The Silence of Medair (21 page)

The attendants came forward as she settled into the chair, pouring out bowls of the sweet, herbed drink Ibisians called
vahl
.  It gave her a moment to collect, to remind herself that she was an Imperial Herald, that she represented her Emperor among the enemy.

"How can I assist you,
Ekarrel?
"

"I would ask you of the people of Farakkan, Keris."  His voice had been as expressionless as ever and his eyes had looked straight through her Herald's formality to the frantic suspicions this unexpected audience had roused.  "For I must know those whom I would rule."

The feeling of being backed into a corner was still strong, years – centuries – later.  She had wished desperately for Kedy's advice, convinced that the Kier intended to trick Palladium's secrets from her.  The thought of her mentor had at least given her the strength to lift her chin and say: "I can only tell you what my Emperor disposes,
Ekarrel
."

He had inclined his head, just the tiniest amount, as if that had been the answer he was expecting.  "Then I request of Grevain, Emperor, that his Herald be given dispensation to speak," he'd replied.  "I will await his answer."

And then, to confuse her further, the Kier had gestured to one of his attendants.  The boy had carried a heavy velvet purse to the table, turned it over three times while what sounded like a thousand tiny rocks clattered inside, and then emptied it into the table's depression.  Coin-like disks of dark stone had poured out, each marked on one side with complex symbols in gold, red, silver and blue.  The attendant's fingers had darted over the stones, turning all face-down, then arranged them into piles of ten.  Rows and rows of disks.

Then, for the rest of the evening, Kier Ieskar had lectured her on marrat.  He had not asked one single question about Farakkan.  He had not asked any questions at all, merely began a week-long explanation of the fiendishly complex game.

The questions had come eventually, of course.  Medair had sent a wend-whisper to her Emperor and Grevain had obliged his enemy.  It had been a precarious position for a Herald, and she had been relieved when the questions had focused on customs and traditions which could only be remotely useful in a tactical sense.  Death rituals and marriage laws, harvest festivals and the worship of Farak: she'd explained them all over innumerable games.  So he could 'know whom he would rule'.  She wondered if he'd found any use for it all, in the short time before his death.

Feeling old and out of place, Medair watched the two women laugh as one placed a stone, changed her mind, and shuffled it to a different part of the table with careless indecision.  That was not marrat.  Marrat was ceremony, and questions after long silences, and the constant sick dread which Kier Ieskar had always seemed to inspire in her.  He'd had a way of not moving at all while she drew her stones and tried to decide what use to make of them.  Then he would reach out without even seeming to look at the table and pick up one of the stones between his thumb and the third finger of his hand.  As he placed it delicately in his chosen pattern, he would turn it over twice.  There had been a thin scar across the back of his fingers and, countless times, she had thought of beheading snakes as she watched him make that precise movement.

It had been Kerikath las Dona who explained the gesture, during one of Medair's own lessons on the language and customs and binding laws of the Ibisian invaders.  That had been the first time Medair had really taken in the significance of the ceremony which surrounded Kier Ieskar's every act.  She had been told during her first lesson that it was against custom for the Kier to do things like speak in the Palladian language, as he had when he declared war.  Over the months, the Kerikath had provided Medair with an increasing list of things which were against custom.  And things which were against law.  When Medair had questioned the Kerikath about marrat, she had been warned not to turn the stones in the same way, for it was against custom for any but the Kier to do so.  For the Kier not to do so was against law.

Faintly disbelieving, for she had long since formed the opinion that the Ibisian Kier's will was absolute among his people, Medair had pressed her tutor for detail and been treated to a list of restrictions which only scratched the surface of what was forbidden the Kier.

"There is only one person the Kier is permitted to touch," the Kerikath had said in the measured voice which had described so much of the Ibisian world to Medair.  "Since his brother's death, the Kierash Adestan is the only other of the direct Saral-Ibis line.  The Kier is forbidden contact with any outside that line."

The Kerikath had calmly described the difficulties posed by a childless Kier, and the good fortune that his brother had left an heir to ensure the succession.  Otherwise, the Kier would be obliged to arrange a conception by magic alone, forbidden from touching any woman he married.  Kerikath las Dona had only broken off her description of the purification rituals anyone who would bear such a child would have to endure when she noticed Medair's disbelieving face.

"But
why?!
" Medair had asked, incredulously.  "Why these rules?  What purpose can they possibly serve?"  It had perplexed Medair that for all his power, the Ibisian Kier would live such a rigidly ascetic life, following laws which dictated the games he could play, the food he ate, the very dishes and cups he ate from.

The pause which had followed was one Medair had come to recognise as her tutor adjusting her mind to her pupil's immense ignorance.

"The Kier is more than merely one who rules," Selai las Dona had explained, as if trying to put into words what rarely needed clarification.  "The Kier is the focus of the land's protections, the convergence of all enchantments to ensure health and fruitfulness.  The Kier is the focus of the AlKier's regard.  If the Kier ails, the land ails, and so the Kier's life is paramount.  To do anything which would threaten that life would be to betray the trust of the
kiereddas
."

"But why the turning of the stones?" Medair had asked, confusedly.  "How could that possibly serve any purpose?"

"Marrat stones are onyx," Kerikath las Dona had replied.  "They possess a capacity for becoming imbued with the essence of those who handle them, particularly one who is a powerful
lok-shi
.  By turning the stone, the Kier prevents any accumulation of resonance, which could lead to a dilution of his essence."

"Why not just make a marrat set out of something other than onyx?" Medair had asked, reasonably, but the Kerikath had only looked at her blankly and repeated that marrat stones are onyx.

The dissonance between a people who could efficiently handle such a massive upset as the destruction and complete evacuation of their homeland, yet would not make marrat stones out of anything but onyx because "marrat stones are onyx" had made Medair dizzy.  She had asked only a few questions as the Kerikath had told of the Kierash Adestan's circumscribed but less enduringly restricted life.  Until she ascended the Ibis Throne, the Kierash was permitted to touch any who had undergone the appropriate purifications, although custom again restricted that number to a select few.  The rules were without end.

Much as Medair had hated the White Snakes, it had felt senselessly cruel to prod at the wound of their loss, so she had forborne to point out that, given the destruction of Sar-Ibis, it was surely futile to continue to enforce laws born out of the Kier's 'protections' of that land.  She was not altogether certain it would make any difference to them.  Tradition was not something the Ibisians seemed anxious to question.

"Kel?"

She had by now learned to distinguish between their voices.  Cor-Ibis' was a trifle lighter, and he accented words differently.  And, though many would find it hard to believe, he was infinitely more expressive than Kier Ieskar.  But his eyes cut through her the same way, stripping away shields and lies until she was naked and squirming.  He was looking at her now, watching her stare at the two women.  Farakkian women, playing with stones too light to be onyx.

"Do you play marrat, Keridahl?" she asked, clutching at her bystander guise rather than betray the tidal wave of her past.

"At times," he replied, after a tiny pause to underline what wasn't said.  "It is a useful aid to thought, once the patterns become second nature.  I do not compete."

"Compete?" she asked, blankly, and immediately knew she'd blundered. 

His lids dropped, then he inclined his head.  His voice struck that particular cool note which she interpreted as Cor-Ibis at his most dangerous.  "I imagine the Tournament will be missing a few of the major players this year," he said, watching her.  "Given the hostility between Palladium and Decia.  But it will certainly continue in the Western Kingdoms.  'Sooner hold back the sea than keep Seochians from the marrat tables.'"

The idea of the Seochians, the people of Western Farakkan, being proverbially linked to marrat made Medair blink.  She had no doubt Cor-Ibis was adding her reaction, her ignorance of marrat tournaments, to his list of strange things about Medair ar Corleaux.  And there was nothing she could do but ask some question about a thing wholly inconsequential and walk on.

He did not object, or even pursue the subject of marrat.  Instead he launched into a story about the trees of Pelamath, which were covered in purple flowers in spring.  "They are
calias
," he said, indicating the nearest bushy, pale green tree.  "A native of Sar-Ibis, brought out during the exodus.  Pelamath is one of the few places where they have flourished, and for a short space each year it is clothed in scent and blossom.  The young girls of the city make coronets of fallen petals and one is chosen as the Land's Maiden."

"Farak's Daughter," Medair murmured.  It was a Spring game she had played when she was a child, though there had been no
calias
.  A celebration of the end of Winter, with Farak's Daughter decked out in the green of Farak's gifts and paid a day's courtesy in thanks for the land's bounty.

Cor-Ibis glanced at her; mirror-grey eyes.  "A cloak is constructed of the blossoms, a bruised and fragile thing which rarely lasts the morning.  While the Land's Daughter is robed, the children hide in the park, and one is given the AlKier's cup.  Before midday, the Land's Daughter must capture that child, wrest away the cup, or the year is not thought blessed."

He was testing her again, Medair realised, and kept her face relaxed and mildly interested.  A tale like this, which mixed one of Farak's customs with the White Snake god, was a distortion which would surely infuriate the Medarist they thought she might be.

"So many variations," Medair said, with just enough of a dry edge to her voice to show she thought he was fencing.  This time his faint smile was appreciative, and he did not press the point further.

How different they all were!  And so the same.  Avahn behaved like no Ibisian she had ever imagined, and still she saw in him a core of tradition which had barely altered since the invasion.  Even Cor-Ibis managed to somehow be unutterably like the White Snake she had hated the most, and yet Farakkian at the same time.

Medair could only count the hours till Athere.

Chapter Thirteen

Palladium's capital, the innermost sanctums of the palace, had been Medair's home for a large portion of her adult life.  She had first come to Athere full of excited expectation, then, a year ago, trembling to see how it had changed.  This time she felt divorced from her surroundings.  She was concentrating on a time past now, on her return to the north, and oblivion.

The land around the city was flat, the fields interrupted only by breaks of trees.  Those who approached enjoyed an uninterrupted view of concentric rings of pale grey stone climbing to the massive fort: a blockish collection of squat towers on a tall, table-top hill.  It was an excellent site.  Easy to reach for trade, amidst fertile farming land, with a protected water supply from springs buried deep within the hill and the Tarental River curving toward the steep eastern slope.  Medair had first known a city of four walls.  Arren Wall had fallen five hundred years ago, but the Ibisians had rebuilt it, and erased the scars on the Cantry wall, whose gates had not held.  Centuries without peace had added two others: Ariensel and Ahrenrhen.  Ibisian names, Ibisian design.  Ahrenrhen crossed the river, which showed how far the city had expanded.

Athere's architecture had never been harmonious.  It was cramped, full of conflicting styles, but the city possessed a majesty all its own thanks to its size and variety and the sheer weight of ages.  Athere had been old when Medair had first visited it.  Five hundred years later, it was ancient.

"Home," Avahn murmured, and Medair looked at him.

"Not Finrathlar?" she asked.

He glanced briefly toward his cousin, then raised one shoulder.  "Perhaps they both are.  Like two parents or two siblings.  Both bind me with ties of affection and familiarity.  Two loves, who enchant me for different reasons.  I don't think I could give up either."

"Two worlds become one."

She said it thoughtfully.  The previous year she had seen the Ibisian alterations as a blow against all she held dear, a distortion of the Athere of old.  She had told herself she would rather see Athere razed by the Conflagration than inhabited by White Snakes.

No doubt the way she looked away from him and the city confused and intrigued Avahn, but Medair did not care.  She stared at her hands, longing to be past Athere, to be able to abandon this time altogether.  The need to seek oblivion grew the closer she came to the city.  It was the focus of too much, had meant too much to her.