Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "And the Kialli chose this night to take the Voyani out of the custody of the Sword's Edge?" His eyes were the sword's edge, narrowed to death's sharpness. "And they gain from this how?"

  "I do not know. I confess I find the maneuver surprising." He shrugged. Fell into silence for a moment, as if silence were a lake, and Alesso's questions the sun's height. At last, he said, "Or perhaps they do not realize that we are able to ascertain the extent of their involvement."

  Alesso froze. Sendari watched his face; saw the lines of it shift and alter. "If they gain power here," he said, "what will they do with it? Will they grant the Dominion to another man?"

  Rhetorical question; he knew it by the tone and texture of the words conveyed. He did not reply.

  "Cortano?"

  "It was not Cortano's work; if I can be certain of anything, I am certain of that. The Sword's Edge is adept at both the Widan's art and political machination—but he does not easily cast aside his own. Had the dead men been of less value, and less proven loyalty, I would concede the possibility."

  "Good."

  Silence, broken rhythmically by the lapping of water against reed stalk and lily. At last, Sendari said a single word.

  "Kinlord."

  And Alesso nodded. "But which one? Which one? They can wear the Crown—but they cannot claim either Lake or Sword." He grimaced. "They are here, of course. We are probably observed."

  "We are observed," Sendari agreed casually. "At a distance of perhaps fifty yards, perhaps a hundred; there is a magic at work that is at the edge of my ability to detect, but only barely. Whoever observes us is clever and well-trained."

  "Cortano's?"

  "I do not think so; there is a taint to the magic that I have seen only in the Shining Court."

  "Only there?"

  His brow creased, folding into the familiar lines that more than age and wind had worn there. "There and perhaps in one other place: The artifacts of the Voyani. The vest that was the gifting of Baredan di'Navarre."

  "It comes back to the Voyani. Men and women who have barely been considered more valuable than bandits suddenly become the focal point of far too much interest."

  "I want answers, Sendari."

  The Widan raised a single, frosted brow.

  It was when she saw the sword that her expression folded in on itself, swallowing darkness; becoming, for a moment, a mask that Margret herself stepped back from. Almost, but not quite, breaking the circle she'd called for. She was well enough taught to freeze in mid-stride, to plant her foot solidly back on safe ground, to draw sigil in air laden with the smoke of blessed wood. But that was all she offered, that and silence.

  Kallandras the stranger—she would always think of him that way, and he would give, in the end, new meaning to the word stranger; she knew it, then, but did not know how—said nothing, returning silence for silence, and in the same measure. He waited; he was, she thought, good at waiting.

  "Where," Yollana said at last, "did this sword come from?"

  "It came," Kallandras replied, as her midnight eyes met his and granted him—indeed demanded—speech, "from the hands of one of the Arkosan Voyani."

  "Not possible."

  Margret flinched. "Matriarch—" she began, but Yollana lifted a hand, imperiously demanding silence.

  "It is truth," Kallandras replied evenly. "And I would not so easily dismiss any claim to the contrary. The Matriarch's heir," and he placed a distinct emphasis—not a comforting one—on the word Matriarch, "was present; it was her hand that lifted the fallen blade and prevented its return to the man who wielded it. No," he added, as Yollana's expression shifted and fell, "she did not touch the blade or the hilt with exposed skin; she took care. She is no fool."

  Yollana closed her eyes, cutting off all conversation. "We should have had this conversation under the open sky," she said, when her lids lifted again.

  "Or not at all." He nodded quietly. "What will you do with it?"

  "I? It is not in my keeping; it is not my responsibility."

  He lifted a golden brow—although the shadows and the fires robbed it of color, or lent it a false one; hard to say which was truth. "No? And you have sent your people to your daughters for some other reason?"

  "Clever man." Her smile was thin. "Very well; I do not know what you know, Kallandras of Senniel, but I know that you know too much. It is a dangerous combination; it makes me careless."

  His smile was as brief and sharp as her own. "Yollana, you will forgive me if I doubt—and strongly—that you understand what the word careless means."

  She shrugged. "/ was the one in captivity, stranger."

  "Granted." He bowed. "If the Matriarch consents, I will break her circle; I will leave you to your conversation and your privacy."

  "And you won't listen in?"

  He met her gaze full on, which said more about him than almost anything else Margret had yet seen; most of the Voyani would have shunted their gaze left or right after half a second. Yollana's eyes were sharp and harsh, something best not confronted. She saw far too deeply, far too quickly; she took, when she looked at you like that, and you gave—whether or not you wanted to.

  But Yollana had called him Evayne's servant—or pawn—and a man who served that one had probably given more than any of the Voyani who fell under Yollana's sight and stayed pinned there. He didn't flinch.

  "No, Yollana of the Havallan Voyani, I will not listen in. You have my word, but if my word is not enough—and it should not be, in these troubled times, let me offer you another truth: The circle itself has been drawn with real power this night." He bowed to Margret. "You have the heart of the Voyani, and if it is distant, it is still yours. Release me, and I will return to the night."

  Margret heard his words. Between pleasure and sudden terror, her face remained as masklike as his own. She had performed the ritual that she'd learned at the side of the only woman—in her opinion—fit to rule Arkosans; she was Matriarch; the Lady had heard her pleas and filled the hollow gesture with the water of life: heart's blood.

  But this stranger, this Kallandras, also spoke openly of the loss of the Arkosan heart, and if he spoke his words of muted praise to her, he spoke them in front of Yollana as well. Words seldom failed her; they failed her now. Her mother had always said that the texture of a silence was significant.

  Still, she wasn't her mother; she'd turned to look at Yollana's face before she could stop herself. Some people's mouths ran away with them; with Margret it was always her actions.

  Yollana met her gaze without flinching; without blinking. But she waited until Kallandras of the North had stepped carefully across the threshold of Margret's circle before speaking. Voyani moonlight in her eyes, and shadows cast by Margret's fire, made of her face a foreign landscape; she looked old, some edifice hollowed by wind and sand until it was thin and worn. Wisdom and experience had always been the cards granted for the youth taken away; the Matriarchs had been living proof of that for all of Margret's life.

  All of her young life, and she recognized that truth for the first time, staring at Yollana's bleak face.

  "Aye," the older woman said, "I know, Matriarch. That's why I'm staying. And he knows, or she'd never have sent him to you."

  Margret returned silence. She turned away. "Did my mother tell you?" she asked, striving to keep the bitterness from her voice. Failing. "Did she tell everyone but me?"

  "Does it matter?" Yollana's sharp voice. "She's dead. She paid the price. Or did you have another one in mind?"

  That stung. "I'd forgotten you could be such a bitch."

  "Your problem." Yollana's voice was mild; there was no anger or censure in it. "Think outside of yourself for a minute, Margret. I've faced what you've faced. We all have, sooner or later. We've just been lucky enough not to have to face it on the eve of—" The words stopped; the wall of Yollana's lips broke them. "You've proved yourself here, with the fire.

  "Never think that the obvious power is the only power, Matriarch. You have your
aunts and your heir; you have your uncles. You have your cousins, their children, their parents. They are Arkosa. Are you afraid you'll fail them? Good fear. Worthy fear.

  "Learn to live with it.

  "You'll defend your family with your life—with more than your life, with resources that you won't know you've got until they're standing with someone else's dagger at their throats. That's all that's asked of you, that and that you bear daughters that will take the name and the duty when you've passed on.

  "She was proud of you. Proud enough, certain enough, that she took the risk of leaving you in shadow while she stepped into the Lord's light."

  Margret turned slowly to face her, to face this woman who gave a grandmother's advice. "Matriarch," she said at last, her anger muted. "If she trusted me so well, why did she tell you? She must have hoped you would watch out for me, and step in when I faltered."

  "Would you have me betray her confidence?"

  "Yes."

  Yollana chuckled. "Spoken," she said wryly, "like a daughter."

  "You aren't going to tell me." It wasn't a question.

  "No. Because while she would forgive me the betrayal, in the end, I would not. She is dead; respect is the only thing she has now." The smile was there in the lines that framed her eyes and lips, even when it left her face. "But we have things to discuss before the fires burn low enough that others might hear us.

  "The sword, Margret."

  "It is—"

  "Yes."

  Her power was so impressive. She had not pulled the pendant from the chain or otherwise called its power and knowledge, and

  she knew the sword. Margret herself felt uneasy when the weapon cast shadow over her hands, but Yollana's shadows were the darkness of knowledge.

  "Yollana?"

  "I have seen such a sword as this," Yollana said, bitterly. "I have touched it, with these hands. It burned, and I bear the scars." Her eyes were darker than the paling night sky. "You are Matriarch in title, and it is your blood-right and your responsibility, Margret. I diminish none of that when I say this: You are not Matriarch in fact until you have crossed the sands as the heart of Arkosa. There are things that I cannot speak of with you until you are tested."

  "Tested?" She bridled. "By whom? You? The other Matriarchs?" Her voice rose; it grated as it climbed and she forced it down as if it were Ona Donatella's worst healing brew.

  "By Arkosa," Yollana said softly. "But it is my personal experiences that I cannot yet speak of; I am old and I wander."

  Margret snorted, but she could no longer deny Yollana- her right to claim age as a refuge.

  "The sword was not fashioned by smiths; it was fashioned by magic, in forges that were old when the cities were built, and older still when they fell. It is said that they grant the gift of ability to a warrior, but never without cost. They were a gift to such warriors in times past."

  "They are… demonic?"

  "No. They were meant to be wielded by men."

  "Yollana—"

  "You will know it all, Margret. All."

  "But not now."

  "Now," she said softly, "we have a larger problem. There is only one place that I have ever seen such a sword; only one place where you will, in your time. Not a single one of those swords have been taken from either Havalla or Arkosa—I would bet my family's life, and yours, on it.

  "That leaves us with a problem. Either Corrona or Lyserra have weakened, which is problematic at best, or—" and she turned her eyes to the fire's heart as she spoke, "the time has come when the forges that first created the ancient weapons have been refired, and we will see war."

  "I'm about ready to see war," Margret said grimly.

  "That," Yollana replied, "is because you have never crossed the desert as Matriarch." She lifted a hand to forestall Margret's reply. "Yes, you've crossed the desert, but you've crossed it as her daughter. The secrets that we can teach our own, we teach. This is not one of them.

  "Keep the sword, Matriarch. Keep it in the hands of either yourself or your heir. And be aware that the hand that has held the blade and blooded it is a hand that will seek the weapon."

  / gave him an order, Margret thought; she said nothing. Because she couldn't be certain that that order meant anything to the Arkosan cousin of whom she was so fond.

  "What do you do," she asked quietly, "when your kin won't follow your orders?"

  "When the orders are serious?"

  Margret raised a brow. "All of my mother's orders were serious; she didn't waste breath otherwise."

  "Fair enough; I natter when I'm thinking; I order them about. Soothes my nerves. Of course, some of them are stupid enough to listen to every word I say when I'm nattering. But that's their problem, and it's an easy question. The most important thing to the family is the family. The Matriarch embodies that."

  "Yes, but I—"

  "I kill them."

  It would have helped Margret if she could have believed—for even a moment—that Yollana of the Havalla Voyani was lying.

  As if she could hear that thought, the older woman said, bleakly, "It's a test we all face, daughter of a Matriarch. And we pass it, or our daughters or sisters rule in our stead. Do you understand?"

  But she couldn't answer, not easily; she was caught on the edge of a childhood's slender memory, and it cut.

  Yollana faded into a grim silence; their eyes met.

  "Evallen trained you well, but you're still very young, Margret. And now, right now, youth will kill you. Do you understand that? It will kill you, and expose the heart of Arkosa to anyone who seeks to injure it."

  She nodded.

  "You're thinking of your first death."

  "An uncle," she said quietly. "Just that. An uncle. I don't remember him well." A lie. She remembered three things clearly: first, that he had stolen fragments of the festive cake for her four-year-old mouth, although it had been strictly forbidden, and had perched her on his lap while she babbled with pleasure at the gift. Second, that he had struggled and screamed and pleaded six months later, two days after her fifth birthday, when the Matriarch's men had come to take him away. He had run for her, his face wild and white and his eyes wider than any adult eyes she had. ever seen that had still had lids.

  Oh, that had angered Uncle Stavos. One of her mother's men. One of her most trusted cousins. Who had she been, at five? Someone who could believe that her Uncle Rogos, favored uncle with the handsome face, all his teeth, and the most generous satchel in the entire Arkosan caravan, could run for her, run at her, and mean her no harm, although the threat of death hung over him like a rare, heavy cloud.

  Uncle Stavos tackled him; they fell together in a tangle of heavy arms and legs, three inches short of her feet. The shadows of the night were brighter somehow than the shadows Uncle Stavos cast over Uncle Rogos' heaving back.

  "Don't let them do this, don't let them do this, child. Tell your mother—ask your mother—not to do this. Please. Please." The last word, spoken in the valley his body made of wild grass and tall, flowering weed, still had the power to immobilize her. She stood, the heart's fire dying in front of her eyes, the third memory at the edge of her vision.

  "First death," she whispered.

  They both meant more than just death, of course: Margret had seen many before she was five; too many to count. But the deaths that scarred were always the ones that happened between family. Arkosans killed other Voyani when the families went to war; they killed clansmen; rarely, although it had happened, they killed serafs. But each other? Almost never.

  "How old were you?"

  "Five," Margret said, although she seldom spoke of it. "Five years old and two days. It was the first time I realized that there were things I couldn't ask of my mother."

  "She spoiled you, then." Not a question.

  Margret remained unruffled. "Yes. In her fashion. I felt the back of her hand more often than most of the kids my age." She shrugged. "But she was smaller than most of their mothers."

  Yollana grinned.


  "No. That day was different. I think it was the first time I'd ever hurt her, and I didn't know it, then. I barely understand it now. She had cause to kill—to execute—one of my favorite uncles. Uncle Rogos. I thought if I asked her for his life, she'd change her mind. I thought if she knew what it would mean to me—"

  "And you asked her this when?"

  Margret laughed, but the laugh was just this side of a cry. "When the blade was in her hand, Matriarch. When it was in her perfectly steady hand."

  "You were her only daughter, obviously."

  The humor helped. "I want to kill them, sometimes. I want that. But to actually do it—"

  "Breaks a family, or it can. That's why it's in the hands of the Matriarch. And those hands are always steady." Yollana looked down at her own, weathered and wrinkled by sun's poor grace. "I'm old, Margret. Old and feeble. I need my rest."

  But they both looked, as one, to the Tor Leonne upon the high plateau, and Margret knew that neither of them would sleep much before the dawn.

  He planned ahead.

  The sun's heat could not be denied, but it could be lessened. A breeze could be called. Water brought. Fans hefted by serafs. Should one desire privacy, an awning might be constructed, poles wedged into dirt that was, at the height of the moon's season, soft enough to accept them. He made the latter choice, instructing the serafs to build and then leave.

  The free seldom disobeyed his commands; the serafs, never. He contemplated their work and wondered why it was that they, with so little to lose, could work so quietly and so well; they were like shadows, cast but not noticed. Much like his own shadow would be in a scant few hours. The sun had not yet fully risen. If there was work to be done, it was best done now.

  Even bereft as he was, he was not without wisdom.

  Cortano di'Alexes was not a sentimental man. He was, however, a powerful man, and the combination of these two traits meant that he had few friends, and the trusted ones were always those whose associations he had made in his youth.

  With a single exception, they lay dead, their bodies arranged in a semblance of peace. What could not be gathered easily— blood and blackened ash—now adorned the floor and beams of the room in which they had made their helpless final stand. Magic still lingered; he could sense it, and could name at least three of the casters. It was the last thing they would share: Power and the knowledge of it, ineffectual though it had been.