House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  Nor was he a messenger, for he approached the last empty chair, the Council Seat reserved for House Darias since the founding of the Empire. He did not take it, but he touched the height of its curved back a moment, as if to derive strength from the contact.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I am Parsus ADarias.” He tendered a full and respectful bow to the room at large.

  “ADarias?” The Morriset asked.

  “The House Council of Darias has sent me to take the seat of Darias at this time. Were the circumstances different, the seat would be left vacant.”

  “What game are you playing?” The Terafin said, coolly.

  “Terafin.” He offered a second bow, and it was both exquisite and perfect. “We play no game. The nature of your accusation was made clear to us after the Council of The Ten met yesterday.” He raised a hand. “We do not doubt your word. What you state must have happened the way you said it did; you are The Terafin—you know the cost better than any of The Ten, and you would not have brought news of this House altercation into royal play were the threat not so great.

  “There is no defense that Archon ADarias can make for his actions.”

  Archon. He’d said Archon ADarias.

  Amarais did not flinch, and she did not close her eyes, but some small part of the anger that she’d nurtured since the Exalted had come to both cleanse and bury her fallen eased. It wouldn’t bring them back to life. Nothing would, save the long journey to the bridge of Mandaros, and the Halls of the Lord of Judgment.

  “Yes,” the man said softly. “Archon ADarias resigned in disgrace from the title of Darias and the seat.” He lifted his face, his pale, beardless face, and for just a moment, Amarais saw a loss that was felt as deeply, as personally, as she felt her own. It did not humble her. “His wishes for the disposition of his lands and his title have been set aside; there is no longer an heir to the seat, and until such time as one is chosen, I will rule as regent.”

  “And the—and Archon ADarias?”

  “The First Day rites have been observed by the priests of the House Chapel.”

  Archon had always favored Cartanis.

  “Terafin,” Parsus ADarias continued, “the assessment of your claim against Archon ADarias is under review. The House will reach its decision shortly.”

  She nodded, gracious in victory. It was difficult; something this hollow and painful was seldom considered victory.

  “Very well,” The Berrilya said, while Amarais absorbed this change of fortune, this unexpected end of an old and worthy adversary. “Now, we must come to a decision of our own. Let the meeting commence, Terafin. Tell us, now, what you know.”

  Quietly, she began to speak. She had, at hand, several documents prepared by Gabriel; she did not refer to them; she had no need. When objections were raised, she would find the relevant information and hand it to the person objecting. For this reason, the meeting was not brief.

  She covered the question of Cordufar and its holdings, the possibility of disappearances—and deaths—occurring in the inner holdings for literally a decade, and the probability of a compromised Magisterium.

  The Garisar did not object to this, but he did raise a hand.

  “I am not now, nor have I ever been, involved in a procedural way with the Magisterium,” The Terafin said, before he could speak. “What I bring to the table is observation, no more.”

  He nodded, and she handed him a report. But his glance across its pages was brief.

  She spoke slowly, deliberately, and openly. And when, at last, she came to the matter of Rath, there was another silence as the implications hit home.

  “You are saying the demons could be anyone.”

  She nodded. “Or so said Member APhaniel; in this, I would trust his opinion.”

  “You realize the panic that this could cause?”

  She nodded again. “It is for that reason that this is not widely known. There are ways of detecting the kin,” she added softly. “They are not without risk.”

  “Magical?”

  “Of a sort. Talent, definitely. One foreigner, whom I have not yet mentioned, had a sensitivity to the demons; he resided for some small while in Avantari for this reason. He is,” she added softly, “dead.” So she came last to the battle that was closest: the god, the demon, the Allasakari and the sacrifice of one foreign Hunter.

  After that, the Council sat in silence. They looked to Parsus ADarias, as did The Terafin, but they demanded no more of him while they absorbed the information.

  “The Kings must know,” The Kalakar finally said.

  “That is now my belief,” The Terafin replied. “And yes, Garisar, I am aware that I have come late to it. I believe we must inform them, we must inspect our own ranks carefully, and we must provide them with all public—and private—support in the actions they choose to take henceforth.” She hesitated once more and then said, “I have not yet spoken of what I believe the demons intend.”

  They watched her now; if any resented the fact that she held all of the information of value, it did not show.

  “I have in my employ a young woman and her companions. They lived for some time in the inner holdings; they are not old enough to have been suspicious of the magisterial guard in any way that was not natural to their station.

  “Some of the information I received came from them. The most significant, to my mind, was the existence of what they call the maze, or the undercity. They spent some years combing through the ruins of ancient buildings in the dark, in secret.

  “When the young woman came to work for me, however, she discovered that all of the entrances with which she was familiar had been closed. We’ve ascertained that the closure was magical in nature—and that it was a very powerful magic that is not in general practice.”

  “What do you mean, not in general practice?”

  “Member APhaniel felt that it was impossible.”

  “Ah. That version.” The Morriset waved a thick hand. “My apologies, Terafin. Continue.”

  “And no apologies to the rest of us?” The Wayelyn said, with a deep smile.

  “I was hardly interrupting anything worthwhile from you.”

  The Wayelyn laughed. The Berrilya frowned. The Kalakar chuckled briefly.

  “Be that as it may,” Amarais said, her lips curving in the slightest of smiles, “the ways into that maze, that city-beneath-the-city, were closed. She spent some weeks in the company of Member APhaniel ascertaining just this fact. I believe that our greatest danger lies beneath the streets of the city. We cannot, obviously, simply lift a shovel and dig—and even were we to start, it is my belief that we would meet resistance. It is not the type of resistance that can be effectively countered without the aid of both the magi and the Exalted.

  “I have therefore taken the liberty,” she said, rising, “of preparing a document which would travel—immediately—to the Kings’ Court. I have also requested the unencumbered aid of the Order of Knowledge. I have no doubt, however, that the Order will treat directly with the Kings.

  “If you would read and review what is written, and sign and seal it should it meet your approval, we may adjourn and repair to our Houses to begin to deal with our enemies.

  “ADarias,” she said quietly.

  “Terafin.” He was pale, and he was new enough to his position that he could not dampen the fear her words had invoked. But it was not fear for himself and not, in the end, fear for his House; what further disgrace could his House now suffer?

  “We require access to the estates of Lord Cordufar.”

  Parsus tensed, and his fair skin darkened slightly. “It is not,” he finally said, “in my hands, Terafin. Nor is it—entirely—in the hands of the House Council.”

  “How so?”

  “Cordufar was leige, but he was not encumbered; his lands were entirely his own.”

  She waited, sensing more to come; she waited patiently. Even during the worst of the war for her own seat, she had been patient.

  “When The D
ar—when Archon ADarias returned from Avantari yesterday, he called an immediate meeting of the House Council; it was brief. He summoned the House Mage to the Council Meeting; we expected there would be some delay.”

  She grimaced. Even the most highly paid Members of the Order of Knowledge were not known for their ability to arrive anywhere in haste, especially not when it involved a Council Meeting of any variety.

  “The Member that serves House Darias arrived shortly after the last of the House Council had gathered; he arrived at the side of Guildmaster Mellifas. She was not expected; the House Council had no time to prepare for her presence.

  “There was some internal difficulty that—” he paled, swallowed, and shook his head. “There was some difficulty, and in the end, the arrival of the House Mage and Member Mellifas put a stop to it. More than that is not relevant to the matters at hand. The Darias then put the emergency session on permanent hold; the subject that was to be discussed had been presented in a way that the remaining Council members could not ignore.”

  Remaining, Amarais thought. She was not the only member of The Ten to note the word.

  “Words were exchanged—in haste—between the guildmaster and Archon ADarias, at the end of which, it was agreed that a small delegation would be sent to House Cordufar. Guildmaster Mellifas felt that speed was of the essence, for she felt it probable that Lord Cordufar now knew that The Darias was aware of some of his activities.” He fell silent for a moment, his gaze resting on the spotless surface of the large, long table upon which documents of import were placed.

  “The delegation was sent?” The Terafin asked.

  He nodded, still staring at the table. “It was sent. Some handful of The Darias’ personal guard, two members of the Council, and two members of the Order of Knowledge, Sigurne Mellifas and one other. She did not take the Darias House Mage, and it is our suspicion that he had no desire whatever to accompany her.

  “I did not recognize the mage that she did choose,” he added, and this time he did look up. “But I believe she called him APhaniel.

  “They left. It is not far to the Cordufar estates from House Darias, although the estates themselves are situated on the mainland and not on the Isle. The Darias frequently discussed this with Lord Cordufar, for he felt that a merchant of Cordufar’s obvious competence and power should own land on the Isle—and went so far as to offer some small parcel of Darias lands for that purpose.

  “Lord Cordufar, however, declined.”

  She nodded, wondering how long to give him. He was not a man who was accustomed to either the role thrust upon him or the upheaval that had led to it, and whatever it was he was trying to say required this verbal equivalent of walking in tight, nervous circles. But that required time, and time, she felt keenly, was something they no longer had.

  Because of her choice.

  “ADarias,” she said, speaking gently. “The results of the visit?”

  He lifted his graying face, then. “All but the magi and one member of the Darias personal guard died there. There was, in theory, enough magic used to level the entire manse. Lord Cordufar is not, now, an issue.”

  Amarais felt the ground shift beneath her feet and wondered, briefly, if the shift would support her position or not.

  “Any permission required to access the Cordufar estates now rests in the hands of the Order of Knowledge—and the Kings. I do not know,” he added, shaking himself and straightening his back, “what you hope to discover there.”

  “What we hope, what the Kings will soon hope, is to discover some entrance into these tunnels and streets that lay beneath the city. If, as we now believe, Lord Cordufar was intimately acquainted with what occurred, it is inconceivable that he himself had no way to enter the maze.

  “The estates, the lands on which they sit, are our best hope.” She rose, then. “I will make my plea to the Kings, and I will speak with the guildmaster. I believe they will grant my petition.” She glanced around the long Council table; there were no raised objections. “I have already begun discussions with the Exalted. They are . . . grim. I will, should the Council vote to do so, report upon the results of those discussions when we reconvene.”

  “What can you hope to achieve that they cannot achieve on their own?”

  What answer could she give that did not expose more of her hand—good and bad—than was wise? “We must all do what we can,” she replied. “And Terafin House resources encompass many people with many different skills.”

  14th of Corvil, 410 A.A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Ellerson woke Jewel early on the morning of the fourteenth.

  He had spent most of the night on a pallet by the wall farthest from her bed. He had taken the liberty of requesting the purchase of a magestone for her personal use; it had not yet arrived. Given the destruction of the gardens and the devastation of the foyer, it was likely to be very, very delayed; nor did he feel a great and pressing need to remind anyone of his trivial request.

  Still, the duties that he had adopted for the long stretch of night made him feel the full weight of his age. He was no longer a young man. Even as a young man, he had seldom served anyone whose path crossed the paths of so many of the powerful.

  Yet crossing those paths and making them were not, in the end, the same; Jewel Markess slept poorly and woke frequently, screaming or whimpering. Dreams did not break when she did; they withered slowly, clinging as they died. But the light helped, and he kept it burning. He tended a lamp, refilling it as the oil dwindled.

  She did not stir when he walked across the floor, did not stir when he lifted the lamp; she did if the light receded significantly, as if aware, even in dream, of its absence. For this reason, he worked at her bedside.

  Her dreams troubled him. She did not speak of them to the den except in a veiled, offhand way. As if they were not important. But he had seen enough of Jewel Markess and her den to know that they were.

  When night faded into a slow dawn, she slept peacefully; at this time, he took his leave and returned to his own small rooms. They were not, in any way, the equal of hers—but the bed was vastly more comfortable than the unobtrusive pallet.

  It was from this room that he was summoned at dawn.

  He dressed quickly and efficiently, and he departed, heading toward the doors of the wing. There, he met a man who was by now more than passingly familiar: Meralonne APhaniel.

  He bowed. “Member APhaniel.”

  “Wake Jewel Markess if she is, as I suspect, sleeping. I would speak with her.”

  Ellerson hesitated; the night had been long and severely broken. The Terafin had reached no decision about the fate of Torvan ATerafin in the wake of the attack, and he knew it troubled the entire den, adding to their tension and their lack of sleep. But he glanced once at Meralonne APhaniel, and he nodded instead. “I will bring her immediately,” he replied.

  Meralonne grimaced. “I have worked at her side for more than a month. I am well aware of what the word immediately entails. I will wait,” he added, drawing his pipe from his robes, “in the usual room.”

  Jewel met Meralonne in a breakfast nook that was already thick with the haze of pipe smoke. She could have pretended to resent it, but instead she slid down onto the long bench on the wall side of the table. She had often spent mornings on a similar bench while her Oma smoked her pipe, and her Oma was often as difficult and ill tempered as this man. She had certainly been more terrifying.

  Meralonne was in the process of emptying and refilling the pipe’s bowl, and Jewel was still quiet with sleep; she watched his long and supple fingers as they worked. But his silence couldn’t last; he didn’t usually come to be silent at her.

  “I am here,” he told her quietly, “at the request of The Terafin. I am not, however, here in the capacity of the Terafin mage; I am here as a member of the Magi, the governing body of the Order of Knowledge.”

  She nodded as if this made sense. It didn’t. She didn’t particularly care why he wa
s here, after all.

  “After some deliberation,” he said, following a pause in which she might insert any words she could find, “it was decided that The Terafin’s request to be allowed access to the Cordufar estates within the city would be granted. You are to accompany Devon ATerafin to the Cordufar manse.”

  Her brows rose. “You mean Lord Cordufar’s estate?” Sleep fled then, and she would have joined it had she dared.

  His expression was distinctly unusual. Nor did he answer for a moment, although she expected the usual words that he dredged out of nowhere, dripping with sarcasm. But he lit his pipe as he watched her expression shift from half asleep to wide awake.

  “Understand, Jewel Markess,” he said, sounding more like Ellerson than he ever had, “that the time for games has passed.”

  She wasn’t playing games and opened her mouth to say as much. Closed it. No point.

  “Devon ATerafin is trusted by the Kings,” he continued. “You are not known to them. You are, however, trusted by Devon ATerafin, or you would not be accompanying him. I did not think it entirely necessary.”

  “Did you think it entirely unnecessary?”

  His lips curved in a slight smile, and he tipped the smoldering pipe in her direction. But the smile never quite reached his eyes. “You are not what I expected when I was first tasked with accompanying you. I see you as little more than a child.”

  She bridled. It was early in the morning, and she hadn’t eaten anything but pipe smoke.

  “But in this battle, it doesn’t matter whether or not I see truly. Children will die.” He paused. “You cannot prevent it,” he added softly. “All that you do, all that you can do, will define in the end how many.”

  Her throat went dry.

  He nodded. “What happened in the Terafin manse was not arranged in a matter of hours or days. It was the only warning we will be offered. If,” he added softly, “we are fortunate. But it was offered because our enemies now feel we are almost out of time.