"You have been searching." It was not a question.
"Yes."
"And?"
"Tyr'agar," the kai el'Sol said quietly, "when the Sun Sword speaks in so loud a voice, the Lord's enemies are close."
"How close, kai el'Sol?"
"Within the Tor Leonne."
"The city?"
"And the plateau."
He saw them enter the Swordhaven, of course. Half his time was spent here, in the Tor Leonne, by the twin discomforts of the Lake and the haven itself. But the open night sky held its almost hypnotic beauty, so dissimilar was it from the frozen wastes of the North.
Lord Ishavriel, born of an age that had been buried beneath all but the memories of the Kialli and the gods they had either fought or served, watched. Waited. It amused him, and he had not thought to be amused by the endeavors of humans. It almost—almost— gave him a glimmer of insight into Lord Isladar's odd fascination with, and about, humanity.
They could surprise one. They often did, in the brief span before their lives ended. But frequently that surprise was one of disappointment; they were frail and changeable, and they did not understand the consequence of their mortality well enough to serve as the imps did: with absolute obedience. Still, their defiance, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt, made them vastly more… entertaining.
Failure, however, would make them more entertaining still.
The wind changed slightly; he felt it brush against his skin, carrying the moisture of the Lake. It caused discomfort, and if he remained long in its path, would actually cause pain. Such an enemy as this he had no patience for, nor had he ever had patience for it; there was no battle, after all, no satisfying death to end the annoyance it caused.
There was only destruction.
He smiled in the darkness, and the smile was almost affectionate.
There would be destruction.
The man, the Radann, was clever. He did not understand the roots of his power—no one in the Tor Leonne did—but he understood some of its effects. There was no place, unless it be within the waters of the Lake itself, that was proof against the magics of the Kialli, save the Swordhaven.
Let them speak.
They played at their games, and if they did not play carefully— and who did in the end when compared with the Lord Ishavriel?— they would fail. In one week's time, less perhaps, they would see the cost of their failure in the city streets below, an orchestration of violence and release that had been promised to kin grown half-mad at the absence of the abyss.
For just a moment, he wondered what the General would do: appease the Kialli or stand against them in the face of the slaughter. It seemed unthinkable that he would choose to appease them—which suited Ishavriel's purpose, although he had plans for every contingency—but the humans often chose to weaken their political stand for reasons that the Kialli found incomprehensible.
He watched, and watched, and watched; shifting so that the Lake might pass beyond him. But an hour passed, and the two men, protected—for now—by the Sun Sword's glow, did not emerge.
Kallandras did.
He moved in silence, certain of the shadows now that evening had fallen. Certain of the breeze, and the direction the breeze chose to take as he passed. It carried no noise to his enemies, unless his enemies were airborne. And if they were, and they revealed themselves, they would not remain enemies for long.
He paused a moment as he descended, sliding between the hedge of trees that surrounded the plateau to the North. Here, guards were sparse; the Lake was in the East, with the palace itself, the sun's rise and fall. But sparse and nonexistent were two different things, and Alesso di'Marente was a man newly come—and insecurely at that—to power.
There was no immediate sound of footsteps.
In the darkness, he lifted a hand, beckoning both breeze and the gift that he had been born to—as if the two had always been intertwined; as if they had become inseparable. They were not; he was not so dependent on the power of a ring given late in his youth. But he felt its edges, its demands, its voice, an echo of what the wind desired.
They argued a moment; it tired him. But it was a niggling thing, this exchange of wills, this little testing, and when it had passed, the breeze swept out in a natural series of circles that touched the whole of the plateau, carrying with it the sounds of movement, near and far, the sounds of voices raised or lowered, the sounds of armor, swords, the movement of the men he must avoid. His own skill took what the wind had given him, sifted it, categorized it, let it fall to a level of thought that was almost beneath thought, it had become so instinctive with the passage of time.
Thank you.
It had become his custom to offer that benediction; the wind was graceless, as always, in its reply.
"Yollana," he said quietly. The wind had not carried her voice; she raised no cry, offered no pain, no anger, indeed no comment at all. But he knew that she could hear his voice, where hers might not penetrate the prison they held her in.
"The moon's face is not yet full; the Havallans have withdrawn; they have need of your guidance, as do we. I am in the Tor proper; I am searching for you."
He moved like a shadow, with the shadows, grateful that he had not chosen to bring Margret. He would probably pay for that later.
He spoke again.
She had been waiting for his voice.
Until she heard it, however, until it woke her from the light and restless slumber that had been her only sleep since the death of the Radann kai el'Sol in the Lake of the Tor Leonne, she had not known it.
But before her eyes were fully open, before she sat up in the windowless room, she knew what had awakened her. Waited, breath held, until it came again.
"Diora."
"Kallandras." She wrapped herself tightly in nightclothes, although she heard no promise of freedom in his voice. "Where are you?"
"I am… in the Tor Leonne," he said, and the pause spoke; it spoke loudly. "I have come seeking a woman who is held captive. But not, not at this point, the Flower of the Dominion. I am sorry."
Is it so clear to you? Is it so clear in my voice? Do I give so much away? She drew breath; held it a moment. Gathered the daylight about her, although the moon was high, and its face bright and compelling. She was Serra Diora di'Marano, and she did not plead.
There was only one thing, one life, for which she might have broken that edict—and herself—but it was gone now; nothing remained but the purpose to which she had devoted what was left her: Justice. Vengeance.
"I need you," he continued, "in the Tor. You are safe, or as safe as you can be, while you reside within those walls—and if we take you now, there will be no safety in the Tor, or beyond it, for as far as these words will carry."
She did not desire his pity. "Why," she said, as coolly as she could, as neutrally, "have you come?"
"To find Yollana of the Havalla Voyani," he replied without hesitation. She felt the wind in the words, although there was no way for the wind to reach her. A hint of freedom; of night air, of the Lady's Mercy and the Lady's cruelty.
"She is here," Diora said at last, with misgivings. "But she is in the private quarters of the Sword's Edge. I would not dare them—"
"The Sword's Edge is occupied for the moment with the politics of the realm. Diora—watch. Listen for me."
She nodded, knowing that he could not see it, could not hear it. She wanted to speak; to speak to him because there were so few people she could speak to.
She had not thought captivity of this nature would be so very difficult. But she did not speak; her face shuttered; her expression became, even in darkness, even unseen, her own: steel and cool water and pale, pale moon's light.
There was a smell to magic, a taste, a sensation; something as strong as the little details that followed an act of intimacy. But it was subtle, caught only if one knew the act itself.
Yollana both did and did not. Magic had defined her existence. It had placed blocks in the road; pits, spikes; it
had forced detours upon her trek down the Voyanne that she would never have willingly taken otherwise. So had she been taught: the magic of the clans is the thing we fight against, not the thing we fight for.
And how, she had said, to her own gray-haired, sharp-tongued mother—a mother she had promised herself she would never grow up to become, and of course, had followed in the footsteps of almost exactly—are we to be judged if we choose to take up the power offered us ?
Her mother, grim-faced, thin-lipped, angry, had said, had always said, The blood knows. She had thought it foolish then. They exchanged words, heated with anger and impatience—the one for the conservatism of age, the other for the inexperience of youth—and, again as always, her mother had won the argument.
Her mother, after all, had been Matriarch. The Mother.
And what would you say to me now? she thought. But the earth divided them. The Lady had taken her mother years ago, far too many of them now for Yollana's liking. Aie, she shook herself. She knew the answer; there would be more anger, and probably— although she'd long passed the age for it—the five white marks of her mother's fingers stretched out around the imprint of her palm; her mother had not been above the openhanded slap for which the Voyani women were so often known.
You have risked our entire clan—on the word of an outsider; what else did you expect? You've exposed us all!
Truth, every word of it.
It had seemed a thing of choice, a lack of choice, at the time. The risk, the highest she had ever taken—that any Matriarch had ever taken—the possible reward, slim indeed.
But without the risk…
The chains rattled against her wrists and ankles, a reminder that the cage was more than earthen, more than gravelike. Evening; she was sure of it. They would come soon. They would come again.
Her hands had been injured, and her feet, the flesh along her calves badly scored; if she was freed, she would lope like a cripple. But her eyes, at least, although they had stooped to threaten, they had not yet destroyed. Dark, here, the steel across her wrists far harder than the gold that they had stripped her of. She wondered, idly, if they kept it because they were rapacious, or if they kept it because they suspected it had magical properties.
It did, of course, but it was a magic that was blood-bound, and she would never release that into the hands of clansmen.
Aie, the steel weighed her down. The darkness. The earth-encrusted air. Lady, Lady, this is as close to your time as we come. Help me. Help me. Pleading did not demean her. It did not weaken her. Weakness was only weak when it was exposed for the inspection of others, and there were no others to hear what she did not put into words.
But the Lady heard her.
Magic had its own smell, its own taste, its own lingering malice. She felt it, sudden and startling, as the door slid open in a silence so complete she wondered if she had somehow been deafened.
He stood there, in the flat, rough entrance, like a shadow, the essence of shadow; no light cast him.
"Yollana." He was there in an instant; by her side, his slender fingers roughened in places by work, and in others by nothing. He reached for her feet, seeing in the darkness as if darkness were no impediment. Truly, she thought, the Lady's servant. The chains came up with her ankles, but fell without them: a blessing, a benediction.
And, as always, Yollana was gracious when gifted with such a thing.
"You'd best hurry," she said, lifting her hands, creating more noise than her words did as the chain links rattled against each other. "They know you're here now."
In the darkness, she thought she saw the faint edge of a smile.
Cortano stood at once, stiffening. Alesso had not returned from his discussion with the Radann kai el'Sol, and the Sword's Edge had been left, in some fashion, to hold his own in the presence of Tyr'agnate Jarrani kai di'Lorenza and his overly-sharp son, Hectore.
"I would, of course, support such a suggestion to the best of my ability," he said, bowing. "But you must forgive me. I am… called away." His gaze turned North and East a moment.
"Surely the two men who are responsible for—"
"There is only one man," the Sword's Edge replied coolly, for even in times of necessity, he was a political man, "who is responsible for the Crown and the Sword, and he is otherwise occupied with the Radann kai el'Sol." But he bowed again, acutely aware that a second such interruption in an evening was unlikely to endear either himself or Alesso to the Tyr'agnate, a man they could not afford to annoy.
He would deal with ruffled pride later; they all would. But now the magehaven called him, and he repaired to it in a haste that would—just barely—not call the attention of the entire assemblage toward his parting.
As he stepped away from the Lake, he let his power build, calling it quietly as if it were an intelligent servant and not merely the manifestation of his will. Very few were the men who had seen such a display who lived to tell of it; each member of the Sword of Knowledge chose his own way of calling—and arming—himself, of focusing, of channeling.
Eyes attuned to it could see the colors that edged his skin, the line of his body, the folds of a fabric that had been woven, thread for thread, under his supervision. Orange, of course, because no man approached a combat unarmored. But above that glimmer of pale fire, a redder light, a darker one: Fire.
He had protected the spaces that he had claimed from unwanted intrusion. But it was easiest, when protecting his space from the distance-walking that could bring a man from one edge of the continent to another—had he the power—to protect it entirely; to leave no door to enter by. That he had left a door to leave by had been costly enough.
He did not choose to breach the spell he had laid into place; too costly, especially given that he did not know the nature of his enemy. But he suspected, and he was displeased. He was not a young man, to run from the Lake's edge to his haven.
He ran.
She watched him kill.
Around her, against the background of the finery so coveted and despised by the Voyani, the men circled; their hands formed a pattern of light across the air, intertwined like a fine, fine net, crackling with Lord's light, blue fire. From such an attack, such a threat, she had no immediate safety; all that she had worn had been stripped or shorn from her. They had not left her her hair, and she accepted its loss with poor grace; the man, the Sword's Edge, had been thorough in his fear.
But no power that she had invested herself with would have let her walk unscathed through that complicated spell. None whatever would have let her walk, with perfect, catlike grace, above it. He walked in air as if the air itself were his platform and his home.
They were stunned by it; they froze for an eye blink.
She would have done the same.
Paid the same price for the minute hesitation.
She watched him, her body as still as the shadows that hid her, her thoughts turned inward when she could tear her eyes away from the terrible flash of his blades in the poor light.
They screamed, one or two of them; cried out in a fear that was almost too slow in coming.
Almost, in light such as this, he seemed inhuman, a thing of night, of the Lady's. Or the Lord's. But she had heard the whisper of his distant voice; heard it still, requesting movement to the right or the left, words that seemed to come from a different chest, a different throat, interrupting nothing.
She had never seen him fight.
She had known that he could, of course; he was marked in a way that could only rarely be hidden from one who had the blood, however dilute that blood was. Could never be hidden from one who wore the heart of the Havallans. But knowing it and witnessing it were two different things, and the latter made her uneasy.
What price, Lady?
The Widan fought with spell, when they chose to fight at all; he walked above or beyond the reach of fire, the earth's grip, the water—and there were few indeed who could call water in the Dominion. Five men died in a handful of minutes, and they died quick
ly; so quickly that their blood, when it left them in a spray of red, almost seemed to be moving, to be alive.
"Yollana," he said, and she stiffened. "This is the last. The worst will follow, and we must be done. Can you run?"
She grimaced. Tested her feet against the hard ground. Shook her head: Yes. Knew that he would take her at her word; that her word, once given, would bind her. Knew that she would stumble; that her muscles—those muscles not sliced or cut, would somehow, somehow hold her weight.
She had the blood, and with the blood came vision. She knew. It should have offered her comfort.
He separated head from shoulders, but not cleanly. Then, while the bodies of the fallen were still twitching, he added to their wounds, tearing their flesh with the tips and the guards of his blade. It was quick work, but bloody, and the only thing that kept her eyes upon it—besides the sheer stubbornness that was her most famous quality—was the cool stillness of his face. He did not smile; did not blanch; did not otherwise seem to react to the work he had chosen.
"Now," he said, his back speaking. He turned, then; held out a hand.
Wincing, she took it. Her own hands, she feared, would never be what they had been without a healer's touch—and they had few enough of those in easy reach. Aye, she'd lost two fingers, and the ones she'd kept had been broken. As if broken fingers would give the servants of the Lord of Night the answers they sought.
As if anything would, from Yollana.
She had made her oath; the oath, she kept. Even with the heart exposed, and gone from her these many years. Gone. She was not a young woman, but she could not afford to make Evallen's mistake: She could not afford to die and leave behind daughters bereft of power and guidance at a time when power and guidance were the only crutches daughters could rely on to walk the distance the coming war demanded of them all.
All.
He took her hand; she tried to accept his offer of strength. And she did run, as she had seen, her gait uneven but unbroken in its awkward stride. He adjusted to it, moving to her rhythm, leading her into the shadows she knew best, the evening's strengths. She added to the shadows as she could, whispering her own benedictions—if they could be called that—and blending in with the trees, the grass, the living things that were part of the Voyani hidden ways.
Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court Page 20