Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Oh." She absorbed the sound of a voice that resonated with the familiar, and she understood, then, why she saw starlight where Avandar saw rock.

  "Yes," her grandmother said. "Memory has always burned its way into you. You hold on to everything so tightly. Everything. Every loss, Jewel. Every death. You will see others where we walk, but I am the first."

  She froze. "I don't think I want to see others."

  "This road was your decision; you are under the geas of one of the undying. You have no choice, so you may as well not whine about it."

  Her memories of her grandmother were always of kindness and wisdom, but this sharp sting of words was just as real. Jewel winced. "Yes, Oma."

  "You have a remarkable way with words," her domicis said dryly. "I may take lessons. I have seldom had such an effect."

  "You are a man," her Oma said with a shrug, "and the only men a woman should trust are her brothers or her father."

  Jewel laughed, thinking of Teller, Carver, Angel; of Torvan, Arrendas; of Morretz—and even, in a fashion, of Avandar himself.

  "Yes, I notice you didn't pay attention to that," the old woman said. "But you've managed to survive most of your gullibility."

  "Oma—"

  "Never mind, never mind, not in front of outsiders, I know." The old woman shook her head. "You should be grateful I was first," she said softly. "I'll be the easiest thing you face." She turned, her eyes glowing faintly, her skin luminescent but still somehow her skin. "You," she said softly, and Jewel realized she was speaking to Avandar, "be careful."

  Avandar frowned. "I have crossed this path before," he said quietly. "And I have nothing to fear from it. My dead do not return to haunt me."

  She laughed. It wasn't a particularly kind laugh, although Jewel knew, the minute she heard it, that she had heard it before. Memory, buried so far beneath the surface of her daily life that it might as well have been forgotten, spoke in a language that had no words, but it spoke truth. This woman was her grandmother. "Your dead don't have to return."

  14th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Shining Palace

  "Lord," Garrak ad'Ishavriel said, kneeling. The damage done him by Anya a'Cooper had been quick to heal, physically. Had she had time, had she had leisure, had she had focus and desire, he would have born scars for eternity. And the Kialli did not easily scar; it was not in the nature of their forms. Anya a'Cooper had learned things in her tenure in the North that not even Lord Ishavriel had meant to teach her.

  It worried him, at times. Pleased him as well. She was easily the most dangerous thing he owned. Certainly the most costly.

  And she was still missing.

  She was not dead; that, he would have sensed. But she was not at his side, and the gate that her power had been crucial in the opening of now waited in the limbo of lesser magi. The Lord of the Hells was ill pleased. His was the only power superior to Anya's, but that power had been bent to other tasks, tasks that Ishavriel privately suspected were far less monotonous, but of lesser import. Allasakar did not have that option now, if his armies were to be built. He anchored the riven gate, sustaining the foothold that Anya had built in rock and ice. Kialli spirits still came through the portal, shuddering to a stop in the substantial reality of flesh and form. He had watched them arrive for days on end, fascinated by the way they formed bodies outside of the containment rogue magi controlled. Fascinated, as well, by the changing shape of the gate, the rip between worlds that Anya and he had taken such pains to widen, day by day. The world fought them. Proof, if it was needed, that the old earth was alive.

  The armies were still gathering; they had lost a day due to the disruption of the misplaced throne, no more. But still, the Lord was not pleased.

  No Kialli Lord, be he once a duke of the Hells, could survive the Lord's displeasure for long. Therefore Ishavriel's considerable powers were now bent to one purpose: finding his charge and returning her to the pentagram that anchored the Lord's gate.

  Or rather, to almost one purpose.

  He condescended to notice Garrak. "You arrive early. Report."

  "Lord," Garrak said again, kneeling, the ridges across his spine extended in a way that must have been uncomfortable. "I have two things of interest to you.

  "First: The Voyani woman you asked of. She is… missing."

  "Missing?"

  "She was, you said, in the keeping of Cortano di'Alexes. If he still has her, she is farther beneath the earth than my powers are capable of reaching."

  "Dead?"

  "That is a possibility. But it is doubtful. I have heard rumors; the slaves speak, if their masters do not. But the slaves speak of an attack—upon the chambers of the Sword of Knowledge himself— by either assassins or demons. In these tales, the Voyani woman is never among the victims. I do not believe that the slaves knew she was present."

  "The Sword's Edge has not seen fit to bring this information to council."

  Garrak said nothing; he had nothing to add.

  "Very well. I want that woman, Garrak."

  "We are searching, Lord. We are hampered by daylight."

  "Understood. But remain hampered. You are not to show yourselves until the night of the Festival Moon."

  "Yes, Lord."

  "The second piece of information?"

  "Only this," Garrak ad'Ishavriel replied. He rose slightly, and Ishavriel saw that he carried a small cloth sack. There was a deep splash of drying blood across the length of the rough cloth.

  "Your orders," Ishavriel said softly. "There was to be no harvesting until the night of the Festival Moon, and even then it was to follow my explicit instructions."

  "I have broken no dictate, Lord. I have obeyed you."

  "And the blood?"

  "A simple death. With mortal blade."

  "And the others?"

  "No one else has made Telkar's mistake, Lord. I have seen to it myself."

  "Very well. Telkar has been… an embarrassment. I have suffered two in the last three days, and if I suffer a third, I will destroy you all at my leisure."

  "Lord."

  He took the bag that Garrak ad'Ishavriel held in a perfectly steady outstretched hand. Opened it. Drew from it a Festival mask.

  "I recognize the design," he said with a slight smile. "And this is of note?"

  "Yes, Lord. This mask was created by the humans."

  "The humans?"

  "I believe that they are replacing the masks that were your gifts."

  "I see." He turned the mask over in his hand examining it carefully. "Humans are consistently clever, are they not? Very well. You have done well, Garrak." He rose.

  Only when Garrak ad'Ishavriel left his chambers did Lord Ishavriel, Kialli, part of the Lord's Fist, smile.

  427 AA

  Stone Deeping

  The wind was a sea wind; hot and heavy with water. The sky was a night sky, cool and very Northern. Jewel struggled with the dichotomy between two very real sensations.

  "There isn't any point in questioning it," her Oma said tartly. "It's as real as I am."

  "And I'm having enough trouble with that."

  "You shouldn't, you know."

  "Easy for you to say."

  "True. Everything is, now."

  They fell silent; Avandar did not seem eager for the company of an old woman whose tongue was razor sharp, and whose claim on Jewel's affections was so much stronger than his own; he kept to himself. Which was a pity; Jewel found the walk disquieting. Her grandmother seemed to expect something from her; it was implicit in the quality of her silence.

  She didn't want to talk about expectations; they led to responsibilities, and no doubt her grandmother's sense of responsibility would not mesh well with Jewel's. So she said, searching for social words, that most despised of things, "Where did I see these stars?"

  "These ones? On my lap," the old woman replied, her voice softening into the voice that Jewel best remembered—that, truthfully, had been all she remembered clearly until now. "They aren't the stars
over Averalaan."

  "No. Not quite."

  She was silent, looking at her grandmother in the light of moon and stars. The shawl she wore was suited to a cool night; it was soft and worn with age, thinning but not yet patched and repaired. It covered her shoulders, ran down the length of her back; ended a few inches above the bend in her knee. Jewel knew it well. It had been given to her after her grandmother's death.

  Had been sold by her, as well, when things had gotten grimmest in the streets of the city. Food was more important than warmth. At least when it wasn't cold.

  "You do what you have to, to survive."

  "I know, Oma. You taught me that."

  "And you be damn proud of surviving."

  "I know." I know. "But there's more to life than survival. And sometimes—sometimes the definition of survival leaves a bit to be desired." She glanced sideways at the old woman's sharp profile. "Wasn't it you who said life on the knees was a serafs art, not a woman's?"

  Her Oma shrugged, half irritable. "You see? You remember everything." She shook her head. "It would go better for you if you didn't."

  "Why is that? There's no point to life if there's no memory, Oma. Memory's what connects the bits and pieces. It's what gives strength to history."

  "And history should be strong, is that it? Our bloodiest battles are fought in history. Our worst atrocities—things you can't even dream of, and you with your head in the sand—are buried, forgotten, and best that way. Some young fool will always steal from history, as if history was its own justification. Ask him, if you don't believe me."

  "I would appreciate being left out of this conversation. If, that is, a diatribe can be considered reciprocal enough to be a conversation."

  "I'm not arguing for or against all history, Oma. Just the personal."

  "But personal history is what binds us, Jewel."

  "It can also free us."

  "Can it? I'm glad to hear it," the old woman replied. "You can tell her that." Voice sharp with sarcasm—and an Oma's sarcasm at that, sharp to wounding—she lifted what would have been a frail arm had it been attached to a different person's shoulder and pointed.

  In the darkness, in the middle of the widening path between the mountain walls, stood a dark-haired young woman with a glint of light at the top of a closed fist. "Hey, Jay," she said.

  He had never seen Jewel freeze so abruptly. He had seen enough, in the decade and a half in which they'd negotiated their fragile peace, to understand the texture of all of her fears. Strong fears made her grind slowly to a stop, as if realization took that long to take root, to grip her.

  Nah, she's just too stupid to know when to be afraid. Carver's voice, a glimmering edge in words that were otherwise wholly affectionate. It surprised him when the words of any of her den— each member so insignificant he would not have noticed them had he chosen any other course in life—came back to him.

  Words seldom deserted her, and when they did, she substituted action in their place, usually anger or rage-driven flinging of pots and pans in the kitchen that served as her inner sanctum, her throne room, her place of judgment.

  But here, on this empty road, silence took everything: movement. Word. Breath. The woman by her side, peppery in speech and a hair's breadth from the ill-temper that was so common at a certain age, fell silent as well. He had thought it prudent to keep his distance; he now felt it prudent to do otherwise. It was the simplest decision he had made since leaving Averalaan. Even packing for their trip to the South had been fraught with temper and the fragments of memory that would not leave him.

  He walked to her side. Saw, as he did, that the old woman's eyes were keen and bright, like a ferret's when it scented food close by. Jewel's eyes were wide, her mouth half open, her face, muscles stiff, skirting the thin edge between terror and the hope that is so wild it cuts and rends with its multiple uncertainties.

  Unfortunately for Jewel, and perhaps for Avandar himself, he could not see what caused it. She was still for so long it surprised him when she took a step forward.

  He put a hand out; caught her shoulder.

  The old woman she called Oma held her differently, and perhaps more effectively. "Na'jay," she said.

  But Jewel, held by them both, was only peripherally aware of their interference. She said a single word.

  "Duster."

  He tightened the grip on her shoulder.

  "You know the name," the old woman said conversationally.

  "I know it."

  "Did you know the young girl?"

  "It was before my time," he replied. He whispered a word, and another word, both sharp and short in the cavernous darkness of the Deepings. The light that he saw by, unnatural in every possible way, nestled like moss across the surface of worn rock, touching the stone that came up from the floor and hung down from the heights like either half of a great maw open to let them pass because they were too insignificant to devour.

  Jewel had spoken of stars; there were none. She spoke of a path at their feet, and there was one, tortuous and narrow. She had not misstepped once, although he had watched for it with care; he had seen the result of misstep once before, and he was very anxious not to see that mistake repeated. The old woman at her side had taken no missteps either—if one assumed that passing through solid rock was a matter of confident footing. He had watched, waiting for the moment his magical guidance might prove useful. As she so often did, she wounded what vanity he had: she denied him purpose.

  He was no longer what he had been when these paths had devoured the merely mortal. Jewel was.

  He could not see with her vision. He doubted that there was another man alive who could, and although he understood the legacy left the Voyani, he suspected that the Matriarchs could not rival her raw power.

  It had long since ceased to anger him that she refused to tend to the talent that was her neglected birthright. It had never greatly worried him until now.

  He turned to the old woman, and he spoke, and magic reared like mythic serpent in response to his spell; a cascade of orange light spilled harmless from her head to her toes, to be swallowed by the shadows that pooled at her feet. "Don't," she said coolly. "I am not here for you, and I do not serve your purpose."

  "But I see you," he said, as Jewel continued to stare at the path ahead, oblivious to the two who were slightly behind her. "You are not a manifestation of her gift and this path."

  "No."

  "Let her go."

  "I am not what you think I am," the old woman replied, as cross as a harried market-goer.

  "And I—"

  "You are the Warlord. I know you. I know of your history; I see your dead walking behind you, and within you, with every step you take. Nothing is hidden from me here. Nothing."

  "This is not your road."

  "No," she replied, that voice gentling, bleeding itself of power until something placid and undefined remained at the base of her words. "It is Jewel's road, start to finish, and I have some hope that she will survive it." A wrinkled, sun-worn face turned to his, and the eyes that stared unblinking at him were like no living eyes he had seen—and he had gazed upon the gods in his time. "The gods are walking," she said, "as you prophesied. The paths cannot contain the Firstborn."

  "They are contained."

  "You understood her vision far better than she, and if you spent time lying to yourself about its significance, you're far more of a fool than you look. Which isn't saying much." He frowned.

  "Duster."

  "Na'jay."

  "Jewel."

  The first person she'd met in the Deepings had been her Oma. That had felt so right she hadn't really questioned it.

  But the second person… funny, that it would be Duster. She lost Fisher and Lefty to the maze beneath the old city before Duster had met her end at the hands of the demon. She had lost her parents between her grandmother's death and theirs.

  But truth? Even though she had cried for days after her father's untimely and unexpected death, somethin
g about Duster's death had been sharper, uglier, more painful.

  Awful confession, that. She was glad she'd never had to make it out loud. The slender knife that glinted in the moonlight was Duster's trademark threat. Not that she wasn't big with words; she used 'em, sometimes to good effect, sometimes to bad. She had the worst temper because it ran so deep and it was so hard to turn off.

  And she almost never pulled that knife when she wasn't angry. Truth. "Duster," she said, her voice as dry as the name. She wanted to say more, but the real words couldn't get past the true ones: I sent you to die.

  "Yeah," the shade said. "You sent me. To die. And I did." She took a step closer. "You want to see?"

  Jewel saw her clearly enough; the shadows robbed her of nothing. There were times when you saw something—and Jewel knew this was one—and it became the only thing in the world. She'd heard love talked about, in syrupy, stupid words, just as if it were like this: She couldn't breathe, couldn't move, could barely think.

  If this was love, she'd give it a miss. A wide miss. In fact, she'd turn her back and walk away as quickly as dignity allowed. When she remembered how to breathe. If she ever could again.

  There was no blood on Duster's face. No slash across her skin, no scars that hadn't already been there. She wore what she'd worn the last time Jewel had seen her alive—something she hadn't thought about much until she'd known for certain she'd never see her in it again: Undyed wool, carded by the hands of a sour old woman who'd managed to find the mangiest sheep in existence to shear. It was rough in texture, and too large. Jewel bought everything too large back then, because she hardly ever had money to buy clothing and everyone grew out of everything so damn fast.

  "Bloody miracle," Duster said, "considering how much we had to eat. Hear you guys did real well for yourselves after you got rid of me."

  She came closer.

  Jewel stood her ground. She'd almost run out to meet her; at least that's what she thought she'd done. Stupid. Stupid move. She could see that now. Dagger and Duster. Duster and Death. Avandar's unwelcome hand was on her shoulder, a reminder of the life that Duster had had no chance to be part of.