by sun sword
Ebony muscles caught rivulets of fire as the creature pivoted again, moving almost faster than the eye.
But not faster than the blade that left the hand of the slender, blond man who stood in the arch of the open window, insect net in pieces in his left hand.
The death roar of the demon literally shook the halls— more so because, until the creature tried to remove the blade from his chest and failed, it did not realize that it was a death roar. But blue-and-gold light lanced up wherever the haft or the blade of the knife came in contact with ebony flesh, and in the end, the fire that had been its mantle was guttered.
Only when the last of the twitching had passed did the woman look up to meet the eyes of the fair-haired man. "You took your time."
"It is not so easy as all that to steal weapons from the Astari on a moment's notice," the man replied coolly. "You might have come to me sooner."
"If I had the choice," she said pertly, turning to face Valedan, "I'm not certain I would ever come to you at all." Then she gave a low bow. "I don't believe you've met me before, Valedan di'Leonne. But I know of you. I am Evayne a'Nolan, and in return for this eve's work, I ask a favor."
He owed her his life. And because he was young, he said, "Anything."
But the man in darker clothing removed the ties that bound his hair so tightly, freeing coiling strands of gold and silver. Only then did Valedan recognize him: Kallandras of Senniel, the favored bard in Queen Siodonay's court. "Be careful what you promise her," he told Valedan softly. "She will collect without mercy."
21st of Morel, 427 AA
Annagar, The Tor Leonne
Widan Sendari di'Marano was not pleased; that much was clear by the tight set of his lips. If one was not familiar with him, one might be able to lose sight of it in the length of dark beard, the dignity of the Sword of Knowledge.
General Alesso di'Marente had known the Widan for almost twenty years; he could not ignore the slight furrows in brow and the corners of dark eyes. "Widan Sendari?"
"General di'Marente." The Widan bowed formally— too formally. "I request a private audience."
"I see." Turning, the General spoke two words. Serafs and cerdan alike vanished behind the screens as if they were mice. "This is important." It was not a question.
"Yes. And private."
"Sendari—" The word, terse, was cut off by a tightening of lips identical to the Widan's. "Very well." With a curt wave, the four Tyran who stood at the corners of the room were also dismissed. They sheathed their weapons in perfect unison, and bowed to the man at the room's center.
Silence held a moment as Alesso di'Marente rose to greet his ally. "Speak," he said, his voice low with warning.
"It might interest you to know that Lamberto—and possibly Callesta—will not be attending the Festival of the Sun at the Tor Leonne this year."
The expression upon the General's face became guarded. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," the Widan replied, measuring his words, "that Mareo di'Lamberto and Ramiro di'Callesta have heard word of the events that passed here; they will not trust you, and it is likely that even Ramiro, canny as he is, will refuse the pilgrimage." He paused. "Nor, General, do you have the authority to command them."
"No," Alesso replied, almost genially. "It is the Festival itself that will give me that right, as you well know. How did you come by this information?"
"Serra Teresa di'Marano."
"Serra Teresa? I see. And she?"
At this, Sendari's brows drew down; his fingers stroked the length of his beard as if it was a cat's tail. "Baredan di'Navarre."
The General's eyes narrowed at the name. "Impossible," he said flatly.
"Is it?"
"I saw the body myself. Baredan di'Navarre is dead."
"You will have that body exhumed," the Widan said. "I would see it myself."
They stared at each other a moment, two men of power with anger between them. It was Widan Sendari who spoke first. "My pardon, Alesso," he said, and if his voice was cool, it was sincere. They were not friends because they knew no conflict, but rather because they knew how to gracefully survive it.
"Serra Teresa is not known for fallibility," Alesso replied, relenting as well. "It is foolish to waste our strengths against each other. If Lamberto and Callesta will not come to the Tor Leonne, we will carry the war to them. The armies stand ready," he added softly. "As do our allies. We hoped to take the Terreans without the cost of war—but no true power comes peacefully." He smiled, and the smile was the coldest expression that had yet crossed his face. "Mancorvo and Averda will not stand together; they will fall, and easily, upon our field."
Sendari closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes," he said quietly. "It is so. But still, I would see the body."
"Very well; if it is not Baredan's, there is more at work here than we would like. I will call the serafs."
"I counsel against their use in this; I would summon the Tyran instead."
But Alesso grimaced. "They report to di'Horaro, and we will hear Calevro's opinion soon enough. It is late, old friend, and I would see to this in peace."
Sendari did not demur again.
* * *
Widan Sendari was dressed for the darkness. If not for the gleaming length of his beard and the glint of the Sword of Knowledge at his breast, he might have been mistaken for a simple seraf. Alesso came in court garb accompanied by the silent serafs that had been a part of his personal service for many years; they were few indeed. They brought shovels and spades and worked to the steady flicker of lamps until their skin glowed in the dim light, and they did not speak a word.
Sendari wondered if they still had their tongues, but chose not to ask. It was unseasonably chill and damp; the breeze was biting. I am old for this, he thought, and that chilled him further. He seldom felt his age.
But perhaps it was not age. Indeed, if he were honest, it was not age. Diora did not speak to him at all. Oh, the words were there, and the tone of voice, for her voice was always perfect—but beneath the words was a distance so vast he thought—he thought—
A cold, red glitter caught his eye, and he turned his attention to the Sword of Knowledge. Blood. Night was the time of omens.
"There," Alesso said, his voice a night whisper.
The ground was shallow; the bodies interred here were not meant to remain. In less than two hours the grass had been carefully rolled back, and the dirt beneath removed. It was a testament to their fear of Alesso that the serafs immediately jumped to pull the corpse from its shallow earthen creche; it was night, and one did not disturb the dead beneath the eyes of the Lady without invoking her displeasure. Even Sendari raised a palm in warding before he realized what he had done. The Widan were not superstitious. They were men of knowledge.
But a man's heart and child's heart had something in common, and knowledge alone did not save one from that commonality.
Alesso noticed everything, but chose to raise a brow and offer a sardonic smile. "I believe," he said softly, "that your skills are now required."
The Widan nodded, gesturing for the serafs to lift the lamps that stood upon the ground. The lamps were dim for precise work; he looked at their slender cases and grimaced. "Hold them well," he told the serafs, "and do not be surprised by anything that occurs."
They could see the glint of the golden sword at his chest, and they nodded quietly, knuckles whitening as they obeyed his command. He smiled and then raised both hands, palm up, in a sudden flicker of motion. The oil in the lamps began to burn unnaturally bright; the flames leaped, tongues touching open air.
There. Good enough. The body.
He recognized the slack face at once, although death lent it a certain grisly complexion. "The Lady's ceremonies were performed?"
"By whom?" Alesso replied sharply. "Of course not." But his eyes narrowed as the Widan's question took root; Sendari asked nothing without purpose, not even trivial questions about the weather.
"Observe," the Widan said, walk
ing over to a corpse that was, in the right glare of the Lord's light, only that. "There was no blessing, no supplication, no protection." Kneeling, he gently touched the contours of the body's cheek and jaw. "But the worms have not begun to feed; there are no marks." His grip tightened suddenly, like a vise—the serafs jumped back as if they expected movement, causing the light to waver.
General Alesso's face was completely neutral; a bad sign. He crossed the grass and came to stand beside the kneeling Widan. "Then what," he said, gazing down at the corpse, "is this?"
But the man kneeling on the grass had become the Sword of Knowledge. Power was a game to be played, but this—this was life's blood. Alesso grimaced, but subsided; he had seen this fevered concentration before, and doubted very much that Sendari di'Marano heard anything but the questions that were running through his Widan's mind.
A spectator, the General watched as the Widan passed a hand over the corpse's face; the lids, closed to that point, rolled open over sightless eyes. "Here," he said softly. Before Alesso could speak another word, the Widan carefully, and expertly, pulled the eyes out of sockets that no longer had use for them. The serafs made sounds akin to wind through hanging leaves and the lamps dipped again in their hands as they freed a palm momentarily to ward against the Lady's displeasure.
Only the General remained unmoved.
"No. Watch."
But the Widan's words were unnecessary. Blinded in such a visceral fashion, the whole corpse seemed to lose the patina, not of life, but of having lived at all. Skin turned slowly to wax, and at that not a smooth coat, but the drippings of a hastily melting candle; Baredan was of a class in which tallow saw little use. Beneath this blotched and blobby layer was a mask of wood with hollows for eyes and a cut hole for a mouth; in fact, the body was entirely of wood. It, like the skin, had the look of something constructed in haste, for the arms and legs were not of equal lengths, and they were rough-hewn, not sanded and ground to a finer finish.
The Widan's hands curled around the eyes, knuckles white; his expression fluctuated between triumph and anger.
"Tell me," the General said, his voice the essence of command.
"It is Voyani magic."
"Voyani?" The first surprise that Alesso had openly showed in the long evening. "But they barely have competent herb-lore!"
The Widan approached the wooden dummy. "Here," he said softly, his grip around the eyes still tight. "Over the 'heart.' This is a Voyani mark. Brush the wax from the forehead, and you will see it there as well. It appears that one at least of the Voyani is trained in the old ways."
Alesso drew a dagger and dulled its edge against wax and wood grain. When he had finished, he bent down to inspect the crookedly carved emblem of the quartered moon.
"He must have done them a service," the Widan said thoughtfully. "For I have only read of rumors of this magic, and it is from a time when the Voyani were not known as the wanderers."
"Can we use them?"
At that, Sendari laughed. "It is my intent to begin studies into that very question."
"Then allow me to save you from wasting your time."
Both men spun at once in the direction of the voice, and for the first time in the evening, the serafs did cry out, their voices a thin, short wail. But the lamps did not waver; instead, they were drawn to the chest and held there as if they, glass and wick and burning oil, were the only shield the night offered.
"The Voyani magics are tied to the Voyani themselves; those eyes were imbued with a life-gift. You will not be able to duplicate it, even if you happen upon a willing victim." The creature that stood before them was neither man nor woman; it was tall and slim and black as pitch. But its eyes were red, and its teeth white, and they glimmered in reflected lamplight as it spoke. "Forgive me for this intrusion. My Lord sends his greetings from the Shining Court."
Alesso said nothing, but he wished that he had taken Widan Sendari's advice and called for Tyran instead of his serafs. Silence extended a moment around them like a heavy fog; when Alesso spoke, his anger burned it away as if it were Lord's light itself. Yet he did not raise his voice.
"Why have you come here?"
"To tell you," the creature said, ears flattening slightly, "that Volkar-Assarak failed in his… duty."
"Do not play games with me," the General said softly. "Speak plainly if you will speak at all, and speak quickly."
Power recognized power; that was the rule of the two Dominions. The creature took a step back, retreating from both the light cast and the man who stood at its forefront. "The boy, Valedan di'Leonne, is still alive."
Sendari and Alesso exchanged grim glances. "Rectify it," the General said at last.
"My Lord Assarak bids me to tell you that we will do as we can—but that Volkar-Assarak failed to be subtle."
"They are aware of what he was." It was not a question.
The creature did not answer.
Again, the General and his counselor exchanged a measured glance. "They will have their cursed god-spawn spread across the palace like lice." Alesso spoke through clenched teeth. "Very well; he lives. It appears that we will have to do this the difficult way.
"Tell Lord Assarak that due to his failure, we require the aid we were promised. In ten days, we ride to war."
It was a dismissal, and had the creature been anyone else—be he noble, Tyran, or seraf—he would have died in the next minute, for he failed to obey the unspoken command. He did, however, bow quite low.
"My Lord Assarak regrets that that is unfortunately impossible at this time."
"What is this?" Alesso said, speaking so softly even the Widan strained to catch the words. "Treachery?"
"There has been an… upheaval in the Shining Court. The forces that you were promised no longer exist." If such a creature could, this one swallowed. "However, Lord Assarak, and Our Lord, wish to assure you that it will be a mere matter of human months—seven, perhaps eight—and that force, doubled in power, will be at your disposal and your absolute command." The creature paused, bowed again. "But Lord Isladar wishes to point out that, if you wish to dispense with pretense, you may have some thousand of the lesser kin as part of the army itself. They require no provisions, will keep an easy pace with a mortal forced march, and they will cut a swath through your enemy that your enemy will be powerless to prevent."
"Not so," the Widan said quietly to Alesso.
Alesso frowned at the very name. "Isladar," he replied, "knows well that neither we—nor you—can yet afford so open a display; to take a thousand kin through the Dominion would turn the Dominion against us; it would not be—yet—enough. If we cannot have the Lords—and the kin who can take some human guise—-we will not have the kin.
"In time, we will worship the Lord, both in light and darkness; there will be no Lady. But the lands will not accept His law. Not yet. And it is best that he remember this. Leave. We will take counsel here and respond to the Shining Court."
The creature bowed again, and the darkness took it, weaving so black a cloud around its body that the lamplight could not pierce it at all. Alesso stood under the open sky—the Lady's sky—his jaw white. "Sendari," he said. "We have much to discuss. Come." Turning to the serafs, he added, "Remain here. I will send someone to have the puppet removed, and then the grave must be filled again."
As one man, they bowed:
Widan Sendari par di'Marano was a master of the subtle skills; he walked the edge of secrecy better than any of the Widan, living or past. He knew it; it was a source of quiet pride, a balm against the angry father of his youth. But it was more than that; it was the certain veil, the unpierced safety in which discussions between men of power could be held.
He called upon his powers rarely, for their use was not small, and any who knew the art's effects could say for certain that the art had been called, and be suspicious of it. Other forms of secrecy, other dances, other misdirections—these appealed to his wisdom and his understanding of the rules of simplicity: Never use an army
where a dagger will do.
But there were some discussions which by their very nature presented so great a risk that the suspicions of those who might watch were of negligible import by comparison. He called upon the veil now, raising it in layers that twisted the sound into the expected venue of conversation should a listener stumble upon them in the darkness.
"I knew we could not trust them, but I did not realize that they would betray us before we had had a chance to fulfil our bargain."
Widan Sendari di'Marano watched his oldest friend in the silence of shadows and flickering lamp. He was not at home in this darkness, and his mind turned, again and again, to the Voyani artifacts—those two eyes—which rested in the confines of his Widan's robes.
"Sendari." It was a command.
"You miss so little, Alesso. Very well. Let me give you my full attention." He drew breath and exhaled; the lamp flickered as his breath passed by, a little gust of wind. "I believe that what the creature told you is true."
"Which part?"
"All of it."
Alesso was silent as he absorbed these three words. "This would be the prefect time to turn upon us."
"Yes." Sendari shrugged. "And were I them, I would choose it. Let a shifter take my place—or yours—and lead the campaign against the North, and see to the refashioning of the Lord's worship in the Dominion entirely as it, or its kinlord, sees fit. There is risk in it, however."
"And that?"
"Who brought the Allasakari to their knees?" The question offered was a quiet one because the answer was not a name which Alesso di'Marente wished to hear, let alone speak.
He spoke it. "Leonne."
"They have faced the winds once; they will seek a wall behind which to face them again. We are that wall, of course."
"Of course." But there was more to it than that; they both felt it. Oh, it was dark, and the moon was at her height. Alesso gave the Lady her due. "The Shining Court."
"Yes."
They stared at the flames, rather than seeking the doubt in each other's eyes. Of the two, Sendari had always found it easier to express doubt. Of the two. They were both proud men.