The King walked over the battlefield, stepping gently over the bodies of the fallen. His gaze was so remote, so deep in thought, while overhead the sky poured forth a vermilion and orange sunset.
Ranhé was just behind him. She had paused, crouched to check a severely wounded soldier—this one Qurthe—who muttered at her, muttered words in a strongly foreign dialect, words of delirium.
“Peace . . .” she told him, willed him to feel it, and the dying man understood, grew still, watching her out of expressive black eyes. She saw them, black, fathomless, innocent. And deep within her, some fellow blackness answered, a soft gentle dark—intimate and hidden and subdued, which only she would know about.
She put a cool palm over the soldier’s forehead, and he died softly, taking the peace and the color of night from her soothing palm.
In that moment, the King in dull ancient armor stopped. And then he came toward her, walking around the corpses and the broken machinery of war.
“You,” he said.
Still crouching, she looked up, seeing his pale dreaming eyes. They were trained upon her.
“You,” he repeated. “What is your name, lady warrior?”
She straightened, then stood before him with an inclination of her head. “Ranhéas Ylir, Your Sovereign Grace. Not a lady, only a freewoman.”
“Oh, but you are more,” said the King. And then he smiled at her with his sad eyes.
“Lady Ranhéas Ylir,” said Alliran Monteyn, “Lady Ylir of Black. I know you. I know what role you’ve played, and what you’ve done.”
“Your Sovereign Grace? Whatever do you mean?”
But the King only continued smiling, and then he nodded, saying, “Come, Lady Ylir—as I will call you, as you will be from now on. Come walk with me, so that we may both remember and honor these needlessly fallen.”
And thus she walked with the Monteyn, alive and sad, and torn out of his own time into this new place. And suddenly she remembered the feel of his once cold lips beneath her own, remembered a kiss bestowed upon a corpse in a broken glass casket, underneath a pale sliver of a monochrome moon.
She had enough faith to kiss him then, more than even she herself had suspected.
Did he know this also, she wondered? Had he, somehow, miraculously, known?
At the edge of the square, very near the circle of the Arata, they had come upon a strange sight. Hundreds of motionless Qurthe warbeasts were lined up in formation, and those who rode them sat the saddles, frozen in dream-like atrophy. Their pikes were still aloft, but most had their swords concealed in scabbards. Many had taken their helmets off, revealing tight black curling hair inherent in their race—so black it was shadowed with blue. Wind bathed their dark brown skins, dried their battle sweat, and the sunset washed them in tongues of lavender and gold flame, as they remained thus, waiting.
Their highest-ranking captain, a man with a handsome impassive face, the large rounded features of his race, and eyes rich with warm darkness and honesty, had also removed his crested helmet, and seeing the King walking toward him, rode forward slowly, leading his great beast.
For a moment, several of those who had been Bilhaar, who walked some distance away in the square, felt a moment of alarm. The Monteyn was all alone, except for a single companion. Would the Qurth take this opportunity to strike down their ancient sacred icon, their newly regained King?
But the Qurth dismounted, and walked respectfully the remainder of the distance toward the Monteyn. And when only a few feet away, he brought his hand up and lowered his head of tight curls, in an unfamiliar but recognizable gesture of salute.
“I am at your mercy, bright lord of this City!” said the captain in a heavy slurred dialect. “I have no notion why we are here. I appear to be the superior commanding officer, and yet, I remember no orders, no lord I serve. It probably sounds quite mad, but I do not know why we have been fighting you here.”
And suddenly, the Qurth came down on his knees, and again bowed his head.
The King looked at him, and then said softly, “Rise, soldier. It is true, you are subject to my will, but we have no reason to fight. There is no war. And there are no enemies here. Take your people, and return to your homeland. We bear you no grudge, for this has been a day of miracles—the first Day of a new Age.”
The captain looked up, an expression of wonder in his eyes. “My lord!” he said again, then rose, nodding in sharp military honor, and with his own variety of awe.
“Before you leave,” said the King, smiling at him with sad eyes, “I give you and your soldiers permission to walk this place of battle, to take back those who still live, and to bear home your dead. Now, go!”
At that, the Qurth obeyed, and was off, to give orders to those under his command. Soon, Qurthe soldiers were seen on foot, walking the square, mingling with those of the City in odd camaraderie, brought together to remove the evidence of their senseless battle and to honor the dead with silence.
The King remained still for a moment, watching them all, and Ranhé, following him as asked, saw tears glistening in his pale lapis ancient young eyes.
“A day of miracles,” he repeated again, this time to himself.
CHAPTER 20
The violent sunset had quenched itself over the western horizon, but strange bluish-indigo dusk hung and lingered long after stars had come out over Tronaelend-Lis. And below, in the City streets, jewels of color light had come to sprinkle the fabric of urban velvet, more bright and impossible than anything seen before this day—before the wonders had come to this world.
In the fading honey light, dark shapes of war machinery, cavalry and foot soldiers of the Qurthe, rolled through the City streets, and out through the many City Gates. The ones that had remained outside the walls, surrounding Tronaelend-Lis, were the first to leave—already a thin streak of blackness curving and slipping along the eastern road into the distance of the forested horizon, on their way to a distant alien land, their home. They were allowed to pass silently, unmolested by any of the City residents under strict orders of the King. They were leaving now, softly, gently, like the coming of the first blue-tinged twilight. Already, their strange presence was melting from the ephemeral memory of those who dwelled here.
And then, night came over the violated City, and they slept, leaving the terrible scene of the Markets Square for the next day. This, the first night of the new Age.
Tomorrow, with the dawn, they would bury the dead.
The new dawn arrived. It commenced with familiar soft silver mists, but erupted suddenly into a garish brilliant rose, then yellow, then gods only knew what.
People awoke, drew the shutters of their windows open and stared through slitted eyes upon a brilliant shocking morning, with a blue sky—yes, the whole expanse overhead was like an overpowering world-spanning blue monochrome—and upon this impossible sky floated a violent pulsing sun! It, the sun, slowly changed color, moving through the whole visible spectrum, and returned upon itself, throwing the world into momentary dizzying shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet—as though clouds passed over it constantly, and left shadows of varied hues to trail upon the land.
Most of the day was spent thus, pausing, wondering at things everyone normally took for granted, at sights that were all of a sudden remarkable, beautiful, scalding to the eye.
And of course, there was the undeniable horror or wonder of the mutating sun.
And when the evening came, it was almost a relief. Here, soothing softly hued blue and violet dark was easier on the eye, gentler to observe.
Once again, color orbs burned bright and multi-hued throughout the Quarters, but they no longer seemed magical. Instead, what drew the attention were the walls of the buildings, the soft blues and greens of the shrubbery, the hint of warm brown in the earth, the sheen of yellow in the windowpanes illuminated by unexpectedly golden candlelight. Forms of trees were suddenly drenched with richness of deep reds and utter black greens along the trunks and leaves, blue shadows
running along the deep crevices between the bricks of limestone, granite, or marble.
Dirvan burned like a bonfire in the night. Pinpoints of color flickered upon the rich sparkling ebony syrup of the Arata which reflected an upside-down royal island floating upon the indigo of the evening sky.
In the Palace, all were gathered, the Noble Ten, and all the lesser aristocracy, to attend a ceremony for the Monteyn King.
He received them in a place unused for hundreds of years, that had been kept shut and unaired, for it had contained within the Monteyn Throne—the great Royal Hall of pale azure marble, veined with lilac and silver. Alliran Monteyn sat now upon a single dais Throne, the same one he himself had been the last to occupy, nearly three centuries before. He was clad in white and wore a band of gold upon his brow, that was not nearly as bright as the hair that flowed down his shoulders.
And yet, his young face was pale and solemn. When he received the former Regent Hestiam Grelias and his sister, there was hardly a shadow of a smile upon his lips.
The previous day Hestiam had been discovered quite unharmed—except for badly chafed wrists tied with crude rope—huddled in the saddle of a tall Qurthe warbeast, and next to him, the small boy Lissean. They were both found unattended and forgotten, for the Qurthe soldiers had gone to walk the scene of battle, to recover their wounded. In fact, if it had not been for Hestiam’s whimpering (unlike Lissean’s stoic silence), Deileala, riding another giant warbeast, would never have discovered her brother. And it was the Regentrix, storm-faced and horrible like a fury from the wild ride upon the greatest beast there was, who had cut through their bindings with a sword she had managed to procure, and then dragged her brother down, freeing him with a look of strange dark silence. Her silence, then, and even now, she refused to explain. Not even after they had stood in awe, witnessing the return of the Tilirr, the pulsing of the sun, the lightning and sky fire.
And now they stood before the Monteyn King. Hestiam had been made presentable, but somewhat humble, while Deileala chose to appear more insolent than ever. Despite her petite physique, she had been made insane from the battle—or so she claimed—and now insisted upon wearing masculine clothing, like a delusional thinking herself a warrior goddess.
Hestiam took a step forward and then sank on his knees before the Monteyn Throne. This was the first time in his life he was kneeling before anyone. Next to him, Deileala came down on her knees more gracefully, in silence.
“Your Sovereign Grace! I relinquish to you Tronaelend-Lis!” Hestiam pronounced loudly, in a slightly shaking voice.
Alliran Monteyn observed from his raised seat the top of the older man’s inclined head, his dark beard. His answer came in a tired simple voice. “Very well. The Regency is dissolved.”
And then he added, “Rise, Lord Hestiam Grelias, and Lady Deileala Grelias. And now stand aside and join the ranks of your peers.”
Upon his pronouncement, the Grelias brother and sister arose, bowed their heads, and then walked with the remainder of their former dignity to the right of the dais to stand next to many of the other Noble Ten. Hestiam looked relieved in fact, while Deileala’s face was ice-cold and impassive.
Alliran Monteyn looked upon all those gathered, searching for a face in the crowd—a newly familiar face the sight of which even now filled him with strange energy, from the memory of a god it contained. And then he saw it, framed by hair like a raven’s wing, with a single pale streak running through.
“Lord Elasand Vaeste!” said the King. “Come forth, so that I may honor you.”
Elasand, wearing fine dark velvet, stepped forward, and bowed deeply before the Throne.
Alliran looked at him, and then a soft smile warmed his pale gold features. “Looking upon you, I will always think of the one who was within you so briefly.”
Alliran’s face grew odd, his gaze suddenly detached, as though for a moment he was many miles—or years—away.
In the front of the gathered crowd, a tall man also clad in fine black, and with sun-bright hair rivaling that of the King, observed the lapse, and leaned forward to whisper in the ear of a woman dressed in a subdued masculine manner, in dark fine cloth, her shadow-brown hair bound in a single tight braid.
“The King has a justifiable tendency to become lost in memories,” he quipped. “He will always be thus, I predict. How will he manage to rule this City? Even now, he has the undoubtedly noble but absent demeanor of a sorrowing poet.”
Ranhé turned her head slowly and unobtrusively to stare at the speaker, and then whispered, “Quiet, or the poet will have you publicly reprimanded for disrespecting him!”
“For a newly made lady, you still hiss quite effectively—Lady Ylir!”
But she ignored that remark, and turned her back to him. Elasirr did not know that it was because she had once again seen the urgency of his eyes upon her, and now had to avert her own. She had been long aware of the way his relentless gaze stung the back of her neck, all throughout this gathering. And now, because she knew he continued to stare, to watch her—undaunted and, in that very intensity, somehow vulnerable—she had to look away and hide a shadow of a smile.
She could not smile at him yet, directly, not at this one. But somehow, it was quite satisfying to have that gaze locked upon her, every time she turned away, every time he thought she did not know.
Indeed, this had been a day of miracles in more than one sense. For, when she had come downstairs in the morning, and saw them both in the front hall of the Vaeste Villa, Elasirr merely averted his unreadable eyes, but Elasand, in his more direct manner, had looked at her appraisingly, differently somehow.
Maybe it was to be attributed to what had happened to him. For Elasand was indeed a subtly changed man. No trace of miraculously healed wounds on his body. But there were other intangible signs. His attention span was intensified, his gaze deepened, and a restlessness that had been in his vaguest mannerisms all throughout the time she knew him was now replaced by a sense of harmony.
Elasand looked upon her in a way she had never thought he would. A gaze of appraisal. What did it mean?
“Elasirr, Guildmaster of the Light Guild and Bilhaar, come forth!”
Ranhé was nudged out of her reverie to see Elasirr walk forward and stand before the King, next to his half-brother.
But before the Monteyn could say another word, Elasirr bowed curtly, and then, with one glance at Elasand, began to speak: “Your Sovereign Grace! I cherish your honor upon me, but I must first bring to your attention the unbearable state of affairs of this City, which in your absence had been allowed to run to the ground by the selfish incompetence of the former Regent and his lovely whore of a sister! It is obviously not to Your Sovereign Grace’s knowledge, since you’ve been stuck in a casket these last couple of hundred years, but Tronaelend-Lis has long demanded a major reorganization of resources—always denied by Grelias—the primary being the Guilds. I ask Your Sovereign Grace to convene the Council of Guilds, so long denied to us! This Council was a strong body of political power in your own time, and its advice valued and taken often in fact by Your Sovereign Grace—”
“Enough! Well said, but enough.”
The King raised his hand to silence Elasirr’s tirade. Tiredly, but with some amusement, he gazed at the man with such a brazen tongue, who had continued to stare back so directly at him.
“I will be happy to let you handle all this Guilds business in an official capacity starting tomorrow,” said the King suddenly. “Provided that Bilhaar is no longer the Assassin Guild, and is dissolved as a body into the greater Light Guild. I will have no assassins in the ranks of my advisors, no matter how clever-spoken or glib, no matter how well meaning and noble, and no matter that they nearly single-handedly organized and led the Resistance of this City.”
Elasirr stared in growing surprise.
“Is it true,” asked the Monteyn gently, “that you, Guildmaster, are the bastard son of Rendvahl Vaeste who was also the father of the present lord? And is it
true that you’re the younger half-brother to this man standing next to you?”
“It is true, Your Sovereign Grace,” said Elasirr in a quieter but yet impassive voice.
At this, there were whisperings in the crowd.
“Lord Vaeste,” the King addressed the raven-haired brother. “Is your heart set on being the Heir to your father? Or would you prefer to be my Chancellor here at Court?”
Elasand, with his new deeper perceptive gaze, smiled softly, then glanced momentarily at his brother. “I had never liked being at Court, Your Sovereign Grace. But I admit it was a Court of Grelias. But now I believe I would like to be near Your Sovereign Grace, and I would be honored to remain at the Court of Monteyn.”
“I am glad,” said the King. “Then you are now mine, Elasand-re. I pronounce you my Lord Chancellor Vaeste, to replace the honorably fallen Lirr. And you, Guildmaster with the insolent tongue—which I quite like, by the way, for it portends honesty—you, I pronounce the new Lord and Heir Vaeste. Come forward, Lord Chancellor Elasand Vaeste, and Lord Elasirr Vaeste, so I may touch you with the sword, and so that you may be the first to swear loyalty to Monteyn.”
Elasirr’s expression, was almost humorous to observe, thought Ranhé, watching the scene of fealty being enacted.
And then her own name was called.
She walked into the brilliantly illuminated center before the Throne dais, feeling suddenly the eyes of the whole world upon her.
A moment not unlike that just before a battle. Time slows down, all things, all responses, each breath becomes magnified, intensified, more acute.
“Lady Ranhéas Ylir! I pronounce you head of a new Eleventh House, the Family Ylir. And your color will be Black, in memory of what this world had seen.”
Black is not a color, only the absence of light. . . .
She stood, petrified somehow, listening with only one half of her mind to the voice of the Monteyn King, seeing only with one half of her vision the brilliant golden candlelight.
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