The Pleasure of Memory (15 page)

The yard was empty, save for his sentry. Or what was left of it. It squatted in the middle of the grass, listing sorrily to the right. The eyes were gray and lifeless, and its body so riddled with cracks, Chance marveled that it remained upright at all. One wing remained folded up over its back, but the other spread out at full length to its left, little more than a memory of rock fragments outlining its general shape in the grass beside it.

The corpse of a Vaemysh warrior lay at the creature’s feet, its remains locked in the relentless grip of the thick forearm’s stone talon. The sentry’s frozen claw gripped the warrior’s neck so tightly that it nearly decapitated the Vaemyn. Chance was reassured to see the sentry had functioned well enough to make a defense; perhaps Luren had made it into the woods in time.

He looked up and quickly surveyed the dense forest lining the edge of the yard. When he’d determined he was alone, he knelt down before the corpse.

A Vaemysh warrior! This fully closed the book on his doubts. The sentry had been exactly right in its assessment; there was an invasion at hand. He threw a sleeve to his eyes to block the terror threatening him. Why had he refused the boy’s offer to go along? He should’ve damned well known better. He smeared the pain back from his face and forced a steadying breath. Calm, Chance, he told himself, think now. Don’t react. Think!

He pushed his attention into the scene at hand. He needed to understand what happened here; this was a game of recovery now. Understanding the steps that had preceded his arrival was all that mattered.

The corpse wore dark leather leggings and high boots protected by steel greaves. Dirt and dried blood caked its mail, and muddied grass woven through the rings dulled the metal. It was camouflaged in the ways of the Vaemysh trackers, though this one’s mail was golden in hue, the quality higher than that afforded a mundane warrior. The wooden fox badge fastened to its chest indicated this one had been a saaro in an elite tracking unit, and it was proof Prae was most sincere about taking him unaware.

He inspected the steel bracers wrapping the corpse’s forearms. Etched into the right bracer was the image of a great tree with a swallow diving across its crown. Chance recognized it as the House of Treul, one of the oldest Vaemysh high families. It was exactly as he’d thought. This corpse had likely been the son of a lord. It meant the treachery went all the way up to the Vaemysh Council of Fates. It was as bad as it could get.

He waved away the flies covering the darkening face and bulging tongue. As the cloak of insects erupted from the corpse, he noticed a tiny gem dangling from the warrior’s left oteuryn. It was an amulet of black bloodstone carved in the image of a skullish head. It bore a toothy, lipless grin and empty sockets for eyes. It was a vile face, a horrifying face, the face of death. He jerked it free and held it up into a stray sunbeam. Scratches marred the surface of the tiny stone around the skullish eye sockets where someone had removed something from the amulet. As he considered it, he suddenly understood precisely what was missing from this token: A pair of Fire Caeyl chips.

“Fren’ba Shen's badge,” he whispered, “And now Prae’s.”

He cursed and rose to his feet. Anger rushed over him. He moved to heave the amulet into the trees, but quickly reconsidered. Instead, he dropped it into his robe pocket, the same pocket containing the lock of Luren’s hair. He had to maintain his reason. He’d need this as proof for the Allies.

He looked down at the dead warrior. Unable to resist the furious urges any longer, he threw a violent kick at the Vaemyn. The dead man’s ribs cracked beneath the blow, though the warrior didn’t complain for it. Chance felt disappointed at how little satisfaction the act afforded him.

He turned his attention to the sentry and thought about the other back at the valley’s edge, the one Prae or Prae’s minions had so obviously sabotaged. This time, he knew precisely what to expect when he tapped the creature's brow. A familiar yellow spark snapped at his touch.

He raised an index finger to the sentry’s eyes and rotated it in a circle just above its surface. Strands of blue light surfaced from the depths of the orbs. The light gradually began to swirl through the stone, following his fingertip. It seemed Prae hadn’t been completely successful; the energy of his Water Caeyl still prevailed in this sentry, though it clearly wouldn’t last. The stone’s cohesion was quickly failing.

“Sentry,” he whispered, “Do you hear me?”

No response.

Chance glanced back over his shoulder. The yard remained empty. He leaned closer to the gargoyle and pressed a splayed hand against the wide face, whispering, “Sentry, acknowledge me.”

The sentry didn’t comply.

Chance was about to try again when he sensed a low vibration emanating from the stone. Then, to his great surprise, the eyes actually flickered. Blue flashes sputtered through the orbs. A low growl briefly rose from the creature before falling back into silence.

Chance fingered the lock of hair in his pocket and considered what to do. He had to try to reenergize the sentry. He might buy it enough time to give him some information of value. The worst case was that the energy could fail completely and he’d be standing before a pile of rubble. He slipped the burnt leather hood from his staff and dropped it into the grass. The top of the wooden staff terminated in a carved, life-sized hand that gripped a smooth, featureless blue gem. It was a Water Caeyl, and it was as large as his fist. The Water Caeyl’s soft blue glow immediately heaved into an intense light that was nearly impossible to look at directly.

Chance lowered the staff’s head so that the carved hand held the caeyl to the creature's brow. Then he closed his eyes and summoned the energy swell from the caeylsphere. Moments later, he reopened his eyes. The sentry's orbs were now at full blue glow. The creature's head slowly blurred into animation and the mouth began to move, though no words came out. Instead, a high-pitched whine pierced the air.

Chance winced at the sound. He pulled the staff back. The blue light radiating from the sentry’s orbish eyes was devolving into a sour greenish hue. It didn’t take long for him to understand the cause of the dire transformation. The energy from his Water Caeyl hadn’t died in the sentry; it’d simply been hidden. Prae’s energy was infused in the sentry much like the one at the cliff, though it seemed every bit as irrational now as it had back there.

It went against everything he knew about caeyl energy. Two caeyl energies could never commingle in a single vessel. The caeylsphere wouldn’t permit it. One of the energies must always dominate. And even if they could somehow violate all the laws of nature, the energy of his Water Caeyl should have trumped Prae’s Fire Caeyl. The sentry was a stone golem, not a demon. His energy ruled the world of matter, not Prae’s.

The sentry was groaning now. Its unnatural voice rose and fell erratically as the green light pulsed in its eyes. Despite Prae’s corruption, it was trying to communicate with him.

“Speak, sentry,” he demanded, “What happened here?”

The creature’s modulating groan continued, but no words came with it.

“Sentry, I command you to speak to me!”

The sound pulsed eerily as the creature attempted to comply. The claw gripping the dead Vaemyn was contracting reflexively, alternately squeezing and releasing the neck with a sickening crunch. Green sparks sizzled and snapped across the stone face like streams of water pouring off a rock. Soon the entire sentry was shimmering in the unnatural glow of their combined energies.

The creature was vibrating so intensely Chance could feel it pulsing against his face. He backed slowly away. The whining sound had grown shrill and piercing. It felt like something drilling through his head. His eyes were watering. He covered his ears. The pain in his head was unbearable. His stomach twisted. He began to salivate.

As he backed away, the reality of the situation seized him. This was more than a simply tampering. This was sabotage! A trap! He turned to flee a heartbeat too late.

The explosion hammered him from behind. For a sickening instant, he was airborne.

He ground to a stop in the grass several yards later. Debris from the blast pelted his back and legs. He tried to push himself up from the dirt, but couldn’t find any leverage. His mouth was full of fresh blood. His ears were ringing. The fetid smell of singed hair was nearly overpowering. The world was reeling around him.

He had to get up. He had to get up now! He tried to focus, tried to drive back the approaching darkness, but his efforts were useless. He felt himself slump back into the spinning dirt. It was too late. He was already falling.

VIII

THE DETOUR

EAM SPENT THE DAY LIMPING HIS WAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.

The descent was rough and exhausting, with roots and rocks taunting his footing and every resulting slip harassing his aching ribs. When he finally reached the level comfort of the forest floor, he nearly wept with joy.

There’d been no evidence of the savages throughout his walk, though he’d seen plenty of other stranger creatures in their stead. There were dragonflies with wings as wide as his outstretched arms, snakes as fat as his thigh, and shimlins of more sizes and colors than he’d ever thought possible.

He loathed shimlins. Barely two feet tall, the slimy little human-shaped creatures were like two legged rats that could pick the food from a sleeping traveler’s teeth and be gone before the victims ever knew what happened.

The worst of his encounters involved a sorry looking beast the size of a large dog with long, hairy legs, a leathery head that was mostly jaws and rakes of teeth, and a bony shell covered in long, barbed spikes. The miserable creature chased him for a hundred yards before Beam finally managed to swing up onto a low hanging branch and put some altitude between them.

By late afternoon, he arrived at a narrow road. The road was crowded in on both sides by steep embankments, which essentially made it a wide, deep ditch. He knew full well that the smarter plan of action would be to follow the road from the seclusion of the forest above the banks, out of sight of mischievous arrows. He knew it was nothing more than raw stupidity to risk an unexpected meeting by strolling along the road itself in plain view of any passersby. On the other hand, his wounds were begging for a break from the arduous task of blazing the forest, so he opted to follow the road for just a bit, just a few miles at most, and then he’d head back up into the safety of the woods.

He followed the road as gingerly as his abused muscles would allow, taking great pains to leave no tracks with his heelless boots. The path cut through the forest like a gash, climbing ever higher up into the mountains. The banks of the road rose up a nearly vertical ten feet on either side, sometimes more, and he suspected that in the event of a storm or during the spring melts, this road wouldn’t be nearly so accommodating as it was now.

In time, the comfort of the road allowed the complaints of his aches and pains to fall into the background, and as they did, his mind drifted to his treasures. The swag he carried now would make him richer than he’d ever dared to hope. He’d crept out of Parhron at an early age little more than an outlaw, but he’d march back in a lord. Raised an orphan in a rundown priory, he’d retire in a palace, and he wouldn’t have to stay in the dungeon this time. No, this time he’d own the bloody place.

He thought back over his two years in the Vaemysh scrubs and swore that if he ever entered another crypt again it’d better be to occupy it. He’d seen more dead bodies than a retired hangman. Granted they’d been savages, but that fact didn’t make the task any less unsavory. Rot was rot, and it didn’t matter whose face wore it.

Yet, in spite of the grim nature of his work, the pickings had been perfectly delicious. The pack he’d left with Gerd back on the road had been bulging with jewels and gold he’d salvaged from the Vaemysh dead. It amazed him that a race so desperately poor and beaten down could afford to send so much booty with their dearly departed to land of Shalra’fon. If he were a savage, he’d happily send the dead on to the next shuffle with a clean suit of clothes, a quick prayer, and a hearty pat on the back. When it came to their riches, however, they’d have to fend for themselves on the colder side of life. What was the point in wasting the family fortune on—

He stopped.

At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The path all around him was a murder of footprints.

He turned and looked back at the road following him. The footprints trampled the dirt all the way back to the last curve behind him. There were dozens of them, maybe more, and the evidence showed that they were all marching in the same direction he was.

He pulled his knife from his belt and scanned the surrounding forest up above him. How long had he been daydreaming? Twenty minutes? An hour? He couldn’t have covered more than two, maybe three miles. How could he have missed this?

He slipped carefully to one knee and outlined a footprint with his finger. It was a heelless leather boot, and it was identical in manufacture to those he wore himself. They were of Vaemysh design, crafted explicitly for stealth. If not for the loose, damp sand covering this part of the road, he’d never have seen them.