Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Then, only then, and quickly—must you summon the fire; it will be a fire such as you have never created in Arkosa, Havalla, Lyserra, or Corrona. You will summon the living flame, the wild fire. When it burns, when it burns and it understands what it can and cannot devour, you must take what I give you and go to the ancient places of power."

  Margret frowned.

  Yollana said, as if she could see the frown, although she did not take her eyes from Evayne a'Nolan, "The Founts."

  "Yes. And when the time is right, you must don these." And from her robes, she pulled four masks.

  For the very first time, Jewel spoke. "We'll know when the time is right how?"

  "The Hunt," Evayne said coldly. "The Hunt will pass through the city, and those trapped by it will die."

  This stranger, this Jewel, frowned. It was as if the darkness did not disturb her at all. "I'm afraid," she said coldly—as coldly as Evayne had spoken, "that's not acceptable."

  "Then Stop it, seer," Evayne said with contempt. But she stopped. Frowned. "You are different," she said, and before Jewel could reply she reached into her robe and pulled out something that should have been familiar to the watchers.

  But although it was rounded and fit between the curve of her two palms, it was also dark as night; the shadows were trapped in it; the light devoured. The Northerner drew a sharp breath and took her first step back.

  But the seer did not notice.

  She looked into those shadows, those moving clouds; for the first time in her life, Margret had no desire to be this mysterious powerful stranger who by presence alone commanded her mother's respect, fear, and obedience. There was nothing, save perhaps fear of the death of the children, that could force her to look into those depths. Because she knew enough to understand that ball was the soul crystal, the physical manifestation of self that seers in legend—and Matriarchs as well—nearly died to extract from themselves. It belonged to Evayne a'Nolan and it mirrored the woman.

  That woman said to Jewel ATerafin, "You have walked the path."

  "Yes."

  "And you have met the Oracle."

  "Yes."

  "She has not asked you, yet, to pay her price." She looked up, her eyes like the ball, a darkness and a danger. "But she will. Oh, she will."

  The Northerner did not reply. Evayne smiled, and the expression was like nothing Margret had seen before on the face of a mortal; but in depictions in the few books the Matriarchs possessed about their ancient histories, the cruelty of that smile was found on the face of the Kialli. Demons.

  "Fine. I'll deal with that when I get to it," Jewel said after a space that was just a little too long. "You don't mind if I borrow your bard, do you?"

  "And what do you intend to do in those streets, ATerafin? You are not even trained. Will you hold back the tide of the Arianni by yourself? Will you stand in their way when they ride?" She laughed. "Will you face the Winter Queen?"

  And Jewel ATerafin looked back at Evayne, and she said, in a quiet, steady voice, "Look for yourself. Have you not seen?"

  Evayne surprised Margret. She was certain, in fact, that all of the Matriarchs were equally surprised; the seer did as she was bid. She searched.

  The silence was long; when the seer looked up, it was not at Jewel but at the man who stood, just far enough away from the Northerner that Margret was certain there was no intimacy between them, but close enough that it was clear he was her protector.

  "I see," she said quietly, and some of the night bled from her voice. An expression like regret but colder and harder touched her features. "Yes. Take my bard. Take your domicis. You want to save them all, ATerafin?" She laughed, and the laugh was chilling.

  "Try. Try with my blessings." There was no question whatever to Margret that the words were a curse, meant to cause pain; they implied certain failure, and the amusement of the powerful at the pathetic struggles of those doomed to fail.

  Margret was afraid of this Evayne. She had been afraid of Evayne before, but she had never realized, until this moment, that this night defined her fear; all of it was new to her, but all of it, someplace where thought and memory couldn't easily reach, was old. A touch of the Matriarch's gift. A touch of the gift that had transformed the woman before them. She started to speak. The woman named Jewel spoke first.

  "Evayne," she said. Her voice held no power and no song, but it caught the attention anyway, "I will try, and with your blessings. That's all we can do. Me. You."

  "You compare yourself to me?" the older woman cried. Light flared and danced, an orange rain.

  Jewel stood, untouched, in its wake, her face pale, her eyes unblinking. She was not particularly beautiful, but Margret could not look away from her briefly illuminated face, even when it was claimed by night and moon again. The Northerner who had appeared to offer Margret a hand from the center of the fire's cross, met Evayne's gaze, waiting.

  It was the seer who broke away first. "Kallandras is right. I have swallowed the Winter to travel before the host, and I must fight it now, and I must fight alone." She took a step forward and was gone.

  "Bitch," Elena said shakily, to no one in particular.

  But Jewel looked up at the word. "Don't," she said softly. "Don't judge her."

  "You saw her. How can we trust a woman who comes carrying the darkness?"

  Jewel turned to look at Elena. "What would you carry," she said softly, the words like a well-sharpened blade, "to save the children?"

  Elena said, "The children will die before we join with our enemies again. And if you can ask that question, you don't understand the Voyanne."

  Margret said, "Shut up, Elena. Of course she doesn't understand the Voyanne. She's never walked it."

  But as she looked at this Jewel ATerafin in the moonlight, she wondered whether or not her parents or grandparents had.

  "Come on," Jewel said quietly to Kallandras. "You're on loan. Avandar?"

  "I am… ready." They turned; this silent stranger's eyes were fixed to the spot at which Evayne had disappeared.

  There was something comforting about weeds tall enough to smack you in the side of the face, and burrs that were solid enough to force you to sacrifice a handful of hair to get rid of them. She was less thrilled about the mosquitoes, but even the mosquitoes— once squished—had a charming sense of the real about them. This place—far, far from the political turmoil of Terafin—was nonetheless hers.

  She was profoundly grateful for the absence of a mountain pass that had never truly existed.

  "Avandar," she said, after they had walked for a while in the silence of her newfound sense of wonder, "was any of it real?"

  "It was all real."

  "The Mountains weren't. You didn't see them."

  "I saw something else," he replied, nudging the weeds that still fascinated Jewel to one side with what she thought was a spurious use of magic, "but I saw it at your side."

  "And the… the Winter Queen?"

  "You don't have an imagination that is that deep or that dark."

  She slapped a mosquito at just the wrong minute. Frowned. "And the others?"

  "The Oracle and Corallonne are certainly also real, in their fashion."

  She rolled her eyes. "You're being obtuse on purpose, right?"

  "Indeed." She thought he smiled. Hard to tell, the expression was so brief. "If you mean Celleriant and the stag, then I cannot answer the question. Our return was by a road they could not follow."

  "What?"

  "They are not of this world. If they could follow us, Arianne and the rest of the Firstborn could also arrive in a similar fashion. The ways between worlds are protected, and they open only at the appointed hour."

  "Oh. Damn these bugs—there's hardly any water, where are they all coming from?"

  "A good question, although I feel I should point out that they aren't biting anyone but you."

  "Thanks."

  "Pretend they're a dream, if you will, Jewel ATerafin; they are, in a fashion." But to dream she needed
sleep, and to sleep she needed to finish a few things first. She rolled up her sleeves, and there, on her arm, was the Warlord's mark: red broken by gold and silver.

  20th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Tor Leonne

  His existence depended on hers.

  Word had reached him, quickly, and at some cost; the messenger had traveled just ahead of the Lord's wrath. Anya had not returned to the Shining City. He had informed her of the import of her participation at the "big party" as she called it; he had told her, had promised, that she would have a lovely dress—much prettier than Lady Sariyel's finest—and color for her lips and her cheeks, if she so desired. He had made clear to her that she would be the center of attention; that she would be the most important person in the Lord's retinue, and that, for her service, He would be grateful. That seemed to have meant something to her, then.

  She had been so excited. So very excited.

  It had not occurred to him that she would miss that party. But she was not in the Shining City; she was here. And the Lord's anger, when she failed to answer His summons, was impressive. Impressive enough that the kinlord was… concerned.

  The frown that touched Lord Ishavriel's lips lingered as fireworks took to air, a signature of the largesse of the Sword of Knowledge. He had been told that it was customary for such a display to occur only during the night of the Lady's Moon itself, but an insecure Tyr could perhaps afford the expense of a more generous display.

  It was a poverty of beauty compared to the stark and natural dance of the borealis across the Northern Wastes. A poverty, a thing he could reach by the simple expedient of magic, and by the simple expedient of magic, dispel. No; this act had pretensions of grandeur, and any attempt to capture beauty that fell so short was contemptible.

  As were the people.

  Certainly such display had its effect; the streets were crowded, and if there had been tension in the Tor, it was suspended while the lights played across the face of the sky. He had sent out three of his most trusted vassals to insure that, in the morning, the night would be remembered for something darker and infinitely less pretty.

  It had been his hope, his desire—a sign of weakness, but hidden, concealed—that he join his lieutenants in their subtle hunt. He had been so long from the chase; so long from the skill by which the Kialli had been blessed and cursed: the causing of pain. It was sustenance, for those who had chosen to follow in the Lord's steps; the only sustenance allowed them.

  He would hunger for a little longer. Because of Anya. It did not please him. Not when the streets were alive with the souls, glimmering dark and bright, of those who had not yet chosen; whose domain was neither the Hells nor the thing that even gods did not understand. Oh, they dressed; they wore silks or cottons or rough, heavy fabrics he could not identify. They wore gold and jewels and long feathers that had been died or painted by delicate brush; they wore paint on their eyes, their lips; they colored their hair. But these things, noted, were the ephemera, just as they themselves; the flesh was a means of causing pain, but it was also merely casement; the frame for what was of value.

  And tonight, that window was shut; denied him.

  Very well. He had grown used to denial. No Kialli could rise in power who could not exercise control. But likewise, the indulgences, where they were appropriate, were sweet.

  He paused a moment. People moved past him; some fast, some slow, their scents strong and cloying. He could kill with a touch. He did not.

  Somewhere, Anya was in the Tor, and he did not trust her not to get in the way of his plans. She was literally the only completely mad person who had ever held rank or power within the heirarchy of the Shining Court; the rules that governed the Kialli or their ancient enemies were not rules that she even understood. The humans did, in their diminished fashion, but Miara guided and protected Anya, and Miara was a god not even the gods understood; drooling, mad, sly, frightening because she lacked the basic predictability of understandable desire. Power meant nothing to those completely blessed by Miara.

  Yet it meant something, some small thing, to Anya.

  She was terrified of their Lord—but only when she was forced to be in His presence; her mind was not even capable of a child's intelligence and fear.

  And Ishavriel had not yet found her.

  He suspected that she had chosen to hide from him; she had learned, only two years ago, that she could break all the tracings that bound them. He built better ones; she built better ways of breaking them. Twice, she had almost died in the dissolution of that magic, and had he desired it, she would not now be the problem that she was.

  But she had her uses; her power was without equal, and it could be directed in a way that a sane person's power could not. He had hoped that almost dying would teach her not to force the bonds he had built.

  It had not, although she had, in fact, learned. Learned the cracks in the walls of his powers; the weaknesses in the more hidden streams that flowed like silk chains between them. She understood that distance was, indeed, a factor; understood that there were places she could go in which his magic could not survive.

  He had had to be subtle. He could not be the direct cause of torment or pain, although if his protections did cause pain, this was acceptable. And when her life was truly in danger, he had always intervened, becoming in fact her savior. She desired that from him—but she was canny and wise in a way that made no sense. She did not trust him.

  She was far too powerful.

  Far too unpredictable.

  He wondered, this night, after years of playing the game; of having Anya slip his gentle leash, of leashing her again, of losing her, whether this particular and unpleasant game had been encouraged.

  There was only one other Lord who could influence Anya at all. Isladar. And if she were part of Isladar's game, he was of concern. But not of much concern; Lord Isladar had failed. He had attempted to gain power by the expedient of the bastard child who had escaped the city after causing so many deaths.

  So many very surprising deaths. Lord Ishavriel was still im-pressed. Kiriel was, in her fashion, as deadly as Anya; she had, as advantage to her enemies, a less cluttered insanity. Predictability. Weakness. The two were friends, in the way that mortals formed friendships.

  He had taken much of value from it; Anya could not be silent and she was a source of information when it came to Kiriel's abilities, and Kiriel's activities.

  Until, of course, Kiriel had so abruptly departed the city.

  He paused. The crowd no longer flowed, roughly or smoothly to either side of him; it stopped, in a series of jagged but concentric circles, men lifting children to shoulder height so that they might see what was not immediately obvious to a man of Ishavriel's height. He did not have difficulty clearing a spot for himself, although he chose the nuances of expression over overt magic; the wildness was close, and he was on the verge of its great hunger. Caution.

  Caution.

  Within the smallest circle, he found what had captivated the attention of so many, although he had heard the strike and slide of blades long before his eyes witnessed what lay behind their song.

  Two men were dressed in white and black in such a way that they looked not twinned, but in opposition. One wore white shirt and black collar, the other wore black shirt and white; where one sash was ivory silk knotted carefully at the back; the other, again, a deep blue-black. They wore the same boots; they had about them the same fluidity of motion, the same easy grace. And it was easy to judge that: they did not stop moving or spinning; they lunged and leaped and managed to be where their blades weren't for just the split second necessary to avoid shed blood. The two blades in this odd dance were, in weight and length, of a kind. He thought they must be forged by the same maker; certainly sharpened by the same stone.

  With a small gesture, accompanied by a word spoken in a language of power that he had learned so long ago it was almost easier to remember when he had first drawn—and last required— breath for sustenance, he caused one of the
men, spinning on the point of a toe, to stumble.

  He smiled as he heard the intake of the crowd's breath; smiled as he anticipated the blood; the end of the dance.

  Frowned when it did not follow.

  Misstep, and misstep, but somehow the blade that should have pierced him was not there to cut skin, and the stumbling motion was mimed by his partner, built into the dance, made one with it, a part of the odd beauty of their animal rhythm.

  He could have pressed the point, but the pressure lacked the subtlety he'd desired, and one of the most powerful of the Kialli Lords turned, the dance forgotten, the failure remembered. He was not here, could not be here, for his own enjoyment. The task had been set by his Lord.

  Anya was no longer bound to him. He could not be certain where she was unless she desired to be found, and clearly she did not. She could lead him on a chase—if she was aware that he looked for her at all—for a very long time. And if that chase somehow occurred during the night of the Dark Conjunction itself…

  He looked forward to an eternity in the Hells with her, although her soul was not bound yet for a place in which the Lord had dominion.

  The moment the Lord's gate was open, and the forces of the Kialli could finally return to the world unhindered, he would kill her at his leisure. Although he doubted there would be satisfaction in it; the deaths of the mad were… unsavory. Miara protected her own against the predations of his kind.

  A woman offered him food; something round and artificially bright. He took it, wondering what it was. Wondering and remembering. The air was heavy with scent: sweat and wine, joy and fear, silk, cotton, leather; plant, leaf and vine creeping—at the behest of clever gardeners—in just such a way as to frame what did not grow, and did not change: brass. Stone.