Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  “The abilities of the seers in those stories are similar to the abilities of the most powerful of the magi. Some of my abilities were never the subject of stories. Suffice it to say,” she added, as The Garisar opened his mouth, “that both The Terafin of the time and the Kings were convinced that my gift was a true talent, and not a clever fabrication.

  “I can see demons as demons, even when they adopt mortal guise. It is a natural gift; it does not require effort. I have honed instincts,” she continued, watching The Tamalyn, who appeared, to her surprise, to be listening intently—something that rarely happened in meetings of this nature. “And I have learned to trust them; instinct alone, however, is not proof of a talent, no matter how many times it has saved my life.”

  “How has it saved your life?” The Tamalyn asked. His tone was entirely unlike The Garisar’s.

  “I move before the dagger takes my eye out; I move before it pierces my heart. I fail to eat poisoned food, even if the poison is slow and subtle; I fail to drink poisoned liquid. Any of these skills could also be found among the Astari, but the Astari are not subject to full visions; they are not subject to true visions. I am.

  “These occur, in strength, in dreams. You have heard of the dreaming wyrd?”

  The Tamalyn nodded. “The three dreams.”

  “Yes. I have done more than simply hear of them; I have lived them.”

  Shadow started to growl, and Jewel grimaced. “A moment,” she said, rising swiftly. The cat was bristling.

  “What,” she said, voice low, “is the problem?” She had almost forgotten the cat was in the room, he’d been so still and silent.

  “I don’t trust them.”

  She prevented herself from shoving her hair very forcefully out of her eyes. “You don’t trust anyone, Shadow. They’re not demons; they’re not assassins. They’re not going to kill me in this room.”

  He hissed.

  “Where did you come by your cat?” The Tamalyn asked. Jewel jumped; he was standing not two feet away.

  Shadow hissed more loudly. Jewel, embarrassed, returned to her seat; The Tamalyn did not, although his attendant—Michi?—was almost drilling holes between his shoulder blades with the intensity of her stare.

  “My deepest apologies,” she said to the table at large as she rejoined it. “I encountered Shadow and his two brothers during my absence from the House. They followed me home.” She inhaled. “I spoke of true visions and the dreaming wyrd not to touch upon aspects of myth or legend, but to emphasize the delivery of those visions: they came to me—and come to me—in dreams. The visions that come are not clear, precise models of the future; they are not easily untangled until after the fact. It was one such vision that necessitated my absence from the House at a critical time.”

  “The Terafin was aware of the reasons for your departure,” The Kalakar asked.

  “Of course. She was my Lord. She understood—as we all did—that a war would be fought in the South; she understood that I had a part to play in its outcome, although neither of us could be completely certain what that role would be.”

  “You did not endear yourself to the Commanders by your absence,” The Kalakar noted, although she was smiling. The Berrilya, notably, was not.

  “No. But my part was not a part that could be played by armies.”

  “What part, then?”

  Jewel stared at the tabletop. “It involved a walk on roads long closed to us, and a longer walk through the desert at the heart of the Dominion. I traveled with the Arkosan Voyani, and at their side, I saw a city—a literal city—rise from the desert sands. It was smaller than Averalaan, but larger than Averalaan Aramarelas, and it was whole. The walls could withstand any attack.”

  “Any?”

  “Any. The city was built—and buried—in an age when gods walked the world.”

  * * *

  The Tamalyn came back to the table; Shadow followed him. The great cat also wedged his head between The Tamalyn and his Council adviser while Jewel tried not to grind her teeth.

  “I feel we wander far afield,” The Garisar said pointedly. “And you add ludicrous claim to claims that were already suspect.”

  “I am interested,” The Tamalyn replied, with more force than was his wont.

  The Wayelyn likewise concurred, but more lazily, and with a good humor that was entirely unwarranted. It predictably annoyed The Garisar. It reminded Jewel of long House Council sessions.

  “We may discuss the city at a later point,” she told them both. “The Garisar is not incorrect. But if the city is not directly part of the explanation, I feel it will become relevant in the future.” She looked across the table to The Kalakar. “In your sojourn in the Dominion, you saw the work of demons—and the work, if I am not mistaken, of gods.”

  “Of a god which we will not name here.”

  Jewel nodded. “Some part of that work affected the underpinnings of the dreaming.”

  “Pardon?”

  “If dreams are not a literal place—and they are not—they are nonetheless the source of my strongest visions. Something within the dreaming itself—when I dream—has the force of reality. I will not make the same claim for any other dreamer; I would not hesitate to make it of any other seer.”

  “Of which you are the only known sample.”

  “One of two,” she replied.

  “The other?”

  Jewel shook her head. “It is not relevant. What is relevant is that the quality of the dreaming changed markedly after the war. I believe it was changing while part of the war was being fought—the magic required to move armies to the cradle of Averda was not mortal magic. I do not have access to the reports of the magi, but I have, in my service, Meralonne APhaniel, who served as the leader of the magi under the Commanders.”

  “The reports of the magi are not yet fully assimilated, and no consensus has been reached about the accuracy of their . . . guesswork.” The Berrilya glanced at The Kalakar; she failed to return what was almost a glare.

  “I trust Member APhaniel. If you consider the information suspect, you will likely consider my explanation suspect as well.”

  “Indeed.”

  There were days when she understood the animosity that existed between House Kalakar and House Berrilya. Exhaling, she glanced past him; Solran Marten was watching Jewel as if there were no others present. As bardmaster, Solran understood how to feign delight, irritation, or uncertainty; she knew when to play at politics and when to refuse the game. Jewel found her unwavering attention disturbing.

  “The visions are stronger than they once were. They are more solid; they feel more real.”

  “This does not address the question of the sleepers.”

  “It does. The visions of my early years were transmitted through the dreaming. There are those who, without the talent which has been both bane and gift, were still subject to the dreaming wyrd.”

  “That is conjecture and story,” The Berrilya said, clearly less than impressed.

  “I have met at least one in my time in House Terafin; he did not lie. Those visions might be sent by the gods; it is hard to say. Think of the dreaming as if it were the edge of the Between.”

  Silence. It was more thoughtful, now. If The Berrilya wished to deny—loudly—the existence of the dreaming as a reality, he could not likewise deny the existence of the Between. “I would be interested to hear what the Exalted have to say about your designation.”

  “It is my belief they would concur.” She wanted to stand; to stand and pace the length of the table, as if thoughts, like caged beasts, needed room to move, to breathe, to stretch. “The dreaming wyrd, and the unpredictable visions of seers, come when we touch the dreaming in our sleep. And it is through the dreaming that the sleepers within the city were entrapped.”

  “By the Warden of Dreams?” The Tamalyn asked. He was actually attempting to take notes.

  “Yes. I do not understand how, or why—nor did he volunteer the information—but he derived some power fro
m their capture and their presence. To allow them to wake was to lose that power.”

  “You found them while you slept.”

  She smiled. “Yes, Tamalyn. While I slept, I walked in the landscape of a very vivid dream, and I met both the sleepers and the Warden. I was asleep at the time, and I could not be easily woken.”

  “Could you be awakened at all?”

  “Levec was summoned. He has had some small success within the Houses of Healing. But his intervention was not necessary, in the end. I woke from sleep at my own desire, although not at the time of my choosing; time passes differently between the waking world and the dreaming one.”

  “And the sleepers?”

  “It is my next endeavor, although it is fraught: I will attempt to wake them.”

  Solran Marten stood, drawing every eye at the table. “May I ask, Terafin, how you intend to do so?”

  “I intend to sleep,” she replied evenly.

  “And you may now do so in safety?”

  “Yes.”

  “But if the Warden is no longer a threat, surely the sleepers would now wake on their own?”

  This was not the direction she had hoped the discussion would take; it was hard to control all of its many strands when she herself had so few answers. “They are trapped in the dreaming. He does not hold them there, but they have been long enough away that they cannot easily find their way back.”

  “And you, Terafin, could.”

  “Yes. I am seer-born. I understood that the dreaming was a dream; I understood, as well, that it was real. Death in the dreaming is death.”

  “You understood this how?”

  “I could see, Bardmaster.”

  “And you can see the dreamers.”

  “I believe, if I search for them, I can do exactly that.” She met the bardmaster’s gaze; it was steady, unblinking—almost an accusation. Yet it held no animosity.

  “Forgive me,” Solran said, to the Council table at large, “but I must now ask: Did you banish the Warden of Dreams from the dreaming in the same way you banished the wild water and the wild earth?”

  You cannot avoid this, Avandar told her. But I believe, were it not for the bardmaster and The Wayelyn, you might have succeeded in postponing the inevitable; you have given The Ten much to digest.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “The earth and the water are not the Warden of Dreams. They are wild, yes, but they are forces that can, with effort, will, and appeasement, be used. They are very seldom used by mortals, if at all.”

  “Yet you ordered them to leave, and they obeyed.”

  Avandar was right. She wondered, idly, if she would have to give up the House to preserve it. It was a thought that she could not think in any other way; if she drew too close to it, it cut her with seven different kinds of guilt. The Ten would not easily surrender Terafin to the Kings if the Kings demanded it; they would, however, surrender Jewel if she were not the titular head of her House.

  “Yes.” She wanted to rise. She wanted to push herself up out of this confined chair, and this confining role—but she could only afford to do that if she was prepared to leave the Council chambers; she could not, by half measure, indulge in restless anger among these men and women.

  “Do you understand that your commands were heard across the city?”

  “Across the Isle.”

  “No, Terafin. Your voice reached across the bay. Bards cannot choose, at the distance your voice extended, such a wide audience. They cannot choose even a handful of strangers, in disparate locations, across the hundred holdings. A bard might speak in rapid succession to strategically placed people—but they cannot speak in such a fashion to people with whom they are unfamiliar; their audience would have to be in line of sight.

  “Yet you did.”

  Jewel waited. She laid her hands, palm down, across the table, exposing, in that motion, the Terafin ring. Highlighting it.

  “And of course, Terafin, the question becomes: How?”

  Jewel drew breath. “You have clearly investigated the reach of my words far more thoroughly than I.”

  “And you are not curious.”

  “Were those who heard me speak harmed?” Jewel’s voice was cool.

  “They were not.”

  “Then, no, Bardmaster, I am not curious.”

  “Are you curious about the demon that disrupted the victory parade?”

  Jewel glanced around the table; she was surprised—and not pleasantly—by the fact that The Ten appeared content to let Solran speak.

  Why would they not? She can speak freely without fear of political reprisal.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you curious about the Ellariannatte that now grow within your grounds?”

  “No. They are grand and glorious trees, but they harm no one, and they divert idle gossip.”

  The bardmaster’s brows rose; she met and held Jewel’s gaze, but Jewel wasn’t of a mind to look away. “Is it then all fodder for the diversion of idle gossip, to you?”

  “No. I was concerned about the Warden of Dreams. I am concerned about the Kialli. I am concerned about the god we do not name, because he has already amassed one army which he dropped in the middle of the Terrean of Averda in order to obliterate ours. I am very concerned about the fate of the city should the god at last decide to lead an army—in person—to the heart of the Empire.” She exhaled. “He will destroy everything in his path between his home and mine.

  “If you must ask about the trees,” she continued, although she knew anger was propelling her words, “ask this: where is the only other place they now grow? In the Common, where the greatest and most powerful among our number barely care to set foot. They do not grow in the gardens or grounds of Avantari, where the heart and the head of the Empire reside.”

  “Oh, well answered, Terafin.” Solran smiled. It was slender, but not devoid of warmth. “Very well. I have spoken in heat and without due respect, and I apologize if I have offered offense. The trees are of concern to the bardic colleges; they are of more concern, at the moment, than the rumors of the alterations within Avantari.”

  Jewel was surprised.

  The Garisar said, “We would all, I am certain, appreciate the reasoning behind your concern.” And not, his tone implied, be convinced by it.

  “They grow nowhere else in the Empire. To our knowledge, they grow nowhere outside of it. Attempts, even those aided by rudimentary magic, to cause them to take root in any other soil has been met with utter failure. They are called the Kings’ trees beyond the borders of this city.”

  “As The Terafin has pointed out, they do not grow in the Kings’ gardens, or upon their grounds.”

  “Be that as it may, they are known as a symbol of Averalaan. Had they simply taken root upon the Terafin grounds, it would have been considered a botanical miracle; they did not. They grew, overnight, to a height that not even the trees in the Common have achieved; they did so without the obvious intervention of the Order of Knowledge and its many experts.”

  “I fail to see how that is of greater import than the shifting of stone within the palace itself.”

  “Yes,” was her cool reply. “You do.”

  The Garisar raised his voice. “Bardmaster.”

  She inclined her head. “My apologies, Garisar. I understand the security concerns of the Kings.”

  “It does not appear, given your inability to halt the spread of an unfortunate song at the request of the Crowns, that you do.”

  “The song did not in any way address those concerns.” Jewel had rarely seen The Garisar and the bardmaster interact. She now understood why.

  “In your opinion,” he countered. “But you are not the Kings.”

  “No. I am the Bardmaster of Senniel College. Nor was the song a song that originated within the halls over which I preside.” She failed to glance at its author, who was nonetheless smiling broadly.

  This irked The Berrilya. “It is a fact of which we are well aware, Bardmaster.
If you will credit us with the bare minimum of intelligence, we are also aware that its reach, without your approval, would be insignificant. And as the matter has arisen, I would like to know why you felt it necessary to disregard the request of the Crowns.”

  “And of The Ten?”

  “The Ten have not—yet—asked your bards to curtail the public renditions of the song. It is not, however, in our interests, given its source.”

  “He feels,” The Wayelyn said dryly, “that the leader of a House should not curry favor with minstrels.”

  “I feel that the leader of a House should not be one,” The Berrilya countered.

  While the subject of the song in question generally detested the amount of time spent in arguments of exactly this nature, today she prayed to Kalliaris that this one would continue. Given the various duties of The Ten, such meetings could not go on indefinitely. But given the song’s subject, she couldn’t relax and let the argument unfold; she was aware that it could turn, in a second, into something far less favorable to her.

  “What, then, do you feel the leader of a House should be, Berrilya? A commander of the Kings’ armies? A scholar in good standing of the Order of Knowledge?” The Wayelyn asked the question with practiced ease, and Jewel understood, as she watched him, that this was an exact description: he had practiced this. Somehow, the conversation had devolved in the manner he had anticipated. Or perhaps it had not; perhaps the presence of Solran Marten ensured it.

  Regardless, the question had edges.

  He turned them now upon her. “Terafin? Should the leader of a House be a seer?”

  “I fail to see how the question is relevant.”

  “I am bard-born,” he replied, with exaggerated gravity. “But I am not, because of my duties to Wayelyn and The Ten, a bard.”

  “My gift, such as it is, is used in service to my duties to my House.”

  “And your Kings?”

  “And, indeed, my Kings.” She exhaled. “Wayelyn, what is your goal? My predecessor was, in matters of dignity, more inclined to take The Berrilya’s position; in this, we are different. I do not require Wayelyn to behave within the confines of a rigid set of protocols in order to maintain the dignity of my own House.”