"Go with this one, then," the white-winged woman said, flicking fingers at the arbiter. "That is 'my' forfeit."
Rian said nothing as the ten-Tear rose from the table and vanished. Instead, she reattached her remaining four Tears to her veil, and stood. Both Court members preceded her out of the room, and the woman from the Snow Tower departed down the corridor with a flick of her pale wings.
The curve of the floor told Rian a little. It glowed with the light of the outer walls, but came the closest to horizontal that Rian had seen since she'd ascended the Gilded Tower. They must be near the central Tower, the Tower of Balance. The corridor itself was enormous: wide and tall and clear.
The arbiter, her pale hair winding around her like smoke, held out a hand and Rian, feeling childlike beside this seven-foot woman, took it as the arbiter stretched her wings. Their fragile leather membranes brought to mind rain-specked windows looking onto a city at night: dark and jewelled and glimmering.
Then the arbiter tugged Rian a little closer, turned her, and transferred her clasp to a prosaic grip under Rian's armpits. Two lazy beats sent them soaring rapidly down the corridor.
Rian, who had very recently been flying with another powerful and impressive woman, sucked in her breath and wished, suddenly, that Aerinndís Gwyn Lynn was with her. Not for protection, but simply for the wonder of it.
But Aerinndís, bound by rule to Prytennia, could not travel with Rian even if she cared to, and Rian had best put aside distraction. Whatever the purpose of this excursion, it was unlikely to be without consequences.
They were approaching a tall archway. The arbiter didn't slow, and they glided through it at what felt like a lazy pace, but was far faster than Rian would be able to walk-bounce. Beyond was an emptiness, a cup-like space circled by similar arches, and rising to a vast dome filled with shimmering twists of colour. Red, gold, blue, and milk-white. Not rainbows, but threads of liquid light.
"The Chamber of Balance."
Rian had said it aloud, and was surprised when the arbiter answered her, even as they lifted up through the bright, chilly shimmer.
"Technically, this is the antechamber. The Chamber of Balance sits above."
There was a circular structure set in the ceiling, clear to the eye only once they had passed through most of the wash of light. There were no stairs or ramps leading up to it and, rimmed by a balcony with only one doorway visible, it reminded Rian very strongly of a birdhouse.
There didn't appear to be any guards – Rian had not seen another person since firebird mask had departed – and they landed on the balcony precisely in front of the oversized doorway. Set back on her feet, Rian staggered two steps, and struggled to regain her poise. It was not just flying through low gravity that had unbalanced her. This was a place where those outside the Court of the Moon were not casually invited: the very top of the Towers of the Moon, where the Court's endless competitions were judged.
"Go in," the arbiter instructed.
'In' was another corridor, stretching left and right to follow the outer wall of the birdhouse. Rian bounce-stepped left without wasting breath on questions, and wondered if there was any significance to the choice. There were no furnishings to break up the corridor's smooth curve, but the inner wall seemed oddly textured. Punctured in patterns: a needle-fine filigree. Rian did not quite dare press her eye to the tiny holes in an attempt to see through them, but still slowed, not at all keen to know the purpose of this strange summons. On the far side of the wall, not close but within range of her senses, was a single, ponderous heartbeat.
At a point she guessed was opposite the first, she discovered another arch: this one with a door that opened as she drifted within touching distance. She stopped, steadying herself on the frame, and looked across a faintly convex floor to a chair that even at a distance of forty feet or more made her feel tiny. As did the occupant.
The Duke of Balance.
(vi)
Members of the Court of the Moon grew taller, not older. It was rare to ever see an adult that was not at least six feet tall, and seven feet was more common even for those who were seen outside the Towers. Those were the youngest generations, most likely to mix with humans. The Duke of Balance, the first of the Court to arrive in France, was among the oldest known.
If he had a name, Rian had never heard of it. None of the five Dukes who ruled the Towers were ever referred to by anything but their title. Rian did not know how tall he had been when the Court had first invaded but, so many centuries later, he was a spindly giant.
"Come."
She had barely recognised the sound as a word. His chest might look thin, but his voice was far from reedy, and the thick air of the Towers made it doubly deep.
Rian took a step forward, and then barely stopped herself from clutching the doorway again, for the floor was not there. She was looking directly down to an antlike swarm of people, far below, and the river, and the sprawling parkland that surrounded the towers, ringed by hotels and restaurants and then the streets of Lutèce, grand and small.
But directly below this room was the 'antechamber' of Balance, filled with swirling colour. The floor was not absent, or even a window, but some kind of illusion. She was not about to fall.
The irritation that followed this realisation helped, sweeping aside fear and wonder. Rian took a breath, firmed her chin, and walked forward with the light, skipping step made necessary by the low gravity. She stopped only when she could properly see the man waiting, her more than excellent night vision having no difficulty with the dim lighting of the room.
The seat of his chair would be perhaps shoulder height on Rian. The hands that curled over the armrests were… Rian blinked, but he was not clawed: his left hand was covered by a partial gauntlet of black metal. Spiked and spindly, it brought to mind the segmented legs of a crustacean. The right hand, uncovered, was neatly manicured, unremarkable barring the spider-leg length of the creamy fingers.
His clothes were similar to the close-fitted trousers and the flowing jacket that Étienne had so happily picked out earlier that day, but fashioned for a man built on pipe-cleaner lines. No veil or mask hid his face, but his dark brown hair was covered by a jewelled net of what looked to be silver and amethyst. Two thin braids studded with amethyst drops framed a long face, but the hints of purple near temple and ears were not gemstones. The stories about the older members of the Court of the Moon developing scales were apparently true.
It was difficult to judge when he was sitting down, but Rian thought him more than twice her own height. At least twelve, maybe fourteen feet tall. The back of the chair was cut to allow his wings to project past it while still providing support to his head, and even though he held them closed she could guess at a truly disconcerting span.
"I would like to see your face, please."
Rian hesitated, then lifted off the mask and veil. She glanced down at them, and noticed that a small table had appeared – grown – beside her. Feeling very exposed in her tissue-thin garments, she put the mask and veil down, and looked directly into his eyes.
"Did you arrange this? The reason that brought me to the Towers?"
"No." His deep voice, apparently kept deliberately soft, thrummed like a distant drum. "I am merely taking advantage of circumstance."
By annexing an unguarded pawn? Rian had to focus all of her wits, for she could not permit herself to be used against Prytennia. But how to extricate herself? She knew very little about the Duke of Balance: he did not ordinarily interact with outsiders to the Court of the Moon. And even most of the Court only saw him at the once-per-century adjudication of the balance of rule.
"I presume you haven't brought me here to play Forfeit."
"No." The faintest hint of a smile lightened his face. "I cannot involve myself directly in the competitions. No, I wish to propose an exchange."
"Of?"
"I wish to know a particular thing about the Amon-Re bloodline. In return…" The vibration of his voice dropped to, if pos
sible, an even lower note. "In return, I will give you the means to gain what you seek."
Rian held herself very still. She could count on one hand the number of people who knew that the vampire who had bound her was of the Amon-Re line, instead of the Ma'at line he publicly claimed. Makepeace's real identity was something she literally could not speak of, because he had bound her against doing so. But the Duke must surely know that secret, to mention Amon-Re at all.
"The…the one who bound me has given me very little information about the bloodlines," she said, honestly enough. "I don't think I would be able to answer questions."
"Even Heriath would not be able to answer me," the Duke said, removing any doubt as to whether he knew Makepeace's real name. "Not without conducting the experiment I wish you to consent to. I want," he went on, "to know how the Amon-Re line reacts to my blood."
Rian stared. Took a long breath. Finally said: "I'm not a vampire yet."
"No. But the Amon-Re symbiont burns bright within you. There are some risks, of course. My blood would end the life of an ordinary human. You, who have survived Amon-Re, could not be killed by a drop of it, but there is a strong chance it will make you very ill. If that occurs, I will pay recompense."
But why did he want to know the effect of his blood on Amon-Re vampires? It seemed to Rian that there had to be consequences to this she could not see. And, yet, could she pass up a real chance to recover the mask? For Martine, who had done so much for Rian?
"I cannot risk allegiance," she hedged. "I am already divided."
"We are, as ever, not gods. Nothing I do could bind your allegiance to me."
"I don't…I don't know," Rian said, choosing directness in some vain hope that it would lead her to the truth. "I have become tied into the defences of my homeland. My choices are not entirely my own."
These protestations seemed to neither surprise nor concern him, and the steady pulse of his heart did not change as he said: "The consequences of this are only knowledge. The information I gain will not impact Prytennia, nor lead to any threat to that land. If you wish for fuller disclosure, the eventual goal of this experiment will greatly impact Aquitania, if I am able to progress to it."
Aquitania, the southern province of France, was highly disputed territory. It should not surprise Rian at all that the Dukes were looking for ways to retain it permanently. But how could Rian tasting this ancient creature's blood alter that? And what would the various powers she was tied to think of her becoming involved?
"What goal?"
"That, at the moment, is not relevant, since I cannot progress toward that until you are more who you will be."
She didn't fully understand the sentence. "More what?"
The soft rumble of a voice seemed to echo from the whole of the shadowy, circular room. "You are a power in the process of becoming. You have weight, and the world bends itself around you. When you have taken more steps along that path, you will have the strength for a further exchange. But that is a bargain for another century."
Rian usually prided herself on her quick thinking, but she was struggling to process all this. Next century? She would almost certainly be a vampire in truth by then. Remarkable to think of even being alive. Did he seriously plan on her returning here in a century…to drink his blood?
She needed clarity. There had been too many bargains these last few months, and each time they had twisted into something larger. Contracting for ten years of service with a vampire had become an irreversible step toward vampirism. Giving allegiance to the god Cernunnos had brought her a nice house and salary – and put her square in the centre of political and godly battles. No matter what terms the Duke of Balance offered, it would be stupid not to expect a significant consequence.
She did not need to do this. She could simply walk away. And watch Martine lose the position she had fought so hard to gain, and which had finally allowed her to hold her head high, lifting her above the 'shame' of Milo's birth.
Rian stood still for a long time, watched by the winged giant, and listening to the steady pulse, pulse, pulse of his blood. Then she carefully restated what he had asked, to be sure, and added: "If your experiment is successful, there is another stage that you wish to move on to, next century, which will have consequences for Aquitania. Does that stage require me as well?"
"Not specifically. But Amon-Re vampires are very rare."
Amon-Re vampires could be counted on one hand, because their blood killed almost all who aspired to ascend to their powers. That gave Rian an advantage.
"There is a shortfall in your calculation," she said carefully. "Why do you think that I will return to France next century?"
"Have you not returned to it again and again?" he asked, without any hint of concern.
"I have family I love here, and France is filled with things I appreciate and enjoy. But by next century all the people I care about in Lutèce will be gone. And without them, for all its delights, France is not a place that welcomes me. If I married here, all my property would become my husband's. If I attended the Gilded Court's games without a mask, I would become an object of disdain. I came here tonight with a cousin in part because a woman travelling alone, dressed like this, could be seen as forfeiting a right to protest any form of mistreatment."
"Those are not the mores of the Court of the Moon."
"No. In fact, it's probably the Roman influence on Aquitania, mixing north," Rian said. "Before the formation of Prytennia, there were similar attitudes all over Albion, but when Sulis Answered, her laws became the country's laws. In France you, who claim not to be gods, do not care about human laws because only the Court's rules are important to your battles – and those rules change four times a century, and only matter at night."
A sliding movement behind the Duke was his only immediate response. His wings, glimmering night, slowly expanded, stretching to almost the full diameter of the room. Rian, watching mesmerised, felt as if she were wearing the mask of a mouse, not a snake.
Then he said: "Are you asking me to dictate to the Sun Court?"
Spoken as calmly as the rest of their discussion, but the question practically clanged warnings. Rian had not missed that the Duke of Balance appeared to be attempting to live up to his name in trying to arrange his experiments. What price could she possibly pay equal to telling the Sun Court to alter the common laws of France?
But Rian was not quite so young and foolish as to ask the Duke of Balance for anything at all, let alone a thing so potentially large. And she was not a mouse.
If she truly was a power in the process of becoming, she would test her weight.
"I am telling you that the laws of the Sun Court pronounce me 'less than', and actively hurt people I care about. They are…" She paused. "I think they are one of the reasons I have never made France my home. And they are now an obstacle standing in the way of your plans for Aquitania."
There was no need to make the point clearer. He was not stupid. He wanted something from her – a small thing tonight and a very large thing on another night, a century from now. To even ask, to begin to negotiate for whatever it was he wanted from the vampire she would be, this pipe-cleaner giant needed her to come to him.
His outstretched wings stirred, and her tissue-dress shifted in response. But he did not even seem to be looking at her, was gazing a little to her left toward the floor, as if he was watching the images of the city. She noticed that the great river of his bloodstream was flowing at a faster rate, but she did not believe this to be anger, or a prelude to any attack. Still, she could not restrain a tiny sigh of relief when that mantle of star-studded night folded away, and he looked back at her as calmly as ever.
"You may find that your errand tonight leads to a small choice with large consequences," he said. "I will leave to you whether the result is enough to encourage your return during the new century. Do I have your agreement for this first experiment?"
"Yes."
He inclined his head the tiniest degree. Gratitude fro
m a not-a-god to someone who was not a power yet. His gaze shifted to his left hand, shielded by the partial gauntlet, as he pierced the pad of his own thumb with one of the spikes. Then he rested his hand palm-up on his knee, so that the rapidly welling drop of blood was just within Rian's reach.
Rian might have been bitten by a vampire, but she had no taste for blood – beyond some very uncomfortable memories of the complications of the Amon-Re ability to sense emotion. It was necessary to steel herself, to remind herself of Martine, before she could move closer to him. That gauntlet of curving metal claws only emphasised the sense that she was walking into a snare. It would be like putting her face into a bear-trap.
She would have to stand on tip-toe to do it, as well. Made even smaller by proximity, she said: "This is not what I expected to be doing tonight," and heard a rumble-puff of laughter as she licked his thumb.
An iron tang filled her mouth. She swallowed, relieved the stuff didn't burn as Makepeace's did.
The floor tilted.
(vii)
Drunk in the street, and weeping. Ashamed by the hurt wine failed to drown, by the fool she had been. Martine, an arm around her waist, guiding her back to the hotel, and reminding her that she was alive, and survival was a victory when your lover had tried to have you erased.
Memory receded, divided, and a scarlet thread led Rian back to that street in Lutèce, long ago.
Clinging to a lamp post, shouting at Martine. Words born of hurt, cruel sneers. Martine's white face, marked by the red outline of a hand. A disjointed maze of shadowed streets. A step behind her, a blow. Then…chiming. The high voices of la clochettes, and she among them, in the Court of the Moon's Otherworld.
She had always known Martine had saved her life that night. Struggling to separate herself from a memory of something that had never been, Rian tried to orient herself among a maze of ribbons and threads. Vivid, dull, faded, brilliant. They pulled at her, and she fell down the nearest, glittering and strawberry-ripe.
The Towers, the Moon Page 6