Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Serra Teresa. Matriarch." He spoke more to give them warning of his presence than to offer any politeness. They stopped in their inspection to acknowledge his interruption with a nod. "Are we closer to any understanding?"

  Mikalis di'Arretta offered a frustrated nod in return. "Closer. But not close enough." He rose, agitated. "The Sword's Edge, and the Tyr'agar," he said speaking through his teeth in just such a way that Sendari knew immediately how little sleep he had been allowed in each of the past few days, "were ill-advised to set themselves against the Voyani."

  Sendari looked up from the comfort of cushions and mats; this work, they did in the privacy of the halls reserved for the Sword of Knowledge. And Cortano's halls, muted and sparsely decorated, were nonetheless quite fine. Mikalis seemed out of place in the room; his face unshaven, his clothing unwashed, his hands flecked with dirt and clay, moist with sweat. He had no proper quarters upon the plateau. Sendari did, and his appearance—cool and exact—reflected that. "Perhaps. Perhaps they had a choice between the Court and the Voyani. You know the Lord's law: choose allies among the weak, and you will join them."

  "I know the Lord's law," Mikalis muttered, "But let me add the Lady's advice: Choose carefully that which you designate as weak."

  "That is not the Lady's—"

  "It is the essence of her words."

  The masks lay before him like a public accusation.

  "Mikalis, you have my apologies. I have spoken to Cortano."

  "About?"

  "You have slept some three hours in the last two days, or so rumor has it."

  "Rumor is not usually that accurate." The man grunted and sank back into the cushions, his restless pacing halted by the smoothness of Sendari's words. He gripped his neck in the palm of his hand and strained against taut muscle awhile.

  "The dead drive the Sword's Edge now."

  "The dead make bad drivers."

  "Oh?" The sarcasm in the single word was mingled with something more raw and less complicated. It was something Sendari knew too well; he backed away, as was prudent.

  Mikalis di'Arretta relented; he had that type of grace. "I want what any good clansman wants: revenge. I am not a great warrior; had I been, my early life would have been simpler. The only hope I have of thwarting our enemies is this, this work. I do it." As he spoke, he stared at his hands, turning them palm in and palm out as if they held some secret he could only define by such close inspection.

  "Some of the older magics were based on odd principles, and it is generally thought that they were more religious in nature— and vastly less effective—than the magics we practice today."

  "You believe this magic and that magic are connected?"

  "Either that or the masks mean nothing; they're a clever trap to draw our attention from a different form of attack."

  "I've considered that," Yollana said, wiping the sweat from her forehead almost absently. "But a shadow has fallen across all of these faces. Can you not feel it?"

  The Serra Teresa met her eyes, tilting her chin and exposing her face a moment to the Lord's gaze.

  Yollana laughed. "I forget myself. You are nothing at all like the Voyani, Serra, but the Voyanne has nonetheless scarred your soul; I recognize the look. And because I do, I treat you as one of my own."

  "And I welcome such hospitality," the Serra replied, "when it does not involve the friendly blows I've seen you deliver to those closest to you."

  "Who could hit such a face?"

  But the Serra Teresa had fallen silent.

  The silence stretched; her gaze had been caught by the gaudiness of the finest of the four masks. Feathers dyed in delicate blues and brilliant reds crowded eyes that were wide, gold-circled, round. The nose, beaklike, had a ferocity about its joining with the mouth; it spoke of cruelty, the essence of all power when it is unbridled by such a trifle as affection. She lifted it slowly, turning it front to back in a slow circle.

  "What would happen," she asked the Havallan Matriarch, "if I were to wear this?"

  "I wouldn't advise it."

  "No?"

  "No. I'd be hesitant to let most of the men and women in this camp even touch it."

  "Could you make this mask safe?"

  "Not safer than the replicas you've had made." "And the replicas?"

  "They are as lifeless as the clay they are made of." "But these—could we have someone wear them?" "Sendari, I have told you what I know. I have examined these masks in great detail. I have drawn upon all the knowledge I've gathered in my life on the edge; I am only barely able to touch the enchantment. It's almost as if—as if—"

  "You cannot remove these enchantments."

  "No."

  "Could you make this mask safe enough?"

  Yollana's expression shifted. It was subtle work; the lines of her face—and her face was lined—grew heavier, deeper, as if she had momentarily freed all suppressed age. She had eagle eyes and she had vulture eyes; all Voyani women did. But it was not as hunter that she turned on Teresa now, although she had the intensity of the hunter that feeds a whole tribe.

  "I forbid it, Teresa."

  And the Serra Teresa, stranger, student—and if Kallandras was any judge of the quality of the interchange between the two, an excellent one—said quietly, "In this camp, that right is not yours."

  "As if what?"

  Mikalis was silent for a long time. At last, and with a hesitancy that Sendari understood the minute he began to haltingly speak, he said, "I do not know how you… express… your power. My first teacher—an older man who did not survive the fires—"

  "You were taught by a Designate?"

  "My clan was not as powerful as yours, Sendari."

  "My apologies. I—please. Continue."

  Mikalis drew breath. Reached, for the first time since Sendari had been in attendance, for the sweet water that had been drawn from the Lake at Alesso's command. That water refreshed, and while it did not obviate the need for sleep, it removed the effects of its lack for some small time.

  "His name was Coramir."

  "I do not remember him."

  "You wouldn't. He was a Widan-Designate only after he was careless enough to get caught." An old anger burned briefly, lighting Mikalis' features from within. Sendari had never seen him so animated.

  "But I digress. Coramir explained two things to me. First, he said that power was so personal even sex was uniform and bland by comparison." Mikalis' grimace was informed by affection, but it was a grimace. "Second, he said that our way of 'seeing' power sometimes narrowed what we saw."

  "This is not so different from my own first teacher."

  "He told me about his vision."

  "That is very different."

  "I will not protect him now; his voice is the wind's voice and he has no use for his secrets. His own use of magic was sedate, simple, subtle: His search for power was like his search for a book in the library of a very rich man. He might wander down the aisles, casually picking up title after title, perusing the contents and setting them aside."

  "I am surprised that he managed to cast at all."

  "He did. But… slowly.

  "He said there were times when a book he picked up was written in a foreign language; it was still a book, it was obviously meant to be read—but it was not meant to be read by him."

  "You think that is how he would have seen these masks?"

  "Yes. And he would never have gone beyond them. He was convinced that the language barrier was a protection, a guard set by the Lady so that magic of malign nature might see no moonlight."

  "I find it hard to believe that someone this superstitious was almost Widan."

  "We all have our superstitions."

  "My apologies, Ser Mikalis. I meant no disrespect. I was thinking out loud."

  "I had great difficulty learning from Coramir in those early years. His vision was so enticing, I would look for 'books' when it came time to draw power and focus."

  Sendari nodded. It was a common student's mistake,
and it was a mistake that most students would never rise above. This was one of the main reasons most masters kept their paradigms to themselves.

  "But my focus was much, much less civilized, much simpler. And I will tell you now because I cannot see what it reveals of me and my magics."

  "I am… honored."

  "No. We are desperate." But his smile, brief though it was, provoked the same from Sendari.

  "I am a juggler, of sorts. I see power as small, round balls."

  Sendari's brows rose.

  Mikalis reddened. "There are reasons why our internalizations are so seldom exposed. When I reach for power, it has a curve. The size of the curve tells me much. Over the years, I have learned that if the 'ball' fits the 'palm' of my hand, I will summon a magic I can easily control. I can draw less—find something the size of a pebble; I can draw more, and find something whose curve matches the size of that basin." He was quiet a long time. "That basin, or perhaps something larger than that, will kill me if I am not careful."

  "But there is more, and this is something I was able to… expand upon during my travels with the Voyani. I can sometimes touch the curve of another's power. Sometimes, when the mage is a man of Cortano's capabilities, I touch a wall, no more. He guards everything.

  "Sometimes, when a mage has what I believe is your paradigm, then beneath the surface of the globe, I feel fire, flame, heat; it is uncomfortable enough that it makes any other discovery more difficult. But I still feel the roundness in my own hand, or in both. You are a powerful Widan, Sendari; more powerful in measure than you are in respect, at least among the Widan."

  "You would do well to keep this to yourself."

  "I would. I have. But not now. Not with the Lady's waters between my lips and the certain knowledge that when these masks are worn we will—"

  "Yes?"

  Mikalis hid himself behind the Lady's water. "Let me go back to the example of Cortano. His power is such that he guards everything. When I touch any spell of his working, I touch a wall; flat in every possible way. I am incapable of gaining information that he does not wish me to have: I do not know the intensity of his power, the cost of its use. Only a fool would try to gain more than that from Cortano."

  "We are all fools, in our time."

  "Aye, we are all fools at least once," Mikalis said wryly. The wryness twisted his lips for an instant, no more. "But I can tell you this. When I touch the power that exists as potential, the power that exists before his casting, I feel it."

  "Lady's Moon," Sendari said softly. He was silent with the enormity of what he'd been told. Surprised that Mikalis had been open enough to speak of it at all.

  "Yes. It is… hard work. Intricate and difficult. And it almost never applies to something that has been created. It is also," he added, his lips dimpling in pained smile, "the only reason I survived the test of the bridge. I am not, by nature, a man of power."

  He met Sendari's eyes again. Ah, Mikalis, he thought. And you think I am such a man. It stung.

  "I assumed that these masks were created by a master of just such magic," Mikalis said, unaware of the effect his words had.

  "Interesting. I can feel nothing at all. No heat. No light."

  "I know. I thought, until yesterday, that I could feel nothing. I thought that they were expertly protected. I was wrong. These masks are not magical as we understand them; they are not magical as the Voyani would understand them. They are a spell whose last component has not yet been cast: the potential, but not the finality."

  "You mean—"

  "Yes. They are not, in and of themselves, magical—but there is magic about them, half-finished, trapped, and waiting. When I touch this magic, this working, I feel something, in both palms, that is almost flat." He waited a moment.

  Sendari sank slowly to the floor. "You mean—" "You are faster than I was. Yes. I thought they were protected, as Cortano is, from detection. I was wrong. It is not a flat wall I feel; the curve is there if I traverse the power for long enough."

  Margret was not happy.

  "The choice is not yours to make," the Serra Teresa said quietly. All eyes suddenly turned to the younger of the two Matriarchs. Teresa's reminder was unwelcome, but it was there: Margret was the undisputed—ha!—ruler of the Arkosan Voyani, and both Teresa and Yollana were her guests.

  Oh, the woman could be a bitch. Smart, vicious, cold as desert night.

  As Lady's Night.

  "How can she even start to make these safe if she doesn't understand their power?" Her voice. She was hedging. Anyone watching would know it, but Matriarchs were expected to be cautious.

  "I didn't say I didn't understand it," the Havallan Matriarch replied. "I said I didn't—and don't—understand the purpose the power is put to."

  Ah. "Not the same thing."

  "Not at all."

  "Yollana, we're in this together. You've no right to withhold information."

  "No?" The older Matriarch pushed herself to her feet, teetering imperiously as she gained solid footing with the aid of a cane.

  "This is not the Lord's power."

  "No. That we would all recognize—Widan, Radann, and Voyani alike. They know us well enough to know that, Matriarch."

  "Then what is the power that drives this mask?"

  Yollana bowed her head a moment. When she lifted it, her face was somehow sterner. "I believe it is a magic that was lost before the Voyanne opened to swallow us all; it was old, even then, and wild."

  There was a minute pause between question and answer, one they all heard. But only Margret could fill in the words that Yollana could not speak aloud: Before the fall of the Cities.

  "Yollana—"

  "I can touch it, yes. I can manipulate it to some small extent, for reasons it is forbidden to speak of. But the power at work here is vast and almost endless." She spun in a slow circle before adding, "If I am not mistaken in its source."

  "What is it supposed to do?"

  "I… cannot be certain."

  "Yollana!"

  Yollana turned a critical eye upon the Serra Teresa; an appraising eye. "They cannot, themselves, be certain that the masks will have all of their intended effect."

  " What is that effect? "

  "I believe," Yollana said quietly, "It is a summoning." She was silent a moment.

  "Matriarch." Yollana turned at the interruption; Margret turned as well, but not as if the title fit her. She recognized the voice. The fire of the heart circle she had build let no word out that she did not wish heard, but it let word in when that word was carried by her blood relatives.

  Adam stood respectfully at the fire's edge, his eyes orange with flame's reflection.

  She spoke the words that would break the circle just long enough to allow him entry. She saw his eyes narrow a moment; read the thought that stabbed him in passing: Mother used to do this.

  Aie, yes, this had been hers, and the fact that she didn't rule the circle was sure proof, if it were needed, that she was gone. Everything Margret would do from now until her own death would be certain proof that she was gone.

  "Adam?"

  This close, and without the heat to distort him, she saw that his chest was heaving.

  "Is it Nicu?"

  "Nicu?" he frowned. "No. Nicu's with Donatella and Tamara."

  She relaxed slightly. "Then what?"

  "The clansmen."

  "Adam, please. Faster."

  "Stavos set us to watch, Alanos and I. We've been in the streets of the Tor. He's still there. I had to come to tell the Matri—to tell you."

  "Tell me what?"

  "There are lineups in the city streets. Long lines, patrolled, sort of, by the Tyr's cerdan. We don't look that different from most of the people in the Tor, so we joined one."

  "Risky, you idiot."

  "Stavos said—"

  "I'm your sister. You listen to me, not Stavos. Go on."

  "Alanos thought maybe it had something to do with food."

  "Alanos thinks everything has
something to do with food."

  "Anyway, we joined the line. It took a while to really start moving. There was some man at the head of the line, and when he finally reached him, he took our hands for a minute, and then he, well, he gave us each something."

  "Adam!"

  He jumped at the tone of voice; she could squeeze a lot of expression into his name. Years of practice. She could also squeeze a lot into other forms of expression, and he was less fond of those: Matriarch's privilege, and one that their mother had practiced more often on Margret than on her brother. He pulled something from the folds of his shirt. It was pale, flat clay, whitened by heat, shaped like the undetailed upper half of a face. A mask.

  "It is not a god's magic; we would know it. Both of us have studied the antiquities, but where you have chosen to remain in the South, I have traveled. Bluntly, I have touched the working of the Northern 'gods,' and I recognize the feel of their power.

  "If this were the work of the Lord of Night himself, it would chill us; his work could not pass beneath our hands so disguised. It is not in his nature; it is not in ours."

  "Mikalis, what you've said—"

  "I know."

  "We must speak with Cortano."

  "Indeed," a third voice said quietly.

  Both men turned at once. They were seated, but before they could leave mats and sparse cushions, the Sword's Edge lifted a hand, silently negating the need for the gesture his rank demanded. "What have you discovered?"

  Mikalis replied, speaking smoothly. Smoothly, Sendari thought, and with vastly less comfort. Sendari understood why; it was risky to say that one knew anything—anything at all—about Cortano's power.

  "Ah." Cortano's expression was unreadable. In another man, that would have been a bad sign; Cortano was often unreadable. "It happens, gentlemen, that your discovery is relevant to… current events."

  "You have news," Sendari said. Not a question.

  "Perceptive."

  "Is any of it welcome?"

  "Be the judge, Sendari. We now have no choice. Not only must we understand the magic the masks are part of, but we must also be able to counter their power."