Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (52 page)

As the Radann approached, she lowered her gaze.

But not in time to avoid the sight of the bodies they carried. Although she had seen death in many forms throughout her life, there was still something about the slackness of body, the peculiar fluidity of limb and joint, that was wrong. Neck and head lolled at angles, arms flowed over the rails of the stretcher the Radann struggled with. They had chosen to treat the dead with as little respect as possible; had they taken care to arrange the bodies, to lay them out at rest as the dead were laid when they intersected, again, with the living, they would not have found their burden so cumbersome.

She readied herself for the stench of carrion, but in vain; the wind, unlike the Radann, carried nothing.

But perhaps that was unfair; although the Radann approached from some hidden exit, some egress meant for the use of lesser servitors, the Tyr'agar and the Tyr'agnate emerged from the temple's depths.

Ramiro di'Callesta crossed the path, a moving shadow against the subtle pattern of uneven stone. He came to stand before his kneeling wife, a sword in one hand, a sword against hip, his expression hidden from the Serra Alina because she wisely chose not to interfere by looking up.

"Amara," he said. Just that.

The Serra Amara rose, her hand in the hand that did not carry a weapon. Her serafs remained against stone.

"Serra Alina," another voice said, and this time she did look up; she met Valedan's gaze. "Rise," he said quietly. "Rise and fullfil the first of the duties you have undertaken." His tone was perfect. He offered her a hand; she took it. Was surprised at how steady his hand was; her own was shaking.

"Tyr'agar." She looked beyond him to where the bodies lay in their unceremonious pile of arms and legs and lolling, slack faces.

"Yes."

Was this where she had thought to come, when she had chosen to accompany Valedan to the South? Was this the homecoming that she had foreseen?

Mirialyn ACormaris' voice deserted her. She heard the howl of the wind, and realized that, had she how to listen, she would have heard it from the moment she had traveled across the border, secure in the confinement of a palanquin whose curtains could be drawn in such a way that they kept nothing out, yet allowed nothing unwanted in.

She inclined her head. Drew breath. She was Lambertan now; that was all that was required. Her gown was green, the color of life that seemed so obscene in this place. But it was also embroidered with gold, and that color was the desert's. Men died and killed for it, always, and it slipped through their fingers like water through a tightly cupped palm.

She began to walk toward the bodies; at some point, Valedan's hand fell away.

Only when she reached them did she feel the lack of support. But she was used to this.

There was memory here, unlooked for. She accepted it.

Who are these men?

The first deaths.

Lambertans.

They are not Lambertan, Brother.

But they are, Alina. They are the people who have given their life in my service; they protect our honor and our lands. The lowest of serafs, the highest of Tyrs—in the end, this is what is left us.

Look, look well.

Memory was such a tricky game.

Why did they die?

They were killed
, he said,
in the service of the Lord
.

But we serve the Lord.

He had laughed. Her perfect brother, the pride of their father and mother, the pride of their people.

The Lord cares little for service, and he plays no favorites. They proved themselves worthy of his regard because they did not die like cattle. That is all.

Thus had she first seen the regard of the Lord, and she had vowed that day that she would serve the Lady, if she chose to serve at all.

The bodies were not whole. The wounds that had killed these men no longer wept, but if bodies told stories, the black gashes across chest and throat were the verbs, the nouns, the formality of language.

It was a familiar language. She stared at them for a long time as the cadences of memory gave that language meaning.

"Serra Alina?"

She was aware that the Terrean of Averda and the Terrean of Mancorvo were separated by a profoundly bitter history. Aware as well that if they could not forsake that history, the war that was coining would sweep across them like fire across dry brush.

The flames of that fire were orange and gold, and the winds carried the sparks to every corner of her awareness, as if awareness were geography.

"Tyr'agar," she replied, finding voice because to do otherwise was to tender disrespect in front of men whose respect was necessary. Almost against her will, she bent. The folds of silk brushed the awkward bend of knee and elbow as she reached out to brush face with the tips of her fingers.

The face was cold. Geography indeed. A place.

She could return from it if she chose. But she was not certain where that return would bring her.

It is the first death you will see, Alina; it is not the last. The last death you are certain of seeing is always your own.

But this was wrong.
Mareo
, she thought. It was the first time in years that she had pronounced his name without bitterness or anger, and she felt the loss keenly.
Mareo, what have you done? You could not have fallen so low as this
.

The Lord
, he said,
is not concerned with honor
.

Ser Mareo
, Fredero par di'Lamberto had cut in, curtly,
enough. The Lord is concerned with honor; he is not concerned with life. Life is not the prize that he grants to those who adhere to his rule. There is more to life than merely living
.

Ai, Fredero, ai. So you have said, and if you say it, who will forsake us all for the Radann, I must believe it.

Fredero was dead.

These bodies brought that fact home bitterly, painfully. The difference between knowledge and loss was profound.

She turned to the boy king who stood at her side, waiting, and she steeled herself to meet his gaze.

He lifted a brow in question.

"Yes," she said. "These men were my brother's men. They were bound by oath to serve the Tyr'agnate of Mancorvo until their death."

He nodded, as if he expected no less, but his eyes did not leave her face; they absorbed the expression that she could not keep from her lips or the corners of her eyes. "Valedan—"

"Thank you, Serra Alina. Thank you. You have done enough. I am… in your debt."

She became aware, when he at last looked away, that his were not the only eyes upon her. The Serra Amara en'Callesta's face was carved from the same material as her dead son's sword.

She did not demand Alina's death, although it would not have surprised the Serra Alina to hear her do so. But her hand did not leave her husband's. It was a rare man who was willing to humble himself by such an overt display of affection. Serra Amara was a wife of such a caliber that Alina was almost shocked that she clung to that contact in so public a circumstance—but perhaps that was part of Callesta's strength.

She did not demean Serra Amara's loss by bowing, or kneeling or begging for forgiveness; there was only one way to make that plea that would give it strength and truth, and the Serra Alina di'Lamberto was not yet prepared to see the last death her brother had spoken of so many years past.

"Ser Ramiro kai di'Callesta," Valedan said, in the loudest voice anyone had used since they had arrived before the Radann's temple.

Almost grateful, Alina let her attention be caught and held.

"Tyr'agar," Ramiro di'Callesta replied.

Valedan met the Tyr'agnate's gaze without blinking, but his hand—his hand moved to his swordbelt. Before anyone could react, he had unfastened the buckle that held it in place. The scabbard, weapon enclosed, fell to stone, clattering loudly as if from a great height.

She did not understand.

But she heard the intake of Ser Anton di'Guivera's breath. "Tyr'agar," the swordmaster said.

Valedan lifted a hand; his gaze did not waver. "This weapon has no name," he said, "and no history that any man speaks of. I have worn it, I have wielded it, I have attempted to honor it, but it is what it is: a swordsmith's fine work, a thing of metal."

Baredan di'Navarre's voice joined Ser Anton's. "Tyr'agar—"

Again, Valedan lifted a hand. Again, an older, more experienced voice fell silent.

The sun was hot.

"I am not your kai," Valedan continued. "I am not your son, and I will never be that. I will never be Callestan, and I will never live the life of a Callestan clansman—and I have seen, today, that that is a profound loss. I will regret it."

The Serra Amara's fingers tightened.

"And I regret the loss of the kai I did not meet. Let me honor him in my own fashion."

The Serra Alina di'Lamberto understood, then. Understood what Ser Anton and Ser Baredan di'Navarre had understood immediately. She lifted a hand, as they had lifted voice, but let the hand fall away.

"We ride to war. We declare it. At the end of the battle, on whatever field it is fought, I will wield the Sun Sword." His tone allowed for no possibility of failure, although without Lamberto, Alina knew that victory was not possible.

"But if you will it, the sword I draw to declare our war beneath the Lord's gaze and before the Lord's men will not be so insignificant a weapon as the one I wore on my journey home."

Ramiro di'Callesta looked at the blade in his hand; it was the first time he had looked away from the kai Leonne.

He spoke a word, but that word was deprived of sound.

"I will carry that sword against your enemies, kai Callesta; I will carry it against mine. They will be one and the same."

"And what of my living son?"

"When battle is done, I will give to your living son the sword that is his due, now that he must take the place of his brother. I will give him a sword with a history of war; a sword that has ushered in a battle that will define the Dominion as certainly as the first battle fought by the first Leonne did."

"And will you seek justice for us?" the Serra Amara said, speaking for the first time. "Will you forsake your victory for the sake of my dead son?"

"Serra Amara," Valedan replied, "I give you my oath that I will stop at nothing to avenge your loss. I will find your son's killers—not the weapon, but the hands behind it—and I will not rest until they are dead."

She fell to white silk then; rested against stone; her serafs did not dare to approach to slide the mats between her knees and the ground. But she did not face Valedan; she faced the man whose hand she held. Her fingers were white as bone, her arm a line that connected them, be she in the subservient posture and he proudly standing.

"Husband," she said, in a voice that barely carried, that broke between syllables. "As you love me, give the Tyr'agar my son's sword."

"This sword cannot just be given," he replied, eyes not on his wife, but on the Tyr'agar. "It is of Callesta; it is wielded by Callestans. It is the sword the kai carries." He lifted his hand, his free hand, and said, in a voice that was painfully gentle, "Serra Amara."

She released it, although her hand shook as she did.

Lifting his hand, lifting the sword by the hilt, Ramiro di'Callesta faced Valedan kai di'Leonne. He cut the mound of his palm; it bled freely.

Nothing was red in this garden. The fall of blood from a living man seemed shocking as it spread in shaky circles beneath the feet of the Callestan Tyr, splashing his wife's sari.

Valedan walked toward the kai Callesta. When he reached him, he held out his hand; the kai Callesta passed the burden of his son's sword to a stranger.

That stranger brought the edge of a blade that had tasted Callestan blood across his own hand; it, too, bled.

They faced each other in front of men who had become utterly, completely silent, as if wind had stolen all movement, all ability to move. Not even the rise and fall of chest could be discerned. History was being written here, in the only indelible ink.

Although wisdom counseled against the act, the act itself had such raw power it could not be judged.

"
Callesta."
Valedan said softly. He locked hands with the Tyr'agnate, bringing wound to wound and blood to blood.

There was no oath in the Dominion that was greater than this. Serra Alina di'Lamberto had never seen it sworn. Wind bore the word of men. Wood bore the cut of swords. But men? Almost never.

"There is more," the Tyr'agnate's voice was the fire's voice.

"I will face it," the Tyr'agar replied.

"You will," Ramiro di'Callesta said evenly. "You have my blood, and I yours.
Callesta
," he cried. And he drew
Bloodhame
.

Valedan bowed. "Tyr'agnate," he said quietly, "if your kai's sword had a name, let me know it now."

The Tyr'agnate responded, "When we are at last upon the field of battle, and the enemy is arrayed before us, I will tell you what the sword is called."

2nd of Misteral, 427 AA

Sea of Sorrows

The desert was not what Jewel had expected. She had heard tales, carried by her most traveled of merchants—or their guards—and she knew that it was a place that was barren of water, and therefore, of life. She had expected to see that lack of life, to know it on some instinctive level, the way one knows a corpse from a man who sleeps.

But in the wiry, short scrub that skirted the desert heart, she saw a type of life she also recognized on an instinctive level, and when she walked across the scrub and the cracked ground, she thought not of death, or even the absence of life, but of a life that is furtive, hidden, impossible—even in these barrens—to destroy.

"Jewel."

"Hmmmm?"

"You were smiling. I haven't seen you smile with that ease since Alea's death."

The smile broke, wave against seawall.

He surprised her. After a moment, he spoke. "I am sorry. I forget that your moods are only fragile when there is some element of joy in them."