The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

She doffed the hood completely once she was inside, lips curved up in the saucy Merranic smile as she watched all the jockeying. They came and ranged around her, and for a split second no one said anything. She had quite a presence, that sort of charisma that draws stares and makes people laugh and forms friendships on the spot…Not only that, but her eyes were a warm reddish-gold of a brown, full of laughter and secrets, like she knew something interesting and if you stayed quiet long enough you’d get to hear it.

  She was the first one to speak, saying confidentially, “I may not have too long—I was spotted on the way here. I’m Adama.”

  Another pang of familiarity shot through Ari. Why was he so thick-headed? Where did he know her from?

  “We owe you a great gratitude, Lady,” Banion said respectfully, while most of the Northerners were musing over the suspicious suggestion that she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.

  She dimpled at him, freckles leaping about on her milk-white skin. “’Tis only stripes… I’ve had worse.” She winked at Rodge, shrugging. Carefully. Ari noticed she wasn’t wearing her corselet and the loose blouse hung outside her skirt waistband.

  Cerise began to splutter, doubtless warming up, but she faded right off after the girl’s next words:

  “Besides, I heard you were looking for me…and this was such a convenient way to meet.” Everyone stared at her blankly and a puzzled silence settled in over the faint thumps and muted noise of the hall below. Suddenly, it clicked in Ari’s mind, what he’d been trying to remember, why things about this bright-eyed stranger seemed so familiar.

  “You’re a Whiteblade,” he breathed. The room seemed to suck in its breath. She gave an abbreviated curtsy, dipping her head so that her russet curls bounced. The candlelight danced over her lively, expectant face.

  “That’s why I had such a bad feeling about this,” Banion groaned softly.

  “Why would you put yourself at risk for some unimportant stranger?” Cerise demanded of her, vocal cords recovering nicely at sight of one of these flimsy fairytales appearing right in front of her.

  “I’m important to me,” Rodge objected indignantly.

  None of them had expected a Whiteblade to be so young…she was representing the very face of legend, after all. Weren’t there standards for these sorts of things?

  “Why would you put on this ridiculous cloak of make-believe at all,” Cerise continued sternly, “instead of living a normal, productive life?”

  The stranger swallowed a laugh, saying in mock gravity, “Sorry to be so disruptive. To simply answer your question would be to say ‘I’m Illian,’ I suppose. With more time, I expect we could have a tremendous discussion on theology.” The lilting voice went quiet and she turned away, obviously uninterested in squabbling with Cerise. Her expressive face stilled, and she settled eyes of candid clarity slowly onto Melkin’s.

  “Why do you seek knowledge of the Ivory?” she asked, low and rich and discordantly different from the banter of a second ago. The sudden switch caught everyone off guard, and for a moment the room seemed to hang suspended in time.

  He had been looking at her closely, watching and weighing her words in that way he had. Whatever conclusions he’d drawn weren’t revealed in his tone when he answered.

  “We are looking for the Statue of the Empress,” he said neutrally. “And any knowledge of the Five Hundred Years of Peace.” He paused, as if to encourage any interruption she might be interested in making, but she only looked at him steadily. Ari had the sudden, eerie certainty that she knew exactly what they were looking for.

  “We have forgotten much of the Signs of War,” Melkin went on, his rough voice, the words, the flickering candles, the remnant of fable standing so quietly in front of them, all building a strange, dense atmosphere of mystery. The air shimmered with it. “But it seems like it is near. Has the Statue been destroyed? Do the Sheelmen have it? Where is it? Does it still need safekeeping?” He rounded the chair he’d been standing behind to move toward her, intent as a wolf on the hunt. “What exactly is going to happen when the five hundred years are complete? Are they already?”

  The otherworldly silence, full of glittering possibility, suddenly shattered. Below, a door was thrown open, shouts could be heard, and an undeniable ruckus started. Adama’s head whipped around, her animated face completely different with the eyes so wide and alert, the crowd of freckles still.

  She glanced back at the group, looking for all the world…annoyed. “I must go,” she said reluctantly, long-fingered hands lifting her cowl back up around the bright, tight reddish curls.

  Melkin moved as if to grab her and Kai, surprising everybody, blocked him. So instead, with his lip curling, grey eyes blazing, he hissed, “Can you tell us nothing?”

  In the shadow of the hood, her face had an odd, bright, otherworldly look to it. She gazed at him from barely a foot away, amber eyes depthless and full of portent. For an agonizing breath, their eyes locked.

  “Your answers lie in Cyrrh,” she whispered, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  The party had been stunned enough last night that the members drifted quietly away to their rooms, but they woke up swinging the next morning.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” Cerise demanded of Kai in the stables after breakfast. Secretly, Ari had thought she’d been peeved at Kai ever since yesterday’s chase through the streets…whether because she’d looked like a fool throwing herself at him like that, or because he’d ignored it.

  He didn’t acknowledge her, not even glancing away from his watch at the door, until Selah said, “She’s done quite a bit for us already…poor gratitude it would be to let her get caught.” His dark eyes drifted over, then, dragging across Selah’s tranquil face. She paid no attention. Cerise frowned at them.

  She tossed her pale blonde head, looking a lot like her horse, and said scathingly, “I’ve never seen such immature, primitive, idiotic men in my life. Grown men, chasing women around like boys chasing a dog. It’s no wonder Merrani’s never progressed beyond torchlight and nighthouses!”

  Banion, who all morning had been mute with remorse at his required role in abetting an Illian, snarled soundlessly behind his beard. All his even-tempered cleverness lie buried behind last night’s debacle. It hadn’t even been worth it.

  “You didn’t know,” Loren told him comfortingly, leading out his frisky chestnut. It was a grey, uninspiring morning outside, but the horses were restless after being penned up so long, their energy matching that of the spitting, wound-up Northerners.

  It seemed odd to Ari that Merranics got so bent out of shape over a few Illians. They threw Whiteblades off cliffs, imprisoned them, hunted them down like animals—all over a difference in theology. It made Ari a little uncomfortable…they were girls, after all. But, then, it wasn’t really in Northern temperament to waste too much energy on such abstract ideology, unless it concerned business theory.

  They mounted up, horses’ hooves rapping out an energetic tempo on the cobblestone. The city was wreathed in mist this early and damp with spray from the Great Eastern Sea, its still-sleepy streets empty, reality muted. Melkin let his long-legged roan have its head, and Ari snuck a glance at his glowering face as he passed. He felt sorry for him. It was like they were being led around by a dangling carrot, ten questions for every answer. Why Cyrrh? Was the Statue there? Adama hadn’t even confirmed that there was a Statue, nevermind whether it was currently imprisoning a god, in the hands of the Enemy, or had anything to even do with Peace and war.

  They headed downhill, sometimes slipping when the damp slicked the stone. One such jolt when the brown had to catch himself jarred a thought right into Ari’s rather aimless mind. If the Empress had really…captured Raemon, for lack of a better term, did that mean her power, or the power of Il, was the stronger? Il was more powerful than even the gods? He frowned in concentration, metaphysics being an unusual cerebral exercise for him. Most people didn’t think Il even existed—and even the Illians claimed he’d never been
seen. Why would people choose a god they couldn’t see with a lot of mumbo jumbo attached to him, when the conventional options were nice, clear cut—OK, maybe sometimes fallible, but at least understandable—entities? A generous tithing program, an earnest attempt to conduct business, your One Great Deed, and you basically didn’t have to think about Marek at all.

  Loren elbowed him happily, and he came back to the soggy streets of Alene—which were flooding with sunlight. They were almost to the quay, and a stiff breeze was clearing the fog so that the bay in front of them was brilliant with sunlight flashing off the waves. Birds of sea and shore wheeled and cried over their heads and the surf crashed with endless energy against Alene’s stone docks.

  Tied up at dock and scattered across the bay at anchor was every kind of ship imaginable. Wide, bulbous merchant ships, some of the huge barges that plied the Kendrick, a vast variety of sailed and oared fishing craft of almost every shape and size, enormous, sea-going cargo vessels, squat and bloated. And here and there, like a wolf among fat farm dogs, a sleek, lean Warsloop of the Merranic Fleet.

  Ari and Loren sat with barely restrained impatience, for it was one of these Banion had arranged passage on. The day’s wait for it would be more than worth it for the time it’d save flying down the coast. It loomed above them, bumping gently against the wharf. Scores of sailors clambered all over it, fussing with lines and sails and shouting in the brisk morning air. They began lowering the great cargo hold door to take the horses, and Cerise got busy blindfolding her shrilling mare. Loren and Ari rolled their eyes sourly at each other. She was a beautiful horse, but that kind of brainless excitability could get someone killed on the trail.

  The hold was dim and warm and thick with the smells of livestock after the chilly breeze outside, and Ari and Loren contentedly chose one of the cramped pens for their geldings. Rodge’s fat, placid pony went in with Tekkara, Cerise’s hot-blooded monster, and headed straight to the feed bin. The mare quieted almost instantly with the pony beside her, nervously grabbing a mouthful of hay herself and chewing like it was the only thing in the world that made sense.

  They climbed the ladder up through the decks, the close, musty smells of the ship and the ubiquitous creaking and shifting of the enclosed wooden world making Ari’s heart beat a little faster. As the blinding brightness of the sun glared down through the top hatch, Loren turned around and looked down at his friend. His flaxen hair was haloed by the light, a “you’re-not-going-to-believe-this” look on his face.

  When Ari climbed out, spreading his legs wide for balance, his eyes wanted to go everywhere at once. They were far above the docks, looking into the top windows of the wharf warehouses. Endless and vast out in front—or behind, he didn’t have his bearings yet—stretched the horizon, and overhead the deep blue and silver flag of Merrani snapped with understated importance. But all of this was just background, a stage set, for the swarming, fascinating life that crewed and commanded and crawled all over this exotic new world. Fleetmen flitted everywhere through the rigging, some of them moving more conventionally along the deck, some standing formally around to greet them, as giant and good-natured as all Merranics—but there the similarity ended.

  The boys and Cerise tried not to stare. These men were ridged with muscle, not an ounce of fat on their huge bare chests, trim-waisted, long legs packed with bulging strength. Clean cut, clean-limbed, with nothing of the foolish or simple that they’d seen in most Merranics, that sense of hare-brained impulsiveness was completely missing. An almost palpable discipline emanated from them.

  “Permission to come aboard, Commodore!” Banion bellowed in front of them, making Cerise jump. They peered around his big bulk—and most of them straightened up a little. It wasn’t the size of the man greeting Banion, it was that indefinable aura of importance, of grandness, of power.

  The man welcoming Banion had the same loose trousers of deep blue as his men, but they were tucked into knee high black boots instead of gathered over bare feet. Under his washboard stomach was slung a full-length broadsword, gorgeously hilted and set with sapphires, rather than a long knife tucked into a waistband. The big silver buckle on the belt was worked into a lion’s head with the prong his tongue and another sapphire his eye. He also had the only beard they’d seen so far, and that was a bounteous thick mass of blue-black curls that had Cerise’s jaw gaping in envy.

  He was probably the handsomest Merranic they’d ever seen. Steady eyes of dark blue swept over them all, gazing out of a strong, square, tanned face.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said, in a voice like breakers on the shore, and reached out to shake hands—a formidable experience. His biceps were the size of Cerise’s head, and Ari, awe-struck, saw the glint of a silver earring in the ear closest to him.

  Banion introduced them all, and then with considerably more deference, said, “This is Commodore Kraemoor, of the Royal Merranic Fleet Sloop Mermaidon, graciously accommodating us at such short notice.”

  Melkin murmured his thanks and was answered with a rumbling laugh. “Thank me if you still will in a week. Seawolf quals are just finished; that’s why we were up here, to get our pick of the best. We’ll be drilling new recruits the whole way back to Merrane. Ah, here come some now…” he rumbled in satisfaction.

  The party turned casually, more out of politeness, and froze almost in unison.

  “Oh, no,” Rodge said brokenly.

  There, at the head of the small group of young men headed towards them, big body looking a trifle sloppy next to the Fleetmen…was Jaegor.

  The Palace thrummed and pulsed like an anthill with a boot in it. To put the Queen on the road was a momentous thing, a nightmare of logistics, and a trial of tempers. When Kane wished to travel, he grabbed the nearest Jarl and whichever handful of men was least occupied and…went. Not so the Queen of the Northern Empire. There were weeks of preparation, everything from the menu for the seven-course nightly meals to the elaborate wardrobe to the guest list. It was an “honor” to travel with the Queen, this being all one big statement of Imperial Greatness, and it took careful wording and usually a foolproof excuse to be able to avoid it.

  Sable thought it one big circus, actually, but she’d mellowed over the years. She had other battles to fight, and, after all, it was never more than once every few years. Needless to say, Kane usually came to see her.

  It was a relief to get out of the Palace, even for a few moments. And if the Festival of the Quarterly Tribute wasn’t the thing of dancing and music and racing and games that it was in the south of the Empire, at least it was an excuse to get away from the anthill.

  The ceremonial coach used for just these few formal occasions was coming to a stop and she glanced out the tiny window. She could make out the steps, and just the steps—it was a very small window—to the Temple of Marek. The door was opened and she was handed out by Rorig, the Queensknight, to the precise and ancient music of the Festival.

  She waved professionally to the oohing crowds lining the long scarlet carpet that was her path to the Temple, forcing herself to walk slowly, be stately, think regal thoughts. Her dress was very fine, bleached linen, but it was burdened with a quarry full of strewn crystals and had leagues of train to be hauled along. The Diamond Scepter winked and flashed and blinded her no matter how she shifted it, but she kept grimly dignified. Who said royalty didn’t work?

  Even Archemounte gets hot in July, and it was a relief to step into the cool interior of the Temple. Most of the Empire, especially in the north, built modest, heat-efficient structures low on aesthetics but high on practicality. Unless, of course, there was a Statement to be made. The Temple, the Palace, the University…well, they had Things To Say. There was nothing heat-conscious about the soaring, colonnaded hall she finally entered. Her slippered feet sank into the plush sea of scarlet carpet all down that long aisle way to the High Priest at the end. Far over his head, its power safely out of reach, the great Diamond winked and glimmered in the soft gas light. She was glad she hadn�
��t been the one to see it flare up.

  It’s smaller cousin hung around Clarent’s neck, gleaming quietly and perfectly naturally against his white robes. He had been High Priest for twenty years before she even sat the Throne, and though his close-cropped hair was white, the fine Northern features were still smooth, the lidless pale eyes staring down at her just as intelligently (and sometimes a little too observantly) as when she’d first accepted the Crown from him.

  She exchanged a brief tilt of the head with him, and with a gracious sweep of her arm moved out of the way of the heavy chest following behind her: the quarterly proscribed tithing of the Empire to its god. Tithing complete, the whole process was reversed, the four white horses caparisoned in rich scarlet pranced back to the Royal Stables, and she headed with considerably more reluctance to the Royal Feast Table.

  Rorig met her eyes as he handed her out back at the Palace, and she remembered to smile warmly. He’d make a good match. It was far from uncommon, Queensknights by definition being of High Blood; usually only the wealthy and high born could afford the training that allowed them to compete for the spot. Rorig was good-looking and intelligent and less fawning than most. She was considering him seriously, especially since the subject of her advancing years had lately had the Council yapping at her heels.

  Sable saw the High Priest again at the Festival Feast. He still wore the same white robes, as she did (why couldn’t Marek have chosen a more practically-colored gem?) and the large triele on his chest earned him respectful bows as he moved around the room.

  Oh, he was definitely aware of his station, Sable thought, watching him approach, and a consummate politician. Their relationship, literally, was ceremonial. The first words of normal conversation he’d ever spoken to her came out as he walked up.

  “Good evening, Your Majesty.” He had a light tenor with the perfect amount of solemn respect…and self-importance.

  “High Priest Clarent,” she responded gravely. He never said more than a few words to anybody, yet here he was to talk. Hm. What was his game?