Firstborn

by Michelle West

  “This also amuses you.”

  “It does. My wife considers it unkind, but she has—with time and effort—developed a fondness for Andrei.”

  “It was not there at the beginning.”

  Hectore chuckled. “You remember that?”

  “There were bets placed at the time.”

  Hectore shrugged. “She was younger then. We both were. And she felt uncertain. She knew me well enough to know that Andrei was important and would remain so; she was less certain that she would. But that is water under the bridge. Once she understood that Andrei was as consumed with my success—and survival—as she herself was, she also accepted him. At first, he was a necessary evil. But a handful of years later, he was simply necessary. She did not treat him poorly in the interim; she did not abuse her position—or his.”

  “And had she, would you have kept the servant or the wife?”

  Hectore shook his head, clearly amused. “You do not understand, ATerafin. My first wife was chosen for me, it is true. But my second wife? I chose. And I would not have chosen a woman who could abuse a servant behind his master’s back. Not then and not now. She certainly let me know that she was unhappy, and in private, she could be quite harsh when unhappy. But she divined correctly that the problem was with me. And that, I could accept.”

  “And now?”

  “Now? She will barely let me leave the house if Andrei does not accompany me.” Hectore’s frown was brief. “They discuss my clothing. They discuss decor. They discuss my menu—although I have had to be somewhat more firm about their choices. She would be as bereft as I were Andrei to vanish.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Yes, old friend, you do. What you do not understand is that I am Andrei’s master. I consider him kin, but that is my choice. My wife, however, considers him a friend. Friends have a different interaction than master and servant. She does not treat him as a servant; she has her own maids to tend her. She values his opinions—of me, of the merchants—and she discusses them with him as if they are equals. He did attempt to discourage this, but she pointed out quite forcefully that she did not have these discussions when they were not both at home. In public, of course, he is a servant.”

  “And so you have forced ties on him that he did not seek for himself.”

  “I have given him the opportunity, rather, to sink roots. The choice was always his.”

  “What is he, Hectore?”

  “Andrei.”

  “Yes, you’ve said that. But that is a name, not a state. You know more.”

  “In the old world,” Andrei said, stepping seamlessly into existence across the bed of stones, “they were not so separate.” His frown was pure Andrei. “I wish you would speak less with Jarven. I have never understood your affection for him.”

  “Affection,” Hectore replied, “is a strong term. Might we say appreciation, instead?”

  “I would not understand that, either,” was the rather prim reply.

  • • •

  Jarven stared at Andrei. Until the moment Hectore’s servant had reappeared, the Terafin merchant had had no sense, no awareness, of his presence. This was annoying. Jarven had some experience with annoyances. On occasion, everything in the Merchant Authority was annoying.

  Hectore said he saw stone, stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Jarven could see stone with great effort, great difficulty—and it did not seem profitable to expend that effort. He did not see stone. Nor did he see forest, tree, anything that spoke of natural life. He could, and did, see Hectore—but Hectore had been, until the return of Andrei, the only solidly visible object in view.

  Andrei, however, was arresting. If Hectore was solid, Andrei was not. He was present, yes—but the whole of his form seemed to shift in place, colors rising and falling across his body. With those colors came shadows, hints of shape, things that had the solidity and texture of mist. This sounded peaceful in description; it was not.

  The whole of Andrei’s form seemed to be at war with itself.

  And yet, it was part of this place. Hectore was not. Nor, Jarven thought, was he.

  “I see a storm on the horizon,” Hectore said to his servant.

  The servant’s face drew together, the colors once again returning to something that normal flesh might take, and cohering into a very familiar expression. “That,” Andrei said, “is not a storm. It is a disaster.” He spoke, as he often did, judgmentally. He did not, however, speak with any great fear.

  “Ah.” Hectore was silent for some moments. “It’s not, by any chance, The Terafin?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Of course, Jarven thought. He was irritated, but also intrigued. Either of the two were preferable to boredom and the ennui that arose from it. “Is it,” he said, “one of The Terafin’s cats?”

  “They are not cats,” Andrei replied.

  “Andrei likes cats,” Hectore added. “You have not, however, answered Jarven’s unfortunately worded question. Is it one of The Terafin’s winged companions?”

  “I very much fear the answer to that question is now no. I do not know what she was thinking to bring them into the tangle. It is clear she is almost entirely ignorant.”

  Jarven coughed politely. He had the choice between that and laughter. And that, too, was odd, not right; Jarven had perfect control of any outward expression of his internal state of mind.

  “If rumors are to be granted any credence,” Hectore said, “she tends to let the cats run wild.”

  “And where have you heard those rumors?”

  “You are ATerafin, Jarven. You cannot honestly expect me to answer that question.”

  Jarven’s smile was, once again, a simple tool.

  “She has not allowed them to injure or kill anyone in her House. She has been unable to prevent them from destroying assassins, on the other hand.”

  “So I had heard. I had not heard that they were otherwise particularly destructive.”

  “If you are not in the habit of attending to the physical maintenance of your manse, there would be no reason you would do so; they are, however, responsible for a fair amount of incidental property damage. Tables. Chairs. Carpets and runners. One section of wall in the public galleries—although that, at least, they have not repeated. And that is neither here nor there,” he added, looking almost embarrassed to be mired in such trivial details.

  One look at Andrei, and Jarven realized that the servant did not consider these details trivial.

  “Do you think,” Hectore continued, “that she entered the tangle to find her cats?”

  If possible, Andrei’s expression became even more sour, and Jarven found himself laughing again, which did nothing to alleviate the grimace that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the lines of Andrei’s face.

  “Those creatures were not meant to be companions to mortals.”

  “That was not no,” Hectore pointed out.

  Andrei sighed; it was almost theatrical. To Jarven, he said, “Many assume that Hectore’s success in the past is due, in large measure, to my interventions.”

  “I have never made that assumption.”

  “No. It is why you are dangerous.” To Hectore he said, “I believe you are correct.”

  “It is not making your day any happier.”

  “No.”

  “You do not think she can control her cats—”

  “They are not cats, Hectore.”

  “—If she is not present.”

  “Given the obvious disrespect they show her when she is? No. They were not known for their kindness or their consideration, and they were feared. By mortals,” he added, “they were feared. It is best that we find The Terafin before that storm finds us.”

  “Can you control it?”

  “I? No. They are like very powerful demons. When you bend your will to any other task, they slip free of their constraints in subtle ways.”

  Jarven said, “The cats are not known for their subtlety.” He paused
and added, “Some caution however, Andrei.”

  “You are not notable for your caution.”

  Jarven was almost offended. “I am well noted for it. I am not noted for timidity—but when I choose to approach danger, there are none as cautious as I. Be that as it may, you are speaking of demons and their control, and that topic is severely frowned upon by the august Sigurne Mellifas and her Order of Knowledge. I am curious, of course, but assume that the knowledge is secondhand.”

  “It is. But, Jarven: I know what demons once were. I would not summon them.”

  “And The Terafin’s cats?”

  “I would not keep them. I would not make the attempt.”

  “By all accounts,” Hectore said mildly, “she did not choose to keep them; they chose to stay.” He rose at Andrei’s slight gesture, but did not otherwise move his feet. Not until the Araven servant gestured.

  “We will not have long,” he said to his master. Hectore nodded, as if this type of direction were an everyday occurrence. When Andrei nodded again, Hectore took a step forward. He was instantly lost to sight.

  • • •

  “I will not leave you here,” Andrei said, gazing at the spot that Hectore had occupied. He spoke to Jarven. “But now you must be cautious. I consider you as dangerous as the creatures you call cats—and as tractable.” He paused and then added, “In some ways, you are more dangerous. The eldest—for reasons I cannot fathom—have attached themselves to The Terafin; they are willing, inasmuch as they can be, to serve her. You, however, do not understand service in even that most basic of fashions.”

  “Do I not?”

  “No. Nor have you ever. You search, always, for advantages gained. You make alliances where they will be of benefit—but they are unwise allies who turn their backs on you, because allegiances are guaranteed to ebb and flow, and you are easily carried away with the tide.”

  “And you?”

  “What do you think?” Andrei looked at the shifting ground beneath their feet. “Follow if you can.” He took a step forward.

  • • •

  Night was not appreciably different when he and Shadow had finally condescended to stop their midair brawl. His roar had implied many things, but those things had receded. He was sulking, of course, because Jewel was more critical of his behavior than his brother’s—and Shadow was appreciably more smug.

  “Do not step on his tail again,” she told the gray cat.

  Night’s tail, however, was low to the ground and twitching, and when it smacked Shadow’s nose, she sighed. “I mean it, Shadow.”

  “But he started it!”

  “We can’t afford another big fight right now. I have no idea where you’ll end up.”

  “No,” Shadow said, with infinitely more weight in the syllable, “you don’t.” He turned and batted Night’s wings, his paws almost whistling with speed through the air he disturbed. “And you are stupid. Why did you send me?”

  Night growled, his voice an echo of the storm in this place. “You needed to go. You are stupid. You could have told her.” He returned Shadow’s blow.

  Jewel exhaled. In less than ten seconds they would resume their brawl, but this time they were close enough to the rest of her companions that someone else was likely to be collateral damage. She walked between them, which caused Angel to sign frantically, and put a hand on each of their heads. “Cut it out right now. We don’t have time for this.

  “Snow is still lost, and we need to find him.”

  Night snickered. “We won’t get lost,” he told her. “We never get lost.”

  “Fine. He’ll lose the rest of us, and we can’t afford that.”

  “Why not?”

  Shadow snickered.

  “I ask that question myself although, perhaps, not in the same fashion,” Calliastra added. Night gave her the side-eye.

  “You have to come here,” Night said, ignoring the godchild and instead focusing his gaze on Jewel.

  “Why?”

  Night glanced at Shadow, who shrugged, still sullen. “She is stupid.”

  “She is very stupid.”

  Calliastra glanced at Celleriant; Celleriant was annoyed, but he frequently found the cats annoying, and he hadn’t drawn his sword. “You tolerate this?”

  “I tolerate,” Celleriant replied, “what my Lord tolerates.”

  “She will have to fight her way across the unknown.”

  “She will not,” he countered. “But I may well. Lord, where is Snow?”

  Jewel glanced at Kallandras, who shook his head. She then turned to Night.

  “What? What?”

  “Where is your brother?”

  “Why do you need him?”

  “Does it matter? We need him. Do you know where he is?”

  “You know.”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  “You could know.”

  Jewel’s feet stopped moving.

  • • •

  Hectore found himself in a forest. The plain of rocks and pebbles had vanished between one step and the next. Andrei had strongly implied that geography in the tangle was highly subjective, and he was not known for his sense of either mischief or humor. Even so, Hectore found the sudden change of landscape disturbing.

  He turned to say as much, but Andrei was not behind him.

  He did not take another step. Hectore—like all men—was a creature of habit. He was not accustomed to landscape reasserting its existence in inexplicable ways, and he felt the lack of solidity strongly. It was, therefore, not a surprise to him when a path opened up beneath his feet—and beneath the heavier shade of the trees above.

  It was not a footpath, such as might be seen in more heavily traveled wilderness; it was a road of stone. Wagons could make their way through this terrain at speed, even in inclement weather—but roads such as these were costly endeavors, and merchants were not inclined to part with their own money to create them.

  Its existence implied power, ownership—and neither of that was Hectore’s. “Andrei.”

  “I am almost there,” his servant replied. Hectore glanced back, saw trees, and shrugged; he twined hands behind his own back, his left foot tapping almost impatiently.

  “Some caution is required,” Andrei said, although in theory he could see neither of these gestures. “And, in future, I advise you to leave Jarven behind. He sees too much, too clearly, and it makes it far easier to lose him. While that is my inclination, it has never been yours.”

  “True. Is he causing you trouble?”

  “Deliberately? No. It is his essential nature.”

  “Oh?”

  “He wishes to see all and know all, and he is—as I have no doubt made clear—enormously greedy.”

  Hectore chuckled, but the brief amusement left him. “I think you had better hurry.”

  Silence.

  “Hectore, where are you?” This was not the question the Araven merchant wanted to hear.

  “I am in a forest. It looks remarkably like the forested lands of the Western Kingdoms, except for one detail: the road.”

  “Road?”

  “Road. And a well-built, well-maintained road, at that. It is beneath my feet and continues forward and behind where I am now standing. It was not, however, here when the forest itself coalesced.”

  “Do not take a step.”

  Hectore nodded. “It is not my steps you need fear,” he told his invisible servant. “Can you hear them?”

  The reply: a very heartfelt curse. And a very dry chuckle, the latter from Jarven.

  • • •

  The sound of hooves on stone was distinctive, even at a distance. Only in cities and keeps was this at all common, and in Averalaan, other sounds cushioned the aural impact. Here, nothing did. There was a curious lack of birdsong and insect drone, and even the wind that caused leaves to rustle against one another was absent; it was as if the world was holding its breath.

  Hectore was not the world; his breaths were slow and measured. He sl
id a hand into his pockets; his hands were dry but steady. He had seen and survived demons, but the survival was not due to any particular skill on his part; he had planned for the unforeseen. He was aware that his survival had been entirely dependent on his wealth and the desire for the mage-born to accrue some part of it.

  He was not Jarven. He had the instinctive and visceral desire to avoid the dangerously strange. Danger, no: he had been the target of assassins in his younger years, and he could not turn a blind eye to possible enemies. But they had the tools that he had at his disposal. Not one of them could create a home in which every step changed the environment. Not one of them could create roads such as these without notice.

  He knelt, placed the flat of his left palm against that stone, being right-handed. It trembled beneath the weight of approaching hooves. He was under no illusion; in this place, on this road, the last thing he wanted was to meet the riders that accompanied that sound.

  Andrei, however, had told him not to move—or rather, not to take a step. Standing as he was, there was every chance Andrei would reach him before the riders did. He was not certain that would be the case if he left the road. But every merchant’s instinct he had honed through the decades told him to leap to the side—right or left, it didn’t matter. Every instinct but one.

  He straightened his shoulders, his back, slid his hands to his sides; he watched the road.

  • • •

  Jewel met the eyes of the gray cat. Of the three, it was Shadow to whom she felt closest. She had never said this out loud; the chance that Snow or Night would hear it and descend into the loud caterwauling destruction that passed for cat sulking was too great.

  The gray cat muttered imprecations; some of the words were very familiar. He finished with his favorite. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He then turned and headbutted his brother.

  Night’s fur rose, his eyes widened, and his claws extended.

  “This is not the time,” Shianne told them both. Her voice was not a human voice; it was laced with thunder, the syllables crackling with the type of sound that followed the lightning strikes in the bay.

  And both cats froze on hearing it. Night’s belly almost struck ground. Shadow’s, however, did not. He glanced at Shianne as if she were just another sand dune.