The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 19

  From up the corridor came a faint sound of argument.

  Sarovy set himself at parade rest, hands linked behind his back, and glimpsed some of his men doing the same. It eased his nerves slightly. He'd kept his appearance as professional as possible despite his borrowed clothes, and it was nice to see the effort having some effect.

  The arguing voices clarified as they approached: one high and vigorous, one low and patient. More Shadow Folk swelled the ranks from behind, then abruptly the cordon split to reveal Enforcer Ardent, Gwydren Greymark, and Izelina being dragged along between them.

  “I don't care!” the girl shouted, trying to set her heels at the threshold. The Enforcer and the heretic priest hauled her past it despite her curses, then the Enforcer let go, leaving the priest to clasp her by both arms and lean in for a talk.

  Alone, Enforcer Ardent strode forward to meet Sarovy, expression flat. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “Little else to do here.”

  Her lips twitched. “Yes, yes. Game-boards, was it? Scryer,” she said, nodding to Mako as the mentalist rose and straightened her borrowed robe. “Sorry this is so sudden, but...”

  “No, it's fine,” said Mako, already drifting toward the argumentative girl. “He explained, and it's a reasonable request. I'll see what I can do.”

  Side by side, Sarovy and the Enforcer watched as the girl's glare snapped from Greymark to Mako. “You!”

  “You,” Mako rejoined. “Don't make me stifle you again. Good whatever-it-is, sir, shall we have a seat?”

  Greymark grinned at her, suddenly dashing, and indicated the nearest table. At Mako's shooing gesture, the lingering soldiers vacated it, and the two of them escorted the now-sullen girl to the far end, where they sat.

  “Perhaps we should have done this at your office,” Sarovy noted to the Enforcer. “No private space here.”

  “If we had, we'd never have gotten her in here. I don't envy you this.”

  With a sigh, Sarovy turned and started ordering the men away. Grumbles arose; this had become their territory, and they resented the intrusion and curtailment of their leisure. He understood, but couldn't risk a disruption; they had to give the Scryer and Shadows some space. Soon enough, most had retreated in grudging obedience, his officers collecting those who tried to linger, and the Shadow Folk moved in to cordon the Scryer's table.

  “How much have you told your men?” said the Enforcer as he returned to her side.

  Sarovy blinked, momentarily caught off-track.

  “About the situation. And our offer,” she prompted.

  “Ah. Some.” More like 'very little', but he was sure she knew that. There was no true privacy from those who could hear through any patch of darkness. “There were questions about what you meant by wanting the Light back, but until I can confirm that it is gone, I do not wish to discuss it.”

  She gave him an inscrutable look—but not a negative one, he thought. “Reasonable caution. I'm sure it'll be a difficult conversation. We've never had Imperial insiders as contacts, certainly never gotten closer than knife-length to an abomination—“

  “Specialist.”

  “...Specialist. So we can't predict how you'll react. So far, news from the east has been weird at best. We'd value your input.”

  “Is this your pitch?”

  She shrugged, her blackened armor shifting silently with the motion. “Just a statement. We're moving back into a lot of places we haven't seen in centuries, and reconnecting with some old allies. Folks who have been involved with the Empire. Something to keep in mind while you wait on your improvements. The Regency's said that whatever I might think, we can't let your kind run free—and we don't hire those who don't add value.”

  Sarovy's eyes narrowed. He wasn't sure if he was being warned or threatened, but either way, he didn't like it. “I try not to think in terms of value.”

  “No? You roll dice to decide who goes on missions?”

  “Of course not. I mean—“

  “You don't put price tags on people. That's commendable. But we're in a different business from you. If something or someone is going to cost more than it's worth...” She shrugged again, and he noticed that beside the batons on her belt, she had two short, curved blades strapped to the back-plate of her armor, their hilts at waist-level for a quick draw. “Hard choices sometimes. Though I'm sure you're no stranger to that.”

  He examined her sidelong, taking in the scar-carved line of her cheek and the sharp profile, the ochre glint in one black eye. She'd shot him twice in the face from close range, then overseen his surrender and probably his solitary dissolution. And now she was...what? Commiserating with him?

  Strange woman.

  “When do you need an answer?”

  “The sooner the better. Look,” she said, inkdrop gaze flicking to him, “I know this isn't easy. My people aren't any happier about it than yours will be. But there are some crazy things going on right now, and we're all holding our own pieces of the puzzle. We'll never put it together if we don't cooperate.”

  “You truly wish to solve the vanishing of the Light?”

  She smirked. “Don't sound so incredulous. Maybe you don't accept my first explanation, but how about this: without light, there's no growth. Without growth, there's no food. We've got every unassigned 'blood in our arsenal on collection-duty right now, stripping abandoned fields and orchards and houses of everything useful before the snow covers it or the ice kills it. Your armies are doing the same. There's a battle going on upstairs between ours who want to keep the civilian populace alive and the Crimsons who want to feed their war and starve the rest of us. I don't expect you to sympathize with us, but we can't be bickering about these things. Not when we'll all die if the problem doesn't get resolved.”

  Sarovy wanted to be angry. It was against his nature to concede to threats; he was a born soldier, little interested in compromise. But the Empire's actions toward him had knocked him loose like a tooth from a jaw—and she was being straightforward with him. He appreciated that. “You think this is another Long Darkness,” he guessed.

  “Long enough to kill us all. Why, you don't?”

  “I do, but that would mean we've lost the favor of the Light. Gaining it back would require faith and sacrifice like that of the first Emperor, not collaboration with Da— Shadowy powers.”

  Her lips twitched at his correction. “Maybe. Maybe not. We're investigating it. Is that why you cling to your version of the Light? For fear that it will go away if you don't sacrifice yourselves to it? I've heard they brainwash you.”

  Her attention stayed fixed on his eyes, a straight gaze he hadn't often experienced since leaving Trivestes. “Soldiers are conditioned for many reasons,” he answered stiffly, “but not to create faith.”

  “Just reinforce it? They've twisted and used you, but you still want their god back. The sadistic slave-maker that permitted this.”

  “I want my faith to not have been in vain.”

  Even as the words left him, he regretted them. He hadn't meant to speak so personally—hadn't realized he felt like that. Betrayed by the Empire, yes, but by the Light? They weren't the same. He had been mistreated by men and magic, not his god.

  Still, it stung. He looked away, not wanting to see any smugness on her face.

  For a long moment, she was silent. Then she said, “You should speak with your man Presh. He might have some insight for you.”

  “About?”

  “Other Lights. You could use the perspective.”

  He cut her a cold look, but her expression was professionally bland. Not caring to continue that line of discussion, he said, “Don't think you can use us against the Empire.”

  Her brows arched. “Your men tore up those other soldiers, your enemies. They're as angry as you are, and a lot less conflicted. Do you think they'd run back to the arms of their masters if we let them loose?”

  Sarovy opened his mouth, then actually gave it some thought. He'd been ready to submit to Colonel Wreth
's judgment and be executed on the street. It had been Houndmaster Vrallek who'd stepped forward to challenge the colonel, and Lieutenant Linciard who'd stumbled in with a sword to hack Wreth's head off.

  All of the men had participated in the subsequent slaughter. He hadn't given a single order until it was done.

  “You're all renegades,” she said, perhaps reading it on his face. “And we don't want to employ you as killers. More blood in the shadows is bad for everyone. If your people can help us understand the Crimsons, approach them, contain them—or even convince them to join us...”

  Sarovy blinked. “You want to turn the Crimson Army?”

  “Why not? It's a done deal at the garrisons in Averogne and the Pinch. Kerrindryr is a soft target too: all those lowlanders assigned to the mountains, freezing their asses off. Our problems are the big garrisons in the Illanic cities and the base camp by Kanrodi.”

  “And what will you do with an army?”

  “Free the slaves. Send the soldiers back home. Do you know how much economic damage your wars have done? It's the worst possible time for the Long Darkness because for ten-plus years half the farmland's lain fallow for lack of workers.”

  He stared at her, no argument at hand.

  “Not just in Imperial territory,” she added. “When you threaten your neighbors, they have to call up their troops too. Pajhrastha, Jernizan, Gejara, Krovichanka, they've all suffered because of your war-mongering. Half of the Jernizen Plains burned because of you. That's grain, hay, wild game, domestic herds, all devastated because you thought you could march across four hundred miles of raider-infested grassland without issue.”

  “They lit the fires, not us,” he said tightly.

  “Because of you. And—“ She cut herself off with visible effort, then continued, “We want to put things back the way they were. Your people with their families, all the farmers on their farms, and the sun back in the sky. If you don't want that, tell me now and I'll walk away.”

  He thought of Trivestes—of Fort Vaden, which he had briefly commanded, and Fort Endry where his parents lived. Of his wife Irsa, whom he hadn't seen or heard from in over a decade.

  How were they faring in the dark?

  “I'll speak to the men,” he said. “I give you no assurances until then.”

  “Fine. We have your horses, by the way. Thought your lancers might like to know.”

  He had no heart to lurch, but still felt a tightness in his chest, an itch in his eyes—false, phantasmal, but realistic enough that it didn't matter. His horse Havoc, good old war-beast. The others' Tasgards and the scouts' few Ten-Skies. He'd seen them burst out of the stables during the fire but hadn't known what had become of them. The revelation felt like a gift.

  He steeled himself against any such expression. This was a bargaining table, not a midwinter exchange. “Thank you. They will,” he said stiffly. “Is there more to discuss?”

  By her wry look, she wasn't fooled, but said, “Not for now, captain.”

  “Then I will speak with my officers.”

  At her nod, he turned away to collect his men, and his thoughts.

  *****

  Scryer Makoura Jaedani Yrsian didn't need to touch the girl's mind to know that it was leaking. Just being near her made shapes and colors flicker at the corners of her vision—mostly black fabric and white fiber. From arm's length, she could feel the pressurization like an ache in her teeth, a signal from her own talent to get away from the girl before she blew.

  She ignored it. All mentalists had an obligation to help their proto-brethren, and she'd already had this girl yanked from her hands once.

  “Focus on me,” she said, and was immediately aware of Izelina's mental attention. It felt like a baton prodding at her forehead, prepared to strike at the helmet of her mind's guard—not intentionally but as an outgrowth of the girl's native hostility and current unease.

  They were sitting cross-legged on a bench, the girl tight-faced but compliant. Given the pressure, Mako suspected she had a blinding headache. She had been well cared-for at least, her black hair caught back by bronze clips and her ensemble—skirt over trousers, coat over blouse—correctly sized and marginally coordinated in color and pattern. Spring-green and orange cut too close to Riddish national colors for Mako's tastes, but they were off-shade enough not to make her jump up and start waving a clan banner.

  Herself, Mako preferred to stick with unaffiliated tones, like aqua or sunset or pink. Her brown healer's dress reminded her aggravatingly of wolf-wool and clan borders; she could do without feeling territorial.

  “Right now, you're like a stopped-up kettle,” she told the girl. “I'm going to connect with you and relieve some of the stress. It will be strange at first, and scary, but soon everything will go back to normal. Ready?”

  Izelina didn't nod; Mako had the sense that she was using all her energy just to hold herself in. Her psyche gave an anxious flicker though, so Mako reached out to slide a fine membrane between the girl's mind and the world. Immediately some of the tension in the Shadow guards ebbed; the girl had been so far along that she wasn't just projecting her fears and visions to other mentalists, but to the mind-blind as well.

  It was probably the only reason the old man had noticed in time to bring her down. Izelina had all the hallmarks of an obstructive-explosive type, who often resisted help until they'd done irreparable damage to themselves.

  Mako was the opposite: a projective-receptive of moderate strength, with a wide contact-range and true multitasking talent. Her type were the backbone of the surveillance Weaves, but were rarely tapped for the Inquisition—whereas Izelina, when trained, would have an impenetrable mind and the psychic force necessary to split other mentalists' shields.

  Which made this incredibly dangerous. Mako had withstood Colonel Wreth's mentalists because they had been not Inquisitors but White Flame projectives who couldn't break her shields down any faster than she could build them. If Izelina panicked and lashed out, she could smash through more layers in an instant than those White Flames had taken down in a mark.

  Mako couldn't let her worry taint her approach. In the echo-chamber of a proto-mentalist's mind, every emotion was magnified, even those brought in from outside. So she took a long moment to just breathe, just observe, before sliding in through one of the cracks made by the girl's own struggles.

  Normally, accessing another's memories or perceptions was like falling down a tunnel of light—an illusion caused by the synchronization of minds. But the girl's leakage had already rendered them partially in sync, so instead of the tunnel, a fibrous whiteness immediately rose up around them until they were encapsulated like spider-eggs in a sac.

  The girl huddling in the center of this cell was not the proud child of reality but a tattered thing in a thin white robe, hugging a rag doll to her chest. Two other dolls lay splayed nearby. Behind her stood a dark figure, faceless, with burning blue lights where the eyes should be and fingers that tapered to long black needles.

  Mako spent a moment just taking it in. The floor felt spongy underfoot, the walls close enough to touch, the ceiling likewise low and oppressive. Shreds of whiteness hung from claw-marks on all surfaces, evidence of efforts to escape, but all that showed in the gouges was more white.

  It was a nightmare-scape, a cyst on the psyche. She'd seen many in the army; trauma made them bloom like mushrooms after rain, requiring her and other mentalists to constantly prune them from soldiers' minds. Even when done well, this could cause memory loss, confusion and mood disturbances—but the other solution, heavy conditioning, was much worse. Despite early unease, she'd come to accept nightmare-surgery as a necessary evil.

  But she was out of practice, and a cyst on a mentalist's mind was always dangerous. On a proto-mentalist's, especially an obstructive's…

  She needed to find another way.

  “Izelina,” she called softly.

  The girl looked up, hair hanging in her eyes. She appeared nearly the same age as the real one, which
was a relief; regressed psyches were difficult to deal with. Nor did she look injured, just angry, her lips pressed into a hard white line.

  “Izelina, I know we're not friends,” said Mako, moving to sit just within the girl's reach, “but I want to help you. I know how to bring down these walls, but I can't do it myself; I'm not strong enough. You are, though. Do you want to learn?”

  The girl's eyes narrowed, but it was difficult to lie in a mindspace, and Mako wasn't. She couldn't just snip this nightmare off, not with Izelina already straining to keep herself together. Tough as the girl's shell was, she wasn't sure she could do it at all.

  Slowly, Izelina nodded.

  “The first thing you should know, then, is that anger and fear feed this.” Mako gestured at the whiteness. “That's what it's made of. It gets this appearance from something in your memory, but it's the strength of your feelings that keeps the walls up, keeps the—“ She meant to mention the dark man, but since he was at Izelina's back, she might not know of him, not consciously. “Keeps them growing back.”

  “I'm making progress,” said the girl sullenly. “Getting through.”

  “It's an illusion. The more you scratch, the more energy it draws from you. The more it grows. There is no other side for you to reach.”

  “Of course there is! I wasn't always— I was brought here. I'm going to get out and go home!”

  “And what is home?”

  The girl looked at her like she was an idiot, but Mako gestured encouragingly, and after a moment Izelina said, “Our house. The farm. Where you found me and took me from!”

  “Describe your house.”

  “It's a house.”

  “Details, Izelina.”

  “It's a house! Ugh...” She focused on nothing for a moment, mouth set in thought. “It's got tile on the floor, brownish-red. It was dirt before, I think; mother said it was the last thing they put in before father got sick. They were going to expand it all, maybe hire some farmhands...”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, the hearth. Good tile on that too, and some of those protective faces. The rest of the house is older—that's why it's so small. Father built it when there were just three of them, him and mother and my brother Paol, before the rest of us were born and Nana came to stay.”