Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  But that wasn't what made her open her eyes. At a distance, at a remove, the voice itself had been what she expected: male. Worried. Quiet.

  Now it was simply disturbing. She didn't recognize the speaker, but there was something distorted about her name as he spoke it, something cumbersome, uncomfortable. She forced herself to look. Saw ceiling, sort of. At least that's what she assumed it was, as she was pretty certain she was flat out on her back. If I

  ever own this much gold, she thought irritably, I'm not going to waste it on interior decorating. Or at least not on ugly interior decorating. Gold, in sculptured leaf, lay everywhere that wasn't surfaced by dark blue-green opal. The combination of colors was striking; unfortunately there was so much floral work in the patterns those colors were put to use creating, the effect was cloying. The possible exception to this gaudy rule was the central pattern in the ceiling's peak, of a distinct and powerful sun, which offered striking simplicity of line and theme when compared with the cacophony of the rest of the crammed images. All of which had nothing to do with the stranger's voice, but she found to her dismay that she almost couldn't turn her head.

  "Jewel," the man said again.

  She embarrassed herself by attempting to speak. Frogs sounded better.

  "Avandar?"

  "The master sleeps," the stranger replied. As if aware of her discomfort and her inability to easily turn her head a few inches to the right, he leaned over to offer her the comfort of vision.

  She closed her eyes.

  But not before she had clearly seen that the lines of his face were pale alabaster, shot through with smoky gray and blue; that his lips, full and soft in appearance were as perfect and uncreased as the stone they had been carved from.

  "My apologies," he said quietly, and the stiffness of stone suddenly informed the tone of his words, "if I cause you discomfort. That was not my intent. I am here—at the master's orders—to serve any need you might have."

  "I'm… fine," she managed to say.

  He disappeared from her field of vision, which was so narrow it didn't take much work. She heard footsteps; expected them to be heavy. What else would stonefall sound like?

  But they weren't, of course; they were light enough that she had to really listen to catch them. She closed her eyes, shutting out the gleam of gold in the curve of ceiling above. It was fairly easy; lids fell, gold, like magelight in a closing hand, turned off. But what she could not shut out—because it was already part of memory and her memory was such a badgering pest—was the expression on the face of the stone man.

  He was upset; possibly angry, possibly hurt. Hard to tell; he was gone before she had the time to understand what the turn of lips and corners of eyes meant in this strange mimicry of a human face.

  Briefly, she wondered if she'd managed to fall and really bang her head. And then she didn't wonder much anymore.

  "Jewel."

  That voice, she recognized. Out of habit, she scrunched her lids tightly shut and turned over, pulling the blankets up and around the swell of her shoulder. But the feel of the blankets in her hands stopped her in mid-motion. They were so soft that if it weren't for their weight she'd have wondered if they existed at all. She didn't deal in textiles—that was Ruby ATerafin, and both she and Ruby, for sad and obvious reasons, were often confused although they were different in every possible way if you didn't count the fact that they were both women—but she knew quality when she touched it. She opened her eyes. Stared at the light that lay against the surface of cloth as if it were trying to cling there.

  "Jewel."

  Warily, she turned.

  Avandar stood an unusual distance from her bed. About thirty feet, in fact. It took her a moment to realize that he stood where he always stood—in relation to the wall. The wall that was only marginally more tasteful than the ceiling when it came to the use of gold. Someone had too much money and too little taste.

  That wasn't the only problem.

  Whoever had decorated this room had also apparently crept in and decorated her domicis. He was covered head to toe in some bright red robe that used gold the way fire uses orange light. His hair looked darker, his eyes brighter, his shoulders broader. He wore a crown, and beneath that jewel-encrusted circlet—which was, after all, no more tasteful than anything else she'd seen in the room so far—his expression was as grim and forbidding as any she'd ever seen grace his face.

  "Great," she said, to no one in particular, "I've died and gone straight to the Hells."

  His expression shifted like the light the silks threw off.

  She had trouble standing, and realized that she, too, had been transformed into some nightmare of garish proportion: she wore blue silks, studded with uncomfortably bumpy little jewels which she tried to pretend weren't diamond or opal. It would have helped a lot if expensive frivolities like special rocks hadn't been part of her purview in The Terafin's merchant lines.

  Standing wasn't really worth the trouble, but it reasserted old habits, and besides, she felt acutely uncomfortable enmeshed in silk. Her head hurt.

  She reached up to rub her forehead, and her hand scraped something that was definitely not skin. "Let me guess," she said, looking across the room to a domicis who had not uttered a syllable that didn't contribute to her name. "This is a crown."

  He said nothing.

  She wondered if she was dreaming. This had that very strong blend of real and unreal which marked the dreams she had come to understand, in her youth, were prophetic. But, damn it, she knew she was awake.

  "Avandar, what in the Hells is going on?"

  There was something about his expression that she didn't like. All right, there was almost always something about his expression she didn't like—but this, this surfaced from an unseen place. She was not used to being surprised, not like this.

  She'd known Avandar for half her life.

  And wondered, as she took an involuntary—and creaky—step backward, what that meant. This man, this man was a stranger.

  He stepped forward. She stepped back, into the bed.

  He stopped. She reached for her dagger.

  It was gone.

  Think. Think, damn it. "Avandar." She kept her voice low. Formal. "You—you probably saved my life. Again. Where are we?"

  She didn't feel threatened, not precisely, but the unease was so strong the only response she could give it was fear. She hated fear. Fought with it. This man was her domicis.

  And what, exactly, does a domicis do with more gold than the merchants guild makes in a year plastered all over the walls and furniture of a single ugly room?

  She really hated common sense at times like this.

  Without speaking, she took the crown off and dropped it on the bed. It was very, very heavy. She'd've taken the dress off as well, but there was a lack of anything to replace it with—and although he'd seen her dress and undress more times than either of them could count, had, in fact, dressed her for every significant political occasion she'd been forced to attend, she suddenly didn't want to be naked while he was there.

  "Where are we?" she asked again. The weight was off her forehead; she felt more like herself.

  "We are," he replied, remote and cool, "in Evereve."

  "Evereve?"

  "My home." . She was absolutely silent.

  "I apologize for your manner of dress. I hadn't realized how… ill it would suit you. I also apologize for your slow recovery. This… place… was meant to house only two living people. Myself and my—" He did not turn away; did not move. The words simply ceased.

  That man had seen death, and he witnessed it again as he stood in front of her. She knew what memory looked like when it played across another's face.

  She just didn't know what the memories were. Wasn't certain it mattered anymore. Pain was pain.

  She waited.

  "I—it took some work to stop Evereve from destroying you."

  She sat.

  "The compromise was your… current attire. I will have
something more appropriate brought."

  "Why exactly are we here?"

  "Ah." His smile was his own, and familiar to her. Unfortunately it was also one of the expressions that she least liked. Not that she liked many of them.

  "You are sensitive to the destruction done to your city and its people."

  "Yes."

  "To conclude our battle would have destroyed the Common— more of the Common," he added quickly, as her mouth opened and words almost spilled out. "I have no doubt you would have survived if it were, in fact, possible."

  "And those demons?"

  "Not friends."

  She snorted. Shoved her hair out of her eyes.

  "My clothing?"

  "It—did not survive the transfer."

  "And yours?"

  He shrugged.

  "Okay. One more question. The creature that looked like a walking blacksmith's reject. Why did he call you Warlord?"

  "I was not aware that any of the demons did. Perhaps he mistook me for someone else."

  Which was his way of saying he wasn't going to answer the question.

  "There is food—or there will be—in the hall of welcome."

  "You have a hall of welcome here."

  "Yes."

  "And this place, whatever it is, only lets two people enter it alive?"

  "Yes."

  "What if I told you I wasn't hungry?"

  His frown was the most natural thing she had seen so far, although it wasn't at odds with the crown that split his brow. "I would hesitate a moment before I called you a liar, and I would have the food brought here."

  "I'm not hungry."

  He did, in fact, hesitate a minute. She counted. He turned and left.

  Only then did she sink back into the comfort of a gaudy bed. Wondering who had last occupied it before her. Wondering— for there was no question whatever in her mind that it had happened—how that occupant had died.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE

  7th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Tor Leonne, Dominion of Annagar

  The masks had not been made by the servants of the Tyr'agar; they had been crafted—with care and attention to detail—by other hands, and delivered in a wagon, much like any merchant wagon, that had been detained for inspection, as agreed upon. What happened to the merchants who were responsible for their delivery, no one knew; they came to the Tor Leonne, and they vanished from it, melting into heat and sun and crowd, or perhaps into night's shadow: the nights were longest at this time of year. No matter; the masks arrived as planned.

  Thus they came easily into the hands of the men meant to use them.

  There were four faces.

  The first was a study in elegant simplicity: A face, unremarkable in every way. Slightly narrowed circles for eyes, a nose that was neither too long nor too short, too wide nor too pointed, but that still somehow suggested imperfection. Cheekbones that were a little too high under the ridge of eyes, a width and a roundness that was perhaps a little too full for the whole, but that would guarantee accommodation of almost any real face beneath the facade. There was about the mask some of the softness that might be associated with a woman, and some of the edge that would definitely be associated with a man; it was a thing to hide behind. What made it interesting was that the mask itself was made partly of clay, smoothed into a fine, white layer and baked under a hot, hot sun.

  The second face was smaller; the eye holes rounder, the features more delicate. It, too, seemed made of thin clay, and when placed against the brow and cheek was marvelously cool to the touch. Unlike the first mask, it covered the whole of the face, leaving room for the mouth. The forehead was high, the cheekbones less pronounced. Yet, Sendari thought, as he held the mask, feeling it almost as a lack of weight rather than as a substantial artifact, it suggested the delicate.

  What it did not suggest, again, was the solely feminine. There was something about its line that hinted at steel, at something that women only possessed who—

  No. He set the mask aside, but he had already seen, for a moment, the eyes of his most loved, and most hated, child staring back at him through holes that were meant for the moon in fullness, and not the day's height. Ah, accusation. Anger. Not now, Lady, not now; we two are doing your work; judge later, if at all.

  A prayer.

  He set the mask aside.

  Reached down to the low, flat table; spoke a word, and then another, the Widan's gestures of protection.

  The third face was a broad face; exaggerated in detail. The forehead, in particular, was pronounced, and this mask—alone among the three—was adorned with a fringe of hair, or feathers, or silk, a flash and flare of color that made of each something unique, although it took little time to discern the sameness of face beneath the coloring. It was larger, wilder, a stronger mask. Not made of clay, but made of something more supple: leather, molded and hardened. The particular face that he now lifted had been painted with a thin sheen of bronze; it glittered in the daylight.

  "Not," he heard Cortano say, "an inexpensive gift."

  "No."

  Sendari set it aside.

  The fourth mask waited.

  To call it fourth was not entirely accurate. The first three masks so exposed to scrutiny had been made from the same molds, and likely by the same set of craftsmen; they were finely done, not of the highest quality, but certainly better than the average Festival mask that one would see worn at the height of the Lady's Night. Poorer clansmen, offended by the edict and the gift, would nonetheless be drawn to the masks themselves for that very reason.

  But the fourth face was not an identical face worked over with hair or feather, silk or lace. Each mask was subtly different; each face looked as if it had been made of clay in the same vein but set to dry in different conditions; humidity, little sun, light rain.

  Storm. The face itself, Sendari thought, might have been a bird's face to start with; sharp and long-beaked, with a ruffled fringe carved or worked into the material that went into its making. He was partial to birds, for it was often birds that Na'dio had chosen to reveal herself in.

  Yet there was about this bird a ferocity that he thought his daughter—his young daughter, of course—would have shied away from. He set it aside, and looked at what had rested on the table beneath it, something that in the North might be called dragon; the beak elongated, widened, the lower beak stretched thin and given not just tongue but sharpened teeth. Yet the size of the mask, and the general shape of it, was consistent.

  In some, the beak was smaller; a nose, perhaps, or a ferret's jaw; in some, it was softer but still pronounced.

  None of the faces were human, and in fact, he would have classified them as individual masks had it not been for the fact that they were made in similar style and of the same material.

  They were also made of the most expensive external components: indeed the most gaudy boasted gems that to Sendari's admittedly less than well-trained eye were genuine.' Paint had been used, sparingly and elegantly in some cases, wildly in others, and all to splendid effect: These were, of the four styles, the true Festival masks.

  Yet they were in number evenly divided: One quarter for the blandest face, one quarter for the most delicate, one quarter for the smiling mask, and one quarter for the others.

  He set the dragon's face aside almost with regret. "These last," he said softly, "are very fine."

  "No doubt," Cortano said softly. "It is the last, of course, that most resemble the Festival masks of the Tyrs or the Tors." Sendari glanced back at the Sword's Edge; saw only the steel that spoke of the search for answers. He nodded and took to the edge himself. Of that, at least, he was capable; he was Widan, after all.

  "Why four?" Sendari's question.

  Cortano shrugged. "The elemental significance?" It was a desultory attempt at an answer; noise, meant to fill a silence of thought and deliberation. In and of themselves, nothing about the masks spoke of the elements—which were, in their way, Northern symbols of knowledge,
not Southern ones.

  So far, few spells had been cast, little magic spent in scrutiny; they examined by both jeweler's glass and naked eye the craftsman-ship that had gone into the masks' construction. They had come with no instructions; women or men were allowed to choose the mask they wore, and no mask suggested simple masculinity or femininity to the two Widan who studied them.

  But of the magic that had been cast, all spells were sophisticated and of a type that the Widan used automatically: a measure of protection or defense, of detection or information gathering on a minimal level. Greater magics than that, if these masks were indeed to be feared, would be too easily detected; Cortano was unwilling, without a clearer sense of the masks' purpose, to antagonize Lord Ishavriel further.

  "This is your field of expertise," Sendari said at last, "but if you are willing, Sword's Edge—"

  "Yes?"

  Sendari fell silent at the edge in Cortano's voice. He flexed his hands, a reminder of old scars. Stood a moment in the scant light. "Mikalis," he said at last, deciding. "Mikalis di'Arretta would be of aid to us if any man could be."

  "And the risk?"

  Sendari shrugged. "Weigh the risk of failure against the risk of discovery. You are the Sword's Edge; the decision must be yours. I will, of course, abide by your decision."

  Cortano's eyes narrowed beneath the frosted tuft of thick brow. But he was silent as he considered the matter of Mikalis di'Arretta. A Widan, a man as loyal as any seeker of power or knowledge could be; his was the study of antiquities. Sendari, too, had bent his considerable intellect to such studies—but Sendari was not a friendly man, and in the end, such studies required the ability to blend and mingle with the common man, the common seraf, or the common Voyani.

  Cortano himself had studied objects, but never—not even in his questioning of the Voyani women—the Voyani at work. Only Mikalis had, and very, very rarely.

  "You are certain that this is Voyani magic?"

  Sendari shook his head. "No more certain than you. But we have detected no obvious magery, no understood art, within the confines of the crafting, and these must contain some elements of power, else why use them at all? It bears the hallmark of Voyani magic."