Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (12 page)

"Understood, Terafin, although I fear that your intent is already understood; you are hampered both by the fact that you cannot tolerate stupidity and that you believe cunning serves the interests of your House well." She raised a frail hand. "It has served your House well."

The Terafin said nothing.

"If it is possible, we will find your girl. I believe that she is of interest to the Crowns as well."

"Oh?"

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, that would be the Lord of the Compact."

The Terafin's eyes narrowed slightly.

Sigurne bowed politely. "And it would be best not to continue this conversation in silence. That very rude young man has a sensitivity to the use of magic that extends for miles."

"Indeed."

The older woman did not so much as lift a hand. But they turned to face Duvari, and stood shoulder to shoulder while he walked with a cool purpose toward them: The lord of House Terafin and the leader of the Order of Knowledge.

Morretz, on the other hand, looked for the Kings. Duvari seldom left the grounds of
Avantari;
when he did, it was as the Lord of the Compact, and he traveled in the company of Kings, in the shadows they cast, the most feared of their protectors. With justification.

Mages served the Kings. The Swords did. The Ten did.

But there was about Duvari the certain sense that he would, without blinking, slowly torture his own children in order to fulfill that obligation. He would certainly torture anyone else's.

If the laws did not bind him.

Another King, another set of Kings…

But that was idle speculation; there were two Kings. While the Empire stood, there would always be two kings. There was comfort to be found in that thought until the Lord of the Compact stopped—for just a moment—his attention caught not by The Terafin or the woman who ruled the Order of Knowledge, but by the splinters of trees that had stood since the Empire's founding.

Funny; they were only trees, but the effect of their fall had been profound. Duvari did not condescend to notice the bodies that were being recovered and carried away around him.

Perhaps Morretz did because he was afraid that one of those bodies would belong to Terafin; that it would belong to Jewel ATerafin. When news of the attack in the Common had reached Amarais, she had stiffened slightly, her face falling into lines that could not be mistaken for a smile by a man who knew her. But when other reports filtered back, even the smile faltered.

No, Morretz
, Jewel had said,
I have no idea how I'm getting there. I don't have any real idea of where I'm
going.
But to be practical, there are a few things we'll need on the way there. Or that I'll need, anyway. Avandar can take care of himself
.

And you'll find these?

Don't be so suspicious
. She'd laughed.
We'll be going to the Common
.

For what passes for food, no doubt
, Avandar had added dryly.

The past was between the two domicis, would always be between them. But he had watched Avandar serve this girl for ten years and understood that the asset Amarais considered most precious to the House was in his keeping.

Somewhere.

"Terafin," the Lord of the Compact said. He bowed, his form perfect. She countered with a nod of the head.

"AMellifas." Sigurne tendered a bow. She understood that the game of rank was just that: a game.

His hands slid behind his back—a position that no one was comfortable with. "The search goes poorly."

Not a question. Sometimes, when he was feeling politic, he couched his phrases as questions; sometimes—as now— he chose not to. No one who had any experience with the Lord of the Compact mistook any question he chose to ask as a request for information; it was an act of manners, at best. A test, at worst.

"It depends," The Terafin replied, condescending to play the game. "We haven't found the wrong body."

"Good."

He surprised them. Morretz saw the curve of The Terafin's brow ripple slightly. Saw her eyes narrow. "You show an… uncharacteristic interest in the affairs of one of the Houses."

His smile was knife-edge thin; his shrug was brief. "It is a… significant House."

"It has always been significant."

"Indeed." He looked past the two women, deliberately scanning a horizon broken by fires, damaged buildings, the trunks of splintered trees. He continued to scan the horizon as he spoke; his words were soft and Morretz had the feeling that they traveled a very short distance. "It appears that you have both chosen and lost at least one successor in the past few months."

She said nothing.

"It is not of concern. Or it was not. Within the Houses, the more difficult elements are often… eliminated… in such a fashion. But your presence here implies that you have chosen another successor. Your prerogative, of course. The result… the result, Terafin, if this is indeed connected to that choice
… is
my concern." He turned.

The Terafin's expression was set, bleak. "Understood, Lord of the Compact. In this investigation, you will, of course, have my full cooperation, and the full disclosure of all pertinent information."

"The decision of what is pertinent—"

"To remain mine of course, although if you desire, the option to petition the Crowns for a Royal writ of seizure or invasive use of magic is your prerogative."

"I… see. Member Mellifas?"

"You know my feelings on rogue magery, forbidden magic, and demons," Sigurne's reply was quiet. Her words were hard to catch, and the expression on her face was hard to look at; it was shorn of both the austerity and fragility of age. For a moment, she reminded Morretz of Duvari. It was not a comfortable thought.

Less comfortable was the implication made by the head of the Astari.

"May I remind the Lord of the Compact that this is not the first attempt on the life of Jewel ATerafin; that the first attempt occurred not because of House politics, but rather the affairs of state between the Empire and the Dominion?"

"No, Morretz," The Terafin said quietly. "You may not."

He fell silent.

"We are aware of that," Duvari replied. "We are aware that the interest in the younger ATerafin maybe be entirely because of her duties to the army that is to travel South before winter. But, as always, all options must be studied, and all information gathered."

"Terafin."

"Lord of the Compact."

He turned quietly, having offered the only warning he was likely to offer.

Sigurne Mellifas watched his back, and when it had vanished in the distance of sparse crowd and coming evening, said simply, "I trust him."

And given that the Order of Knowledge was the one institution that Duvari was more suspicious of, and less friendly toward, than The Ten, that said much.

"Morretz," The Terafin said, her voice like the Northern ocean wind, "gather her den. I think we've found everything we're going to find here."

He bowed.

Evening, 7th of Scaral, 427 AA

Order of Knowledge

The knock was firm.

She did not wish to deal with it.

In the privacy of the largest set of personal rooms in the Order, Sigurne Mellifas could acknowledge the frailties that drove her—but only here. She was tired; the sea made her bones ache; her feet hurt from a day spent standing or walking without break. But these were minor considerations. Major: that she was
angry;
that she was tired; that she could still sense the aura of demonic names imprinted over the Common. So many.

So much for the promises made in the darkest of years. Failure did not sit well with her.

She had seldom had to deal with it. The table beneath her hands was as fine as any table The Ten might possess; the carpets as fine; the windows were made not by Makers, although much else in the room was, but by Artisans, a gift of the mad to the mad in the Order's early years. They were not the only thing about the room that was special, but they were the only thing about it that was unique. And only the man—or woman—who had the right to these rooms by their position on the Council and in the First Circle could invoke the magics placed upon that glass hundreds upon hundreds of years past.

It was not well known.

But she had known of it. In the quiet of servitude, in the silence that the poor or the weak adopt in the presence of unchecked power, she had learned what she needed to know.

It had brought her here;

Sigurne did not rule the Order of Knowledge so much as shepherd it; an Order of such diverse—and often antisocial—men and women was an organization that responded best to coaxing and cajoling, to flattery, and to embarrassment. Orders in the Council fell flat for the most part, and that was as it should be.

But outside of the Council, among the junior mages—as she thought of the men and women who had not yet reached the height of their potential—the desire for the mysterious power and austerity granted by the title,
Magi
, was a temptation. She had been such a mage once.

A temptation such as that could be manipulated; upon such thin foundations, a man—or several—could build factions of which they were, de facto, rulers.

Most of the men and women who played these games had been born into the patriciate. But not all; she herself had spent the earliest years of her life in a village far, far to the West. For a moment she felt an ache that had nothing to do with age. She set the memory aside.

The knock at the door broke the silence. Again.

Bitter now, she pressed her hands against the flawless flat of ancient table and levered her weight from her least comfortable chair. Messages could be sent with the use of magery; indeed, simple requests often were. But if privacy was desired, old-fashioned methods were best, for the use of containing magics could be detected if one knew how to look and was willing to expend the energy and time doing so. As the first member of the Magi, Sigurne knew, with that same bitterness, that she was worth that time and energy. But she disliked the private because too much could be inferred from its use.

She almost ignored it.

But the windows had opened into a deep, charcoal sky, storm held in the folds of something too harsh and dark to be called clouds. There were days when she loathed the position she had risen to; days when she wished there were another mage—any other mage—that she trusted enough to relinquish that position to.

She seldom wasted this much of her time in futile thought and daydream, but it had been a long day.

The door opened upon a man in very fine robes, the hue an indigo that was costly and fashionable, the fabric a stonebeaten silk, edged in something more durable. She recognized his face, although the lines of it had softened from angularity to a sullen roundness with the passage of time. He was a middling mage, although had he dedication and focus, he might have been Second Circle.

She wondered, idly, how long he had stood outside of her doors composing himself; the journey up the great stairs was a test of endurance for even the healthiest of the Order. Only Sigurne, or those granted permission by her, might enter these chambers in a way that did not involve the complication of flights and flights of tower stairs.

Sigurne loved the members of the Order of Knowledge who did, in fact, come seeking knowledge. But the talent born were just that: born. No quirk of nature or fate had given them the desire for knowledge or truth—although some did, indeed, possess it. She dreamed of the separation of the two: the magi from the seekers.

Especially when one of the more politically minded of the mageborn stood at her door.

"Your pardon, Member Mellifas," the younger man said, his bow perfect. "Member ATerafin sent me. He has information, from the House, which he has suggested would be best relayed directly."

"Relay it, then."

His brows lifted slightly, and then his cheeks paled. The man was nonplussed, and therefore blessedly silent, for a full minute. In the distance, unnatural thunder underscored that silence. Not that he could hear it.

No one could be entirely stupid and still be a member of the Order, although many members tested that idiom to its outer limit.

"My apologies, First Member."

What civility she could manage was sorely,
sorely
, tested. Although the title was technically correct, it was a title she loathed, and she did not use it by choice. Not even among the highborn and the powerful.

"Accepted."

"I've offended you."

"I'm not offended," she replied, forcing a gentleness into the words, smoothing the edges from them. That it was so much effort spoke of the weariness brought on by the day.

"Thank you. Please, let me try this again. Magi ATerafin has requested your presence. He has information—and possibly artifacts—taken from the Common shortly after you left, that he feels are of import to both the Order and his House."

"And he did not choose to bring them here?"

"He has seldom been an errand runner," the man replied, the carefully modularity of his words giving way to a momentary sneer. It made him ugly. He worked to contain that ugliness, but it remained like a shadow across features exposed to scant light. "It would be suspicious for him to travel here."

"But not for his aide."

"No."

"Then he is fortunate indeed to have as aide a man who does not mind being known as an errand runner." She wanted to dismiss him; it was well within her rights. And it had been a long day, too long a day to end in such a way.

But there were some things which had to be done; best do them, then relax. That had been her mother's—her long dead, oft forgotten mother's—motto. And Sigurne had spent a lifetime struggling to live up to it. She had never yet reached that blessed point where she might relax.

And perhaps, just perhaps, she was wrong. Perhaps all was as it seemed.

"Will we—"

"We'll take the stairs," she said firmly. It was easiest. The stairs were always such a temptation.

He held the door open, and as she passed him, she smiled sadly. "It is so seldom that young mages remember anything as common as. courtesy. I remember the day you arrived."