The Pleasure of Memory (45 page)

The sobbing ceased as abruptly as it’d started. Maeryc slowly pushed himself to his knees and then staggered to his feet. He stood facing the black water in absolute silence. Ten minutes passed without a word or gesture.

Koonta couldn’t make sense of it. What was he doing? Was he fighting the beast? Resisting? Was he unconscious?

Twenty minutes passed. Thirty.

He just stood there, not speaking, not even moving. As she watched and waited, she wondered if it was possible that he’d somehow fought the demon off. Maybe his love for her, for his family, for his people had given him the strength he needed to break free of the bastard’s vile claws. Maybe he’d regained his lucidity, his independence. For just a fleeting instant, she considered going to him.

Then a low murmur simmered through the night. He was muttering something, something with a cadence that sounded like a dull chant, though the words were gibberish. It gradually grew louder. As he reached a fevered pitch, he slapped his thighs, threw his face to the stars, and howled, “I’ll kill them all! I’ll kill them all, I swear it to the Wyr!”

Her disappointment felt like an anchor dragging her down into the depths of despair. She cursed herself for her naiveté. What was she thinking? There was no hope now. It was so perfectly clear, so brutally and unforgivably clear. Maeryc was gone. She’d lost him forever.

Maeryc dropped to his knees in the mud and ripped at the snake grass, pitching it fistful by fistful into the water as he screamed, “No! No! No! I told you I won’t do that! She’s my sister, goddamn you! My sister!”

Koonta couldn’t breathe. Her head was spinning. This was too much, too unbelievable. It couldn’t be real.

Maeryc was punching the grass like a mad man now, flinging mud and pulp with each blow. “My sister!” he screamed, “My sister! My sister! My sister!”

The words slashed through the night, each one ripping at her until she thought she would die from the horror of it. She watched him until he’d worked himself into complete exhaustion, watched him until he collapsed into the muddy bank, until his voice fell weaker and weaker, until there was nothing left but harsh, primal grunts. Then, at long last, he faded into silence.

Koonta smeared back her own tears. She’d failed him. Maeryc was out of control. He was lost. Everything was lost.

∞

They made their way back to the hatch in silence, taking less care now to camouflage their steps. Halfway back to camp, Koonta flagged Mawby to stop.

She dropped down at the feet of an old, standing dead oak and fell back into the dry bark. Mawby sat as well and slid his arm around her. Too weak to resist, she yielded to her old friend’s warmth. Once safely in the comfort of his husky form, her weakness broke through the box she’d spent her entire life building, and she began to sob.

The power of her grief shocked her. Even when Pa’ana died, she’d reserved her grief for her solitude, her tears being too precious to share with anyone else. But this burden was different somehow. This burden was more than she could endure alone, and so she allowed herself this one indulgence and wept in the security of Mawby’s love.

It was late into the night when she finally pushed herself away from him. She leaned back into the unyielding bark and swiped her palm over her eyes, smearing back the last evidence of her weakness.

“You were right,” she whispered, “He’s gone. Isn’t he? Maeryc’s been taken. He can’t break free anymore.”

Mawby nodded.

“And Pa’ana’s death wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“No,” Mawby whispered, “No, it wasn’t.”

In the space of those few powerful words, she recovered her resolve. She dropped her head back against the tree and looked up into the brilliant stars sparkling through the dead, leafless branches above. When she was certain of her strength, she turned her eyes over to him. “Tell me the truth,” she whispered, “Pa’ana died resisting the demon, didn’t he?”

“Koo…”

“Tell me the goddamned truth, Maw! I have to know.”

“He didn’t want to become a...”

“A hack.” Koonta spit the word out for him. “It’s all right. It’s the truth.”

“He was a strong man, my brother. Strong enough to know that sometimes death is the only way to win.”

“Maeryc was a strong man, too.”

“Maeryc accepted Prae’s token. Pa’ana wouldn’t.”

“Maeryc’s a loyalist,” she said, “He thought it was the right thing to do. He did it for his people.”

“I know. It’s the same reason Pa’ana was Lamys te’Faht. The same reason I am now. Someone has to be watching, always watching. They were on to him. They knew his secret. He killed himself before he’d let the bastard demons take him, before he’d betray his guild.”

“Maeryc only wanted what we all want,” Koonta whispered, “He wanted our homelands back.” She felt a pang of shame as she realized she was referring to him in the past tense.

“I know,” Mawby barely said.

She looked up at him. His mud-pasted face glowed in the ghostly moonlight dripping through the branches. White lines streaked the dirt, and as she saw them, she realized he’d been crying, too.

She turned her eyes away from him.

“It’s the way of youth,” Mawby said, “They’re easily susceptible to such fervor.”

“I knew this damned allegiance would bring us nothing but despair,” Koonta said, “I knew it as soon as the council accepted Prae’s promise of the wyrlaerds. I knew it, but I turned the other way. I denied it.”

“We’re watching the council closely. The leadership in the Faht suspect several of them are under the influence.”

“Under the influence,” she repeated sarcastically, “You mean they’re hacks.”

“More likely simply entranced. Hacks can’t last long enough for prolonged use. The corruption of a demon’s influence spoils their minds in a matter of months, sometimes weeks if their presence is deep enough.”

She sighed and wiped her face. “You understand what was going on back there, don’t you? You know that Graezon was instructing Maeryc to kill us after we get the stone?”

“I know, Kad’r. Even with only one side of the conversation, that much seems pretty clear. Thank the gods Maeryc loves you so much. He resisted the bastard.”

She nodded, but couldn’t look at him. It was the kind of friend he was that he referred to her by her title now. He was helping her be strong.

“”He tried to fight it,” she said, “If he hadn’t resisted, we’d never have understood the conversation. It was his resistance to killing me that exposed it.”

“Goelvar wants the stone,” Mawby whispered, “The demon wants it for itself. I’m confident it has no plans to pass it on to Prae. But this means we’ve found the chink in the demon’s armor. We know its intentions.”

“I agree.”

“What do we do about Maeryc?”

Koonta sensed the tentativeness in his voice. He knew exactly what they should do, but he wanted her to say it first. “We keep him close,” she said carefully.

“Kad’r, I know this is hard for you, but the facts are clear. Maeryc’s not right. He’s—”

“He’s a hack,” she again finished for him. How sad that it was becoming easier to say it now. “It’s all right, Mawby. It’s the truth. I know it now. You don’t have to tiptoe around it.”

“Well, then…I reckon there’s no sweet way to say this. You know he can’t be recovered, jh’ven?”

“Ay’a, Mawby. You’ve made that clear. He can only be released.” She said it harsher than she’d intended.

“You think this is any easier for me?”

She shook her head. “No, I know it’s not easier for you, Maw. But I’m not ready to accept it yet. I won’t accept it yet.”

“I suggest we leave him behind,” he said.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“This latest hatch lists to the side. I’m guessing the shaft beneath it is collapsed.”

“Ay’a,” she said, “And?”

“They’ll never be able to surface here. We leave Maeryc behind to guard it. He’ll be safe, and we’ll be free of—”

“No,” Koonta said, “He’d never honor it. He’d follow us covertly. No, we take him with us.”

“With us?”

“He goes with us. Better to have him in our sights than dogging us from the shadows.”

“But we’ll...”

She waved him into silence. “I won’t abandon Maeryc, and I won’t tip our hand to Graezon or Goelvar. We’ll enter the swamp tomorrow as planned. There, he’ll be in full communion with the demon, which means that damned wyrlaerd will see everything.”

“How does that help us?”

“We’ll fence Maeryc between warriors so he can’t communicate without spilling it out to us. He’ll have an attendant at all times. If things get ugly, we’ll bind him and blind him.”

“If we do that, the bastard demon will know we’re on to it.”

“No. The demon would expect we’d kill him if we suspected him a hack. If we just imprison him, the demon will believe we think him unwell. I want this assignment to look like business as usual for as long as we can maintain the illusion. Let’s us be the spies now, jh’ven?”

“Ay’a, I understand. Still, you know I have to ask...”

“Just say it, Maw.”

“All right, Koo,” he said seriously, “You know I have to be straight with this. If it were anyone else in the company besides Maeryc, would you do the same? Would you take them with us?”

They were the same words she’d been asking herself since Mawby shared his suspicion that her brother might be a hack. She’d thought long and hard about what she’d do if it turned out to be true.

“Would you?” he pressed, “If it were anyone else, would you do the same?”

She forced herself to look up at the massive warrior, up into those loyal, loving eyes, and she said, “I hope so, Mawby. I sincerely do.”

XXII

THE HATCH

T WAS THE MOST DREADFUL SIGHT BEAM HAD EVER LAID EYES ON.

The shaft leading to the surface above him brought his hopes to ruin. The round, bricked cylinder rose up into the darkness like a great stone tower. Unfortunately, the back section of the tower had collapsed. That was the section with the ladder.

The wall had simply caved, crumpling into this chaotic mound of bricks, stones, and rubble he now stood on. A few twisted, infirm rungs hanged like jagged teeth at the rough edge of the broken tunnel some thirty feet above him, while the long line of their brethren dutifully continued their climb to the surface beyond it.

He climbed back down the jagged, rolling fallout in a state of utter dejection. At the bottom, he sat on a huge broken brace stabbing out from the debris like a fractured femur. There, he buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“I’ve already told you,” Chance said. He was sitting on a boulder a dozen yards out from the avalanche on the other side of the tunnel. “There’s little cause for alarm. We’ve only to go a bit further and you’ll have your beloved sky again. The next turret is infallibly reinforced.”

Beam snapped a jagged piece of wood from the end of the rotted brace. He held it out toward Chance. “Yeah?” he said, “Reinforced as dependably as this one?” He crushed the orange, mealy wood in his hand and threw the dust toward him.

“It’s not the same kind of reinforcement.”

“Oh! You mean it’s
magically
reinforced. Well, that’s a different story!”

“No, it’s reinforced the Baeldonian way,” Chance said, “Riveted iron walls from top to bottom.”

“As I recall, you never mentioned that this shaft was collapsed.”

“No?”

“You said we’d reach the next shaft tonight, but in your typical conniving fashion, you conveniently omitted its condition.”

Chance pulled a wine skin out of the pack and uncorked it. “Well, I don’t suppose that was particularly nice of me, was it?” he said, and then took a long drink.

“You’re a real bastard.”

“So you’ve said.” Chance mopped a hand across the stubble on his chin. He popped the cork back into the skin and tossed it to Beam.

Beam caught it. It felt alarmingly light. “Is this all of the wine?”

“There’s one full skin left.”

“Great. First, the shaft, and now we’re running out of wine. We’ll die of thirst down here trying to find our way out.”

“There’s always water.”

“We finished the water at lunch.”

“There’s always water.”

Beam’s stomach felt like it was grinding nails. “Really?” he said, “I haven’t seen a drop of water since we entered this hellhole. Not a puddle, not a trickle, not a goddamned drip.”

“I swear you’re going to give yourself a heart seizure,” Chance said, “Let me worry about the water.”

“And what are you going to do?
Pray
for it to appear?”

“For the love of gods! Who’d you whine to all that time you were alone in the crypts?”

“Go to hell.”

Chance just shook his head, sighed, and extended an arm out laterally along the wall with his palm flat against it. He dropped his head back against the rock and he closed his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Beam said, “Go ahead and have yourself a little meditation time. Let’s see what it gets us.”

The man didn’t respond. The stone gripped by the wooden hand at the top of his staff began to glow softly, like the blue flames at the heart of a fire. Then the wall began to shimmer where Chance was touching it. Beads of water speckled the stone around his fingers. The droplets sparkled like liquid diamonds as they broke free and raced down the rock. Within seconds, the water was trickling over Chance’s hand and down the wall and soaking into the sand below it.

Chance released the stone. Water covered his open hand and dripped from the heel of his palm. He looked over at Beam and flipped the water toward him. “Just as I told you,” he said, “There’s always water.”