Skirmish: The House War: Book Four

by Michelle West

  “I was.”

  “And you now understand why.”

  “I do.”

  “Why are you here? Why did you take Jewel ATerafin into the Deepings?”

  “To save her life.”

  “It is a perilous way to save a mortal life.”

  Avandar’s smile was shocking because it was offered at all; it was also thin. “Yet she is here, Lady.”

  “Why did you seek to save her life?”

  Avandar said nothing.

  “He’s my domicis,” Jewel replied, in his stead.

  “There is no death for you at her side,” the Mother told him, as if Jewel hadn’t spoken.

  Avandar again remained silent.

  “Do you think she can give you what you desire?”

  “Perhaps not,” he replied, relenting. “But there is now one who walks the world who can.”

  It was the god’s turn to fall silent; she did, but turned in that silence toward the Winter King. She spoke to him, and Jewel didn’t understand a word she said. But he approached, lifting his head. They conversed briefly, and then the god turned back to Jewel.

  “You stood against the Winter Queen upon the open road?” the Mother asked. Her eyes rounded, softening in shape.

  Jewel nodded.

  “Why, Jewel?”

  “Because someone had to—and I could.” She hesitated, and then said, “I could see him. I could see the man in the stag.”

  “And so you now claim the mount of the Queen and a prince of her Court as your servants?”

  “No.”

  “They serve you?”

  “…yes.”

  The Mother now turned to the two gods who watched—and waited—in grim silence.

  Cormaris did not move, but he lifted his head and filled the air with the sound of his voice—his many voices. “Lord Celleriant,” he said. “Step forward.”

  Celleriant, however, stood his ground. “I have not come to be judged by you. I have offered you no oath and no service; I have pledged no allegiance. You are their gods; you are not mine.”

  This caused the Lord of Wisdom to smile; it was both sharp and resigned. “The passage of time has not changed you at all, has it?”

  “Time changes mortals.”

  “It changes all, Celleriant.” He frowned now. “You do not serve the Winter Queen.” It was not a question. Nor did Celleriant seemed surprised by the statement; Jewel certainly was. “Lord Celleriant, if you did not come to be judged, why did you come at all?”

  He offered silence, and Cormaris’ brow creased.

  It was Reymaris who spoke. “Have you given your oath to the mortal?”

  Celleriant did not answer.

  Reymaris moved, where Cormaris had not. He strode across mist, and the ground shook at his passing. The cats moved out of his way, hissing. Jewel, however, did not. She raised her chin as he came to a stop feet away from where she stood. “Yes. He has given his oath to me,” she said, because she knew Celleriant wouldn’t. “He came because I asked it; I asked because you asked it.” She met and held his gaze, and as she did, the mist at her feet began to twist into columns that gleamed like polished, new marble. Evenly spaced, they started to her left and right and emerged in two rows beyond his back, encompassing, as well, Cormaris and the Mother.

  Reymaris glanced at the columns by her side, frowning.

  “Brother,” Cormaris called, and the Lord of Justice turned to see how far back the columns went. As he did, the mists hardened and flattened until they were flooring—and something about them looked familiar to Jewel. The stones that had been laid across the ground were large enough that they seemed seamless, and etched into the surface of dark, oddly brown stone, were words.

  She drew breath; it cut. Turning rapidly, she looked for—and found—walls.

  “Avandar—”

  Avandar shook his head.

  “Celleriant?”

  “I do not know this place, Lady.”

  She did. She thought she did. She walked past Reymaris, toward the Mother and Cormaris; they watched her, but made way for her as she passed them as well. Avandar followed; Celleriant did not. “ATerafin,” he said.

  “Why here?” she whispered.

  “Where do you think you are?”

  “I—” The columns ended. The walls met wall, and in that wall, built it seemed for giants, stood two doors. Familiar doors. She had seen them once, with Duster.

  * * *

  She reached out to touch them and then lowered her hand; there was a bright, bright symbol that crossed both doors, sealing them. The symbol itself was not Old Weston, not Weston, not Torra—not any language she knew. But the gods did.

  She turned to those gods, those three, her back to the closed door. She was shaking, and to her surprise, she was angry. She struggled with anger, and won. It was no fault of the gods that Duster was dead.

  “You know what lies beyond those doors,” the Lord of Wisdom said.

  She swallowed. “Why are you showing me this?”

  The three gods exchanged a glance.

  And Celleriant laughed. His laugh was deep, yet also high and wild. “Lady,” he said, as if she were one of the Arianni, and not Jewel Markess ATerafin. “Do you truly not understand what you see?”

  This time her struggle to control her anger failed, because the consequences were less profound. “If I understood, Celleriant, I wouldn’t be bothering the gods.”

  “They show you nothing. You show them the past.”

  She stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything!”

  “Can you not feel it, Lady?”

  “And stop calling me that. Just—stop.”

  His smile was so cold. “At your command.” He walked between the gods, and the gods allowed it; they had eyes for her, at this moment—or for the door at her back. At this distance, she couldn’t tell.

  “Do you know what lies beyond these doors?” she asked him.

  “Yes, ATerafin. I know.”

  She looked to the gods again; they were watching. “Tell me. Explain what you meant.”

  “This hall, these doors—they are not visions the gods have granted.”

  “These aren’t visions,” was her flat reply.

  “Ah, but they are. They are, in this formless land. Visions, ATerafin. Dreams. Nightmares. They are not crafted by the three who have come to meet you here; they are yours.”

  She shook her head, and reached up to push hair out of her eyes. Thanks to Ellerson’s ministrations, there wasn’t any. She was afraid.

  Avandar placed one hand firmly on her shoulder. “ATerafin,” he said, voice cool in warning.

  “I’m not—”

  “Listen to Celleriant.”

  “You do not understand the path you now walk, ATerafin,” the Arianni Lord continued.

  She started to speak. Stopped. The Winter King, forgotten until this moment, crossed the floor in silence; his hooves made no noise. He knelt before her. Mount, Jewel.

  She did as he asked because for a moment it felt safer than thinking.

  “It is as we feared,” the Mother said heavily.

  “No,” the Lord of Wisdom replied. “It is worse.” He looked long at the closed doors with their unbroken symbol.

  The Winter King walked toward them, Jewel on his back, her hands gripping his tines as if she feared to fall.

  “Is it, brother?” Reymaris asked softly. “Viandaran is correct. One at least of our number now walks the mortal plane.”

  “He has walked it only a handful of years—” the Mother began.

  “As has the young ATerafin,” the Lord of Justice countered. “And handful or no, he must know that every effort is being made by our kin to halt his progress. If he does not act soon, he might find the war harder than he anticipates.”

  “Not only your kin,” Celleriant said, for he had followed in the wake of the Winter King. “But my Queen. She is hampered by the shape of the hidden ways.�
�� He glanced at Jewel, and then added, “but perhaps not for much longer. Regardless, the Winter Queen can stand against Allasakar for some time, and will.”

  “She is not a god.”

  “No.” It was Celleriant’s turn to look at the closed door. “But it was not, in the end, the gods who brought Allasakar low. It was a mortal.”

  “And it is in the hands of mortals now.”

  The Mother shook her head. “Jewel is not that mortal.”

  No, Jewel thought; she couldn’t be. Moorelas had been dead so long people didn’t believe he’d ever lived—unless they thought the world was ending.

  “And Moorel of Aston was gifted with a sword that the gods themselves strove to craft; it was forged in living fire and cooled in living water; it was honed by living stone and given breath by the heart of the wind itself. We could not craft such a weapon again, nor could the master swordsmiths of the Summer Court at its height.”

  “No,” the Lord of Justice said. “She is not that mortal. But she stood in the Deepings and she held the road against the Queen and her host. If she is what we fear, and we allow her to live, she might hold the road against even our brother, for a time.”

  The Lord of Wisdom frowned. “She is both young and unschooled; she is willful. She will not bend when it is wise to bend. If she can, indeed, build her home at the edge of the ancient, what guarantee have we that what she builds will not be used against our sons?”

  But the Mother now turned to Jewel and the look she gave was one of compassion. Or pity, which was infinitely worse. “She will not always bend when it is wise, perhaps; but she has, in the past. She has given much to her House, and perhaps she will give as much to our City in its time. I do not like it,” she added, to the Lord of Wisdom, “but she has shown us some of the future here. The day is coming.”

  “And if we grant her our silence—with my misgivings—what will she then do?”

  “What she has already done, perhaps. The kin will find no easy entrance to the Isle from these lands. If what we fear is true, they will find no entrance at all, save the long, mortal road.”

  Reymaris smiled; it was a narrow, cool smile. “The Lord of the Compact would no doubt agree with you, brother; it is a pity that I was overruled, and his presence forbidden.”

  But the Lord of Wisdom bowed his head. “So be it. If you will bind me to ancient oaths, I will accept your decision. But I will lay one task upon the shoulders of this mortal.” He turned to Jewel and lifted a hand. “You have shown that your hold on the hidden ways is strong; it is strong enough, little seer, that it invades even the neutral lands it borders.” He glanced at the columns that all but enclosed them. “Find the path to the Eldest, and undergo her test.”

  Jewel stared at him.

  “I will have your word.”

  She was silent, but only for a moment. “I can’t give you that. I have responsibilities here, and a prior oath I mean to fulfill—or die trying.”

  “That oath?”

  “Was made to The Terafin.”

  “And if she released you from its confines?”

  Jewel’s grip on the Winter King’s antlers tightened. “She’s dead.”

  “Indeed. But Mandaros’ Hall is also known to us, and we traverse it without cost.”

  “I can’t,” was her flat reply.

  “No. But the children of Mandaros can speak with the dead. They can call her back. If she is summoned—”

  “She’ll tell you to drop dead.” The words fled her mouth before thought could stop them, she was so certain. She had the grace to redden in the extended silence that followed them. “She wouldn’t use those exact words.”

  “Perhaps that is true,” the Lord of Wisdom replied. “But The Terafin was a pragmatic woman. If she understood the whole of the threat the Empire faces, she might see the necessity of our request.”

  Jewel met the god’s disturbing eyes as she listened to his words. She heard nothing of Amarais Handernesse ATerafin in them.

  And if you had, Jewel? The Winter King asked.

  She pricked her fingers on tine’s edge, and understood, as she did, that the small cut she’d received was intentional on his part. It stung. So much in life did.

  “She didn’t make the oath to me,” she told the Lord of Wisdom, her voice steady, her hands now in her lap, where crimson welled bright along the side of her left hand. “It was my oath.”

  His eyes were the eyes of god; he saw much. “You offered it unprompted?”

  “I offered it,” was the firm reply. “That’s all that needs to be known.” She swiveled on the back of the stag to look down the row of columns. “What would the test of the so-called Eldest prove? What must I learn, to pass it?”

  “It is not that kind of test,” the Lord of Wisdom replied. “It is not a ritual which you either pass or fail.”

  “What, then?”

  “It will teach you, seer.”

  “To do what?”

  “To see. To control the fragmentary talent with which you were born, if you have the strength to look into your own heart.”

  As he spoke, she turned again. It was the Mother’s face she sought.

  “Yes,” the Mother replied, in as hushed a voice as a crowd possesses. “You have seen the seer’s crystal, and you know what it is. You knew then. You are not kin to the gods, ATerafin. We cannot command you.” Before Jewel could speak, she lifted a hand. “We understand the Kings’ Laws. In spite of all you have said or feared, the Kings, in this, cannot command you either. And if you take the Terafin throne and you sit in the Hall of The Ten, you cannot be moved; you can merely be confined to the full force of the Kings’ Laws.

  “But you will see war, Jewel ATerafin.”

  Jewel nodded.

  “You misunderstand me. I counsel you to consider, with care, what you have done to these shrouded lands—unknowing, unintentionally. If you cannot, I ask you to consider a different question. From beneath the bower of the tree that has grown above the pavilion at the heart of the Terafin grounds, the Exalted heard the voice of an ancient, ancient enemy. Do you think, where there was one, there will not be more?”

  “There’s bound to be more,” she replied, with just a trace of edge in her voice. “They’re demons.”

  “Yes. They are. And they are the Angelae of the Lord of the Hells. They bide their time and play their games because the Exalted have some measure of power against them—but, ATerafin, the power that our children can bring to bear will not, in the end, be a match for the power that you might wield. You are young, and you are ignorant, but even in your ignorance, you have touched the ancient power of your distant kin, and you have marked out the boundaries of a domain of your own on a path that was once riven and unapproachable by those of mortal blood.

  “You are not—yet—a danger. But you will be, and the Kialli Lord whose will and command you frustrated will know just how much of a threat you pose. Do you think that the Shining Court will remain idle? They cannot. Even if we do nothing, turning a blind eye to your untrained and untested power, they will not. We watch. We measure. If you are too great a threat...”

  Jewel slid off the back of the Winter King. Avandar stood to her left; Celleriant stood behind him. To the right, the Winter King stayed his ground. The cats, however, had taken to the air, and were circling. “What will you do?” she asked the gods.

  The Exalted stood in their shadows, almost forgotten until the son of Cormaris chose to speak. His voice was thin, but it was not quiet. “They will, as they have always done, advise us, ATerafin. No more and no less. But even given their advice, the decisions are in our hands.”

  The Lord of Wisdom raised brow; he did not however raise rod against his outspoken son. “In this,” he said softly, “we can offer no advice.”

  This surprised the Exalted of Cormaris; it also surprised the Exalted of Reymaris. The Mother’s Daughter, however, merely looked resigned.

  “The ATerafin herself has more of an answer for your questions tha
n either of you understand,” the Lord of Wisdom continued. “For she has walked in the far South, and she has seen some of what has lain, protected and silent for centuries, beneath the living earth. There, in part, her answers lie. And yours.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Exalted were silent.

  Jewel was silent as well. But she felt both stunned and slightly sickened as she turned to her domicis. To Avandar, called Viandaran by the gods, as if they recognized him on sight. As if they had spoken to him before, and not in the Halls of Mandaros.

  He offered her a slight smile.

  “Yes, Viandaran. What you suspect, we also suspect. What, now, will you do?”

  “I? I will fulfill my contract with her. While she lives, I will serve.”

  The Lord of Wisdom frowned. “Your service has been costly, in the past.”

  Jewel lifted a hand as the landscape beneath her feet began to shift in both color and texture. If she was subconsciously reconstituting images of the distant past, she had no desire whatever to conjure any of Avandar’s. In the South, in the desert, she had seen enough. “It will not be costly here. What he did in the past, he will not—cannot—do to Averalaan.”

  “How, if he so desires, will you prevent him, ATerafin? He cannot die.”

  “He can,” she replied.

  His eyes widened.

  “But not yet, not now. Allasakar is not the only god who can grant him the freedom he desires.”

  His brows rose. She’d managed to surprise him over the years, but never like this. “ATerafin—”

  She lifted her hand again. “I don’t know more, Avandar. I just know.”

  The three gods spoke among themselves in a thunder of syllables that traveled beyond her comprehension. Judging from Avandar’s expression, it was beyond his as well, although he clearly liked it less.

  “Very well,” the Lord of Wisdom finally said. “Leave us, ATerafin. We have much to discuss with our children.”

  If she could somehow transform the whole landscape of the Between in which gods and mortals might mingle, it didn’t belong to her; she felt the ground shift beneath her feet as the world shattered and re-formed before her eyes, and the throne in the audience chamber snapped into clear view. Girding it were the House Guards; occupying it was Gabriel.