The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Read online

  He exhaled through the scarf. It was not the first time that he had stood on the outskirts of civilization, more wary than wanting. He did not like the crowds, the narrow streets, the corruption and darkness that seemed to breed around any tight-packed mass of humanity. He had spent too much time as a legacy slave to have much faith in mankind.

  But he could not break free on his own.

  “Don’t even have travel papers,” he muttered. “They probably won’t let us in. And then what d’we do, eh?”

  The wolf leaned his head against Cob’s leg, staring up at him attentively, and Cob curled fingers in the thick grey ruff and tried to draw comfort from the companionship. He knew he could not have made it through the woods without Arik. Partly that was due to his ineptitude at hunting and gathering; years of living at the quarry and then the army camp had dulled his childhood skills, and in this land he could not tell poison from food.

  The other part, though, was the solitude. He used to like to be alone with his thoughts, but now bad memories assailed him at every turn. After Darilan’s death, he had felt like a sleepwalker, and had seriously considered lying down in the snow and letting it pile over him like a blanket. Closing his eyes and just letting go. It would have solved his problems and set free the Guardian trapped inside him, an easy exit for everyone.

  But Arik never let him. The wolf had hunted for him, herded him, and was always there to stick a cold nose down the back of his coat or lick him somewhere uncomfortable, like the inside of his ear. He had found it hard to stay desolate when he was busy grinding snow into an obnoxious waggy beast. And now he felt all right. Cold, tired, but not sad.

  As long as he did not think about it.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on the Guardian. Its presence was coiled down in the depths of his mind, just in range of conscious thought, silent but watchful—his reluctant passenger, a Dark spirit locked into his flesh and stitched to his soul by the mages of the Risen Phoenix Empire. Sometimes it rode him, taking control when his consciousness lapsed, but usually it just watched. He had spoken with it once in Thynbell, while it struggled to mend him from the damage inflicted by the necromancer Morshoc.

  Or rather, spoken with them. Five figures, each a former Guardian vessel, the last of them his father. They had tried to teach him, tried to warn him, but he remembered little of what they had said, for he had been pursued through that dream by Imperial magic and a malicious shard of the Ravager—the Guardian’s predatory counterpart—in the person of Morshoc.

  And once he had awoken, there had been little time for thought. Seduced, shackled, ambushed, rescued and ultimately forced to fight his best friend and worst enemy while the Dark figures looked on in silence, he had made the only choices that seemed right.

  The Guardian had not spoken to him since.

  In its defense, he was not sure that it could. It had sent him impressions before but nothing like speech. At least it was awake now, if not talkative; in the Mist Forest he had barely been able to sense it. Still, he would have appreciated some direction from the entity he was trying to free.

  “Maybe they’ll let us in anyway,” he muttered, looking down to the guard-post. He patted the pouch at his belt, the few coins in it clinking. Like most of his gear—scarf, boots, hat, gloves, coat and pack—it was stolen from Wyndish homes they had passed on their way east, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that it was all essentially discards. Wynds, it seemed, left their individual houses in winter and gathered in clan-halls, leaving behind cold hearths and holey clothes and the occasional forgotten coin. Breaking in was easy; finding anything useful was not.

  Though Cob felt bad about the burglary, he did not want to freeze. And he had always closed up the houses afterward.

  The wolf nudged his leg and looked expectant, and he sighed. “Not gonna shift?” In response, the wolf bent down to chew ice from between his furry toes. “Yeah, I know it’s cold,” Cob said, used to the one-sided conversations, “but I’m not a city sort. I mean, I know you’re not either, but y’still better-traveled than me…”

  The wolf’s ears stayed perked, but he seemed more interested in the taste of his toes. Cob blew out another sigh and said, “Fine. I s’pose I gotta learn how to deal with people eventually. But I dunno if they’ll let you in like this. Light, you’re a wolf.”

  With a huff of amusement, the wolf left off chewing and bounded a circle around him, then started down the slope.

  Cob shook his head and followed after, the scarf hiding his smile. The thin snow crunched under his boots, half-ice and half-thawed by the lowland sunshine. It was a decent day for mid-early winter, the sky bright and the air less knife-like than up by Thynbell, but it was hard to see the mother moon from in the Mist Forest so he had lost track of its phase, and with it the date.

  Which was fine. He was not in a hurry even though he had a plan. In fact, if not for his need to be rid of the Guardian, he would have run back into the woods and never come out.

  First stage of the plan: Find the Trifolders and beg for help. Second: Kill Morshoc.

  He cursed the night that Morshoc had arrived and driven off Jasper, the kindly carter and secret Trifold priest. If he had stayed with Jasper, he could have prevented more deaths than he cared to think about, and the fact that it had not been his choice—the fact that Morshoc had some power over the old man—did not alleviate the feeling of failure.

  But Jasper had offered the Trifold’s support, in an oblique manner, and now that Cob knew more about the trouble he was facing with the Guardian and the Empire, he was prepared to accept it. The Trifolders were heretics, which still mattered to him, but he had resolved to set that aside. He followed the Imperial Light but as long as no one tried to convert him, he would not have to punch them. He would keep his tongue in check, his opinions to himself, and let them do what they could.

  He stepped onto the slate-paved road as they drew near the open gate, the wolf paralleling him through the snow. At the guard-post, the two soldiers straightened and broke off their conversation. They wore tan-and-purple livery over chainmail, with a badge on one shoulder of yellow crenelations surrounding a sheaf of grain. Not Gold Army; probably kingdom militia. They both had pikes and shields, but one wore a satchel slung across his body. As Cob halted before them, he realized that their eyes were level with his chin though their bell-shaped helms made them look taller. He felt suddenly conspicuous.

  “Mountain folk, is it?” said the satchel-man.

  Cob pulled down his scarf, wondering how they could tell. “Yeah,” he said as the wolf drifted to his side. “I’m on the pilgrimage, but I don’t have papers…”

  “They never have papers,” muttered the pikeman. Cob looked at him askance.

  The satchel-man sighed, but rather than raise his weapon as Cob had half-expected, he just unsnapped the clasp of the satchel and pulled out a logbook and charcoal. “Name.”

  “Uh, what for?” Cob said.

  The man looked up from under the bill of his helm, weathered face showing plainly that he considered Cob an idiot. “For our records. I know you Darronwayn don’t trouble yourselves with the likes of reading and writing and record-keeping, but down here in the civilized world we have this thing called ‘the law’. You can buy yourself some papers at your embassy but I need your name and origin before we can let you in.”

  Darronwayn? Cob thought. “Uh…”

  “Name,” the man prompted sternly.

  “Aloyan Erosei.” It was not exactly a lie. He had used the name before, and Aloyan Erosei the Younger was living in his head with the rest of the Guardian vessels. Using his own name seemed more dangerous than using that of an ancient Kerrindrixi hero, since Cob was on the Crimson Army’s listing as a slave.

  “How do you spell that?”

  “I dunno.”

  The pikeman snorted, but the other just shook his head and mouthed the name silently as he noted it down on a clean page. “Place of origin?” he said.

  �
�What?”

  “The last place you were in that had an actual name,” said the man with studied patience.

  Cob furrowed his brows and wracked his brain for the name of somewhere in Darronwy. It was the protectorate just north of Amandon, he knew, sandwiched between the bandit-riddled Khaeleokiel Mountains and the lowland swamps of Daecia. But he had never met anyone from there and beside a vague impression of woods and mountains and bears, he knew nothing about it. He was from Kerrindryr far in the west, not from Darronwy, and though evidently he shared his looks with the Darronwayn, he knew none of its cities.

  “Thynbell,” he said finally. “A while back.”

  “Thynbell in Wyndon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you don’t have papers.”

  “No. I lost ‘em.” Along with Morshoc.

  For a moment the memory swarmed him: the screams of horses and men, the vivid energy-wings, the corpse’s spine shattering in his clench. His own blood streaming from freshly opened scars. He swallowed bile and fixed his gaze on the guard, hoping his grimace would be mistaken for embarrassment.

  The satchel-man hrmed and added a few more scribbles to his entry. Cob forced himself to focus on the charcoal marks, wishing he could read. He had a feeling the guard was not writing good things. “And your wolf?” the man said.

  “He’s not a wolf. He’s a big dog,” said Cob.

  “It’s a wolf,” said the pikeman flatly.

  Cob glanced down at the wolf, who sat and lolled his tongue out in a fair impression of doggishness. “He’s a dog,” he tried again.

  The guards exchanged looks, then the satchel-man shook his head and made another note in the logbook. “Don’t have to bullshit us,” he said. “Some lunatic from the hills brought in a bear a few weeks ago. Tame bear. Had the papers for it though. I don’t know what you people do up there with your critters and I don’t want to, but you’re going to need papers for your wolf too. Just admit it to the embassy and don’t try to pretend it’s a dog.”

  “But— All right,” Cob said lamely. “Does that cost much?”

  “Probably. And if it bites anyone, you’re both dead. Now pay the toll.”

  “You toll pilgrims?”

  “We toll everyone.”

  With reluctance, Cob pulled the coin-pouch from his belt and tugged it open. There was mostly brass in it, and a few bronze bits. “How much?”

  “One man, one beast, no trade goods: five nar.”

  "Nar, that's the—"

  "The little brassy one."

  Cob nodded and counted them into the satchel-man’s hand. “So the embassy is…?”

  “Over the bridge, two streets north, big stone place with the blue and yellow banners. Get your papers before the morning or you’ll have to ransom yourself out of jail. Wolf too.” He noted the payment, snapped the logbook shut and tucked it away, then pulled out what looked like a stick of red chalk and gestured for Cob to extend his hand. Blinking, Cob did so, and the man sketched a mountain and a five above his knuckles with the stuff. It felt greasy. “Don’t wash that off. Shows you came in today. And keep your beast under control.”

  Earth’s-day the fifth, thought Cob, examining the mark. It’s Cylanmont, then. Been out of the army less than a month.

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” he said out loud. The wolf, fortunately, made no comment.

  The satchel-man gave him a curt nod and retook his spot, and Cob passed between them with the wolf on his heels, trying to ignore the nervous roil in his gut. In the distance, Cantorin proper looked anything but foreboding, but it would be his first true Imperial experience; while Thynbell was also an Imperial city, Cob had spent most of his time there either unconscious or locked-up, with only a glimpse of the city sights through the barred window of his prison-carriage. Entering a real Imperial Heartlands city on foot and free was something else entirely.

  He desperately wanted it to be a nice place. He had been brought up on stories of the Empire’s greatness and benevolence, and though he had seen the sour side of it, he still believed in the sweet. There had to be some truth to the tales. After all, why would so many people live in the Imperial Heartlands if it was bad?

  A few yards past the guards, his sharp ears caught the pikeman mutter, “Darker than the usual woodsfolk.”

  “Probably ogre-blood,” the satchel-man replied. “You know them northerners. Shack up with anything.”

  The pikeman snorted, and Cob felt their eyes on his back. He picked up the pace.

  It was a long stretch from the gate to the bridge. The road had been scraped clear and the snow piled on either side, leaving knee-high embankments to define the boundaries of the ruins. No side-roads or foot-traffic or signs of life marred that winter-shrouded expanse, but Cob’s gaze strayed across it regardless, tracing the fallen blocks and broken walls as his thoughts churned.

  After all, he was not a Darronwayn. Heading to their embassy would be foolish—and so would wandering aimlessly through the city, as he had learned in Bahlaer. Men his age were snapped up on sight by Imperial and civil recruiters. The embassy might even be a trap to catch stray Darronwayn men as they went to get papers. While he had once aspired to be a freesoldier, that dream had died with Jas Fendil at the War Gate of the Crimson encampment, and he could not risk his slave-brand being seen.

  He was not sure what else to do, though. He could not just go around asking about Trifolders; this was Imperial territory, and if Trifold temples even existed here, they would depend on secrecy to keep them from being rooted out by the Gold Army. Finding Shadow Folk might be easier, but they were just as anathema to the Empire, and he thought it even less likely that they would have visible enclaves like they had in Bahlaer.

  Big gamble, Cob, he thought. If not, what next? Keep on with the pilgrimage to Daecia City? Climb onto the altar and let them destroy the Guardian after all?

  It was a possibility. He felt like two people sometimes, torn between the Light and the Dark. The image of the Imperial City still burned in his head, all white stone and shimmering spires.

  Redemption. Peace. An end to all of this.

  But the Guardian was not what he had expected, and there was the matter of his father and Morshoc. If anything could keep him tied to this world, it was revenge.

  Halfway to the bridge, a wave of dizziness halted him, and he swayed in his tracks, blinking. His first thought was hunger; even with Arik hunting, there had not been much, and he had let the wolf have most of it. Half-cooked hare did not sit well in his stomach. But the dizziness gave way to a strange buoyancy, and as the world shifted around him, he realized that he was having a vision.

  Gone were the snow and the winter sky. Gone were the ruins. In their place rose columns strung with banners of red and yellow, violet and blue, marked with pictograms that he somehow understood as words. Hot-Water-Road. Place-of-Spirit-Houses-Road. Below them, the wide streets were tiled in wave-like patterns, and huge people plodded along—massive, rotund, bald or bewigged people, their skin glossy red or black or olive, their garments loose and flowing.

  Ogres. Like Vina Treakhaher, the first Guardian in his flying dream. Ogres in vibrant robes and sandals, followed by smaller people in drabber attire—some furred like skinchangers, some human, all walking behind as attendants. The buildings that lined the streets were single-story but tall, with curved roofs of polished tile and doorways wide enough for six humans abreast. Beyond the city walls, the hills were covered in vineyard and orchard and terraced fields, and to the east where the river had been, there lay a vast glimmering lake, its surface marred by the heavyset swimmers that bobbed there like corks in a barrel.

  Cob took in all of it, puzzled. And then he spotted Vina.

  She wore no colorful robes; her garments were fur and teeth and claws and the serpents that draped her dark, sloping shoulders. She stood near the end of the Hot-Water-Road, and though he could not make out her expression, he felt the connection when their eyes met. Without breaking the gaze, she turn
ed down a cross-street and vanished among the towering buildings.

  Despite the walls, he sensed her clearly, and followed her progress as the floating sensation began to fade. The color bled from the banners, the rooftops, the hills. Buildings crumbled. Orchards died.

  He blinked, and all was ruins once more. For a moment he saw Vina's dark bulk outlined by the snow and wreckage, then she too was gone. A pale grey banner twitched in the wind where she had been.

  “What was that about?” he muttered as the Guardian sank back into the depths. It did not answer. His head ached, but not as badly as it did when the spirit tried to control him; hallucinations evidently took less effort.

  Squinting, he regarded the banner. Vina had obviously wanted him to see it, as if it was an answer to his question, and though it was strange to think that the Trifolders or the Shadow Folk would be out here in this desolation, on second thought it made a kind of sense. There might be intact basements among the ruins, or hidden structures—perhaps even the kind of undercity he had seen in Bahlaer—and this area did not seem to be patrolled.

  How did you know about them? he thought at the Guardian. It did not respond.

  That annoyed him, but he told himself that it had already done enough. He did not know how much effort these visions cost it, and it was a relief that it was willing to communicate at all.

  He glanced to the guard-post, but the guards were not watching. When he looked back, he almost missed the banner, so well-camouflaged was it by the rubble.

  “Pikes,” he muttered. “So if I go to the city, I might never spot that again. Which means the city’s gotta wait.”

  The way his heart lifted at that realization made him feel like a coward. For all the dangers the city represented, a part of him wanted to brave it—to force his way through the inevitable conflict and see the Empire laid bare, not skulk around in the rubble. Pragmatism dictated he take the evasive way, though, and with mixed regret and relief, he focused on the banner. A cold nose nudged his hand and he nodded, not daring to look away. “Yeah, we’re takin’ the detour,” he told the wolf, then stepped over the low snowbank into the pristine white.