Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Avandar," she said, "what exactly is it doing?"

  "It is coming," he replied, "to its new master."

  "Me."

  "Yes."

  "But I don't—"

  "Jewel."

  What she'd been about to say was lost to the shock of hearing her name. She turned, saw that his lips were closed. Realized that he was speaking to her in a way that didn't involve sound at all—and that she didn't particularly like. She started to say something, stopped. Turned.

  The beast loomed above her, beyond the magical barrier Avandar had laid. This close, and bereft of agony, it was absolutely silent, great eyes unblinking and either depthless or endless brown-black. Intelligence, in those eyes, and something else. Madness, maybe. She really didn't want to think about it.

  "What do we do now?" she said softly, not to Avandar, but to the stag.

  In reply, he lowered his head. Tines as tall as men—or so they seemed to Jewel in the not-quite-real environs of the path the Firstborn walked—were lowered, not in challenge, but not in greeting.

  Mute, she tensed as the uppermost tips of the tines, sharp and pale as the sun-bleached bone that sometimes made its way up through seaweed to sand, breached the barrier. Fire flared where it touched what Avandar had built, but the blood on the horn's tip glowed as brightly as flame, and this time there was no screaming.

  "You are meant," Avandar said softly, "to mark him."

  "Pardon?"

  "You are meant to mark him. The tine," he added. "Lift your hand."

  She did as Avandar bid, feeling it: a sudden pull, a warmth beneath the skin of her palms. For a moment, just a moment, the stag stood as a knight might, as a member of the Chosen, as one who stands to swear service with his life as his oath and his death as its end.

  She had no sword to swear by, no ritual to bind the moment with, to hallow it or to grant it meaning. But she had understanding. She brought the fleshy part of her right palm to the tine the stag lowered—the only part of its antlers that had breached Avandar's protections—and biting her lip, she pierced her skin.

  As the Queen had done.

  Fire shot up her arm; Avandar's magic, seeking and finding something foreign within her. She refused to show the pain the spell caused; on some level she had expected no less, and besides, she could not take her eyes from the face of the stag.

  Beneath fur, beneath the width of open, clear eyes, beneath the weight of tines that must surely count, on this road, as a far greater burden than any crown, she could see the face of the man that had once offered just this oath to the Queen of all Winter. It was not a young man's face, but not an old one's; it was the face of a man at the peak of his power.

  She wondered what crime he had committed, if any, in the eyes of the Winter Queen. Wondered what he had done to catch her attention, or if power—and he had possessed it once, she was certain of it—had been enough.

  "You don't understand what you've accepted," the Oracle said quietly.

  But Avandar placed a hand on Jewel's shoulder and said simply, "Of all people who have walked this road, I believe that this one, better than any, understands the weight of the burden. She has agreed to bear it."

  "Are they all like this?" Jewel asked quietly, unable to look away.

  "I cannot see what you see," he replied quietly, "but if I could venture a guess, I would say no. The mount the Queen rides is in all ways special."

  The rider who had delivered the stag into Jewel's keeping said, "The bargain has been kept, mortal. You will stand back now, or you will be driven from the path by the force of the Old Laws." He lifted his helm a moment, and his expression made clear which of the two choices he favored.

  He lowered the helm; she had seen what he intended her to see; a glimpse of his perfect, of his beautiful face, forever beyond her. He rode to join his Queen, and his Queen nodded. Although she alone was on foot, she was not diminished by the height that separated her from the riders who waited upon her word.

  Their silence was heavy; they waited.

  "Celleriant," Arianne said, looking through Jewel as if she had become—had never been anything but—inconsequential. "You have failed me."

  "Lady."

  "Let your failure serve a purpose; let it be a warning to those who might fail me through their carelessness."

  He was absolutely silent. Jewel looked back at him once, but he did not move, and she was certain that he wouldn't. She gave the whole of her attention to Arianne. Not hard to do. The Queen, alone of her host, was unmounted; Mordanant stopped before her and made to dismount a second time, and a second time she denied him, by gesture, this sacrifice.

  "Understand what you are seeing," Avandar said softly. "Mordanant offers to go into exile for the sake of his brother. Exile or worse." When Jewel did not speak, he continued. "There arc rules that bind the Hunt, Jewel. It is forbidden for the Arianni to go unmounted."

  "Forbidden by who?"

  "Arianne, of course. They are hers, and she is theirs. Celleriant lost his mount to you. You are mortal; he is not. He has proved himself unworthy of her host."

  "And if she wanted to save him?"

  "I believe you already understand some part of her nature; she has made the law, and the law rules her. To unmake the law is to unmake the Arianni, and that, she will do by dying, if at all."

  "She's going to kill him?"

  "No," he said quietly. "I fear she will do far worse than that."

  Jewel had never been young enough to wonder what was worse than death. She was silent.

  And in the perfect silence, the words of the Winter Queen rang out with the weight of geas. "Celleriant of the green Deepings, you have failed me. Let me give your service to a mistress whose demands may be up to your lesser ability. In my stead, you will serve the human who bested you."

  "My Lady—" Mordanant's voice. Celleriant did not speak.

  "Denied," she replied, without looking back. "The Winter is almost upon us, and I will not be hampered by the weakness of affection. Your family has long suffered the stain."

  "Lady."

  "And if I don't want his service?"

  "It matters little what you desire. It is what I desire that defines the Arianni. Lord Celleriant has failed me, but he is of the host, and perhaps he will serve you well."

  / doubt it, Jewel thought, daring a backward glance at the man who was not quite a man, and who had not moved an inch from the supplicant posture he had taken while awaiting the outcome of her decision.

  "You are fighting our ancient enemies," the Winter Queen said quietly, "and it may be that I have been… merciful. Lord Celleriant will be recognized should he choose to use the power that is his birthright."

  "Lady," Mordanant said.

  The lightning fell.

  Celleriant lifted his head as its absolute brilliance lit the night sky beyond the summer day Jewel had created as harbor for herself, Avandar, and the Oracle. Mordanant was pale with the unsaid—but she had left him his mount. And his life. He did not interrupt her again, and Jewel knew he would not. But in spite of herself she felt a twinge of respect, of kinship, with the only one of the Arianni to speak for his fallen comrade. She wondered if the brother—hard to imagine that these men were brothers, as brothers seemed a thing of flesh and blood, of messy family fights and reunions—would have done as much if their positions were reversed. Had a bad feeling she would find out.

  Lightning left silence.

  Into the silence, Arianne spoke as if she were a god and this were some strange dreaming over which her power was growing. "Celleriant, if you will be of mine, you will follow my orders."

  "Lady."

  "Serve this girl as if she were, indeed, your mistress in all things. Suffer this humiliation with honor and in a manner that only the Arianni can, and when she is dead, if you have acquitted yourself with dignity, I may yet choose to find you a mount and a place in my Hunt."

  The man who had called himself Mordanant bowed his head. It was a very subtle move
ment, and easily missed; Jewel would have missed it but for the edge of his helm, which caught the light of Jewel's sun, Jewel's waning sky.

  What if I won't take him? she thought, but she found herself mute.

  Avandar spoke unexpectedly. "You set a high price for his return, Arianne."

  "Oh?" The word was the cool Northern wind, rolling in from the mountain's height. Night was falling, even in the streets of Averalaan. "A mortal's span of years is very short in these diminished times."

  "Four Princes were set just such a task, and for greater cause, and they failed in far less than the span of years you would have him serve."

  "Viandaran," Arianne said, in the silence that followed his words, "you are indeed still the Warlord; you seek the weakness you perceive, and you strike where you can. I dislike the reminder of past failures, as you must. I will not, however, return the favor by asking about your consort—any of them. The curse that guides you still shadows your brow if one knows how to look.

  "I have never lied; it is not my nature; a lie is beneath me; it is a tool of those whose truths are not powerful enough. I promise what I promise and I honor my oath; it is the willfulness of mortality that seeks to make of my oaths something that they are not."

  He bowed. He bowed low. "Indeed, Lady, mortality is willful. But I, too, understand the power of oath. I serve my Lady, and I accept, in her name, all that you have offered in return for passage."

  "Too many," Jewel said.

  "But I believe," he continued, as if she hadn't spoken or as if he hadn't heard her, "that even with gifts such as your personal mount and a lord of Celleriant's worth, you undervalue the worth of your host. You may, of course, pass; in that, my Lady is like you: she does not lie."

  A complaint of his. A frequent one. Funny to hear it praised, and in such company.

  "But you have gathered a Hunt such as the world has not seen since the divide," he said quietly. "And where roads have been held by my kind, no such host has ever been granted passage, save once." He rose from his bow. "This is not that time."

  "Warlord, I forget your roots, you have been almost one of us for so long. But you are in part what you were. Can you not feel His shadow? It stretches from one end of the road to the other, growing and gathering strength. We swore, and we were divided, the immortal from the mortal, gathered and pressed into places small and wild… and limiting.

  "But for the sake of my father, we swore, and we abide by the oaths that were given." Her smile was sudden, beautiful; Jewel literally could not breathe in the face of it.

  Jewel knew what the oaths were.

  She knew it.

  "Yes, seer-born, little disciple of the eldest. We swore that we would cleave to the old and hidden ways just as the gods themselves did."

  The words settled slowly, starting at the top and finding depths in Jewel that she hadn't suspected existed. She did not say the name aloud, but it came to her as a perfectly aimed arrow might have. Allasakar.

  "The tide is turning, and not in your favor. Our ancient enemies are rising; they gain power over the earth and the wind, the fires and the waters, while we treat like beggars or children upon a road that will soon have little meaning."

  "Understood," Jewel said softly. "But understand as well that it makes no difference to me who does the killing—you or the Kialli. Because the dead will still be dead." She paused a moment to look at the stag that the Queen had so casually thrown against Avandar's barrier. "And the living don't look like they're much better off."

  "Perhaps not," Arianne replied, as the night at last descended, "but think on this: is it better to give me the one life to take or enjoy as I see fit than it is to give all life to our enemy?"

  Jewel looked at the stag. "I don't know," she said at last. "Maybe we should ask him."

  "You may. But he will never answer." She inclined her head. "You are surprising; perhaps your sight is clearer than you know, or perhaps you are foolish because we have been absent from the world for so long. It matters little. The winds are coming, mortal. But this is the first Hunt of this scale that we have seen and I am loath to miss even a moment of it. I will take the smaller party.

  "And I will remember your face. Keep your name hidden, and hidden well, or perhaps you will carry a greater burden than you carry now."

  Jewel understood. She'd won.

  But winning had never felt so dangerous, so empty. She made to step aside, but paused a moment as Avandar began to draw his magic in a tighter, more personal net. With a gesture—for drama's sake, because it really didn't make any other difference she could see—she dissolved the image of home: the streets of Averalaan faded into mountain's pass, cold and lifeless beneath the perfect glitter of evening stars.

  "Why?" Avandar asked her softly, as the Arianni began to gather at their Queen's back, to be chosen or discarded.

  "Why what?"

  "Many things. But for now, a simple question. The land; you let it go. Why?"

  "Because whether or not it's illusion, I couldn't bear to watch her ride with her host through the streets of my city." The wind, indeed, was rising. She lifted her head and let it shove unruly curls out of her eyes. "Come," she said softly. The stag obeyed her so silently if she closed her eyes she would not have heard his movements.

  "And the other?" Avandar said, uncharacteristically gentle.

  She started to say something sarcastic; she was good at it, after all. Years of practice.

  But when the rider looked up and met her eyes, his expression inexplicably dulled the edge of the words she might have spoken. Still, she was surprised when she said, just as softly, "Come."

  He rose, silent as the stag, and together, Avandar, Jewel, and the two gifts that would be her lasting legacy from the Winter Queen, stood by the road's side and watched the Hunt ride into the darkness of the unknown.

  Only after they had passed did Jewel realize that the Oracle was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  19th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Tor Leonne

  He did not choose to allow the serafs to enter his personal quarters. Food and water, when they were desired at all, were brought in basins designed and blessed by the strongest of Widan's craft and left beyond the simple, sliding doors that it had become death for all but a few to pass.

  Alesso di'Alesso, the Tyr'agar of the Dominion, was not, however, shut in: the walls opened to grant him a view of the world without; one made splendid by the hands of gardeners and carpenters, of master weavers and painters, in preparation for the Festival of the Moon. Here, the sheen of fabric catching the Lord's dying light, he could see white and gold and deep, deep blue; Her colors. The Lady was coming.

  And with Her, in the cover of Her night, his allies. His enemies. It had been a long time since he could easily separate them.

  "Alesso."

  But, as always, such sweeping statements demanded their exceptions. He turned at once, almost pleased at the interruption. Sendari di'Sendari waited in the span of the open doors. He had aged ten years in the course of the last ten days, his beard streaked with the white blanket that served as both warning and shroud. "Come," he said, nodding. "But the door—"

  "It is secure."

  "Good." He gestured.

  Sendari, as any other visitor, went immediately to the low table, a stark, flat block in the center of the room, its surface interrupted by only two things: A perfect clay vessel, its thin walls bearing three strokes that suggested the long, slender leaves that bore rushes, and a matching cup.

  He poured, as carefully as the Serra Teresa herself might have done, and when he was finished, he drank.

  The waters of the Lady's Lake touched his lips; Alesso watched him swallow and then turned back to the view, the breadth of the plateau upon which the Tyr's power depended.

  "She has vanished," he said softly. "Thirty people dead in her wake. They are speaking about her now: She has become either the Lady or the Lady's avatar, come to show her
displeasure at the changes the new Tyr is making. They are saying that—"

  "That a Tyr of Leonne blood would not be in this position."

  Sendari fell silent.

  "Old friend," Alesso said quietly, "they are correct. Markaso kai di'Leonne would never have been in this position. His power was his by right of birth; no strength or weakness marred it."

  "Alesso—"

  "Not here. We must plan, and we must plan with care."

  "You believe that Anya was sent?"

  Alesso's laugh was brief and dark. "No more than any rabid beast can be sent or commanded. Her role as the opener of the way is of tantamount importance to the Lord of the Shining Court; I do not think He would willingly give her up so that she might kill a handful of clansmen and their serafs. The least of His demons could do so with ease."

  Sendari nodded, his face carefully neutral. "That was my thought."

  "Can Ishavriel be made to contain her?"

  "We do not know. Cortano traveled in haste to the Shining Court, and to no one's surprise, that Lord is not in attendance. Nor is he expected before the end of the Dark Conjunction."

  The latter surprised him. "Where did you come by this information?"

  "The Lord Isladar."

  "And you believed him."

  "Cortano believed him. Lord Isladar has little to gain from the lie."

  "The Kialli lie as a matter of course; they speak truth when they have something to gain. And they see into a future that contains our grandchildren or great-grandchildren; our own fates are, of necessity, of limited import. We cannot see what they have to gain; our own lives will not encompass it." There, the Lady's banners were being laid out against a field of green. Grass was the most difficult of things to grow and tend; it died with ease in weather too dry, but if left to grow even half an inch too long, it coarsened. The flowers that had been planted a year, or two, or three previously blossomed and died, growing in place but moving by tendril and leaf so that the whole drifted in a pattern that suggested the freedom of life within the containment of order.