Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (40 page)

He woke instead. He was upright almost before his eyes were open, and when they did open, the first thing he saw was his hand. It was no accident; on his finger, Myrddion's ring was burning with a cold, blue light.

She sat—there was no room to stand—in the corner of the tent closest to escape, waiting, her eyes clear, her face exposed. He spoke, but not even the wind was privy to what he said; the words for Evayne alone.

"Your father is restless."

Her face was smooth as glass, and her eyes glittered. After a moment, he bowed his head. "I… assume that the gods are touching the dreaming."

"There are gods touching the dreaming," she said softly, rising. "But not all of them are alive; not all of them are known. You are to travel with the Voyani."

"Yes."

"You have done so once before."

He felt the chill of the night keenly, but he endured it; there were other things to speak of, and pleasantries about weather were lost on Evayne. "I was younger. I was younger and the Matriarch…
was
Matriarch." He paused, and then after a moment, he reached for the battered case that contained the single item he valued. He drew his lute out of concealment. The rounded wood of her bowl was old, but it had been magicked; water did not condense in the movement between heat and cold; the wood did not warp with moisture and crack with its lack. The strings, alas, could not be magicked in a like fashion without changing their sound, although he did not clearly understand why this should be so. Maker-born strings, he was told, would endure all, but he had not yet found an Artisan who was both sane enough to approach and musically inclined enough to fashion such things, and although he had seen finer instruments made by Maker hands… this one had some hold on his voice.

He placed her curve carefully in his folded lap, and touched her, drawing something like melody out of the random touch of fingers against neck and string. "Why are you here?" he asked, when the music had calmed the voice of the wind and the ring had become just another band of jeweled metal in the darkness.

"Merely to wake you," she replied, and he lifted his head and met the striking violet of her eyes.

"To… wake me?"

She nodded and rose. "Be careful, Kallandras. The ring… is not proof against the element. Not in the desert. Too much that is buried there is not yet dead."

"I know."

"You did not travel with the Arianni, when last you came. You did not travel in the shadow of the Warlord, you did not walk beside a man who once presided over the greater Councils of Man. Every step of the way will be difficult because you are walking beside a people who do not understand that their way is dead."

"Is it?"

Her own smile was grim, bitter.

He was silent for a long moment as he absorbed her words, their meaning, the things that she did not put into them, and the things that she did. At length, he said, "The Warlord?"

She frowned. "I… do not know. I did not foresee him clearly. I do not see him clearly now."

"And Lord Celleriant?"

She looked away. Looked back. "If the Queen bound him to Jewel ATerafin, he will be safe."

"If she did not?"

"Then he will perish when you reach your destination. You may wish to have Jewel leave him behind."

"I think… that it is unlikely she will agree. She has not changed much, Evayne."

"Yes, she has," the seer replied, in a very strange tone of voice. "But she has yet to realize how much. I will leave you with a warning; the wind's voice will try to bring sand and storm to the caravan. Do not sleep lightly, Kallandras. Do not ignore your dreams. And… do not let the young ATerafin ignore hers."

He was so used to accepting both her orders and her disappearance that it felt perfectly natural to watch her rise and vanish between one step and the next.

Last to wake from dream that night, although wake he did, was Nicu of the Arkosan Voyani. The dream itself was fragile, and broken like web or gossamer the moment he struggled up from beneath its cloudy surface—but the feel of it remained, like an ache in a joint or a bone that has been both broken and healed. He stood at the height of a wide, wide stone tower—a tower of a type that could only exist in dreams, for it seemed to him that the base touched the earth below the clouds. In the distance, winging toward him in a lazy spiral, were things that he at first had taken for carrion birds.

But when their great wings caught the light, when they reared and turned the sky into patches of lazy, perfect fire, he felt… awe. Desire. Even a little fear, although the tower was said to be proof against the very gods.

A dream, indeed. But there was something about it…

He struggled out of the curved bunk in his mother's wagon. Although he was old enough by now to deserve a wagon—and a wife—of his own, the only woman he desired eluded him.

And now, as Matriarch's heir, he wondered if she would do so forever.

Forget about Elena, Nicu; she is not for you. She is the Lady's wild face, and she will bring you nothing but grief.

How can you say that, when
you
listen to what she says? When
you
treat her with such respect
?

She's a woman
, his mother had replied.
And she'll live and die for Arkosa. But she won't live and die for a man or a child, and when it comes to men or children
…

Maybe she just has to meet the right man!

His mother's scorn emerged for a moment, as she showed true Voyani colors.
She's known you all your life
—
something has happened that has turned you from the boy she played with to the man for her
?

It stung. Still stung. When the other girls had started to notice him, when Margret and Elena had first played their furtive games, he had thought the world his. Things had changed—his back pained him, and the skin across his shoulder blades would never lose its peculiar tightness— but what could change once, could change again, no?

He did not bother to creep or sneak past his sleeping mother; her snores filled the wagon with a familiar rattle and creak that meant a sandstorm would half-bury the wagon before she'd be roused. But he did leave the wagon, lifting the flap and cursing slightly at the nip of the chill air.

The man was waiting for him.

He looked slimmer than he had the previous two times he had offered Nicu his gifts. Slimmer and taller, lean but not gaunt. The clothing he wore was robbed of color and texture by the Lady's night, but it was obviously fine, especially compared to what Nicu now possessed. Much had been lost—as it always was—to flight.

But the sword lay in the Matriarch's wagon, and the shield, in his mother's, hidden against a day of need. Hidden against the accusation that might follow it. He wasn't a fool; being publicly lashed had taught him something.

The stranger bowed. "It appears," he said quietly, "that your chance to be the savior of the Voyani has not yet come to pass."

Nicu said nothing.

"The encampment did not suffer attack of any nature."

"The fires," Nicu replied, lowering his voice although he had a feeling—a cold, uncomfortable feeling—that his words would not escape to other ears. "The fires the Matriarchs called protected us." He did not glance over his shoulder to see who might be watching them; did not look from side to side. Instead, he brought his arms across his chest and allowed himself to relax into the side of the wagon, between the wheels. The worst thing he could do to attract attention was to appear furtive.

The stranger's smile was as cold as the night air. "Ample protection against an attack that does not come."

"Or an attack that could not come. The Matriarchs summoned simple fire to protect the wagons, but they went in person to defend the Lady's gift."

At that, the smile folded into the darkness of a momentary frown. Nicu, who had found the smile unpleasant, found the frown vastly more chilling. The desert night was contained in the curve of thinning lips.

Even when those lips relaxed, dispelling the frown, memory lingered. He had always known that this man was a danger. But he had deliberately refused to acknowledge that he was an enemy. As he was leaning against the wagon, he did not attempt to retreat.

"You do not know your history," the stranger said softly.

"I know enough."

"Do you? What have the Matriarchs chosen to tell you of the Cities of Man?"

"I know," he said simply, "that they were devoured by sand because of the arrogance of their rulers. I know that their rulers were in league with the Enemy, and for it, perished. Only four lines were spared. Only four, who had not chosen to serve the Lord of Night."

"And you know that the men—"

"Yes, they led us into
this
."

The stranger's gaze was appraising. After a moment, he nodded. "Very well. I will not play that game with you now. But is not the dream of each of the Voyani, no matter of which family, to finally reach the end of the
Voyanne
? To be judged worthy again in the eyes of the Lord and the Lady; to return—and to claim—a homeland? Is this not why so many of your number forsake their vow and head to the safety of the North?"

Nicu did not answer.

After a moment it became clear that he would not.

"I thought you were stronger, Nicu, Donatella's son. Your Matriarch has beaten all spirit out of you. Perhaps it would be best if we did not meet again."

But Nicu looked up at the veiled threat, caught between two desires, one of them survival. "When—when the other came to the caravan, he said—he said he had the keys to Arkosa."

"Did he?"

Nicu's frown deepened. "What did he mean?"

"You would have to ask the Matriarch," the stranger replied. "It is not an answer that I am capable of giving to one who does not understand the power of the Cities."

Nicu was completely silent.

But it didn't last. The sun was creeping up over the horizon. "I… will… be accompanying the Matriarch," he said at last.

"She is standing on the edge of the desert that we call the Sea of Sorrows."

"Yes."

"Is it possible that she has never made the trek?"

"She's been," he said coldly. He pulled his back away from the wagon's side. "We don't talk about the
Voyanne
with outsiders. We don't talk about the desert."

"But I already know of both. What does that make me?"

Nicu shrugged, and then smiled. "Ask the Matriarch," he said softly.

The stranger surprised him: He laughed. There was something warm in the laugh—but warm the way the desert sun is warm. "You and I will see each other again, Nicu. When you are less ignorant and you understand what it is you have to offer your tribe."

"My family," Nicu snapped.

"Your family, then." He bowed. There was nothing at all subservient or polite in the gesture. "They wake now. I can spend no more time here.

"But I did not lie about the shield, and if you desire the sword—" He held out his hands, palm up, as if in offering.

And Nicu was ashamed. Because he did desire it, even now.

Elena woke early to feed the children.

She stopped at Donatella's wagon to rouse her, and hesitated when she saw Nicu outside of the tenting. It had been hard to meet his eyes since the public flogging; every time she saw his face, she also remembered his back, and she ached for him and wanted to kill him at the same time.

Not a comfortable feeling.

"'Lena?" he said, as she stood, watching him, her expression guarded.

She almost turned and fled; she had, so many times. But they were going to the Sea of Sorrows; they were going
with
Nicu, for he was still in charge of the defense of their diminished caravan. Margret had not kept that away from him, although she had diminished him greatly by the punishment she had chosen to inflict.

"'Lena?" He said again, profoundly hesitant, just as she was.

She ground her teeth a moment, and then she
looked
at him. "Nicu."

"Are you going to—"

"Yes. I'm going to feed the children. Donatella is supposed to help."

"She's sleeping. She's been—she's been tired."

Elena shrugged. "We've all been tired. Doesn't matter; the children still need feeding."

He took a deep breath; she waited for him to spit out whatever it was he was thinking about saying. But when it came, it wasn't what she'd expected. "I'll do it."

The silence lasted about five heartbeats too long, and his expression had already half turned sour before she found an answer. "
You'll
do it?"

"I'm a better cook than either you or Margret, if not as good as my mother."

She raised an auburn brow. "Better than 'Gret maybe, but you're half the cook I am."

"We can ask," he snapped back. "We can ask anyone." He stopped for a moment and then added slyly, "we can ask the children. They won't lie to curry favor."

She stared at him for a moment, and she felt, in the space between night and day, that she might one day have her cousin back.

"You're on," she said, "but if you win, you'll be feeding the children for a long, long time."

He hesitated, and she looked away as he said, "but isn't that one of the most important things? Feeding the children?" And he said it in the hopeful voice of a much, much younger boy.

She looked at him; her eyes stung and watered, and she
hated
that. "Yes," she said. And then, before she could change her mind or remember who she was and who he was, and why he wasn't that young boy anymore, she hugged him.

25th of Scaral, 427 AA

Terrean of Raverra

Cherry blossoms.

The young Serra Diora di'Marano stared at a pale shade of pink and watched as the sun revealed what lay beneath its living surface: minute veins of color that spread its branches from the center of each petal to its delicate edge, an echo of the tree on which it blossomed, year after year. But it was not always easy to see those veins, that color that lay beneath the surface. The blossoms—from her vantage as a small child—were out of reach; it was not until the sun perched at a certain height that such mysteries were exposed.