The Sacred Hunt Duology

by Michelle West

  Stephen sent as strong a surge of disapproval as he could to his Hunter, and received only smug satisfaction, and the keen desire for a hunt, in return.

  Devon rose. “I am not, unfortunately, the man who will guide you to court, but I will be present as quickly as I can discharge my other responsibilities. I shall meet you there.”

  “Of course.”

  Stephen waited until the curtains’ circular pattern, with its bold gold lines and red, red center was once again whole, heavy with the weights that kept its halves straight. Then he turned on his Hunter. “We can’t take her,” he began.

  “We need her,” was the reply. “Without her, we’d have died during the last attempt, and you know it.” Gil’s expression dared him to disagree, but Stephen was not so foolish; he knew that his Hunter was right. “I can keep her under control,” Gilliam added, his voice taut as wire drawn across a lute’s bridge.

  Stephen said nothing at all. Espere glanced apprehensively at Gilliam, and then swung her wild, tangled hair toward Stephen. Nervous, she pranced back and forth between them, butting Gilliam in the chest, but stopping short before she touched Stephen. She was willing to mock-fight with the hounds, but Stephen she did not touch. Which was just as well.

  She’s not an animal, Gilliam. She deserves to be treated like more than a running hound.

  He didn’t say it aloud; he was half certain that Gilliam wouldn’t even understand what he meant by it: After all, what was more important than the hunt and the hounds?

  • • •

  A servant came to escort them from their rooms to the palace proper; for some reason, she came very much earlier than the sun’s shadow indicated, and Stephen would have worried had something about her nature not been so calming. She was young, but tall and supple, and her hair, like burnished bronze, was drawn back in a complicated crisscross that Stephen had not seen even in the Ladies in the King’s City. Her face was not beautiful, but rather striking; her eyes were deeply inset and her nose fine, long, thin; her cheeks were high and her chin almost too delicate. She wore a white shift that hung from three braided straps across her shoulder; it was edged in gold, and across its back, in full display, was the emblem that Stephen associated with the Twin Kings: The crown and the rod. She introduced herself, but quickly, and Stephen missed her name, which was just as well; he found her striking.

  Gilliam knew it at once and snorted; the servant was good enough that she did not seem to notice this unexplained expression. Or perhaps she was used to foreigners.

  The air was brisk, almost chilly. It caught Stephen’s green velvet cape, and the servant’s white robes, and tangled them a moment in the air.

  “It’s a sea wind,” the bronze-haired woman said. “At this time of year it can almost be cold.” She smiled softly, showing her teeth; she had all of them. “I’ve been told you come from a land of winter.”

  Stephen nodded. “In Breodanir the lands are still covered with snows, and in the North, the storms are strong.” He stopped a moment in the open courtyard to gaze skyward; there were clouds across the sun’s face, but the breeze pushed them aside, forcing Stephen to squint or look away. “But you could almost forget that winter existed in a place like this.”

  “Almost.” She smiled again, staring skyward, completely oblivious to the sour grimace on Gilliam’s face. “But occasionally the northern winds have a stronger hand and the cold blows in from the mountain chain. Then, it’s often dangerous. We aren’t a people prepared for bitter cold. They say that when Averalaan sees even a glimpse of the winter, the darkness follows—but I don’t believe it.”

  “No?”

  “No. How can it, with snow so white and so brilliant?”

  Gilliam snorted loudly enough that it was clearly meant to be a contribution to the conversation. The imperturbable servant looked up, waiting. “It’s pretty clear you’ve never seen a real winter,” he said dourly. “Nothing grows; there’s no food. Only the predators and the sleepers survive it.”

  “And, of course,” Stephen added smoothly, “the people of Breodanir, who know the winter well enough to prepare for it, and who also honor it with their games. There’s little harvesting to do in winter; little work. If you know the winter well enough, it’s no more a danger than the spring.” He stepped between Gilliam and their guide; the point was not lost on the Hunter Lord.

  “They have snow in the South, beyond Annagar, or so I’m told,” the guide said. She smiled at that, and her cheeks dimpled; there was a sparkle in her eyes that spoke of a secret memory.

  “And none in Averalaan. You must have a growing season that lasts forever.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple—but I must admit that matters agrarian have not been my field of study. Come; the Queen and her Ladies will be waiting.” Her stride widened slightly, although she never once appeared to be hurrying. Stephen followed her from the carved, stone courtyards of the Arannan Halls to the open quadrangle that seemed almost a small forest. He could hear water running, but he could not see its source, and he almost stopped to search for it.

  Their guide was at his side in an instant. “Averalaan Aramarelas is like this; it has its hidden pockets of life and light. Will you be staying here long?”

  At that, Stephen returned to his duty. “Not long, no.” His smile was shadowed, although it did not leave his face entirely. “We must depart by the half-month of Corvil.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said, “it is the custom of the Breodani. You might ask Lady Faergif or Lady Morganson to explain it. I’m sure they’re most curious to know why we’re here in the first place.”

  “Oh, indeed,” she replied, with just a touch of sardonic smile. “Leave the dell, then. Come—the doors to the palace are just beyond the footpath.”

  • • •

  To call it a footpath was to call the gown of the Queen’s coronation, with its multiple layers of jewels and colors and textures, a frock. But with a city that the maker-born called home, what else could one expect? Stephen walked as if a dream had opened up before him, one in which time and urgency retreated like any other daytime squabble. There were flowers that lined the simple, but perfect path, shadowing it with their leaves and petals, of a type and kind that he had never seen; plants of a texture that made them seem dangerous, yet still hypnotically beautiful with their deep indigos, their fuchsias, their magentas. There were birds that stopped at their feet, staring up at them in haughty pride as if they knew they belonged at court more than the intruders; there were small creatures that hung from the trees, fur-covered and round-eyed and altogether magical.

  The servant stopped again and again, but she did not interrupt Stephen’s reverie, and indeed, after a few moments, Gilliam allowed himself to be pulled into it as well—a testament to the achievement of the maker-born of Averalaan, although they would never have known it.

  When at last they entered the palace and left the dell, as she had called it, behind, a hint of its peacefulness and its vibrancy remained with Stephen. His step felt lighter than it had since he had first placed foot upon the Winter road; he smiled at Gilliam, and Gilliam surprised him by returning it.

  Yet the hall was no less splendid than the dell had been, and no less wild; the stone itself seemed to be alive with the pageantry of history. There were fountains, small and large, and places where water might be drawn; there were statues and tableaux of men and women, in armor and in robes, in contemplation and in action, that seemed to breathe, to whisper, to plead. There were tapestries, long and tall and deceptively deep, wherein one might take a step and be lost. And the servant, immune to the effects of so much grandeur, merely waited as they stared at the artifacts of the Twin Crowns.

  Then, at last, she brought them to the end of the hall, to an arch that was oddly shaped. As they approached it, Stephen saw that, in the center of the arch’s peak, a young woman stood, her
face turned toward the city. Her hands were open, whether in offering or in supplication it was hard to tell; she looked peaceful. Her dress was not the dress of Averalaan, nor the dress of Breodanir; it was simple and unadorned, as was she.

  Beneath the arch, to either side, a man knelt, head bowed, crown upon the perfect stone strands of hair. Bearded, and girded for war, dressed in heavy plate, they clasped their mailed hands. To her.

  “It is Veralaan,” the servant whispered. “To her right and below, with the sword, Reymalyn; to her left, with the longbow, Cormalyn. They are returned from war to keep their promise to her.” She paused and bowed deeply, the hem of her robes dusting ground so clean it almost gleamed. “Through these arches, you will find the Queens’ court. They will be expecting you.”

  “You—you’re not coming with us?”

  “I? No, alas. Although I would dearly love the company of the indomitable Lady Faergif, there are tasks which call me, and to which I must attend. I am Miri,” she added with a dimpled smile. “If you wish my aid or my services as a guide, you may ask for me and I will be summoned.”

  Stephen bowed very low, in the manner of the Breodani. Gilliam stepped on his foot.

  Miri smiled deeply, but it was a smile that contained many things that could not be put into words. “You are not of Averalaan, and it is said that the lands of the Breodani were somehow proof against the predation of the wizard lords. But it is said that only in Essalieyan and Breodanir do the courts of the Queens surpass the splendor of Kings. We have little in common, our people, and much. Remember it.” The smile grew deeper still. “We are ruled by Gods in Essalieyan; the Queens intercede for us where intercession is necessary.”

  At that, she turned her gaze to Stephen, and he realized that she knew exactly what a huntbrother was, and respected it in a way that the Hunter Lords they served could not. She bowed, and it was a Breodanir bow, but somehow deeper and more supple. He did not tell her that Ladies seldom bowed to either Hunter or huntbrother.

  Instead, with almost a sigh, and Gilliam’s muttering at his back, he turned and walked beneath the arch over which Veralaan presided.

  • • •

  There was another hall that started immediately after they were through the arch, and it was quite clear that it was not the same hall, not only by the arch which separated the two but by the construction of the hall itself.

  Where at their backs the very past of the Empire seemed to loom, ready to embroil the unwary stranger, ahead of them there were great windows that seemed to reach from beneath their feet—although that was illusion—to the heights of the vaulted ceilings. They were immense in width, if possible, wider than the construction of the walls themselves, and in each of these windows, standing to one side that they might share the view and the warmth that light provided, were single statues.

  The statues were the work of the maker-born, as was the hall, and the stones upon which they walked, the heights which dwarfed them. They were of stone, these statues, and yet more. When Stephen met their eyes, he had the curious sensation that something living looked back, appraised his passage, and then returned to the aloof material from which it had been chiseled.

  The first of the statues was a man in his prime, armed and armored, with a helm in the crook of his left arm and a great sword, point to the ground, beneath his mailed right hand. His hair was cut and bound, and his cloak was still, as if he were at the eye of the storm of battle. There were, at his feet, a shield, a ring, and a crown.

  “Cartanis,” Stephen said softly. “Lord of War.”

  Gilliam knew the name, but little else; it was not of concern to the Hunter Lord, who did not worship other Gods; he barely thanked the Mother for her harvest, never prayed to Luck, and never gave a thought to what Judgment might say.

  But it was the stuff of the stories those scholars and bards had brought forth from Essalieyan when they traveled to the West, and Stephen knew them as if they were written upon the backs of his eyelids.

  He turned his gaze to the right, and saw there a man with a wreath of fine leaves and branches. Closer inspection showed both blossom and thorn across his brow, although he knew peace. He was not a young man, yet he possessed that peculiar androgyny that some do in youth, and in his left arm, held as if it were a child, was a small harp. He wore robes, soft and simple if made of stone, and his feet were bare against a small knoll of grass. His lips were open, but whether in song or speech, it was hard to say.

  Omaran. Lord of music, of poetry, of art.

  Next, opposite each other, were the Lord and the Lady; they had no other names, but in the Empire of Essalieyan the Lord brought sleep, and with it dream or nightmare, and the Lady brought death. The Lord was tall and regal and gentle, but there was an edge to his eyes, a surety in his stance, that spoke of cruelty. The Lady, robed in a simple gown, looked almost like a maiden not yet free from childhood; simply clad, she gazed out as if at a vast landscape. And there was nothing at all in her eyes that Stephen could understand. He pulled back and bowed, almost self-conscious in the gesture, as if by appeasing her, he might avoid her a little longer.

  Only one of the Gods was seated, and Stephen knew him at once: Mandaros, called the Judge in Breodanir. He wore the robes of an ancient office, and beside him to the right were the scales by which he measured the soul’s choice; in his right hand, the gavel by which he pronounced his judgment. And to his left, at his feet, the beginning of three paths: one rocky, one smooth, and one almost insubstantial.

  Opposite the Judge was the oldest of all men present; he had a beard that ran down his face, and then his chest, like a snow-covered icicle, but his eyes seemed sharp and clear. He, too, wore robes, and he carried in one hand the staff, and in the other, the book.

  Stephen would have recognized him had he seen him in the street, and not in the Hall of Gods; he was Teos, Lord of Knowledge, and he had promised Stephen the answer to one more question—and only one—should Stephen choose to call upon him.

  Kalliaris was next, and she, Stephen did recognize, for although the Hunters and their people worshiped the Hunter, the thieves and the poor prayed to Kalliaris. The Breodani called her merely “Luck” or “Lady Luck.” She was not as he imagined her—but then again, recently, he had not seen her smile as much as he’d hoped—but he knew her by the two masks she held in either hand.

  She was opposite a young child who huddled in a corner, trying to cover its face with its hands. It did not quite succeed. This God, Stephen did not recognize; there were few tales of it that he had either read or remembered.

  But he recognized Laursana and Karatia—Love and Lust—immediately. As a child, he had always thought them stupid, and sometimes, as an adult, the same—but as a child, he had been immune to their whims and their effects. They were not female and not male, and yet, being neither, they were attractive each in their own way. They had hair that reached to the ground and twined around their ankles like bracelets, or chains. Karatia was often depicted without clothing, but the maker-born who had chosen the God’s form here had covered it, hidden it, made of it a mystery.

  They were almost at the hall’s end when he saw the Mother; she held in her arms a babe, and over her shoulder, in the slings that were so common among the Breodani field-workers, she carried stalks of corn and wheat and barley. She was not a slender woman, not a child; she was full and solid and certain of form. Around the corners of both her lips and her eyes, there were lines—she was smiling gently, and it seemed that those lines were etched there by the combination of time’s passage and that smile.

  He knelt at her feet a moment, whispered words of thanks. Then he rose, for across from her, as if no other window could hold him, was the Lord of the Hells.

  Allasakar.

  Stephen could not believe that here in this hall there would be a place for such a creature, and he froze a moment beneath the God’s gaze, as if the God were indeed abou
t to pluck him from the safety of Averalaan. Yet nothing happened, and after a moment, the hackles that had risen fell. He faced a tall and lordly man, one of perfect features. But in his left arm, tucked there in terror, was the twisting face of a man in torment; in his right hand was a scepter upon which a small, living creature with fangs for half its face, perched. The God wore a crown, and the crown was dark; upon its side were closed lids, but not for human eyes.

  He wore wisps of shadow like a robe. The sculptor who had fashioned him must have been a master without parallel. There was something about the face of this God that was more seductive, more compelling, than even Karatia had been. He almost could not pull his gaze away.

  And then Gilliam’s annoyed grunt—which might have contained a word or two—broke the spell; there was no majesty, there was only perfectly carved and formed stone.

  Only the Mother could love you, Stephen thought, as he found and kept a smile. No other God would suffer you so closely. But he wasn’t certain anymore if that were true.

  There was only one other window, and it stood alone, and it was not so grand or tall or perfect as those that preceded it. It was also empty.

  He stopped a moment, and then gazed out of the window. As he stood directly in front of it, he saw that the window framed not the port, as he had first thought, but a building that lay on a hill in the basin across the water. At the height of that building was a statue of a man with a raised sword; his cape was caught in a fierce wind, and his shield was raised in defense. He wore, Stephen thought, greaves and plate armor, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

  Moorelas, he thought, although he could not be certain; he cast a long, slender shadow. Then he looked away from this last window, for the hall had become another arch, and through it, he could hear the strains of strings being made to dance and shiver in air by the hand of a bard. They were almost upon the rooms in which the Queens, by day, held court.

  • • •

  There were two things that surprised him.