Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (27 page)

An early lesson—never let go of this sword. She had learned it quickly, although when she had reached the age of fourteen, she had insisted on learning to fight with other weapons as well. It was a simple precaution, and one Lord Isladar had shown pride in, for the sword was obviously enchanted, and it was an enchantment that, having been placed there by another, could never be fully trusted.

The sword itself had been that most suspicious of things: a gift. Isladar had offered it to her while its maker looked on, as if observing a ritual.

"This has never been done by our line," the strange
Kialli
lord had said.

"Nor will it be again. I fear the time for your art has passed."

"Will you take this risk, mortal?" He turned to face her for the first time, his eyes unblinking and devoid of everything but a bleak, bleak curiosity. She remembered it clearly, could label it only now. As a child, she had thought him sad.

Sad.

She looked to Isladar for guidance; his face was impassive. It was enough. She nodded.

"You are capable, in my estimation, of summoning a cruder weapon with no ties to any other maker's hands."

Lord Isladar frowned. "Enough."

But the stranger was not deterred.

"If I could do that, why wouldn't I, instead of accepting something another lord made?"

"Because the shape and the form of that weapon will not be of
your
choosing, and you might find it one not to your liking. It is created by will, but it is not easily molded."

She frowned.

Lord Isladar's voice was cool and distant. "You might invoke dagger, with no reach. You might invoke spear or bow. Any weapon you created in such a fashion you would be forced to wield as a true weapon."

She absorbed this, the newness of the knowledge, Isladar's annoyance, and the stranger's quiet patience. At last she nodded.

"The sword will kill you, or it will become a part of you. But first, you must feed it."

She took the sword. It was the heaviest thing she had ever lifted on her own. She wanted to ask him how to feed a sword—but Isladar's eyes had narrowed to edges. He was not angry; she had only rarely seen him angry. But he would be, if she continued. Cold and distant, like the mountain peaks. She had hated that, as a child.

She looked up. Saw the man. Recognized him.

"Auralis?"

"Kiriel. I think it's time to go back."

His gaze was wary; he did not stop circling. As if that motion, this close, was preparation for any attack she might launch.

She was surprised when her sword failed to skewer him. But not surprised enough that his countering strike connected. She saw the glint of steel six inches from her feet and smiled; it was the edge of his blade that had hit the dirt between the cobbled stones.

What she had not realized, when she had lifted this cumbersome, great sword, was that she would not be allowed to let it
go
until she had offered it whatever it was it required. She would not be allowed to
ask
. Until she could figure it out for herself, she was trapped by its weight.

"Do you like the sword, little one?" the stranger asked.

"I'm not sure," she said, too absorbed by the sheen of the naked blade to be. cautious. "I don't think it likes me."

She saw his smile—his perfect smile—as a reflection in the, blade's flat. He was beautiful, then. She would have turned to look at him, but she couldn't imagine that the smile could be better than the smile's reflection across new steel.

"Isladar," she said, forgetting his title.

"Kiriel?"

"Why is he smiling?"

"Is he, Kiriel?"

There was no anger in his voice, but whenever he asked a question it demanded more than an answer: he wanted her to think about what she had just said before she answered anything. If she answered at all. But what had she said?

Why is he smiling.

What was Isladar doing? She turned, sword still heavy in her hands, to see his expressionless face. Turned back to the sword. Something was wrong, but it took a moment before she realized that she
could not
see Lord Isladar's reflection in the shining steel. At all. She turned then, to see the other
Kialli
lord. His face was as cold as… as steel.

But the steel… the steel still held his smile.

The stranger's brows rose. And then his lips curved in a pale echo of the smile she had seen. "You do not know what you have found here, Lord Isladar."

"Do I not?"

The tall man walked past Lord Isladar as if he was no longer of interest. That got her attention; no one did that to Isladar. Yet Isladar waited in silence. "I have… misjudged you, young one," he said, touching her; taking her chin in the palm of his hand. His hand was callused and rough. But although Lord Isladar had always cautioned her against the gentle touch of any other
Kialli
, she raised her chin until she could meet his gaze with her own. "I was not a lord when I dwelled upon the mortal plane," he said quietly. "That was not my art. But this… this was." His lips thinned; his beauty was lost a moment to the edge of something bitter. But when the creases in his lips and around his eyes unfolded, he was beautiful. As beautiful as the sword he had crafted.

"Feed the sword, and it will serve you."

She nodded.

"What happens if the sword isn't fed?"

"I believe you already know the answer to that."

"But I—" She did. "If I feed it?"

"You will be a warrior without parallel. You will fight as men fought when the Cities stood."

"Enough," Lord Isladar said quietly. "She is young, and her curiosity might lead her to ask questions in the Court of humans who would be interested in that bitter history."

She frowned. "I don't want to be the best warrior
just
because of a sword."

He smiled as if she had said something very clever. But he removed his hand from her chin as Lord Isladar approached. "I thought the mortals were happy to win at any price? Why would you refuse such an offer?"

"May I remind you, Anduvin, that she is our Lord's daughter. His plans are—"

"Don't be tiresome, Isladar. I expect it of the pompous and graceless Fist, but I expect better of you."

"But I am of the Lord's Fist."

"Ah… I had forgotten."

"Then perhaps I erred in requesting a sword from your forge; what weapon of value could possibly come from a… lord of such diminished memory?"

For the first time, Kiriel saw a
Kialli
lord draw sword against Isladar. He brought his free hand to the sword's hilt and raised the blade, turning it on edge so that it was a gleaming line of fire that divided his face. He called no shield. She had seen the
Kialli
draw swords before; Ashaf, fanciful, had called them tongues of flame—weapons of Hells.

But this blade was different.

She forgot to breathe, fascinated. She had seen the kin fight—and kill—and she had seen the
Kialli
challenge. Of the challenges, elemental was the most enviable. It was a power she would never possess, although Isladar assured her that she would have the power to destroy the kinlord who attempted to humiliate her by offering her a challenge that she could not accept.

But she had never seen a lord challenge Isladar.

"Be certain you wish to continue," Lord Isladar said mildly. "You know my blade. You forged it."

"Perhaps." Lord Anduvin lowered his blade. "But I have not seen you draw it since you traveled the divide. Much was lost in the first transition. Much has been lost in the second."

"Your own blade—"

"I am the master; I am the Swordsmith."

"There were others."

"There were no others!" He lifted his perfect sword. The Southern humans in the Shining Court often discussed the edge of the blade; the temper; the mix of metals that had gone into its birthing. They argued about sheaths, and the style of sheaths; about human conceits. She found any discussion about armaments interesting. But she would never find mortal discussion as interesting again.

Anduvin's sword…

Air had been its sheath; Kiriel had not known, until the hilt was in his hand, that he had carried a weapon at all— although the lack of a weapon meant less for the
Kialli
than it did for the mortals.

"Will you draw your blade, Lord Isladar?"

"If I draw it, I will pay its price."

"I would see that."

"It would be the last thing you saw." His words were mild; he folded his arms across his chest, but he did not otherwise move. "If I have offered insult, it was merely parry; if you seek to die for it—
Kialli
have died for less."

"Or killed for less."

"Yes."

But she knew, when he spoke, that the fires in Anduvin's words had been banked.

"Lord Anduvin?"

"Hush, mortal."

She was silent for the full count of ten seconds. But before she could speak—and she was young then and would have, he turned to her. "Now ask your question."

"Your blade."

"Yes?"

"It is not like other
Kialli
swords."

He became as still as the ice on the mountains outside her favorite window. "How is it different, child?"

"It looks like any other
Kialli
sword," she said, with the ease of youth, "but it… is not of the fire."

"Not of the fire? But it is—can you not see the flames that surround it?"

She nodded, quietly. "But the swords of the others—the others who draw swords at all—have hearts of fire. Flame surrounds your sword, but its heart is steel."

His eyes widened. "This child," he said to Isladar, momentary animosity forgotten, "will be a marvel."

"Or a doom."

"Or indeed a doom. You see truly, child. The red flames are camouflage; they are not the blade's heart. I am Anduvin the Swordsmith. In the Hells. Or here." He bowed. "Once, ages past, I made swords for mortals and for the living children of the gods. This is the first such blade that I have made since—for a long time. And I believe it will be the last. It will kill you today if you do not understand its nature."

The blade burned her now; between the one hand and the other, she wondered idly if opposing magicks would cripple her.

She wondered why the blade of her sword was slick with a red, wet sheen.

"Where did you get that sword?"

Ashaf's voice.

Ashaf's unwelcome voice, sharp with disapproval. Years later, Kiriel would understand that it was no less a weapon than a sword, a claw, a fang—but she would deflect it less effectively, for all her understanding. She did not understand why, but she did not like to see Ashaf unhappy, and if she was the source of that unwelcome emotion, it was worse.

Isladar and Anduvin had left Kiriel in the relative safety of the courtyard at the base of her Tower. Twilight had come to the wastes, and it lingered. When the long night fell, the old woman would return to the safety of walls that Lord Isladar had enchanted to protect them both while they slept.

But until the darkness came, Ashaf felt at ease at the Tower's base. And ill at ease with the weapon.

Kiriel had been alone with it for two hours now, examining the intricacies of its surface, the subtleties of its maker's craft. She had examined Southern swords before—and they were considered to be the finest swords that mortals could now produce. Although there were hints among the kin and the
Kialli
that this had not always been the case, the kin now felt that the Swords of Annagar were little more than sharpened utensils, best used for eating things that were already dead and would therefore offer no resistance.

Two hours, and she did not feel sick, or unwell; she did not feel fevers; she did not feel bespelled. And yet she had heard Anduvin's words, and she knew that he spoke the truth: the blade would kill her if she did not figure out what to feed it.

"Lord Anduvin made it," Kiriel told her, ill at ease as well, but determined not to disgrace herself by showing it— and resenting the old woman's reminder. She wanted to add "for me" but was aware—as if truth in that childhood place was as stark as the weather of the Hells—that this was not precise.

"And why did Lord Anduvin give the sword to you?"

"I need a weapon. And Lord Isladar asked him to make it for me."

"Why? Kiriel, have you blooded the blade?"

She did not lie to Ashaf. She did not need to. "No."

"Good." Pale, wrinkled hands, veined in emerald and sapphire beneath delicate skin, reached for the hilt.

Kiriel cried out; a visceral anger and an equally visceral terror took hold of her, both too strong for words. She struck her nursemaid, shunting her to one side with the full force of a slender shoulder. The old woman struck the wall and crumpled, winded.

She hadn't been hit very hard.

For the first time, Kiriel wondered if she would end up like this: Bowed by age; weak and helpless in the face of the slightest of blows. It was a terrifying thought: mortality.

Almost as terrifying as the disgust she felt staring across at this soft, useless woman, this waiting victim. The sword, untouched by any hand but hers, now hung at her side, its tip trailing flagstone as she turned, slowly, toward the gate.

Lord Isladar's words joined her as she stood, sword in hand in the courtyard before Ashaf's bowed head; the rest of him did not follow. A reminder that he watched, always.

Feed the sword, Kiriel. Feed it, and it will serve you.

She understood, then. The disgust receded. She saw not weakness, not victim, but Ashaf. The only woman—the only person—with whom she could share the desperate desire to be both comforted and loved.

No.

You accepted what was forged, Kiriel. The sword is not a child's weapon. It was created by the Swordsmith; he is
Kialli
in a way that defies your experience. His Art has survived the passage to, and from, the Hells. This is the first blade he has created since the
Kialli
were appointed the stewards of those who have Chosen. Do you understand? Millennia of deprivation have ended with this blade. It is powerful; more powerful than we intended
.