner we do this, sooner it's over.”

  “Thank you for the bleeding obvious,” Enkhaelen grumbled, and jerked his shoulder away.

  “I know it's obvious. And if we weren't in the pikin' spirit realm, I'd just pick you up and haul you off. But y'said you could get us to Cantorin, so can we go?”

  “Mrrglph.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It's not a no,” said Arik.

  “You're sucking the life out of me,” Enkhaelen grated. “I swear I just closed my eyes.”

  “It's been marks. I think.”

  “Oh, you think.”

  “Well, you're awake now, so c'mon, sit up.” Cob tried to peel off the first layer of blankets, only for the necromancer to roll over again, curling tighter in his cocoon. Gritting his teeth, Cob said, “Don't be like that.”

  “Hrrf!”

  “We jus' need to pack your magic gear. ...Or I can do that for you. Bundle it all up wi' the sword—“

  “No!” The cocoon thrashed, then emitted a dully glowing hand. Growling, the necromancer wiggled and kicked until he'd gotten himself partially out, then shoved at Cob's arms when he tried to help. “Don't touch me!”

  “Look, you're—“

  “Shush!”

  Annoyed, Cob stood back and let the necromancer do his thing. It took a while and a lot of cursing, but eventually Enkhaelen extricated himself from his layers and swept his molten mess of hair from his face. “Nail file?” he prompted.

  Cob rolled his eyes but remembered seeing one, so went off to find it. From there, Enkhaelen directed him around the chamber to pull various odds and ends from different chests and from the desk and the bookshelves, until he'd built a small pile at the necromancer's feet.

  “Those should be enough,” said Enkhaelen finally, considering the spell-bright bracelets and stakes and tool-rolls he'd requested. A hand-mirror lay atop the stack, polished silver. “All the rest is tucked away in my labs, and might as well stay there. I can get it when I'm well.”

  “Jus' pack it all up then?”

  “Most, yes. I need the mirror and the portal-frame stabilizer, wherever that went.”

  So Cob hunted around the room again while Arik slung Enkhaelen over to the frame. By the time he found it—a wrought-silver bracket covered in runes, faintly tingly in his hand—the necromancer had already summoned an image in his mirror. Darkness mostly, with glints of stone and firelight.

  “Looks like there will be a drop,” Enkhaelen said as he snapped the bracket onto a scuffed part of the frame. “Need you to open the portal first, put the sword through. Then I'll power it and we'll follow.”

  “Y'don't wanna leave the sword here where it's safe?”

  The necromancer fixed him with his burning blue gaze. “Nowhere is safe.”

  That was true, Cob supposed, so he resigned himself to doing magic. It wasn't as difficult the second time—and different here than in the physical world, without the pull of the earth beneath him. Energy flowed into him in a swift rush, and he realized why he'd been so edgy for the past few marks: it'd been trickling in the whole time, as if he was an emptiness that needed to be filled. Maybe because of how he'd grounded Enkhaelen's frenzied strike.

  Pushing it into the frame made him dizzy, and the moment of connection was worse—like he was suddenly the cliff over which the waterfall roared, every moment threatening to wear him away. Opening his eyes, he saw the darkness in the frame and felt a stab of déjà vu. Down there was the Void, yawning open to devour him...

  Then Enkhaelen set a hand on his shoulder and Arik dropped the sword in past them, its passage fraying the portal until it popped. The flow surged back at him only to be redirected into the necromancer, who cut him neatly from the spell. Sucking in a breath, Cob slumped away, and Enkhaelen let him go and took his place.

  “Hate doin' that,” Cob mumbled as Arik helped him move back.

  “You did well,” Enkhaelen commented, both hands on the portal-frame. The dark image stitched itself back together, somewhat murkier than before, and he made a sound of annoyance. “This keeps up and I'll have to re-enchant the cursed frame. Same with the stakes. Wonder if I can get someone else's… Should see who I can contact. Pikes, I wish I'd anticipated not being dead.”

  “Woulda been nice,” said Cob, wobbling to his feet. The view through the portal worried him; it looked like dark air. “What now?”

  “Now we go down.”

  “Down…?

  “As I said, it looks like a drop. You're Kerrindrixi. You can manage.”

  Cob looked to Arik, who shrugged. With a sigh, he turned to get the packs.

  It took some maneuvering, but soon he was hanging onto a lip of stone in the middle of nothingness, the rehumanized necromancer clinging to his back and Arik guiding his feet from below. He let go and hit ragged stone a long moment later, stumbling forward only to be pulled back by the wolfman.

  “Bit of a drop, my ass,” he muttered. Enkhaelen made an amused sound in his ear.

  From there, the way was easier. Starlight proved sufficient for his eyes, and his hands and bare feet found good holds on the cold stone. The tower had been three stories once, but its shattered walls now stood an uneven one-and-a-half, choked with rubble; even with Enkhaelen hanging around his neck like a millstone, it was a short, simple descent. By they time they reached the ground, the portal had evaporated into nothing.

  “Not sure where we are,” he said, squinting at the tightly-shuttered buildings around them. He'd only gotten as far into Cantorin as the old ruins—and this was definitely the new town, all squat stone and wood structures under a heavy pall of snow. Down one way, a bonfire flickered in the street, shadowed bodies moving around it. Something about them bothered him.

  “Go west,” said Enkhaelen.

  “Which way is west?”

  A long pause, then, “Left. I think.”

  “Hate when you say that.” It was away from the fire, though, which suited him fine.

  He glanced to Arik, cloaked so heavily his muzzle barely showed, and the wolfman tapped a claw on the silver sword under the cloth. He had both his and Cob's packs, since Cob was carrying Enkhaelen and his gear. It had been the necromancer's choice; Cob hadn't asked why. He didn't want to know.

  “Well, onward,” Enkhaelen prompted. “Don't make me use the spurs.”

  “I will drop you in a snowbank.”

  “If you do, it means I win.”

  Gritting his teeth, Cob hooked his forearms under Enkhaelen's legs to settle the man properly on his back, then started off at a stalk. He wasn't good at witty comebacks, so it was best to keep his mouth shut. They didn't need to rile each other up when they were about to intrude on the Trifolders.

  With the clack of claws at his heels, he headed west.

  Chapter 6 – Welcome to Infamy

  The bridge to the ruined side of the city was lit up with lanterns, its span covered in milling figures that glinte
d with metal. At both ends were small bonfires, and the sound of chanting reached Cob's ears from a block's distance.

  He lingered in the mouth of an alley, trying to pick out the words. Similar fires dotted all the roads, not at every intersection but close enough to make avoiding them difficult—and avoid them he had. They gave him a bad feeling. On his back, Enkhaelen was silent, eyes reflecting the distant glow. At his side, Arik was the same.

  The cadences sounded like priests' prayers, and few of the raised voices were female. That told him it wasn't the Trifold taking over.

  “Doubt they'll let us cross,” he murmured. “The river?”

  Arik nodded, deep cowl not quite hiding his teeth. “I smell desperation, fear… If they have crossbows, they might shoot before speaking.”

  Grimacing, Cob turned down the alleyway to find another route. He didn't want to encounter Imperial Light-followers, not after what he'd done. What mattered now was getting to the hidden temple.

  Down the alley was another cross-street stippled with firelight. A bonfire burned closer than most; by its light he saw the nearest doors standing open and the silhouettes of people dragging furniture toward the flames. Someone was crying, low and choked. It made his skin crawl.

  Another cold alley, another street—this one clear. The wall that separated the barge-path from the city rose to hip-height at its end, coated in a thick crust of snow. Light showed between the slats of windows like the slitted eyes of lurking beasts, and as Cob led the way past boarded-up shops and shuttered homes, he heard more weeping and raised voices.

  By his measure and the still-missing moon, it had been two days—maybe three—since the Palace's fall. He didn't want to think what would happen if this went on longer.

  They made it to the wall without incident, and Cob slung himself over cautiously, Enkhaelen's arms hitching tighter around his neck as he did. He had to school himself not to break that grip. Upriver, the bridge glowed like a pleasure-barge, bonfires reflecting off the frozen span; he doubted they could see past their own light.

  Arik followed closely as he picked his way down the embankment, then onto the ice. Having it under his feet reminded him of that moment, not even a month ago, when he had stood in the middle of the fracturing river and imagined black waves washing away the caravan that had betrayed him. He'd wanted to kill them all. It sickened him a little to think of it.

  The urge had dogged his footsteps all the way to the Palace. Even now, he wasn't sure he'd shaken it. His mother Liska's shade might have released him, but he still had that hollow space inside, and he didn't know how to fill it.

  Their passage across the ice came easy, the surface roughened by small thaws and freezes. No one challenged them from the bridge or the shore.

  Scrambling up the other side, Cob squinted into the ancient ruins that stretched out to the west. Most of the structures here were ogrish, huge despite being single-storied, but though many remained standing, no single building was whole. Great stone slabs leaned at strange angles, half-sunk into the frozen earth; pillars lay fallen in pieces, the roofs they once held up now shellacked to the ground by ice. His memory painted a vision of robed ogres and their servants strolling along broad avenues in the sun, but they were worlds away from such things now.

  Somewhere ahead was the ruined hall that held the entrance to the Trifolders' temple. This wasn't the angle he'd first approached it from, and even then it had been hard to find. Now the snow was deeper, icicles hanging from every outcrop. He didn't relish a long hunt.

  “Arik,” he said, and the wolfman nodded and stepped forward, brushing his hood back. For an interminable moment he eyed the columns, the crumpled roofs, the shadows and the stars, then headed off at a lope with seeming certainty. Cob adjusted his burden—Enkhaelen's arms gone loose around his neck—and hurried after, watching the ground for anything treacherous.

  How long they walked, he couldn't tell. Arik raised a paw occasionally for halt and sniffed at the stones, the walls, the dead overgrowth. Tracks showed in the snow, but most were old, filled-in, and he didn't follow them—just kept weaving among the cold shadows, tracing some unknowable sign.

  Eventually though, even Cob caught it: the distinct scent of woodsmoke. He squinted into the night but saw no fire. Asking Arik would just delay them; learning from him was better, so he sniffed the air instead and tried to gauge the sluggish wind.

  No use—or, rather, inconsistent. Whenever they made a turn, he caught the smell again from some different direction, and if he'd been on his own he knew he'd be running in circles. But Arik soon figured it out, or else recognized some landmark, for he took a last corner and went bolt-straight down the next street.

  Within half a block, Cob recognized it too: the shattered hall marked by the tall emptiness of its windows. Light painted its inner walls, warm and enticing. Not so secret now? he wondered, but then perhaps that was their way. Letting themselves be a little more open in times of disaster to help those who sought their aid.

  He appreciated it. He just hoped he wasn't bringing them more trouble.

  Arik preceded him cautiously into the hall, claws clicking on stone. The thick ice that had previously plastered the floor had been scraped clear, and some rubble removed. Up on the raised platform, several figures stood by the brazier that shed that welcoming light.

  They were armed, but didn't draw, just turned to watch the approach. Only one face showed: a motherly woman's, half-covered by brown scarf and hood but immediately beaming, gloved hands beckoning. The others were armored and masked in bronze and steel.

  “Visitors,” the woman called, “join us in peace. The Mother extends her hearth to all in this trying time. Have you need of food, warmth, healing— Oh, a beastman!”

  Arik paused, ears tucking back, but her tone was surprised, curious, and she gestured with greater vigor. “Please, come here,” she said. “It is unusual but you are very welcome. And you in the back—does your companion need help?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” said Cob, taking the lead as Arik lingered uncertainly. “He's not doin' too well with the dark and the cold. We been here before, though. Is Matriarch Aglavyn around? Or Fiora Kinrick?”

  He said the latter name with some trepidation. They hadn't parted on good terms, and though he worried for her, he didn't know how she'd react to him showing up here. Especially with Enkhaelen.

  “The Mother Matriarch is indisposed,” said the woman, a shade of regret in her voice, “and no, we haven't heard from the young Sister in some time. Are you the ones she ran after?”

  Fear pinched his heart. He forced himself to push past it and say, “Yeah, 'm Cob, this's Arik. The Matriarch helped loosen my bonds. We were hopin' she could help with somethin' else just as important.”

  “To do with your sick friend?”

  “Yeah. Can we go in?”

  “Of course,” she said, gesturing to one of the guards. She—the bronze mask looked feminine—moved to pull up the false block that covered the entrance, and a gust of warm spice-scented air came up from the opening, making Enkhaelen stir slightly as it washed over them.

  “Go down and state your needs,” said the spokeswoman. “My place is here, but there are many available to help.”

  Cob murmured his thanks, and started down with Arik at his heels.

  Two figures stood at the foot of the stairs, staring up as they descended. One was armored and masked like those above, but the other was a younger priestess, who dimpled at them as they came into conversational range. “Welcome to the Temple of Shared Light. How can we— Oh! I remember you! My, you've grown!”

  Cob smiled awkwardly at her, drawing a blank on names. “Yeah. 'M Cob. Fella I'm carryin' needs some help with...er...”

  “Atrophy,” Arik supplied.

  The priestess blinked. “Atrophy? That's… Well, it's a change from frostbite. Um. I'm not sure who can help with that. Let me bring you somewhere comfortable and I'll ask.”

  With that, she turned and strode down a side
-hall, and Cob followed, barely getting a glimpse of the entry-room. There were more guards in it than he'd remembered, all in those bronze masks. He wasn't sure this side-hall had been here either, though the stonework certainly wasn't new, and they passed curtain after curtain before turning into a perpendicular hall he definitely hadn't seen before. He would have remembered the lake-view frescoes.

  Votive candles glowed in places, but there wasn't much light in the halls. Far more in the chamber she led them to: a squat broad square like every other room but with a great hearth at the far end and beaten metal objects covering the walls, reflecting its flames everywhere. The interior was filled with cushions, couches, low tables and a few convalescent beds, currently empty, and with a scatter of soft toys awaiting small hands. A teakettle sat by the hearth, ready to be hung, with a woodware service beside it.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” said the priestess. “I'll be right back.”

  Cob nodded, watching her go, then went to the couch closest to the hearth and slung Enkhaelen onto it. The necromancer sprawled bonelessly, eyes closed.

  “Wake him or not?” Cob mused. “The longer he's asleep, the less he's talkin', right?”

  Arik tilted his head. “Do we want him to wake up surrounded by Trifolders?”

  Cob grimaced and reached out to swat Enkhaelen's cheek. It took a few tries before the necromancer's eyelids twitched, and a few more before he made waking-up noises and flailed at Cob's hand.

  “We're in the temple,” Cob said, keeping his voice low. “In an area we haven't seen before. They're gettin' a priestess to look at you.”

  “Mrrgh,” said the necromancer, then, “Fine, fine, I'm fine, I don't need them.”

  “Yes you do, and we already agreed on this, so don't make trouble.”

  “I don't make it, I am it.”

  “Then be somethin' else for a couple marks. Pikes' sake.”

  Enkhaelen fixed him with one unfocused eye. Coming up from cold-sleep made him seem almost drunk, and Cob doubted it helped his judgment. “Being myself. Can't be otherwise.”