Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  She could feel it snickering.

  Great, she thought. She felt the wind rush by her, throwing her hair back in great bunches that, in the waking world, would then be tangled for weeks. Shouting against the wind, she said, "Where are we going?"

  The wind served the gargoyle. He said, catlike but suddenly profoundly serious, "To see the Winter King."

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She wasn't certain what to expect.

  Anyone, King, Queen, noble, anyone who owned three quarrelsome gargoyles like these and actually got useful work out of them had to be two things at once. The first, very powerful, the second, extraordinarily indulgent.

  No wait, she thought, as she closed her knees around the girth of ungiving stone, this is the dream. Lord knows what they represent, but it's probably something obvious.

  The cat hissed to itself; she was fairly certain the hissing was an amused one. The wind went rushing past her face, carrying flurries of leaves at such speeds she was left with the impression of their colors and their textures—dry and sharp—rather than any distinct image. Here, they were silver, shining as they caught a light that was neither sun nor moon, but present, for all that she couldn't pinpoint its source. As the creature flew on, the leaves changed, becoming sharper again, but brighter and warmer: gold, and in handfuls enough that she almost—almost—reached out to touch one.

  But the winds that howled and carried them, as if they were angry words, also harried the cat; she held tight, the temptation never stronger than mild.

  "It's never wise to fly above the forest," the cat said; wind carried his words in a tumble that fell into place only after the leaves had been blown from her hair.

  "Is walking any better?"

  "What?"

  "Is walking any better? "

  He laughed, a dry coughing that mingled with sibilance and the sound of grinding stone. "It depends on what you want. But it makes the forest less angry, and the wind less bitter."

  " We could walk! "

  "It would take far longer than you have, and longer than would please my master."

  She would have let him know how much she cared about pleasing his master, but the leaves came again, thick as rain, and this time they stung and scratched, thin, curled slivers of ice.

  "Not ice," the cat whispered, catlike in its astonishment at her stupidity. "Look at how they catch light."

  She didn't. She'd covered her eyes by shoving her face as close to stone as it could go. But when the leaves had passed by, drawing blood on the surface of her hands, the sides of her cheeks, she looked over her shoulder and saw them glinting with color. Diamond.

  I've read this story.

  "Stories start somewhere, and they have power at their roots, even when their trunks are long gone."

  The leaves came again, and again, but there was no third time; the winds broke as suddenly as if invisible doors and windows in the sky had been firmly and completely shut. The edge of the forest was beneath them; she saw the creature's shadow become a flat, perfect patch as it cleared the jagged tops of glittering trees and landed at last.

  For the first time since the journey began, the wind didn't take her words and whip them away; the vision did. There was something that looked like a palace might look if an artist had chosen to take paint and palette and brush to it and give it an otherworldly, ethereal beauty. Spires rose, so slender and tall Jewel wondered if a single person could fit within the rounded curve of its wall. The bricks—it had to be brick, although she thought at this distance it looked translucent—were white and blue and pale, pale gray. A flag flew, but no birds; there was a silence to the whole that felt like sleep.

  Or death.

  "There is no way," Jewel said softly, "that you live there."

  "Of course not," the creature replied. "Do I look like an idiot? That is a people place. A place for crippled creatures that have only two legs and no wings."

  "Oh, right. Sorry."

  He batted her almost playfully with a paw.

  Unfortunately, his paw was made of solid stone. She went rolling along the ground, colliding with the slender stalks of grass and small-blossomed wildflowers that marked the edge of the forest. It was going to take her days to get the flotsam and jetsam out of her hair.

  No, it wasn't. This was the dream and the vision.

  But it was peculiar. As she progressed, it grew solid, more real than most sleeping visions were.

  "Of course," the gargoyle said, licking a stone paw with a stone tongue and waiting while she brushed herself clean. "You are in his domain now."

  She shrugged.

  "You aren't afraid, are you?"

  "No."

  Pause. "You aren't?"

  "No one could have a servant like you and be all that terrifying."

  The gargoyle hissed, but this time she was ready; she stepped to one side and let its paw float harmlessly past.

  "I guess you wait here." Jewel started toward the bridge that seemed surrounded by a glistening fog.

  "I can go where I please," the creature said, pacing her. "Not like mortals."

  She frowned. "Are there mortals here?"

  "Not anymore," the creature said. "They used to come all the time. They whined and sniveled. They kept us awake with their crying and screaming." He shrugged. "We killed the ones we could catch. She killed the rest, if they were lucky."

  Jewel stopped walking.

  "Who is 'She'?"

  The look of surprise on the creature's stone face was almost comical. The look of momentary fear as its great head swung from side to side in a frantic attempt to make certain she hadn't been overheard was less amusing. "Don't say that," he hissed.

  "Don't say what?"

  "Not even as a. joke."

  "What was funny?"

  "Nothing. Come. We're late."

  "But I asked you a—"

  The cat stepped on her foot. It hurt.

  "Little human," he said, his voice quiet and gravelly, "the Winter King is sometimes merciful and sometimes forgiving; he has been known to forget. But the Winter Queen forgives nothing, forgets nothing, and knows no mercy. If her servants were to hear you now, you would never leave here."

  "I'm not here," Jewel replied.

  "And you are. There are ways to trap the sleeping. There are ways to trap the dreamers who don't know enough to stay inside of their own dreams." The rise and fall of the feline syllables was almost soothing. The words certainly weren't.

  "Why exactly am I here?" Jewel said.

  The creature turned to her, and then said, in a voice that was as deep as any she had yet heard it use, "Watch. Listen." and the gargoyle roared.

  The grass bowed before the voice of the beast; the flowers bent and gave off petals. This she noticed in a glance, no more, as she raised her hands automatically to defend her ears.

  But she stopped; the roar died, and the unnatural wind that had followed it died with it, allowing the flattened grass to slowly unbend.

  Across the stretch of field, the castle proved her wrong: It was made of glass, not brick.

  And cracks and fissures had opened along the walls, from the ground to the tip of the highest spire. The flag, as pale in color as glass, toppled groundward. Great, curved sheets, beautiful in the light that she suddenly realized—as one did in dreams—was sunset, began to fall.

  There was a music to the crash of glass, a display of light as sharp edges deflected pink sky that was not unlike fireworks. But save for that, it was eerily silent.

  "Was it empty?" she asked, minutes later, when the glass itself was only expensive—and dangerous—rubble.

  "No. Come." He began to walk, and she followed, placing her feet where he had placed his before she realized that glass probably wasn't going to do that much harm to stone pads.

  He led her through the debris until he reached something that still stood: Four pillars of gold. In their center, on a throne that was, as the palace had been, of exquisite glass, sat what
was left of a man.

  He had died, she thought, a hundred years past. His face—for she was certain it was a man's face, and she accepted this certainty for what it was—was shriveled skin over a very fine skull, a wide jaw, sunken eyes. Armor encased it, and the armor, like the castle, was a thing of glass—of perhaps ice. The sword that hung loose and touched floor wasn't made of glass or ice, at least not as far she she could tell; it remained sheathed. As she approached the corpse, she felt the cold.

  Winter King.

  "Master," the cat said, in a voice unlike any she would have thought to attribute to a cat. "I brought her." And the corpse opened its eyes.

  She stifled a scream. It was a near thing, and part of what helped her was the regard of the giant cat. She had a feeling—if something as sharp as a weaponsmith's dagger could be called a feeling— that fear, or more precisely, terror was something that must not be shown in front of that cat.

  "I can smell it, you know," the cat said conversationally.

  "Shut up," she replied, batting it with the flat of her palm. It lifted a paw to return the blow, but the not-corpse on the chair sat up, hands falling to the smooth, clear rests beneath his palms.

  Had she thought that glass was the symbol of wealth and power? It was here in abundance: Beneath his feet. At his back, over his head, beneath his lap. But it lay in shards as far as her eye could see; in sheets that would make windows Terafin could only dream of, if they dreamed that large. She recalled the glassworker as a practical man, but also a highly paid one. Wondered why such mundane details returned to trouble her, or perhaps comfort her, here. She was certain, surrounded by the demise of more than he could dream possible, the glassworker would have been weeping.

  The man on the throne still looked dead, although his eyes— from the single glance she gave them—were very much the eyes of the living. His lips, flesh dried almost to nonexistence, moved slightly over teeth that still managed to retain their hold in his jawbone. A smile? Hard to tell.

  Jewel knew etiquette. She had learned it, with great pain, at Avandar's hands. Had learned some very little of it at Ellerson's, years and years ago. It was Ellerson's etiquette she chose to use now, by instinct: the bow of a complete nonentity in the presence of royalty.

  She would have felt better about it if the cat had been elsewhere. Although it pained her to admit it—even to herself as there was no power on earth that could force her to admit it where the cat could hear it—she hated the loss of dignity being near-splayed out on knees and hands, with forehead almost pressed into the ground, usually caused. And to lose that dignity in front of a cat who was going to sit on his haunches and offer the respect of mere silence—well, it was galling. She hated cats.

  "Rise," the Winter King said.

  His voice should have been paper thin; it was not. It was strong and full, the voice of an older man at the peak of his powers. Not a youth, never that; he had a voice that measure for measure matched Avandar's.

  Great. I'm thinking about Avandar's voice. Cormaris, she thought, invoking the God of Wisdom, I could use a little help.

  On the other hand, she was pleased enough to follow what was definitely a command.

  "How come you to be here?" he asked. "This is the Winter land, and you are unhunted, your name unrevealed; the dogs do not howl and the cats—my cats, not hers—do not shadow your flight across the broken ground."

  He rose. She had been afraid he would do that.

  His shadow fell directly across her face, and in its darkness, the age that she had mistaken for death vanished. She met eyes of a startling shade; they were blue, shot though with a silver that seemed to shine like glass. He was tall; the shadows filled out his armor, and the sword that girded him no longer seemed a relic for grave robbers to drool over.

  She preferred the shadows here, to the light.

  "You see much," he said, although she hadn't spoken out loud.

  She wanted to say something flippant; that was how she dealt with authority that made her nervous. But the words felt wrong, and she couldn't force herself to utter them. She swallowed and nodded instead.

  "I have not seen another mortal in centuries. In millennia." He stepped toward her, and as long as she stayed within the confines of his cast shadow, he seemed more and more human. It occurred to her that this was dangerous.

  "My appointed time has come, and it has passed; does she not remember her quest and her oath?"

  "The Winter Queen," Jewel said, answering the question she was about to ask.

  "Indeed," he replied softly. "I had thought, when I first woke, that she had finally come to keep her oath. But when I searched my realms, they were empty of all save a dream of you. And I know my dreams, little one. They are all I have now. You, I have never seen in the flesh."

  She shook her head. "I'm sure I'd remember…"

  "Do you live in the waking world?"

  She nodded.

  "And you are under the mountains, in the vastness of the Stone Deepings."

  "I'm—I'm not sure where I am. I didn't see an entrance, and I haven't found an exit."

  "There was one," he said. "But millennia ago, it was taken by magical force; sealed. I thought the mage foolish indeed who would attempt to deprive the Queen of her retreat. But I have since discovered that the fool was not he." His eyes became all reflected light, and she knew it was steel, not glass, that lay beneath the glow. "From the mortal world I was riven; from all worlds."

  "Could mortals… reach you here before the—the mage?"

  "None," he said, "save those I or my Queen invited. They were foolish, of course; but I do not judge them harshly. They have paid with their lives, and the eternity they were foolish enough to wish for. And I? I have paid. But I have not paid the promised price.

  "I am the Winter King," he said. "But there has been no Summer King to succeed me, and I fear, no Summer Queen."

  Jewel was silent. The weight of his earlier words had finally settled. "What… promised price has the Winter Queen not paid you?"

  His smile was grim indeed. "I was a hunter, little girl."

  "She's not very little," the cat said conversationally. He sidled over to the Winter King, and a gloved hand reached down and began to stroke stone head. "She is older for a human, not a half-child. She might be stringy."

  "You'll never know," Jewel snapped back. "Because you'll never get the chance to eat me."

  The cat hissed and raised a paw. Jewel raised a fist—which, given the circumstances, was stupid, as she knew if she hit the cat all that would happen was the sacrifice of a few layers of skin, all of them hers.

  "Peace," the Winter King said. "Girl, can you travel in your waking world?"

  "I'd better be able to travel."

  "And which god claims you?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Which god protects you?" The lines of his brow creased; his eyes narrowed. He spoke more slowly, as if the words were meant for an imbecile. "Who do you serve?"

  "I—I don't think things work the same way they did the last time you lived on the outside."

  "Oh?"

  "The gods don't claim anyone. If we choose, we follow their suggestions, and in the end, if we've learned enough in this life, Mandaros lets us pass through His Halls rather than sending us back to learn more."

  "If you choose?" the Winter King said. "And are you from the Cities of Man, then, that you can be so bold?" His head rose and fell as he examined her carefully. "You are dressed like a slave," he said at last, "and not a finely trained slave at that. You do not smell of magic or magery, but I sense a depth of power in you that might be trained. In the Cities of Man, you might find freedom if you are canny."

  "I—I'm sorry," she said, because she suddenly was. "But I don't know what the Cities of Man are. I come from a city on the coast that two Kings rule. They're god-born, so there are no wars for succession."

  "And where do their parents reside?"

  "They live in the heavens, or wherever it is gods live."
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  The silence was long and cold. And into it, not disturbing it in the least, were intimations of a different mortality. Jewel thought of Henden, and Allasakar, and what Meralonne had said about the time before the fall of Vexusa. The gods walked.

  The Winter King returned to his throne and sat there, stiffly.

  "I came," he said, "from the Cities of Man. From Tor Haval. I was a man of power and rank, and the Winter Queen paid court to me. She offered me my desire and her power, and made clear that the reign was to be for the Winter and the Winter alone."

  "And at the end of the Winter?"

  "It was not a mortal Winter, not that small a time, but at the end—at the end, she would take from me my life, in the Hunt, the full Hunt, if she could. And if she could not, she would release me to the world without, all knowledge and all memory intact. I asked her how many of her consorts had survived the reign and the Hunt, and she smiled, and her smile—" His expression was lost to memory, and in the shadows, he was handsome. He was young.

  "Her smile was so very cold. It was answer enough. 'I will not come for you in Summer,' she said, 'I do not choose the strongest for the Summer Court. Mortals are the Winter Kings.' I came. I wanted her, and I wanted the challenge of the fight that she offered at the end. These," he said, lifting a hand, and pointing at the gray gargoyle that now stood at such perfect attention it might well have been a statue, "were my masterpiece, the making unencumbered by the least of her influence. They are undefeated, although they have never been tested against her."

  He was silent. His silence was intense, awkward, disturbing.

  At last, Jewel said softly, "I don't know who the Winter Queen is."

  The cat hissed.

  The man, frozen, said nothing for a long time. When he did speak, he said, "The gods are not dead."