He felt that now, as he stood.
Felt it as Sivari touched his shoulder, wordlessly, and pointed to the boardwalk and the grim-faced, sun-darkening officials. He did not wear armor, not this day, and he knew that he was being asked to strip down to what he might swim in—but he did not wish to surrender any of his clothing to the sun.
Because, of course, he did not wish to be exposed.
"Valedan kai di'Leonne." he heard a man say. the pronunciation hard and workmanlike.
The Third Heat began to form up. a line of fifteen men.
"Valedan?" A small voice—a foreign voice—said.
He looked down and met the eyes of his too-red, too-young witness. Forced himself to smile. "Yes?"
"I think they've called you twice now."
He didn't bother to add that there were only three calls.
"I can—I can hold your stuff for you. I won't let anyone else touch it."
That wasn't the duty of a witness, but the offer calmed him. "I'd be honored," he said gratefully. Because he knew, in so saying, he would also confer honor. The boy seemed unnaturally proud of his position, whatever it meant. Witness.
And he could take the time—quickly, quickly—to add to this boy's joy. Because he had indirectly added to his sorrow. Balance. He ungirded himself of sword, and handed the weapon to Aidan, who managed, just barely, to look as if its weight were insignificant.
Stepping up to the line, he pulled himself free of his tunic, his underclothing, his boots. And then he turned, because he couldn't help it, to see Eneric. The Northerner smiled broadly, as if the gravity of the situation were entirely foisted upon him and none of it his own making. He stepped out of line, while the officiants were not looking, and for one moment. Valedan thought he was going to piss in the ocean.
He was shocked.
- The other Northerner in the heat laughed, and that drew attention; Eneric stepped back into the fold as if he had never left it. "Get ready," the officiant rumbled. He lifted the Kings' flag.
Kallandras saw them line up, and he almost called Valedan back. But the boy wouldn't come; that much was clear. He had found nothing, seen nothing, that indicated the presence of an assassin, and the one he most feared to meet, he knew for fact was not present on these grounds.
But he knew that Devon ATerafin had not found the death he feared either. And they had very, very little time.
The second heat straggled in from isle to mainland, and then, spinning and using the seawall as a launch, propelled themselves back, back to the beginning of their quest for recognition in this challenge: the boardwalk itself.
At the far end, the third heat was preparing itself for the waters; a breeze was toying with them, but it was a weak one.
"A fair day," the merchant said, "for such a task as this."
He nodded, force of habit strong enough to carry him when inclination failed. They were too late. He knew they would be too late.
They had set a dragon at the door of Meralonne's secluded room, but Avandar Gallais didn't recognize her. Old, silvered, her skin wreathed in lines, she seemed frailty defined—and perhaps she was, in some other dream or delirium, some life that wasn't this one.
Age and a certain irascibility could destroy elegance and grace, and certainly it destroyed the patina of power by which so many men made their name. But it did not daunt the mage Sigurne Mellifas, born a commoner, bred a commoner, and raised half a childhood to be victim. She had risen above too much to fall back to it, and age was not the indignity that a gentler life might have made it.
Still, she looked mildly surprised as the would-be visitor appeared, carried in the arms of her domicis like so much dead weight. It forestalled some of her grimness, and removed the edge from the set of her lips.
"I should tell you," she said softly, "that Member APhaniel is in no fit condition to see anyone."
"Except that I'm not either?"
She smiled rarely; she smiled now. "He is fitful; he wakes seldom, and when he wakes, we must use that time to feed him."
"Understood," Jewel said, forcing what strength she could find into her voice. It wasn't much. "But I'm Jewel ATerafin," she continued.
"The Terafin adviser. We've met."
"Then you understand that when I say I must speak to Meralonne or a man will die, I mean it, and know it for fact."
"And if you speak to him," Sigurne replied, "do you know for fact that a man won't die?"
"We can never know that for fact, but—"
"Jewel," Avandar said, interrupting her. "She speaks of Member APhaniel."
"Oh."
Sigurne frowned, but the frown was mild. "I will see if he wakes," she said reluctantly. "Follow me."
They did, or rather, Avandar did; Jewel came by default since he apparently had no intention of putting her down.
The magi was not awake. He was not asleep either; he was in that fitful, restless state a sick man hovers in. neither here nor there. Sigurne had folded her arms across her slender chest, which was comment enough in itself, but fell just short of order: She knew who Jewel ATerafin was/She knew what she did. She knew Meralonne well enough to know that this particular visitor could not be protected against.
"Meralonne," Jewel said, struggling with her voice. Struggling to sit up. Again, only marginally louder, "Meralonne." She looked up at the underside of Avandar's chin. "Put me down," she said.
"Let me wake him."
"You know the rules, Avandar. Put me down."
He did, upon the edge of the sick man's bed, crossing his chest with his arms in a brooding parody—an accidental one. Jewel was certain—of Sigurne Mellifas' pose.
She touched his face.
His eyes snapped open at once.
"NO!" she said, and it was loud. "It's me, Meralonne. It's Jewel!"
Nothing changed but the sense of imminent death. His eyes were wide. "What… brings you… here? This is not a… safe place for a… young woman to be."
His hand was on her wrist.
She swallowed. Jewel ATerafin hated to be touched, and especially not like this: the fevered grip of an insanely strong man was very difficult to break. She endured. Had to. "It's Valedan," she said softly. "They're hunting him."
He started to rise. Fell back.
"Meralonne," Sigurne said, speaking for a moment like a Guard Captain and not a member of the magi.
"'Ah, the lovely Sigurne. Who hunts him?"
She hesitated before speaking. "Kin," she said at last. "Devon is out looking for them. But—"
"Where is Valedan?"
It was Avandar who answered.
The last of the men were hauled out of the water: there were two who gave out in mid-passage and had had to be rescued by boat.
The flag, faltering in a breeze that was not quite strong enough to lift its weighted end, came up in a strong hand. Valedan let his arms drop to his side; let his muscles, shoulders, and back relax. He bent at the knees, feeling the bend itself, sinking into the posture. Breathing.
"The challenge of the sea?"
"Yes. The magi are out in force, patrolling the waters and the crowds. But they aren't going to find whatever it is, and it'll kill him." Wasn't a doubt in the words because she had no doubt; she had seen it, had been woken from dream by it, had humiliated herself by asking for Avandar's aid—as if he were her father—to get here to say it.
"Get Sioban," he said urgently to Sigurne Mellifas. "Now. Get her now."
"But—"
"Sigurne."
She left.
"What?" Jewel said, as she lay in his shadow, the length of his hair across her arm as smooth and soft as if fever had no purchase there.
He looked exhausted, far paler than she had ever seen him, and he was not a man whose skin took to sun at all. But his eyes, gray as steel, were clear, and his words, heavy with weariness, surprisingly cogent.
"You need my knowledge of the kin," he gasped, struggling for shallow breath. "It must be knowledge that I have, and that ot
hers do not possess; the summonings are against our law and against our edicts of study." He closed his eyes then. "If it is studied, we are doomed, and if we do not study, we are doomed.
"Choose your doom. Jewel," he said softly.
"Tell us."
The flag fell.
The men dove.
Water was broken by the fall of their bodies, the clean position of arms and hands, the thrust of their feet.
Sioban Glassen had come at a run; Sigurne, she had left behind at the moment she'd been given the summons. She knelt by the bed, her face red from exertion, her expression at odds with it. "Member APhaniel," she said.
He was silent a long moment, and then he said, "Call Kallandras."
She started to speak; he raised a hand. "No—do not summon him here: we will lose. Tell him only this, tell him quickly:
"A handful of the Kialli, to the best of our knowledge, do not need to breathe."
Her brow creased. "This is an emergency?"
"Please, Bardmaster. Master Bard." He sunk back then, and his grip on the arm of the youngest woman in the room finally failed. But she knew, as it did, that some part of what he had said had been, in fact, a lie.
"Kallandras, it's Sioban."
"I'm here."
"Meralonne APhaniel bids me tell you this: Some of the Kialli do not need to breathe. If it's useful, you have to tell me how over a good, stiff drink."
He was already in motion. The first words she'd spoken sank roots and then spines, drawing his blood from heart to surface like metal shavings to magnet. He was not of an age with the competitors, but he knew—who better?—how to move silently, quietly, quickly. As he raced across the boardwalk, he spoke, and the words carried to only one man.
The water was in his ears, and it buzzed and tickled.
"Do not stop swimming, kai Leonne."
He recognized the voice; it was the bard's voice. Kallandras of Senniel. A man he trusted, and had reason to trust, for all his magical ability.
It might have cost him time, to hear the words, to process them, to recognize their speaker; but it carried command, to continue, and he did.
"No matter what you see, below or to the side, your duty and your challenge is to pass the test of the sea."
He cut the water like a knife.
Felt it, bracing in its sudden chill, as salt reminded him of the day-to-day scrapes and scratches that were normally beneath his notice. He carried—like a pearl diver—a single blade, but there was no blunt edge to take hold of between his teeth; he held the handle.
The bay was not shallow. Fishing villages along the coast had sand bars and whole stretches in which a man might wet no more than his knees for braving water—but the waters around the isle and the bay itself were not so gentle. They were clear as far as the eye could see.
The eye, in this case, couldn't see far enough.
The sand beds weren't flat; there were rocks here, large and smooth, which overlapped and stood atop each other. He cast his glance in two directions, first up, to where the swimmers passed above him, their bodies floating in a layer of water that seemed, from his vantage, clear and white, like liquid light. Beneath him, as he turned his gaze down, the rocks, and their shadows, a darkness cast by lack of light in the ponderous movement of water.
He started to swim up for air, and felt a stab of pain. His hand. His left hand.
In the element of water, the elemental ring was sun seen through diamond, made painful by the lulling shadows of the ocean. He grimaced. Grimaced and understood the call of air. He did not hesitate; he drew breath, and water did not pass his lips.
The air had claimed him, after all.
Clutching the knife in hand, he began to swim in the water beneath the swimmers, pacing them as he could. Guarding them.
Had he been in the element to which he'd been trained, he would have been in no danger at all, but movement in water was different. What he could see—and he could see, for night was as much a part of his training as day had been, and the light here was much like it—he could react to. But his reaction time was wrong.
And because of it, he could not turn and face the enemy that passed by him like a shadow—not quite.
Sharp pain, stinging salt, and a billow of murky cloud.
The cry went up from the isle.
Blood. Cormaris' Crown—there's blood in the water!
Devon heard it, heard the voices that carried it; they stood out in a shrill, a sharp relief against the blurred murmur of the crowd. What the watchers saw, the crowd would see soon enough.
He tensed slightly, but even in this proved true to his own training; the glance that he cast toward the merchant, Pedro, was furtive. And it was unseen.
The merchant's face had gone smooth as fine steel; he was as tense as Devon, and as casually nonchalant about it as a man with much practice could be.
"Your pardon, Merchant," the ATerafin said quietly, bowing. "But it seems there's to be some unauthorized form of excitement this Challenge, and I for one am curious."
"You've money riding on it?" the merchant asked.
"And more," Devon replied.
He made his way to the seawall, and no one—although the crowd was thick with bodies large and smalls-attempted to stop him.
He adjusted.
This was at the foundation of every lesson he had ever learned: flexibility. He took no time to argue with the facts, or to panic because they did not correspond to what he knew; they were facts. He had been cut to bone, and had he been slower—had he, in fact, been one of the swimmers above—he would be dead from the casual strike of a claw that seemed almost invisible in the water's swirl.
Or not.
The ring seared his flesh as the claw had cut it. Like a slap across the face, it braced him, cleared a vision obscured by too much water.
He could see, in the movement of the current above him, and in the blood that eddied within it, the slender figure of a creature that seemed made of glass. Glass—sharpened, streamlined.
There were no rocks beneath his feet. But the ring was on his hand, and he felt it burning there; he leaped up into water as if, for a moment, it were air.
The blood caught his attention because he had to swim through it. There was a moment, a single moment at which the men to his right and left gave ground at the shock, and to his shame, Valedan kai di'Leonne did not. He passed by it, thinking of the seawall, of the rise and fall of his arms, the straight line of his leg, toe to knee, the way his limbs sliced water with as little resistance as possible.
He didn't have to think of breathing; breathing came naturally. He didn't pray. He didn't wonder whose blood it was. He swam.
Just as Kallandras had… asked.
Devon saw the kai Leonne break ahead of the heat; it surprised him. Eneric was not favored to win this challenge, but he was a strong swimmer for a Northerner, and he had stuttered a moment. Four of the fifteen had—the four who were swimming in blood.
Whose blood?
He jumped up to the seawall's height and stared down at the waves not ten feet below. The desire to order Valedan out of the water—to order them all out of the water—was strong; so, too, was the knowledge that to use that authority, for he had it, was to expose himself to the merchant who also watched and waited.
Valedan, he thought.
And then, whose blood?
The creature was a water creature, or so it seemed to Kallandras; it moved with the easy grace of something familiar with water's lift and weight. It had a face; the lines of eyes, of high cheeks, of slender face and long jaw, could be made out as if the movement of light had been caught in just those places and frozen there. It also had two arms, two legs, and a swirling cloak that seemed made of the water itself.
At any other time, it might have looked like a man, displaced by an element, and handsome for it.
But it was death, merely death, and he was not yet ready to face his Lady; not this way.
The creature raised a glass brow. "You
are impressive," it said mockingly, the words more of a sensation than a sound. He cast a glance upward, to the receding bodies of the swimmers above, and then to the shore.
When he smiled, he froze water. Or he should have. "They will take their time returning," he said lazily. "Come, then. Come and play."
Kallandras was prepared, this time, for the sudden, swift motion of the creature. After fifteen years together, he and the ring had an uneasy understanding of each other's limits—but it was imperfect. He moved before the creature did, and the water sizzled at his hand. But the pain was gone; he thought the price the ring would exact would not be too high this day.
If he survived.
Survival was everything. He took a breath; the air was so sharp, so sudden in its rush he might have been flying—or falling.
He gave himself over to the dance, to the fight.
Valedan touched rock and rolled, head over foot and side to side, aiming himself at the isle. He was arrow straight by the time the movement was finished, his hands above his head in a point, the tops of his feet flush with the line of his leg. Someplace between touching the rock and using it to give himself momentum, he cleared the water enough to take in the air.
He did not hear the roar of the crowd, or the hush of it. He did not see the ATerafin who stood upon the wall itself.
But he saw, clearly, in the depths of the water below, a man whose voice he had heard before he touched water this day: Kallandras of Senniel.
Not all of the men who had been granted permission to enter the Kings' Challenge entered all events. It meant, of course, that if they won the single event, they claimed the crown for that event—but they could not win the title of Champion, regardless of how they progressed in the events they chose as their own.
Ser Anton di'Guivera had, after some minor consultation with his students, chosen two men to face the test of the sea. These two: Andaro and Carlo. Carlo had, after all, come from the Averdan lands closest to the waters, and knew them well enough to have taken some boyhood ease there.
They stood on the edge of the pier, watching; they witnessed the sudden spill of pale crimson rise up, as if carried by the dying gasp of some huge, unseen creature, from the ocean's depths.
Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King Page 54
