Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (19 page)

7th
of Scaral, 427 AA

Tor Leonne, Dominion
of Annagar

The masks had not been made by the servants of the Tyr'agar; they had been crafted—with care and attention to detail—by other hands, and delivered in a wagon, much like any merchant wagon, that had been detained for inspection, as agreed upon. What happened to the merchants who were responsible for their delivery, no one knew; they came to the Tor Leonne, and they vanished from it, melting into heat and sun and crowd, or perhaps into night's shadow: the nights were longest at this time of year. No matter; the masks arrived as planned.

Thus they came easily into the hands of the men meant to use them.

There were four faces.

The first was a study in elegant simplicity: A face, unremarkable in every way. Slightly narrowed circles for eyes, a nose that was neither too long nor too short, too wide nor too pointed, but that still somehow suggested imperfection. Cheekbones that were a little too high under the ridge of eyes, a width and a roundness that was perhaps a little too full for the whole, but that would guarantee accommodation of almost any real face beneath the facade. There was about the mask some of the softness that might be associated with a woman, and some of the edge that would definitely be associated with a man; it was a thing to hide behind. What made it interesting was that the mask itself was made partly of clay, smoothed into a fine, white layer and baked under a hot, hot sun.

The second face was smaller; the eye holes rounder, the features more delicate. It, too, seemed made of thin clay, and when placed against the brow and cheek was marvelously cool to the touch. Unlike the first mask, it covered the whole of the face, leaving room for the mouth. The forehead was high, the cheekbones less pronounced. Yet, Sendari thought, as he held the mask, feeling it almost as a lack of weight rather than as a substantial artifact, it suggested the delicate.

What it did not suggest, again, was the solely feminine. There was something about its line that hinted at steel, at something that women only possessed who—

No
. He set the mask aside, but he had already seen, for a moment, the eyes of his most loved, and most hated, child staring back at him through holes that were meant for the moon in fullness, and not the day's height. Ah, accusation. Anger.
Not now, Lady, not now; we two are doing your work; judge later, if at all
.

A prayer.

He set the mask aside.

Reached down to the low, flat table; spoke a word, and then another, the Widan's gestures of protection.

The third face was a broad face; exaggerated in detail. The forehead, in particular, was pronounced, and this mask—alone among the three—was adorned with a fringe of hair, or feathers, or silk, a flash and flare of color that made of each something unique, although it took little time to discern the sameness of face beneath the coloring. It was larger, wilder, a stronger mask. Not made of clay, but made of something more supple: leather, molded and hardened. The particular face that he now lifted had been painted with a thin sheen of bronze; it glittered in the daylight.

"Not," he heard Cortano say, "an inexpensive gift."

"No."

Sendari set it aside.

The fourth mask waited.

To call it fourth was not entirely accurate. The first three masks so exposed to scrutiny had been made from the same molds, and likely by the same set of craftsmen; they were finely done, not of the highest quality, but certainly better than the average Festival mask that one would see worn at the height of the Lady's Night. Poorer clansmen, offended by the edict and the gift, would nonetheless be drawn to the masks themselves for that very reason.

But the fourth face was not an identical face worked over with hair or feather, silk or lace. Each mask was subtly different; each face looked as if it had been made of clay in the same vein but set to dry in different conditions; humidity, little sun, light rain.

Storm. The face itself, Sendari thought, might have been a bird's face to start with; sharp and long-beaked, with a ruffled fringe carved or worked into the material that went into its making. He was partial to birds, for it was often birds that Na'dio had chosen to reveal herself in.

Yet there was about this bird a ferocity that he thought his daughter—his young daughter, of course—would have shied away from. He set it aside, and looked at what had rested on the table beneath it, something that in the North might be called dragon; the beak elongated, widened, the lower beak stretched thin and given not just tongue but sharpened teeth. Yet the size of the mask, and the general shape of it, was consistent.

In some, the beak was smaller; a nose, perhaps, or a ferret's jaw; in some, it was softer but still pronounced.

None of the faces were human, and in fact, he would have classified them as individual masks had it not been for the fact that they were made in similar style and of the same material.

They were also made of the most expensive external components: indeed the most gaudy boasted gems that to Sendari's admittedly less than well-trained eye were genuine.' Paint had been used, sparingly and elegantly in some cases, wildly in others, and all to splendid effect: These were, of the four styles, the true Festival masks.

Yet they were in number evenly divided: One quarter for the blandest face, one quarter for the most delicate, one quarter for the smiling mask, and one quarter for the others.

He set the dragon's face aside almost with regret. "These last," he said softly, "are very fine."

"No doubt," Cortano said softly. "It is the last, of course, that most resemble the Festival masks of the Tyrs or the Tors." Sendari glanced back at the Sword's Edge; saw only the steel that spoke of the search for answers. He nodded and took to the edge himself. Of that, at least, he was capable; he was Widan, after all.

"Why four?" Sendari's question.

Cortano shrugged. "The elemental significance?" It was a desultory attempt at an answer; noise, meant to fill a silence of thought and deliberation. In and of themselves, nothing about the masks spoke of the elements—which were, in their way, Northern symbols of knowledge, not Southern ones.

So far, few spells had been cast, little magic spent in scrutiny; they examined by both jeweler's glass and naked eye the craftsman-ship that had gone into the masks' construction. They had come with no instructions; women or men were allowed to choose the mask they wore, and no mask suggested simple masculinity or femininity to the two Widan who studied them.

But of the magic that
had
been cast, all spells were sophisticated and of a type that the Widan used automatically: a measure of protection or defense, of detection or information gathering on a minimal level. Greater magics than that, if these masks were indeed to be feared, would be too easily detected; Cortano was unwilling, without a clearer sense of the masks' purpose, to antagonize Lord Ishavriel further.

"This is your field of expertise," Sendari said at last, "but if you are willing, Sword's Edge—"

"Yes?"

Sendari fell silent at the edge in Cortano's voice. He flexed his hands, a reminder of old scars. Stood a moment in the scant light. "Mikalis," he said at last, deciding. "Mikalis di'Arretta would be of aid to us if any man could be."

"And the risk?"

Sendari shrugged. "Weigh the risk of failure against the risk of discovery. You are the Sword's Edge; the decision must be yours. I will, of course, abide by your decision."

Cortano's eyes narrowed beneath the frosted tuft of thick brow. But he was silent as he considered the matter of Mikalis di'Arretta. A Widan, a man as loyal as any seeker of power or knowledge could be; his was the study of antiquities. Sendari, too, had bent his considerable intellect to such studies—but Sendari was not a friendly man, and in the end, such studies required the ability to blend and mingle with the common man, the common seraf, or the common Voyani.

Cortano himself had studied objects, but never—not even in his questioning of the Voyani women—the Voyani at work. Only Mikalis had, and very, very rarely.

"You are certain that this is Voyani magic?"

Sendari shook his head. "No more certain than you. But we have detected no obvious magery, no understood art, within the confines of the crafting, and these
must
contain some elements of power, else why use them at all? It bears the hallmark of Voyani magic."

"But the
Kialli
are not Voyani."

"No, but the two things they fear are the Voyani and the Imperial half-gods."

Cortano's smile was small and chilly. "They are fools, then. And that is to our advantage." He turned toward the screens that, light and easily moved as they seemed, were still almost unbreachable when the proper words were spoken. "Very well. Mikalis."

She was fire and wind, sand and wind, sun and wind—but she was also the oasis and the coolness of dusk or dawn. Her hair was like sunset seen through a thin, brown silk, and her eyes, brown like most Voyani eyes, were flecked with green: life, there. Life, and he wanted so desperately to be a part of it he could almost taste it.

He had done everything he could to attract her attention; everything. It had been easy when they'd been children together. She, he, Margret—they were almost equals in the eyes of the clans. But Margret was Evallen's daughter, and destined to be the Matriarch of the clan. If death took her, than her aunt's daughter, Elena, would take the title and responsibility.

But he, Nicu, stronger and smarter and less quick to anger than either of the two women, would always be passed over. Because he was a man. Because he could not bear life. His mother, Donatella, much favored by Evallen and Tamara, would likewise be passed over.

He had never thought much about it as a child.

He thought about little else now that he had the full growth of his hair—although he kept the beard tightly cropped because Elena didn't care for length in a man's beard. Not, of course, that she noticed, that she ever noticed.

"Hey, Nicu!"

He looked up from the dirt in which he'd been absently cutting lines with the tip of his curved blade. Frowned at Carmello—his second cousin, father's side. Carmello was a year old than Nicu, and at one time—a long time ago—that had mattered. Not now; Carmello had stayed the same, and Nicu had grown up.

"What?"

"Heads up—to the East!"

Nicu swore. There were four men—clan crested, but not easy to tell which clan at this distance—approaching the loosely formed caravans. They walked with an easy gait, two abreast. Sheathed swords. He cursed himself, and Elena for good measure, and then took to the rim of the nearest wagon, using its frame to lend himself about four feet of immediate height.

He swore again.

Carmello's turn to frown and look up. "What's wrong?"

"West—farther down the road—and Southwest. Four men from each direction. I'd bet the Lord's balls we've got 'em coming in from the Southeast as well. Hey, Adam!"

Margret's younger brother suddenly appeared between the flaps of one of the exterior wagons; he was carrying two glass lamps on poles that were probably older than Carmello, Nicu, and Adam combined. "What?"

"Go tell Margret we've got trouble. Hey, Uncle Stavos!" Before Adam could ask a question—and Adam usually did, and usually from underfoot, Nicu was in action, swinging down from the wagon's height and into the thick of his men. If this wind didn't smell of fire and blood in less than an hour, the Lord was napping.

They had almost everything they needed. A wagon or two on the outskirts of the city—left there,
for just
such an emergency, because you could never trust the hospitality of the clans— would have to house the most precious of the caravan's possessions; the men and the women would walk, and could walk. Lady knew, they'd done it before.

She didn't speak of her mother; no one asked. The assumption that she was dead had spread through her people like wafting smoke in a strong breeze—but Margret had put them all into action immediately, and they knew they had no time. No time.

Questions later. She couldn't stop them from being asked.

This wagon was the hardest to leave: Her mother's wagon. Her family home. Everything she had ever loved that wasn't flesh and blood was here, and the shadows, mingling with sunlight, were an accusation of neglect and flight.

There, when her father had been alive before a Lyserran raid, she would sit in the older man's lap, her brother in hers, her mother on the bench beside them all, knitting or working thread. She couldn't sit still; not Evallen. But her children could, for him, for the father she remembered so clearly and Adam remembered so poorly.

He told them stories of the old days while her mother snorted. Told them about a time when the Voyani—when
all
of the people of the Dominion—had existed by the Lady's grace, not the whim of the jealous Lord. They had had a home, and hard work to be sure, but it was
theirs
.

"Alexi," her mother would say, mock-stern. "You fill up their heads with stupid stories."

"I," her father would reply, puffing his chest forward in mock willful pride, "fill their heads up with pride for their roots, and hope for their future, you foolish woman."

"Aye, well," Evallen of Arkosa would respond after a moment, "and maybe that's what men do. But I'll thank you not to spoil the daughter who has to carry all of Arkosa on her back—or her lap, some days—when she gets older. Let the little one dream."

He would whisper into her ear, "
You
dream, Margret. Without dreams, we're a small, bitter people who eat dust and get worn by the wind well before our time. Adam is a boy, with a boy's heart, but you're almost a woman, and women have always carried the Arkosans. They've carried the Voyani. Carry us somewhere grand."

He was gone now.

She hardly ever thought of him. Funny, that losing the wagon would bring back so much of his pipe-scented, wine-sweet breath, and so little of her mother.

"Margret?"