Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "I don't."

  "No."

  "There's a way out that doesn't involve whatever it was you did to get me in."

  "Yes."

  She waited. "You think it's worse."

  "I know it's worse," he said softly. "But I think we'll have little choice."

  "What is it?"

  "It's a very simple door." He rejoined dress to hanger, contouring its shoulders so that its fall was perfect. Showed her his back while he put it away. "Twice my height, ten times my width. It is covered, from height to depth, with runic symbols, each speaking of mystery, promise, wonder, and at the end of each, death. It was the door I discovered when I sought a place of safety; it was shown to me by… by a woman with vision much stronger than even yours." His expression froze a moment. "It was not an easy door to find. The path that led to it had been lost for… many years. Or almost so. I encountered… difficulty in making my way here, and when I chose to return to the world without, it was by alternate means."

  "And the door?" she asked, because suddenly she knew what it looked like. The words, in runes she shouldn't have been able to read because they seemed the epitome of ancient and she hadn't mastered most of modern yet, were glowing with a light that seemed part sun and part the blood it went down on after battle's end, when corpses were strewn as carrion for the waiting and the watchful. But she could read them.

  "Jewel?" His voice was sharp.

  She was staring at the door that she could see in a vision that had nothing to do with reality; reading words that she knew would make no sense whatever were she to encounter them in the solidity of the here-and-now.

  Two words stood out. Two words, warning, homage, mystery. Ownership. A cold, cold wind blew through the room; one that she alone felt. She shook herself, hard, and then turned to Avandar.

  "Who was the Winter King?"

  He closed his eyes.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  10th of Scaral, 427 AA

  The Northern Wastes

  The Lord had not summoned them.

  Had he, they would have met in the throne room, and spent the meeting on their knees before a throne that was impressive even to creatures who had no use for, and no patience with, such obvious trappings of mortal power.

  Or who had not had patience before their return to the mortal plane. It changed them all, subtly, and in different ways, infecting them like a mortal disease, crippling them, fevering them. Power, upon the mortal plane, had always had a multitude of meanings, but they had been winnowed of those meanings in the Hells by the passage of millennia and the duties—the only true pleasure— of guardians.

  High upon the peaks of the Northern mountains, surrounded by the sparse life, the endless cold, the clarity of nights so perfect the desire to spend a decade caught by starlight was at times as strong as the desire for the single pleasure they'd been granted when they had chosen to cleave to their Lord, the world returned to them. The kinlords were awakening.

  Perhaps the awakening would have been faster had the world been more recognizably what it was at the time of Moorelas' final ride. It was not. Even the flowers had dwindled in the long absence of the Kialli; the trees—on the rare occasion they were allowed to travel far enough to see them—had lost all voice; the earth had been struck dumb enough that only the great among them could hope to hear the whisper that had once been greater than the roar of dragons. Of the Firstborn and their children, of the brethren, of their ancient enemies, their ancient brothers, only the mortals had flourished.

  Surprising, that. They had been the weakest, and the shortest lived. In their youth they were glorious, but their youth was short; they grew into their bindings, bending and folding under the weight, finding new ways in which to deny themselves pleasure and power—and finding a perverse pride in that denial.

  They called it dignity.

  Lord Isladar had seen that perversity so often that he had grown, in his fashion, to admire it.

  They are like the flowers, he would say, and not the rock; they are so brief in their bloom one can pause to admire the blossom itself.

  And humanity has become your garden ?

  It has become, he had replied, to the ironic levity of the Widan Cortano di'Alexes, my wilderness.

  Oddly enough, he found the company of the man who called himself the Sword's Edge almost pleasant. It, too, invoked memories of an earlier life, summoning them when least expected. Or desired. Among the Kialli there had been those like Cortano. Seekers of knowledge. He had not, oddly enough, chosen to be one of them, but he had admired the quality—for it was beautiful—of their odd obsession.

  They were gone now. Their time in the Hells had driven them inexorably mad. They were the charnel wind, their voices raised in a howl of pain and fury and fear as the years became a significant weight, for the whole of their world was now knowable; that they understood everything; behind them, in a past they had forsaken for love and pride, were mysteries they were never to discover. They had slowly given up their memories; they had become lesser kin. Demons, yes, but their names were now merely tools for the most powerful to use.

  He remembered it well. Remembered it now, when those mysteries, when that tangled past, could once again be offered to them as a gift.

  Morellius, he thought. A name. The past. Morellius would have despised him; the Kialli rarely chose to honor friendship.

  He bowed his head; the wind was cold, not hot, and it was almost silent. Almost. But he had invoked the element, and it was restless. "Not now," he told it. "But soon."

  He looked out from the heights into the depths of the basin the Lord had carved in a single motion. It was there that he took what He denied the Kialli: human life, human pain, human fear. It was there that He sustained himself, feeding upon the souls of the living, regardless of whether or not they had made their final Choice. It was there that He forced them to bear witness to His actions, for in consuming the living, He kept their souls from the Hells for eternity. Kept their souls from the shepherds. The kinlords.

  And it was there that the pentagram had been traced against ice-covered rock by blood and unguent; there that it had been burned, in a flash of elemental fire, into the rock itself, a seamless scar that no foolish lesser kin could cross and destroy in its clumsiness.

  But its five points were now four, and a vast sheet of thin, standing stone, the center point of which was a chair not unlike the throne of the Lord, now occupied its peak. It was empty, and the kin worked the rock itself in an attempt to appease the fury of their Lord. Anya a'Cooper's work was, indeed, worthy of the lesser effort of a god.

  He understood—they all did—why Ishavriel had chosen to keep her. But faced with evidence of her power—and this was undeniable—they were unsettled. Sor na Shannen, before her timely destruction and return, had assured them all that no mortals of true power remained. The Cities had not risen, and their descendants, scattered around the lands that ringed the burning sand, had fallen into the smallness that occupied most of humanity. Mortals.

  Anya, he thought, and smiled.

  The Lord would rise soon and see to the throne. Anya a'Cooper would rise at the same time and take her place as anchor of the vast magical array necessary to maintain the fabric of the doorway to the Hells. She was wild and unpredictable, and she had grown to like pain—other people's, of course—rather too well, but she was afraid of the Lord's anger, and had she clearly understood just how angry he would be, she might not have been so foolish.

  But she understood so little.

  She did not understand, for instance, that to rip the wall from the mountain, and then—as an afterthought, when the Shining Palace began to crack and shudder—replace it, keeping only that section that contained her chair, would be so costly. She did understand the effort it took to repair the damage done to the Lord's edifice, because she was not in any fashion stupid, but she clearly had so little sense that she did not then realize the little shudders forcing her to clumsiness were th
e penultimate warning.

  She moved the chair.

  And her own weight.

  Not even Kiriel would have that power at her disposal when she finally came of age and took her rightful place at her father's side.

  Kiriel.

  The wind sensed his weakness and buffeted him, howling in petulant displeasure.

  "Not now," he said again. "Not yet. But soon; I promise it. The Lord's Fist meets soon, and I with it."

  Although he knew the answer, he had the pleasure of asking Lord Ishavriel how long it would take to repair the damage that Anya had done to the gate.

  It would distract them from the question that had driven him to the mountain's peak; distract him from facing the fact, yet again, that something in his plan had gone awry, and that he had not yet managed to discover how, or why.

  He could no longer see Kiriel.

  Lord Isladar was Kialli. It was undisputed. What was often the source of argument was the extent to which he had retained his power after the passage. His memory, as far as the surviving Kialli could ascertain, was perfect.

  And it was memory, it was identity, in the Hells that had defined power. Those who had been driven mad by the loss of contact with the world had found new ways to define themselves until all that remained of them was a name, and that name deep enough, old enough, terrible enough to be invoked.

  Isladar, therefore, should have been a power.

  Instead he owned nothing, ruled nothing, fought little; he was like a mortal dog, but canny. The games he played they could not fathom, and they had made their attempts. Assarak, Etridian, Alcrax, and Nugratz had long since given up. Ishavriel had not, not yet. Because he remembered Isladar of old, and he did not trust him, although perhaps that was not significant; he trusted no one. But the others had games and goals that were obvious; their deviousness was spent in attaining them.

  What are your goals, Lord Isladar? What is your game?

  He had asked the question privately for the last thousand years, never coming close to an answer, but today he would be given a glimpse of either the game or the Lord, a reminder that some questions were not meant to be answered before one knew the cost the answer demanded. The Oracle's dilemma, if the Oracle still lived.

  Lord Isladar came late to the Shattered Hall.

  He drew the eye; there was something about him, that day, that was changed. He acknowledged the Fist of the Lord with a passing nod and took a seat.

  Etridian spoke; Alcrax answered. Ishavriel remembered the sound and timbre of their voices, but he could not look away from Isladar—and he felt that he should. Something had changed, or was changing, and change was a force that was seldom contained or controllable.

  The wind's howl was unaccountably sharp this day and he thought he heard—he thought he heard the voice of elemental air.

  "The Lord," Assarak said quietly, "is… not pleased."

  Lord Ishavriel was silent, his focus peripherally on the Generals, his intent entirely upon Lord Isladar. The kinlord sat in his chosen chair, forming and reforming rock the way nervous humans curl and uncurl their fists. What game? he thought. The movements could not be ignored; they were almost mortal, and while Isladar could be accused of many things, mortality was not one of them.

  Lord Ishavriel was not the only Lord to notice; he was merely the first. As the minutes passed, they divested themselves of words; they were caught by the spectacle. Fidget. That was the human word.

  When he had their attention, or perhaps when he had endured as much of it as he desired, Lord Isladar rose and bowed. "Your pardon, Generals," he said softly, and this was another of his traps or his lies, for no Kialli showed deference or tendered apologies that were not forced. "But I find of late that the containment of the hells is… difficult."

  "Difficult?" Etridian said sharply.

  Isladar's reply was a long while in coming, and they did not have the time to wait. But they took it; it was almost as if, for an instant, the concept of theater gripped them as strongly as it gripped the mortals.

  "Difficult." He repeated the word as if he had tried all others and found them equally inadequate. "The Hells and the mortal realm have become so different I almost doubt my memories of life before the Choosing."

  The silence that descended upon them all was bitterly cold, a thing not of the Hells. They were immortal. Time passed beneath their notice as they absorbed what he had said.

  "You are… bold," Lord Etridian said at last, shaking himself free of the fascination that had been caused, after all, by mere words.

  "Am I?" Lord Isladar turned and walked toward the Western wall. Touched it. Murmured three distinct words: a plea for permission. There was only one being of whom the Kialli Lords begged for anything.

  The walls resounded with their Lord's reply. Rock moved as if it were cloth being pulled to either side of a great, glassless window. The wind came whistling across its width, but did not enter, or if it did, it was too slight a sensation to be worthy of comment.

  "These are not the lands we walked," he said softly, as they rose to bear witness. "Nor the lands we ruled. Look: beneath us lie the streets of the Shining City reborn. They are simple rock and soil too poor to be called anything but dirt. They are crowded with creatures too slight to understand that all identity is memory. Where are our natural enemies? Where is our former glory?

  "The Hells have changed us much."

  Silence, silence, silence, silence. Only Ishavriel chose to break it. He had to; although Isladar utilized no obvious magics, his words were slowly binding them all—and Ishavriel was not to be bound by Lord Isladar of the Kialli. "And what would you have of us?"

  "Of you? Nothing." But they clashed, these two, in the silence that followed, their expressions hardening into complete neutrality. The four remaining Generals waited in silence, sensing battle. "But I would call a Kialli parliament in which to hold our discussion."

  Memory.

  What Lord Isladar invoked, he invoked, and once summoned to the plane—as any summoned creature would—those memories fought for freedom.

  Not even Lord Ishavriel, who had the most to lose in this meeting, could shrug off what Isladar had cast upon them. "You… play a dangerous game."

  "Do I?"

  "Were the parliaments ever anything else?"

  "They were a way of weeding out the weak," Lord Etridian said unexpectedly. "A way of insuring that only the capable ruled." He rose. He rose and went to the window that Isladar had made in the wall. "You take a risk, Isladar."

  "I call parliament," the Kialli Lord repeated evenly. "As was our custom, you are free to refuse it."

  Etridian smiled. "I will not refuse it. Alcrax?"

  Alcrax's smile was slow to come; he did not choose to mar it with speech. He nodded lazily, eyes half-lidded.

  "Assarak?"

  "With pleasure. I remember the parliaments. I led a few."

  "I led many," Etridian said. He had lost the demonic seeming that he habitually forced his body into, reverting to something older and wilder, taller and infinitely more beautiful. Instead of spikes or spines, instead of steel blades, he wore two arms, long and slender; his horns fell away into strands of hair, and those strands fell longer and longer until they touched his back, his spine. He spread his hands wide, and then brought them back in a circular arc whose midpoint was the searing light palm-to-palm contact birthed.

  "Nugratz?" Soft, now. The name was a threat.

  Nugratz, of the five the one who had never chosen to take a human form, rose. He stretched his wings like the duke of the Hells he had very recently been, and fire edged his shadows. A warning to Etridian.

  A warning to them all.

  But having given that warning, he merely said, "I will join the parliament when it is in session."

  They all turned then. "Ishavriel?"

  Ishavriel's smile was slowest to grow, wildest to finish. He stared past Etridian, whose demand for an answer would have been a call to combat in the planes of the Hel
ls, and met Lord Isladar's eyes. "Have you forgotten, Brother," he said, lifting his arms in what was almost a mirror gesture of Etridian's motion, right to left, left to right, "that it was I who convened the greater parliaments at both Scarran and Lattan?"

  "I remember it well." Isladar was still as the stone; perhaps more still; the North was warmer than the light in his eyes, although there was so little light to reflect. "And I remember the last of the parliaments. I remember the call that went out into the elements and the wilderness. I remember the question put to us. Oh, yes, Brother. I have forgotten nothing."

  "Do you seek to test me here ?"

  "I seek," Isladar said, placing his hands upon the new-made stone, "a parliament, no more, no less."

  "Then choose," Ishavriel said. "All of you. Choose the element. I will convene."

  "I think," Etridian said, his smile chill as Ishavriel's, but more contained, "that Isladar should convene. He is not of the Fist, after all. He is no one's ally."

  Isladar bowed.

  "Etridian, be grateful our Lord has forbidden the Contest." Ishavriel's teeth grew sharper, longer—but the beauty of his expression was unaltered. He was—they all saw it—Kialli in a way that they had not been since—

  Not since the end, and the beginning.

  "I choose the element of air," Isladar said.

  "Air? Air is hardly an element."

  "Think, Etridian," Isladar's response was quick, quiet, wild in the way that Ishavriel's face and voice had been.

  "/ should think? You play games, Isladar. This was your request."

  "We have not called parliament since Moorelas fell. Call parliament in fire, in water, and the Lord will know."

  "He has not forbidden it."

  "No. Will you take the risk that He might?"

  Silence. Then, "We might convene in the earth itself."

  "The earth here is not wild enough to hold us. Can you not sense it? The Shining Palace was made of rock and earth, but there was no struggle."

  "Perhaps the old magics are finally dead."