The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  She recovered smoothly. “The last issue is perhaps the most tenuous of all. In the past year, there have been thirty-two confirmed individual sightings of the Whiteblades. Every report is similar: the Swords of Light appear in a mounted group and always bring with them the warning of the Enemy.”

  No one laughed. In fact, Kyr, whom she didn’t think could look more alert than he did already, seemed to sharpen his gaze, looking at her so intently with those black eyes that she temporarily lost her train of thought. “Moving as a band?” he demanded, that rich voice throbbing through the room and doing funny things to her inner ear.

  She looked at him blankly. Hadn’t she said that? “Yes.”

  He and Khrieg exchanged meaningful looks.

  “Is this somehow significant?” Channing drawled from behind her. Her heart sank as everyone turned in surprise to look at him. So much for discreetly trying to cover her ignorance. Even Kyr looked a little displeased—and his Council was livid. The Rach had introduced him as Kore, and it was he who answered after a quick, outraged look at his Rach’s face.

  “The Swords travel singly when they are on missions for Il,” he rapped out, voice taut and flat with displeasure. “If they are moving as a band, it can only mean one thing.”

  “And that is?” Channing pressed, in the same mocking drawl.

  There was some severe negative energy crackling through the air now. Kore was positively glaring. “The Swords of Light only do two things…make words, or make war.” The cool, even tone contrasted disturbingly with the hot look in his eyes, and Sable turned quickly to Channing with a glare of her own.

  “As you can see,” she said appeasingly, deliberately fixing Kore with her gaze, “we have forgotten much in the north, so far from the Sheel and so well-protected from its threat.”

  It was the perfect thing to say. Anger melted almost visibly from the handsome face and he bowed his head deeply in reply, eyes lingering in awe on her own. Trying not to sound relieved to move on, she said brightly, “As we are here to learn from each other and to share knowledge, let us now hear from our—Brother—from the Seas. King Kane?”

  As Kane began to rumble, her mind had a few moments to fly back over what had just been said. This was definitely going differently than she’d envisioned, though she wasn’t about to concede the fact that Kane had been right. He may have had a point, she’d admit. Was is just her, or had Melkin’s nice, sound, scientific presentation not been given near the attention that vague stirrings from the local deity and the obscure actions of a bunch of politicoreligious renegades had? And the whole questionable premise of the Sheelmen rising and the Ages of War crashing back down on them didn’t seem to faze anyone at all. Perhaps her words to the Rach’s Council had held more truth than she’d intended. The North had moved on, rapidly, thoroughly, and brilliantly, from the dark days of the past…but perhaps the other Realms, without Marek’s drive and focus, still looked to war for their purpose. What validity, what value, did a Border Realm have after all…if it bordered nothing but a peaceful world empty of Enemy?

  “The First Mage of the Academy of the Magi will present this first matter,” Kane was saying, and she riveted her attention on to the man causing her fellow ruler so many headaches. He stood up behind Melkin, rich robes of royal blue winking with bits of gold like stars in a night sky. He was a neat, cultured-looking person with an unflappable air of dignity, and a voice of rich, mellow, sedate calmness. Not exactly what the North would label a firebrand.

  “The past year has seen a marked increase in the number of geophysical events in Merrani,” he began intellectually. “Namely, earthquakes and some hurricane-level storms. And although we do not keep as near a quality of written records as the North,” he added, to inexplicable soft snorts of laughter, “our oral tradition in this area is well-preserved.”

  “We know the source of the disruptions lie in the seismic activity deep in the Sheel, and according to Fleet patrols, there has indeed been visible volcanic activity along the desert’s eastern mountains. Always in the past this has been associated with Raemon’s activity, and the fact that it begins again, now, after hundreds of years’ quiescence, seems more than coincidence.”

  Privately, Sable thought this the weakest evidence of all. In the North, they knew the earth moved without being driven by divine tantrums. But then, who was she to dismiss superstition, she who’d brought forth incontrovertible evidence of the Diamond winking and her High Priest having a colorful dream? Realizing she’d been absently staring at Rach Kyr while she was thinking, she hastily shifted back to the witness.

  He folded his hands quietly in front of him so that they were almost lost in his deep, cowled sleeves. “There is another thing.”

  Kane shot him a warning glare from the corner of his storm-colored eyes. Next to him, the King’s Council, the Lance Knight, rolled his own. He was a rough-looking entry, as coarse and earthy as Kane was fine and noble.

  “The peculiar art of the Magi sits, truthfully, with the stars. Amongst the constellations, for those with the skill and the art to see it, lies a veritable book of knowledge, clear as though written with words. The night skies speak powerfully of events in this world, what was, and is…and what is yet to come. And they do not lie. What is written there is beyond even the knowledge of the gods—”

  The Lance Knight, Alaunus, apparently not to be restrained by decorum, snorted loudly, shooting the Mage a look of open disgust. Perraneus merely looked past him, to Sable. “High Priest Clarent heard nothing of import from Marek, rest assured, Your Majesty,” he told her. She didn’t mention it hadn’t caused her any particular concern. He turned that steady gaze to the Skylord. “Laschald, too, will have no knowledge of his brother’s movements, as Vangoth is also ignorant.”

  “That’s enough, Perraneus,” Kane said, cold and final as an iceberg slipping into the sea.

  “Hold, Brother,” Lord Khrieg said, his light voice like a spring breeze after Kane’s deep, full-timbered gale of disapproval. “I beseech you, and all the ’Meet, to let the Mage speak. Laschald has admitted as much to me openly, in sorrow that he cannot better prepare us. It is no dishonor to hear the truth. Especially in these troubled times, we must steel ourselves to hear testimony from perhaps many sources we find unsavory.”

  At his right, the Rach party both nodded. Sable had to consciously close her mouth, which had been slipping open, and force a composed nod of polite interest. The King of the Eastern Seas, face a thundercloud, after scanning all of their faces finally gave Perraneus a curt signal with one of his index fingers. Next to him, Alaunus sucked his teeth in palpable disinterest.

  Perraneus looked around the room, hesitating so long Sable began to wonder what he was waiting for. He certainly had everyone’s attention. Her woman’s intuition stirred uneasily; there was something in his eyes…

  “Raemon will rise again.” He just pronounced it, with none of the smooth lead up, the elaborate wording, the equivocation of a moment ago. “And he will bring with him a power that will bury us in war as we have never known war…and that not even the gods will survive.”

  There was a fraction of a second of shocked silence, then the room erupted into noisy chaos, everyone talking at once and Kane shooting back in his chair. He rose, whirled, and bellowed terrifyingly over the din, “Heretic!”

  Sable, breathing a little heavily, sat frozen into immobility, eyes leaping from one face to another. Behind her, she could vaguely hear Channing droning something in soft scorn. Alaunus, the Lance, was saying loudly and directly to the Mage, “You’re an idiot.”

  And looking at Perraneus’ composed face, she realized suddenly what she’d seen in his eyes. It was resignation. He knew, surely, that this would bring his doom. That his King would not—could not—allow such a statement to go unpunished…so, why had he done it?

  It seemed to take a long while to calm the uproar. The Merranics, of course, were thoroughly ruffled, deeply embarrassed at this blatant show of disrespect
and griping darkly after everyone else had quieted. The Northerners were more surprised at the uproar—Sable thought the reaction much more revealing than the Mage’s prediction itself. Everyone knew the Magi ‘saw’ the future in the stars, read fortunes from cards, probably had crystal balls and cauldrons full of rabbits’ feet and frog hairs and the blood of dragons that they only stirred in a full moon, for all she knew. It just didn’t seem like a Mage prognosticating the end of the world was all that surprising. So…did the other Rulers actually believe these predictions? Was it just upsetting to hear such things at such an inauspicious time—or was everyone just really that on edge? Her worries about being thought foolish had vanished. In fact, she was beginning to feel like the only adult in a room full of much younger brothers.

  After the Merranic grumbling had finally faded to a dull roar, she prompted Kane smoothly, “You have another witness?”

  He shot her a glare, but did manage to pull himself together enough to say, “There has recently been some disturbing activity in the Hills of the Silver Lions, long a source of irregularities, granted. This unusual situation came to my attention just as we were leaving Merrane for this Meet, and its herald, Chevric Finnansterne, will bear the tidings directly.”

  From the opposite bench, a Merranic rose to his feet, bowing floridly. “Your Majesties,” he boomed respectfully. The boys, remembering the pale, sweaty, horrified face at the head of a frantic half-hundred agitated Knights, barely recognized him. “I am the Knight of the Silver Hills, and was also born and raised there. It is truly, as rumor has it, an odd and magical place. Unexpected events and unusual creatures abound—it is part of its charm. But even there, nature and the gods have their rules, and these have been of late…stretched.”

  “The Mohrgs, as you know, are one of the oddities of the Realms found only in our area of Merrani. They are undeniably aggressive if disturbed or threatened, but as they travel in small herds and generally avoid habitation, they’ve been largely left alone. The past few months, however, have seen an increase in their activities. They have attacked several crofts and a very large herd was sighted in the southern Hills. Then,” his smooth report faltered just a little, “just over a week ago, the Castle of the Silver Lions was…besieged by almost sixty of the beasts. Many Knights and Steeds were injured and ten killed trying to bring the crofters in to safety.”

  Sable looked at him in disbelief, revising her opinion: THIS was the flimsiest evidence she’d heard to support the rise of the Sheelmen. What did a bunch of insane, malformed pigs have to do with anything? They were probably rabid. Flames, they were mutants—too-small skulls were probably squeezing too-small brains!

  Lord Khrieg, steepling his fine-boned hands under his chin, said consideringly, “Chevric, is it true that in the Wars, these beasts, like the dragons of Cyrrh, were more numerous, more belligerent?”

  “Yes, Skylord,” he said in Merranic bass, with another bow.

  Oh. Sable gave herself a little mental slap. Servants of Raemon, vicariously working his evil. What was she thinking?

  “Also, Majesties,” the Chevric continued, and Sable suppressed a sigh, “A line of black ash was reported on the ground in the western Hills, stretching for leagues if one is to believe the report.”

  Melkin cleared his throat into the blank silence that produced. “If I may, Your Majesties, I would suggest that that is likely hot steam—quite capable of charring grass and bushes and well-documented in the North—from the water table under the Ethammers.” His voice was faultlessly neutral, but Sable could almost feel the derision leaking out around it. She beamed across the room at him. For a moment, common sense perfumed the air.

  Kane, still obviously perturbed, nodded abruptly at the Knight and Finnansterne promptly sank back to his seat. “There is one more issue that should be discussed,” he said sternly. “There has been much activity glimpsed at Ramshead of late, seen both by Fleet patrols and Alenics who, er, hunt the area…and recent travelers through the eastern Wastes have reported sightings of the Ranks of the Ram just north of the Kendrick.”

  Kyr, again, seemed to jump at this. “In great numbers?”

  “Master Melkin?” Kane deferred, still surly.

  Melkin stood again. “No, Lord Rach. It was a small party of maybe half a dozen…our purpose there was to speak with a Shepherd—who claimed he had no knowledge of the Ram’s movement.” The tight disbelief in his voice sort of ruined the pretense of an impartial report.

  “There is no dishonesty amongst the Addahites,” Kyr murmured absently. “It was no doubt a scouting party…” Kane and Khrieg glanced at each other across the intervening table, nodding gravely. Sable looked from one to the other, feeling like she was missing something.

  “But to have scouts so far south—” Khrieg began, then stopped. All three of the other rulers were nodding again, as if this obscure phenomenon were somehow perfectly clear to all of them. Sable surveyed them testily; she was quite sure, from the looks passed around, that the Empire had just been left out of…something.

  To make it worse, Kyr, whom she had been thinking rather highly of, asked quietly, “Fox hear anything at Shearling?”

  Now, the Silver Fox had been around for centuries. They served as messengers between the Rulers and were a fantastic intelligence service, a sort of multi-purpose field operative with a huge array of skills—several of which were illegal in the North—quite capable of working alone and very discreetly. Their uses were almost unlimited, and every Realm used them to varying extents. But in the end, they were Cyrrhidean, and the days when the Realms were so close that they comfortably used each other’s intel forces were long past.

  So Sable may have been forgiven for grinding her teeth just a little when it was Cyrrh that answered, “Nothing. But, then, it is simple shepherds who bring the flocks down. There have never been Ram.”

  Technically, Shearling wasn’t actually part of the North, of course, but they were certainly its nearest Realm, and inarguably its main trading partner. It would have been polite to ask her—

  “So, all we have is increased vigilance at the northern Imperial Border…” Kane mumbled, and she shot him a very un-regal glare. The Wild Wastes were hardly a Border Realm. Did they think the Empire helpless? Everyone knew they were their own northern Border. But he was deep in the military mindset now—better than the one he had been in—and didn’t even notice her. He asked Khrieg, “What news DO the Fox have?”

  The Skylord shook his white head. The golden circlet resting on it was so artistically wrought that vines seemed almost to grow as you looked at it. Tiny bits of turquoise, aquamarines, and emerald twinkled alluringly amongst its intricacy, several times more lively than the Ruler who wore it. What they said about the Skylord was true…you could still see the deep sorrow for the loss of his Skyqueen etched into his face. His green eyes brimmed with it. His shoulders slumped with it and his fragile voice echoed it with every sentence. Some said it had crippled his ability to rule—but of course, his Fox wouldn’t talk about that with her.

  The voice that answered Kane was still sonorous with vestiges of life, however. “Little that hasn’t been brought to light already. Cyrrh is hardly a place of regular patterns and predictability, where something out of place is immediately apparent. We have noticed an absence in the Ivory, which has now been explained. Their presence is no longer reported by Sentinels, nor do they walk amongst the Seven Falls, and the Garden of Il is reported to be completely empty. For hundreds of years the Garden has held Ivory—and for the last it has lain abandoned.”

  Sable curbed impatience. More storytales, though this she had heard from Kai as well. It had been rather shocking to her, then, to realize there were things as the Ruler of the Empire that she literally knew nothing about. There wasn’t much attention paid to the Whiteblades in the North, so to find that there was actually a place where they lived, could be found year round, in Cyrrh—well, imagine that.

  “There is only one significant matter I would
bring to this Meet,” the Skylord paused, and Sable’s eyes slid off him to the Council at his elbow. He’d introduced her as his daughter, Kindhriada, arguably the most colorless person Sable had ever seen. As highly charged with emotion and drama as things had been so far, she had sat without reaction, almost without expression—certainly none showing interest—through all of it. She was strikingly pretty, just so unanimated it made one question her intelligence. She was Khrieg’s only child and heir, and it made Sable dread to think how Cyrrh was going to fare if she took the Throne of Trees. And how was the North going to be able to keep up effective trade and alliance with someone so apathetic of interrealm issues?

  Khrieg had been motioning to the bench behind him while these thoughts were trotting about in Sable’s mind, and now he said, “This is Silmeander, Chief of Jade Talon.” The southern races were not tall people, all of them with that glowing golden-brown skin, and the Chief had the same fine bone structure and oddly delicate features as his nearby countrymen. His fair hair was only a little darker than the Skyprincess’ and clear aqua-green eyes looked steadily back at his captivated audience. Like his Lord, he was in fitted suede, but it was buff-colored, the trousers mostly covered by thick leather knee-high boots of the same color. Elaborate swirls of green stitching ran down the length of boots, trousers and sleeves, and around his arms just above the elbows were tied narrow lengths of bright, sky-blue cloth, blazing with gold embroidery. They hung to the level of his knees, dancing playfully with every errant breeze as if to spite the enclosed air.

  He bowed from the waist, so graceful it didn’t even look ridiculous, and said in a lilting, crystalline voice, “My Lords and Lady…Jade Talon was recently patrolling the most southern reaches of Cyrrh…” He paused, glancing around the room and then once briefly at his Lord, before deciding he should elaborate, “We are a sky patrol.”