And men like himself, seeing the younger son of the Lambertan Tyr upon their steps, be he naked and swordless, would understand what the coming of that bloodline might mean to the worship of the Lord. What, then, could the Tyr’agnate offer that would convince them to return this son home?
Not gold.
Not men.
Not threats.
Fredero par di’Lamberto forswore his name, his clan, and entered the harsh exile of the Lord’s service. Men followed him. Men served him.
Aye, even now, even in death, he commanded the loyalty of men.
Marakas turned his face skyward, risking white light.
Fredero was never defeated. He served you, and he was never defeated. Surely, surely had his will not expressed the hidden truth of yours, he would have failed against men like Peder years ago.
In the North it is said that in the Dominion of Annagar, we make our gods in our own image.
It was blasphemy; he did not care. What was blasphemy to the Lord, if the man who uttered it could defend himself against those who took offense at the words? If it is true, then the only god that I wish to serve is the god Fredero par di’Lamberto envisaged when he came to the Radann to serve. Can you be that god, Lord?
Can you be worthy of Fredero kai el’Sol?
He knew that the Lord did not listen to demands; no more did he listen to pleas or the wayward wishes of the young or the desperate. Who better to know it, having watched the fires of the Sun Sword destroy Fredero, eating away the heart first?
Yet he found himself raising a sword that had left its sheath so effortlessly, and so lightly, he was as unaware of the motion as he was of drawn breath. It was the sunlight that spoke in the silence, glinting against the flat of the blade with a brightness the Lord himself did not possess in the desert sky.
Marakas closed his eyes, turning his head slightly as if at a blow.
And as he did, he saw it: a second flashing gleam of light, thin and long, curved against the vision like the arc of a Southern sword. He stumbled; had any other man reported this flash, this lingering glint of light, Marakas would have gently touched his brow, his hand, any exposed flesh, seeking for traces of sun madness.
He stumbled. His vision blurred.
He was born to the South. He expected no mercy; no dialogue with the Lord, no sign.
In times of duress, it was the unexpected that had the power to cut, to bind, to wound; it was the unexpected that had the ability to touch, to move. He stood, silent, his sword falling, tip to ground, as he stared, as understanding came.
A river.
A river in the Sea of Sorrows.
A river that, in the height of moon’s light, in the cool of desert night, he might have missed at this distance.
He knelt, knees to sand; knelt, forehead to sand, closing his eyes against the heat of the ground. Against the waste of water that could mean death in the desert.
Fredero, he thought. Kai el’Sol.
Men did not pray; not to the Lord; not to the Lady. Therefore, Marakas par el’Sol, who had given the first half of his life in service to the one, and the second half in service to the other, did not pray.
He rose instead.
He felt the heat of the Lord’s gaze, and he knew that if he lingered too long, the fires would consume him as certainly as they had consumed the kai el’Sol. But light trailed the length of his face from eyes to jaw as he walked; he did not lift a hand to wipe his face clean. In the desert, water and blood were one and the same. He offered his life cleanly, as if all things unessential had once again been scoured from him by fire, leaving only the truth in its wake.
28th of Misteral, 427 AA
Tor Arkosa
The Serra Diora stood at the height of the Sen adept’s tower. The winds were warm and dry; they pulled at the folds of her robes, chafed at her veils. Only her hands were exposed as she laid them, palm down, against stone that was smooth as Northern glass, hard as diamond.
No one came here.
No one but the Serra and the Matriarch. To these two, the wards of the Sen adepts posed no threat, offered no resistance; they had walked in the shadows of the ghosts of women so long dead not even dust remained.
But memory did. And memory had yielded what Voyani lore could not: the words and the signs by which they might pass through the great doors of the adept’s tower unharmed. The Serra turned her face a moment to see the surface of the orb at the tower’s height. She could hear its whisper, but even her gift did not lay bare the words that whisper carried, no matter how long, or how hard, she listened.
Diora.
Ona Teresa.
Are you well?
I am . . . well.
The Matriarch of Arkosa seeks you.
Diora did not reply. Instead she looked back to the City that slumbered in a terrible silence beneath her feet. The Voyani were few; the Tor Arkosa was large. They had chosen to take refuge in what might once have been a place that served as home to wealthy travelers, and they huddled there, planning a future that they had never truly considered a reality.
They had come home.
Na’dio?
She raised a hand to the hollow of her throat. The Heart of Arkosa no longer beat within it; she had shed that burden, and Margret of Arkosa now carried it, as was both her right and her duty.
Tell her that I am in the tower.
Her gaze slid past the City to the walls that kept the desert at bay. The waters that the earth had revealed now flowed beneath those walls and through the heart of the City itself, and on the banks of the river, flashes of green, new and pale, told their own tale.
She was almost ready.
And because she was, she waited.
Without flight, there was only one way to reach these heights.
The tower of the Sen adepts would, Diora was certain, buy the loyalty of any member of the Sword of Knowledge that Margret cared to approach. Any save one.
Ser Cortano di’Alexes. The Sword’s Edge.
How long? How long would this city remain hidden?
Her gaze roamed the breadth of its streets, the heights of its towers, pausing to trace the glittering length of the river that now ran through it, a silk ribbon that reflected the light as if it were steel. Not long, she thought. Not long at all.
She ran her hand across the glass-smooth edge of stone and then turned her back upon the open sky, the cloudless sun. She wore desert robes, and had she been upon the ground, Ramdan would have attended her with shade, with silent shadow, offering her the protection that was both his duty and his right. Who else might stand, unaccused and unattacked, by her side? He was one of the few things the heights deprived her of that she could be said to miss. But she knew that Margret did not—could never—understand what his presence meant; it was one of several small walls that would come between them for the rest of their lives.
There would be others, if they lived long enough to discover them all.
She lifted her head and gazed upon the white, pulsing surface of the giant sphere that stood at the heart of the tower. She knew it as one of seven such spheres; the others, spread across standing towers as old as this one, pulsed and moved as if alive, each unique, each with a sigil and a sign that warded it against the interference of outsiders. The heart of each was a different color; she could make them out only when she stood here, in the lee of the sphere, and she was careful not to notice too much. She would be gone from this place in too short a time, and any knowledge that she bore with her was a weapon in the wrong man’s hand.
The spheres had protected the Tor Arkosa for the entirety of its long slumber; she wondered if they had been meant to endure beyond that; if, for eternity, they would defy the will of gods. She was of the South; she did not pray. Did not ask for mercy. Did not reveal, by that plea, her hope. The Lord was at his height.
But she did turn when she heard the unmistakable sound of curtains being drawn in midair. No silk curtains, these, no heavy linen, no beaten cotton; they were f
ine, like beaded glass that had caught the light of a dying sun and trapped it in links as strong as any chain shirt—like armor that could not be pierced or breached except in this fashion: by parting.
The Serra Diora bowed her head, and only her head; it was the only acceptable gesture of respect that she could offer the Matriarch of Arkosa. Kneeling had been forbidden.
You are not a slave here.
I am not a slave, Margret.
I am not a clansman. If I have power . . . it is not a power that demands obeisance. Not from you. Never from you. You were . . . my sister. If we were free to choose our kin, you would bear the blood of Arkosa. You bore its heart. She had paused and looked away. Bear it. Understand it. Do not offer me what you would offer any other ruler.
When she looked up, she met the weary gaze of the Matriarch of Arkosa. “Margret.”
“You spend too much time here.”
“It is peaceful.”
Margret’s snort was short and loud. That something so graceless could be so eloquent said much of the Voyani.
Diora walked, slowly, toward the tower’s North edge. She saw her shadow lengthen and change as she passed before the orb; a piercing chill struck her, but she did not change her gait. This was the desert. She was a Serra of the High Courts.
Margret took no such trouble to hide weakness or her distaste for this unnatural cold; she cursed loudly and forcefully, in two different languages. “I hate it here.”
“I know.” She did not ask why the Matriarch had sought her; she knew. Placing one hand firmly upon the tower battlements, she lifted the other, pointing.
They stood, side by side, in silence, watching the progress of a distant stranger, and seeing, in the steps he took, the end of their own journey together.
The Serra Diora had thought to be done, forever, with farewells. But the desert had offered her one more chance to say good-bye to something she had grown to care for, and she did not relish the opportunity.
Margret brought the lip of her hood down, to better shield her eyes from the sun’s glare. “Who is he?”
The Serra Diora could have said that the distance between the solitary stranger and the tower’s height was too great for certainty; it was. But she bowed her head instead.
“Diora?”
“I believe . . . that he is a man who owes Arkosa a great debt. And he has come to pay it.”
Margret stiffened. She had none of Diora’s subtlety, and that lack was her strength. Everything could be read in the language of form, of posture, of expression that tightened lip and narrowed eye. Diora knew this; she did not look. “He will be here within three hours.”
“On foot?”
The Serra hesitated just a moment, and then said, “Mark his speed. Mark the length of his stride. If the desert has diminished him, he has changed greatly since . . . last I saw him.”
Margret did turn. “When?”
“When?”
“When did you last see him?”
“On the day the kai el’Sol drew the Sun Sword.”
“Margret.”
The Matriarch of Arkosa did not turn at the sound of the voice; she knew it well enough, by now. She did, however, acknowledge her name with a curt nod.
Yollana of the Havalla Voyani drew close; her shadow was short and awkward. She had not yet regained full use of her legs. “You will let her go,” the older woman said.
Margret started to speak, and stopped. “I am the Matriarch here,” she said at last, but it sounded petulant, even to her own ears.
“Even so,” Yollana said quietly. “I am sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor.”
“The kai el’Sol? He will not be here for some hours yet.”
“Not the kai el’Sol,” Yollana said, and something about the unusual control in her voice at last pulled Margret around.
“You,” she said. It was all she could think of to say.
Standing like shadow—unnatural, unwelcome—in the lee of Yollana’s more natural form, stood the mysterious Evayne. A younger Margret would have been paralyzed by sudden anger. But she had in truth left the Voyanne; she was instead weary.
“What have you come to take from us this time?” she asked.
The woman seemed to flinch. But she did not ask what Margret meant; instead she drew the hood from her face. “Margret of the Arkosa Voyani,” she said quietly, “I have come with information.”
“You always come with information,” she said bitterly, before she could stop herself. “What will it cost us?”
“Some part of your ancient magic,” was the unexpected reply.
“What ancient magic?”
“In the towers of the Sen adepts were many things that were crafted by mages whose knowledge has since been lost. I will not speak of the act itself; you know what the cost was.”
“I do,” she said, stilling. “But you? How do you know?”
Evayne a’Nolan did not reply. She was younger than Margret remembered, and the smooth lines of her face could not be illusion. Her eyes were dark, and her expression was not the cold expression that Margret knew. Who was she, who could change everything so easily? She almost asked. But asking was a sign of weakness.
“The Serra Diora di’Marano must leave the Tor Arkosa, and she will miss it.”
Margret’s turn for silence, and the Voyani did not love silence. “What of it?” she said, to break it.
“She will carry with her what she brought to the desert, and she will carry it into lands that will be . . . hostile. It is a gift, and it is a duty; I would have that duty made easier.”
“You speak of the Sun Sword.”
“Yes.”
Margret turned to Yollana. “Matriarch,” she said curtly, and Yollana surprised her by bowing. She left slowly, but she did not look back.
“I cannot offer you a sheath, although you will find many within the towers. Not one of them could contain the Sword without dimming it; it is not in the nature of their magic. But there are also veils and cloaks, blankets and boxes, things that were touched by makers long dead. Among these, you will find something in which the whole of the Sword might be placed.”
“What am I to look for?”
“A box, I think. Something about this size, this width, this length.” She placed her hands as she spoke; it was a very small box.
“It cannot contain a Sword.”
“It can contain more,” Evayne replied, “but not the living.”
“And if I do as you ask, how then can this box be used?”
“She must blood it to make it hers,” Evayne replied.
“She doesn’t much like bleeding.”
“She is the Flower of the Dominion; she has done much worse. Go to the West tower. The wards there will allow you entry. On the third floor, in the North room, you will find what you seek.”
The Radann Marakas par el’Sol saw the City in the distance, and sight of it caused him to falter for the first time that day. He lost a step; lost motion; settled into a stillness so profound he could not disturb it by breath. All of his wisdom, accumulated over the years at such expense, had not prepared him for this, and he wondered—although as one born to healing, he also knew—if he were affected by the Lord’s glare.
Still, if he faltered, he did not fall; if he stumbled, he did not lose his footing. He had come to pay a blood debt, his debt alone, and he knew for a moment the exquisite grace of an honor that knew no bounds. He bowed his head. He touched the hilt of Verragar and the sword seemed to sing a moment in the curve of his exposed palm.
He walked.
He stopped twice for water, and each time he did, he looked up quickly, to see if the City had vanished like the ripples of a distant mirage. He had walked the desert in his time, and he knew that it offered visions to men almost as often as it offered death.
But the City did not waver.
And the Radann did not waver. They drew closer together by dint of his will, until at last he reached the outer wall. Stone—if it were
stone, it was so smooth and so unblemished—rose skyward in a perfect stretch that ended in unmanned curtain walls.
The gates were open. Beyond them, towers rose at heights undreamed of even in the Tor Leonne, for the lay of the land was flat from edge to edge. But the river that he had followed as guide and path led beneath that city, and before it, arrayed in silence, he saw men.
They were few, and in the end, as was so seldom the case, they were inconsequential; it was the women who waited that counted; the women who held power. He knew them by height, at first, for of the four present, none were tall.
Of the four, one stood, hands gripping the curved knobs of canes, and one stood by her side, in the lengthening shadows cast by the walls themselves. It was cool, in this shade. One woman stood, hands on hips, and at her side, still as the stone walls themselves, another, the smallest of the four.
They wore the masks and the hoods of desert travelers, as did he.
He did not kneel, but after a moment, he reached up and shed both mask and hood, revealing his face for their inspection.
“Well met, par el’Sol.” The foremost of the women reached up and likewise pulled hood and mask from her face.
He bowed his head. “Matriarch.” The word was a whisper. “Matriarch of Arkosa.”
“Aye,” she replied, coolly, “I am that, now.” He thought she would say more, for her expression was sharp as knife’s edge, curtained by strands of fallen hair.
But he spoke first, forestalling the accusation in her eyes. “I have come,” he said, kneeling for the first time, “to discharge the debt I owe the Arkosa Voyani.”
It was the oldest of the women who spoke next. She, too, shed mask, although her hood still framed the wild gray of her hair. “Radann,” she said, a glimmer of a bitter smile twisting the corners of her lips. “You were always a strange one. Will you kneel before mere women?”
“There is no love lost, no love owed, between the Voyani and the Radann, but there has always been respect.”
She snorted. It was graceless, a sign of her power. Only the Voyani women could be so careless. He said nothing, waiting. Recognizing—as perhaps few of the Radann would—Yollana of the Havalla Voyani.
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