The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

  “Is it impossible?”

  His pause was shorter than either of hers had been, but it bore greater weight. An answer.

  “Will she return?”

  “If word reaches her, she will.”

  “Will she return in time?”

  Again, he chose shelter in silence.

  She walked, slowly, toward the stairs that circled the shrine; the night was dark, the air chill. It was cold, even for the season; she gathered her cloak about her shoulders in hands that trembled.

  “Will you not ask the first question that came to you when you saw me this eve?”

  “No.”

  To her surprise, he chuckled. She turned, then; he stood between her and the altar upon which she had, literally and figuratively, offered everything she had ever desired or owned.

  “Shall I answer it before you flee?”

  That stung; she was not a child, to be prodded by her elders, no matter who that elder might be. She stopped, her foot an inch away from the edge of the dais.

  But she had no desire to see the Terafin ancestor take Morretz’s face and make it his own; she had felt less qualms when he had come to her as a dark, gray mirror—a harbinger of the doom she struggled daily to accept.

  And to reject.

  “I do not want the House to devour him,” she said coldly.

  “And you have decided this only now?”

  “It has been some months in coming, but . . . I have decided, yes.”

  “It is a pity then,” the voice, not Morretz’s voice, drifted closer. “The decision is—among the many that you have made—one of the few that is not yours.”

  She did turn then. “Not mine? Perhaps. But it is even less yours. He is not—”

  “ATerafin?”

  “ATerafin. He is not ATerafin. He has never been ATerafin. He would never disgrace his guild by taking the name, although would he—would he, I would have given it to him years ago.”

  “When?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are correct—he would not have taken the name. If you offered it now, he would refuse. But name or no, he has served me well.”

  “He has served me,” she snapped, for a moment losing the fine control and bearing which marked her position.

  “Yes,” the Terafin spirit replied.

  She lapsed into silence and anger. The anger was terrible.

  “Do not let it consume you,” the spirit said, and she cursed him.

  “Does it matter? Anger, sorrow, hatred, fear—in the end they make no difference; my fate, such as it is, is here, or—” she lifted an arm and pointed to the manse—”there, where my enemies watch. I chose them,” she added, “all but a handful.”

  “Yes, and you chose wisely; no House is built without men of ambition. Those that survive this will strengthen the House.”

  “If I had my way, none would survive.”

  “The Sword is named Justice,” he said softly, “but you cannot simply give it away. Or give it to another for safekeeping.”

  She turned then. Said nothing at all.

  The expression upon the face of the Terafin spirit was not an expression that had ever graced Morretz.

  “Amarais,” he said softly, “be wary. Now is the time that the danger is greatest.”

  “To me? Or to you?”

  He did not answer that question. Instead, he said, “Morretz will never return to the Guild of the Domicis.”

  She lifted a hand, palm out, a command.

  But he was already beyond her.

  “He made his choice, years ago, and it was no less binding a choice than yours. He will falter if you falter; that is all.

  “Be kind, as you can.”

  “He has never asked for kindness.”

  “Ah,” the spirit replied quietly. “I did not necessarily speak of him.”

  She started to speak, and then thought better of it as steps—heavy, but not so heavy that they were unpleasant, approached this last of her strongholds, this private retreat.

  “I am . . . trying . . . in my fashion. To be kind to him.”

  “By summoning what remains of Jewel’s den? By delivering the Sword of Terafin into their keeping? By speaking of nothing that concerns your fate where it might trouble him?

  “If these are acts of kindness, Amarais, I am troubled.”

  “Oh?”

  “It would appear, to me, that you do not understand your domicis at all, after he has offered—and you have accepted—a life of service.”

  The footsteps were real. Corporeal.

  She started to speak, but he had turned to face those steps; he stepped forward, becoming one with the night sky that was visible from beneath domed ceiling, captured light.

  Framed by his vanishing form was the man whose appearance he had harbored.

  Morretz.

  They stared at each other. Morretz did not venture down the path to the shrine, but he was unarguably present. He did not speak.

  She lifted her hands to the edges of her cloak, drawing it across her shoulders. It was Winter in Averalaan, or what passed for Winter, and it was both dry for the season, and cool. But she knew the weather as well as anyone who had lived upon the Isle for years; if the chill worsened, it would not become so terrible that it would invite the Northern snows.

  She drew her shoulders back; let her hands drop to her sides where they rested, unnaturally heavy.

  She had thought to remain silent, but the words of the Terafin ancestor remained in his absence. She said, without thought, “this is the last Winter.”

  As if words were permission, Morretz, who was not of Terafin, rose to the dais by climbing the steps that led to his lord. “The last Winter,” he repeated.

  She looked up, and up again, to meet his eyes; she was not a short woman, and she had always known that he was not a short man—but she seldom felt the difference in their height so keenly.

  He said, simply, “The Sword, Amarais.”

  And she tried to answer, but the words were lost; she managed a shrug, no more. The shrug was awkward; it dislodged the line of the too-large cloak she wore. The cloak that had a history that came from a time before House Terafin, before her rule here, when comfort had been easier to ask for, easier to accept.

  Handernesse. Her grandfather’s house. Her grandfather’s cloak, and he dead these many years.

  Morretz stepped naturally toward her, his hand finding the lining of the cloak, the seams of worn and faded cloth, and righting them, gentling their fall from her shoulder.

  But his hands did not leave her shoulders. She could not see his face, and that made it easier.

  Amarais Handernesse ATerafin closed her eyes and in the space hallowed by vow and history, dropped her hand to the hilt of a foreign blade and began to weep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  21st of Misteral, 427 AA

  Sea of Sorrows

  HE HAD a debt to pay.

  There was only one way to pay it. Marakas par el’Sol faced the desert in grim silence.

  The Sea of Sorrows could not be crossed by Northern boat; it was a haze of heat, and the waves that formed in the sand were laid there by wind, baked by sun, hardened by the lack of water.

  He had seen them for days, crossing each ridge, riding each slope, his gaze traveling to the South, although often the East or West called him. To the North, he did not look; it contained only the shadows of Raverra, the Terrean in which the Tor Leonne lay, contested and shadowed.

  He carried his water with him, and he drank sparingly; the skins were not so heavy that they would hold him long if he chose to be careless. His desert craft could lead him to succulents and night flowering plants, but even in these there was no g
uarantee. Only a madman made such a trek.

  And perhaps he was mad. He had only himself as judge; he could ask no other’s opinion. Marakas par el’Sol undertook this journey in isolation. It suited him.

  After the death of his wife and his son, he had found little comfort in company. But not none. He carried Verragar, and he understood its true nature; the blade brought him purpose, and purpose brought him a measure of peace. When he had first come North to the Tor Leonne he had thought that death alone would grant him that.

  He paused a moment, breaking the hard ground to mark it. It was easy to walk in circles; the heat made a man unwary. His shadow was long, but it grew shorter as he worked; a warning. A sign.

  But the breaking did not lend him shelter; not from the heat, and not from his memories.

  Love had scarred him; failure to preserve what he had loved had driven him from the Terrean of Oerta to the Radann. He had thought that no one could understand the depth of the pain he had felt then—arrogance, surely. He had, with age, come to understand that all men bore scars, all men suffered loss.

  The sun, in the desert scrub of the Terrean of Raverra, was rising and he would have to seek shelter soon. But from memory there was no certain shelter.

  “You are Marakas el’Sol.”

  He nodded. Time, now, to bow and accept his choice. He glanced at the ground, his gaze sliding away from the weathered visage of a man who was not much older than he: the kai el’Sol. The man who ruled the Radann.

  “Among the Radann you will have no other name.”

  He nodded again. There was little else he could do, and words—among men—were used sparingly.

  It was the words he missed most. Amelia had chattered from dawn until dusk, and often past that into the Lady’s time. When their son grasped the use of language—with a glee that encompassed the whole of his chubby little body—she would let her own words blend with his as if words were music, emotion, truth. The silence of their absence had never abated.

  But the man who questioned him did not seem interested in silence, and Marakas understood that among the Lord’s men, power ruled.

  Still, he had waited.

  “Did your family accept this?”

  The Radann kai el’Sol had not smiled when he posed the question. If he had, it might have gone unanswered.

  “If I still had a family, I would not be here.”

  “Ah.” Fredero kai el’Sol had offered a moment of silence. And then he surprised Marakas, for the first time. But not for the last. “My family did not approve. When I became the kai el’Sol, I had hoped it would mollify them. But my father merely considered it proof of all that my family had lost by my choice.” His smile was wry. “My brother wished me well, although in truth he understood my choice no better than my father.” The kai el’Sol rose. “But I think you do, Marakas.”

  Marakas stared blankly at the kai el’Sol.

  “Come, walk with me.”

  They walked, and to the surprise of the loss experienced of the Radann, they walked beneath the open sky.

  Only Jevri el’Sol accompanied them, although by title and rank, the kai el’Sol was accustomed to the presence of armed servitors; indeed, they were as much a part of his regalia as the sword he carried and the sun he bore, ascendant, across his chest.

  Still, on this day, he dismissed them, and they went without demur, leaving only the old man behind. Jevri el’Sol was Fredero’s man. Although he carried the name, and the symbol, of the Lord, his carriage and bearing spoke of the finest of seraf training.

  But he was no seraf; no seraf could serve the Lord.

  Fredero spoke first. And his words stayed with Marakas as if they were personal epiphany. “What power exists without honor?”

  Marakas was silent. Not because the question demanded thought, although if a question had been asked this day that did, it was that one, but rather because the kai el’Sol’s voice had taken its edge, revealing it. Marakas had not come to the Radann to die, and although he had told himself a hundred times, a thousand, that death was preferable to this searing half-life, this empty existence, he was weak enough to cling to life. His shame.

  But the kai el’Sol asked no idle question; he turned once to meet Marakas’ gaze, and his own gaze was a command.

  The sun was high, the bright face of the Lord that Marakas hated. Before he could stop himself, Marakas said bitterly, “Does the Lord concern himself with honor?”

  The kai el’Sol stopped. Jevri’s breath, drawn once and held, was the only sound that followed Marakas’ question.

  Marakas el’Sol knew a moment of despair, and then he, too, revealed his edge; he turned to the kai el’Sol. “You know why I came.”

  “I believe that I understand it, yes. But I wish to hear it before I judge you.”

  “Is not judgment, beneath the Lord’s gaze, meted out by combat, by victory, or by loss?”

  “Perhaps. Do you challenge me, Marakas?”

  “Not you.”

  “Oh? I am the first of the Lord’s servants. I am the man who upholds his law.”

  “You are Lambertan,” Marakas replied evenly.

  “No man retains family ties who comes to the Radann. Was this not made clear to you when your oath was accepted?”

  “My oath was accepted by men,” was the reply. “By men.”

  “It is not the men who accepted the oath, but the man who offered it, that concerns me. Why did you join the Radann?”

  “Justice,” he whispered. “I desire justice.”

  “Justice.” Fredero drew breath and began to walk again.

  “Lamberto is known for its honor. If you seek to sever family ties, if you seek to deny family loyalty, I have no choice but to believe you. But you were born, bred, raised by Lambertans. Do you seek to tell me that Lamberto no longer rules your actions?”

  “Am I only Lambertan?”

  “No.”

  “Then, no, I seek no such refuge. You have not answered my question.”

  “Power without honor is what the bandits wield. It is what slavers own. It is what criminals demonstrate, when they buy swords and wield them against those who are helpless. The Lord bears witness. The Lord does not judge. They survive, at his whim, because they can.” He should not have started, because once begun, the words had a force, a desire, a life of their own; he no longer controlled them. “What honor is there in the slaughter of the helpless? What honor is there in the destruction of the innocent? Surely, if victory is all that the Lord requires—and it seems that it is, indeed, all that he does require—then the Lord that we serve is no different from the Lord of Night?”

  “Indeed. If your supposition were correct, there would be no difference.”

  “And how is it not correct?”

  Fredero was silent. He lifted a hand, and his servant, who appeared on the brink of words—and anger—withdrew. “Your wife, your son, they were not killed by violence.”

  “No.”

  “And yet you resent the Lord for their deaths.”

  “I was called away by the Tor’agnate my family serves. Because of his chosen violence. A plague swept the villages in which my family lived while he was campaigning at the edge of a Torrean not his own. Because I was not there, they perished. And I would not have left them. Understand this. I would not have left them, had I the power to refuse the command given without causing their deaths.”

  The kai el’Sol nodded bleakly. “Surely,” he said softly, “You would have perished in that plague.”

  Marakas had never confused Lambertan honor with stupidity. He understood, by the question Fredero offered, that the kai el’Sol knew of his gift. “No,” he said softly. “I would not have perished.” He looked away. “But had I been a man of power, they would not have perished either, because I would never have been
commanded to leave. I did not understand that. Not then. The hoarding and gathering of power,” he added bitterly, “had only been of peripheral concern.”

  “Do not claim to understand it now.” The stern voice held some hint of the Lord’s fire—the first hint. “If you had power, Marakas, what would you do with it?”

  “What does any man do with power? I would live my life free of the dictates of others. I would choose the course my life would take.”

  “Indeed. Your dead are gone now. And it is of the living I speak. If I give you power, if I teach you its use, what will you do with it? The Lord is beyond the justice you seek; believe that. Only the men who serve him, or are served by him, however poorly, remain in your path.”

  “I—” He fell silent, the sun in the cloudless sky upon his upturned brow.

  “You were not a student of power, not an acolyte of its use. I understand that. I was the second son of the Tyr’agnate of Mancorvo, and as such, could not avoid the lessons you did. I learned.

  “For instance, did you know that predictability is considered a weakness? That adherence to stricture—of any sort—a weakness as well?”

  “Men must be free to maneuver,” Marakas replied, his voice as flat as the Mancorvan plains.

  “Indeed. And so I learned that the enemies of Lamberto must indeed be incompetent fools if they could not unseat my father.”

  Marakas was surprised into laughter.

  Fredero smiled.

  “Of the many things I have heard said of the kai Lamberto, that is not one. He has never been called a fool.”

  “Not never,” Fredero replied serenely. “But infrequently. He does not take well to personal insult.”

  “And what kai does?”

  “As you say.” The smile left his face. “Come. There is a small stone garden in the west courtyard; the shadows cast by sunlight at this time of day are most pleasant there.”

  23rd of Misteral 427 AA

  Sea of Sorrows

  The shadows cast by sunlight in the flatlands of Raverra were not so pleasant. Only those plants that could exist without the easy grace of the Lady’s bounty grew upon the plains, and the ground was often harsh and dry beneath them. But it was not broken yet; it was not sand. Look carefully, and one could see where wagons had cracked the surface of the dry earth, and in numbers.