House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  “Were?”

  “There’s some sort of magery at work out back. Shadows,” he added. “Darkness.”

  The Terafin glanced at the mage, and the mage nodded.

  Before he could speak, the sounds of bells filled the distance, coming in from the gardens and the grounds.

  Fire.

  Angel glanced at Jay and then at the wide and open space of the foyer. All plans, he thought with a grimace, falter when you see the enemy. There was no enemy here, but the chance of hiding in the shadows, of waiting until they were needed, vanished; there was no damn place to hide. There were no shadows. The light cast by the chandeliers, cut into brilliant, hard shards, scattered across every surface: armor, carpet, tapestry, floor.

  “Jay?” he said quietly.

  “It’s either here,” she told them all, “on the landing, or there.”

  There: the stairs themselves. “You’re crazy,” Carver said flatly.

  “Good. You come up with a better place. Now.”

  He looked. They all did. Then he shrugged. Here.

  At least here had rails. You couldn’t hide behind them, unless the fighting on the ground—which hadn’t started—grew so ferocious no one thought to look up. The rails were marble, carved and polished so they reflected light only a little less harshly than the armor of the guards; they were, however, widely spaced. You could fit through them, in a pinch. Or at least the smaller members of the den could.

  “Your pardon, Terafin,” Meralonne APhaniel said, when the bells ceased their clamor. “But I believe you will find there has been some interference in the duties of your guards.”

  “Shall I?”

  “Yes. I thought it best, after speaking with Torvan, to stop at the gates a moment. The fire that your servants are ringing is not exactly as it seems.”

  “What?”

  He laughed. “I believe that my duty is at the gate; your young Sentrus seemed to feel that there was a ‘mage or two’ present—and it is strictly forbidden, by edict of the Magi, to practice magic of this nature in Averalaan Aramarelas without a writ of approval, signed in full.

  “Which reminds me. Terafin, I give this into your keeping, as it may become necessary if I am not in a position to defend myself after this evening.” He handed her a rolled scroll.

  “And this?”

  “A writ. Signed in full by the Council, of course.”

  She laughed. “Alayra. Accompany the mage.”

  “Is he to be in command?”

  “He is to be an adviser. A valued adviser.”

  The Captain of the Chosen nodded. “Come along, then.”

  But Meralonne APhaniel was not—yet—done. He drew a sword—from where, it was not clear—and as he swung it through the air in a wide, clean arc, light followed its edge. He bowed once. “At your service, Terafin.”

  Finch didn’t find the sound of a moving body of men much of a comfort; it came from beyond the foyer itself, and it grew. The den’s silence grew as well; they were helpless here. The rails didn’t protect them or hide them, but they sheltered behind them anyway, watching Jay, watching Carver, watching Angel.

  Teller had chosen to climb to the edge of the landing above; he was flat against the ground, two daggers in his hands. He wasn’t very good with them, but then again, neither was Finch, and she was also armed.

  Jay drew one sharp breath and pointed to a set of doors; the foyer had a few of them. There was something there.

  Shadows.

  Slow, and short, like mist rolling into a valley, but darker and thicker.

  The word Darias, which had been the sharpest, the harshest, of the words spoken below now faded, to be replaced by different words. Anger gave way to unease.

  The den had faced demons. Only Duster had faced one full on; the rest had, by the grace of her action, fled. Arann had almost died. Lefty, Lander, and Fisher had died.

  This, Finch thought, was what had killed them: this creeping, slow darkness, this sudden chill. It would suck light and warmth from the air, and finally life.

  But before she could speak, The Terafin did. Her voice was clear and strong, and she drew her sword as she spoke.

  “Terafin fought the Allasakari and their mage-born followers.” She spoke clearly, cleanly. “And became one of The Ten, revered above all others save the god-born.” She turned, then, to the foyer, and its slowly growing shadows. “Come! Your enmity began our road to greatness; let it continue that road, unhindered. We are ready!”

  The first things through the door were . . . dogs. They were larger than any dog Finch had ever seen, and their coats, unlike the mangy coats of starving strays, gleamed in the light of the chandeliers. They did not look friendly, and even behind the rails of the stairs, with a row of armed men between her and their jaws, she tensed. Brown, black and white, black and gray, gray and brown, they growled as they searched the room.

  But the dogs didn’t attack anyone; instead, they turned and stood, waiting.

  They didn’t have to wait long, and if the dogs had been a surprise, what followed them was a bigger one: a woman, barely dressed, her hair wild and matted, unlike the coats of the dogs. She moved quickly and lightly on her feet, and every movement seemed deliberate; it was almost as if the lack of clothing were natural; it clearly didn’t distress her. She glanced up at the stairs, and then she, too, stopped by the dogs, turning as if waiting.

  The Chosen began to move, then, but they moved with care.

  Following the dogs and the strange, wild woman came three people. The first, a man with hair that was golden to Angel’s pale platinum; his face was red with exertion, and his eyes—even at this distance—were dark with lack of sleep or exhaustion. He was dressed in greens with a hint of brown, and he wore a sword; he wasn’t armored. He half-led, half-dragged a woman at his side. She was shorter than the naked one and seemed more slender of build, but what was striking about her was her robes: They were a midnight blue, and they seemed to swirl at her feet as if her feet—and only her feet—were caught in a gale.

  She looked up at the stairs, and her gaze caught Jay’s. Finch knew it because Jay’s breath was sharper, as if in recognition, although none of them had ever seen the stranger before.

  Jay might have spoken; she looked as though she wanted to. But the last person through the open door was another man, and he was clearly the man the dogs and the naked woman had been waiting for. His hair was dark, his eyes were dark, and he wasn’t troubled by the same lack of sleep as the fair-haired man; he walked with two dogs, one on either side—a gray dog and a white and black that seemed to be looking behind.

  “Terafin,” the fair-haired man now said, “We’re—we’re being pursued.”

  So, Jewel thought, watching.

  Whatever was here was not here for the den. It wasn’t here, she thought, looking at the distant face of the fair-haired Hunter—Stephen?—for The Terafin either. They had come, whoever they were, in force, and they had come for these men, this woman: foreigners from the Western Kingdoms that were barely a footnote in the history Rath had attempted to teach her, so many years ago.

  “Let them through,” The Terafin said. “Let them through and close ranks behind them.”

  Her Chosen moved at once, following her steady command; they didn’t rush, but in spite of that, they moved damn fast. There was order in the way they walked, the way they stood; it was an order that was as foreign to Jewel as the lords The Terafin had ordered them, obliquely, to protect.

  Stephen nodded and stumbled forward, holding onto his companion. But the Hunter Lord—Gilliam of Elseth—did not. He looked, instead, around the open space of the brightly lit foyer, his eyes sharp, his gaze piercing. Hawk’s eyes. Bird of prey. An echo of hunting wolf.

  The dogs gathered around him, as did the wild girl.

  “Lord Elseth,” The Terafin said, the words sharp. “Please.”

  Jewel wouldn’t have dared to ignore her; she could feel her body stiffening at the command offered by a woman who
se life had been defined by command. But Lord Elseth was born noble, bred noble; her command didn’t interfere with his instincts. As if he didn’t speak—or understand—Weston, he gestured, once, and the wild girl came running to his side, followed closely by those dogs.

  Stephen of Elseth wasn’t Gilliam; he flushed, glaring at Lord Gilliam’s broad back. “Terafin,” he said, striking his unmailed chest with the flat of his naked hand. He knelt, instantly, the reverence and obedience due The Terafin’s rank reflected in every turn of limb. Which, given he wouldn’t let go of the woman in blue robes, was an accomplishment.

  What the first foreigner hadn’t offered, The Terafin saw in the second, and she seemed, to Jewel’s eye, to relax. “Speak,” she replied.

  “We—there is a demon-mage in pursuit.”

  “Demon-mage? What do you mean?”

  “She—it—calls hereself Sor Na Shannen. She is a very powerful mage, but also one of the kin. The darkness follows her; she is Lord here.”

  “Who else?”

  The question, the lack of surprise The Terafin showed, clearly surprised Lord Stephen. “Who else?”

  “Besides this demon of whom you speak. Who else follows her?”

  He frowned. Hesitated. He was not, Jewel thought, his lord’s equal; his weariness allowed fear to show. Lord Gilliam? He stood like a living statue, a thing of graven stone; he had no fear to offer. Nothing but the burning intensity of his attention, his readiness. He had drawn his sword; when, Jewel couldn’t say. She turned her attention back to Stephen, but he was now looking at the woman in midnight blue robes—the woman with the violet eyes, eyes that had, with ease, picked Jewel out of the crowded foyer, as if she could see through anything as inconsequential as stone, or wood. Or flesh.

  “The—I think—the Allasakari,” the woman said, and her voice surprised Jewel, it sounded so young.

  “You think?” There was no youth in The Terafin’s voice. No age. Nothing at that moment but steel.

  The girl—woman?—hesitated, and then she squared her slender shoulders, pulling her wrist free, at last, of Stephen’s hand. She slid equally slender hands into the moving folds of her robes, and when she withdrew them, she carried something in her hand. She cupped it with the other and held it out to The Terafin. There was defiance, in that gesture.

  From her vantage on the stairs, Jewel could see what she held. It appeared to be a glass globe, of the type that could be seen throughout the Common during festivals. Appearances, Jewel thought, her own breath catching, her hands suddenly cold and tingling, were deceiving. She knew it. This was no cheap trick, no prop used to separate people from their money.

  It was far, far worse.

  Jewel could see it, for a moment, not as something separate from the young woman but as something integral and intrinsic, and she felt, watching, that a heart still beating would somehow feel like this if it were held in hands after you’d pulled it from your own chest. She had never stood so exposed, and hoped never, ever to do so.

  And yet, exposed, the young woman seemed to shed her hesitance and her fear. The Terafin looked at what she held, and her brows lifted slightly, as if she knew it for what it was.

  “Allasakari,” the girl said, speaking without inflection. “They wear pendants; they bear the scars. They carry the darkness, Terafin; they barely contain it, and it will consume them if they do not find release.”

  “Numbers?” The Terafin asked, as if the words had no effect.

  “Thirty. Maybe a few more or less. There is one other mage with them, and his signature is powerful.” The girl continued to stare into the depths of what she held, but she fell silent; her brow creased in mild confusion, as if she could no longer understand all of what she was seeing.

  And it was seeing, Jewel realized. The odd visions and nightmares that came to Jewel, this woman was somehow evoking—at will—through the crystal she held in her hands. Jewel had always desired that much control over her wild gift, but seeing it wielded, she swallowed. The price, she thought, although she didn’t know why.

  “Put it away, child,” The Terafin said quietly. She turned away. “We have no more need of your sight now.”

  She lifted her head, and the Chosen stiffened.

  Out of the Southern hall that had disgorged dogs and Hunter Lords and wild girl, there now came shadows, dense as night, and where they touched the light cast by chandeliers, the light grayed and dimmed.

  “Stand back!” The young woman in midnight robes cried. Her voice was not The Terafin’s voice; it was not—yet—a voice accustomed to command. But they heard her. “Get out of its way—it’s deadly to you unless you’re shielded!”

  Even had she been accustomed to command, the Chosen wouldn’t have moved. Jewel knew it, but she’d had months in House Terafin; nothing came between those men and women and the lord they had vowed to serve; nothing but death. Death approached.

  “Evayne,” Stephen of Elseth said, “The Terafin is no fool. Trust her.”

  So, Jewel thought. Evayne. The girl’s name was Evayne.

  “She doesn’t know—no one does—”

  “Trust her,” he said again, and this time he caught her shoulders in his hands. He didn’t move, didn’t attempt to move her; he stood, just beyond the wall of the Chosen and their lord, and he watched as the shadows grew taller and denser.

  What he saw didn’t, in Jewel’s estimation, surprise him.

  But it did surprise her. A woman stepped into the foyer. She was tall and grand, and she wore power like a veil; she wore shadows like robes, but they didn’t dim her light. Evayne had said there were thirty others, but they seemed unimportant, an afterthought: This woman was their lord, their leader.

  She wore no armor, bore no arms, and barely bothered with clothing; her hair, spun long and fine and dark, trailed down her body. Her skin was the white of snow, her lips the red of new blood, wet and glistening. She was impossibly beautiful, and although her presence promised death—or worse—she was compelling. For the first time, Jewel understood what darkness offered and why men—and women—chose to give their lives to it.

  But it was not that allure, not that invitation, that held her; it was the shock of recognition. She had seen this woman once before in a dream. In three dreams, when Rath had been alive and she could turn to him in terror for guidance or comfort.

  The woman smiled. She glanced at The Terafin, at her Chosen, and at the people who stood beyond them in the hall.

  “This is almost a worthy welcome,” she said “A fitting beginning for what is to follow. Lay down your arms, turn over to me those three who are my rightful quarry, and you will come to me in peace. Fight me, and you will come in pain.”

  There was no doubt at all in her voice that they would, in the end, be hers. And for a moment, there was no doubt in Jewel’s mind—and in the mind of her den—either.

  “That is not much of a choice.”

  Jewel shook herself. She recognized the voice, but it was strangely distorted; it was as clear, as strong, and as compelling in its way as the woman’s.

  Meralonne APhaniel strode into the foyer, coming from the Northern halls, as the woman had come in her dark majesty from the South. His hair flew loose, white to her black, across his chest and back. He was neither light nor warmth to her cool and disturbing darkness, but something in him suggested moonlight or starlight, something born in darkness that still shines.

  This, Jewel thought, as if waking from a slow, long dream, was the man at whom she’d shouted in her breakfast nook; this was the man whose endless smoking of pipe had been among his most notable characteristics. He wore a sword, and it shone, pale blue, reflecting no cast light.

  And he looked young, Jewel thought; young and yet ancient.

  “What is this?” The woman said softly, forgetting for a moment the three foreigners, the House Lord, and the Chosen.

  His reply? He swung that sword in a wide arc. Light flared from its edge, and it was a light that cut and pierced her shadows.
Those shadows lost power and menace, becoming once again the detritus of light, no more.

  Her eyes widened. Her pale, perfect arms rose in an arc and the shadows in which she stood moved forward slowly, as if seeking to reclaim lost ground. “I do not know how you come to be here,” she said, her voice cold, her fury like a winter storm. “But this is not your battle. I have chosen these as my own. Remember it, and you may walk from the field.”

  “It is not for one such as you to choose my battles for me. And as for these—surely they will decide their own fate.” He laughed then, and the laughter was wild.

  “Very well.” Her hands fell, breaking the arc; the shadows faltered and shuddered, and when at last they parted, a man stood by her side. He was both taller and older than she, at least in appearance; his face was square and lined. Dark hair and dark beard had given way to time’s passage, and silver streaked both, but for all that, he wasn’t old. His wore simple, gray robes; they seemed almost out of place. He, like she, wore no armor and carried no weapons.

  She turned to her companion, thus revealed. “Kill him.”

  He glanced at her and then away. Jewel thought she understood why; it was very, very hard to take her eyes off the woman. But he managed and turned to Meralonne.

  “Well met, Member APhaniel.” There was no friendliness at all in the greeting; there was barely grudging acknowledgment.

  “Krysanthos,” Meralonne said softly, after a long pause.

  “Indeed.”

  “I believe you barely made Second Circle at the last ordination.” These were the first words he’d spoken that made him sound as if he might just be the same mage that Jewel had worked beside for so damn long.

  “Should I have revealed more of my powers to the Council? It was only barely worth the effort I did put in. But I am curious, APhaniel. Why do you play with the sorry sticks,” he glanced at the sword in the mage’s hand, “of lesser men when you have the power of the mage-born?”