Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (36 page)

Alesso did not ask for confirmation of Mikalis' information. He did not, in fact, ask any further questions. Sendari counted to himself beneath the silence of a quiet sky. When he reached a full twenty, the Tyr'agar bowed to both the Sword's Edge and the Widan who had given them all information of value.

He nodded to Sendari.

A world separated the formal bow and the casual nod; Sendari had been, by that simple gesture, summoned; Cortano and Mikalis, by full bow, dismissed. The Sword's Edge did not appear to find the gesture offensive; he, too, had the look of barely hooded anger about the cast of his features.

They repaired to the Lake for which the Tor Leonne was so justly famous, standing not upon one of the many platforms that had been built for the pleasure and privilege of viewing the moon—or the waters—at night, but rather to the edge of the water itself, on the eastern side of the Lake, where rushes were allowed to grow so that they might catch lilies and make a statement about cultivated wilderness that Sendari and Alesso understood well.

Their lives were here. On a night like this one, they had crossed the boundaries that separated the clansmen from the rulers, and they had stood, two men without attendants, by waters that lapped reeds and shore, speaking of death, of the will to kill, of the desire for power that did not demand the clan-crime of murdering their respective kai.

They had come far, these two.

Sendari bowed to the face of the Festival Moon. He did so automatically, the bend of body in a gesture of respect as natural as breath. Alesso, as always, waited; he was not a man who had ever granted the Lady her due, and as such, his respect was not expected, its lack no slight to her.

After the silks had stopped swaying in an echo of his motion, the Widan cast, speaking to wind, to water, to earth, and to fires that burned upon a distant pavilion. He trapped his own words in an envelope of magic that separated his friend and himself from the rest of the Tor; tested the casement that held them. After a moment, poised just so, he nodded.

"Well?" Alesso said quietly, aware of what that barely conscious nod meant.

"I am not the politician," Sendari replied. "That has always been your role, and Cortano's."

Alesso laughed. "So you claim. So you consistently claim. But
you
are Sendari di'Sendari, and he is as he has always been. Come, Counselor. I am in need of your advice."

Sendari might have snorted, but the deaths of the Widan cast long, dark shadows, and he had no desire to dishonor their new memory when their spirits—or so it was commonly held—hovered in breeze and wind, seeking, seeing, listening to voices that distance and wall and earth kept from their living bodies. "Will you take any advice that you ask for?"

"I will, as always," his friend replied, in a tone heavy with irony, "consider and weigh each precious word carefully."

"And singly, thus depriving them of their aggregate meaning, no doubt."

He was rewarded by laughter, although it was brief. It made him wonder how often he had heard the laughter of the previous man who had worn both Crown and Sword by the edge of the Lady's Lake. The dead kai Leonne had been a cruel and dour man.

"As you say, old friend."

"It
is
a moon night."

"The Lord has ruled my life; it is not my way or my whim to beg for the favor of a woman who might just as easily smile as frown; might just as easily grant me my desire and drown me in the waters that bear Her name. The Lord, a man understands. But women?" He laughed; the laughter was as sharp as the edge of his blade. "I will not ask the Lady for Her intervention."

"You will pardon me if I am not so… proud."

"I will, indeed, pardon you for any perceived plea you might make. But you are who you are and I, I am Alesso." His smile stripped the years from his face, or rather, it made the years ineffectual; it was the same smile, the same expression, that had so often attracted men and women alike, from the day that Sendari— no Widan then, but merely a seeker of knowledge and truth—and Alesso had first met. Sendari had not been proof against it; was not proof against it now; there was an easy power there, if one knew power on sight. An easy power, and more: loyalty. To invoke it, on the other hand, was as easy as gaining the ear of the Lady; Sendari had it, but could not clearly say why.

It was the gift of Alesso's presence that the Widan never questioned that loyalty, or the friendship that had been tested by winds and fire over the years. Never questioned, no—but he had tested it, and Alesso had replied in kind. What they had built endured.

"What advice would you have me give?"

"What game, Sendari? What game are they playing?"

The Widan shrugged. "It is to discover the answer to that question that we have been working these past weeks."

"No, you have been working to discover
how
they will play their hand, if they choose to play it. The masks are weapons, no more, no less. I want you to turn your mind to the game itself."

"They play at games of power, Alesso. You are the Lord's man. What power will they gain by turning against us? Perhaps they have managed to damage the Northern Imperials in such a way that they no longer need to wage a good war."

"And they turn to us?"

Sendari shrugged. "The Widan were killed protecting one of the Voyani. She is gone—and the spells Cortano used to track her presence have been shattered like Northern glass. They were costly spells," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"And the
Kialli
chose this night to take the Voyani out of the custody of the Sword's Edge?" His eyes
were
the sword's edge, narrowed to death's sharpness. "And they gain from this how?"

"I do not know. I confess I find the maneuver surprising." He shrugged. Fell into silence for a moment, as if silence were a lake, and Alesso's questions the sun's height. At last, he said, "Or perhaps they do not realize that we are able to ascertain the extent of their involvement."

Alesso froze. Sendari watched his face; saw the lines of it shift and alter. "If they gain power here," he said, "what will they do with it? Will they grant the Dominion to another man?"

Rhetorical question; he knew it by the tone and texture of the words conveyed. He did not reply.

"Cortano?"

"It was not Cortano's work; if I can be certain of anything, I am certain of that. The Sword's Edge is adept at both the Widan's art and political machination—but he does not easily cast aside his own. Had the dead men been of less value, and less proven loyalty, I would concede the possibility."

"Good."

Silence, broken rhythmically by the lapping of water against reed stalk and lily. At last, Sendari said a single word.

"Kinlord."

And Alesso nodded. "But which one? Which one? They can wear the Crown—but they cannot claim either Lake or Sword." He grimaced. "They are here, of course. We are probably observed."

"We are observed," Sendari agreed casually. "At a distance of perhaps fifty yards, perhaps a hundred; there is a magic at work that is at the edge of my ability to detect, but only barely. Whoever observes us is clever and well-trained."

"Cortano's?"

"I do not think so; there is a taint to the magic that I have seen only in the Shining Court."

"Only there?"

His brow creased, folding into the familiar lines that more than age and wind had worn there. "There and perhaps in one other place: The artifacts of the Voyani. The vest that was the gifting of Baredan di'Navarre."

"It comes back to the Voyani. Men and women who have barely been considered more valuable than bandits suddenly become the focal point of far too much interest."

"I want
answers
, Sendari."

The Widan raised a single, frosted brow.

It was when she saw the sword that her expression folded in on itself, swallowing darkness; becoming, for a moment, a mask that Margret herself stepped back from. Almost, but not quite, breaking the circle she'd called for. She was well enough taught to freeze in mid-stride, to plant her foot solidly back on safe ground, to draw sigil in air laden with the smoke of blessed wood. But that was all she offered, that and silence.

Kallandras the stranger—she would always think of him that way, and he would give, in the end, new meaning to the word stranger; she
knew
it, then, but did not know how—said nothing, returning silence for silence, and in the same measure. He waited; he was, she thought, good at waiting.

"Where," Yollana said at last, "did this sword come from?"

"It came," Kallandras replied, as her midnight eyes met his and granted him—indeed demanded—speech, "from the hands of one of the Arkosan Voyani."

"Not possible."

Margret flinched. "Matriarch—" she began, but Yollana lifted a hand, imperiously demanding silence.

"It is truth," Kallandras replied evenly. "And I would not so easily dismiss any claim to the contrary. The Matriarch's heir," and he placed a distinct emphasis—not a comforting one—on the word
Matriarch
, "was present; it was her hand that lifted the fallen blade and prevented its return to the man who wielded it. No," he added, as Yollana's expression shifted and fell, "she did not touch the blade or the hilt with exposed skin; she took care. She is no fool."

Yollana closed her eyes, cutting off all conversation. "We should have had this conversation under the open sky," she said, when her lids lifted again.

"Or not at all." He nodded quietly. "What will you do with it?"

"I? It is not in my keeping; it is not my responsibility."

He lifted a golden brow—although the shadows and the fires robbed it of color, or lent it a false one; hard to say which was truth. "No? And you have sent your people to your daughters for some other reason?"

"Clever man." Her smile was thin. "Very well; I do not know
what
you know, Kallandras of Senniel, but I know that you know too much. It is a dangerous combination; it makes me careless."

His smile was as brief and sharp as her own. "Yollana, you will forgive me if I doubt—and strongly—that you understand what the word careless means."

She shrugged. "/ was the one in captivity, stranger."

"Granted." He bowed. "If the Matriarch consents, I will break her circle; I will leave you to your conversation and your privacy."

"And you won't listen in?"

He met her gaze full on, which said more about him than almost anything else Margret had yet seen; most of the Voyani would have shunted their gaze left or right after half a second. Yollana's eyes were sharp and harsh, something best not confronted. She saw far too deeply, far too quickly; she took, when she looked at you like that, and you gave—whether or not you wanted to.

But Yollana had called him Evayne's servant—or pawn—and a man who served
that
one had probably given more than any of the Voyani who fell under Yollana's sight and stayed pinned there. He didn't flinch.

"No, Yollana of the Havallan Voyani, I will not listen in. You have my word, but if my word is not enough—and it should not be, in these troubled times, let me offer you another truth: The circle itself has been drawn with real power this night." He bowed to Margret. "You have the heart of the Voyani, and if it is distant, it is still yours. Release me, and I will return to the night."

Margret heard his words. Between pleasure and sudden terror, her face remained as masklike as his own. She
had
performed the ritual that she'd learned at the side of the only woman—in her opinion—fit to rule Arkosans; she
was
Matriarch; the Lady had heard her pleas and filled the hollow gesture with the water of life: heart's blood.

But this stranger, this Kallandras, also spoke openly of the loss of the Arkosan heart, and if he spoke his words of muted praise to her, he spoke them in front of Yollana as well. Words seldom failed her; they failed her now. Her mother had always said that the texture of a silence was significant.

Still, she wasn't her mother; she'd turned to look at Yollana's face before she could stop herself. Some people's mouths ran away with them; with Margret it was always her actions.

Yollana met her gaze without flinching; without blinking. But she waited until Kallandras of the North had stepped carefully across the threshold of Margret's circle before speaking. Voyani moonlight in her eyes, and shadows cast by Margret's fire, made of her face a foreign landscape; she looked
old
, some edifice hollowed by wind and sand until it was thin and worn. Wisdom and experience had always been the cards granted for the youth taken away; the Matriarchs had been living proof of that for all of Margret's life.

All of her young life, and she recognized that truth for the first time, staring at Yollana's bleak face.

"Aye," the older woman said, "I know, Matriarch. That's why I'm staying. And
he
knows, or she'd never have sent him to you."

Margret returned silence. She turned away. "Did my mother tell you?" she asked, striving to keep the bitterness from her voice. Failing. "Did she tell everyone but me?"

"Does it matter?" Yollana's sharp voice. "She's dead. She paid the price. Or did you have another one in mind?"

That stung. "I'd forgotten you could be such a bitch."

"Your problem." Yollana's voice was mild; there was no anger or censure in it. "Think outside of yourself for a minute, Margret. I've faced what you've faced. We all have, sooner or later. We've just been lucky enough not to have to face it on the eve of—" The words stopped; the wall of Yollana's lips broke them. "You've proved yourself here, with the fire.

"Never think that the obvious power is the
only
power, Matriarch. You have your aunts and your heir; you have your uncles. You have your cousins, their children, their parents. They
are
Arkosa. Are you afraid you'll fail them? Good fear. Worthy fear.

"Learn to live with it.

"You'll defend your family with your life—with more than your life, with resources that you won't know you've got until they're standing with someone else's dagger at their throats.
That's
all that's asked of you, that and that you bear daughters that will take the name and the duty when you've passed on.