Honor's Paradox-ARC (37 page)

Jame hesitated to don it; her clothes were splashed with the blood of both Gorbel and his charger.

“Take ’em off,” Rue urged impatiently.

She stripped off her jacket and shirt. The coat slid over her bare skin like cool water and molded itself to her body.

“Oh . . . !” breathed the cadets.

“To the Lordan of Ivory!” someone called from the back of the crowd, and all cried, “Hurrah, hurrah!”

It was too much.

Jame broke free and fled to her quarters where Jorin flopped over to greet her with sleepy affection.

“Look, just look!”

She ran her hands over the glimmering sleeves, feeling the texture of silken stitches under her fingertips. Did the Kendar also use knot codes? She felt instinctively that they did, and that they had worked their own subtle magic into this cloth. So much work, done by so many, all on the sly. She hadn’t even thought about the fabric that Rue had bought from the Southron traders since the day of the egging. Memory rose of the previous Lordan’s Coat, so gorgeous but so foul, infused with Greshan’s black soul. This was the heirloom now, and she the last lordan, bearing the record of her school days on her back for all to read who could.

Nothing could have pleased her more.

Calmer now, she slipped out of the precious coat and carefully folded it on her pallet. Rue had laid out clean clothes. She put them on, crept down the stair and, avoiding the still-packed common room, made for the infirmary in Old Tentir.

Gorbel lay on one of the cots, his leg heavily bandaged and splinted. He was very pale with a dark bristle of beard and black strands of hair straggling over his bulbous forehead. Jame remembered that he had waited for her all day in the hot square. Now he waited still, moving restlessly, his chapped lips parting with an audible smack. She offered him water in a ceramic cup. He drank avidly.

“Good,” he muttered, his eyes still closed.

“More?”

He blinked at her. “Yes.”

She poured him another cupful and supported his head as he drank. His hair was greasy with sweat. He squinted at her over the cup’s rim.

“I knew you’d bring that monster,” he said, “and that we would be lucky to escape from it alive.”

“You had a good horse.”

“The best. Old Gray-leggings will be hard to replace.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was to the death, whatever you were told. I just never counted on horse before rider.”

“You’d rather it was the other way around?”

“I could have spared that idiot Fash.”

“So could we all. Now rest. You left enough blood in the square to launch a small fleet.”

At the door, his voice stopped her. “I nearly killed you.”

“I know. Never mind. And cheer up: here comes Timmon with a nice bunch of flowers.”

The water cup shattered on the lintel over her head.

“Now, was that called for?” asked Timmon, approaching with an arm full of white daisies, some pulled up by the roots and dribbling dry soil.

Jame closed the infirmary door. “He really isn’t up to teasing.”

“Would I do that?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Then you take these.” He thrust the flowers at her. “In token of your victory. Besides, I look silly carting them around.”

“And I don’t?”

“They complement your eyes. Also, the Commandant asked me to tell you to meet him in the great hall.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. And congratulations,” he called after her. “That was quite a show, if rather hard on the livestock.”

IV

The Commandant paced before the empty fireplace in the great hall. Dusk filtering through high windows supplied the only light, the only sound his heels clicking and a murmur from the square outside. He had locked the doors. The hall was as secure as he could make it.

Keeping him company were the looming banners of all nine major houses. He glanced up at his lord’s against the northern wall, a great, swollen collection of stitches that all but obscured its design with more to be added that evening. What would Caldane say about today’s events? His heir’s near death would mean far less to him than the Knorth Lordan’s success. Would he carry out his threats? Sheth accepted philosophically that Caldane might, and that his own active career as a randon might end as soon as word of today’s events reached Restormir. If so, then so. He had emerged from the paradox with his honor intact, a thing which, in itself, would make Lord Caineron smash anything within his reach.

The Commandant looked up at the rathorn banner hanging over the fireplace and shook his head. Oh, the Knorth. He had thought before, more than once, that they put everyone to the test whether they meant to or not. So it had proved again.

Footsteps sounded on the stair. Jameth descended, carrying a sheaf of bedraggled flowers.

“You sent for me, Ran?”

He flicked a drooping daisy with a fingertip. “Very becoming. Not I. Him.”

Puzzled, she turned in the direction that he indicated, down the hall. A pale face crowned with silver-shot hair seemed to materialize out of the growing gloom, approaching.

“Tori!” she cried, first joyful, then perplexed. Sheth saw her gulp. She faced the Highlord, straightening, as if against a force of nature.

“Have you words for me, brother?”

“Sister, I challenge you as the Knorth Lordan to prove your worthiness of that title.”

“Truly, Tori?”

“Truly.”

“Then I accept your challenge.”

She handed the flowers to the Commandant, who received them with a raised eyebrow, and started down the hall toward the Highlord. They approached like images in a mirror, lithe, loose of limb, and black clad, their house and kinship proclaimed by the fine bones of their faces and by their silver-gray eyes. Three paces apart they stopped and saluted each other, equal to equal. Then they began to circle.

At first their moves were tentative as they felt out each other’s skill. Torisen flicked a fire-leaping blow at Jameth which she deflected with water-flowing. He struck again, harder and faster. She blocked and snapped back with a response that grazed his cheek. With that, the fight settled into a serious match. Her style was classic and smoothly cadenced, his rougher but no less effective, though neither as yet had landed a telling blow. Fire-leaping met water-flowing, wind-blowing channeled aside earth-moving.

Their shadows moved with them, larger than they, and the banners rippled against the walls at their touch. Each gesture extended beyond itself to sweep dust from the floor and fan the Commandant’s coattails. He felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck. His Shanir sense told him that here was power, barely aroused, barely controlled. Torisen reversed suddenly with a move from Kothifir street-fighting. Jameth blocked awkwardly and stumbled back against a pillar. She only brushed the stone, but it groaned and dust shifted down from the rafters. She came back with a Kothifir counterblow that knocked the Highlord off his feet.

The Commandant watched with interest: he had heard that the Southron Brier was training the lordan, but hadn’t guessed that her lessons had proceeded so far.

He was also concerned. The hall seemed to swell with the force that it contained and his ears popped. Clearly, these two should never fight each other. He put down the flowers and drew a wooden flute out of his sleeve. At what seemed like a propitious moment, he began to play.

Jameth instantly shifted to the Senetha. Torisen, not so quick to adjust, carried through with his attack and kicked her in the head. She staggered. It had been a potentially killing blow, but she didn’t fall. After a moment’s pause, the Commandant continued to play.

They were dancing now. Jameth stumbled through the opening moves, kept on her feet as if by some external force that defied gravity. Torisen swayed to support her, but never quite had to. They glided through the forms again mirroring each other, swoop and turn, dip and rise. Hands slid past hands, arched bodies nearly touched, flesh tingled, to pass so close. Power was building up again, this time thick and erotic. The Commandant could feel it rippling up and down his spine but still he played as if unable to stop. The floor on which they danced was dark green shot with glowing verdigris veins, the banners multiplied, now with faces that watched and smiled, lop-sided, hungry. If he could have turned, what would have been on the hearth behind him?

Squeee, squeee, squeeeee . . .

Claws flexed on stone. The shapes of long-dead Arrin-ken rose at the edge of his vision to loom over him.

“You see how they are drawn together,” whispered a mocking voice in his ear. “Ah, my dark lord’s sweet blood-kin. What if they should touch? Who of us would survive the union of creation and destruction? Schoolmaster, should you forbid them, or wait to see what follows?”

The Commandant wrenched the flute from his lips, tasting blood as flesh sundered from wood.

Jameth stumbled and fell. As Torisen bent over her, she spat out a tooth and groaned. “Not the same one.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop in time.”

“ ’S all right. It will grow back.”

The Commandant slipped the flute up his sleeve. “Highlord, are you satisfied?”

“Trinity, yes. I was a fool to doubt you, wasn’t I?”

Which of them he meant wasn’t clear, but one would do for both.

The Commandant wondered, though, if Torisen’s fears were unjustified after all. Jameth would make a good randon, no doubt, but Kothifir would be lucky to survive her. Might not the same be said about the entire Kencyrath? What, after all, had he been nurturing in his nest at Tentir?

Child of darkness,
breathed the shadows.
Lordan of light.

But those were thoughts for a different time. Outside the hall door, he heard the cadets bringing the feast to the table amidst laughter and cheers. They had earned this day. So had Jameth. He thrust the door open and gestured them through.

“Before you leave for Kothifir,” he heard the Highlord say, “we have to talk.”

She threw back her head with a crow of triumphant laughter. “Finally!”

The Commandant followed them up to the high table and there presented them to the assembled cadets.

“I give you Torisen Black Lord and his sister Jameth!”

The latter stood up. “For the last time,” she said in a clear, high voice, eyes locked on her brother’s, “my name is not Jameth. It’s Jame, short for Jamethiel. Jamethiel Priest’s-bane of Knorth.”

LEXICON

Addy—Shade’s gilded swamp adder

Aden Smooth-face—a senior randon and Lord Ardeth’s younger brother

Adiraina—the Ardeth Matriarch, beloved of Kinzi

Adric—Lord Ardeth

Anise—one of Jame’s ten-command, killed by the Noyat

Anku—leader of the Merikit war maids, older sister of Gran Cyd

Argentiel—That-Which-Preserves

Arrin-ken—the third of the Three People of the Kencyrath; huge, catlike beings who act as judges

Arrin-thar—use of claws or clawed gloves in combat

Ashe—a haunt singer

Bashti—one of the ancient kingdoms of the Central Lands

Bashtiri shadow assassins—assassins who, thanks to special tattooing, are invisible and can cast their shadows

Bear—Sheth’s brain-damaged elder brother, a former randon and Jame’s teacher in the Arrin-thar

Beauty—a darkling wyrm

Bel-tairi—a Whinno-hir, formerly Kinzi’s, now Jame’s

blackheads—parasitical fish from the Silverhead

Blackie—a nickname for Torisen

Boden—Lord Brandan’s heir and nephew

bonefire—a bonfire containing a Burnt Man’s bone

Bran—a Brandan randon who teaches obscure weaponry

Brant—Lord Brandan of Falkirr

Brenwyr—Lord Brandan’s maledight sister

Brier Iron-thorn—once a Caineron, now second in charge of Jame’s ten-command

Brithany—Ardeth’s gray Whinno-hir mare

Burley—the small stream that runs down beside Tentir to join the Silver River

Burning Ones—servants of the Burning Man, mostly kin-slayers

Burnt Man, the—the one of the Four who represents fire

Burr—Torisen’s Kendar servant

Caldane—Lord Caineron

Cataracts, the—where the Kencyr Host and the Waster Horde met in battle

Chain of Creation—a series of parallel universes connected through threshold worlds like Rathillien

changer—one of the Master’s servants, who can assume any shape

Chingetai—chief of the Merikit

Clary—a Coman ten-commander

Cloud—Sheth’s warhorse

Commandant—title of the head of the randon college

Corvine—a former Knorth Oath-breaker who has become a Randir sargent

Cron—a Knorth Kendar

d’hen—a Tai-tastigon knife-fighter’s coat

Da—a Merikit woman who acts as a man; housebond of Ma

Damson—one of Jame’s ten-command

Dar—one of Jame’s ten-command

Dari—Ardeth’s son and would-be heir

Dark Judge—blind Arrin-ken obsessed with justice

Death’s-head—a rathorn

Director—title of the head of Mount Alban, the current one a blind Kendar

direhounds—gaze-hounds used to run down prey

Distan—Ardeth’s daughter, Pereden’s consort, Timmon’s mother

dreamscape—the collective dream world of the Kencyrath

Drie—an Ardeth cadet; Timmon’s half-brother and former whipping boy

Dure—a Caineron cadet bound to a trock

dwar
—a deep, healing sleep

Earth Wife, the—the one of the Four who represents the earth

Eaten One, the—the one of the Four who represents water

Erim—one of Jame’s ten-command

Essiar—Lord Edirr, twin of Essien

Essien—Lord Edirr, twin of Essiar

Falconeer—any member of the Falconer’s class

Falconer—blind teacher of those Shanir with bonds to animals

Falkirr—Lord Brandan’s keep

Fall, the—when Gerridon betrayed the Kencyrath to Perimal Darkling

Falling Man, the—the one of the Four who represents air

Fash—one of Gorbel’s ten-command

Four, the—Rathillien’s elemental powers

Ganth Gray Lord—Jame and Torisen’s father

Gari—a Coman cadet with an affinity to insects