"I think both of them are right," Ileaha replied, with the air of one unable to follow the conversation. "There is no clear path, and wanting glory does not lessen the fact that they are needed."
"Or change the impossibility of the task." Medair offered the confused woman an apologetic smile. "We are alike, I think, Ileaha, for neither of us trusts ourselves. Did Cor-Ibis tell you merely to find me, or to bring me back?"
"To find you. But returning with you was implied, I think. You don't wish to come back?"
"Not really. But I don't suppose it will make much difference."
"No." Fear and sorrow chased personal concerns from Ileaha's eyes. "There is little hope, though few dare to say that the end is a forgone conclusion. The world has been remade, it seems, to Estarion's specifications. He wanted victory over us, and the fire of wild magic he caused has given him just that. And made him monstrous."
"Do you think he knows?" Medair asked, following Ileaha as she started out of the square. "Perhaps being the cause of the Conflagration will have allowed him to escape the changes."
"I don't know. There's so much we're ignorant of, in this new world! We cannot even guess who this person is he seeks."
"What does the Mersian Herald say?"
"That the Isle of Clouds is a sacred place in the Shimmerlan, where, as far as she knows, no-one lives. Or, rather, it is the home of Voren Dreamer, Lady Night, also called 'Lady Death', and that no mortal would dare go there."
"Lady Night?"
"One of this Four she keeps talking about. Maddening, the way things have been reshaped. The AlKier and your Farak have been joined by two others gods. Just conjured up, for everyone to believe in. There is, and always has been, only one God. The AlKier has no equal, and shares Her burden with no others."
Ileaha sounded personally offended by the suggestion, and Medair was forced to smile. She had never heard of the Isle of Clouds, let alone Voren Dreamer, but had little doubt who it was King Estarion demanded be surrendered to him. Possibly, Cor-Ibis had made a similar deduction, though he could not understand how important the woman he had geased might be to the coming battle. He had not heard the result of the Decians' true-speaking.
She didn't know why she was willing to go back, or what her answers would be if he questioned her. How could she judge the right thing to do, when her feelings were so suspect? They were all Ibisian. The pale invaders. White Snakes.
She wished she wasn't so glad he was alive.
Chapter Eighteen
"Kel ar Corleaux."
Medair looked up and found Avahn standing in the doorway of the sitting room. "So formal?"
"I didn't know if you'd still allow me use of your name," he replied, with a solemn smile.
Listening to Telsen's perfidious song seemed aeons ago. "I'm not angry with you, Avahn."
"No. Disappointed." He sighed, and sat down opposite her. It was necessary for him to make a minute adjustment to the sleeve of his robe of shimmering dark blue before meeting her eyes. "I apologise, Medair. I'd told you that same day that I wouldn't keep treating you like a puzzle it was my privilege to solve, and then did precisely that. I'm not ordinarily so ill-mannered."
"No?" she asked, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter, Avahn. We will forget it happened. Perhaps, instead, you can explain to me why the Ibisian Court tolerates a song with such a subject? Waiting for the hero of the conquered to return and drive you out? Even if it is Telsen's masterwork, I find it difficult to understand why it hasn't been banned in Athere."
"Tradition," Avahn replied, his eyelids drooping as he studied her. "You must have lived a sheltered life indeed, never to have heard the song or the story behind it."
"You can't help but probe, can you?" she chided, and the faintest flush lent a delicate violet to his cheeks. "I suppose you believe that bizarre tale Cor-Ibis produced, of me being raised in isolation to pretend to be the past reborn."
"He told you that? Well, we have not found any other explanation which fits. I don't suppose it really matters any more. So much else has changed, I wouldn't be surprised if they no longer even have that legend, outside Athere."
"I sincerely hope not. Have you spoken with the Mersian Herald?"
"Tried to. But many others wish to claim her attention, and I am not able to pre-empt them."
"Not even as one of those who shielded the city?"
He made a dismissive gesture, but looked pleased. "That disconcerted a few."
"Your act won't be as convincing, any more."
"Perhaps not. I think I shall have to abandon it, though it would be possible, I imagine, to have some believe that high-adept casting was mere luck."
"Just stumbled into doing the right passes. I'm sure." Medair sighed, and rubbed her left temple. "Tell me the story behind that song, Avahn," she commanded.
"Without trying to provoke revealing reactions," he said as if put-upon, and smiled charmingly. "Very well. It's a short tale, after all. Telsen, with typical daring, asked the Niadril Kier for permission to play the piece, and a dispensation was granted. Speculation over why was naturally rife, but the Niadril Kier was famed for keeping his own counsel."
"Ah." Medair shook her head, feeling ill. "No wonder your cousin thought nothing of suggesting an affair. It would have become almost an accepted fact, for those who did not understand." And those who had known Medair would have berated Telsen for those inferences, seen Kier Ieskar's silent acceptance, and wondered angrily if it could be true. The Ibisians of the time would have known it wasn't possible, but those of her friends and family who had survived her might well have believed she had betrayed them. Consequences unrolled in her mind and she sat staring at her knees, not caring about Avahn's steady gaze.
Hero or traitor? She felt like she'd been led through a series of decisions where she'd had no choice at all, just so she could betray her people. It seemed fitting that her name had come to represent both things. Doubtless "The Silence of Medair" was guaranteed to make any Medarist foam at the mouth, for the implications of both its lyrics and history. How a woman raised to believe herself Medair an Rynstar reborn would react was another question.
"Most do not believe as Adlenkar does," Avahn offered, in a conciliatory tone. "The Niadril Kier's motives are unknown, and you were right to point out the stain it would be on his honour, if the speculation was true. Perhaps he shared my admiration for Telsen."
Medair tried to picture Kier Ieskar allowing such a lie to be spread, no matter how prettily presented. It seemed terribly unlikely, and spawned possibilities Medair did not care to think about at all.
"I have long since given up trying to comprehend the motives of Ibisians," she said, almost too softly for him to hear.
"We are just like you at our core, Medair," he replied, solemnly.
"That's probably what's so frightening." She sighed, and sat a little straighter. "Could I bring you to believe that I am no-one in particular?"
"It is a possibility we have considered, Kel," said Cor-Ibis, from the doorway. "But one, like many, we have dismissed. You may leave, Avahn."
Avahn, dismissed like the many possibilities, rose without protest and offered his cousin a slight inclination of the head as he passed him at the door. Medair, who had been convinced that seeing Cor-Ibis again would answer some of her most difficult questions, watched as he crossed the room and found no solution within her. That she cared about this Ibisian she had no doubt. Something which had been clenched painfully in her chest had relaxed when Ileaha had told her that he lived, and since then Medair had doubted her every motive, her every action.
As he arranged himself opposite her, she tried to sort through what she was feeling. Apprehension, mainly, for she had too much respect for his mind not to know that this interview would be difficult. She had come in part hoping that she could make herself hate him, see him as an adversary still, as a White Snake, as wrongness made flesh. And to see for herself that he was uninjured.
If possible, he was even mor
e impeccably presented than usual. She tried without success to isolate what it was that seemed different as he withdrew a slender cylinder of parchment from one sleeve of his robe. Not a hair was out of place, not a single crease marred his full robe of pale green and blue. She wondered how he made it shimmer so, whether he had the vanity to use magic to enhance his appearance. She was distracted from such speculation when he leaned forward and offered her the parchment.
Unsure what this signified, she accepted it cautiously and unrolled the tight cylinder as he settled himself back with that characteristic absence of expression. A map, not much wider than her two hands side by side. Drawn in detail with a fine hand, it was immediately recognizable as Farakkan. And all wrong.
Medair noted the forest grown larger in the north-west and the dark border which surrounded most of the lands south of the Girdle of Farak. She frowned over the absence of borders between Farash, Kyledra, Mymentia, Corland and Northern Histammeral, unable to understand the significance of the irregularly-shaped blobs outlined in the midst of these lands. "The Shimmerlan" was written across the entire area. Then she gasped.
It couldn't be. Medair counted the scattering of blobs, most numerous where the western reaches of the Girdle of Farak...had been.
"Islands," she whispered.
"Just so," Cor-Ibis agreed. "I asked Keris N'Taive, the Herald from Ashencaere, for a map to ascertain the location of the Isle of Clouds. I imagine you will not be surprised to learn that we were not long ago very close to it."
At that moment, Medair was less concerned with his attempt to shock her into an admission than the fact that her homeland was covered with water.
"What about the people?" she asked, still stunned. "Has everyone drowned?"
Cor-Ibis made a complicated gesture with his hands: negation and lack of knowledge combined. "Keris N'Taive speaks of beings called Alshem, who dwell in the waters of the Shimmerlan and trade with those on the islands. Mer-folk, if you will. Many of the islands correspond with the cities of the lands which have vanished: Thrence, Varden, Sarenal."
"Dwell? Mer-folk?" She shook her head, studying what little detail such a small map was able to give of this inland ocean. "Half Farak's Girdle seems to be gone."
"But not Bariback," Cor-Ibis replied, returning to the point. "The Isle of Clouds, where Lady Night, Voren Dreamer, makes her home and the Four have been known to hold Council. Kel, why does Estarion hunt you?"
"Out of idiocy, it seems to me," Medair said, twisting one side of her mouth. She studied this man who owed her his life, who was the blood of her enemy and innocent of their crimes. Who held to the same Ibisian honour which had destroyed the Empire. He watched her in return, his eyes silver mirrors, his demeanour too like one she hated for comfort.
"I would be on Bariback Mountain now, if it were not for Decian interference. Or the Isle of Clouds, whatever it's called." She glanced with some awe at the parchment she held. "I don't care to think what I might have become, out there. Mer-folk and flying horses."
"Despite the Conflagration, you are still hunted."
Medair shrugged. What could she say to this Ibisian who was important to her? Should her undefined feeling for him make any difference to the greater question? "Do you hold out hope of surviving this attack, Keridahl?"
"There is always hope. Athere faces a great threat – her walls are strong and woven with magic, but we deal with an unknown quantity along with strength of numbers and casting to equal our own. The fruits of wild magic, as yet not fully known. Why does Estarion hunt you, Kel?"
"Not to fire his troops with tales of Medair an Rynstar reborn," she replied, sourly.
"No. Answer my question, Kel. I am not able to allow you the luxury of continued evasion."
This was better. Threats would make it easier. "Would you force me then, Keridahl?"
"If you were allied with Estarion, then I would be wise to at the very least restrict your movements."
"I've never met the man," Medair protested. "Besides, why would he hunt me, if I worked for him?"
"Why would he offer you protection?"
"I doubt it's concern for my health and well-being."
As an attempt to rile a White Snake, Medair's answers failed miserably. He just looked at her, pale eyes stripping away her veneer of carelessness to the confusion beneath.
"Kel, we face a battle beyond the scope of any before brought to these walls. War to be waged on young and old alike, with the promise of slaughter without mercy. We will not bargain with Estarion, for the reward he sets upon your life is none we would care to accept. But such a demand can only mean that you have a value we have not yet realised. If there is some knowledge you hold, I would ask that you share it."
"I have no knowledge of Estarion," Medair replied.
"You know why he wants you," Cor-Ibis countered, with complete certainty.
Medair hesitated, then nodded minutely. "Yes." She stared down at the map in her hand, found she had crumpled it, and carefully smoothed it out again. She knew that she needed to give him something and let out a breath. "A True Seeing. Estarion has no idea who or what I am, but follows a Seer's pronouncement that to possess me is to gain some advantage in this war."
"And is this true?"
"Where would Athere be without the rahlstones, Keridahl? Arguably, the Seeing is already proved. Estarion's magics may be formidable, but the rahlstones have ever made Ibisian mages an army in their own right."
"He seeks you still, and you no longer possess the rahlstones, Kel." But Cor-Ibis had been struck by this twist, she could tell. His eyelids had dropped completely for a moment, and now were open much wider than before, as if he had suddenly woken.
"Does he necessarily know my role in that misadventure?" she asked, the picture of reason.
Cor-Ibis rose to his feet with slow grace, and stood looking down at her. "Perhaps not. This is not the whole truth, Kel. If it were, if you were that blameless passer-by you posited, you would not have any reason for mystery." He held up a pale hand to arrest speech. "You need not try to convince me you have a love of playing games. It is not so. Tell me this, Kel ar Corleaux. Will you remain silent as Athere's walls fall? Are your secrets worth so much?"
"This is not my war, Keridahl." A tight, small, obstinate voice.
"You are here. It is your war." As soft and calm as ever.
"No."
"Will you maintain this stance as you watch children cut down in the streets, Kel? It will not only be warriors, not only Ibis-lar, who die after dawn."
Medair could only sit silent, angry and ashamed and frozen by vows to the dead. And the part of her which could not forget that Kier Inelkar sat a stolen throne. Cor-Ibis studied her face, his own a mask which betrayed no emotion. Then he turned and walked away, pausing at the door to look back. In the shadows, away from the window, the subtle difference which had teased Medair's perception earlier suddenly became clear. Faintly but surely, Illukar Síahn las Cor-Ibis was glowing.
"I thought better of you, Kel ar Corleaux," he said, cool voice turned to ice. Then he was gone.
-oOo-
"Medair?"
This time it was Ileaha. Medair raked the girl from head to toe with a searching glance, then closed her eyes. "Would you ever betray your Kier, Ileaha?" Her voice was harsh.
"I–" Ileaha took two steps forward, then stopped. "No," she said flatly, as if Medair were inviting such an action rather than asking a question. "Inelkar is Kier. I would give my life for her."
"Even if it seemed the right thing to do? If it would prevent deaths?"
"What seems the right thing to do is not always the best path, Medair," Ileaha replied. She was uncertain of the ground she was venturing onto, but sure of her convictions. "On my name day I gave oath to serve, to obey, to protect. There are no ifs or buts or half-measures. That is like being a little bit pregnant."
Medair lifted the corner of her mouth in a weak smile. "Partly a traitor. You are very certain. And if your Kier were ki
lled, and the survivors surrendered, would you serve Estarion? What do you do when everything has changed but you, Ileaha?"
"If my Kier were killed, my life would already have been spent."
"Matters do not always arrange themselves so conveniently."
"Perhaps not." The young woman stood behind the couch recently vacated, trying to find hidden meaning in Medair's questions. "We will not surrender, Medair, even if the opportunity were offered to us. If I survived my Kier, I would avenge her, or die in the attempt."
"Like a Medarist, fighting on when the cause is lost?"
"That's no comparison," Ileaha objected. "The Medarists fight over something long past, something they did not participate in. Like Estarion, they ground their violence in the dead, lay blame on the living, and have motives based in greed rather than justice."
"Some of them think it just," Medair said, and frowned down at the paper in her hands, not truly seeing it. Cor-Ibis hadn't changed anything, except by making her feel a little unhappier. Baiting Ileaha as a way to lash her own wounds was pointless. She couldn't decide how her oath bound her, could not resolve the conflicting voices of conscience. She wanted so much to give in, to relinquish the burden she carried to those who needed it, but could not bring herself to take a step she knew she would always regard as a betrayal. Give the salvation of the Empire to those who had destroyed it?
"For you have to ask, Ileaha," she said, wearily. "What is justice? Whatever Estarion's motives, can you deny the very core of his arguments? That the Ibis-lar stole Palladium, that an Ibisian on the Silver Throne will always cause dissension, that the hatreds will not die?"
"I stole nothing, Medair," Ileaha replied, skin splotchy with anger, hurt in her eyes.
"No."
Medair retrieved her satchel from underneath the couch, then handed Ileaha the crumpled map. "This is the Mersian Herald's, I believe."
She left without farewells, tired of talking to people who could not understand because she dared not explain. Ileaha did not try to stop her, and the guards did not seem to know she was not supposed to go.
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