House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  She nodded. She said no more, and Devon, familiar with the erratic and incomplete nature of Jewel Markess’ gift, did not expect it, even from a woman decades older and demonstrably more learned. But he readied himself, with a single nod at Duvari.

  Duvari spoke briefly with the Kings. He was not pleased that their guide was a stranger. Nor would he have been pleased had it been otherwise. Duvari did not have more than a passing knowledge of joy, and inasmuch as he had retained that knowledge, it was always secondhand. But the Kings chose to examine the lay of the land, and this cavern, its heights momentarily—and carefully—illuminated by the magi, had the widest path, the most open area, in which to make a stand.

  Nor did they doubt that they would have to do so; they gave their quiet orders while Evayne watched.

  It was not long before Devon sensed movement, and it was the unsettling movement of the rock beneath his feet. In response, small pebbles fell from the heights of the rounded walls to either side of their momentary encampment, the sounds echoing in the sudden silence, as all men strained for a glimpse, in the shadowed light, of the danger they now faced.

  The Kings, however, obeyed Duvari’s “request” to retreat, and he sent the Astari forward to encircle them. Devon was one of those Astari; he watched and he listened. But unlike his compatriots, he watched the seer and waited. Her face was a mask, but the sounds and the movement didn’t startle her. She was alert, aware—aware even of his gaze and his interest. It forced the hint of a smile from her lips, but it was a smile that would have been at home on Duvari’s face.

  Or rather, on Duvari’s face at a different time.

  “What is the cause of this?” Duvari demanded, as the ground once again heaved beneath their feet.

  “Some sort of magic,” Sigurne Mellifas replied, little liking his tone.

  Were the Lord of the Compact a less literal man, his sarcasm might have reverberated in angry echoes down the length of the hall. He was, however, Duvari. “Can you counter it?”

  “Not if we don’t know it’s type, no.” She said more, but Devon lost her words as the floor of the cavern once again shifted beneath their feet. This time the shifting lasted longer, and the walls and the rock-riddled cavern above them shook as well, shedding splinters.

  When the ground had stilled, Devon looked to the Kings; they were calm, their eyes a steady, unblinking gold that offered certainty, if it was required. He shifted his gaze to Evayne.

  She stood alone in the darkness, and he saw that she now held the orb, the seer’s crystal, between her curved palms. It cast a subtle, moving light across her features. She was not young, not close; her eyes were wide and unblinking, her pupils so enlarged her irises seemed to be all black. They reflected nothing at this distance, but he thought—and why, he wasn’t certain—of a child momentarily captivated by the corpse of a dog or a cat in the market, her expression turned from concern and horror to confusion. She wasn’t Jewel, but he saw something that bound the two, young woman and older.

  “Evayne?” Kallandras of Senniel now spoke. His concern was cool; his own expression was almost haggard, which was shocking in the smooth and cool features of one of Senniel’s most famous bards.

  “I cannot say for certain,” she told him, tearing her gaze away from what she held. “I feared it might be the elemental magics—but it seems that they are too wild for our enemies.”

  “They are not too wild,” Meralonne APhaniel told her quietly. “But they are not appropriate here. If what you have said is true—if what you have seen is true—we are on the road to the Cathedral that once stood at the heart of Vexusa. If you look at the ground here, and here, I would say we are almost upon it. Call the elemental earth magics, call the Old Earth, and it is quite likely that not only the tunnels but also the Cathedral would be destroyed. And the caster, for that matter, if old tales are true.

  “Never bargain with the Old Earth when you have nothing of value to give it. The demon-kin have nothing at all of interest to the earth.” He spoke casually, dismissing the demonic as if it were only barely worthy of consideration.

  “Not to the earth, little brother,” a voice said in the darkness. “But come. Let there be fire.”

  With fire came light; it was an orange light that shed heat and twisted the air as it moved. In its wake, Devon thought, mouth drying, legend walked, cloaked in flame. It was not human, nor had it ever been; no one could mistake the creature for anything but demonic. It was taller than the tallest man present, perhaps double the height, and wings of flame, with hearts of ebony, spread from either side of its back, its large shoulders. It stood like a man—like a giant—on two legs, and its arms, burning as its wings burned, rested a moment at its sides.

  It had no eyes but fire, and when it opened its mouth, fire flew as well.

  “This is ill news,” Meralonne whispered softly; had he not moved to stand so close to Evayne, Devon might have missed the words; they did not carry far over the crackle of flame. The mage gestured; it was a brief movement of fingers in warm air. Yards from the creature, an opalescent and opaque wall suddenly grew from floor to ceiling; it shielded the Kings and those who followed.

  “You know what it is?” Evayne asked.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied, master to student, as if for this moment that relationship had never been broken. “He is—or was—one of the Dukes of the Hells.

  “Tell me,” Meralonne said to Evayne, although his gaze did not leave the winged fire. “You learned the Winter rites—did you ever learn the wild ones?”

  “No mortal can contain the wild ways. How can you test me at a time like this?”

  “It was not a test. It was a very, very strong hope. I do not know everything about you or your kin—and those mortals born of immortal blood, no matter how tainted, can sometimes bear the wild weight a moment or two.

  “How important is this mission, Evayne? At what cost must we succeed?”

  The seer did not answer. Meralonne grimaced as fire hit the wall he had created; he did not gesture again, and Devon saw, as clearly as any man watching, that the wall would not hold. “Answer me; we do not have much time.”

  The seer’s eyes widened. “Not at that cost,” was her sharp, cold reply.

  Devon would have found it more interesting if the barrier had not crumpled so easily. The Exalted—and the Kings themselves—now stepped in, and a gold light shadowed the mage’s protection, strengthening it for a moment.

  But it was not—Devon saw this clearly—enough. Nor would it be.

  “We will never reach the Cathedral if a price is not paid. Do you not understand what you have seen this day? This was Vexusa, yes—but before that it was something far worse, far darker; the Sleepers fell at the heart of a god’s dominion. There are places upon the world that still hold the ghosts of the things that have passed within them; there are places, dark and deep, that hold more. This is one.”

  He might have said more, but the wall folded, and he took two steps back as if he’d been struck. When he spoke again, it was no longer in any language that Devon understood: three words. Three sharp words that had the feel and texture of thunder.

  Lightning, when it followed, was a sword. A blue sword, and with it, a shield, limned in a light that was almost painful to look upon. He raised both and stepped forward beyond the periphery of the line marked now by the Astari and the Exalted. The Kings exchanged only a glance, but they did not speak or attempt to call him back.

  Nor did Sigurne Mellifas, for Meralonne APhaniel had become as strange, and as terrifying in his own fashion, as the creature they now faced.

  And the creature acknowledged it. “Well met,” he said.

  Meralonne did not reply. Instead, he said, “Evayne, tell the mages to use spells of defense—and only those spells.”

  “But—”

  “Do it.” He stepped forward into the darkness.

  “You are already too late,” the creature said, stepping farther into the hall.

  “If we
were too late, we would face the god and not the lackey,” Meralonne replied, his words cool and dismissive.

  The creature snarled, then. “You will wish, before this is over, that you had.”

  Evayne did not deliver the commands of Meralonne APhaniel, but those commands did carry—Devon thought the Master Bard responsible, in the end, for their conveyance. Thus the mages threw up more familiar shields; the Kings retreated, but only a few yards; they could not easily retreat farther.

  Fire bathed the ground as if it were torrential rain. What it touched, it burned, and the rock beneath both the feet of the demon and the feet of the mage reddened and whitened before it was done. The demon gestured, and his fury produced more fire, more rain, and the rocks above began to melt.

  But the mages were prepared for this, and when rock fell in molten drops, it touched mage shields and slid to one side of the group or the other.

  “You will wish it,” Meralonne replied, his voice cold and clear. “Your Lord is not known to suffer failure gladly.”

  “You are beginning to bore me.” As he spoke, a red, red sword came to his hand, just as the mage’s sword had come to his.

  Sigurne Mellifas watched. She was pale, and the weight of years across her shoulders had never felt so heavy, so immobilizing. Around her, Matteos had martialed the magi, and they worked now against the molten rock that dripped from stalactites above.

  She left that work—worthy and necessary work—in his hands. She had seen Kialli in her youth, and she understood, better than any present save perhaps Meralonne himself, what they were capable of. But she had never seen a creature to rival the one Meralonne now faced, and she was afraid for him.

  Afraid for them all. She cast, as she had once been taught; it was forbidden art, forbidden magic, all. Her hands shook; she remembered the cold condescension of her first master’s words: Only the weak require foci to force magic to their will.

  Aye, but in his world weakness had defined her life. She cared about the city, its Kings and its people; she cared about the Empire. She cared about the fates of the people she might never know or see. What matter, then, that she required the foci of movement and gesture to concentrate? His was a ghost’s voice, a dead voice, a much-loathed voice.

  And he had never taught her this. No mortal had, or could.

  This had been a gift, an almost casual gift, from a fellow captive. A Kialli Lord.

  She watched, for a moment, as that Lord might have watched. And what she saw made her close her eyes and whisper a single name. Meralonne.

  She did not speak the name aloud, and as the sounds of combat were displaced by the cries of the magi over whom she presided, she withdrew almost gratefully from the act of witnessing the battle, for she now had no doubt whatsoever what its outcome must be.

  Karathis was indeed powerful enough to be worthy of the title Duke of Hell. It was a title that was not in use in the Empire, although it had once been before the Twin Kings. The falling rock—which would kill if it landed upon the gathered men and women here—would be a mercy, in the end.

  But she did not say it; where there was life, there was hope.

  Hope faltered as she heard one cry above the many now raised in alarm. Meralonne’s. She turned, then, to see the enigmatic, pipe-smoking companion of decades; he had fallen to one knee, and his shield arm dangled by his side; his shield had shattered.

  Flame rose. Rock didn’t burn; it melted, and it melted slowly—but the fires rose anyway, consuming nothing natural. The magi, bound by falling, molten rock, were now hemmed in by flame, and it was a wild thing; it slammed against their shields, and although it touched no one, it was close. The area that the magi could protect dwindled, shrinking by inches until the whole of the Kings’ forces were surrounded by walls of flame.

  Only one man rose, and only one man attempted anything at all: Kallandras, the Master Bard of Senniel College. Sigurne knew him. Alone among the bards, he merited Duvari’s attention and suspicion in the same way that the patriciate did: simply by breathing.

  He lifted one hand, palm out, as if in denial.

  Sigurne frowned, watching. She felt, but could not identify, the magic he now summoned. But she heard the roar of wind in the hall, and it was a wind that came from no sky; the flames were flattened a moment at the force of its passage, and the demon roared in fury.

  But the fires did not gutter, although the wind harried them; the demon was strong.

  The Exalted and the Kings did more than merely witness. They worked in the silence of concentration. They had lost one archer to the demon’s casual magic, and no more arrows flew in the halls, although naked blades reflected the fire’s light in an ugly orange.

  That light changed slowly, but it did change, turning at last from orange to gold: a gold that implied harvest, that implied the fruition of promise and not its hope.

  Lord Karathis looked up from Meralonne APhaniel, who was also rising. “Summer magic,” he said, his voice a strong, loud rumble, its syllables like the breaking of the earth itself. “How quaint. But you face no mere Winter.”

  “No? We faced one of the Kialli, and he fell taking only a handful with him.” The golden light that had come at the exhortations of the god-born seemed to suffuse Meralonne, strengthening him. His shield arm still hung by his side, and he did not move it, but he raised sword, and he once again faced Karathis.

  “You did not face one of the ducal lords.” The words were cold; the fires grew. “I do not know why you chose to interfere in this battle—but for you, it no longer matters.”

  The magi attempted to shout a warning, but the warning was given another way: three of the Astari who stood between the Kings and their enemy were instantly ash, the shields of the magi and the subtle glow of Summer magic notwithstanding.

  They were not the first of the Astari that Devon had seen fall; they were the first he had seen fall so instantly; there was literally nothing left of them, not even their weapons. The demon, this ducal lord, was toying with them.

  Duvari was frozen for a second—as frozen as Devon, himself.

  Into the silence, however, came a stranger’s voice, half-forgotten until this moment. Devon turned to see the half-naked woman who had accompanied Lord Gilliam of Elseth on his descent. She had one hand on his arm; he was stiff. But her eyes, her eyes were golden, as golden as Summer light, as golden as the god-born.

  Devon, who had met her now on a number of occasions, realized that he had never heard her speak.

  “Set me free,” she said. She spoke only to Lord Gilliam; she didn’t seem to notice that anyone else existed.

  The Hunter Lord stared at her as if she spoke a language that was beyond him.

  “Lord, set me free. I would stay with you, but if we are to fight, we must be equal—and we must be separate. Please.”

  He was utterly silent; he might have been stone. He did not—Devon thought he could not—speak, although, for the first time, she had. What, he thought, was her name?

  Espere. Espere, the wild.

  The Hunter Lord still did not speak, but something must have passed between these two. Devon had spoken to innumerable Breodani diplomats in his time, and he felt that he understood most of their customs and their strange existence. This was beyond him.

  Espere began to change.

  “Do not panic,” Evayne a’Nolan said, her voice strong and clear. “She is one of ours.”

  And panic, Devon thought, might otherwise have occurred. Espere began to keen, and her voice was the voice of a beast; her limbs thickened and lengthened, the straight of her back curving as those limbs reached for earth to better support the sudden mass of her weight. She was both furred and scaled, and she was not small.

  Espere’s face grew in size, the jaws elongating, nose becoming snout and flat, human teeth becoming long, sharp fangs. She had a tail, and it twitched only slightly because were it to swing, it would knock men and women into the fires that surrounded them.

  She touched Lord Gilliam
of Elseth with the point of her muzzle, dropping it—dropping it—to his shoulder.

  And then she lifted her head, and she turned to face Lord Karathis, whose battle with Meralonne APhaniel, solitary soldier, had continued, even though the mage no longer held his shield.

  Opening her jaws, she roared so loudly it should have brought the rest of the ceiling down upon their heads.

  And then she leaped.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  THE DEMON LORD was not expecting this new combatant; that much was instantly clear. She crashed into him, and he moved at a speed it was almost impossible to track with the eye—the mortal eye. Her jaws slammed shut on nothing. But her tail caught his thigh, and the flames that threatened the Kings’ forces banked again.

  Devon, however, did not watch. Not the Kings, not the mages, not the Exalted. He moved instinctively—and quickly—through the boundaries inscribed by fire and magical ice toward Meralonne APhaniel. He didn’t reach him first; Kallandras of Senniel, moving just as quickly and just as unerringly, did.

  But not by much.

  The moment Espere—or what was left of her—had entered the fray, Meralonne had withdrawn. He had not retreated to the main body of the small army but rather toward the wall damaged by the magic of the fight itself. There, the curved rock at his back, he sat.

  “Meralonne,” the bard said, crouching in a way that didn’t expose his back to the conflict.

  Meralonne APhaniel’s shield arm was almost cradled against his chest. He looked up at the sound of his name—as if the sounds of battle yards away were so distant they could not disturb him—and his face twisted in a bitter, pained grimace. It surprised Devon. Meralonne was not Duvari; he was not as controlled or self-contained as the Lord of the Compact. But his expressions tended to irritation, annoyance, and arrogant condescension. Devon had never seen him express pain such as this.

  But Kallandras seemed neither surprised nor perturbed.