“They have reached the Ocean of Omaras. They are on schedule. The weather is calm at the moment.”
“Good. Tell the Commander that we will expect him in four days. We have received word from Callesta, and we are expected to travel there in haste.”
“Commander Berriliya wishes to know if we will travel by land or by water.”
Commander Allen gazed at the turbulence of the river in the distant west. “By land,” he said at last. “The horses have had enough of the water.”
“Commander Berriliya asks if Captain Duarte AKalakar has sent word from Callesta.”
“Only that.”
Gyrrick’s eyes snapped shut.
But he had not finished speaking. “Member Aldraed has one message to add.”
“What message?”
“Meralonne APhaniel of the Council of the Magi will be joining us directly.”
“When?”
The younger man’s eyes snapped open, his lids jerking up in a curl of dark lash. He turned swiftly, his face shedding neutrality and stiffness. He did not waste words; they were unnecessary.
Commander Allen could hear the sudden cry of his men; could hear the clang of swords hastily leaving their sheathes in the encampment below the riverbank. He leaped from the peaceful lee of water’s edge, his voice raised in command.
Damn these mages, he thought. He heard the arc of an arrow’s flight. Saw it as it paused in midair, trembled a moment, and fell, deprived of momentum.
No others joined it.
In the middle of the clearing that housed the command center, arms folded, hair streaming loose down his back, stood the Member of the Council of the Magi. He raised a pale brow as Bruce Allen strode between the armed men who served as his personal guard.
“At ease.”
Simonson had already brought the men to order; he had not, however, given them orders to sheathe their swords. “Commander Allen,” he said, drawing his arm up and across his chest in the sharpest of salutes. It was, strictly speaking, unnecessary—but it was also his way of reminding the magi who ruled here.
“Member APhaniel.”
“Commander Allen.”
“We received very little warning of your arrival.”
“Ah.” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug that was in itself an act of monumental arrogance. This, this was what the army was accustomed to dealing with when they traveled with the magi. “I see that things have changed little in twelve years.”
“Very little. Why are you here?”
“I was sent,” he replied, “at the behest of the Kings.” He gestured; a scroll materialized in the air between them. “In light of the present difficulties, my expertise was considered of value to the army.”
Commander Allen nodded brusquely; Simonson plucked the missive out of the air without any visible hesitation. He placed it carefully—and quickly—into Commander Allen’s upturned palm and stepped to the side.
The Commander nodded. “Join me,” he said curtly.
The tent was large. It housed a desk, chairs, and a large table. The table was covered with maps. They were not Northern in manufacture; they were Southern, a gift of the Callestan Tyr.
As such, they were considered to be incomplete. Commander Allen had his own men—those who were skilled in surveys—in the field gathering information; what they brought him would determine how incomplete the maps were.
Simonson entered the tent; the men who had been selected as the Commander’s personal guard cast shadows against the fabric. They did not, however, enter.
Bruce Allen broke the seal upon the scroll. He unrolled it, and noted that it contained not one, but two, pieces of paper. The second, seal broken, was of more relevance than the first; the first was a simple confirmation—if it were needed—of the magi’s claim to legitimacy.
We regret to inform you that Jewel ATerafin is unavailable at this present time. When she has returned to the House Terafin, she will be sent in haste—at the expense of House Terafin—to any location deemed safe and accessible.
It was signed by The Terafin.
He looked up.
Member APhaniel waited.
“Where is she?”
“I am not a member of the Terafin House Council,” the mage replied coolly. “And she is not a member of the Order of Knowledge.”
“She was given leave to travel?”
“As she is not a member of the Kings’ army, or the Astari, she is not considered to be under the direct command of the Kings.”
“She was to be seconded to the army.”
“Indeed, that is my understanding. It was not, apparently, the understanding of House Terafin.”
The Commander raised a brow; he spoke after a pause. Those who knew him would understand the significance of such a pause.
Clearly, the mage was not among them.
“Has she been seen since the attack on the Common?”
“I am privy to exactly the information contained in the letter you now carry.” Before the Commander could speak again, the mage lifted a slender hand. “However, I am also privy to rumor, if that suffices.”
“Speak.”
“She is alive.”
“That is not of significant value if she is not here.”
“It is not of value to the army, no. Let me assure you that if her whereabouts were known, she would be with you now. If they become known, I have been authorized to . . . retrieve her.”
“And your researches have not given you the ability to discern her location?” It was a bitter comment.
“We are not seers,” the magi replied, with just a trace of arrogance. “Nor are we bloodhounds. We cannot be set to hunt. She is alive, and if I am not mistaken, you will see her before the war is finished.”
“And this information?”
“A . . . hunch, Commander Allen.”
Commander Allen was accustomed to the magi; he did not grind his teeth. Barely. “Where does rumor place her?”
“With the Voyani,” the magi replied.
“And they?”
“They are not easily found, when they wish otherwise. But they wander these lands; they claim no home.”
Commander Allen nodded curtly. He had heard of—and even encountered—some few of these wanderers in his previous journey into the Dominion.
It had not been pleasant.
CHAPTER SIX
1st of Corvil 427 AA
Sea of Sorrows
THERE was life along the riverbank.
In and of itself, it was not remarkable. Jewel was no botanist; she could not name the plants that grew, roots near their only source of water, in vibrant, pale greens, in dark, deep emeralds. In Averalaan, she would have passed over them without noticing them, for they reminded her of the weeds that grew up between the stones on the old roads, wedging themselves between gate and grass; that grew, unwanted, and in a way that advertised neglect in the hundred holdings.
But in the desert, the plants were proof—if it were needed—that water was life; water, as the Voyani said quietly, was blood. For good measure the older women would add, when speaking to children, that blood would be spilled if their horseplay spilled water. It was said with mock gravity, but Jewel knew the tone well; none of the children had been careless near the desert’s edge.
She missed them, in its heart, but children did not travel in the Sea of Sorrows unless death threatened them otherwise. Having survived the trek, she knew why. She wondered where they were.
She trod carefully when she approached the water itself, afraid to crush these small miracles, these new births. She noticed their leaves, small and squat; their stems, thin and supple as they leaned toward the moving river.
If she knew how to listen, she thought she might hear the plants whisper or speak as they nodded and bowed like a congregation of children.
But she did not know how to listen; only how to observe. In the brilliant hue of setting sun, she watched.
Kallandras of Senniel College walked the riv
er’s bank in silence, but not in isolation. Celleriant of the Green Deepings, Celleriant of the Court of the Winter Queen, walked beside him. He moved without apparent effort, his steps light and graceful; he disturbed nothing as he passed over it. Every so often he would bend, his knees brushing sand and dirt, his fingers caressing the upturned face of a pale flower, a leaf’s bud, a delicate stem. He would speak, then. But even when she could hear his voice, his words were like a song; she could understand none of them.
If Kallandras was likewise encumbered by ignorance, it did not show. He would tilt his head to one side, listening, and on occasion, he too spoke.
Those words were private words; they made no sound. She envied the person who did hear them.
Was surprised at the strength of that envy.
By her side, warm shadow, and tall, stood the stag. He left her only to drink from the waters that rushed past, and he did not stay long in that water.
Yollana of the Havalla Voyani and the Serra Teresa were likewise inseparable. Stavos attended them in almost perfect silence, for they seldom acknowledged his presence. He had left wife and Matriarch behind, but if he yearned for either, it did not show; he walked with quiet purpose.
The man who had identified himself as Radann—which was, as far as Jewel could tell, a priest of some sort—often walked alone. But like the stag to Jewel, he did not stray far from the side of the Serra Diora. Neither did her seraf.
Seraf.
Jewel knew that in the Empire, he would have been called a slave; knew, too, that in the Empire, she would have despised the Serra for retaining him. Knowledge and emotions tangled briefly, and as was so often the case, emotion won; this was not a man who seemed chained and bowed by the servitude that his country considered his only recourse. Although he seldom spoke, his attention was focused, tuned, honed; she was his craft; she was his life’s purpose. In the relative prosperity of the Empire, the concept of a willing, proud slave would have been anathema, an intellectual puzzle at best.
Jewel was far from home.
And the only person that she had brought with her was as silent as this seraf.
But he was not her shadow. He walked alone. Ate alone. Slept alone. He was never far from her side, but he was never too close; she could look at him and see profile, the proud line of brow, the strong nose, the unmoving jaw, a statue’s repose.
Something warm and wet brushed the nape of her neck. She turned to meet the large, unblinking eyes of a creature that had once been—in a lost season—the Winter King.
“What?”
He nudged her arm gently. Only when he did so did she realize that she had been reflexively rubbing her sleeve, running its rough, heavy fabric against skin broken by the mark on her arm. It was flat; she could not feel it. Nor could she see it. But she knew its shape better than she knew the shape of her hands, her legs, her feet, the parts of her body that she could almost always see. Red, red S, livid like burned flesh, broken in the middle of each of its outer curves by a silver V and a gold one. She stopped at once, letting her arm fall loosely to her side.
The stag nudged her arm again.
“Let it be,” she whispered.
You are worried.
The sound of his voice was warm and deep. She remembered, dimly, that she had once found these words vaguely threatening, but all that remained of that feeling was memory.
“I’m always worried. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
She heard the dry chuckle of an older man. You are worried about Viandaran.
“Avandar.”
As you wish.
“You read too much into gestures.”
You read too superficially.
Her shrug was economical.
Speak to him.
She said, by way of reply, “I think Marakas is about to call it a night.”
But the stag nudged her again, drawing tines across her brow. They were sharper than she remembered, a reminder—if she needed one—that he was not the hunted, here.
You are worried, Jewel.
“I told you—”
And because of your gift, you cannot afford to ignore what you feel.
She hesitated for another moment. “You were like him, when you were . . .”
When I was a man?
Her nod was brief. Yes.
I was like him, yes. But unlike; even at the height of my power, when I could see no threat to my dominion, I acknowledged the power of the Warlord.
She hated that word. “It’s easier to forget that. About you.”
You have no desire to remember it. And I have little reason to remind you. But again, he stroked her forehead with his lower tines.
She withdrew then. But she also surrendered. “I would. I’d speak to him if I could think of anything to say.”
Avandar had come too soon from the mountains, and he yearned for them, although he knew the passage into the Stone Deepings had destroyed much of the bindings that kept them safe from the old paths, the hidden ways.
He might have returned, but he was held fast by a binding he had made in haste. It had been centuries, more, since he had last chosen to cast such a spell, and leave such a mark, and after it, too, had failed, the disappointment had scoured him of desire. He had not thought to be tempted by mortality again.
And had he guessed that the time would come when he would be, he would never have guessed that it would be for someone as simple, as reckless, as Jewel ATerafin.
She was no fool. Had she been, they would never have met. But had she been competent, had she been—as all of his wives had been, in a painful and distant past—truly powerful, he might never have been summoned from the halls of the Domicis to serve her.
The service rankled.
The past, invoked by the dormant Tor Arkosa, had opened its doors and windows, beckoning. Not a single one of the Voyani could claim the kinship with that unearthed City that he could, should he so choose; not a single one of these diminished, neglected descendants could conceive of what that City had been—and could still be—when it was ruled by a man who understood how to take and wield power.
They were broken, shadows, crippled mortals whose only link to the past lay in a name and a measured span of years. They could not understand what had passed before them, and even if they did, he was certain that they would not seek to attain it again.
And why should they?
In their mediocrity and their fear they had almost outlasted the ancient powers that had guided their ancestors; one or two of the ancient weapons, crafted in the forges of the Deepings, were theirs to command—but they understood these weapons so poorly.
It was their war.
It was theirs, but he had walked the perimeter of the Tor Arkosa, and he had heard, in its ascension, the ancient voice of the slumbering earth. He had seen the ghosts of his own dead, and he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he had not—could never—join them.
Lord Celleriant of the Green Deepings cast a slender shadow in the slow progress of dusk. The mount of the Winter Queen cast a man’s shadow, if one knew how to look; for Avandar, such knowledge required no effort. The knowledge that Lord Ishavriel walked across these sands had hardly moved him.
But the existence of Telakar in the wastelands spoke to him in a way that he could not deny. He desired power, now.
And he desired peace.
He stood between these two, and thought of the mountain stronghold in which he had often sought refuge.
ATerafin.
He lifted his arm. Lifted it, letting the folds of his simple shirt drift elbow-ward at the behest of gravity. She was his; he had placed his mark upon her in an attempt to save her life. She had reacted as she so often did: In haste, in anger, and in ignorance.
But this binding, unlike the previous one, was unique. He might have explained it, had his waking in the mountain vastness been untroubled and unencumbered. He might have explained it later, but her vision, hobbled by lack of training, by lack of exposure to the p
ath of the Firstborn, was cutting nonetheless, and he had retreated from the unexpected vulnerability left him by her sight.
If he had wondered, in the distant past, about the power of the seer-born, he wondered no longer; his only hope of maintaining his own control lay in her profound inexperience.
Lifting his arm, he gazed at the skin between wrist and elbow. Nestled there, gleaming like the edge of a narrow blade, was the sigil of the Warlord.
In the long years of his adulthood—childhood was a territory that had long deserted him, and not even the memories of its passage remained—he had only chosen to bear such a mark once; it had almost killed him.
Death should be a gift; it was denied him. He had searched many years for it, and each time, it had eluded him. But he felt a different desire now, and it was hard to turn away from it.
He let his arm drop to his side. Night was falling.
He needed no protection from the elements, and he was capable of sustaining himself in the absence of food and water, although it was costly.
But he had learned, with time, that sleep was a necessity. For three days now, he had avoided it.
But it was coming. This evening, he would sleep.
And in dreams, he had little defense against her.
Jewel stood upon the flat of a grassy hilltop. Her boots were wet with dew, her feet cool. She wore her own clothing—the thin Northern cottons that she favored when the humidity in Averalaan had become at least as uncomfortable as sweat. Her arms were bare. Her head was covered, although her hair—curling ferociously in the damp air—constantly pushed the covering askew.
Finch gently prodded her about hairpins and braids; Jewel hated both because she couldn’t keep track of where she’d put the former, and the latter, besides being a bit of a fuss, made her feel like a twelve year old.
She turned to say as much, but Finch wasn’t there. Nor was Teller.
Instead, she saw Avandar, robed as domicis, his expression vaguely disapproving, his arms by his sides. He looked so normal, she had a sudden urge to hug him, to cling to him, as if by clinging she could force him to retain this shape.
“Knowledge,” he said, the word itself a condescension, “is power. How many times must I repeat this?”
The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 Page 17
