City of Night

by Michelle West

  The Ice Mage, in his arrogance, had assumed that he would be her only teacher.

  Sigurne had summoned the Southern Magi, with the aid and the deception of the lone, bound Kialli lord. They had come.

  Watch, Sigurne. Watch. You will be the only witness, in the end, of any worth, for you have seen and you have understood enough to give this battle context. Watch it, for I suspect you will see an echo of the ancient days in its unfolding.

  Survive.

  Survive.

  She, who now knew the danger that the Kialli posed, had nodded, grim and dark and pale. She did not ask what would become of the Kialli lord; could not bring herself to ask it, although she suspected it would have exposed nothing; he was—gods, he was—perceptive, cunning, treacherous. Had he used her? Yes. And she, him. Because their ends were the same.

  I am summoned, little one. We will not speak again. Not now, and not after; I will go to the Hells, and you? You will wither and die, and where you go, we cannot see. He had turned from her then.

  He had turned, walked, his pace quickening, toward where the Ice Mage now gathered the whole of his forces: men in glinting armor, men in chain and fur, men with pikes and axes and swords; demon- kin, the lesser, and the great, their armor a natural part of the form the world imposed upon them when they returned to its folds. Only the Kialli lord had enough control, enough will, to force his form to conform to his desire; he looked almost human.

  Sigurne, the Ice Mage did not summon; instead, he shut her in the height of his Tower, where the magical wards were the strongest, and windows that protected her from the wail of wind and the bite of winter death, lined the walls. She looked; she looked down.

  The Ice Mage had his kin. He had his Kialli. They were, for that moment, his.

  In the distance, fighting the drifts that were so high, and the ice that was often shining and thin, she saw a like army, but it contained no demon-kin, none of the strange and fearsome shapes of their limbs, their heads, their elongated faces. No: these distant men, who struggled against the simple fact of the cold that could kill, wore armor—or less—as they approached.

  She held breath, then and now, against hope. Against its bitter breaking—for how could it stand? Men, against the forces that the Ice Mage now arrayed, had fallen before. Some quickly, if they were lucky, and some over the course of three long days, in which their screams and their cries broke against the stone of the Tower.

  But she saw one, clothed in blue fire and blue light, rising into the pale azure of the perfect, and perfectly clear, sky. She saw the white of his hair—even at the marked distance of the Tower’s height—and she thought, although it was and must be the fancy of hope, she saw his expression, his exultation. She did not think, on that day, that he was human.

  She did not think it now.

  What had she thought he was, in that distant past? An Avatar. Angelae. Servant of the gods. He flew, and where he flew, there was death and a savage, cold joy: Meralonne APhaniel was a thing of the Northern Wastes, and yet . . . the kin died.

  He came, at last, to the Kialli, and the Kialli lord bowed to him. It was not a bow demanded by the man who held his name; it was offered, a gesture of respect, a glimmer of . . . familiarity. And in his turn, the white-haired mage had bowed as well, and a red sword, a red shield had formed in the hands of the Kialli.

  They fought, these two. Even the Ice Mage seemed momentarily forgotten, and Sigurne heard the demon roar his name above the din of endless wind, and she felt the name, and knew it. It was not a gift; it was a challenge, and the mage met it in perfect silence, with his blue blade, his wild, wild joy.

  The Kialli died.

  The Ice Mage died.

  Sigurne?

  She wept. She wept when her master’s head left his shoulders and his fires guttered and his creatures turned to ash that the winds would disperse until only story remained. She wept for her life, for what she had lost, and what she had gained, for this was victory: he had died. She would die, and she did not care, not then: the day was so clear and so bright and so beautiful, and everything she had ever wanted felt as though it had come to her in that moment.

  She wept now.

  Because it had not ended, not then, and it might never end while she lived. And because the joy of that day still lived, within her, the only bridge between her age and her youth, the fire that she touched when the days were shortest, the nights as dark and threatening as this one. She had lost family and friends and the whole of a life, before.

  She had lost one friend today.

  But he fought, as Meralonne said, and if death was victory—and she had faced that death, that certainty of death assuming it was exactly that—he had won an important battle. Not the war; not the whole of the war; that was in her hands, now, and in the hands of Meralonne APhaniel; it was in the hands, Sigurne thought, of a girl barely adult, and a woman who ruled the most powerful House in the Empire.

  And it would be in the hands of the Kings.

  She wanted to do something for Ararath. The best thing she could do for her family, in the end, had been to come South, to avoid the stigma of her shame shadowing her family’s name and life.

  And the only thing she could do for Ararath now was to find the source of the demonic magic that threatened the City, and eliminate it. Convenient, she thought, turning at last back to the center of her small room. Convenient gift, which would be given regardless.

  23rd of Scaral, 410 AA The Common, Averalaan

  The Common in Scaral was at its least crowded, but even so, it was busy. Commerce of a certain sort did not stop for simple things like lessening daylight hours or inclement weather; nor did it apparently stop for loud, screaming arguments, although the foot traffic did as people formed semicircles at what they felt was a safe distance in order to watch.

  Watching was, in its own way, an art, and many people who did choose to watch nonetheless observed very little; it was one of Haval’s chief complaints about a so-called audience, although if he were fair, it was also one of the things he most relied on. He glanced at the windows themselves, and from there, through the letters, laid backward so that customers might read the words on the outside. Many of the merchants who owned such storefronts in the Common rented them out. Haval had taken advantage of this, for he did not own this building, much to his regret. He had, however, been installed behind its well- kept facade for many years. His sign, Elemental Fashion, was still bold and still perfect, although that was more due to magery than his own care.

  Hannerle had disliked the name, of course. She had desired to see Haval’s House of Fashion or something equally pretentious—and equally nondescript, in the end—and it was only the reminder that Haval did not wish to ever be known by name that had dissuaded her from this choice. She still did not like the alternative, however.

  He frowned, although his hands still held needle and thread steady; he was beading, but the beadwork was both dark and minimal. Many of the current fashions adored by the young were lamentably spare, and while he appreciated the look, he did not appreciate the comparative lack of time and money it took to achieve it.

  The needle stopped, although Haval’s posture did not change.

  In the crowd that had gathered, men and women who were clearly actually busy enough that an argument—admittedly a colorful one on the edge of violence—could not hold their interest, were threading their way through the less- busy spectators. One of those men, Havel recognized instantly, even at this distance.

  Haval did not stand or otherwise draw attention to himself, but he was now aware of every movement that man made. It was not difficult; there were very few men who wore their hair in an unfettered drape of that length. The Northerners often wore theirs braided. Not so Meralonne APhaniel.

  He moved with relative ease through the gathering; his presence was such that people stepped out of his way, many of them without noticing that they’d done so only for the mage, and had, in fact, required a good deal of jostling for mu
ch larger and more annoyed men.

  What surprised Haval enough that he did not ask Hannerle to hang the “closed” sign quickly and furtively on the front door, was the man’s companion, for he recognized the girl. Jewel Markess. Her lamentable flyaway hair was caught and tied back—as much as it ever remained tied back—and its auburn curls seemed to have collected dirt. Not dust, but actual, damp earth. So, from this distance, had her clothing, but she did not look bruised or injured; this detritus was not the aftereffects of a fight. Had Meralonne APhaniel not turned to speak to her, Haval might have assumed he had mistaken their association, although Haval very rarely made that kind of sloppy observational error.

  Jewel was caught in the mage’s wake, or so it first appeared, but as Haval watched, he realized there was some verbal struggle between the two: the man with his obvious power and his intimidating talent, and the girl with her dirty clothing, her dirty hands, and her sudden, tight jaw. If she feared the mage at all, her temper had gotten the better of her.

  The mage, however, did not seem to notice enough to take offense.

  Haval raised a brow, and then set the beadwork aside. Jewel Markess, he thought, had come here deliberately; she was not merely following the casual yet decisive lead of Meralonne APhaniel. He hoped, briefly but fiercely, that Member APhaniel would remain outside—and was slightly surprised when Kalliaris deigned to smile.

  He was also instantly suspicious, but Haval had made a life of the game of suspicion; the goddess would surely overlook this. “Hannerle,” he said, raising his voice. “I have a visitor, if you will watch the storefront.”

  The sound of his wife’s energetic and quick movements momentarily occurred at his back, and the quality of those sounds told him that she was not—yet—annoyed. She came into the store’s front room, removing her apron and fussing with her hair, just as Jewel did, albeit only Jewel’s entry caused the bells to clamor in their high, tinkling voices.

  Haval made no pretense of sewing or work as he stood to greet her. She made no sound at all. But she looked at him, her face pale beneath what look like suspiciously new trails of dirt. Her eyes were also the dark that comes with lack of sleep. “I can’t stay long,” she said, casting a glance through the window, where Meralonne APhaniel was now leaning against the glass and filling his pipe.

  “I would offer you some method of escape,” Haval surprised them both by saying, “but I fear that if Member APhaniel was the one hunting you, you would not get far. Are you well?”

  She didn’t answer. This was not—he saw this clearly—because she wished to keep secrets. But she couldn’t grope her way to words; she struggled in silence, and he came quietly to her rescue. Silence could be so awkward when it was unlooked for and unwanted. “If you have a few moments, perhaps we might step into the back?”

  She glanced, again, at her companion, and then her lips pursed as she made—in her characteristically obvious way—a decision. She nodded and he led her to a room that was meant, in its fashion, to offer comfort. He gave her moments of peace and privacy as he set about clearing space in which they could both sit. “If you are not staying long, I will not offer you tea or general hospitality.”

  “I’d stay,” she finally said, “if I could. But . . .”

  “Understood,” he said quietly, although this was not entirely the case. “Sit, Jewel. Sit, and tell me what brings you to my store.”

  She sat as if the only thing that had been holding her up was the lack of a chair; it was a graceless, exhausted motion. As she often did, she sat sideways, with one arm—her left—draped across the back of the chair. This time, however, she drew her knees up to her chest. It was a shocking display of vulnerability, or rather, the awareness of same.

  “Jewel. Jay.”

  She looked up at him, and the dark circles beneath her eyes seemed to swallow them. “It’s Rath.”

  He turned from her then, but only for a moment. “Tell me,” he said. He did not take his own empty chair; instead, he crouched by her feet, his arms folded across his bent knees.

  She did not meet his gaze. Her chin drifted toward her knees, and she spoke into them, her voice slightly muffled. “I don’t know his friends,” she told Haval. “I don’t know all of them. The ones I know—like you—I’m trying to speak with. But I—”

  He held up a hand. “Do not explain more than you need. If you are asking me to take word to his friends, I will do so, Jay. Not for your sake, nor in the end for his, but for theirs.

  “Ararath disliked complications and ties; his friends are scattered, and they are few. If you cannot make time to see the others that you knew of, rest easy. I know where word must be sent, and I know those to whom it will be less than safe to send it.”

  She turned her face, and her brown eyes met Haval’s. What she saw, he knew—because he schooled his expression, changing the line of his shoulders as he did, drawing his height in and away, and offering her the sympathy of vulnerability. If she was aware that this was deliberate, her expression didn’t shift or change.

  Her words were unexpected.

  “You know.”

  They were also so certain, Haval did not trouble himself with a lie. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I know.” Before she could speak, he added, “I did not know until you entered my store, Jewel. But when you did, I knew what you had come to tell me.”

  She relaxed, then, turning her face back to her knees, and wrapping her arms around her shins. She rocked slightly back and forth on the chair in silence. He did not touch her. Had she been another child, he might have, but this one required space. He now gave her what she required, standing and stretching his legs.

  He busied himself tidying the back room. “Ararath—Rath—chose this course. I tried to talk him out of it, but he is not—and was never—a man who listened to the counsel of others when he had already made his choice.

  “You have not failed him, Jay.”

  She looked up, again. He saw her eyes; they were reddened, but she was not weeping. That, he knew, took effort. “That obvious?” she whispered.

  He smiled. “I am an observant man, and I have spent many hours in your company. Yes, to me, it is obvious.”

  “Did you know who he was?”

  Dangerous question. Dangerous ground. Haval looked at it dispassionately, surrounded by the chaos of a shopkeeper’s life. He, like Rath, had no distaste for, or compunction, about lying; it was an art, like any other. But lies served purpose, if they were used by an expert. Staring at this almost-woman, he could not discern or divine a good purpose for them. Not yet.

  But she had come in the wake of Meralonne APhaniel, she had demanded, more or less, that she be allowed a few minutes to visit this one store, and in the end, it was Meralonne APhaniel who now stood outside of the closed shop door. Haval was not a young man, anymore. He had, with some regret—but with more determination—left the foibles and the trappings of his youth behind. He had married Hannerle; he had rented this storefront, and he had indulged in his obvious talent for clothing—the outer layer by which most of society judged either man or woman.

  Jewel’s question hung in the air for a long moment, and in the end, he chose to answer it honestly. “Yes. I knew who he was.” He did not ask her what she knew, or how, although he was curious.

  “I don’t know when he died.” She finally used the word.

  “You found him?”

  She lifted her head again, and this time, she unwrapped her arms, lowered her legs, and turned to face him. “He found us,” she whispered. “What was left of him. He—he sent me to House Terafin. He sent me to speak with his sister.

  “And his corpse followed us.”

  There was a story here. Haval knew that it was not a story it was safe to hear—but so many of the stories he knew weren’t, and he had accepted them all, looking at their edges and their colors and the ways in which they might unexpectedly overlap. If Hannerle had been in the room, she would have cheerfully strangled him. The fact that he had done nothi
ng to encourage the telling of this particular tale would have earned him no mercy at all.

  But then again, Hannerle understood him as well as anyone living could. “Where are you staying, Jewel?”

  She hesitated.

  “If you have been asked—or ordered—not to reveal that information, I do not require it.”

  “I wasn’t. Ordered. Or asked. It’s just—it’s strange, and it’s scary. I’m working for The Terafin now, because of Rath. I want it. And I wish you could have told me how to earn it, Haval. I wish I’d learned more from you. I wish I’d asked you to tell me how to look smarter, how to sound more educated, how to command attention or respect when I need it.”

  He raised a brow at the heat of the words. This girl, this was the girl he had observed with so much concern. This was the girl he had sent to Lord Waverly, now dead these past several years.

  “Why do you need it?” he asked in reply. He folded his arms across his chest while he waited for her response.

  She didn’t answer the question he’d asked. Instead, she said, “Duster’s dead.”

  Haval disliked surprises. He disliked, in particular, to be surprised. Jewel Markess’ expression was normally so open one had to work carefully not to read it. Now? Expression had drained from her face, with color, as if for the moment she had been reduced to bare fact. Duster was the only other member of her den that Haval had trained. Duster, in almost any way that mattered, was Jewel’s opposite. And yet, in the end, Jewel had undertaken her role in the Waverly affair for Duster’s sake.

  “How?” His voice was harder than hers.

  “Demons.”

  He did not turn away. He gave her nothing; no mockery, no disbelief, no horror. Haval had always told her that faces were masks, that expressions were, like anything else, best manufactured with truth, or as much of it as you could find. He had not told her that expressions were also like armor, and sometimes you gave nothing away. It was a lesson, and a free one.