House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  Torvan said nothing as they walked. Which was bad. She knew she’d disappointed him, and she tried very, very hard to care more. But it seemed as though so much of it was a game of waiting and pretending to act, and she wanted to scream against the injustice of it. Instead, she was silent, aware that if it was a game, it was a deadly serious one, and if they lost, more than money or a single life would be destroyed.

  She’d never been good at this. She wondered if she ever would be.

  Torvan left her at the doors of the wing, and she pushed them open. Ellerson raised a brow as she slid in, shoulders slumped. “Kitchen?” he asked softly.

  “No, thanks. There’s no news.”

  The white of that brow drew higher.

  “I lost my temper,” she told him.

  “Please tell me you did not lose your temper at the head of the Church of Cartanis.”

  Carver slid around the doorframe and into view, followed by Angel. Arann was—no surprise—patrolling the halls and the grounds as a show of force to impress Caras. But Finch and Teller were also awake, as was Jester, and they gathered in the sitting room.

  She hesitated and then gave up. “Kitchen,” she told them, because they were milling around looking awkward, and at least there she could tell them all to sit the hell down.

  There was a knock at the door. Or rather, something louder and more demanding. Jewel glanced at Ellerson, and flinched. “We’re not expecting visitors, are we?” she said, without much hope.

  “No. Exactly what did you say to the son of Cartanis, Jewel?”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. We’re going to the kitchen. If I’ve pissed off The Terafin enough that it’s not our kitchen anymore, you can come and show us the door.”

  They crowded around the kitchen table, this den of hers.

  “What did you say?” Teller asked her softly when Ellerson failed to return instantly to kick them all out.

  Jewel grimaced. “I told him what I thought of his waiting. Something bad might happen if the Sleepers wake—it’s why they’re dragging their heels.”

  “He’s god-born,” Finch said, speaking just as quietly as Teller. “If it’s something the gods fear—”

  “They’re just afraid of facing their own deaths. They don’t care about ours!”

  “If the gods die—”

  “Only one of them has to die,” she snapped.

  “And the risk to the others?”

  The problem with shouting is it drowns out the little noises. And a man in that much armor shouldn’t have been able to walk making little noises. Jewel turned to face Caras. The Terafin was not with him, but neither were his honor guards, or whatever he called them. Ellerson was standing on the wrong side of the door, at a respectful distance.

  Jewel stood instantly—almost everyone in the room did—and she flushed because he would have to walk in on this discussion. But she’d said it, she believed it, and she wasn’t willing to apologize for either. They were gods. If the gods gave in to their fears, what chance did anyone else have?

  “What would you sacrifice, little seer, in order to win this war? Would you sacrifice your friends? Would you see them die so that strangers might live?” He glanced around the room—and froze when his eyes reached Angel. His brows rose, revealing a little more of golden irises in a Winter face.

  “So,” he said, after a long pause. He lifted a hand. It was not, to Jewel’s eyes, a salute; there was command in the gesture.

  Angel didn’t have Jay’s temper, and he didn’t have the depth of the fury that sometimes drove her—but like any of her den-kin, he’d benefited from it in his time.

  “You are of Weyrdon,” the man said quietly.

  He knew the god-born had golden eyes. In some way, this man was brother to the only other that he’d met. He nodded.

  “You are Garroc’s son.” It wasn’t a question. Nor did Angel wonder how or why he knew.

  “My father was Weyrdon. My mother was not. I was born in the Empire.”

  “Your father was sent into the Empire. Do you understand what he sought?”

  “Yes.” Angel spoke the word firmly, as if there were no doubt. There was; he didn’t choose to share it.

  “Your father did not complete his task before his death. It was a warrior’s death,” the man added, “and he was honored for it, and for undertaking his long exile from home and kin.”

  Angel said nothing. The silence extended, as if some answer were expected to fill it, although no question had been asked.

  “What rite of passage did you undergo to be Weyrdon?”

  After another pause, Angel said, “I am Angel, son of Garroc. Who questions me?”

  A pale brow rose, and then the man chuckled. “I am Caras, son of Cartanis. Weyrdon is my brother and my father’s son, and his fight is the long fight. Garroc’s mission was known to me, although I met him but once. In truth, I did not think the time right for his exile.

  “But I did not see the growing shadow until it was—almost—upon us. Night is coming,” he added. “I ask again: What rite of passage marked you as man among your kin?”

  “I survived.” Angel hesitated for a moment, and then he slipped into Rendish. “If you question my worth to Weyrdon, you must question Weyrdon. I cannot speak for him.”

  “A fair answer,” Caras replied—in Rendish. “Have you found what Weyrdon sought?”

  “I don’t know what Weyrdon sought. I know what he asked me to seek.”

  “And you will find it, or you will fail. Your failure will be costly in ways even I cannot perceive. I have lived in the Empire for most of my adult life; it is cold in ways that the North never was. I knew of Garroc’s quest, as I said—but I had no aid and no advice to offer. I have met all of the leaders of note and power in this land, and I cannot see in them any end to Weyrdon’s quest; I see their mortality.”

  “You came here tonight to meet me.”

  “I had some word that you might have arrived at this place,” Caras replied. “And I had some pretext for visiting. Tell me, Angel, Garroc’s son, do you serve The Terafin?”

  “No.”

  “And is it your intent to offer her your oath? Is she the Lord you have chosen?”

  “The Lord I serve,” Angel said carefully, “is not Cartanis. Cartanis was my father’s god, but he was not my father’s Lord. I follow his tenets, but I do not owe him obedience.”

  “Which means you will not answer.”

  “I will answer because I choose to aid the son of Cartanis. I will not answer because I owe him more than that courtesy.”

  “The question of who holds your oath is a question most men will own, with pride, in public.”

  “Garroc was sent—in private, in apparent disgrace—from Weyrdon’s side. There was nothing public about his quest, and in the end, I choose to believe there were reasons for his secrecy and his privacy.”

  “Or reasons for your anger on his behalf?” Caras asked softly. “He would not have desired it.”

  Angel didn’t answer. When the pause was significant enough to indicate the end of that small part of the conversation, Angel said, “I will not offer my service to The Terafin.”

  “Why, then, are you here, son of Garroc?”

  Angel was silent. Gold was the color of dreams and money, of wealth and power. It was also the color of war; he saw it in the eyes of the son of Cartanis, and he didn’t flinch. War, little understood, had taken both his father and mother, and it had led Angel on the long, bitter road to this city, where despair and a certain sense of failure had almost destroyed him.

  It hadn’t, and he knew why.

  He thought, as Caras watched, that he had always known. He had never put it into words, because words—for the men of Weyrdon—were a matter of life and death. But they were facing life and death now, across the breadth of Averalaan—and if they did not somehow succeed, that death would march across the lands to the North, South, and West. It would devour fields and farmers who labored in ignorance; it wou
ld kill old and young, warriors and those for whom, in the end, they chose to go to war.

  But success wasn’t in their hands. Jay had made that bitterly clear. Whatever they’d managed, they’d done by accident and in desperation, and what was left was now in the hands of the Kings, their soldiers, and the god-born. Caras.

  What was in Angel’s hands, what had always, in the end, been in his hands, was choice. It was a simple choice, really, because it felt like no choice at all; it just was. His glance flickered off Caras’ face and to Ellerson’s, who stood to one side of the swinging doors—doors that were now closed.

  He thought Ellerson smiled. It was his usual stiff, minimal smile, but Angel took comfort from it.

  He straightened his shoulders slightly. “I’m here,” he said quietly, “because Jay is here. I go where she goes.” He spoke in Rendish, only partly because it meant no one else in the room would understand the words, or question them.

  Caras frowned, and then his eyes widened slightly. He turned to look at Jay, who was watching him in an intent—and because it was Jay, angry—silence. “This one?” he said to Angel, although he didn’t look away from her.

  “Yes. I won’t offer The Terafin my oath because it would be false the moment I did. Weyrdon didn’t tell me to find a Lord that he would be willing to follow; he told me to find one that I would.”

  “She has not taken your oath.”

  “No. That’s not—” he winced. “It’s not what she’s like. She wouldn’t understand it, and she’d probably be embarrassed. It doesn’t matter; my oath isn’t about her, in the end; it’s mine. I’m not her slave and I’m not her servant. But where she goes, I follow. She doesn’t need a formal oath to understand that.”

  “She’s a child.”

  “So am I, by that reckoning. But if it weren’t for her, we’d have no hope at all; Allasakar would have remained undetected until it was too late.”

  Caras almost took a step back at Angel’s bold use of the name.

  “And if it weren’t for your hesitation, we might have already saved lives,” Angel continued. He spoke without Jay’s heat or her obvious anger, as if he were merely making an observation. But he spoke, again, in Rendish.

  Caras almost seemed not to have heard. He looked at Jay for a long moment, and she continued to hold his gaze.

  To Angel’s surprise, Caras bowed to her. Judging from Jay’s expression, it surprised her even more.

  In Weston, the son of Cartanis said, when he rose, “Very well, little seer. For good or ill, I will join the god-born and the Exalted before the Sanctum of Moorelas. If it eases you, there are reasons for the delay that have little to do with cowardice or our lack of desire for battle.” His smile was grim, but there was humor in it, given his father. “If the Lord of the Hells is to be defeated in Averalaan—or beneath it—there is only one living force that can meet him on the field of battle with any hope of success.

  “If what The Terafin said is accurate, you have already seen him once, and you have seen the death he brings—but he was not at his full strength when he was last summoned, and we believe it was costly in ways that the gods of old could not have conceived when they agreed to abide by the Covenant that bars them forever from walking these lands.

  “Only three did not make the that binding oath, and among those three are the one we do not name, who rules in the Hells, and Bredan, the Lord of Oaths. It is Bredan who must be called, and in his full power, and there is but one day—by his own oath to an almost forgotten people—upon which that can occur.

  “The Hunters of the Western Kingdoms call that day, which we call the first of Veral, the day of the Sacred Hunt.”

  “The first of Veral.”

  He nodded. “The ceremony is long and it is arduous, although to you it will look like simple words and gestures. But it will avail us little to open the Sanctum to any force at all if we do not open it at that time.”

  Her shoulders slumped a little. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Yes?”

  “It eases me. To know that there’s a reason. Even then—”

  “You do not have a warrior’s heart,” he said softly. “But you will need it in the years to come. Honor your fallen; weep for them openly. But do not let the guilt of their loss destroy you. If it does, you have surrendered before the war has truly started; there is no better way for the enemy to harm us than that.

  “Why do you think they kill and torture as they do? It is to break people who might otherwise have the will and the heart to stand against the darkness they bring.”

  The anger drained out of her face, and Angel missed it; what was left was almost painful to look at. “There must be something—”

  “That you can do? Oh, ATerafin, there will be. But it is not, yet, your time, and if you are broken, bitter, and caught in the self-loathing of guilt, will you be able to do what must be done?”

  “But I don’t know what has to be done—”

  “No. But you are seer-born; I know of only one other in the Empire.”

  “Evayne?” Jewel asked quietly.

  “So. You’ve met; I should have known. Yes, I speak of Evayne. She has chosen the longest road, and the darkest one, and perhaps because she has, you will not be faced with the same choice. I do not know,” he added. “She is mortal, and as all mortals, in time, she must fail or wither. Before you speak, understand that it is also my fate; I do not judge.

  “It is my belief, ATerafin, that you will know what must be done when the time is right. Perhaps only then. Do not let your fear be your only guide.”

  “I’m not afraid—”

  “Fear of the consequences of failure is still, in the end, fear.” He bowed again. “This will not be the last time we meet. Perhaps the next time,” he added, with a smile that was wry but warmer, “I may bring my men without fear of their justifiable reaction to your manners.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  28th of Henden, 410 A. A.

  The Sanctum of Moorelas, Averalaan Aramarelas

  THE HUNTER LORD, Gilliam of Elseth, stood in silence. He wasn’t alone; the dogs from which he refused to be separated—which had caused some difficulty among the servants, according to Carver—stood like sentinels by his side, and the woman, Espere, her hair still unkempt although she’d been wedged into clothing, wandered among them, nudging them from time to time. She glanced at Lord Gilliam as if she wanted to be beside him, but although she approached, she shied away just as quickly.

  Jewel watched them. They weren’t far from the Terafin House Guards, but they existed in their own little world. Lord Gilliam wore leather armor, no tabard, and a cloak that was both fine and worn. In the gray of this midnight hour, the colors were blurred and dark. The only thing that drew the eye was the spear he carried. To Jewel’s eye, it shone faintly, like dampened moonlight; it was white, and it seemed to demand the whole of his attention.

  He didn’t speak. Not to The Terafin. Not to his sole living companion. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words—sharp words, usually about the handling of his dogs—since Stephen had died. Carver had said the servants worried about him; he ate little, slept poorly, and paced the confines of any room he was trapped in. As if he were waiting.

  He was. She saw it in his face, in the gaunt dark circles beneath his eyes. Those circles were visible even in the muted light. His brother was dead, and he meant to avenge that death and have peace. She understood his desire, and she felt a bitter, piercing envy, because, knuckles white on the haft of the spear, he was going to do it. He was important enough, old enough, skilled enough, that he would descend into the Sanctum at the side of Kings and mages—if the damn thing ever opened.

  She would not.

  She’d wait, like every other terrified person in the city, until dawn. If dawn came. And she was terrified. Watching Lord Gilliam, she couldn’t doubt that he knew how to use the spear; having seen him once, in the ruins of the Terafin foyer, she knew damn well that he would use it against anything
. Fear didn’t paralyze him—he barely seemed to notice it at all.

  She could daydream about being a hero. But her nightmares were different; in those, faced with the things she feared most, she ran. Or she froze. She didn’t want to admit that she’d do the same damn thing in the undercity. Then again, no one had asked. The Terafin and Devon had discussed her role briefly. Jewel was to remain with The Terafin. Devon had pointed out that Jewel’s intermittent and unpredictable visions might be of use; The Terafin had fixed him with a polite stare, after which he’d fallen silent. Neat trick, that; Jewel thought she’d have to learn it one day.

  But not today. Not tonight, so close to the edge.

  The god-born had gathered around the standing statue of Moorelas; in the moonlight, and the damp, cold wind that blew off the sea, they had set up their braziers, their small fires protected by lids or lesser priests. They had greeted each other formally and stiffly, and they had each in turn looked up at Moorelas’ stone visage as if seeking a sign.

  Gods might walk the earth again, but statues didn’t. He looked beyond them, his expression as grave and graven as it had always been. And so they positioned themselves: the three Exalted, the sons of Mandaros, Cartanis, and Teos, Lord of Knowledge, and the two sons of Cormaris and Reymaris, who between them guided the whole of the Empire from its coastal cities to its inland holdings. That had been almost twelve hours ago, according to Morretz. At this time of night, it was hard for Jewel to gauge the passing of time, but she would have guessed longer. No one had asked her.

  The god-born chanted, as Caras had said they would. And as he had said it would, it looked to her like a lot of almost singing—but the words they almost sang made no sense to her. The syllables were full and deep, and they were spoken with a perfect synchronicty—but they were in no language that she recognized. It wasn’t Old Weston. She wondered, briefly, whether it was the spoken form of the rune that had girded the closed door through which she and Duster had prayed their way, or the runes that had adorned the floor, longer than she was tall. She couldn’t ask, of course.