Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  She had not offered to help Yollana wield the heavy knife that would take the wood's heart; it was forbidden. Yollana had obliquely taught her much in the few times they had met, and one of the things she had learned was that the cutting of the wood was in some ways the act of the heart that sparked the magic that not even her hearing could pierce. Nor, in the end, had she offered to support the old woman while she cut, balancing her weight on feet that might never right themselves after the injury done them; Kallandras was adept at avoiding the sudden danger a stumble caused when the knife slipped.

  She did not understand why Yollana would not use an ax; the handle was longer and the blade far shorter, and in the end it was lighter than the tool she chose. But she had her way, and—like the most ancient of wives in a good harem—those ways were indulged and unquestioned by a younger Serra.

  A younger Serra so very much out of her element.

  "Yollana," she said quietly.

  The old woman took the leaves from her hands and wrapped them—with great care—between two folds of cloth. "This is the last of 'em, Teresa."

  "Ah."

  "Not that you're looking at the flowers," the old woman said, wiping her hands on her knees.

  "No. I see light, I think, from the plateau."

  "You see light," she agreed. "It's the first night, and the Tyr probably has to show off some; he's new and he's not secure in his position. Lady willing, he won't ever be."

  "Lady willing," she said, but her heart did not give the words weight; the man that was now Tyr was her much hated—and much loved, and that was the truth and the pity of it—brother's oldest, and truest, friend. He had killed a wife; he was not a man that she herself would have tangled with in any way, and he had hurt her almost daughter so much she clung to life by the hatred of the hurt, and not for any love of existence.

  And yet, he was Alesso di'Marente, and a flash of the spirit that moved him, the loyalty that bound him to those whom he chose as friends, moved her. She wanted him to fail. But the fate that she wished upon his allies she did not wish upon him. Aie, weakness.

  She had seen the Festival of the Moon from only two places in her life: the Lambertan city of Amar, or the Raverran city that defined the Dominion. The Tor Leonne.

  Wind blew at strands of her hair, her unkempt, unoiled hair; she felt the last of the dying sun across her skin.

  The Serra Teresa di'Marano, refined and learned in all things courtly, had long been confined by rules of the life she had been born to. Denied wives and children of her own by the curse and the gift she'd also been born to, she had wondered for forty years why the Lady had seen fit to curse her in such a fashion.

  Darkness answered her now.

  And at the heart of the darkness, light on the plateau. She felt the wind again, and she turned to look at the Northern bard. He did not blink; his eyes in the darkness seemed like captured water from the Lady's Lake; his gaze fell full upon her. As if he understood some small part of what she felt.

  No, more; as if all of what she felt—the sense of loss and the sense of terror at a freedom she had both dreamed of and never desired—were an echo of the winds that drove him. How could they not be?

  She had seen him call the winds.

  She had seen the winds obey.

  And yet they were here, crouching in shadow, fearing both daylight and night sky. She shivered, acknowledging the truth of her fear: That if a man who could control the wind's voice with the strength of his was afraid, what could she do in the battle to come?

  Lady, she thought, wondering if perhaps she had been rash; wondering if her strengths, those ties so carefully developed and cultivated through the years of empty court life, might have been better used there, upon the plateau. But no. No.

  Night thoughts.

  Lady's thoughts.

  She bowed her head.

  Together, she, Kallandras, and the unusually quiet Matriarch of the Havalla Voyani made their way back to the heart of the Arkosan camp.

  - Four women. Four Matriarchs, the chosen of their line. And not by birth alone, although birth defined it. There were Matriarchs in the history of the Voyani families who had died abruptly and without children; those who had—although it was very, very rare, died in birthing those children. There were Matriarchs who, like Evallen, had died, but with her daughters by her side.

  The hearts, either immediately or slowly, but in either case with certainty, found their way to the women who were meant to wear them: To Yollana of the Havalla Voyani, early to her title and her mystery, and late to reign against the desire—some said because of the desire—of wind, sand, and clansmen. To Elsarre of the Corrona Voyani, later than to Yollana and she less adept at charting the political course, less able to cast off the desire for the approval and the love of her people. To Maria of the Lysseran Voyani, unexpected and unlooked for, a burden and a gift with So many complications she accepted it the way women must accept all: gracefully and with pleasing humility.

  The only person who did not bear the heart of her family beneath the folds of her clothing was Margret of the Arkosa Voyani. She was acutely aware of the lack at the moment, which was surprising as she hadn't thought her sense of inadequacy could get any worse. Hadn't. Now she was certain, as they each began to lay the logs at the base of what would be their fire, that the night would bring new lows.

  Yollana laid down her heart wood first; by age, Maria followed, taking care to nestle the logs in the dirt in such a way that between them they formed two parts of what would be a cross; oath markings. Elsarre was next; she took the wood from Dani and bore it carefully to ground. Then she rose and took her place at its end, facing inward. Margret was last. She wondered if any of the other women were as nervous as she felt. And doubted it. But she took her place; they stood, Elsarre to the West and Margret to the South, Maria to the East and to the North, where the shadows and all their ancient enemies lay, Yollana.

  Elena and Teresa were allowed to be of aid; they brought the containers that had been so carefully prepared by silent Matriarchs, handling the earthenware as it passed from hand to hand as if it were made of the finest of crystal, the most delicate of northern glass. To Elsarre, the largest of the vessels, heavy and fragrant with a wine that would have made poor merchants in the Tor at this season weep for joy if they happened to obtain it; to Maria, glittering with the light from the low moon, the next largest vessel, its contents so clear that were it not for reflection and weight it might have been empty. To Yollana, a small flat jar, with a heavy, coarse lid that the old woman did not bother to lift.

  And to Margret of the Arkosan Voyani, a shallow, empty dish. Because she was Arkosan, and this was her camp, and therefore her home. She was to be the anchor.

  "Come," Kallandras said quietly, when the vessels had been delivered to the women who would use their precious contents. "Stand outside of the circle."

  Margret, having never seen this ceremony performed, wished very much that her mother were the one to perform it; she wanted to say all the obvious things and get the muted and whispered answers to the questions inherent in them. For one, there was no circle. For two, how did he know there was supposed to be one when she didn't, not really? What did his eyes see? What did he hear? Why was he trusted by the Havallan Matriarch in a way that not even the other Matriarchs were? As a girl, as a daughter, she would have been forgiven much and her questions—some at least—given the half-answers that would be understood as truths later in life.

  But she was trapped by the necessity of her role, and her role had been narrowly and clearly defined. She waited upon the actions of the other Matriarchs.

  Elsarre of Corrona poured the wine, following the line of wood she had laid out to the center of the cross, where she carefully emptied the contents of the jug. Maria of Lyserra poured the water, but more carefully; she walked a line without spilling a drop, and at the end, in the center, when she made the last libation, she murmured a prayer that the wind took from Margret's ears. Only the q
uality of her voice remained; musical, low. Desperate. A prayer, then.

  Yollana's turn next.

  She lifted her head; nodded imperiously to the two Matriarchs who now stood beside their empty vessels in the flattened grass. Maria—it was so hard not to think of her as Serra, and Margret loathed the women of the clans—aquiesced at once; Elsarre waited that extra minute to make clear that she was doing this of her own accord and not at Yollana's command. Aided now by the Matriarchs, and the Matriarchs alone—Yollana of Havalla anointed what had once been living wood with the fine paste she had made from the forest's harvest.

  They helped her back to her place at the end of the stretch of wood she had cut.

  And that left Margret. She knelt by the empty, flat bowl and rolled up her left sleeve. She hated this part. It was ritual. It was ceremony. It was a tradition that was so old the stories about when it started were almost the same as the stories that mothers used to get their children to behave properly.

  She took the dagger from her side, lifted it; held it in front of her face where it could catch and reflect moonlight, as if waiting the Lady's inspection. She was slow and deliberate because her hands were shaking and she was embarrassed by it. But she did not like to cut herself; certainly not deeply enough to fill the shallow dish and paint the line from here to the heart of the fire.

  She knew it was childish, because her mother had cut herself many times, bled herself for the sake of her people, and it had always looked easy. But she wished that this meeting had been anywhere else—Elsarre's caravan. Maria's. Yollana's even.

  She bit her lip.

  And she hissed as she drew the knife across the vein. But she did it. Hoped she hadn't cut anything useful, like muscle. She held her arm over the bowl, let it fill—and it filled too quickly, she thought—and then grabbed the cloth between her knees and bound the wound as tightly as she could. Donatella had, bless or curse her, spread ointment on the cloth; it burned where it touched the open wound. Fire, her mother would say, is good. It burns away the disease.

  She wanted to cry, not for pain—the pain was liberating and she held onto it because it was so much in the present—but because she was truly, completely, and utterly alone: her mother was no longer Matriarch, and she would never come back to be so. The winds had taken her, as they had taken everything else.

  And Margret stood in the gale without the heart of Arkosa, arm throbbing, as she crawled along the line of cut wood, anointing it with her blood, which was after all, the product of the years of Arkosan history. She thought about her mother, and then because that was painful, Elena. But Elena brought Nicu, and Nicu was a memory she didn't want to face.

  Blood now. Death later.

  Damn. She'd cut too deeply. She could feel that dizzying spin that loss of blood caused. That would be the final embarrassment, and at a time when she wouldn't just be failing her own, she'd be failing them all. But it would be her life. It would be her luck.

  Lady, she thought. Lady, we're doing Your work as well as we

  can. She swallowed. Got back on her knees. Tried to keep the line her blood made as straight as possible. It was hard; the fire had not been lit—it could not be lit—until she had finished this, this final step.

  But she knew she had to finish. That she could not stop or pause or leave the last of the ceremony undone. She had dreamed it, and the Lady, unkind, sent true dreams to haunt and harry her.

  She saw Elena move; saw the bard—the Northerner—reach out and grab her by the upper arm. Was very surprised that he kept his arm; Elena went for her dagger almost instinctively. They were all on edge.

  They were all afraid.

  She'd cut too deeply. She was an idiot. But she crawled. She crawled, and it came to her, as no doubt the Serra Maria's prayer had come: that she would crawl and suffer if she could save the children, their future. That she would die, willingly, if by doing so she became a part of the foundation that would drive back the Lord of Night.

  The dreams were terrible.

  "When can we help her?" she heard Elena shout.

  No one answered.

  "Margret!"

  "I'm—fine, 'Lena. You're… embarrassing me."

  "Well, it's good you should let someone else do it for a change," Elena snapped back. Only her voice carried. Fear. They were afraid. She was tired of fear. Did the enemy know fear?

  He could smell it; could taste it; could almost touch it, thick and tangible as it was. But he did not dare; not there, not when the powers they were summoning, half understood but still primal, were so close to fruition. He could not walk cloaked into that fire, although he was not so diminished, not as a Lord of Kialli, that the fire would destroy him, spell or no.

  It would destroy his seeming.

  It would destroy the careful humanity, so close to his natural features, and so far from it, that he had endured for decades.

  He longed to stand for a moment at the heart of that fire: It would reveal all that he was; put him in danger of entrapment for the seconds the four frail women survived.

  And that was a fool's game; he had not lived to become a Lord in the Hells by such self-indulgence. He shook himself; the world drew him. Life, its variety, its lack of predictability, had been all but forgotten, and the lure of its delicate enjoyments became harder to resist.

  In that, he was willing to admit—where no one could hear it— that Isladar had been correct in his concerns. Had it been the choice of that Lord, the Kialli would not now exist upon the plains of the frozen North, nor dwell within the grandeur of the Shining Palace.

  Lord Isladar, not coward, not fool—and yet, not a power. The enigma; the Kialli who somehow stood beside the Lord's throne without being devoured.

  No Kialli in existence accepted subjugation. They sought power, all of them; some with more subtlety than others. But Isladar's game? None comprehended it. He was a dangerous Lord to have as an enemy, and in the end, a difficult one to make, for he was devoid of the pride and the desire for dominion that informed, that defined the Kialli Lords—therefore the act which would make an enemy of him was not always clear or logical.

  Yet Ishavriel was certain that Isladar was behind the appearance of Anya, so inconveniently, in this city at this time. This, after all, was Ishavriel's moment. The masks had been of his crafting; the summoning of the four women who could prove their destruction—to a city in which theirs was assured—was also the fruition of a plan some human years in the making. The masks that the human General—and he was impressed, in spite of the short span of years and the general ignorance that Alesso di'Marente displayed—had eventually decided to destroy had been spread about the city as artfully or artlessly as the occasion demanded.

  He was annoyed, of course; there was no magic that they could have possessed that would tell them what the purpose of the masks was, and even if they understood it, they would not understand: these were a people broken by the loss of the truth of their history.

  He should have had the moment to savor; the victory his own to enjoy.

  Instead, he had been summoned by his Lord to deal with the difficulty the most powerful and least predictable of his vassals might cause.

  Yet he stood, watching as the fires were built, the fear of the four women he considered the most dangerous of threats as alluring as the cries of the damned, but sweeter in their promise.

  It had been so very long since he had heard the cries, attenuated and harmonic, of those who had chosen their fate and delivered themselves, in the end, to the eternity only the Kialli could provide.

  But there were other ways to enjoy fear, other ways to plan for it. Lord Ishavriel turned his face to the evening wind, scenting and anticipating. He had taken a risk, to come to this camp at all. Because it was a wild night; a night when the forces that not even gods could tame—and it had been tried, and tried again— were loosed upon those sensitive to them.

  These mortals, they could sense its tide and time, but were not a part of its current; they wa
tched from its banks, and only if they were foolish enough—and powerful enough—to enter the current—were they carried and changed by it. They dabbled now, as if they could chart their course through that wildness with safety.

  And he watched, called by their fear.

  Soon, of course, their fear would be nothing. The subtlety of it, the anticipation of events that they would never fully understand, would be overwhelmed by the viscera of immediate pain, immediate death.

  But he was fascinated, as many of his kind were often fascinated, by those who knew death as a part of their natural life; who could be tainted by wildness but never made part of it, and who could—in a fashion—tame wildness for a time. He watched, at a safe remove. Watched, impressed in spite of himself, that these diminished, helpless children could invoke the heart of a power they did not understand, but were descended from.

  The girl who crawled on the ground had power. She would never realize it; it existed as potential, revealed only at moments like these, when the wildness brought their mysteries to their fullness. She was almost finished. A few moments from now, these grounds would not be safe.

  But he was interested in a young man who resided within them, and he would not leave without speaking to him.

  In the darkness—and what darkness could there be in these lands of moon and stars?—he found the human. The injuries done him—surprising injuries—were obvious although they could not be seen; the air was heavy with the scent of dried blood.

  He sat by the side of a wagon; at a time when his kin slept, he was sleepless. The weight of his anger, like the scent of his blood, was tangible to the Kialli Lord; more so than the heavy wooden wheel at his back or the damp ground beneath the blankets he sat on.

  "Nicu," Ishavriel said.

  The man looked up, and the Kialli Lord could clearly see the boy in his face. The suspicion was instant; the anger that had been turned inward, leaped out.

  "You!"

  He could have crushed the boy's throat before another word escaped, but he allowed himself to be touched; to be pushed; to be shoved back.