by sun sword
"And she terrifies those who don't follow it!" Someone else, his words carrying in a loud, happy boom. Michale.
She set about her work, feeling the long stalks of wheat as they lay, new, against her dry hands. The children came to help her, although she needed little help; they came to thresh and stomp and squabble while they worked. That was the way of the young.
The way of the village.
She felt a sharp pang, seeing them all. And she did not name it because she did not have to. She could have chosen any home when the Tor'agar who had been her husband met his just end beneath the Lady's Moon. It was truth; his son had been almost a son to her, for all sons were reared in the harem until they came of an age deemed suitable by their sires.
But she had chosen to return to this village, as if by coming back she could reclaim what had been lost: dreams. Innocence. Trust.
And she had, for a while.
There was a warmth at her chest, a warmth and a softness, as if a child lay pillowed against her breast. And she realized that she cared very much for these people, and this place; that not only her dead, but her living, were here in numbers.
"Ashaf?"
It was Daro, his black hair swept in an unruly knot above his forehead. His wife loved long hair, and although it was not at all practical, he kept it so as not to have to listen to her complaints. Or so he said; there was an affection in Daro that was strong and deep and not afraid of the gibes of men.
"I am sorry," she told him softly, setting a callused hand gently against his shirt.
"And I am worried. It's not like you to miss the call three days running. Are you ill?"
"Do I look ill?"
"No. But I know you, Ashaf. You'd have one hand in the Lady's before you'd admit that anything was wrong."
"Then why," she said pointedly, "do you waste your breath and time asking?"
"Because if I get close enough to ask you over this din, I'll be able to see for myself." The concern lingered in his eyes, and she surprised herself by setting all work aside.
"Come," she said, and he followed, just as he followed her the evening his daughter's fever had—barely— broken.
* * *
They climbed the highest of the hills that the forest shielded from the outside, and sat there, looking down upon the men and women who toiled in such high spirits below.
"We'll finish early," she said.
He nodded.
"Is the Tor happy?"
"You'll be able to ask him yourself," Daro replied. "He's traveling this season, and intends this village to be his last stop." As he spoke, he cast a sidelong glance at her, the question in his voice unmistakable.
As always, the news that he would visit warmed her. He was not her son; she reminded herself of this again and again, although in truth she needed no reminder. He was the Tor'agar Danello kai di'Valente; he held her life, and the life of this village, in a hand that could just as easily curl into fist as open in offering.
But he held her in regard, he flattered her, and in the privacy of the tiny home that she would not leave, he spoke to her as if they were still prisoners in the same harem.
And that, she thought, was the first life, and it is over.
"Do you love this village?" someone said, and when Daro replied, she realized it was her.
"It is my responsibility."
"And you understand responsibility well," Ashaf replied softly. Proudly. "This is a village unlike any village in the Dominion, and it was made by the Tor'agar and by you. Give me your word, in the presence of the Lord, that you will guard it when I am gone."
"I have given just that word," Daro replied wryly, "to the Tor'agar himself." He laughed as he saw her expression shift into sternness. "But I am a wise man. He is in the capital. You are here.
"I give you my solemn word that I will guard this village in your absence. The Lord sees all. May he scorch me if I lie, or prove false to my vow. But, Ashaf," he continued, more seriously, "I don't want to have to do it without your help."
"No," she said softly.
The sun was warm and high.
* * *
She returned home while the sun was still ascendant, casting a shadow across the graves that she and her husband had made. That she had made alone after his passing, changing the shape of the earth with spades and tears.
Moving, she came to stand by the graves so that the sun cast her shadow away from what lay within them. The day had softened the edges of the loss, as it sometimes did, and she could sit here a moment, speaking silently the names of her children and her husband as if they were litany. Nothing lived within them, of course; nothing that could answer the words she did not speak aloud.
But she had stayed here, by the side of the dead, because it was here that their memories were strongest. She let them come; all of them. But she held the tears until dusk, offering them to no judgmental, unsympathetic Lord, and no Lady who, mother or not, had seen fit to part her from her family.
He came that night.
She should have known, and perhaps in some way she did, for her sleep was restless and easily broken. Yet it was not the sound of his voice that wakened her, shouting through the screens; nor was it the sound of his hand against the wooden beams.
She rose in the silence of insects and wind through the valley's tree branches—the silence of the pause before breath, of the stillness in a crowded room after the shattering of a precious crystal glass. Something had called her from sleep, but no trace remained of its sound except her certain knowledge that it was there.
She rose and went to the screen that separated the world without from the one within. The moonlight was bright enough to be visible, but not bright enough to see by. Darkness, light—it made little difference to Ashaf. Every inch of her home was more familiar to her in the darkness than most places were in the day.
Little difference? Ah. Not this night. She felt that she wanted the light, or rather that she should; she struggled a moment with tallow and wick before she brought its flickering glimmer into the night.
And then she remembered—and was surprised that she could forget for even a moment such a fact: That the harem had never been given over to night's darkness; lights abounded, proof to the wives—and their children— that the Lord's will ruled in the harem of the Tor'agar at all times. Very few were the people who had dared to speak against this more than once, although it made even the Radann—the men whose worship of the Lord of the Sun defined their lives—uneasy. "The Lady's time will come," they would say, muttering among themselves in their cloisters.
And it had. When the rites had been said over the newly turned earth. Oh, she had smiled then, her face veiled and masked, her anger hidden. The only joy she was allowed to show were her tears, and she shed them freely, knowing that the clansmen would not understand—and that her sister-wives would.
She stared at the candle until the image of its light had burned itself, blue, into her vision, and then she carefully blew it out.
The screen was heavy this night, as if her reluctance added weight and stiffness to its movement. She put her shoulders behind the action; they had borne greater burdens than this.
Moonlight silvered the grass and the leaves of the tall trees beyond the village. Starlight, starcloud, and the deepest of blue filled the sky. Somewhere, there were men and women who understood the beauty of things that were glimpsed, not seen. She smiled wryly. Dreams.
And then the smile dimmed. The sight of sky was lost.
"Ashaf kep'Valente."
She stared at the dark, dark robes of the man who stood before her door as if he were a stranger. There was something about his face, something about his eyes, that she had not seen during their dawn meeting, or their twilight one.
He spoke a guttural word, and from the folds of his cloak a lamp fell, swinging as if in a heavy breeze although the night air was still. She was not surprised to see that no hands held it, although it was suspended in air. Not surprised to see that his eyes
were all blackness, his face almost white.
It was the Lady's night.
"Isladar of no clan," she said. She did not bow or kneel. "Have you come to offer me a choice?"
At those words, spoken in such a quiet tone, he raised a dark brow. She had surprised him, and from his reaction, he was not a man who enjoyed the unexpected. But he nodded after a moment.
"Then enter," she said, standing aside. "Enter into the home of Ashaf kep'Valente for this third night."
"Ah." He smiled grimly. "This is the third night. You are superstitious, Ashaf. It is… charming." His cloak shifted; in the light his lamp cast she could see that he carried something beneath it. "I will accept your offer."
"I have water," she said. And it was true.
"Water? Ah. I forget. In the South there is the custom of water as an offering of either hospitality or respect. It is not often pursued in the Averdan valleys."
She walked to the table, the small, scarred table that was so much a part of her life she couldn't clearly remember a time that the house did not have it. Oh, she knew when it had arrived, but knowledge and memory did not always speak the same language.
"Sit," she said quietly as she retrieved her bowls. They were shallow; she saw this clearly in the glow of the lamp that no hands held. "You are not Widan."
"I bear no Widan's mark," Isladar said agreeably.
She lifted the skin that Yollana had left her and poured, sparingly, into both bowls. The first, she offered to Isladar, and the second, she took for herself. She lifted the bowl, waiting; he lifted his.
And then, as he brought the edge of the delicate clay to his lips, the waters taken from the lake of the Tor Leonne began to steam.
His brow rose again, and then his lips turned up in a genuine smile. "I think," he said softly, "that the hospitality of this house is both too fine and too dangerous for one such as I." The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. "Very well, Ashaf kep'Valente. I will not ask you how you came by this water; it is of little import and little consequence. This evening, I wear no disguise; I hide nothing."
"You do not speak all the truth," she said, which was as close as she had yet come to accusing a man with great power of lying. She felt no surprise at all that the waters did not pass his lips. Fear, yes—but not a visceral fear. A subtle one. A deep one.
"No one does." He nodded politely to her. "If we are to travel together, you and I, we must travel this evening. Already, I have been gone too long."
"What is the choice that you offer me?"
"To remain here, in this little village, as Ashaf kep'Valente. Or to travel with me, to a North that you cannot possibly imagine." He rose, and threw back the folds of his cloak. In the light, in his arms, there lay a small, poorly swaddled child. The child was crying; its face was almost purple with effort. But Ashaf heard no sound at all. She looked up, once, to see Isladar's face; such an expression could have been carved out of stone, so unmoved, and unmoving, did it seem.
"What are you doing to the child?" She rose as well, her arms already extended.
"I? I am merely silencing her cries. She can breathe."
She. Her. Ashaf asked for no permission as she took the child from Isladar's arms. At once, the child's pitiful cries filled the room. They were not strong.
"How old is she?" Ashaf said, all sternness.
"She was born," Isladar replied, "Upon the fifteenth of Wittan."
"The Lady's dawn," Ashaf said softly. "The harvest." She looked down into the child's face. The infant's face. "You don't know anything about children." It wasn't a question.
"I know a great deal about how to twist a person," he replied affably. "But not one so young, no. I see to her feeding."
"And who cleans her?"
He shrugged. "Does it matter? She is cleaned. She is healthy."
"And she's hungry."
"She is always hungry." Isladar frowned.
"No, I mean, she's hungry right now. And I don't have much to feed her." She stopped a moment, staring into the child's purple-red face. It wasn't lovely, and it was, and she felt it sharply as memory stung her.
"Where is her mother?"
"In the Hall of Mandaros," Isladar replied. And then he smiled coolly. "I forget. Annagarians are… quaint in their beliefs, and entirely incorrect; you do not know who sits in judgment. Her mother is quite dead."
Motherless.
This is not my child, she told herself, as she began to bounce her up and down while she gave thought to milk and liquid rice and who she might ask for either. Then she stopped again, and stared down at the waters of the Tor Leonne as they lay in her shallow drinking bowl.
She sat carefully, holding the child with the ease of years of long practice, before she lifted the bowl. No, she thought, too young yet.
"I would not, if I were you," Isladar said softly, although he made no move toward her.
Ashaf lifted her chin, met the blackness of his eyes with the solid brown of hers, and then turned her attention away from his gaze, his words. She rose, walked to the mats upon which she slept, and beside them found a clean cotton shirt. Dropping the edge of this into the water itself, she waited a moment. Then she lifted the wet cloth, and laid it, cool, against the child's lips.
A second, two, and then the infant began to suck. She cried out once, twice—a third time—and then she relaxed as the waters of the Tor Leonne took the edge off her hunger. Rising again, balancing child and shirt, Ashaf came to the table and picked up the Voyani skin. She filled her bowl, and fed the child, knowing that the girl would sleep soon.
Infants this young slept and ate and dirtied themselves in both the Lord's and the Lady's time. They did not see, they did not hear, and they did not crave the company of their mothers.
And so it was that Ashaf knew, by two signs, that this child was no normal infant. First, the satiated child raised her reddened, newborn face to gaze upon the person who had offered her the waters of the Lord. And second, as those eyes met Ashaf's, she saw that they were liquid gold. They had been brown when Isladar had placed the child in her arms. Infant brown.
But the waters of the Tor were special.
Demon child.
Ashaf paled, but she did not drop the child, or in any way frown as the infant's lids closed slowly over those damning eyes.
"You're a demon," she said softly, not to the child, but to Isladar.
"I am a demon," Isladar agreed.
"The waters of the Lord would not even bear the touch of your lips."
"Indeed."
"And this child—is this child yours?"
Isladar laughed, and the laughter was like a slow, deliberate cut. "Not mine, no."
The Radann did not suffer the golden-eyed children to live. And often, did not suffer their mothers to survive such an ill-omened birth.
But… but the child had taken the waters of the Tor Leonne. Had even, after a moment, been comforted by them, as any child would be. Surely, if the Lord's waters burned at the very closeness of Isladar, they would have harmed the child had she been of such evil birth.
Her arms tightened a moment as she gazed down at the sleeping face, seeing in it so many sleeping faces, so many sleepless nights, so many memories that had nothing at all to do with the baby herself. "What is her name?"
"It is not important," Isladar replied evenly. "Either you will accompany me, or you will not. If you will not, it is better that you do not know."
Knowing the answer before she asked the question, Ashaf said, "What is the choice that you have come to offer me?"
"You know it," he replied. "But I will say it, if you feel it must be said. You may remain here, with your memories and your people and your dead, or you may travel with me—a long way, and not a pleasant one—and when we arrive at your new home, you will be given sole care of the child until she is of an age to learn. Then," he said, seeing that she intended to interrupt him, "I will teach her. To read, to write, and to use what powers she may be gifted with. But when she i
s that age, while I am teaching her these things, you will teach her, Ashaf kep'Valente, to be human."
Her arms tightened again as she stared at a now sleeping infant, thinking that the golden-eyed were demon-kin. Thinking that they must not be suffered to live. Thinking that, for a demon's child, this one was warm and light and scrawny, like any new life, any new possibility. Arms tightened, hands shook; she had held each of her own, her own precious burdens, just so. Each of them, wizened with new life, free forever from the element of water, the body of the mother. Had she begun each life with a prayer? Had she begun each new possibility in both pain and in hope, and ended each—
Ah. She stood, babe in arms, history surrounding her like a shadow family. Thinking, because she could not stop from thinking it, that Evayne of Nolan had said this one, this only, important thing two evenings past.
You will never have to bury her.
* * *
ANNAGAR
* * *
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
21st of Scaral, 415 AA
The Tor Leonne
Serra Teresa di'Marano was uneasy, and if she was very careful, and kept her thoughts upon the festive celebrations, she hoped not to put a name to that unease, for things named were things with power. And she knew well that it was hard to rise above those things in life that held power.
Her lips, turned up in a gracious smile, and her chin, lowered just enough that she might not meet the eyes of the gathered crowd too boldly, were steady, but these were the perfected surface of manner, of grace, of social standing. And of these things, by necessity, the Serra Teresa was master. Her hands, folded around the handle of an ivory fan, sat in the lap her bent knees made; she wore a white silk sari, fringed in a deep, sapphire blue, with golden stars and moon and sun embroidered across the swath of the perfect cloth.