The only bright note in an otherwise dismal morning was the lovely sound of screaming in the distance. One of the bodies, he thought, had at last been found.
The Captain of the cerdan was slightly gray. In no other way did he show the strain of his discovery, although Alesso questioned him at length about the details. He answered only what he was asked to answer; volunteered no opinion until he was asked for one; replied truthfully and with an economy of words that managed to convey respect rather than brusqueness or the stiffness of manner that comes from the ill at ease.
Alesso took note of the man's name; he was neither too young nor too old. The General was a judge of character, and he felt that this man might, in time, prove a worthy addition, to his Tyran. He thanked him for his service to the city, offered him a commendation, and released him.
He missed Sendari's constant presence. The counselors that he afforded himself otherwise could not offer any meaningful guidance, being as they were unapprised of the full situation. But the Widan was still somewhat weak, and Alesso wanted—if possible— a full recovery by the night of the Festival Moon. He did not understand fully what would occur. No one did. Not even Lord Isladar would commit himself to a full prediction.
But in the meantime, this—three very grisly and very precise deaths—was the latest move on Lord Ishavriel's board. He wondered what that Lord would offer in counter to his opening of the Lake; he had his reserve planned. He expected the demons to attempt to stop anyone from entering the Tor itself. It was what he would do were the positions in the game reversed.
But the demons were, themselves, occupied.
He had to consider his options carefully; weigh the cost and the value of the pieces he was willing to surrender.
The Sword's Edge was among the most valuable of his pieces. Sentiment aside, he was of more value than the men he had not yet made generals, and of more value than the individual Tyrs. He was not, however, worth more than the Lake or the Tor; to lose either was to lose the game.
The sun's shadows were shortening as the day progressed. The gates had been cleaned and the flowers there tended. It was almost time to open them; to open them and to see who had the temerity to approach the Lake whose waters were said to grant longevity and peace.
But he smiled as he signaled an end to his brief reign in the private audience chamber.
He had made his career, and guaranteed his position, by turning a rout into a retreat—a costly retreat for the enemy. But that was when he had been forced to concede. In the Tor, he reigned, and he knew he was not yet defeated.
She had never seen so many people upon the plateau. The carefully cultivated wilderness that offered a sense of isolation and privacy to those with power and means bowed before the pressure of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, that made their trek from the city below.
Their voices were like the rumbling of distant storms, and even when awe muted them, there were too many for silence to have strength. The Serra Diora stood in the protected shade of a copse of lovely, bent trees, and watched as the crowd traveled between the gently sloped hillocks.
Alana en'Marano stood beside her, and behind them—not nearly as far away as they might otherwise have stood—two of her father's cerdan. There was also a seraf who held a large umbrella that protected them both from the sun's full glare.
Alana was almost speechless. "I heard rumors," she said.
"But you didn't credit them." Diora's voice was soft. Almost faint.
"No."
"No matter, Alana; I do not think any of us truly did. But…"
"Yes."
"He will empty the Tor."
Alana was silent. After a moment, she said, "Perhaps there is less truth to the other disturbing rumors we have heard, if he truly offers the Lady's blessing so openly."
"Perhaps." The Serra Diora looked up from her inspection of that crowd and the possibilities inherent in its very presence. "Alana," she whispered, pitching her voice into the higher range of youth. Alana's face immediately snapped into the lines that meant indulgent suspicion.
"What?" Because she was the eldest of Sendari's wives, and because the Serra Teresa was not present to exert her influence, she was allowed to have less than perfect manners when no one but the cerdan themselves were present to be offended.
Diora willed her lips into a smile. It wasn't difficult; a smile, after all, was a woman's way of controlling the atmosphere of her environment; of making it light and pleasant and cheery when none of those things were otherwise evident. "Could we not," she said softly, "go now to the Pavilion of the Moon? The Tyrs will not require it but—"
"But it will give you a vantage from which to view the Lake?"
She blushed. "Forgive me, Alana, but I am very curious. I have never seen this many people by the Lake before—not even for my wedding." She paled then.
Alana's expression was sharp enough an unwary person could cut themselves to bone on it. "Na'dio," she said sternly, "I am pleased to see that you are capable of playing these games. A little more of them and perhaps you would not be where you have been these many months." She frowned. "However, they are not meant to be used against women unless you feel the woman in question is as much a fool as the men."
She bowed meekly, hiding her expression.
"But because it has been so long since you have ventured out in polite company, I will take no insult from your attempt to manipulate me. And because I am indulgent and old—and far more important, because I am curious—I will even consider it."
"What game are they playing?" The question was softly asked, the edges hidden. The Lyserran Matriarch seldom spoke when the Matriarchs gathered, possibly because it involved a contest of volume and raised voices, or perhaps because speech depended upon the ability to slide words into the cracks between shouting. Obvious scorn and derision didn't hurt either.
Unfortunately for the Matriarch, these skills had never been encouraged; she was very much the elegant Serra and very little the fishwife. Jewel was reminded of this, however, only when she did speak. Even at her sharpest, she was deceptively quiet.
"Not sure," Jewel said, as the Serra was staring directly at her. "But we were there. My Torra's not up to court intrigues, but I can get the small words. Kallandras and I went as far as the gates, but we didn't have the masks on hand; they turned us back. We've got every reason to believe if we'd been carrying masks, they'd've let us in with the rest of the crowd. And before you ask, everyone seemed to be leaving. Most of them were quiet on the way out—good quiet not bad quiet. Almost contemplative. Whoever this guy is, this is the first politically smart thing I've seen him do."
That got a look from Yollana that gave new meaning to the phrase "if looks could kill." She heard Kallandras whisper, Have a care, ATerafin; Yollana was guest in the Tor, and only for the preservation of her children would she put aside the desire for the destruction of the current ruler of the Dominion.
She had no way of questioning him in as unheard a fashion, but the emphasis on the word guest made the situation quite clear.
"There was one odd thing," she continued, letting her gaze hit the dirt within which a special fire was encircled. "They were talking about the blessing that the Lady gave or withheld. It seems that in some cases, when the Festival masks were offered to the water—"
"They were what?"
"They were consumed by fire. It was as if, or so the participants said, the Lake itself rejected the work." She drew breath. "And in every case, the mask was one that had been given out for free by men who claimed to be working at the behest of the Tyr'agar himself. He is said to be in quiet fury, but to be grateful to the Lady for the protection She affords Her loyal followers.
"And I have no doubt that he'll empty the Tor of at least half of the existing masks by tomorrow morning; apparently this added festivity is to continue until the Festival Moon shows itself. But… and correct me if I'm wrong, please… doesn't this work in our favor?"
"Indeed," the Serra Maria said, an
d Jewel bit her tongue even though she hadn't used the title itself, because it was almost impossible to think of this woman in any other way, and it was the wrong way to think in this camp. "That was behind my question."
"And if you'd speak half plainly, that might have been clear," Elsarre snapped. Probably, in Jewel's opinion, because she was irked at the fact that the Serra Maria seemed to already have the information that Jewel had only just presented.
The Serra declined to notice the remark; it was easy enough to do—it had no information content that needed to be acknowledged. Well, all right, Jewel amended silently, it probably wasn't all that easy to do; she'd about had enough of Elsarre's snappish-ness and in Maria's position would have already returned it in kind or hit her by now. It was the graceful thing to do, however. Too bad grace was so underappreciated.
Margret snapped at Elsarre in Maria's stead. Elsarre snapped back. They continued in this friendly fashion while Maria and Yollana said nothing. It was to Yollana that Jewel turned.
The oldest of the Matriarchs fumbled a moment with the pouch at her side, her hands carefully unclasping and unbuckling worn metal. A quiet descended around her; she was unhurried, her every movement deliberate. She seemed, for that instant, to be the Wisewoman, with a bag that contained magic, treasure, mystery.
Or a pipe. Jewel rolled her eyes. But as the old woman worked dried leaves into the bowl, she was reminded of the only other person who consistently smoked a pipe when the discussion turned to matters arcane—and disastrous. Meralonne APhaniel. The biggest difference was that she didn't just snap her fingers and summon a fire; there was a fire before her—one that had the advantage of being made by someone else's labor—and a few slender sticks, and she made use of both. Yollana was practical.
Practical, cantankerous, so Oma-like in her demeanor that one could almost forget that she was also Matriarch, and of them, the one with the most blood on her hands.
As if the stray thought were words, and those words loudly spoken, Yollana looked across the fire to Jewel. For just a moment, Jewel could see the menace that lines and chosen demeanor hid; the ferocity behind the face; the woman who would do anything at all to save her children.
Anything but walk hand in hand with the Lord of Darkness. Anything but leave the Voyanne. It chilled her. Because the thoughts—as they so often did—came from nowhere, and once there, they took root. They were true. She knew it.
"I think," Yollana said quietly, "that the Lord of Darkness has a short memory indeed if He expects any alliance He makes with the men of power in these lands to prevail."
Serra Maria started, and then, to Jewel's surprise, she laughed out loud. Her voice, rich and deep in laughter, sounded like a stranger's voice—a hidden glimpse of a woman who only rarely revealed herself.
"It's good to see you laugh," Yollana said, her tone implying the opposite.
"I think," the Serra said, sobering almost instantly, "that if we are very lucky and very successful, the Dominion will not regret his rulership half as much as he will. He did not choose wisely when he chose to make an enemy of you."
"He'll have other things to worry about." But watching the pipe smoke wreath the old woman's face, Jewel wasn't as certain. "And besides, I bear him no personal ill-will."
"No?"
"No."
"Then?"
"The Sword's Edge."
Elsarre's low whistle spoke for them all. "Pick a different enemy, Yollana. That one—"
"Enemies are made by their actions." The Havallan Matriarch shrugged. "They are never truly chosen. Our enemies, by their actions, appear to be divided. Let us move quickly, Sisters. Let us take advantage of their division as we have always done."
Margret, who had been silent until now, rose. "The Serra Teresa and Kallandras are waiting," she said quietly. "Let us see them off, and then feed the children."
The Serra Diora di'Marano understood the powers of the Lake. She understood the properties of the water that both prolonged life and offered health to those who were powerful enough to claim it.
But the understanding that she claimed was silent, personal, private; she did not speak of it as she stood beside the oldest of her father's wives; the oldest of her many mothers or sisters. Alana en'Marano was, herself, stunned into a wary silence as they crested the hill that formed a natural crown to the Lake. The sun faceted the waters; the winds rippled them.
The Serra Diora di'Marano had been married in front of these waters; handed from father to husband in a ceremony that extended as far back as the history of the Dominion under the rule of the clan Leonne. She had made the most important move in the game that would—for better and worse—define what remained of her life standing in them, dressed in the white and the gold that had been Fredero kai el'Sol's gift to her. The dress, of course, was gone; if she closed her eyes and tried to summon it, feel or look, she could no longer clearly separate it from the equally fine gown in which she had been married.
But his last gift she could not forget—and she was torn between trying and vowing not to. That, too, had been offered her in these waters. With no blood to succor him, and no divine blessing to strengthen his hand, he had drawn the Sun Sword from its scabbard.
And the Sword, instrument of the Lord's indifferent wrath— and He must be indifferent, for no god could judge the former kai el'Sol's service so poorly otherwise—had devoured him; the winds had carried his ashes away.
Yet for all that, she had not given the Lake what it was given now: respect, awe, fear, hope—and tears. She found the tears both distasteful and fascinating; she had spent so little time among the common clansmen. The serafs with whom she had been surrounded would have been as disgraced by such a display of overt emotion as she herself. Although it was a miracle, it had become a commonplace part of her life; even in captivity, she had been brought the waters of this Lake from time to time, depending on the importance of the visitor.
But she watched, now, as a small child approached the ebbing flow of water between sand and rock. Each face the Lake presented was different, as was each view. The Tyr'agar had chosen the area in which Festivals were both opened and closed to accommodate those thousands upon thousands who now made the trek from the city below to the palace above, clutching masks of varying degrees of complexity in their different hands.
This small child, hands clutching something that was supple and shapeless, knelt and began pulling small rocks out of their bed in the sand. It was hard, at this distance, to tell whether that child was boy or girl; not hard to discern that he or she had been born to a level of poverty that often meant indenture in later years.
She saw so few children now her eyes were drawn to the child; held there by the determined grimace on his or her little face. It was beautiful in an entirely different way from the Lake, and it allowed for no circumstance in which such vandalism was unacceptable. The Lake was not a special lake; it was a body of water in front of which sand and stone were set for his or her purpose.
She wondered where he had seen so much water to be so immune to the awe of it, and then realized that he was not immune; he was giving the Lake the only tribute a small child can; he was attempting to play at its edge. She waited as the inevitable occurred; the child edged forward a step; two steps. The foot found water, and then withdrew, came closer, found water, and withdrew more slowly.
She heard the sudden roar of the crowd; the word fire carried up the hill on a dozen voices, and carried back down again on one: Alana's hands were cupped over her mouth to stop anything else from escaping. Diora looked away from the concentric circles spreading out from the child as he dropped rock into water with a grave satisfaction and watched the effects.
A man now stood cowering on the simple, wide platform that had been set up for the commoners to stand on. The people to either side of him had pressed as far into the crowd as they could; he sat alone, his hands upon his face. She heard his cries of shock and denial. Heard the terror in them; the certainty of death, the despe
rate, and undignified attempt to escape it.
But the death did not come.
Instead, his cries were followed by the raised voice of a man who could only be Radann. She did not recognize the cadence of his voice immediately, but it came to her: Peder kai el'Sol. The force of his oratory carried across the murmurs and the little shocked cries of his audience. She spared them all a glance, but her eyes were drawn to the boy. To the child.
He was in the water now, to his knees. The Lake lapped against his thighs and torso before she realized that he could not know how to swim. She turned to the cerdan. "Karras," she said quietly, "please."
"Serra?" His eyes were on the spectacle and not upon its fringes.
She started to order him down to retrieve the foolish child, but the words did not make it past her lips. The boy was in the water. The boy was not allowed to stand in the water. He did not carry the blood of kings in his veins. He was not the Consort. Not a priest.
"Serra?"
"It is… nothing."
She scanned the crowd; she could not tell who, on its fringes, the boy might belong to. In truth, he might have come up to the plateau heedless of his parents, or unaware of them; the tide of moving bodies was a strong pull.
"Na'dio?" Alana came forward; touched Diora's shoulder and arm. "Na'dio, what is it, what is wrong?" But her gaze was turned to fire; turned to the fate of the man whose mask had somehow been refused irrevocably by the Lady's decree.
"There is—" she fell silent.
"There is what? What do you hear? I'm old, my ears are poor. What has happened with that mask?"
"I think it best," the Serra replied demurely, "that we listen to the words of the Radann; he is a man of the Lord and surely fire is also the Lord's dominion. He is no doubt explaining the meaning of this miracle and this sign."
Alana's eyes narrowed, but her harem child's face was serene and beautiful; mild in the shade provided by their seraf. "Na'dio," she began.
Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court Page 75