“Is it significant?”
“Although my advisers would be appalled, I will answer: I am to meet with Hectore of Araven. I am new in my tenure as head of this House, and relations between Araven and Terafin have not always been the most cordial; it is an opportunity I cannot afford to pass over.”
“Indeed.” He lifted his lute and once again played a series of short scales; he touched none of the knobs to either loosen or tighten strings. Instead, he frowned, and touched the strings again. He played something longer, faster, sliding up and down the scales. Jewel knew very little about music and musical instruments; she knew, in a time-honored way, what she liked—and for the most part, it was “lamentably common.” But it sounded to her untrained ear as if he’d started out with a series of exercises and those exercises had gotten away from the fingers that played them.
She could hear the notes—fast, light, deliberate—as they echoed; as if they, like the glints of deep red, were being reflected by the silver and the gold. She thought, as she listened, that the notes changed, not in pitch, but in texture, as if the lute could somehow invoke from the heart of her forest the sounds of other instruments.
She was surprised when his voice joined the sound of a rising orchestra. She didn’t understand the first words he sang; she didn’t recognize the language. It wasn’t Torra, and it certainly wasn’t Weston. She glanced at Avandar, who seemed suddenly transfixed by the song—Avandar, whose hands had fallen, loose, to his sides. To one who wasn’t familiar with him, there was no change in his outward appearance.
But Jewel knew. She knew that the words that were beyond her would not remain that way; she wasn’t even certain if The Wayelyn was aware that what he sang was not what she heard.
“Bardmaster, what do you hear?”
Solran had the expression that Avandar lacked; her eyes were wide, unblinking, her pallor considerably paler. “This is not the song that has spread across Averalaan,” Solran whispered.
“Do you recognize the language?”
“No, Terafin.”
“Avandar?”
Her domicis did not appear to hear anything but the song itself; he didn’t even spare her a glance. The Chosen listened, but Torvan was less enchanted and more alert; his gaze slid off and around The Wayelyn, who had taken up a position directly in front of the roses, not the fairy-tale trees themselves.
With sinking heart, she glanced at Meralonne. She was not surprised to see that his pale, platinum hair now flew in a strong breeze that seemed to touch nothing else in the garden, not even the leaves. His eyes were rounded, as were Solran’s; unlike Solran, his lips were turned up in the faintest edge of a smile. He was the heart of winter, in this place; she almost felt the ice forming in the air around him. Around them all.
So it was to Shadow that her gaze went, and it stayed there. The great cat’s wings were high, and as she watched, he gathered himself, haunches rippling as his hind legs bent and tensed for leaping.
“Shadow!” Her voice was strong enough, sharp enough, to rouse Avandar from his fascination, and he turned instantly.
He didn’t attack Shadow. Instead, Jewel saw a sheen of brilliant orange light spring up in a sphere around where The Wayelyn, back turned to his audience, now stood. If he was aware of it at all, he did nothing to betray it; his song did not pause. Instead, it soared.
Shadow bounced off him. Jewel grabbed his pinions—never a wise thing to do—as he tensed again. “Make him stop,” the cat growled. “Make him stop, or I will kill Viandaran in order to stop him myself.”
“What is he doing?” Jewel demanded, shouting to be heard. Pointing out that Avandar was deathless, while factual, was pointless. She accepted the fury of the cat’s intent.
“He is singing, stupid, stupid girl. He is singing. The land hears him. It hears him and it will carry his song to places not even we can reach. They will hear it, and they will hear it too soon. You are not ready.”
She knew, as she listened, that he told no lies. “Bardmaster—”
Solran shook herself. “Wayelyn. Cease.”
Shadow sputtered in outrage. Jewel tightened her grip on his wings. “Her words are nothing! Use yours!”
Jewel opened her mouth, and shut it hard enough to clip the inside of her cheek. Shadow was right. He was viscerally, immediately right. But he was a wild, winged version of beautiful, glittering death. He didn’t belong in the world of the Twin Kings, the Terafin manse, the hundred holdings. His only connection to them was Jewel.
But Jewel was of them. Even standing here, surrounded by silver-and-golden trees, the voice of the bard-born laden with the ancient, she was of them. Yes, this land was hers. She’d claimed it, and she’d claimed it in the only way the land itself understood. But she wasn’t Shadow or Celleriant. The closest model at hand was Avandar, a man who had walked away from the defense of a city, to see it fall to the god they would face, sooner or later, in war.
She wanted to be neither.
She wanted to be Jewel Markess ATerafin for just a while longer. “Bardmaster!”
Solran didn’t even look at Jewel. Her lips were compressed in a thin, white line.
“I understand what I need to understand,” Jewel told the Master of Senniel College. “And if necessary, I will hear his song in a tavern, or in the market square.”
The bardmaster walked to where The Wayelyn stood. What Shadow’s claws and fangs couldn’t penetrate, her hands could. Jewel saw the orange barrier part to let her hand through. Just one. She didn’t touch The Wayelyn; instead, she laid her hands against the strings of his lute, stilling their vibration.
His fingers continued to move below her palm. “Wayelyn,” she said. And then, when his voice failed to stop, she added, “Ernest.”
He blinked, his voice faltering for the first time. His song banked, dwindling until Jewel could understand the words he sang: they were Weston, modern Weston.
“And she, as fair, as fair as winter’s heart, as pale as sun’s light
“Will stand upon the walls, while winged heralds from that height
“Speak her name. But it is not their voices that she hears
“But ours, raised in our mortal song, above our fears
“Will lend her the strength only she requires.”
“Walls?” Jewel asked, as The Wayelyn at last fell silent and turned toward her. His face was shining with sweat, his pupils slightly dilated, as if he’d just stepped out from a dark, dark room into full sunlight. “We don’t have walls.”
He blinked rapidly. “Your garden,” he said, his voice cracked and dry, “is colder than I realized at this time of year. It is a wild and perilous place—but beautiful, for all that.” Color returned to his cheeks, and the smile that was at once charming and self-indulgent returned to his lips. “Beauty is oft deadly, but we are moths, Terafin. You, in your white dress, with your winter cat and your glorious, ancient trees—you are the beginning of a story made flesh. It is not our story. It can’t be.
“But . . .” He pivoted far too lightly on his feet for a man of his age. “APhaniel owns some part of it; look at him now. His hair is the color of your dress on that day.”
“Why did you write that song?”
“Because, Terafin,” he said, entirely devoid of his usual humor, “You will build those walls. No one else now can; we don’t have the time. Do you understand what you heard?”
“Do you,” she countered, “understand what you sang?”
“Only the last few phrases.”
She was momentarily nonplussed. “Did you intend to sing whatever it was you did sing in this place?”
He turned to the bardmaster. Solran said—in a voice that made winter seem warm, “Ernest, you will answer her question. It is much on my mind, now.”
Solran held his gaze, hers unblinking, until he looked away. “No, Terafin. No, but I suspected I might. The bard-born voice is sometimes strong in the wilderness. I cannot lie with it; the words themselves might be false, but what lie
s at the heart of the song I sing? Never. Solran is not bard-born. She understands the limitations and the capabilities of our kind more thoroughly than many born to the voice—but not all.
“Word has come to Senniel—and to Morniel and Attariel as well—that strange creatures now walk the roads. Whole caravans have been lost—much to the anger and bewilderment of the merchant houses, and lives lost as well, to things which are not easily explained away.
“We have had no word from Brekenhurst or Linden, although we expect word will come; they are furthest from Averalaan.”
Solran’s gaze never left his face, but her expression had shuttered; Jewel couldn’t tell if she were angry. Nor did it at this point matter; The Wayelyn had not yet finished, and he could not now be stopped. “You have seen demons, Terafin. You have seen the Wild Hunt. You have taken into the heart of your domain the winged cats, and you ride a beast that the Queen of the Wild Hunt herself might ride.
“Against the creatures that now enter the Empire, you have some chance. If they were to attack you here, you would, in all likelihood survive. Am I wrong?”
“No. You are not wrong.”
“What hope does a farmer have? What magic, what wild power, comes to his defense? Does he lift his scythe? The iron in it might be some protection, but not against all creatures. And what do we know about those creatures? Stories. Legends. Bardic lays. We can learn the truth now—and we are—but what we’re learning is merely how people disappear or die. There are very few credible witnesses. The bardic colleges have sent out even journeymen to the North and West; we have master bards on the roads to the South.”
“We?”
“The bardic colleges. If I have not offended the bardmaster, I am still a member of the Collegiate Council.”
Jewel was not completely familiar with the internal structure of the bardic colleges; she was surprised that something official existed at all. Nor was it the time to discuss it. “Very well. Bards have been sent across the Empire, and beyond its bounds. They’ve tendered reports.”
“It is not just bards,” Meralonne said. “The Members of the Order of Knowledge in the various kingdoms have begun investigations, and they have been in constant contact with the guildmaster; if the bardic colleges have a loose and collegial governing structure, the Order of Knowledge does not. What The Wayelyn says is substantiated by reports from the Order’s members.”
Jewel said, “The paths are opening.” It was a whisper.
“Yes, Terafin. I believe we have discussed this,” Meralonne added. He was watching The Wayelyn in open appraisal. “You came here deliberately.”
“Yes. Here. I stood here on the day of The Terafin’s funeral. I stood here while the storm came—and, Terafin, I heard you command it to leave. No one speaks openly of what happened on that day. If it is mentioned at all, it is mentioned in whispers, and it is never mentioned among the very powerful.
“I chose to speak of it in the only acceptable way I could.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I witnessed. If they come here, Terafin—if the wild, lost, deadly creatures come here, you have some chance of stopping them.”
She stared at him as if one of them were mad.
“Do not pretend,” he said, as if her stare was of no consequence, “that I am wrong.” Before she could answer, he turned to Meralonne APhaniel. “Do you know the lay of the Sleepers?”
“I know many, Wayelyn.” The answer was cool and neutral, although given the manners of the magi in general, it wasn’t rude. “And I will tell you now, if you ask, that singing any one of them in this place, at this time, would be dangerously unwise.”
“Two words that have oft been used to describe me,” was The Wayelyn’s unrepentant reply. “But seldom by the magi. I will therefore refrain.”
“Where did you come upon those lays?” The question sounded casual. The accompanying expression made it less so.
“They were taught to me long after I retired from Senniel’s active lists.”
“Kallandras.”
“Indeed. You’ve met, I take it?”
Meralonne nodded. “I shall have words with him upon his return.” To the bardmaster, he added, “I assume he is expected shortly.”
“If you consider two weeks ‘shortly,’ yes. He remained in the Dominion for the coronation of the Kai Leonne, but is on the road as we speak.”
“You have sent him no word, then.”
“I have sent word, APhaniel, but if he is nigh invulnerable, he is mortal; he cannot travel as the most powerful of the magi do; he must therefore contend with terrain and weather.”
Meralonne nodded; his gaze had not left The Wayelyn’s pale face. “You have taken a risk at Terafin’s expense.”
The Wayelyn nodded. “Do you fear it?”
Meralonne laughed. It was a wild, cold sound that reminded Jewel of wind in winter. His hair flew around his shoulders. “Fear it? Wayelyn, I anticipate it. There have been battles of significance waged in this city within the past two decades—but they will be almost as nothing compared to what must come.
“You are not wrong. They will hear your song; it will travel from land to land, and it will grow in the telling. But it will grow deep. I cannot say whether or not what you hope will come to pass, but the lands are waking to the sound of your song.”
Shadow hissed. Meralonne spared him an unfriendly glance. “She is Lord here,” he said. “And if she is willing to take the risk, she will take it.”
“She is stupid,” the cat hissed in reply.
Solran chuckled. “I have always wondered what cats would say, could they but speak.”
“You own cats?”
“Two,” she replied. “And I must say my guesses were not far off.” She frowned. “Terafin—there is fire in the distance.”
Jewel exhaled. “Yes. But it doesn’t burn. I have not explored the whole of this forest, but I know what lies at its heart. Come, if you would see it.” To The Wayelyn she added, “Don’t feel compelled to add another verse to your song.”
He laughed. “As you say, Terafin. The song itself was exacting and it is not easily revised.”
* * *
Jewel led them to the tree of fire, stepping off a path that both defined the garden and no longer served as its boundary. Shadow once again inserted himself to her right, leaving no room for her guests. She started to argue, but stopped; her dignity was no doubt at historic levels of low for House Terafin, and arguing with a cat would not materially improve it. “He is,” she told the bardmaster, “an exceptional guard in all ways.”
“So I have heard.”
The fire that she had seen at too vast a distance grew in brilliance and heat as they at last approached the lone tree of fire within her forest; the light changed the color of Solran’s skin; it lent a blush to The Wayelyn’s, but didn’t touch Meralonne’s appearance at all.
Solran approached the tree with caution; The Wayelyn did not choose to approach it. “Will it burn?” she asked, as she slowly held out one hand, reaching for the lowest of its many-leaved branches.
“No. Unless I will it, it burns nothing.”
The bardmaster touched a ruby leaf with edges—and a heart—of flame. Her eyes widened. “It does not feel like fire.”
“Fire generally causes pain at that distance.”
“It does—but this feels almost like . . .” Solran shook her head. “It feels too solid for flame, and although it is warm, it is not hot. What does this tree signify?”
“I don’t know. It is some part of the elemental fire, and some part of an enemy’s power; it is some part Ellariannatte, and some part dream. There is no safer place for me to stand than beneath these boughs.” Shadow was hissing. “The cats are not greatly enamored of it, although they frequently play with the logs in the actual fireplaces in the West Wing.”
The Wayelyn was staring. He turned to face her as Solran retreated from the tree of fire. “Do you not understand the choice we have made, Terafin?
Is it truly incomprehensible?”
“I fear you have far too much confidence in my abilities,” she replied softly.
“Yes. You do fear it. I fear it as well, for different reasons.”
“And those?”
“You are capable of doing what must be done; I have been told as much, and I believe it, given the source.”
“But?”
“Power is never freely given; it is taken, and it is paid for. If those below us do not or cannot see the cost, it changes little. The power you must have—the power you must summon—is beyond the reach of The Ten. It is beyond the reach of the Kings, and of the magi. Perhaps, in the long history of the Artisans, there are one or two who might have been your peers—but they are long dead.”
“And while they lived were considered completely insane.”
“Even so.”
* * *
“What will you do, Wayelyn?” Jewel asked, as she led them toward the House shrine, and the safety of the Terafin grounds—if they could now be said to be safe.
He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “I will offer you unconditional support,” he replied. “Against any decision the Kings make, in regard to House Terafin, or to your office. I am not afraid of your power, although I understand the assessment of the Astari.”
“If the decision were now in the hands of the Lord of the Compact, I would be dead before I woke.”
Shadow growled; Jewel dropped her hand to his head. “I did not say he would find it easy to kill me; I merely said that would be his decision.”
“Why won’t you let us kill him?”
“Because he keeps the Kings alive.”
“Who needs Kings?”
Solran coughed politely.
“We do,” Jewel replied.
“You don’t.”
“I do. I cannot rule an Empire. I can only barely rule a House. If I am—as The Wayelyn suggests—to somehow build walls and fortify a port city, I cannot attend to its thousands of citizens at the same time.”
Solran glanced at The Wayelyn.
“You are not supposed to attend them; they are supposed to serve you.”
Battle: The House War: Book Five Page 54
