Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (32 page)

She felt—almost—at home.

No.

She had no home with Isladar. He had destroyed it.

How
? An insistent and ugly voice asked.
By killing a weak old woman? Haven't you done the same
?

No.

By taking the pleasure that comes only from pain?

No!

She stood in the street, and the sword began to burn her hand with a darkness that had always been a part of the blade—and a fire that had
never
been. The ring no longer reflected the sun's light; it
was
light.

"Interesting," Isladar said. Just that. His own blade, his own perfect, slightly curved blade, was rimmed in red and orange, white and pale blue; the subtle dance of heat.

"You really don't understand, do you?"

Silence.

"She had so tainted you, Kiriel, that you were not the child your father desired. You were not even the equal of the
Kialli
lords, although I grant you that when he chose to elevate you, he gave you the gifts you required to become almost that." He stepped into the shallow crater, walking toward her, his gaze unwavering, his eyes reflecting fire.

She waited.

"You did not understand what made your enemies; you failed to even guess what motivates them now. I have endeavored—as I have always done—to teach you to better understand the
Kialli
. You now have the memory, Kiriel, the memory that burns. You live in the Hells."

Before she could reply, he stepped swiftly into a stroke that would have easily bisected her sword arm at the shoulder had she not leaped and rolled; the blade she held clanged a moment against the ground, grating as if straining to return, as if flight—even this dodging of death—was anathema.

Feed the blade, Kiriel
, a voice said.
Feed it, and you will own the sword
.

She rose.

"But even though you have the memory, you haven't the
will
. You do not accept that memory for the truth that it is, however bitter. You do not plan, you do not design, you do not
live for
a way to put that memory to rest. You rage like the child you once were.

"But there is no one now, Kiriel, who will pick you up. No one who will either comfort or discipline you. You will stand, or you will die, on your own. You will always be alone."

She shook. Standing, both feet placed slightly apart, knees bent, the pain was hideous.

"Have you not sworn to kill me?"

She said nothing.

He took a step toward her again, his sword in flames, his eyes a color that she had never seen. The shadow he cast against the ground did not mirror his action; it was no artifact of sun and light.

"What do you think we were faced with, Kiriel? We
ruled
the lands we owned at the side of our chosen Lord. We spoke to the elements, and the elements answered; we built cities, created art that you cannot dream of now in these impoverished, gray times. You have seen the Hells from a distance, but you are only beginning to understand some part of what it means to reside there. And you have never had what we had when we dwelled here.

"What do you think has made the
Kialli
what we are? Why did we not all become the worthless, the stupid, the merely ugly and hungry, as did most of our kin?"

Silence; she wanted to speak, and at the same time, she wanted never to speak again.

"Memory, Kiriel.
Kiallinan
. You can turn your back on the memory now, as you have struggled to do—as you have
succeeded
in doing, to my great surprise. I would have thought the old woman meant more to you. Or you can become something more."

Burning. The flames and the shadows had somehow descended; they were devouring her whole, from the inside. And she wanted them to. She wanted them to finish.

She staggered.

"How do you think the imps became imps, too stupid and weak to lift talon or claw? How do you think the kin became kin, no matter how physically strong their eventual form? They are the shadows of what they were when they walked this world in Glory—and they could have been
more
."

She drew breath. Salty, humid air filled her lungs. She hated it. She longed for the crisp, clean comfort of ice and clarity. She missed her home.

She had missed it, in intervals, when she chose not to think of what it had become; chose to ignore why she had fled.

"But they failed to
remember
They failed to hold on to the memory of what they had, and what they were. Why?" For just a moment, scorn touched his expression, sharpened his voice—Isladar, who had always been so neutral. "Because it
hurt
them to remember. Because it was
easier
to forget; to become diminished; to fulfill their role in the Hells. Easier to trade pain for pleasure; to trade duty for duty.

"Do you think an existence like yours can ever be easy? You were born to cause pain, Kiriel; it is the essence of your nature: mortality and darkness; loss and death. And you will become less than the least of the kin if you choose their path." He stopped speaking a moment. Closed his eyes. "You have what you require, now. You must make the correct choice."

She could hear the screaming.

She hadn't heard the screaming since the ring had taken away the power that had protected her in the Hells, and for the first time, she was truly grateful for the presence of the ring. Frightened at the sudden lack of power on its part.

She could hear it all. She had thought she would recognize that voice in any circumstance. She had been wrong. Ashaf.

Ashaf.

"The memory is painful in two ways. Because of the loss," he said, measuring each word, his voice uninflected, his expression devoid of anything resembling triumph or enjoyment, "and because of what it tells you about yourself.

"Accept both. You
cannot
flee from your own truths."

She cried out in anger. She raised the sword. She started toward him, walking in time with his measured step, but with less grace and more raw force.

"And what truths does a
Kialli
lord know," a familiar voice said, and Kiriel looked up. Where Isladar had stood on the rooftop, there now stood a woman in robes the color of a clear, moonlit midnight. "There is no truth that is absolute. Not even yours. There are goals, yes—but memory is a funny thing. Any ten people can view the same battle; they can watch events unfold around them without taking their eyes from whatever it is that occurs. But question them later, and they will give you ten different versions of the fight; they have watched, but selectively, and their memory has hoarded and embellished those details of import."

Without looking up, Isladar said coldly, "I tire of you. I am not… accustomed to interruption."

"I am," Evayne a'Nolan replied, with the strangest of smiles. "Kiriel, death is death; you cannot change what has happened. But—in the South of Ashaf's birth, there is a saying.
Only the living can give meaning to death
."

"What do you mean?"

"If you accept as the sole truth all that Lord Isladar has said, you accept his vision of meaning. But if Ashaf were alive now, if she stood at my side, she would tell you a different story; she would ask you for a different ending to the story that your birth began."

Isladar's eyes were completely black as he lifted his head and turned toward the woman on the rooftop. He gestured.

She gestured. Fire and light met in the emptiness between them. When it cleared, Evayne was gone.

But Kiriel had no sense whatever that she was dead.

Nor did Isladar. His frown lingered as he faced her once again. "Do you know that woman?"

She said nothing.

"I see that you do. She is… dangerous."

Kiriel surprised them both by laughing; the laugh was bitter. "She is the only person I've ever met who says less and knows more than you."

He raised a brow. "I… see."

Kiriel lifted the sword—not her sword—with effort; it was heavier now than it had been. But the pain was different. The sun was almost gone from the sky; the streets were dark. Had they been fighting so very long?

"The sword is burning you, Kiriel. The sword is killing you. You were safe while you dwelled within the Shining City… but I do not think you will find a home there until you choose to become
Kialli
, with all that implies."

"I am not
Kialli
," Kiriel said, fighting to maintain control of her voice. "I was meant to be more than that."

He smiled for the first time. "Perhaps you were. But if you cannot even attain
that
, you will never be more. And, little one—"

"Don't call me that!"

"—if you cannot feed the sword, then all suffering, all loss, means nothing."

"Don't talk to me! Don't
teach
me anything else! I'm not your student anymore, I'll
never
be your student again!"

He looked at her, his expression remote. "You will never," he told her quietly—so quietly, she should not have heard him—"be anything else, And some lessons are more urgent than others. Come, Kiriel. Let us finish this."

He moved.

She moved.

She barely saw him coming, but she felt again the edge of his blade. She had been struck by
Kialli
blades before. But never his. Never.

Isladar was the only person who had ever deliberately struck her with the flat of his blade. No, the only other person.

He did not choose the flat now.

She leaped up, to avoid the next strike, and found that she was inconveniently bound by gravity, by the city, by the mortality that the ring had conferred upon her with such force. She struck broken rock, stumbling into the center of the pit.

On the periphery of her vision, Lord Isladar circled. She tried to summon shadow; felt her hand burn; saw light where shadow should have been. She had always thought light beautiful.

But the darkness was beautiful as well, and he embodied it. He bowed; changed stance; raised sword. She realized that, although he had not asked it, and she had not granted it, he was obeying the rules of the Challenge of the Sword.

Ashaf
, she thought.
Forgive me
.

She couldn't see. For a moment, she couldn't see.

He struck, of course. Circling, breaking circle, moving in as if flight were denied to only one of them. . It was. He wounded her.

He struck to wound, as if he were playing a game; as if she had graduated from the flat of his blade to the edge of it, but had not yet crossed the divide between that edge and death.

Kiriel
, she heard him say, from the remove of a memory that denned terror and death,
you are safe. I will protect you
.

She felt the ghost of his arms, the tip of his chin grazing the top of her hair; she felt that child's terror subside as she sank into those arms. He was
Kialli;
his lap and his arms did not have the warmth or the pliancy of Ashaf's.

But he had done what Ashaf would have failed to do had she been present: he had saved her life.

It struck her with a peculiar, a terrible, pain: memory. She was now bleeding from a dozen wounds. He had failed to say a single word; to punctuate his blows—as he had often done—with the lesson that he intended her to learn.

The sword was burning her; the ring was burning her, and the pain that had come from either of these quarters for the entire eternity of the afternoon was nothing compared to the memories.

/
will protect you, Kiriel
.

But you told me
, she had said, quiet, shaking,
never to trust you
.

Yes.

Can I trust you!

She could not see his face; she found the comfort of his arms too unique an experience to want to withdraw just to look at an expression that almost never changed anyway.

No.

But why not?

Silence. And then,
Because I am Kialli. You forget that, Kiriel. You forget too much
.

But you just said you would protect me.

Yes, but that act has nothing to do with trust.

And yet. She felt safe. She felt safe, and that had been enough…

She roared now.

She roared; the pain was terrible. But she understood why the kin were kin. Was that the point? Was that truly the reason he had killed Ashaf? To make her understand what a terrible thing a memory could be?

When he circled again, her pain had become a frenzied anger; she used it; she parried. The force of the parry drove him back; forced him to acknowledge gravity for a moment.

He spoke. "Better."

He circled.

And it occurred to her, as she watched the changing light and shadow of that movement, that the pit made in stone from the force of the sword's blow was not so very unlike the circles drawn in pigment against the Kalakar grounds; places in which to train; places in which the rules of a combat that did not involve death reigned.

And that made no sense.

"Why are you doing this?"

He could have feigned ignorance; when he had trained her as a younger girl, he often had.

Instead, he put up his sword, in the style of the
Kialli
, and stilled. As if he were unprepared to offer the comfort of familiarity, of any familiarity.

"Do you really not know?"

She could not see him clearly. She thought he had summoned his power, but the power itself felt unfamiliar, and she knew shadow better than anyone who dwelled within it save perhaps the god who denned it.

She raised a hand to her eyes; lowered it instead of rubbing. It was getting darker.

And her hand was cold. The sword that had seared her flesh now chilled it; her arm was becoming numb. She had never felt the cold in her life; she felt it now, but not with terrible panic, although she understood what it must mean.

Whatever price the sword demanded was going to be met by her death.

Why
, she thought, as she failed to lift her arm,
didn't I kill Auralis
! She would have happily destroyed half the human Court if it would have purchased an extra hour of life. Why not Auralis?