Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Warlord?" She slipped out of the path of his arm; his blades gouged the side of the tree as he brushed past. Centuries-old wood gave before he did. Bad sign. Between lightning and blade, she thought, the tree that she had so admired was already dead. Couldn't be certain, but it angered her in the way that the helpless are often angered.

  "The Warlord. The man to whom you were speaking before this… interruption."

  Fire lit the demon's face in a glow that came from behind her. She didn't bother to look to find its source; she knew.

  "You've got it wrong," she said, her legs tensing, her back bending slightly as the grip on her dagger shifted. "I don't serve him. He serves me."

  The creature laughed. "Is that what he told you? He serves no one but himself, and he has a particular penchant for being the only man to leave the field of battle—any battle he joins—alive. Allow me to demonstrate."

  "By dying?"

  "You really are a clever creature; it must amuse him to have you."

  She watched his face expand in a sudden stretch of thinning flesh across widening eyes, widening mouth, a visage of fear, of realization, of—surprise. Watched this expansion as if it were a natural growth, a natural outcome. It was. She knew the sight when it hit her, borrowing her eyes, subverting her vision from the here-and-now to the there-and-will-be. Unaware of this, his mouth kept moving, his arm swung back, his eyes narrowed in a way that only demon eyes can narrow.

  She had time to return the cruelty of his smile with a demonic smile all her own. She didn't even bother to move out of his way. That caught him by surprise; he hesitated.

  Even had he not, it wouldn't have saved him.

  Fire ate him from the inside out.

  His ashes hung a moment, bearing the form and shape he had occupied, before gravity and wind blew them away. The silence beyond the stand of trees was deafening. Satisfying, for just a moment.

  The screams that followed it, breaking it, twisting it, were not.

  She looked out; the city streets were, literally, broken; cracks had not only split the stones upon which much of the Common stood, but had uprooted them. And between these stones, above them, below them, trapped between living and dying, were the people who had been examining merchants' wares minutes ago.

  She started forward.

  A hand on her wrist stopped her. "I am sorry, Jewel."

  "Sorry?" The word made no sense.

  Avandar stood beside the scored trunk of one of the trees the Common was so famous for. A branch had snapped; hand-shaped, delicate leaves were caught in the lap of the fire he'd summoned.

  But not, she noted, devoured by it. She wondered how he'd managed that. Wondered if it had to do with power. Wondered why she'd so carefully never asked him about his power before.

  Framed, the flowers were lovely.

  "These creatures are… past enemies. They occasionally appear to make life difficult. But," he said, turning to scan what was left of a crowd that was as broken as the ground beneath their feet, "I fear they wish more than mere difficulty."

  "Then we'd better get the magi—"

  The words left her as the shadows surrounded what was left of the crowd. "Avandar!"

  He pulled her into the circle his robes made across the burning ground. "I'm sorry," he said again, bending his head, tucking hers under his chin.

  The light shifted.

  Jewel ATerafin screamed.

  And then, there was nothing.

  6th of Scaral, 427 AA

  The Tor Leonne, Terrean of Raverra

  You may have pride, or you may have brotherhood: decide.

  In the streets of the Tor Leonne, old voices were far clearer than they had been for decades. Senniel College, the home of his adult, Northern life, was far away, by the shores of a sea that the Tor Leonne would never know. There, gulls and morning mist drew the mind and memory, made of dawn and dusk a song that had slowly—when?—taken root. He was not—had proved, although the voices of his brothers were still the strongest voices he heard, that even he was not—made of stone. Things grew within him, things changed.

  He had taken great pains to straighten his hair; to alter its color and its length; to change the lines of his face. These were automatic precautions, and even the Astari would have thought of them. He had also changed his girth, added a few years to his age, pounds of appearance to his weight. Again, simple precautions; the cautions of a life that had almost—and had never— passed him by.

  But Kallandras of Senniel had other gifts; the most striking change of pace was his movement. Catlike and graceful by turns, he had exchanged his gait for something slower and stodgier, something that weight or posture had broken.

  You—you look like—

  He had raised a brow at Solran Marten's total loss of words; it was rare indeed that a bard had nothing to say, and rarer still when that bard was the bardmaster herself. The expression brought her some comfort; it was his.

  But if he could bring himself to change everything about his exterior life, he could not quite bring himself to leave behind the only possession he valued, and Salla, the lute that had been Sioban Glassen's gift, was tucked in the pack tossed over his shoulder. It was a risk; he acknowledged it. It was a foolish risk, a stupid one. It was, as his former masters might have said, prideful. Sentimental. Which of these was worse had yet to be determined. He had been both in life, and so far neither had killed him.

  But death only happened once.

  He thought, inexplicably, of Evayne a'Nolan. Of the young Evayne, striking in the narrow breadth of her white cheeks, her raven hair, her violet eyes. Those eyes, wide with horror or narrow with self-pity, would develop an underlying cast of steel as she aged, until the girl herself was buried beneath experience and expedience.

  He had hated her when he was a young man. A boy. He had hated her more as an adult, first taking steps in the real world, and deprived of the only brothers to whom he wished to turn, to praise, to receive praise from. He was not that boy now, nor that man; and often, when she came to him as a young girl, he could not hate her. Could not clearly see the confusion that was now so obvious without feeling an almost protective twinge.

  So much for vendetta.

  She had come to him last night, her hands sticky with blood, her eyes wide and dark. The cloak that was her father's gift was already cleaning itself with an ease that profoundly disturbed her. It was not the first death she had seen, and it would certainly not be the last, but it was death, and she was tired of it.

  Her hand clutched the lily that was her single adornment: a gift, a sixteenth birthday gift, from a friend in Callenton, the Freetown that had been her only home. He pried her fingers loose and found that she had cut them on petals and stem.

  And she had watched him, as if he were a stranger that she hadn't the strength to stop. Looked at the blood pooling in her palms as if either all of it were her own, or none of it were. "Are you Kallandras?" she'd asked, and he realized that he was a merchant, with a merchant's clumsy gait and a merchant's Southern accent, heavy Torra.

  "Yes," he told her quietly. "I am. You are safe. You are safe here, Evayne."

  She did not pull her hand free, but she stared up into his face, hearing the truth he put into the bardic voice. Older and she could chastise him for its use on her. Much older, and she wouldn't even notice its effect. But last night, she hadn't chosen to speak at all about his gift or his talent. Instead, she'd said, "But you hate me."

  And wept.

  Funny, that the path would bring her to him here, now; strange that, as he got older, he saw more of her youth. Have I gentled so much ?

  Yes, perhaps. Truth. He accepted it as he had accepted all truths about his life save one: That, in the end, he had chosen to break his training and betray the Lady's command. It had taken him years to swallow the words, to practice them, to even think them clearly. Easier, much easier, to blame her.

  She was so unlike Diora di'Marano; so unlike, and yet of an age. In the one, Evayn
e, the trick was discovering the steel and honing it, bringing it to light. And in the other, in the other he thought, hearing her speak now, it would be a miracle to find anything but steel. He was bardic, and his hand had gone into fashioning her voice; she kept much hidden now. From a master.

  "Hey, Matteo!"

  "A man can't piss in peace," he replied loudly, turning in the direction of the voice.

  It was Benito the merchant. "Up here, you fool, no one pisses at all. This is where the high clans live." He slapped Kallandras on the back with a broad, sun-wizened hand and mimed a man in obvious discomfort. "We're up, after Benazir's useless lot. I want you with me."

  Kallandras shrugged. "It's bad this year."

  "I guess the new Tyr isn't comfortable." But Benito shrugged, rolling his hand in a warding gesture that identified him as a follower—such as they were—of the Lady. "But as you say, bad. Bad. It's not the Lord's time; it's the Lady's—and this is the Festival of the Moon."

  "We'll see."

  "Matteo, you worry me."

  They walked together back to the huddle of men whom Benito had brought for his own comfort; the wagons had been impounded. Kallandras had considered remaining with them, but he wished to see for himself the new lay of the Tor Leonne's famed lands. To see if there were compounds or outbuildings into which one might easily place a woman of Yollana's stature. To see, in a sweeping glance, how one might enter, unseen, and how one might leave.

  Things changed, even here.

  The Tor Leonne had been built in such a way that the parts were hidden from the view of the whole; that a man and his companions might walk into the forested, landscaped paradise and disappear, each into his own world.

  But the pathways had been changed, the view widened, the leaves and their arbors making way for the sight of the Lord of the Sun, or the man who wished to take the mantle of his most powerful servant.

  The mission's no different than Sioban would have given you, Solran said ominously. You're not to interfere; you're to observe and report. We need the information.

  War was coming.

  Breeze stirred in the cooling air; it would be evening soon, and if the Tor Leonne was no desert city, it was a city not far from the memory of sand and sun. No sea lessened its heat or its chill. He returned to the shelter of the awnings set up by the men with whom he'd traveled.

  No Voyani caravan this; that choice, at least, had been a wise one. No, it was a merchant caravan from a minor Southern clan— a clan whose leadership was in dispute, and whose leader had come seeking redress. The man who ruled the caravan was Benito di'Covello, and his ire was so much drama and so much noise that he drew and held the attention. He invited mockery by such attention, but no matter; his existence served Kallandras' purpose.

  Benito's wagons and been impounded and presumably thoroughly searched. Benito had been ordered to present himself to representatives of the Tyr'agar to explain his manifests—such as they were, as Southern merchants were less prone to keep records than their more bureaucracy mired Northern counterparts—to the Tyr's officials.

  Kallandras watched, wondering. He listened.

  The officials, as quickly bored by Benito's tale of outrage as any sane man would be, released the caravan with the usual warnings: Benito himself would be responsible for any murders committed by his men, or any damage done by them if they chose to partake of too much drink during the Lady's nights. Benito gave the usual replies: that his men were certainly well trained and better behaved than the cerdan of the high nobility themselves.

  The low and high nobility here were a marked contrast in behavior. The comparison drew the expected, though silent, sneer.

  "We will, of course, take your name, your clan's name, and your cut."

  "My what?"

  "You recognize this, yes?" The tall, well-uniformed man who had failed to offer the courtesy of a family name—or a personal name, for that matter—opened a large bag and set a wooden medallion upon the table that protected him from Benito's more forceful ranting.

  Benito sputtered. "Of course I do! But I—"

  "We require your oath of allegiance and your pledge to conform to the Festival rules. This," the man added slowly, as if speaking to an enfeebled man, "is the Tyr's mark. It is raised in the wood, but room has been left for your clan's mark beside it. I have taken the liberty, Ser Benito, of having a rudimentary representation of your crest drawn up, and a suitable block will be here shortly. I require your witnessed oath, and the proof of it, here.

  "Masks, such as they are, will be provided you through the generosity of the Tyr'agar. It is his gift to loyalty, and we expect to see that gift appreciated. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Eminently."

  "Good. It has been a long day for both of us, but your day will end with the crosscutting of the medallion; mine will continue well into the night." He paused. "This is my way of saying," he added, as Benito opened his mouth, "that I have no more time for your explanations or indignation." He gestured, and a man came from the tents at his back; three men in fact. "Your sword?"

  Benito di'Covello unsheathed his sword less clumsily than he did anything but ride. The official drew his a good deal more gracefully, and cut first. The cuts formed a cross; a Southern bond.

  "Your manifests—such as they are—have been approved; your wagons are awaiting you, and you will find they have been both undamaged and unplundered. I expect no difficulty, but if there has been, you will report to the proper authorities in the city, not upon the plateau. Is that understood?"

  Before Benito could reply, the man turned and nodded; a name was called out. Loudly. From behind the di'Covello caravan, an equally surly group of merchants and their retainers pushed past the heavily-robed Benito, seeking their audience and demanding their due.

  Benito blubbered silently like a water-hungry fish. Then he snapped at his milling men and made his way down the single road the merchants had been allowed to either see or use.

  "We're to wear their masks? We're to swear their oaths? What Festival do they think this is?"

  Kallandras had turned a moment to the wind.

  "Yollana," he said, "It is Kallandras. Evayne a'Nolan bids me tell you that she has sent me to your aid. I am coming."

  7th of Scaral, 427 AA.

  Tor Leonne, Dominion of Annagar

  The Widan Sendari di'Sendari—who, to his great and bitter amusement, had to work hard to remember to use the name he had struggled to achieve for himself—sat in an uncomfortable silence; a silence made stony not by the disagreement between two powerful men, although Alesso di'Marente—he grimaced again, and corrected himself—Alesso di'Alesso and the Sword's Edge were often involved in such disagreements, but rather a silence made uncomfortable by a sense of helplessness. Two such men as these were not used to feeling the sting of another's will or power, especially not when it was used so gracelessly as the Shining Court chose to use it.

  The sheathed sword was always better displayed than the unsheathed sword when dealing with men of pride—but the Kialli Lords seemed truly ignorant of even this most simple of graces. He wondered, idly, who would pay.

  Sendari waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And then he realized that although the obvious was in the air like a sand-laden storm, it had yet to be spoken; had yet to be delivered into words that could be dealt with. Pride, here. Cortano's. Alesso's. His own—but his had been tempered by the loss of a foolishly loved wife, and the betrayal of an equally foolishly loved daughter. Tempered? He allowed himself a bitter smile.

  And spoke. "It appears," he said, his voice as soft as Cortano's when the Sword's Edge was at his sharpest, "that we are at an impasse.

  "We cannot allow the imposition of a Consort at this time; almost certainly our enemies will make much of the title Lord of Night, and it will hurt us.

  "But we cannot allow the Kialli free reign in the city during the Festival of the Moon; their activities will announce the presence
of the Consort we have refused them more forcefully than the ceremonial title would. It will be said that the fall of Leonne presages the return of the demons in force—and it will be remembered that there is a boy who acquitted himself with strength and honor, taking the service of Ser Anton di'Guivera under the bastard banner of Leonne.

  "Clearly the Shining Court feels that they have the upper hand in this, and they mean to enforce their will in the Tor Leonne, having failed to do so during the Festival of the Sun."

  Both men were silent; he expected no less. He rose from the hard mats; left behind the sweet water and the fruit that had been so artfully arranged by none other than his loving wife. His hands fell behind his back; he clasped them loosely and began to walk in a track that was decreed by thought alone.

  "If the Kialli were unbeatable, they would have no use for us. They wouldn't tolerate the existence of the human portion of the Shining Court. Therefore they need us. But they now feel that they can dictate terms.

  "We have offered them two things: the masks—which I will once again say I feel is unwise—and the Voyani. Of these two, I would say the Voyani have significance. Ah, forgive me for my sloppiness; we have offered them a third thing; in time: the Radann."

  "And has your questioning," Alesso said abruptly, turning from Sendari to Cortano, "procured answers?"

  "If you refer to my time with the Voyani woman, no. None. She is Voyani, and difficult."

  "The Kialli come in forms that we cannot recognize easily— but there are ways. The Voyani have them, and carefully handled, we might have asked their aid. I believe we have lost some of that advantage," Sendari continued as if he had not been interrupted. "If not all.

  "Certainly with the Havallans. There are rivalries within the Four Families which we may be able to exploit if we immediately cease impounding and imprisoning the remaining Voyani caravans. But we would have to go delicately, and I believe it would be in our best interests to… rid ourselves… of the liability of the Voyani woman we've already taken."