Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (83 page)

The Arkosans drew back, tracing a circle in front of their faces with their right hands, and quartering it with their left. Only the Matriarch was unmoved.

She watched, as the Serra watched, her face lit by her proximity to the visible heart of the seer's vision.

Time passed. They watched as the seer's brow shifted marginally; watched as she passed her hand once, twice, and a third time over the surface of the crystal, as if to wipe it clean.

But they did not speak until that crystal, dull surface trapping the hint of roiling clouds, was once again swallowed by the robes she wore.

"Evayne?"

"ATerafin. Well met. I see that… you have Yollana of the Havalla Voyani as well. How… unusual." The frown lingered as her lips stretched thin. "Forgive me; this is not… the time… to converse.

"Serra, your seraf is not dead. He is… mounted… and he is fleeing for his life, but I believe his mount will carry him to the appointed meeting place. Levec."

"Wait!"

But the seer caught the healer's arm and took a quick step forward.

She was gone in an instant; the moon's light struck ground where a moment before she had forced it to cast shadows.

"Damn her!" Margret spat.

"I think," Yollana said, speaking for the first time, "that there is no damnation she could face that is worse than the one she faces daily. Come, Matriarch. Let us concentrate on what we do know, rather than what we do not."

"What?"

"We're going to freeze to death if we don't find shelter soon. For a start."

The Matriarch frowned at this almost open criticism. Frowned and accepted it; it was true. She shouted for Elena, and Elena appeared at once; they conferred for a second or two, but in the end, there was little to confer about.

They could take to the ships, or they could remain aground, with no tenting, wet clothing, and the rest of the Lady's Night to wait through.

The wagons became a very, very crowded home for the Arkosans. They were not large—a fact driven home by the presence of so many people within them—and those that could withstand the cold with ease were left to their own devices.

Lord Celleriant and Avandar Gallais chose to continue their journey on foot. Jewel had offered to join them, but aside from the dubious entertainment offered the Arkosans when the inevitable argument had ensued, she chose, in the end, to remain with Elena.

Margret, Tamara, Yollana, the Serra Teresa, Stavos and his wife, Caitla, traveled in Margret's ship; Nicu, his two men, Jewel, and Donatella traveled with Elena.

The water jugs, some cracked, were difficult to ignore, and sleep was scant, but that many bodies in an enclosed space produced the heat so necessary to survival.

"It's only one day," Margret told the Arkosans. "One day. If we travel this way, we will arrive more quickly than by foot."

"And how are we going to go home?"

The Matriarch shrugged, deflecting Tamara's well-honed worry with an ease that spoke of too many years' practice.

"Let us hope," she said lightly, "that the ancestors prepared for this, years ago."

"Margret—"

She spread out her hands, weary, the cool, clean air outside an almost irresistible temptation. "Ona Tamara, the food was in 'Lena's ship; the water in mine. We lost tenting and blankets—"

"Which stop us from freezing or burning."

"—but if we must, we can travel like this. As the jugs empty, we can hang them from the sides of the ship, and we'll gain room that way. By the time we're home—"

Her aunt snorted. Turned and smacked her cousin's shoulder sharply. "Don't light that here!"

His great growl filled the small cabinet. "With what? I wanted to make sure it hadn't cracked. That's all. Besides," he added, looking at the contents of his pouch, "the weed is sodden."

Yollana laughed. "If you can stand it, you can have some of mine."

"Yours is dry?"

"Drier than that; that looks like you scraped it off the underside of your boot." She reached into her pouch while Tamara choked back a flood of invective, and brought out a medium-sized jar. The lid unscrewed, tongues scraping grooves as she twisted it. "Come join us, Margret."

"I don't smoke."

The old woman shrugged. "You will." She stuffed her pipe carefully, handed it to Stavos, and took his in turn. When the bowl of both pipes had been filled, she whispered three words and snapped her fingers.

A small fire hung, like a pendant on some invisible chain, between them. Stavos' eyes went wide, but Yollana shrugged. "It won't last," she said, leaning forward. "Best use. it now." She exhaled. Leaned back.

"Matriarch," she said, and her voice seemed firmer, "tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"When we arrive, you'll know. You should try this, Margret. It soothes the nerves." Her lips thinned around a transparent stream of smoke.

"I can't afford to be soothed." Margret coughed. Loudly. It was considered poor form—and worse survival instinct— to openly criticize a Matriarch, even if you were one. She stood instead, seeking the relative peace of the open sky.

The door creaked just loudly enough that she could get out of the way before it hit her.

"It seems," Yollana said, holding an unlit pipe, "that Tamara doesn't approve of my habit."

"And she
told
you this?"

"Eloquently. For an Arkosan."

"It's the night."

Yollana shrugged. "Or her intelligence. We need to speak."

"There are no heartfires here."

Yollana's brows disappeared into her hairline. They fell again. "You don't understand the power of the wards you drew, do you, Matriarch?" She lifted a curved hand. Brought it toward the symbol painted on the side of the ship. It began to glow, and brightly.

Yollana grimaced. "Our ancestors were not friendly."

"Never mind our ancestors; we don't have to look back at the dead to see how we squabble."

"True enough. The squabbles must end, now."

"Between Havalla and Arkosa, they have ended. My word on it."

"And mine."

"Then speak, Yollana. Say what must be said."

The old woman hesitated. Margret found the hesitation profoundly disturbing. "Yollana?"

"We had no warning."

"No."

"We should have."

"Against the storm?"

"Against the creature that brought it, yes. Against an outsider, an intruder, yes. My wards are not as strong as the wards that guide your ships—but they are strong enough. The rain came without warning."

"There are outsiders here."

Yollana spit. "We do not have the luxury of ignorance. Another time, perhaps."

The Arkosan Matriarch raised her face to the moon; held it there, in light too cold, too silver, to offer warmth. A Northern merchant had once said the moon and stars were guides by which sailors swore that they could lead a ship home if one knew how to read them.

She had never learned their language. What guided the Arkosans now was blood and magic. Her heritage, however poorly she understood it.

"What wards?" she asked the question quietly. Honestly. Yollana sat, heavily, on her legs. "Blood wards," she said. "Of the simplest kind. They are most easily invoked."

The younger woman closed her eyes. She started to frame a question in the darkness, but the answer was obvious, and she hadn't the heart to ask it. "Arkosan blood."

"Yes."

"But you—"

"No. I did not shed it."

"Then there's some chance—"

"No. I am old, Margret. With age comes all manner of infirmity—but wisdom comes as well, with cost. I have been among the Arkosans for long enough."

It was true. Margret knew it was true.

"Help me up, girl. Help me up, help me in."

The unfamiliar weight of a crippled woman tested the reserves of Arkosan strength. But it was easier to help her than to listen to what she had not said.

Someone gave their blood to the servants of the Lord of Night. Someone Arkosan. Someone here.

Because without the blood, Yollana's wards would have blazed with a light that would have been seen for miles beneath the clear sky; for yards beneath the clouds.

She did not ask who.

The simple spell would not give Yollana that answer, and besides, it was an Arkosan affair now.

But after she left Yollana in the Serra Teresa's care, Margret once again sought the night air; the nightmares that drove her into the moonlit sky did not need to wait for sleep.

In the Hells, there was only one price for failure. But the word failure, in the Hells, was judiciously applied: Only the stronger used it, and only when speaking of their inferiors.

The Serpent had been laid to rest. Forsaking the elemental air, the wild wind, the voice of the storm where two elements overlapped, she had landed on the ground not far from where Lord Ishavriel had woken her.

Her blood burned the sands it struck, and it flowed freely. She would be of no further use to him in this battle.

So he watched.

Her great teeth cut the scattered, dry surface of the earth; her claws broke its skin; her tail shattered the small rippled edges wind had made. She roared, as she twisted her back, snapping, snarling at the things she could no longer see.

He was one of them.

Distance would have been the safest course, but at a distance, the spectacle lost visceral impact. He felt the earth riven; he felt the heat of her breath, knew that had she come to nest in a place that boasted life, none would have survived her death.

None would have remembered it.

Ishavriel was
Kialli
.

He stood, the only protrusion upon the fiat plain, as she raged. Her claws passed an inch above his head; her tail dug furrows in the sand before his feet. He moved lightly out of her way when she sought to pass through him, partnering the lumbering, frenzied motion of her fear and pain with a series of elegant, silent steps. Twice, he was forced to leap, once over her tail, and once over the wide arc of her snapping jaws.

But he used no magic, summoned no element.

She was dying, but she was still a threat; his magic was not weak enough to pass undetected.

Not yet.

Ishavriel, tender of human souls, had never been a reaver; he had never been a Binder. All of the bindings made or forged in his life upon this plane had been subtle, a patched quilt of emotional manipulation, logic, and gamble.

He did not regret them.

His only regret, in the darkness, was the lack of light; the lack of its play across her moving form; the way night turned her colors—for they were there, a subtle iridescence across the surface of obsidian.

At the last, she grew weary. Her thrashing quieted. She lay across the ground like a creature out of its element.

He was in danger, then.

Even blinded, in the stillness she could sense him.

He knew no pity. If he had once known pity, it was lost with his youth, and not even the memory remained.

But danger or no, something moved him, something foreign. He lifted a hand, laid it against her side.

She was not
Kialli
. She had never served the Lord willingly, although she had served Him in her time, and in His.

You stood against a Lord of the Arianni.

The thought was without envy, although a terrible envy had struck when Lord Celleriant's sword was drawn.

Rest. Rest now.

She lifted her wounded, scarred face; it hovered a hand's span above the earth. He felt her sides expand as she inhaled. She cried out, a roar, a plea, a command.

The earth answered.

He bounded clear as it opened beneath her, like a set of great doors, pulled on either side into a wide, wide chasm. She hovered a moment in the air, and then with a soft whoosh of sound, the air collapsed and the earth reached up to catch her, far far more gently than he had expected.

He had never been a Binder.

He took—as was his right—the weaker and the lesser of the kin, or those who challenged him; he tormented—as was his duty—the fragments of mortal souls who had chosen to abide in the Hells.

This creature was neither of those.

He could not have said why he did what he did next, and he would wonder, later, for he was incapable of forgetting the act.

He reached out with the power that, hallowed by the Hells and purified there, was his by right. He found the shadows that lay across both of her hearts, and he touched them, testing their strength.

The Lord held nothing lightly.

And who better to understand that than one of the
Kialli
!

But this was an old, old binding; Ishavriel was impressed that she had remained in its thrall during the long absence of the Lord; it was a testament—as if one were needed— to the power of the gods.

He touched her wounded side, and when he pulled back, his palms were slick with her blood. The wound still wept; the blood was warm. He knew who she was. Her name had not been spoken since his youth, but he could remember the telling that stretched from one night to another. He recalled it now, while the blood was cooling on his hand. He whispered; exposed the flesh beneath his skin. Blood mingled.

Had she been stronger, he would never have attempted the spell. But he thought she would never be strong again; that she, like the gods, would be buried in memory, and in memory alone would she grace him.

He slid beneath the bindings placed upon her hearts, replacing them with his own. She did not struggle; she accepted the thrall as if she could tell no difference between one master and the other.

He worked as the moon fell, familiarizing himself with the stamp of ownership that had allowed—had forced—her to awaken. But only when the sun crested the horizon did he shrug the old bindings off completely. An act of superstition, perhaps.

Or perhaps an act of desire, for as the night sky faded into the grays and golds, the pinks and blues of dawn, he could see the light play across the entirety of her body, could see what she might have looked like, had she been in her full glory. He held her from her place in the earth's heart for a moment, and that moment stretched.

But he could not afford to let it stretch forever; much was left undone.