Amberlight

by Sylvia Kelso

  “Diaman says Keranshah will talk.”

  Tellurith snorts. Re-visioning that cool, recalcitrant profile under the straw hat, the ice and fire in those general’s eyes. “I’d give a tooth to know what’s in her mind.”

  “Keranshah signals they have been offered truce terms, including safe conduct for the other Houses and return of Kora holdings as well as sovereignty, once the negotiations are done.”

  “At this rate,” Iatha, too furiously amused for good taste, “we’ve only to bargain at a House a clause, and Telluir can keep the qherrique.”

  At which Tellurith surprises herself by shattering a wine-glass on the wall.

  * * * *

  “’Rith . . . I’m sorry.”

  It takes a mental eternity to turn from the stars, paled now by a cool, so cool and pure climbing moon, and say with some semblance of composure, “So am I. I didn’t intend that.”

  Silence. A heavily drawn breath.

  “But . . .”

  But do you think it just possible that it will happen? That with you in the balance Assandar will leave Telluir till last, and if he raises the stakes at each House, one, at least, will keep our life?

  As well as our lives?

  Tellurith answers through her teeth, so as not to scream: I will not take my life at such a ransom. I will not live in a world bought with Averion’s blood.

  “Did Keranshah reply?”

  “Demanded the night for the Houses to consider.”

  “Didn’t ask for safe conduct to discuss it?”

  “It was refused.”

  Too clever to give rein to cleverness. Tellurith grits her teeth.

  * * * *

  Pale dawn over Amberlight, signals lacing a copper-stained, smoke-smeared, storm-sullen sky.

  “Keranshah wishes to know the opinion of Hafas House.”

  “Hafas sends, No surrender, without protection of the qherrique.”

  Tellurith feels a stoppage in her heart.

  “Jerish sends, Concur.”

  “Khuss sends, We have already voted. Is the emperor’s pig so short in the memory he has to ask again?”

  “’Rith?”

  It has stopped. It has all stopped, Zuri and Iatha beside her, the signalers crouched, ready to send. All the eyes fixed on her. Waiting for her to dispose of their lives.

  She stares into each face in turn. Turns to Iatha. And asks, “What was the vote in the House?”

  Iatha thrusts her jaw out. “The same as before. Tell ’em, No!”

  As House-head, Tellurith has condemned wrong-doers. A Freight-head who cheated, a shaper who stole. Three children whose faces she never saw. Not women who have lived and fought with her. Not Averion, and Zhee, and Ti’e. Not all the folk of her own House.

  The words stick. The signaler is waiting. Tellurith gulps.

  “What was the vote—from Keranshah?”

  The signal flickers, red motes arcing across the dirty sky. Forever passes before the reply.

  “Keranshah votes, No.”

  * * * *

  “May the Mother look with love on Keranshah.”

  The faces blur in the pure qherrique light, filmed by Tellurith’s tears. Not so obscured as to hide the other tears, and the fierce pride, bayed, triumphant, the strengthening of fury and resolution in the hands on every lifted glass.

  Keranshah’s wake.

  “And may the Mother,” Zuri, rising for the toast after Iatha’s, “warm Herself at their fire.”

  No chance the Mother will have missed it. No tame last-ditch defeat for Keranshah. Tellurith swallows dutifully. Tasting nothing. Eyes still blurry, ears still ringing, to the shattering detonation, the fireball that soars above the mountain into that violently expanding mushroom, the pall of pearl-shot dust.

  No need, either, for anyone to explain in other Houses, where the defenders stare, open-mouthed, stunned rather in awe than grief. Averion has not frittered away her night’s space. Nor has she bothered to defend an indefensible demesne.

  “The enemy has signaled Diaman: Keranshah folk, including some men, have surrendered and been taken under guard. None, repeat none, have been harmed. The enemy regrets that the House and Craft-heads with their men and many of their folk have not been found.”

  “They blew the face.”

  Tellurith hears herself say it, forehead against the attic window-frame, ears still singing in that unnatural ensuing quiet. Feeling Charras and Ahio nod behind her. Knowing it in her bones, her cutter’s ear, beyond any doubt.

  “They went up there in the dark last night. Sent out the ones who wanted. And then—they woke the qherrique.”

  The oldest name comes back to her. Sky-light. Mother’s Fire.

  The tiny sparks that leap at Her will when silk is rubbed on that other substance that shares the City’s name.

  The power imaged in the carven thunderbolts.

  * * * *

  “Diaman signals: The enemy offers truce, safe conduct for all who surrender, return of Kora holdings, sovereignty for Amberlight.”

  Tellurith bites her lip.

  “Telluir signals: Respect for the remaining Houses?”

  A long, long delay. And finally, almost reluctantly, Hafas’ signal flickers.

  “The enemy regretfully declines.”

  Tellurith bites her lips again. Wonders, suddenly: What would Averion do?

  Not, at least, sit idly while the enemy eats Amberlight, piece by piece.

  “Telluir house signals Diaman and Hafas: If you fire at Arcis and troops in Uphill, our troublecrew will try a raid.”

  “Hafas signals: On what?”

  “Telluir signals: To kill or capture their general.”

  * * * *

  Forgive me, Alkhes, she thinks. Fingers steady, eyes dry, as she tries the power-panel for the light-gun that will go on Zuri’s hip. We can’t sit and watch our city burn. We don’t have the num­bers to recapture Arcis or re-take the rest. We have no option for flight. You know, and I know, that you are not only the brains of this assault, but its heart. You know, and I know, that you will offer infinite mercies. That you will suffer with every one of us who dies.

  And that until you have the qherrique, and the Houses destroyed, and Amberlight’s evil excised, whoever dies, nothing will make you stop.

  It has taken every effort up to imprisonment to exclude Azo and Verrith. Appeals to Zuri’s rank, her irreplaceable value, bring the merest grunt. She knows, Tellurith thinks, as I do, that her greater value is to go. On what may be our very last chance.

  They say their goodbyes at the courtyard door. Before Zuri and her trio slip out and over the garden wall, faces and clothes blacked, bedecked with every weapon from light-guns to garottes, under cover of the bombardment that opens now, in response to Telluir House’s signal flash, white lances reaching out from High and Dragon Spur. To uproar in the streets, to the piercing scream from the citadel of the enemy’s Alarm.

  Under its cover Tellurith embraces Zuri, quick and awkwardly. Not something she has ever done before. Not something either of them has expected, Zuri’s body rock-solid and hair-triggered in shock as Alkhes’ would be in her arms. But quite certainly, she knows she will not let another friend go as lightly as Averion.

  And both of them know it is unlikely they will meet again.

  * * * *

  So less a shock than astoundment then, to be haled to the street door by a furiously profane Iatha in the broadening dawn. To peer through the window-slit on a flag of truce, and a detachment of Dhasdein troopers, as resentful as they are terrified, by their body language; and in their midst, arms bound, face an eloquence of mute infuriation, Zuri herself.

  Less astounded than her House-head when the officer in command announces, “We are returning this prisoner,” and the squad, about-facing, tramps away
.

  Hauled inside, unbound, stayed with coffee and comforted with breakfast cakes, it is still half an hour before her rage lets Zuri speak. But her first words raise consternation enough.

  “They can read our signals. They were waiting for me.”

  And only when messengers have flown to send final wild messages to Hafas and Jerish, and the tumult has subsided to its normal fraught anxiety, can Zuri get out the rest.

  “We never even got across the perimeter. We were in Quicksilver when they picked us up.”

  Central street of Telluir’s valley, named for the speed of its gutters in rain. Barely a bow-shot from the House.

  “They surrounded us. A pox-blasted detachment of them. He—the general—was there himself.”

  Zuri literally grinds her teeth.

  “They squeezed us in the tortoise, with those gangrened shields. ‘Zuri,’ he said to me. ‘I know you. And you know me’.”

  Tellurith, not knowing, stares.

  “They had us packed like statuettes. Couldn’t raise a hand. Couldn’t use a gun. Couldn’t—even—kick.”

  Tellurith watches Azo’s eyes bulge. Telluir troublecrew, renowned no less for address than for street-killer speed and fighting skills, immobilized, captured, without a scratch.

  “’Zuri,’ he says. ‘We read the signals.’ So then I knew.”

  She lifts her eyes, at last, to Tellurith’s. “And he offered me amnesty, to come back. If we surrendered. And I knew—we couldn’t get him. And I knew—we had to have that word.”

  She lowers her head again, neck-muscles swelling, biting out each word.

  “And he—knew—I—knew.”

  As Tellurith knows, now. And says it, resignedly.

  “Was there a message for me?”

  Under brows, Zuri stares at her. Then shakes her head, No.

  And in cover of the table, hidden from everyone else, makes the troublecrew hand-sign. Yes.

  Tellurith’s heart-beat plunges like a galloping horse. Madness, elation, fright. Horror, as she knows what she must do.

  “Give it,” she says to Zuri, “here.”

  So Zuri, after another long stare that reads more than her Head’s face, slides a hand inside her black shirt, gropes into the breast-band, extricates a folded, crumpled, sweaty square.

  As Tellurith undoes it her fingers, she notices, barely shake.

  Tel—

  Time to thank the Mother that he has not used an endearment, at least.

  For the gods’ love, don’t go on with this. There’s no way you can hold us off. You know that. You know we know. You have my word that you and anyone who surrenders with you will be safe. If you want, you can put your Houses together after we’ve left. Just dissolve them officially. Just let us have the qherrique. You can administer it, if that’s what you want. Once we’ve broken this stupid taboo you can do anything you like. Just don’t force us to any more of this. I swear to you, it’s turned the men’s stomachs. They’re sick at the thought of killing any more women, of having to sack another House. Have some pity. For what’s left of your city, if not for us.

  And at the bottom, a double signature. The general’s scribble. And a stark, single A.

  * * * *

  Time trickles into timelessness, as in that other decision he asked of her. Time to see the faces round her, pity, shame, embarrassment. Pain. Love. Time to see the ruins, and the shattered remnants of Amberlight. To hear, too clearly, Iatha’s jesting words. To yearn for life and hope with all her mortal body, which passionately desires an end to terror, an escape from death. Time to see, limned as clear as in fleshly vision, the writer’s face. The pain, the pleading, in those black eyes: Don’t make me do this. To them, to you, to all of us.

  Time to ask the final arbitration where she has always asked.

  And sure, inexplicable as in that moonlight over Exchange Square, the qherrique answers, No.

  There is time for shock, and disbelief. To ask again, and have the answer twice as clear. To see her feelings mirrored on each watching face. To shut her eyes, and beg the Mother for explanation as well as strength. To open her eyes, into Zuri’s stare.

  At which, as at a spoken question, Zuri nods. And says quite quietly, “Nearly everything we’d want.”

  Tellurith shuts her hand upon the small, scribbled square. When she speaks, her words sound very remote.

  “Iatha, get Hanni for me. Tell her to write a message to the general. Tell him, the Head of Telluir House thanks him for his concern, and feels for his feelings—” and if there is a twist in that, so much the worse “—but with the greatest regret, neither she nor her fellow House-heads can meet his terms.”

  * * * *

  For whatever reason, it goes very quickly after that. In the small hours of next morning, the remnants of Amberlight come under general assault.

  Not merely the Houses, invested by storm-troops under a hail of catapult bolts. Troops out of Arcis also charge down the spurs to overwhelm the gun-sites of Diaman and Hafas and Khuss.

  And behind them army engineers disable the windmills along each crest.

  When the qherrique light falters and pales in Telluir House there are cries of alarm from women who have never flinched before. Flying down the stairs to her central command post, Tellurith feels the failing of her House’s heart before she hears Ahio cursing like a volcano in front of her.

  “Whoreson outland donkey-spawn’s tapped the power-sink!”

  The windmills fill the gap between the qherrique’s daily light absorption and the night-time drain of the House. Without the windmills, the qherrique cannot match the drain.

  Tellurith shouts it into a gloom that is more than physical.

  “Turn down the lights!”

  So it is in a dawn twilight, amid the thunder of assault upon each spur, that they prepare for the end of Telluir House. And amid the silently embracing women, marriage and love partners, old lovers, present friends, all saying goodbye forever, as their Head takes flight to the Power-shop lookout she is spun round by a voice asking, “Tellurith?”

  A male voice.

  He—they—are in the door. Silhouetted against the courtyard light. All too fair targets to the catapult gunners who can sweep the court. She screams and leaps, galvanized to the snatch.

  “Get in here!”

  Others yank in the rest. The hall resounds to women’s infuriation, that only equal fear and love could see released.

  “What in the Mother’s name are you doing—here—like that!”

  From somewhere Sarth has found troublecrew trousers and shirt, camouflage-green and black. Behind him, Azo’s husband Herar nurses in one hand an iron window bar, in the other, a long stone block. Behind that, dressed and armed for this lunatic, heart-breaking battle, are the other men from Telluir’s tower.

  “You can’t do this!”

  Hands dug in Sarth’s arms, shaking him as so many women are doing to their men, shaken by the warmth and muscle and too well remembered maleness of him, all too precious now that it is in such peril, that it so madly imperils itself. “Go back! Stay safe!”

  “My dear, it’s hardly safe anywhere in Amberlight, is it? Let alone if we go back—”

  “The Mother blast—!”

  You at least, she wants to scream, I want to know you remain undamaged to the end. You at least I do not want to see reviled and mocked and maybe violated because of what we made your life.

  Tellurith bites her lip. Grips harder on his arms. With an Amberlight man’s response, he suffers her grasp.

  “Tell me,” she hisses, “do you want to get out?”

  Those perfectly groomed eyebrows rise. Weirdest moment of a beyond weird morning, to see Sarth outside the tower without a veil.

  “No, Tellurith,” says her husband with his full precise elegance. “We do not want to get �
�out.’ Whatever you made of us, we belong to Amberlight. We are here to—ah—fight.”

  * * * *

  By the time she completes the lunatic diversion of posting men as auxiliary lookouts, back-up fighters, fetch-and-carry crew, the enemy has taken the spurs. Almost at their elbow, the din of full assault has closed around Falla’s valiant Khuss.

  Sickening, all too sickening at such close quarters, to sit and watch. The catapult fire to pin the defenders, the battering rams to break the doors, the catapult loads employed now with merciless accuracy to smash holes in walls, house, tower. The scaling ladders that send massed troops over the garden wall for the decisive assault.

  The hideous, hideous tumult in the House.

  * * * *

  And before it dies away the fresh crescendo, as up on High Spur the pincers close upon Hafas.

  Like Averion, it seems, Zhee has made her own plans. The catapults have hardly breached a wall when up from the shattered men’s tower jerks a flag of truce.

  And in the lull, so clear Telluir House can hear the cry of, “Call the general!” pass down the enemy ranks, the hill speaks.

  Not Averion’s splendid detonation. This is a steady, almost somnolent roar.

  And then a garish white and clay-yellow dust-cloud that bellies skyward as the rock face caves in, with Zhee’s own ponderous impassivity, upon the mine of Hafas House.

  * * * *

  Afternoon receding, presaging sunset, over Amberlight. Veiled in the dust of destruction, the smoke of death and battle and the great spiral of circling carrion birds, like a shrouded corpse.

  A storm sweeps over the ridges of the Kora to the west and north. High into the pure distant sky the grey skirts of rain raise their mighty silver and grey-blotted, lightning-brilliant thunderhead. Under it is a sudden quiet.

  And once more, outside Telluir House a flag of truce.

  “The general will speak to the Head of Telluir House.”

  Do I go? Do I stay? Do I suspect treachery? Do I spit in his face?

  Tellurith stares wildly about. So wholly, so hopelessly her own mind has been set upon death that this seems hallucination. What in the Mother’s name, she cries, can he treat for now?

  In panic she turns about. Snatching, with all other anchors gone, for Zuri, for Iatha’s face. Crying silently, What now?