by sun sword
Alesso was furious.
Sendari knew it by the stillness and the silence in which he cloaked himself. He carried two swords; Sendari thought that these were not his only weapons, although they were the only visible ones. Beneath his robes, he wore the gift of Baredan di'Navarre—an old friend, a new enemy, and a man with a canny sense of what was valuable and useful.
"Widan Cortano," the General said, his eyes slightly narrowed in the poor light. "You summoned me, and I have chosen to answer that summons. I am pleased that Sendari had the forethought to warn me of the possible presence of the kin; the carelessness of the Shining Court in sending their emissaries has already cost me four of my most valued serafs. It is not yet dawn, but it will be; my presence will be required. Shortly."
The Widan Cortano looked neither concerned nor angered by Alesso di'Marente's words; the General's tone was neutral, and if the words were—almost—confrontational, they were not offensive enough to force the sword-sworn hand, unless the Widan already desired to move. "General," he said, inclining a majestically white head, "it was not at my insistence that you were summoned, but at the forceful request of our allies."
"I see." The General turned on his heel, pivoting neatly to face Lord Isladar. His anger was no better concealed. "What did you feel so important that it could not wait until our agreed upon meeting?"
The kinlord gave a low bow.
It unsettled Sendari, and readied him. Of the kin, this Lord was the quietest. He did not possess the overweening arrogance that made the kinlords so insulting; nor did he insist upon displaying his power as if it were plumage, and he a peacock in season. He was quiet in most things, and offered his counsel seldom, but when he did, the Lord of Night listened. Or so it was said. Sendari had not yet met the Lord of Night, and he had no intention of ever doing so. Let the rest of the Court please itself.
"General Alesso," Isladar said smoothly, "please, allow me to introduce Kovakar. He is a lieutenant in the army of Lord Assarak."
"Lord Assarak has no dealing with the Tor."
"Indeed, General Alesso, that was my response. But it appears that Lord Assarak is impatient."
"Lord Assarak is impatient," Kovakar hissed, "because of your folly, Lord Isladar. How much longer will we be forced to defer to these!" He raised his head, and lifted his shoulders; the robes that he wore bore the sudden shift in growth for no more than five seconds. "The only threat to us in the South are the Wandering clans. You know what they were before they abandoned their cities. Cortano, you yourself assured us—"
"I said that they were not a political force," the Widan said, in a deceptively mild tone.
"We will no longer tolerate these games of human politics," Kovakar replied, raising hands that were now long, clawed ebony. "Lord Assarak has dealt with humans before, and he has decided that it is time to deal with them again.
"You, General" he spit to the side as the word left his lips, "are to finish the Radann. They were in league with the Wanderer that Lord Isladar lost—you will bring them to me. Now.
"If you do not," he added, "remember that there are thousands of clansmen who desire the Tor Leonne; we require only one of them to achieve our goals."
"And those goals, Kovakar?"
Kovakar seemed momentarily nonplussed at the tone of the General's voice. He glanced to the side, but Lord Isladar was studiously examining the screen opposite them.
"To defeat the Empire, of course."
"And you intend to do this on your own when you cannot even field a small unit of the kin to join a greater army of clansmen at the agreed upon time? You will remember that it was the delay of the Shining Court, and not the delay of the Tor and its human politics, that has crippled the war?"
Kovakar's smile was hideous and triumphant as he again glanced at Lord Isladar. "Lord Isladar did not have control of his little pet, and she escaped, destroying two thirds of the kin that had been assembled to serve you."
"Pet? What is this, Isladar?" Cortano said softly, touching the black center of his beard as he often did when the hunt for answers was upon him. "Did you lose little Kiriel?"
Lord Isladar shrugged, as neutral in expression as Alesso. "She is what she is, Cortano. The Kialli are not born; they have always been. But children grow, and before they reach their full strength and accept their duty and their destiny, they test the limits of authority placed upon them. They break ties that they do not understand, and only when they have retreated to stand on their own, to know their own power, do they return.
"But she will return; I have seen it. And she will rule."
Cortano smiled and shook his head. "A worthy endeavor, or so I have always thought. You are the study of a lifetime, Isladar. It is my honor to preside over the Sword's Edge while you attempt your long return."
"Attempt?" Kovakar spoke, the two syllables the strike of lightning and the thunder that follows. He turned to the kinlord, Isladar, with open surprise. "You allow this? You allow these to question you?"
"I am not so fearful of my own status that I must see it slavishly worshiped at every possible moment, Kovakar," the kinlord responded. "It bores me. And besides, I've noted your tendency to defer, with what might pass for grace among the Kialli, to the mortal members of the Shining Court."
"Not so," Cortano said softly. "I do not believe that Kovakar has graced the upper chamber."
"The upper chamber is attended by footservants and Generals who have been placed under our Lord's geas," Kovakar replied, unriled. "And the Lord Assarak has decided that this will change. Starting now."
He was agile when he moved. He was deadly, and of the kin, he was powerful enough to take no master's name as part of his known identity. He was Lieutenant to Assarak, a step away from the Fist of God, and he intended to show these humans who they dealt with.
His victim's eyes were barely rounding in the way shocked mortal's eyes often did as he covered the distance between them, moving slowly for a Kialli of his stature.
Isladar was not a threat; in matters of the Court, he involved himself only when his pet was threatened, and even then, seldom. The mage, Cortano, was dangerous— but he was ambitious, and he desired things that the merely human court could never offer him.
But the human General's mage was disposable. Lord Assarak had made that quite clear. The Lady Sariyal says that these two are not merely allies, but "friends." A weakness, Kovakar. Use it.
He caught the mage-born human by the throat, closing his hand in just such a way as to allow breath through. He would also, in time, allow a scream or two to reach the ears of the man who needed to learn this lesson: The Kialli served no human interest for long; they were masters.
Kovakar did not intend to be quick or clean. The Lord kept a very tight rein upon subjects who had not seen the flats of this world since the Sundering and the Choice, and the sweet songs of the fields of Hell no longer slaked a thirst that had been ordained by that Choice. He had desired this return, but found—as his kin did—that the world was a much changed place. The glory had gone out of it, and the grandeur; there were mortals, and more mortals, and their pigs and cows and sheep. Here, wilderness meant the absence of human "civilization"; the trees were short and silent, the grasses tame, the forests devoid of the shadows and the light that had always been the bane of the Kialli.
Oh, there were souls, little flickering shards of immortality trapped in flesh that aged so quickly one could almost smell it decay, but they were the only compelling thing that remained in the Sundered Realm.
We will change that, he thought.
At his back, he heard the hiss of steel, slowly drawn, a lingering lovely sound that sent the mildest of shivers along his ear ridges. He turned, holding the mage whose hands now burned ineffectually at an ebony claw, and smiled, showing teeth. "General," he said, making of the word an insult. "You are almost beneath notice, but not quite. I would not turn my back upon the steel you wield if I were not guaranteed an alternate form of protection. But come. You have shown
an interest in the fate of this mage-born mortal. I assure you that I will not disappoint that interest.
"Remember who we are."
"I have never forgotten it," the General Alesso di'Marente said calmly. He turned to the Widan Cortano di'Alexes. "Cortano."
"General."
"If you feel that the demon is correct, then you will find another clansman to replace me." He turned to the kin-lord. "Isladar, if you interfere, you will be forced to dirty your hands with the blood of the Dominion."
"Indeed." The kinlord's expression was completely neutral, but his lips turned up at the corners in what was almost—but not quite—a human smile.
The Sword's Edge narrowed, becoming sharper and brighter and infinitely more dangerous as it glittered in the eyes of the man who held the title. "Alesso—"
The General smiled.
"You are not as young a man as you were."
"No. Neither of us are." His smile broadened. "But it is the Festival of the Sun, old man." He drew his second sword as Sendari's body stiffened in the shock of Kovakar's care.
And then he lifted his hand and very carefully touched the sash that he wore across his chest; felt its warmth beneath his palm as he spoke three words. A gift from Baredan di'Navarre, whose name, for the first time in this longest of months, he did not curse.
He had one chance, and it was a short one; he was no fool. He had seen the demon move, and knew that in speed he was overmastered. But in cunning, the kin underestimated their allies when they were certain of their power. Their certainty of power was matched only by that power itself; in raw terms, a mortal did not challenge the kin in man-to-man combat and win.
Not unless he had come prepared, if hastily.
With a contempt akin to a demon's, Alesso di'Marente drove the points of both swords into the creature's exposed spine, cutting to either side as he dragged them out. Light lanced from his blades in visible sparks as steel effortlessly crossed the barrier demonic magic had made.
Kovakar snarled in rage and pain; Sendari fell. Alesso did not pause to see whether or not the Widan had made the fall intact; he leaped back, landing nimbly, his swords—edge out—crossed before him.
Kovakar turned, his hands extended; in the light, the hard sheen of his dark palms cast a reflection against the walls and screens. Alesso had not expected the wounds to kill him, for he had seen enough of the Kialli to know that such hope was futile. But the demon was slowed; the near-severing of his spine had damaged him greatly to bring him almost to his knees. A demon fighting on his knees was not a threat to be taken lightly—but it was one that could be taken.
"Alesso!" He barely heard his name—it was too quiet, and the syllables were choked almost beyond recognition. But he heard it, and he smiled. And it had been a long time since he had had this freedom, had walked this line, had lifted his sword in a combat that demanded no less than his best.
He came this close to death. And this close to death, there was no need for a pretty expression, a neutral guise; this close to death there was no room for fear—there was reaction, action, the swing of blades, the dance of death.
Alesso had never succumbed to the call of the dance; it required a trust in a partner's intent—and skill—that he had never felt. As close as he got was this: not a dance, but a contest, with death the only arbiter, and the only reward.
He felt the demon's claws cut the flesh from his arm, tearing through layers of cloth and chain as if they were quill-paper. But he almost didn't feel the pain because his body responded before it had registered, twisting and striking as the demon discovered that the only power it had over him was physical.
He heard the demon's breath; felt his own; the room became two men—two combatants—on a wide stretch of planked floor, wielding their chosen weapons. The creature feinted, but the feint was clumsy; he returned in kind, striking flesh that resisted as if it were armor.
Blood fell in a ring beneath his feet as the sword came back; he parried, left-handed, struck with his right, saw the sizzle of shadow as the vessel of the Lord of Night was ruptured.
And he smiled.
Sendari moved away from the fighting, hand around his throat as if to protect it from a grip that still burned. He rose at the edge of the mats, on the left hand side of the kinlord, Isladar, a foot and a half from the support of the nearest wall. The kinlord looked down, stepped aside, and watched him rise—which was proper etiquette; he did not comment on the weakness of the Widan. Instead, he said, "Your General has hidden much from the sight of the kin."
"The kin," Sendari replied, "have hidden much from themselves. Alesso was chosen by Cortano for good reason. He is a man that the clansmen will follow."
"Indeed," Cortano added softly, although he was obscured by the kinlord's height, "he is. And I will say, Sendari, that he has lost little of his form over the last decade."
"It is the Festival season."
"And it irked him, to be a politician during the Lord's trial by combat."
"We could not afford to enter a challenge that we couldn't be certain of winning." Sendari winced and turned aside as his oldest friend took another glancing blow from the ebony claws of the kin. He lifted his hands, opened his mouth, and then dropped them, waiting. At times like this—and he had witnessed very, very few— Alesso was an elemental force, a thing, like the fires over which Sendari had at so much cost gained mastery, to be contained, to be feared, and to be respected.
Not to be protected.
Isladar raised a dark brow. "You would let him fight alone?"
"I would," Sendari said, and then added, "reluctantly. He has a way of being… unthankful… for intervention."
"Yes," Cortano said. "Youthful pride."
"He is not so young as that."
Sendari's throat hurt too much to allow him to laugh. "Proof," he said to Cortano, although the white-haired Widan was still obscured by the kinlord's frame, "that power and knowledge are not one and the same."
"You don't know if he's going to win."
Not a question. Sendari glanced at the demon, and then at the man upon whom their plans depended. "No," he said. "Does that please you, kinlord?"
"Not much," was Isladar's neutral answer. "You do not suffer with fear or guilt as you say it; you are both Widan, and you are both curiously unruffled by this turn of events. In fact, if I read what I see correctly, Cortano is actually pleased."
"Satisfied," the Edge of the Sword said curtly.
Sendari did not reply. He disliked this reminder of the demon's ability to read the lines written upon a man's soul, possibly because of what it implied. Lips narrowing into a thin line, he gave the fight his full attention. Or the semblance of it.
"Widan Sendari."
"Kinlord."
"Why do you not interfere? You have struggled for decades to reach these three days—and the Festival Height will be your reward."
"The Festival's Height," Cortano replied, "will be our declaration, no more; the fruits of success still hang from a fiercely guarded tree."
"Cortano, please."
"Very well, but you will not understand his answer."
At that, Sendari allowed himself to glance at the kinlord—and he was gratified for the first time in the length of a trying day, for the kinlord looked angry, even insulted, by Cortano's words. To a Widan, they would have been a spur to greater knowledge—or a slap in the face.
"We both see things that we have not seen before," the younger Widan said. "This is Alesso's test in the eyes of the Lord."
"You do not believe the Sun Lord even exists."
"Isladar," Cortano's voice was cold with warning.
"Very well, Widan—but I hardly think, with a demon on the mats, an eavesdropper is likely to pay attention to a statement that is widely believed if never publicly spoken."
Sendari said, "I do not believe, although that is beside the point. Alesso believes it, in his fashion. And he has chosen this as a test. He will win, and we will continue, or he will die, an
d we will continue."
"He chose this battle to save your life."
"Are you saying that to elicit guilt or to show your ignorance?"
Isladar laughed. The sound was deep and cold and beautiful. "Widan, you are wise. Very well. I am Kialli. Yet I will say this: You were some part of what motivated him."
"It was not a matter of my life—it was a matter of his dominion."
"And if I ended the battle now, he would never know whether or not he passed the test that he set for himself."
"Isladar," Cortano's voice.
The kinlord lifted a hand and pointed. Magical fire streamed from him like a solid bridge made of twisted ebony and burning ember. It struck Kovakar in the chest and bore him down to the mats that were already a cindered ruin.
"I apologize, General, but I am afraid that this particular creature is not without his import to our cause. I must ask that you forgo the pleasure of his death." Before Alesso could even react, the fire-laced shadow sprang out like a cage around the demon, harboring him.
The General turned slowly. "Release him, kinlord."
Isladar raised a brow. "I am afraid, General, that I do not have that option."
Black-eyed, bloodied, and unbowed, Alesso di'Marente looked kin to the kin as he turned slightly to face the Sword's Edge. "Cortano," he said softly, a single, cold word.
"Do not," the kinlord said, "interfere."
No breath was drawn in the room as this second of contests shifted ground and place.
The Widan who controlled the Sword of Knowledge paused a moment and then stepped at last into the range of Sendari's vision. In front of the kinlord. "Isladar." He appeared almost apologetic. "I must ask this, as a favor."
"And if I choose not to grant it?"
Cortano's expression did not shift; no muscle moved.
"I see," the kinlord said, "that we do not understand each other at all. You are not Allasakari."
At this, the Sword's Edge stiffened. "I have offered you no insult, old friend."
"But you offered no warning either."