Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  But his hand was slick with blood, and although she had shed blood in her life, there was something about its warmth and his coolness that jarred her. Distracted her.

  Yollana, who had not been led since before her mother had raised her up from the waters of the riverbeds and proclaimed her the Matriarch-in-waiting, the Lady's choice, was led now, and she followed a man whose hair was pale silver in the moonlight, whose body was shadow defined, whose death—whose death was the Lady's coldest death, her darkest offering.

  The Widan Cortano di'Alexes did not rage. Rage, in its most primal colors, its loudest expression, was the signal gesture of weakness a man of power might otherwise show: not only was it a severe loss of control, but it also implied the end of a battle, and that battle's loss.

  The Sword's Edge did not lose.

  But here, the facts were incontrovertible.

  The five men he had personally chosen were dead; there, a limb, beside it a severed head, the flesh on the youngest scored in multiple places as if—as if he had been picked up, like so much limp refuse, and mauled by large claws, by inhuman teeth.

  The heads that had been detached were not cleanly removed, and at least one appeared—for the moment—to be missing. But the bodies themselves had not yet begun to stiffen; the deaths were new.

  Hands shaking, lips so thinned they should have prevented any sound from escaping, the Widan Cortano di'Alexes made his way through the wide hall to the door that led into his personal chambers. Here, the effects were different; fire had scoured the room, scorching fans and low tables, cushions and mats, into a blackened curl. They had been finely made, chosen for the perfection of their matching colors, their contrasting textures.

  He recognized the fires as his own; recognized little else as such. He cast; he cast quickly, the words a bark, the edge of an angered roar. No footsteps had crossed these floors. None; not even hers.

  But the woman—and her things—were gone.

  He spoke; spoke again; drew his sigils in the air.

  What he found there brought silence. He stood, at the threshold of his quarters, casting a shadow in the dim light.

  At last he moved forward, moved on, his gait stiff, the anger sublimated beneath an envy, a desire for knowledge, that had defined half his life.

  It did not surprise him when, after he had completed his descent into earthen darkness, he found only empty chains; did not surprise him that there had been so little sign of struggle. He might have cast again, but his thoughts were now upon the first of the rooms, the deaths, the quickness of the theft.

  In silence, he returned to the room that his own fires had blackened and scorched. He touched walls, his palms flat and wide, the bodies of the men who had served him stiffening into the rictus of death and neglect. Let them wait. He would attend to them later, when he attempted to discern what had killed them— and what had not.

  Minutes passed. Possibly an hour; he was Widan for a moment; the Sword's Edge turned inward, rather than outward. He wondered, briefly, where Sendari was; considered calling for him. Decided against it; he did not wish to interrupt the reverie that had taken him.

  It was thus that Alesso di'Alesso, the Tyr'agar himself, found the Sword's Edge: kneeling in ash, his hands black with it, the remnants of finery scattered and inconsequential.

  Evening of the 7th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Evereve

  "This is the first time since the death of his wife that he has come to Evereve with a visitor."

  She turned at the sound of the voice, wary now with isolation. Jewel valued privacy; she always had. But there was a difference between the privacy you took in the cracks between contact with your family and the privacy that an underground castle, in which you seemed to be the only living thing—Avandar not excepted because, although she'd been searching for the better part of an hour, she couldn't find him—afforded.

  She had gone up the scale from anger to worry, and it was when she was worried that she tended to see most clearly. Had to. Avandar had never asked her pardon for anything in their life together, and he'd done a damn sight worse than forcefully correct her table manners. So something was wrong—and it wasn't the crown on his head or the stupid clothing that, much as she hated to admit it, suited him far better than anything he'd worn in her service.

  "Aristos," she replied, using his name because names could be neutral.

  She hadn't expected to see him, not here; although she knew it was cowardly, she'd avoided what she now thought of as the Hall of Statues That Were Probably Once People.

  "Lady," he replied, bowing so smoothly it seemed impossible that he could be made of stone at all. Even his garments, gray and marbled in their oddly Southern folds, rippled with the movement he offered her. It was not an obeisance.

  She was silent; awkwardly silent.

  "Are you searching for something?"

  "Not—not something in particular, no. I'm—I probably won't get to see something as big and strange as this again," if I'm lucky, "and I thought I'd—I'd just explore it."

  "And would you mind company?"

  It came to her then that she didn't want his company. Why? Because the fact that he existed at all said things about Avandar Gallais that she really didn't want to know? She examined that thought for five seconds—give or take a few—and tossed it aside. She didn't want his company because there was something about him, stone or no, that she didn't trust. A pity, because she liked him.

  And she trusted Avandar?

  If any of her den had been there, she'd have probably snapped at them in frustration. She was good at it; it came easily. Too damn easily.

  "I think I need some time to adjust," she said, putting as much of a breathless and harmless cadence into the words as her voice allowed. Truth to tell, it wasn't much. Even at sixteen she'd've had trouble manufacturing it.

  Aristos stiffened—he was stone, so it should have been hard to notice—and she felt that pang again; Guilt. "As you wish, Lady. I have, of course, been given no purpose other than to serve, and should you require me, you will find me in the Hall of Conjunction."

  She should have shut up. That would have been the smart thing to do. But she hated to feel guilty for no good reason. "Aristos?" she said, as he turned away.

  He turned back at once, pivoting as if stone had no weight. "Yes?"

  "Is it true that you slept with his wife?"

  A stone brow rose. Fell. "He told you that?"

  "Someone did."

  The smile on his face was as far from the expression of hurt that had stopped her dead as an expression can get. She didn't bother to take a step back, although when she was younger she would have. "Oh, my dear, you are so different from Elyssandra. I had hoped to make better use of you in time, but I see that you are…" his expression was almost a sneer, "rather common. Rather simple. Far, far too uncomplicated. I can see that the only weapon you will make is a blunt one. Very well.

  "In a manner of speaking, yes. She was a very proud, very powerful woman in her own right; he has never been interested in anyone who isn't."

  "A manner of speaking?"

  "She did not see fit to explain the circumstances to him, which was indeed as I expected. The liaison was not to her liking, my dear; it was not, in fact, her choice." His smile was soft with memory. It was a memory that Jewel never wanted to be a part of. "I might never have been so… ensorcelled… had I not become careless. I never marked her; I never bruised her; I never destroyed an item of clothing, a strand of jewelry; I did not so much as remove—by hand—the clasp that held her hair."

  "I'm not sure I want to hear much more of this," she said, lifting a hand. "No, strike that. I'm certain I don't want to hear any more of it. We can leave it as a conversation topic for another century. Or rather, you can. I don't plan on being around that long."

  He stepped forward.

  "I wouldn't, if I were you."

  "You wouldn't what?"

  "I wouldn't try anything stupid. Stupider."

>   "And what can be done that hasn't been done? I live encased in stone; I serve his whim. He offered me as a gift to her; he thought to wound her. She was grateful; spiteful, even. I do not think it impressed him overmuch, to know that she could so casually turn against a lover she had taken.

  "But she was proud. She never chose to explain her humiliation. And it was, indeed, quite exquisite."

  "Well, plan on not repeating it," Jewel replied. "For one, I think your build would make it generally uncomfortable, if it were possible at all."

  "Ah. Well, if that were a fear, you need not fear it; as you suspect, it was not an ability that was left me." He stepped toward her. She stood her ground.

  Or she would have, if instinct hadn't suddenly kicked the edge of her spine with a resounding thud that made her legs move.

  "But he was no fool." Stone hands, shot through with lovely, smoky marble, were raised in the well-lit hall. Fingers curled into fists, and with a casual gesture, Aristos smashed the brightest of the magelights into fine, thin leaf over shards of crystal. The light went out. "He did not assume that my time in captivity would sit well with me." He took another step; she took another. His eyes did not leave her face as he extinguished another light, following the trail the lamps made as they followed her. "He therefore bound my behavior in regard to his wife quite, quite thoroughly. I might speak freely—speech, after all, was acceptable, and any accusation, any lover's quarrel, any pleas, were all to his amusement."

  Crash.

  "But I literally could not act against her, or any item of value that she owned. I could not crush the stem of a leaf; I could not bruise the petal of a flower. I could not drop a stray dish when I stood by her and she ate from it."

  Crash.

  "I have had a long time to become used to this form of captivity. She took great pleasure in it. He, on the other hand, the author of my misfortune, took none. At least that satisfaction was mine."

  Crash.

  She had a sudden, very bad feeling that she was running out of hall. It wasn't a guess. It was a certainty. Enough of one that she didn't waste much time looking over her shoulder.

  "As far as breaking things go, you, ummm, don't seem to have that problem at the moment."

  "No, oddly enough. I don't. It's been a long time since I've bothered to test it, my dear, because it's been a very long time since I've been awakened. That was his one act of kindness. Theophan has been aware for every year of his entrapment; he is quite, quite mad."

  You aren't winning any sanity prizes, she thought, but she didn't bother to say it. Two stone fists beat zero weapons any time. She wondered how much being made of stone would slow him down if she broke into an out-and-out run.

  "You are obviously part of the enchantment that allowed her to be sent here and live."

  "She didn't always live here?"

  Crash.

  He smiled lazily, and she knew he knew she was buying time. But clearly the company—any company—was worth prolonging. Gods, if she got out of this in one uncrushed piece, she was going to kill Avandar.

  "My dear, no one lived here. He built it as his personal citadel, a way of defending those he cared for. His own life has never been in danger—but the life of his wife, and his children, should there have been any—a different story entirely.

  "Those born here might enter and leave freely. Those who bore the mark of his consort: the Serpent mark. His oldest name. You bear that mark, but it is clear you have neither his blood nor his blessing. I… was not a man of little power. I had more than a passing acquaintance with the magical arts, and I had his trust, for what it was worth, for some time. But had I not been entirely enslaved as a magical construct, I would never have survived transit to Evereve. No one would. That was the entire purpose."

  Crash.

  "But here you are. You are obviously not dead; I may be stone, but I am still a purveyor of the flesh. And to accomplish that he must have unraveled a great deal of what was wrought."

  Crash. Crash. Two, for punctuation.

  "And now, my dear, I am going to draw this little encounter to an unfortunate close. I am going to defile you, eunuch fashion, since the other is beyond me, and then am I going to kill you."

  Theophan, whoever he was, wasn't the only one who was mad. Stone or no, Aristos' face had taken on an ugly rictus that defied any connection with sanity.

  "You don't expect me to stand still for any of that, do you?"

  "Not at all."

  "Good."

  The hall opened into a huge gallery of some sort; she knew there was a round wall twenty feet from her back that it would be very, very bad to get caught by. The dress was awkward—another thing she'd kill Avandar for later—but she was familiar enough with skirts that she managed to roll while Aristos' fist was flattening thick gold into thin leaf. Very thin leaf.

  She was worried.

  Not terrified; not that. There was no one else in the hall but her. No one to protect—and worse, much worse, no one to fail. This was survival made as clean and as tidy as it could be. She could see, on a level that the word "sight" was too simple to encompass, where he would go, where he would strike, what he would attempt, and she reacted fifteen seconds ahead of each action.

  Of course she did wonder about the structural integrity of the hall itself when she saw the first fissure snake its way from mid-wall to ceiling. She also wondered how well he could see; his casual destruction of the lamps he could reach had plunged the hall into twilight.

  And what followed twilight?

  He was heavy. She was light on her feet.

  But he was not, as she had so dearly hoped, slow.

  "I was made for many things," he said, no break for breath in the smooth flow of the words, "among them defense. If I tire at all, it is not in a way that will help you."

  She saved her breath; cursing worked just as well when she didn't let it out.

  It was when she took the right turn into the Hall of Statues that she said a single word. Kalliaris.

  They were waiting for her.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  They were waiting for her.

  Those forms that had been carved into perfect stone, alabaster, marbled smoky quartz, something green and heavy and shot through with veins of gold, those statues that had their places on pedestals over inscriptions she had no hope of being able to read, now gathered 'round the doors in a half circle.

  Unlike Aristos, they were silent; it was not a mercy. She had ten seconds of lead time, and the momentary pause to stare at the faces, mute but no longer expressionless, of the men and women that she imagined had somehow managed to piss Avandar off cost her.

  She ran into their midst; stopped ten feet away from the one that stood farthest from the swinging door. Not a good idea to let him touch her, if she could avoid it. That was the problem with having an imagination; she could imagine just how well she'd fare beneath those fists, given what one blow had done to gold.

  Cormaris, she thought, don't let me snivel. Not that she had much in the way of dignity, but what she did have was important.

  "You must be the young lady that Aristos spoke of," the statue said. It had a voice like thunder's rumble: Heavy and unpleasantly grating. It—he—also looked nothing like Aristos; there was no refinement at all in his features. Heavy cheeks, heavy chin, beard that, even carved in stone, didn't look like it would pass Imperial muster. He was also about twice the width of the more pretty Aristos, and very little of that was fat.

  Well, okay, none of it was fat. But in real life—wherever it had managed to run off to, very little of it would have been.

  "Well," she said, looking over her shoulder, "I'm the only new person here that I know of, although 'young' or 'lady' is probably stretching it."

  Aristos stepped into the room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. They didn't come down when he smiled. She hated people who used smiles that particular way. Not that her hatred ever made much difference.

&nb
sp; She turned back to Big and Burly.

  The statue standing in front of her frowned slightly. "True," he said. "The dress doesn't suit you, either."

  "Well, thanks. I suppose I won't return the favor and criticize what you're wearing, seeing as you don't have many alternatives."

  He laughed, then, and Aristos slowed down. "Sanjos," he said softly. "You've found something of mine. I'm… surprised to see you awake."

  "Oh? The way you've been babbling? You talk so much Aristos, if most of it weren't boring, you'd wake the dead."

  "Do not interfere in what does not concern you."

  "Or you'll turn me to stone?" The larger man's smile was very similar to Aristos' but it wasn't aimed at her.

  "We have very little time. Let me finish what I started, and you may do as you please with what remains."

  "Judging from your expression, that won't be much."

  "Sanjos." His expression stilled, the lines of it smoothing out into something better expressed by stone. "I will already suffer for what has transpired. I have no wish to suffer without due cause."

  The larger man shrugged. "Not my problem, really. Come here," he added to Jewel.

  She started to obey, but her feet stopped in place. She was too tired to think, but not too tired to react; her feet understood what she knew before it reached the rest of her body. Like, for instance, her brain. Instinct. No safety there, then. No safety anywhere.

  "Girl," the second statue said, some of the rumble in his voice turning to jagged edge, "I said, come here."

  "Funny thing about life," she replied, standing where she was as Aristos—and the line of statues to either side of the one called Sanjos—drew closer. "Even when there's only seconds left of it, no one rushes to throw it away."

  Sanjos frowned and stepped forward just as quickly as Aristos had done.

  "'Funny thing,'" a familiar voice said, softly enough that she had to strain to catch it, "if I were to illustrate that truth by example, you would not be the person I would choose as its proof."