Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  Anya understood children. She had always liked them. She had planned to have them herself, lots of them, before—No. No, she wouldn't think of that, not here. Not yet.

  "It's all right," she said, as she bent at the knees and picked up the little girl. The child drew sharp breath. "You're hurt," Anya a'Cooper said softly. "Don't worry. I'll help you. I'll take you to where it's safe." She propped the child up on her shoulder; heard the girl's muffled exclamation of pain, and winced in sympathy. "He won't hurt you, you know," she said. "He won't hurt anyone anymore. He's quite dead."

  427 AA

  Stone Deepings

  Na 'jay.

  Not now, Oma.

  Now.

  Not now.

  She stood beside Avandar, or rather, in front of him. She allowed herself to be grateful that he had chosen to be her shadow; it seldom happened, and she hoped it wouldn't become habit, but if she labored under any other illusions, her ability to survive this encounter without him wasn't one of them.

  His magical line burned the vision but not the ground, and the host of the Winter Queen stayed on either side of it: Celleriant, on foot, and the Queen to the side of a wounded creature that seemed to be healing as Jewel watched.

  Na'jay, her Oma said again. You can keep her here until the sun sets on High Winter. But you don't have the power to hold her for longer. The Warlord might—but I wouldn't bet on it. If you use your head, you'll let her pass. You've proved your point.

  Fine.

  The silence that followed was a little warm for Jewel's liking. The child that lay buried beneath years of responsibility didn't remember her Oma being such an interfering nag. I'm not sure what more you want, the old woman continued, after the silence had done its work. She did heal the creature.

  That's not what I asked for, and she knows it.

  Would you have her approach the Winter Hunt without a mount?

  I'd have her forget the Hunt altogether if it were in my power.

  It's not. Na 'jay, let it go now. ,

  But she was looking up at the night's scattered face, little glittering lights strewn, as if thrown by some careless deity, across the dark heavens.

  "Mortal," the Winter Queen said, her voice as much part of the heavens as the stars. "The Winter is coming."

  Jewel nodded.

  If it were in my power.

  She looked at the ground beneath her feet, wondering why she had chosen to see a mountain's pass beneath the open night sky. Avandar's gift, perhaps; he had spoken of building safety beneath the mountain's vastness. She had seen what she expected to see. Wondered what Avandar truly saw.

  She closed her eyes for an instant.

  He had built safety out of what was hidden beneath the mountain. And she? She had built as much safety as she could, in a different way. She had never thought to leave it. Jewel ATerafin began to roll up her sleeves. This was her road, this was the path she had chosen. She wanted to make it her own, and she knew that she could.

  Difficult, though, to know exactly what that meant.

  She had thought she would build Terafin, as she had in Avandar's fortress. She had thought she might see the perfect, ancient masonry of its walls, the cultivated, necessary privacy of its grounds, bisected by Avandar's magic, but otherwise familiar, her own.

  Instead, beneath the thick soles of her boots, the stone was changing shape, and texture—but it was still hard. The cliff walls to either side began to shift, losing substance and form until they appeared very like the clouds that Meralonne APhaniel birthed illusion from.

  Na'jay. Her Oma's voice. Harsh and sharp.

  Her Oma.

  We always see what we want to see. She looked at the ground. There, beneath her feet, cobbled stone that had seen better decades, but was still serviceable, still practical. The walls that formed out of mist were the exterior walls of tall, narrow buildings, grouped together in a haphazard way that spoke of both age and lack of street space. A sign, paint faded—but not so much that it had to be redone—hung over them all.

  Her eyes fell from sign to sign: Arianne's frown was the most sensuous expression of disapproval she had ever seen. It did not mar her face at all; perhaps the opposite. It added warmth. Of a type.

  She felt a hand upon her shoulder; Avandar's. But he did not seek to restrain her; his fingers applied a distinct, but faint pressure, no more. She turned to look back at him, met his gaze, saw the warning in it. She opened her mouth. Shut it. Wondered if he'd appreciate the rarity of her silence.

  As she wondered, she realized that he hadn't used her name once since Celleriant and his riders had answered the summons of the horns. Names have power.

  There is a danger in what you do, her Oma said, in a very distinctive voice. You have avoided giving the Winter Queen your name—more due to wisdom on his part than yours, but for now the reasons don't matter—but you give her more when you do this: You give her a glimpse of yourself.

  Of my history, Jewel said.

  That is all you are, the old woman replied gravely.

  Yes. But that's not what you are.

  Silence, the quality of it very different from any silence she had yet offered. What do you mean?

  I mean, Jewel said, that you're no part of my history, but you

  know it well enough. I should have known. Avandar couldn't see Duster and Duster almost killed me—but he could see you. You aren't my ghost.

  The streets grew harder and sharper; memory supplied the smell of the sea and the cracks in the stone and the feel of sweat in the heat of a summer sky.

  The passes were gone; the Winter was gone—momentarily— with it. Surrounded by Summer in Averalaan, Jewel looked up at the Winter Queen.

  "You need my permission to pass, and you know what my price is: Free him."

  "And go unmounted into the Hunt?"

  "And go unmounted."

  "Or you will do what? Wait until Winter is upon you?"

  "Wait until it is upon us both," she said grimly. "Or should I say, upon us all?"

  Her gaze did not waver from the face of the Winter Queen; it was the Winter Queen who broke first, her brows rising like perfect, pale crescents, into the line of her hair. "You."

  Jewel turned to one side to see the woman she had mistaken for the dead. "It almost worked," she said.

  "It worked well enough. But you benefit in this case from being both gifted and untrained."

  "Oh?"

  "You see with your heart, which is not uncommon. But your heart won't let you see what you want to see; it forces you to see what is there. An unusual combination." Her face, her much-loved, wind-cracked face, began to lose all wrinkles, all signs of age, all peppery lines around eyes and mouth that spoke of ferocity of expression, both in anger and joy.

  "Hello, Arianne," the woman who had been Jewel's grandmother said.

  "Very clever," the Winter Queen replied. "I should have seen your hand in this."

  So easily dismissing Jewel's. Jewel knew she would see all of these women again. She knew it. The woman whose name she did not know, but who had known her well enough to take the face of the dead grandmother who had been as close to Jewel as her parents. Calliastra, Corallonne and Arianne.

  And if she was going to be part of their future, and they were going to be part of hers, the groundwork was going to be set in a way she could live with. Yes, she was mortal. Yes, it was a flaw that they didn't possess.

  But she wasn't about to be disregarded out of hand because she only lived a handful of years. One minute and the right weapon could destroy eternity.

  "Did you know who she was?" she asked Avandar softly, her gaze flickering between the Winter Queen and the silent woman who stood at her side; the two had become absorbed with each other's presence, to the exclusion of all else.

  Avandar said nothing. "Avandar?" Jewel turned, ready to take her temper out on the only safe target in sight. But when she saw that he was staring at her, she subsided.

  "No," he said quietly.

&n
bsp; "Did you guess?"

  "No."

  Silence. Then, "Who is she?"

  "Firstborn," he replied.

  "I mean, what is her name?"

  "Name? She has none that I know of. There were whole sects devoted to either her worship or her study when man's power was at its height."

  "Oh." Pause. "And what did they call her?"

  "Fate. Destiny." He shrugged. "The Oracle."

  The Oracle. The two words held a sudden power that stood out in a landscape that was rich with it the way a bolt of lightning might claim attention coming from the heights of storm-laden sky. What had Evayne said? You must walk the Oracle's Path.

  As if she could hear the words, spoken as they were in another woman's voice—and in memory, that fortress of privacy—the stranger who had worn her Oma's face turned. Her eyes were like Kiriel's eyes; shrouded in darkness and shadow. The effect was curiously unlike the effect Kiriel often had.

  "You have not begun to walk my path," she said, her voice completely devoid of the familiar cadences.

  "But I will." Not a question.

  Full lips curved in a smile, but the Oracle's eyes were unblinking, and unchanged. "Oh, yes."

  "How did you know?" Avandar asked.

  Jewel shrugged. "It was the only thing that made any sense. You didn't see Duster. There had to be some reason for that." Duster. "It's too bad. Duster, you'd've liked."

  "She was a member of your den?"

  "Yeah. She defined it," Jewel added softly, "by being everything they weren't. Except loyal. I suppose all rulers, no matter how decent they are, need their killers."

  "You are not—"

  She lifted a hand. Waved it, batting away the words as if they were mosquitoes. "Don't. Doesn't matter. What matters is that you can't really see my ghosts. I should thank Kalliaris for that."

  "Oh?"

  "Means I can't see yours, and I have the strong feeling that I'm grateful for that."

  "Na'jay," the woman Avandar called the Oracle said quietly. "You have served my purpose, Arianne's, and your own on this road. It is time to leave it."

  "No."

  For the first time, Arianne's expression broke into a semblance of warmth and amusement. "You see? I have told you, and told you frequently, that humans make poor tools unless you shape them."

  "Or inform them," the Oracle said, completely unruffled by Jewel's blunt refusal. "What do you wish, child?"

  "I want to know what's happening. Who are you, and why are you here?"

  "I am as the Warlord has told you. Of the Firstborn. But what he has not told you, perhaps because he does not know it himself, is that I am the Firstborn. I existed before any life that was not the wilderness we called gods, and I will exist beyond it as well."

  "Which means, of course," the Winter Queen said quietly, "that she has seen some element of all of our fates. Those of us who have power have never willingly lived, ignorant, in the shadow of her knowledge. Come, tell the child how she has served my interests. It might be amusing to both of us, since I believe that neither of us can see it."

  "Indeed, neither of you can. I expect no better from you, little sister," she said. "You choose your ignorance carefully and willfully. And you, Na'jay, you are a child; you are learning. And you will understand this, in time."

  "In time for what?"

  The Oracle smiled. She didn't answer.

  "Very well," Arianne said. "You are a pawn, and you will therefore suffer a pawn's fate, and not a willful enemy's—if you but leave the road now."

  "I'll leave the road," Jewel responded, "When you—"

  "Enough." The Oracle's voice was cool.

  Jewel knew a warning when she heard it; she'd heard them enough. But the gravity in the Oracle's voice was astonishing because her expression was so mild. This woman was not, like Arianne, exquisitely lovely, but there was about her face a depth and a certainty of knowledge that implied true safety and not just safety's illusion; that implied the ideal of a mother's comfort rather than its reality.

  Jewel didn't want to say no to her. Inexplicably and suddenly, she wanted to nod obediently and follow.

  She even turned away from Arianne before she stopped herself. It had been a long, long time since she had obediently followed anyone just because they had told her to. The person she had followed, and the person who could follow that unquestioningly were both dead.

  And besides, Jewel had something to settle.

  "I'm sorry," she said, turning back to the Winter Queen, "but we haven't finished yet."

  Arianne did not look surprised or perturbed. She nodded, as if expecting no less—or perhaps no more—from one merely human. At her back, the host, horns silent, swords sheathed, mounts restive, waited upon her word, moving in time with a slightly mistimed breath. "What do you hope to gain?" she asked calmly.

  Jewel said nothing.

  "Riches? I have none that would not destroy you and your kin. Power? The only power I have left to grant one of mortal kind is not a power you could be trapped into accepting if you are marked by the eldest." Her smile was thin. "And I believe you are one of the few who would refuse the gift of immortality; perhaps there is some wisdom in you after all.

  "If there is, find it now. I am not what I once was, thanks to the interference and the trouble caused by your kind. But I will not be diminished in my world. I have nothing to offer you but death, and if you have gleaned truth, that I cannot offer you death on this road, understand this: the eldest has commanded you to her road, and on the way to that one, you must cross many of mine. There is no place you will not be hunted in my lands if you pursue this.

  "You forsake the wisdom of the eldest in order to make an enemy," the Winter Queen said. "Be aware of what you are doing. On this road, there is no illusion."

  "This road is only illusion," Jewel countered.

  "As you will. I say to you again, do not press this."

  "You didn't drive that beast into my circle for nothing. Congratulations. You won. You got what you wanted: I'm upset. Happy?"

  "ATerafin," the Oracle said quietly.

  "What, you're still here?"

  "Yes." She looked to the woman she had called sister. "The Winter is coming, and you have much to do before it arrives."

  "Take your human from my path."

  "The human is not going from your path without that—that creature," Jewel said quietly.

  The moments stretched, and stretched again. And then Arianne smiled. The expression transformed her face. Jewel was instantly on her guard—which was hard, given she'd thought she couldn't be more wary.

  "Very well," she said. She moved away from the beast, every ripple of cloth, every movement of hair, every clink of armor noteworthy, fascinating.

  "My Lady," the man closest to her said, dismounting at once. He made his way to her side, taking care never to pass her, and knelt. The joints of his armor against the stone were resounding, bell-like. Magical. She could not see the face behind the helm, but the voice was compelling; almost as beautiful in its way as the Queen's, but infinitely less cold.

  "No," she said to the kneeling man. "For I have already lost Celleriant, and I will not lose another."

  "Avandar," Jewel said, although she knew Arianne could hear every word, "what does she mean by that?"

  Avandar did not reply. As if he were one of Arianne's followers, his gaze was fixed upon the Queen's every movement. Jewel knew this because she forced herself to tear her own away to look at him.

  "I do not believe you wish the answer to that," he said quietly. "But you will receive it. I do not understand what has happened here. But something has changed. Be wary of accepting what she offers you."

  "But I—"

  "Be wary."

  "Celleriant," the Queen said, her voice passing between Jewel and Avandar as if it were the wind in the highest of the passes through the Menoran chain. Celleriant knelt at once into rock that Jewel would have sworn hadn't had the time to cool. His hair hung long, obscuring hi
s face, but before he bowed it, Jewel thought she saw him pale.

  "Avandar—"

  The Queen handed the reins of her mount to the man at her side. "Take him," she said, "to his new master."

  "My Lady," he replied, hanging on to the reins of his mount in one hand while retrieving hers with the other.

  "You have served me well," she said to the stag. "In all ways. I have received pleasure from the Hunt, both of you and with you; serve your new mistress as well and perhaps she will grant you what I never would." She reached up; touched the tip of his magnificent tines, and pressed hard; when she drew back, her hand was red with blood.

  Jewel was shocked.

  For some reason, she'd expected her blood to be a different color, if it ran at all.

  Or perhaps she just never expected to see it run. Arianne had, about her, that complete invulnerability that allows for no injury, acknowledges no pain.

  The Queen's rider brought the beast. The beast followed, docile, without a backward glance at the woman who had been—who was, in some sense—his absolute master. The rider brought him to the edge of Avandar's circle and stopped there. His face looked vaguely familiar; Jewel was almost certain she had seen it, or its kind, before—probably in a dream. Which she thankfully didn't remember.

  "I am Celleriant's brother," he said. "Called Mordanant in my youth by mortals. We are of the Firstborn, and of the First family, and you have harmed us considerably.

  "When the day comes and the road is open, the Queen may forgive you." He dropped the reins of the Queen's former mount with contempt. "I will not. Winter court, or Summer, there is blood to be shed between us."

  "That sounds like ritual," Jewel said to Avandar as the rider wheeled his mount with a vicious tug to the bit and rode back to the side of the Winter Queen.

  "It is," Avandar replied. "A ritual of the Arianni. You've made an enemy today. I will, however, be impressed if you make only one."

  She stared to reply, but the beast was walking toward them, and her words were swallowed whole by the expression on its face. The humanity that had showed through the wall of Avandar's magic was gone—and coward or no, Jewel thanked every god in the pantheon for its absence.