Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  Youth was here.

  Memory.

  And all identity was memory.

  "Thank you," he said softly, in his own voice.

  The earth replied; it split down the middle, falling in on itself as it crumbled away from a shape at its center. Prone, dusted in rock and rubble, it lay; he watched it only until he could discern the rise and fall that spoke of breath.

  Then he walked to where it lay, prone, a thing carved of flesh, not earth, not air, not water. Lifting a gentle hard, he brushed the rockdust and dirt away from her face. There was familiarity in the gesture of comfort, and more; it surprised him. He had forced himself to it with Kiriel, learning, over the course of a decade and a half, to offer her the comfort she craved. It was a binding; he had created a need, or perhaps exploited one that already existed, as just another move in the long game. But as she had grown—and she grew so quickly—she had hidden the need for comfort from everyone but Ashaf. He should have been relieved.

  Odd, that he was not. He did not lie to himself; he had never lied to himself. It served no useful purpose. But there were some truths that were slow to surface, slow to demand the attention. As his hands brushed the last of the dirt away from Anya's face, he acknowledged that, in his fashion, he missed the child Kiriel.

  Anya a'Cooper was not that child, but there were similarities and echoes. Kiriel was not mad; he had seen to that with care. But she was vulnerable, powerful, and unpredictable. And she was, of course, mortal.

  He did not touch Anya when she was conscious. None of the Kialli did, save Ishavriel; she had seen to that with an efficiency he admired.

  In fact, the only person, with one notable exception, whom she had been physically affectionate toward had been Ashaf, Kiriel's nursemaid. The old woman, sun worn and careworn, had not returned that affection; she had managed, on a good day, to look at Anya a'Cooper with a tremulous pity, but no more, and that pity had only barely risen above her fear.

  And what, in the end, was there not to fear? Anya a'Cooper was a law unto herself. She had more power than any human had ever possessed, with the possible exception of the mages of the Cities of Men, long dead, long taken by desert sand and sun, but she had no understanding of power itself. She had not struggled to hone it for the sake of supremacy, but rather, at the request of Lord Ishavriel, and when she was bored, she would often destroy the room she was taught in in a sudden flash of rage. She hated to be laughed at—and no Kialli Lord could deny her that weakness, it was so much their own—but what constituted being "laughed at" was a mystery to the Lords, for it often involved no malice, or even awareness, on their part.

  The Lord had forbidden her death.

  Isladar was not so certain that, had he remained completely neutral, Anya a'Cooper would not have survived. She had an animal cunning, a child's cunning, a vulnerability that shifted and turned into a strength.

  She had no sense, and no ability to plan, but she was driven by a pain that the damned know, and few others. They could sense it, all of the Kialli who had served in the Hells for so long; pain was their speciality, their drug—as Lady Sariyel cleverly called it—of choice. It was their compulsion; it was the silk that was twined round the chains to take the edge off their bite when one pulled against them.

  They therefore flocked to Anya a'Cooper's pain like moths to flame, and like moths, they were often consumed. Because, of course, no one who had harvested the damned could easily resist the desire to take up the challenge and inflict other pain, stronger pain, a pain that bore signature and name.

  She didn't approve.

  Yet she lived with the Kialli, not the humans. And the one friend she had at Court was the only other misfit: Kiriel, the Lord's child, the half-human godling who had been Isladar's keep.

  Kiriel was allowed to touch Anya; Kiriel was the only denizen of the Shining City who had bitten Anya—albeit when she was a young child—and survived the act. Anya, twice Kiriel's age, had a sentimental weakness for children—one that her madness and her instability had not damaged, or rather, had not damaged in a way that was easily comprehended by Kialli.

  She was their monster, for although she was powerful she did not desire power—but she was willing to risk her life in the contest, again and again. And what did she gain? Nothing. Anya desired affection. Love that she could trust.

  What was trust to the kinlords?

  What, he thought, was trust to anything alive?

  Anya a'Cooper was not, in any appreciable way, intelligent— but she had that low animal cunning that is far more important than things intellectual for survival. She had walked through the fires. Although she desired love and affection, she knew better than to believe in either.

  That was the mortal trap. He admired it. As a way of inflicting pain, it was long and slow, and so very few of the kinlords understood its appeal for that reason.

  The kinlord brushed her skin clear of the last of the dirt; he took one long look at her face, and then bowed.

  "Anya," he said. When she did not stir, he infused her name with just a hint of power. "Anya."

  It was a calculated risk. Anya a'Cooper could smell magic almost before it was summoned, and she considered all magic her province; she was willing to share with Lord Ishavriel, and she never went against a dictate of their Lord. When, that is, she understood them.

  Her eyes snapped open, sleep shattering like dropped glass.

  "Anya," he said, wiping his voice clear of even the echo of power. He bowed.

  "Was I under the dirt?" she asked. "Did you think I was dead? Did you bury me?" She was on her feet before she'd finished the sentence. That, she'd learned in the Hells.

  His bow deepened. Her voice had the high, sing-song lilt that spoke of, that meant, death. "You were indeed beneath the surface of the earth. You were not dead, no—but, Anya, Lord Ishavriel has taught you of the dangers of using too much power. You were nearly consumed by the fevers."

  "Lord Ishavriel," she said smartly, "also says there's no such thing as too much power. And what does that have to do with being buried?"

  "The fevers were strong enough to last two days. You are in the Shining Court. Lord Ishavriel was not here to protect you. I apologize if I've offended you, Anya, but I had to put you somewhere safe. The other kinlords would not see you beneath the surface of the earth."

  Her eyes were narrow as a blade's edge. He met them, unblinking. It was important, with Anya, to meet her eyes when one offered her a truth that one hoped would prevent her from entering the black rages that meant death.

  "Where," she asked softly, "was Lord Ishavriel?"

  "Anya, you know this already. He did not run; he did not desert you. Did he not tell you that the Lord had sent him South?"

  She was momentarily nonplussed; her forehead creased. "Oh," she said at last. "You're right. I forgot. South where?"

  "In the Dominion," he replied. "The Dominion of Annagar."

  "Did he tell me why he was going?"

  "I'm sorry, Anya, but I do not know that. He is a kinlord, as am I; we seldom share each other's plans."

  Her eyes narrowed again. "You don't like him, do you?"

  "No," he replied. "Nor he, I. The kinlords do not like each other. It is not what we do." He had had this conversation with Anya before, but it was never wise to refuse to answer her questions.

  "Where is Ishavriel now?"

  "He has returned to the Shining City, but he cannot remain here long." He bowed again. "I told the earth that you no longer needed protection while your Lord was present." He paused. Turned from her. Spoke quietly. "Lord Ishavriel had no desire to leave you behind, Anya, but you are needed here, and he is needed in the South. He works a great magic there, and it is important that it succeed."

  "When will he be finished?"

  "He will finish his work after the Festival." He could almost hear the sudden shift in her expression.

  "What Festival?"

  "Ah, I forgot that you have not made a study of the Dominion." He tur
ned to face her again. "In Annagar, there are two Festivals every year. One is called the Festival of the Sun, the other, the Festival of the Moon. It is the Festival of the Moon that is important to Lord Ishavriel.

  "He is at the very heart of the Dominion, in the city called the Tor Leonne. On Festival Night, all of the people in Annagar are allowed freedom from their fears. They wear masks, they dance or sing—or sometimes fight—in the streets of their cities, they speak to each other freely, regardless of who is lord and who is slave; the masks prevent them from knowing. They drink wine, they eat all manner of food, they sing, or are sung to, and the mages create bright lights and beautiful displays in which to celebrate the rising of the Moon.

  "In the South, they believe that the Moon is the face of the Lady, and they pray to the Lady."

  "I went to Festival once," she said, her eyes wide, her expression soft and distant. "I went with my father to Averalaan. It was the Kings' Challenge. There were so many people I could hardly move or breathe. I didn't like that part." Her hands curled into fists; those fists began a dance and jab in the air. "But I liked the music—there were bards, real bards, from Senniel College. And I liked the food.

  She cocked her head to one side. "Do you think if I ask him, he'll let me go?"

  "I do not know Lord Ishavriel well enough to say that, Anya. You must ask him."

  She smiled brightly. "I will." The smile fell. "Or I won't. If I ask him, and he says yes, then we'll have fun! But if I ask him, and he says no, then I'll be sad. I don't like to be sad, Isladar. It makes me angry.

  "But I haven't been to a Festival for years and years and why won't he take me?"

  "You are needed here, Anya. The gate is not—not yet—stable enough. Or large enough. No one else can do what you can do."

  She was pleased by the words, but her pleasure was only a shade less dangerous than her anger. "Well, then, maybe I'll have to stay. Or maybe I'll go. Don't tell him that you told me."

  No danger, of course, of that.

  "I might go and surprise him. He'll be happy to see me! Or maybe he won't. Did you say that everyone wears a mask? I'll wear a mask. Then no one will recognize me. Tell me again, when is the night?"

  "It is," he said softly, "thirteen days hence, on the twenty-second night of the month the Northerners call Scaral."

  "That's Scarran, isn't it?"

  "Yes, Anya."

  "Don't you tell him," she said. "Don't you tell him that you told me. I don't want him to tell me I can't go. Don't tell the Lord, either, okay?" She clapped with glee, bouncing against the surface of exposed dirt. Then she grabbed the edges of her dress, pulled them to a comfortable height above the ice, and began to run toward the city.

  He watched her go, wondering idly what would come to pass in the very near future. With Anya, as with Kiriel, it was often hard to tell—and as with Kiriel, so many of his plans depended on her actions.

  10th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Evereve

  Long, narrow halls opened up before her, ceilings as high as any five members of her den standing foot upon shoulder—although it looked a good deal more stable. But where gold and crystal, opal and diamond, splashes of gaudy colors that the Empire's current crop of artists would have disdained to call paintings, adorned and obscured the walls in the halls that Avandar had marked, these were austere.

  Rising from ground to roof, obscured in the wells of shadow there, were long, slender columns, like perfect stone trees. She wandered among them, thinking of the Common's trees, feeling— in the vast expanse of empty, dusty space—the hint of movement, of bustle, of conversation that once might have graced these halls as they did the market grounds. Gargoyles crouched at the heights of the columns, almost like pigeons nestled in branches.

  Although she didn't spend as much time looking at it, the floor was stone as well; old stone, not marble, not the flat wide planks of polished wood she was used to.

  There were no windows, of course. No room, no hall, no place in this vast expanse of underground terrain, let in a light that was not artifice, not pretense. She hated it. Although everything else here spoke of wealth, windows and glass were the things that she had most admired about the Terafin manse when compared with her early life; the shadows, the darkness, the lack of those things reminded her of her early poverty.

  Different, to stand out in the street, hand out, begging for aid against cold and rain and wind, against heat and sun. But to stand, observing all those things and separated from them by a thin sheet of glass, held in place by lead bars, cut by masters who understood the nature of crystal: that was wealth. Power. Freedom.

  There was none of that here.

  This hall, and the halls before it, defied the light, and the power they spoke of was a power that had no voice to speak to her, although she'd learned with time that that type of power could still kill.

  The Winter King.

  The words meant nothing to Jewel.

  They meant more than nothing to Avandar, and judging by the minute changes in his studied neutrality, she guessed their meaning was worse, and not better, than nothing.

  "It does not concern you, Jewel," he'd said.

  And she accepted that.

  Which was why she knew she was dreaming.

  It was almost worse to be here in her sleep than in some physical reality; she could not be certain of anything she saw, but she knew that something about this hall, these visions, these thoughts must be significant. The problem with dreams, and the quests one undertook in that state, was that after they were over she had to take every little detail and thresh it, looking for the one or two things that had meaning for her.

  One of the gargoyles took wing.

  She swore, pressing her lips into a thin line to keep the words from escaping. She had no desire to be made a meal of; even though it wasn't permanent, dream-pain had the ability to scar in places only she could see.

  Another took wing. Another. Up ahead, above the fine, hard lines of vaulted arch, they were flying in lazy circles, like giant cats with wings. And maybe fangs; hard to say at this distance, and she didn't particularly want to be enlightened.

  Dreaming visions were nothing like nightmare, but they had one thing in common: they could turn, at the step of a foot, into something far darker than they had been seconds earlier. She wasn't particularly worried, though; not yet. Her nightmares were always brutish and obvious; they involved death; she had never dreamed of her own death yet, and she was alone.

  Then the gargoyles landed.

  The columns in the hall, she realized, must be much, much taller than they looked—hard to imagine, given the way her neck bent in half when she managed to get a decent view of what was at their height. But the gargoyles were about as large as small horses.

  There were three. They sat on their haunches, like the aforementioned cats with wings, taking turns licking their forepaws or the tips of their pinions.

  I hate my dreams, she thought, as she approached them. One was white alabaster, one was black, like onyx without the shine, and one was stone-gray. As one creature they spoke, their voices a blend of tones, harsh and soft, that somehow managed to sound as if they belonged together.

  "We know where you're going," they said. Jewel had never liked cats all that much; Finch liked 'em and Teller—inexplicably— loved them and even owned two, but she had consistently failed to see the charm in a creature who didn't do what it was told, destroyed a day of good work by lifting its leg and pissing in the wrong place because you weren't paying it enough attention, and took small chunks out of your face in the morning if you happened—horrors—to forget to feed it "on time."

  Some of that affection worked its way to the surface.

  "What," the onyx creature said, "you'd rather own something stupid that drools like a madman and thinks like an imbecile?" It turned its head to its companion. "I don't think," it said coolly, "that she is at all suitable."

  "Well," the white one said, "you know what his orders were."
>
  "But what if she just fell off our backs? It wouldn't be our fault if she couldn't hold on."

  I really hate my dreams. "Look, guys, I'd like to sit here and listen to you argue all day," as much as I'd like to get my liver removed and boiled in oil, "but I probably only have a few minutes of dreamtime left, and I get the impression that you don't want to waste it."

  The black cat hissed. The white cat hissed as well, but the tonal difference between the two made it clear that one was chuckling and one was, well, complaining.

  The gray cat spoke for the first time. "Have you met us before?"

  She started to say no. Stopped. "I… I don't know," she offered at last.

  "And you say we're wasting time," the black cat cut in. "Does it always take you this long to think!"

  She was not going to spend time arguing with a cat. Not even if it spoke, had wings, and was part of a vision that was probably necessary, as she rarely had ones that weren't. "What do you guys want?"

  "Well," the white cat said, folding its wings and preening, "you, lucky mortal, get to choose one of us to take you to the end of the hall."

  "My feet will… oh, never mind." The hallway stretched on into a darkness that somehow suggested forever.

  The white cat snickered, the sound like the scrape of rough rock against smooth. "You are lucky," he said softly, "that we made him angry and he turned us to stone. We used to get hungrier."

  The black cat sniffed. "But we were never desperate enough to eat something as unappetizing as you."

  "True, true. But we did—"

  "Look, can we get going?" She walked over to the gray stone cat that sat, catlike but blessedly silent, between the white and the black. "Ummm," she said after a minute of staring at the tines—for want of a better word—of his decidedly unairworthy wings, "how do I get up?"

  The wings came out, folding neatly to avoid knocking her off her feet. They did not fold nearly as neatly or as gracefully when they approached the cats to either side; both snarled as they were swept back, knocked off haunches that probably weighed more than Arann did. "Well," it said, as their shoulders bunched rather dangerously, and in unison, "you shouldn't sit so close to me." She managed to jump up on the spot between its pinions, tucking her legs around its neck, before it lunged up into air, narrowly avoiding the two cats that were still earthbound.