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

  Lark flicked a look at Erevard, but he hadn't moved, apparently delegating the talking to the short man. “Magus Setara Yenasi.” It was the name on her travel papers, and she had the robe to back it up. “I'm looking for some friends who were in the Crown Prince's entourage.”

  “Don't know anything about that. I was in the hive,” said the short man. “I'm Cambriel Vyslin. You're not a scryer, are you?”

  Scryer, scryer...what do scryers do? She hadn't a clue. Considering her entire magical repertoire consisted of heating up rocks, energizing her robe and asking Ripple to help, she couldn't risk being challenged. “No, sorry. Summoner.”

  He wrinkled his nose but stepped forward, and she noticed with alarm that his right leg pinched away at mid-thigh. Below, it was just a long narrow curve that ended in a two-pronged claw-foot. Catching her look, he patted his thigh and smirked. “Creepy, right? Dark ate it. This is a crap replacement but hoi, I'm walking.”

  “That you are,” she said. “Look, Cambriel—can I call you that?”

  “No.”

  She hesitated, but he was still smiling, his colorless eyes almost mirror-like in this light. “Vyslin?” she hazarded, and when he nodded, continued, “What's important now is to get out of here. I don't know if you've seen, but the city is collapsing.”

  “Why do you think we're out here?” He gestured at his fellows. “It started at the piking Palace, didn't it? We came out to avoid getting smushed. And I figure, since all the city and our armor is the same stuff, it's just a matter of time before the collapse hits us too, right? So we gotta go somewhere safe. The army owes me; I can't die yet.”

  “Were you a...a volunteer?”

  “You lose a leg and see what you won't volunteer for, mage.”

  She looked over the others, careful not to meet Erevard's glare. “Were you all volunteers?”

  “Just me,” said the man on Vyslin's other side. He stuck out his leg to show a prong-foot; the armor covered the rest of his body in a thin web. “Rest of this lot just got pitched in.”

  “We're all new except Erevard,” said the Illanite on the end.

  Looking from face to ravaged face, Lark felt her stomach turn. Erevard had been a slave like Cob, so probably these other men were too. How many slaves did the Crimson Army have? Were they all sent here to convert or die?

  “So you're escaping?” she said.

  The men looked among themselves. Vyslin was the first to answer. “I've got places to be, y'know? Family and friends. Whatever this means—“ He jerked his head toward the Palace. “—They need me more than this place does. And I'm about done with all the singing.”

  “I'm not an Imperial,” mumbled the Illanite.

  “If the Light is gone and the priests are thrown down, what are we supposed to do?” said another man, wild-eyed. “I believe in it—I saw it—but then it went away. How do I...”

  Lark glanced to Maevor, then back. “You saw it?”

  “In the throne-room. The Light was there, and then it was gone...”

  “Anyway, it's just not practical to stay,” Vyslin cut in. “This place has no piking food! How do you run a city without food? Are we supposed to eat the piking walls?”

  “Well it's the pilgrims' fast, right?” said a burly fellow. “Maybe they just hid it.”

  “So mage, can you magic up some food?”

  Lark eyed Vyslin, who grinned. She sensed that his personality would wear on her quickly. “No. Sorry.”

  “Well what can you do?”

  Here it is. With a flourish, she urged Ripple to come out of her sleeve, and was relieved when it obeyed. They'd practiced the move but she didn't know what sort of attention span these things had. “I command elementals, but most of mine fled during the disturbance.”

  Vyslin reached out and poked it. The serpentine creature indented around his finger, then refilled when he retracted it. “Huh,” he said.

  “Don't touch it!”

  Looking her straight in the eye, he reached out and poked it again.

  She was tempted to smack him, but that would be pushing her luck. “Please don't touch it,” she amended. “Ripple has been agitated enough by the changes without being manhandled.”

  Still staring, Vyslin made a considering sound, then shrugged and stepped back. “Still, what you're saying is you're not very useful.”

  “Not useful? Have you seen the swamp? It doesn't come with conveniently clean drinking water—but I can fix that.” I hope.

  A glance to Erevard, then Vyslin said, “I am kinda thirsty. Sure, you're in.”

  Lark blinked. “In what?”

  “Our group. We're all going home. Unless there was something else you wanted.”

  That didn't sound like an innuendo, fortunately, or she would have stalked off despite the cost. Instead, she gave them a considering frown. Even with their dangerous armor, they all looked too weary to cause much trouble, and she had Maevor at her back. She didn't relish the idea of being near that black sword or its wielder, but if there was anything dangerous in the swamp, better he face it than her.

  “I was going to offer that to you,” she said, trying for the upper hand. “You're a shabby lot but you'll do as bodyguards.”

  Erevard's eyes narrowed, but Vyslin just snorted. “Sure, southie, whatever you say. How far you going?”

  She hesitated, then just said it. “Bahlaer.”

  The Illanite's face lit up. “Bahlaer is your home?” Then he glanced to Maevor as if seeing him for the first time and stepped forward, hand offered. “You're… You look familiar. Bahlaeran too?”

  With some reluctance, Maevor clasped his hand. “Maevor of Bah-kai.”

  “Bah-kai! Here?” The man looked to Lark again and she realized that, given a bit more weight and a green uniform, he greatly resembled some Bahlaeran militiamen she'd known. Her changed name and mage-garb seemed to throw him off, though, as he just smiled and inclined his head. “Sallos Mendras. Gods, it's good to see a neighbor. I was marched here with half the militia but I haven't found anyone else.”

  Lark bit her tongue, wanting desperately to ask but afraid to compromise her ploy so soon. Fortunately, Maevor seemed to know what she needed, and urged the ex-militiaman to walk as he grilled him for information.

  Falling in at his heels, Lark tried to listen in, but couldn't help but feel the eyes on her. Erevard's, cold and steady—and Vyslin's, too clever by half.

  *****

  By the time they saw the crowd at the tunnel, Lark had already taken over from Maevor, the bodythief having signaled his anxiety over Sallos Mendras' continued questions. He was in the background now, a silent lurker.

  If the others had objections about her leading their crew, they didn't voice them. They had a lot to say about Blaze Company, though—the Crimson unit currently holding Bahlaer in its fist. Mendras had fought it; Vyslin and another, Harbett, were both from it. She kept her thoughts on the subject to herself, though hearing their captain's name brought back memories of being dragged through Illane during the monsoons. Strange to feel nostalgic about those days.

  If I'd known then what I know now...

  But the past couldn't be changed. She had to think forward, to figure out why there would be such a clot of people at the mouth of the tall tunnel. With all the white-on-white, she couldn't see the situation at the far end, but she did glimpse a contrasting darkness that had to be the exit.

  A few figures loomed above the crowd, either standing on something or boosted. One of them was gesticulating, voice just too faint to catch. The people closest to him or her were taller, completely white-covered, while the rest of the crowd was a motley of cloth and skin.

  “Roadblock,” she guessed aloud, and heard questioning sounds from her entourage. A quick glance showed her that the road behind them was clear of preachers and lingering White Flames for some length—which she'd originally taken as a good sign. Now her heart sank. “Trying to keep people in.”

  “Have there been orders?” said Vy
slin, possibly aimed at Erevard. “I haven't heard or, uh...sensed anything.”

  To the side, the pock-faced man shook his head. “No Call.”

  Lark eyed the area for another option, but they were too close to the city wall. Though much of it had slumped like overloaded clothesline, it still rose higher than they could climb; the only other option seemed the canal, still gouting and foaming past the edge of the road. Not practical.

  “Well fine, let's see what these crazies have to say for themselves,” she muttered.

  As they drew closer, the voice—and then voices—came clearer. There were three of them, seeming to trade off shouting duties whenever one tired, and from what she saw above the crowd, they were all men: two bloody-faced priests and a vociferous White Flame. In bare moments, she got the gist of their ranting.

  “...suffered a concentrated assault by the Dark! At this lowest of times, it is not just cowardice to think of escape—it is treason to our Empire and heresy before the Risen Light, which struggles even now to rise again! I can see it in the streets and in the bones of the Palace! I can feel it singing to my blood, demanding attention! You who turn your backs to the holy Throne, you who despair from so little—I ask you, did not our First Emperor raise the Light again after half a year's unbroken night? They scorned him in his attempt, they barricaded themselves in their homes and prayed to their spirits and false gods, but he stood fast! Remember your lessons! Only when enough hands were raised in praise of the Light did it take pity upon us and return! We are being tested, and we must not fail, for the sake of all the world! Cleanse your hearts of fear and return to the Palace! More pilgrims journey here even now to swell our ranks!”

  Lark bit her lip. That was how the Imperials always explained the lifting of the Long Darkness, and no one had ever been able to gainsay them. But she knew the Emperor had been the long-reviled Outsider—the one whose bug-like armies had once overrun the west. He'd been barred away by the Seals, and it had been Cob's task to kill the man who had somehow pried them open. If Cob had succeeded, then she doubted any amount of prayer would undo his work.

  Closer, and she saw that there was indeed a line of White Flames preventing access to the tunnel, as well as guarding the preachers themselves. Though their armor looked ragged, there were far more than those following at her heels. A glance back showed her that they, like the crowd, were contemplating the priest's words.

  Pike me with a flagpole, she thought as the nearest civilians glanced at them, then did double-takes at her non-Imperial appearance.

  “Do not be fooled!” she called out instinctively before biased word could spread. Already she was sweating under her robe. “Your priests mean well but they are wrong! You have all seen how the light drains from the Palace. You have felt the flight of the god himself! He has left because this place has become Dark through the treachery of his servitors—tainted too fully for him to return! You must not throw your candles into the well, but take them where they can light a great bonfire to welcome him!”

  Pilgrims stared at her with wondering faces, too startled to react. Above, the blind priests turned in her direction, but it was the White Flame who spoke. “Southerner! Your words are heresy! The Palace is our lord's seat; it must not be abandoned. The light of our souls shall burn away the Dark that cloaks it—“

  “Where is that light?” she cut in, aware of her voice pitching up with fear but speaking too fast to control it. “Where is the power you wielded in his name? It has gone from here! The Palace is not a brazier to be relit—it is a shell, a cocoon in which the Light slept. A chrysalis. You cannot put it back together; your Phoenix has flown!”

  “It is the blazing nest, the bright—“

  “Can you not see? It was a prison!” She gestured wildly, making it up as she went along. “Tied to those great stone spires, surrounded by water and murk, far from the heart of its people! The First Emperor called the Light down to the world but the Dark does not give up, no! It bound the Light in this miserable mire, preventing it from spreading its wings over all its faithful. Forcing it to call them to it, begging for freedom—the true meaning of the pilgrimage!”

  “Blasphemous witch!” a priest cried, thin-voiced from weakness or pain. “The pilgrimage is a sacred act of cleansing and sacrifice!”

  “It is a cry for help from your god, who has been pinned here for too long!” She wasn't sure where she was going with this, just following the words and hoping no one stabbed her before she found the end. “Why would he return to you if you wish to trap him again? Like the stars, he is not gone—he is free! He will come and go as he likes, to places that please him and bear no stony chains! Rejoice, all, for you have helped set him free, and he will live in your hearts and homes once you have made him welcome!”

  “Kill the witch!” shrieked the second priest. “Purification through sacrifice! Purification through sacrifice!”

  “Do not listen to those who have lost the favor of your god!” she cried, voice straining. “See their faces—how they have been punished and abandoned! Excommunicated! They are jealous of your hearts, which hold the love of the free Light, for they worshiped not your god but his chains! They were the makers of his chains, and would put him back in them! Show us, priests, the light of your god, if you can!”

  It was a desperate gamble. On the way in, she'd seen priests with glowing eyes and radiant fingers, but had the sense that they were powered by the same stuff that made the White Flame armor—the stuff that was fraying all around them. That they'd apparently torn their own eyes out was a good sign that they couldn't meet the challenge.

  Whereas...

  She touched a hard crystalline lump beneath the collar of her robe.

  “Our light is of our souls!” the second priest raged, bloody spittle flecking his lips. “Do not dare to question it, southern witch! You must be scoured—you and all who stand with you, all who would pander to the Dark, all who would flee—“

  As he spoke, she palmed the crystal and hissed for Maevor to cut the cord. For a moment, nothing happened, and she worried he hadn't heard her—then she felt a brush against the back of her neck, parting the leather.

  Concentrating, she raised her hand and pushed her energy into Ilshenrir's crystal like he had taught her.

  With rocks, it had been like winding a tense spring—deeply resistant, with the feeling that at any moment her control would slip catastrophically. With the crystal, it was like pouring water into a distillation vessel and feeling it change, transmute, come alive.

  Light blazed out from between her fingers, a clear soft gold like sunshine, and the pilgrims who had begun to raise their voices in support of the priests fell silent, halting in their tracks. The two priests kept ranting but the White Flame paused, mouth open, and Lark pushed more energy into the crystal, feeling a tide of strength withdraw from her like she had cut a vein.

  The radiance intensified. For a moment, all were bathed in it, their faces momentarily washed of shadows, pain and fear. Then Lark let her hand fall, drawing the energy back into herself. It was all she could do to stay upright.

  “I follow the Sun Father of the south,” she lied. “He and your Risen Phoenix are the same. The Long Darkness chased him from our lands to here, where he was brought down and trapped. My people strayed from him, yes, because we were too far away to hear his voice—but I hear him now. He must be free, and his radiance must stretch to all people, north and south, east and west—not be caged here in the swamp. Our praise shall raise him back into the sky once all his foul captors are gone!”

  “I hear him!” Vyslin shouted before any priest could respond.

  On her other side, Maevor echoed it, then Sallos Mendras.

  Then someone in the crowd. And another.

  And suddenly all of them were moving, pushing, shouting at the White Flames and the bloody-eyed priests. A few enemy White Flames jostled toward Lark, but her impromptu bodyguards blocked them and forced them away. Pilgrims began to accrete around their grou
p, repeating what she'd said or just clamoring to go home, and she read in their faces the same exhaustion and fear that she felt.

  "She's a mage, you fools, a mage!" the White Flame spokesman shouted.

  From somewhere off to her left came a cry: "Mages can't make sunlight!"

  Lark had no idea if that was true, but the crowd seemed to accept it and surged forward against the blockade. She went along with the push, desperate to get out of here, her bodyguards at her heels until they found a breach; the enemy White Flames couldn't stand forever against the press. Then she and the others were running down the tunnel amidst the pack of former pilgrims, the priests still screeching behind them.

  The adrenaline wore off quickly, air coming to her lungs in short bursts that made her sides hurt. She stumbled into a trot, then a walk while still halfway through the tunnel, and the others fell in step around her. Glancing back, she saw no pursuit, just more pilgrims.

  “Nice job confusing the issue,” rasped Vyslin. “Was any of that true?”

  She glanced at him, but his expression was innocent, his teeth bared in a grin. She didn't trust him—or any of them—but she had to admit they'd backed her up. “Some, maybe, but I just threw things together. We were lucky. Everyone already wanted to leave.”

  “Yeah, that wouldn'ta swayed the real fanatics. I should know.”

  “You're a fanatic?”

  Vyslin snorted. “Nah, but Darronwy, you know.”

  “No, I don't.”

  He eyed her. “What, you're a real southerner? You don't sound like one. Usually they have horrific accents. I figured you were illusioned or something.”

  Lark considered whacking him with the crystal. With the cord still attached, she could've managed a good swing. Instead, she growled, “I'm from Bahlaer, we speak the same bloody language you do. You got it from our side of the Rift.”

  Vyslin flapped a hand dismissively. “Anyway, Darronwy, that's where this whole phoenix business comes from. The old Firebird cults in the Khaeleokiels, by the volcano. Most of the cultists jumped into the priesthood as soon as it started but some are still up there, screeching that this isn't the true Firebird.” He looked back down the tunnel, toward the fallen Palace, and added, “Guess they were right.”