The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  Immediately, Zhimesse’s ribcage swelled underneath him and the gryphon uttered a shrieking bugle that made him grab at Pior, half-appalled, half-exultant. The sound was so fierce, so wild and free and so much more evocative of what he was feeling that a part of him couldn’t help approving.

  “Sorry!” he yelled at Pior over the rushing wind. “I didn’t upset him, did I?”

  The wind tore a laugh out of the rider’s mouth. “Nah! We don’t know why they make that sound—it’s only when they’re flying, when nothing’s wrong, so we just assume it’s love of life!”

  Love of life. Ari grinned, the wind drying his teeth. He was beginning to feel a current of affinity for these awesome creatures.

  They flew for hours, the unimaginably vast panoply of the world rolling out beneath them. The dwarfing enormity of it, the unbounded space, reminded him of that night at the Shepherd’s Hall and the limitless infinity of stars…and the strange sense of Il. It came again here, the indefinable nearness. Curiosity couldn’t help but seep through his euphoria. What was it about Il? He existed in a totally different way than the other gods, followed different, grander rules. The Illians were as odd as their religion—and why were they always outcast? As if their ways were somehow incompatible with the rest of the Realms’. He could understand why girls would have left hearth and home in the Ages of War. Girls had a bum deal, for the most part, he’d always thought. No chance for adventure or way to prove themselves…being a Whiteblade would be fabulous just for that. And then, life was an uncertain thing anyway, back then.

  But why now? Why would any girl born in the last century give up comfort and ease and predictable peace for a life of scorn, sanctuary in the inhospitable shadows of Cyrrh at best and a price on her head at worst? Did Il require this of those who followed him? How about the Addahites? Maybe they had their own Realm, in a sense, but they were just as outcast as the Ivory, welcomed in neither the North nor Merrani and considered backward savages by everyone.

  The sun climbed in the bright sky, warming the world and bringing it into ever more brilliant focus, but it was still bone-chillingly cold up this high. He couldn’t believe the temperature difference as they began to drop down in elevation. He didn’t pay too much attention to their slow angle towards the ground until he realized it was coming up sharply to meet them.

  And it was a little unbelievable when, out of the leagues of identical tree-clad hills and gullies and rolling landscape, he realized they were aiming right at one high meadow at the top of a rocky peak…and a lone human.

  It was the Fox. The one that Traive had dispatched weeks ago, Ari saw as they honed in on him. He looked pretty rough, hair unkempt, clothes even better camouflaged by the wilderness covering them, but he seemed perfectly composed, as if he was expecting them to drop in out of broad, empty sky right to his little spot. He and Traive put their heads together as soon as the gryphons landed.

  Ari dismounted reluctantly. Not only did it seem wrong to have those wings furled, their power and promise hidden, but there was a certain denial possible while soaring through clear skies. He’d left several problems back at Lirralhisa that now seemed to be catching up with him. Regretfully, he patted the muscled flank as he stepped away.

  They were on a flat, open place on the side of an otherwise steep hill, thickly forested and looking out over a vista that fell away in luscious rumples and curves. Before them, a grassy clearing of Cyrrhidean green was still bright and lush despite the crisp autumn air, smooth boulders of varying sizes scattered here and there. The surrounding trees were in full, vivid fall color, cascades of bright yellow leaves twinkling like stars on the aspen trees and the maple leaves so red they looked like embers caught on the ends of the branches.

  It looked like a painting. An unreal setting for the unreal being that walked out of the woods. The Fox had disappeared into the trees while the Northerners were dismounting and learning how to walk again. Now, before they could even get used to the resplendent surroundings, before Rodge had found his vocal cords again, the Cyrrhidean returned.

  And by his side walked a centaur.

  The Northerners froze, staring. His body swayed just like a horse as he sedately and with great dignity entered the meadow, materializing out of legend into light. Immediately, the little clearing seemed to shrink, and not just out of a sense of awe, overwhelming enough in its own right.

  He was a Merranic-sized man, affixed to a horse the size of a Northern draft horse, though considerably more graceful, and made even the gryphons seem regular-sized. The horse part of him was silvery grey, a snowy white tail flicking elegantly at flies and swishing around the long, feathery white hairs of his fetlocks. The face that sat on the broad, white-bearded chest gave off an air of deep, almost menacing solemnity, and the eyes…the eyes were old. Old as the hills, old as the trees or skies. Old as time, and deeply, humanly intelligent.

  He came slowly to a halt, looking at each of them in turn, unhurried, as if seeing past their Northernness, their humanness, into their insides. His face was so stern it was a shadow short of a scowl and Ari waited with mounting trepidation for the eyes to reach him. He didn’t feel quite up to a dissecting evaluation just now. The centaur did look at him long and closely, but with no more change of expression or clue to what he was thinking than with any of the others.

  No one said anything. The air of intimidating authority was almost palpable. Birds twittered, the underbrush rustled with small lives, but no human voice upset the silence. Not even Traive made an effort to speak and Ari figured he was probably the best versed of any of them in centaur social habits. Who knew what cultural idiosyncrasies centaurs had? Two-thirds of the party would have denied their existence a few minutes ago.

  Tension began to mount, the Northern contingent not used to such long silence in a social situation, until it was a positive relief when the centaur finally spoke. His long, silky white beard, that joined into a long, silky white strip along his belly until they merged into the shimmery grey horse coat below his navel, moved and flowed with his speech like a rippling brook.

  “I am Silverene,” he said, his voice smooth and deep as the bowels of the earth. “And I am the oldest of my kind. This is Ebon, my great-great-great-great-grandson.” They hadn’t even noticed the second centaur, standing quietly at the edge of the trees, so thoroughly did Silverene dominate the whole place. The other centaur did look younger, and was coal black, even his skin so dark that Ari wouldn’t have thought it possible—much darker than his own. His human hair was black, too, and tightly curled, and he had to be the most beautiful man any of them had ever seen. His face was absolutely flawless, and still as stone.

  Traive finally said something.

  “We are deeply honored, Horselord. We know it is no wish of thine to be sought out and disturbed, nor do we intrude on thy peace without good reason. Long has it been since man has sought thy council, but we are sorely in need of it now. We beg audience.”

  Which was apparently still negotiable, despite the fact that he was there and they were there and they were talking to him. The tense air of anticipation crept back into the clearing as he remained wordless and unmoving. He seemed to be brooding, weighing Cyrrh’s Lord Regent with those deep eyes. Finally, he slowly and gracefully folded his four legs underneath him and seemed to settle, soft as a thistle head, to the ground.

  “I will hear thee,” he pronounced, voice rolling out rich and smooth across the meadow.

  With no urging, everyone sank into a seat on the carpet of grass. He just wasn’t the sort of being one felt one should be standing over. The whole clearing was affected by this aura of awed respect, even the gryphons sitting as if on parade, wings maximally extended straight up, proud heads bent and motionless.

  A reverent stillness settled across the clearing. Even Rodge and Cerise were temporarily tongue-tied. Into this almost ceremonial atmosphere, Traive began to speak.

  “Cyrrh stirs, my lord,” he began in his smooth tenor. “Enough that
even the dull, crude senses of man can detect it. Our beasts are restless, our dreams tormented. The Dragons’ Lairs smoke, and the Ivory are vanished. Long has there been peace in the Realms, but now even the Rach have thirsty blades and the Warwolves breed packs at a time. The High Wilds tense in alertness and a Shepherd of Il has proclaimed the Peace is ended. The First Mage foretells the coming of Raemon, with a new power that will destroy even the gods.”

  “And the Imperial Wolfmaster,” Traive gracefully indicated Melkin, “remembers an old legend. The Legend of the Empress, and her sacrifice that entrapped the ruby god, and the origins of the Five Hundred Years of Peace.”

  Silence built again as Silverene’s penetrating eyes moved to Melkin’s craggy, watchful face. Grey eyes met grey. Ari couldn’t help but wonder if the centaur wasn’t just a little curious about what was happening out there in the rest of the world. They obviously preferred isolation, but even so…

  To everyone’s surprise, Melkin spoke. “It’s an imperfect memory, Horselord,” he began in his gravelly voice, watching the centaur closely. “The Shepherd had to remind us of the Empress’s Statue and that the time of its effectiveness has drawn to a close. But we are hoping there is a way to convince the Sheelmen that Raemon stays imprisoned, to forestall their rise to war.”

  Still Silverene considered, looking at Melkin so long that Ari was sure if it had been him he would have fidgeted under that direct gaze. There was nothing more to say, it seemed. They all sat waiting under the welcome sun, the breeze a cool, shivery thing this high and this far north.

  Finally, after a silence so long that the sound of his voice startled them, Silverene spoke. Solemnly, deliberate, he said, “Thou speakest many truths, though thou dost not believe all of them. Many more art left unspoken. Why dost thou not tell me of the words of the Swords of Light?”

  Melkin blinked. He exchanged a fleeting look with Traive, who looked just as nonplussed and who answered quickly, “We can find no Ivory to ask these things of. Only one has the Wolfmaster met, who would say merely that the answer to his riddles lie in Cyrrh.”

  There was another breathless wait. “And dost thou not consider she couldst say no more because thou wouldst not believe more?”

  They all stared at him, dumbfounded. No, none of this had considered this. In fact, it seemed highly irrelevant, all things considered.

  “Raemon no longer lies imprisoned; this is truth.” Ari’s heart began to beat heavily at the centaur’s words. There was a bliss to ignorance, he realized, dread beginning to weave through him like rising smoke as the words sunk in. “But neither hast he returned. He waits.” He surveyed them with those too-perceptive eyes, though it didn’t take much effort to read the varying shades of despair on every face but Kai’s.

  “Thou must find the Statue.” His words dropped like stones, each one like an individual omen, full of portent and cold as ice.

  Melkin’s eyes were snapping hungrily. Hurriedly, as if afraid information was slipping away with every pause, he asked. “Where is it, Horselord? What is it about the Statue that holds power over Raemon? How do we activate—or prevent—it?”

  Silverene gave him a look of disturbing astuteness, as if he knew the Master had questions Melkin wasn’t even aware of. Another pause stretched out interminably. “I do not know. Il did not consult with me. Nor did the Empress.”

  By this time, these two statements didn’t even seem remarkable. What was disturbing was that he seemed to be done. No more commentary, no more illumination, not even more observations about their skepticism. They looked at each other furtively as he just sat there calmly, as if waiting for the next topic. More than just disappointment, it was a faint sense of panic that stole over the little group.

  This had been their last chance. They had no other clues, no other options, short of a trip to the Sheelshard itself. Ari, especially, felt the twinges of desperation working on him. They’d come so close. They’d come so far. How could it end here? All they’d been through and it was just going to peter out into an even bigger mystery than when it had started?

  Rodge sighed rather explosively, muttering under his breath with his resilient irreverence, “Maybe we should ask the unicorns.”

  Silverene gave him an even look. “This is not the time for the chasing of fairytales.” Rodge stared, looking like someone had moved the earth out from underneath his feet.

  “No,” he said faintly. “What was I thinking?”

  “There is no other way to avoid this war?” Traive asked quietly. “We feel time forbids the search for the Statue, that it lies somewhere far beyond our knowledge.”

  “War in some form wilt come, regardless.” A fresh round of dismay circled the group. Silverene, ignoring the despair he was causing, continued mercilessly, “But if Raemon returns, the Realms as we know them will cease to be. The First Mage foresaw Truth.”

  This wasn’t improving any. Ari fought the rising tide of defeat. It couldn’t be over. They couldn’t give up. There had to be more, somewhere, somehow…his whole life had become wound up in this journey, the answers to his murky past hand-in-hand with the answers to their quest. The finding of the Statue had somehow become indistinguishable from the finding of his own life’s history—

  Suddenly he stopped. Stopped breathing, thoughts frozen. Stopped moving, staring into space with a feeling like ice creeping over him from one end to the other. His eyes watered with the import of what he’d just discovered, his mouth dry as cotton.

  “I know where it is,” he said hoarsely. Silverene’s eyes, like sunlit mist, turned calmly, expectantly, unsurprised, to look at him. So did everyone else’s. It had been more dry garble than words, and Loren patted him bracingly, as if to ward off an awkward comment. “Not now, Ari,” he whispered.

  He sucked in a breath, then two. “I know where it is,” he managed, louder and more comprehensible.

  “Know where what is?” Melkin demanded, keen eyes impatient.

  “The Statue.”

  No one made a sound. Most stared at him blankly, like he’d grown an ear out of the middle of his forehead.

  “You couldn’t have mentioned this a few months ago?” Rodge asked in astonishment. Ari felt the uncomfortable weight of everyone’s eyes boring into him, but before anyone else could speak, Silverene’s deep voice broke the silence.

  “Thou hast fireblood,” he said, as if remarking on the weather. Ari had never heard that term before, but it didn’t take much intuition to figure it out. He felt his face grow as hot as his tell-tale hair.

  “I’m an orphan,” he explained, tongue inexplicably loosened by the last few minutes. It was as if releasing the memory of the Statue that he’d played around for all those years made it somehow easier to talk about, had brought the insecurity of his past into the sunlight. He knew those memories were true now, in some sense, not just dreams he’d made up out of longing.

  “I was raised by Illian nuns, in a convent in southern Cyrrh. When I was about four, Loren’s father found me on a trip south and took me in.” He was rather proud at how steady his voice was, especially with those knowing eyes on him. He glanced at his best friend, who was staring at him like he’d never seen him before.

  “Go on,” Melkin said, not one to be distracted by sentiment. “Where’s the Statue?”

  “The convent had a garden, overgrown, and I used to play in there all the time. That’s where it is. Buried under a bunch of old rose and bramblevines in this very Realm.” He dropped his eyes, embarrassed it had taken so long to remember it, but mostly ridiculously warmed by the memory of the place.

  Melkin whipped his simmering intensity onto Kai, which would have reduced a lesser man to a gibbering idiot.

  “I know where it is,” the Dra assured him calmly. Melkin, ready to go flying off the cliff right then with or without a gryphon, half rose and shot Traive a let’s-wrap-this-up look.

  But Silverene was not done. His eyes still rested heavily on Ari, unheeding of the machinations of the Wolfm
aster and the fate of the world. He said very quietly, “There art no ‘Illian nuns.’ Nor is there anywhere a convent. Thou wert raised, for some reason, by the Swords of Light themselves.”

  Ari’s jaw dropped. Again everyone went quiet, eyes flicking uncomprehendingly from Ari to the centaur. He swallowed, his throat so dry his adam’s apple grated. A sweet warmth seemed to flow over his sore insides, an unbelievable relief at hearing such confirmation out loud. He stared hungrily at the centaur with his brilliant eyes, wishing he dared ask how he knew. What he knew.

  “Thou art more fortunate than thou canst know,” Silverene continued thoughtfully, and his deep voice dropped another octave, until it was more vibration than sound. “The Swords do not raise mortal children.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Sable, washed, dressed and impatient to start her first day at the Ramparts, met a startled Krysta at the door. The Rach girl looked her over, nonplussed, and lamely offered her the breakfast tray, glancing out the window to see if she’d misgauged the daylight.

  “What is first this morning?” the Queen asked briskly, selecting fruit from the loaded tray and fresh, warm flat bread—none of last night’s leftovers here.

  Krysta looked uncertain. “It was thought you might want to rest this morning. It is a long trail from Crossing…though Kore said you rode with great endurance for a Northerner.”

  “How kind,” Sable murmured sarcastically around a mouthful of apricot. “I’m not an invalid,” she remonstrated crisply.

  “No, but you’re Northern Royalty,” Krysta said, tone implying it was a marginally worse condition.

  “What is the Lord Rach doing?” Sable asked casually.

  “There is usually swordplay for several hours in the morning—I expect he is there.”