Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (94 page)

Margret's eyes were dark and still.

Diora's lashes brushed her cheeks. "You are not so different from your brother," she said at last.

"We cannot go forward unless you answer the question."

"I know. But your answer has not destroyed us."

"And yours will?"

"I do not know."

"There is only one way to find out." She held out a hand.

Diora hesitated, but the hand was not withdrawn.

"What do I desire?" She looked up, into the winds, for the winds were howling. "Can you bring the dead to life?"

Howling.

"Can you give the dead peace?"

"The dead are at peace," Margret said softly. "It is the living that are driven. Only the living."

She laughed. "The ones who made this place have passed beyond us; do you think they are at peace? Listen. Listen to the winds."

"The winds carry no words, Serra. What you hear, you have chosen to hear."

"What I hear, I cannot help but hear. I—" words faltered.

"If you desire vengeance, say it. Say it."

She thought she could. But the words did not come.

"Why did you ask for the truth?"

"I don't know."

That was truth. She heard it. "I want to hold my son," she said.

"You—you had a child?"

"One of my wives had a child. He would have killed her in his birthing, but I—I spoke to him."

Daughter, what do you desire of us?

"What do you desire of
us
?" she countered.

But the wind demanded her answer. The light enforced that demand.

"Tell them, Diora."

"I want peace."

"Only the dead have peace."

"Is that a Voyani saying?"

"Yes."

Silence. Here, in the heart of Arkosa, she felt the presence of her wives as strongly as she had felt it since their deaths.

She heard Ruatha's voice, breaking her name by syllable until the name was an expression of pain and horror. She • cried out in denial; covered her ears, although she had long since learned that such a gesture was futile.

It was Margret who caught her hands and drew them down to her sides. "Diora, you are one of the strongest people I have ever met."

Strong? She wanted to laugh. Her legs were shaking, and her limbs; her lips were a thin line because she did not trust her words to escape them whole. Her throat burned; she had swallowed fire, that night, and she would never expel it. It consumed her.

"I desire… only the strength… to do my duty."

And your duty, Daughter?

"To destroy the servants of the Lord of Night." Thunder struck the sky above her; lightning flashed from the sky beneath. And from that lightning, forked and treacherous, a path formed; it glittered like crystal, sharp and hard.

Two paths. Two different paths.

She started to place her foot upon the one beneath her feet, but Margret had not finished speaking.

"And after you have destroyed them, then what?" She looked at Margret. "I don't know. I don't care."

"But I do."

"You asked for the truth. That is the only truth I know."

"Then find a different truth. Find another one." She was so like Ruatha, her wife. And her brother Adam had been so like Deirdre. The roughness of their voices, the darkness of their skin, the strangeness of their uninhibited words, were cosmetic.

She looked away. "Matriarch," she said, struggling for distance, "we must walk."

And because that, too, was truth, Margret released her. But her words stayed with Diora for a long time.

"None? You think too highly of yourself, or too poorly of me."

Elena scrabbled across the ground, choosing her path in that motion. She knew that the creature before her was simply a different death, but instinct had already made the choice, and she followed it blindly. Her blood left a weak trail across the sand; the sun would dry it; the wind would bury it. But she knew a moment's fear: in the North, blood brought predators. She had never thought to fear them in the desert.

She felt the night behind her; it was cold. Too cold.

"Lord Ishavriel. What a pleasant surprise." The creature reached out; she took his hand before she drew another breath.

It, too, was cold. Without effort, he lifted her to her feet. "You will stay here," he told her quietly, although he did not look down at her again.

"Telakar. Do not interfere."

"Interfere? Have you laid claim to these lands? A pity that this was not made clear."

She struggled for breath. Lost it twice.

"Let me make it clear. I have no quarrel with you, but you interfere in my game. Leave, and I will overlook your trespass."

Elena was Voyani. She had traveled the
Voyanne
before she could walk, bundled in the slings in which the Arkosans carried their children. She had taken her first steps, halting and clumsy as all children were, beneath the open sky. She had chosen, as an adult, to tread the path the Matriarchs had first tread; to follow their laws, to live by their mandate.

She had always thought she understood why.

Squaring her shoulders, she raised her head and looked, Ml and long, upon the two who now spoke. They were her enemies. She had never seen them before, but she knew them. The
Voyanne
had been created to lead the Arkosans away from the games and the subterfuge of creatures such as these.

In the distance, struggling as she had struggled, she saw the man who had once been her cousin. His sword was the brightest of lights, a shard in his hand. The Voyanne was no longer beneath his feet, and no matter where he walked, he would never find it again, for he walked by the side of the Lady's enemies.

"Telakar."

The creature he named smiled. "Will you draw your sword here? Here of all places? Draw it, then."

"I need not waste that power on you. Return to your master."

The creature's face was as beautiful—and giving—as alabaster. Pale, unblemished, he stood at a distance that time had not touched, could not breach. "My master is otherwise occupied." He smiled.

Lord Ishavriel returned that smile, edge for edge.

As one, they drew their weapons.

And the weapons were not of steel, although they glittered as coldly; they were fire, the essence of fire, and they burned red and bright as they clashed.

Neither path was smooth. The semblance of stone bore cracks and gashes, as if the rock had risen at the breaking of earth; the crystal was sharp and difficult to navigate.

Margret laughed, and if the amusement was bitter, it was genuine.

As she met Diora's eyes, she said, "
This
is like my mother."

"Your mother?"

"The heart of Arkosa couldn't be a peaceful, safe place; it couldn't be a haven; no. In the end, it had to be a battle-ground of tests, tests and more tests, each a failure waiting to happen."

"Did you fail her tests often?"

"All the time."

The Serra hesitated.

"What?"

"I was merely thinking that truth is not always a comfort."

"No. But that's a lot like my mother as well." She paused and inserted a healthy curse as her boots caught in a crack.

"If the path were easy to walk," the Serra said, "you would never trust it."

"And you would?"

"No. But I mistrust this one as well." She looked down at her feet. The crystals were sharp enough that the leather of her boots had been cut and gouged in several places.

She had thought it would be difficult to choose between the branches of the path, for they all seemed to lead nowhere; none strayed as far as the walls. But in the end, the choices were few.

They could choose paths that led away from each other, or they could choose ones that took them no farther apart than an arm's length, and in the end, they chose those.

The room did not seem endless.

The walk was.

When they met the first man on their separate roads, it seemed almost a natural consequence of having journeyed miles into a foreign land.

He was tall; taller than Stavos, perhaps as tall as the cold, pale-haired stranger who had taken to the skies in the folds of the wind to battle the Serpent. He wore armor as if it were silk, wore helm as if it were crown. The visor, however, was raised above a proud, dark face.

Across his chest was a familiar symbol. The outer circle was etched in red, the inner in blue; the crescents were drawn in gold, and the line that bisected them in ebony. Arkosa. Tor Arkosa. But there were no runes between the two circles.

He carried a naked blade, and the shape of the blade was the only thing about the warrior that did not seem foreign. But the length of the steel was lit from within by an unnatural golden light, a light that was matched only by the color of his eyes.

He had demon eyes.

They warded themselves automatically, like nervous girls.

He bowed.

His lips moved, but no sound passed them.

Diora lifted the Heart of Arkosa in a trembling palm. The chain was secure around her neck; it did not budge. Instead, it seemed to gather weight; the stone grew heavy. "Margret."

The Matriarch nodded, but kept an eye on the silent stranger as she lent Diora her strength.

Together they raised the Heart until it rested between them.

"… she has sent me. She has spoken with the Seven, to no avail; she has spoken with the Sen adepts." He closed golden eyes, and for a moment a terrible loss transformed his features. He gathered himself before he spoke again, but they knew, as they watched him, that the news he spoke had broken something in him. "She did not return from that meeting. I am sorry. I have failed you. But the laws are clear; the god-born may not enter the seat of the Tor. She would not heed my warning."

The last words were bitter.

He knelt. Laid his sword upon the ground.

Before he released it, Margret spoke. "No. I do not accept your death."

He rose again, and his features were utterly changed; his eyes no longer shone gold, and his sword was the color of night. "Accept it, Matriarch. It is long in the past. You desired truth. You will have it. Come. The past waits, and I will lead you to it."

He turned and began to walk.

Margret looked at the ground beneath his feet. "Diora."

"He… his voice…"

"I know."

The Serra shook her head. "He serves the Lord of Night."

"Yes," Margret said, weakly. "But he serves—or served—Arkosa."

"You cannot say that with certainty. If this is a test—"

"It is no test. Yollana told me to use only the old roads. I think… that there are no roads in Arkosa as old as the one he walks."

He turned, as if the dead could still hear conversation. "Margret," he said quietly. Imperiously.

She turned to Diora. "Wait, if you must. But I have no other choice." She began to walk, and Diora caught her elbow.

"I will go where you go, Margret. For as long as our paths cross, I will go where you go."

He led them into a long hall.

Unnatural illumination vanished. Spokes of sunlight streamed between tall columns that had almost certainly been designed to catch and cut their light. Through glass and lead, sun told a story against the stone floor; a story that was punctuated by the near-silent movement of men and women robed in pale silks. Their heads were shaved, their faces shaved; their skin was golden but pale. They did not look up at the passing of the armored man, but instead knelt to ground as he walked by.

Margret knew they were not free.

Each man and woman bore, in the center of their foreheads, the mark of Arkosa.

And Margret bore it now, like a brand, across her memory. She could have asked for so many things in this room, this stronghold, this hidden place. But she had asked for the truth.

He led her, quickly, through these cloisters of light and life, and she was glad to escape them.

Until she arrived at the doors.

He stopped before them. Bowed. His sword had disappeared, but she knew that he contained it somehow; that he could summon it should the need arise.

"The Tor awaits. Sen Margret?"

She nodded grimly. She had never heard the word
Sen
before, but she knew it anyway: It was, of all things, a title.

Something to separate her from the serafs who had fallen to the floor as she passed them by.

And more. It was an old word; it held power.

"Sen Margret, your sister is not welcome."

"The Tor told you that?"

"He was most explicit." The regret was genuine, if unspoken. So, too, was the threat.

"Very well." She turned to Diora. She blinked as she saw that Voyani robes had given way to something resplendent—the silks of the High Court. White and gold adorned her left shoulder; her right was exposed to light as it seldom was. The robes of the Lord's consort. No—that was not quite right. They were the robes of a woman who might one day hope to be the Tor's consort.

But her sister had no such desire.
Sister
? Diora was not her sister. She was the pale, perfect daughter of an unknown Widan; the widow of the man who might have ruled the Tor Leonne, had he survived.

And yet the word
sister
suited her completely. It was, as the word
Sen
, some artifact of the past. It did not denote blood; it did not denote family.

Margret struggled with her knowledge of the Voyani; struggled to contain it in the tide of this other woman's life.

For she had no doubt at all that she was walking in the steps of another woman's life.

Whose?

She shook her head, to clear it.

Flowers trailed from the side of her sister's hair down the length of her cheek and nestled behind her ear; among the blossoms, diamonds and pearls had been arranged, where they might shine or glitter in the sunlight between columns. She wore combs of gold and jade and emerald, and her shoulders, exposed to light, were as pale as cream. But she was no simple consort, no matter how beautiful and demure she appeared. Any one of those combs could kill a man, should she have reason to draw it from the sheath of her hair. Margret could not remember seeing the action, but she knew it was true. Viscerally.