Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (71 page)

He moved through the crowd toward her, murmuring quietly as he did; carving a delicate, almost unseen, path with his words, the subtleties of his voice.

"Sioban," he said, as he reached her. "Why did you not call for me?"

She shrugged, and he smiled slightly. Of all bardmasters, Sioban Glassen had become famed, in her time, for her use of the bardic voice—or rather, for her lack of its use.
I'm not bardmaster because I can order any idiot around
, she had been fond of saying.
I'm bardmaster because I'm the only one here
—
next to Solran
—
with enough of a sense of responsibility
.

Solran Marten had succeeded her, and Solran was voiceless— but not powerless. Never that.

"What is it. then?" he said, bowing. Knowing that she did not speak because her voice would give something away, although she was skilled enough to hide it from almost anyone else's hearing.

"I've been sent." she began, and he did hear it—the tremor of an old fear, "by Sigurne Mellifas. To find you."

"Sigurne Mellifas? Why?" He wanted to ask a hundred other questions, for he had not seen her in literally years, and she had been among the most important of his masters in Senniel.

"I don't know."

Lie. He let it pass.

"If you would accompany me. Kallandras. she requests your presence upon the isle."

He nodded at once, and she smiled. The years fell away from the corners of her lips, although the lines the smile rippled were many. Had she been beautiful in her youth? He could not recall: she was beautiful to him now in a different way. "How could 1 refuse? You found me, Sioban. It was… needed."

They both knew that he spoke of his youth.

"You gave me all the life that I have now."

The shadows flitted beneath her eyes; she turned, and then turned again. "But it wasn't the only life you'd known." No question, there.

He said nothing, old habit. They walked some ways together through the crowd, Kallandras sweeping it gently—always gently— aside.

"I have heard," she said quietly, "from Solran."

He waited, patient now, although it had never been his way to interrupt her.

"And I have heard from an… old friend. I desired to see him," she said quietly. "I did not realize how close to the eve of war we've come. I'm glad, master bard of Senniel, that I am no longer the bardmaster. Once was enough."

And he knew that she spoke of a Henden in a dark, grim year. Some memories had a life of their own; they could be cozened and reasoned with, but they could not be laid to rest.

They crossed the bridge; he almost offered his arm, and he would never have presumed that when she had ruled the college. Because she had never needed it then. She probably didn't need it now. "I think you should know," she said, "although Sigurne did not tell me this in so many words." Now the hesitation was strong; as strong as the curiosity that had always been part of her voice where he was concerned.

"Yes?"

"Meralonne APhaniel wishes to speak with you."

He frowned. "He is—"

"In the royal healerie, yes. And if Dantallon sees you, you'd better be prepared to use your voice and pray; he's in a foul temper."

"A healer has no effect on the fevers. He knows that."

"And he always deals so well with loss of control where life is concerned." There, more of her edge, that snap of her words whip-like and familiar.

But beneath that edge, truth.

"How bad?"

She did not answer.

"Sioban. How bad is he?"

She did not answer, and by that, he knew she wouldn't. But she had met him here, instead of calling him, instead of asking another bard who knew him well to call. There were at least two who could reach him across the length of a city alive with the noises of just such a celebration, and possibly farther than that. The fact that she had summoned neither, that she had come
in person
, suddenly said too much. He began to walk quickly.

In the darkness, Meralonne APhaniel toiled. Sweat speckled the length of his brow, reflecting light and fire; the heat passed, and the cold was upon him, as terrible in its way as any demon could ever be, but closer, far closer.

Watching him, Kallandras knew all these things as intimately as only those who had suffered the fevers could. But he knew, also, that no one suffered as the mage-born did, not even the healers. And he knew, further, that the only men and women to whom the fevers were often fatal
were
the mages. Still, in his life he had heard of it only thrice.

Three times was enough.

Sigurne looked up from the bedside as he entered, her face pale with lamplight, although he thought it would be pale regardless. She looked frail; she always looked frail. But beneath that, part of it, a steel surer than almost any other. The moment her eyes met his, her shoulders slumped.

"Kallandras," she whispered, "thank you for coming."

Sioban was at his side, and that was enough to make him cautious. But he bowed. "I would not refuse a request of yours, Sigurne, were you a seamstress and not one of the magi."

"It was not my request, but his," she said, looking away. "Both the ACormaris and Devon ATerafin have been to see him, and I believe—although I cannot be certain of it—that the ACormaris thought it germane to speak with him, even given his state."

Anger, there. Brief, but certain.

"The circumstances are complex," he said.

"Yes. But so is an old woman's anger." She granted him his gift, and the truth of it. "He has not rested since she came; he desires no company but yours."

"Why?"

She turned away again, as if she could not meet any gaze, not even under cover of darkness. "He is not doing well, Kallandras," she said at last. "And what strength he had, he… expended."

"Pardon?"

"Dantallon came to see him."

He started to speak. Stopped. Paled. "Was the healer injured?"

"His pride, and if he chose to press it, the magi would answer for Member APhaniel's use of unauthorized magics in the healerie. But Meralonne is deemed to be—or was—in a state of dementia, and therefore I have been asked to ward and guard him. He will not have Dantallon in the room."

"No," Kallandras said.

"But he used strength he did not have to make that point. And he uses it now, to speak, to ask for you." She rose. "Come, then, and speak with him, and perhaps he will be at ease." Her voice cracked on the last word.

Is it to be here, Meralonne, that you meet your end? Here, in the courtyard of Kings, and not there, upon a field that needs your skill and your knowledge of ancient magics
? He moved round her gently, as aware of her presence as he was of the presence of Sioban.

He sat. "Member APhaniel," he said. "Meralonne."

There was no response other than the shuddering of a man who could not be kept warm. Kallandras lifted a hand, raised it, reached out—and hesitated, there, an inch from the pale, wet curve of Meralonne's brow.

They did not touch, these two. They did not offer comfort except as it must be offered: On the edge of death, or just beyond it. And he did not want to acknowledge that this was indeed that edge. "Meralonne."

Gray eyes widened, sudden, like the flaring of magical fire. "You must… investigate .'. . what I cannot," he said.

Kallandras frowned.

"You will… have heard this… no doubt. The men who died." He lost the thread of words; Kallandras waited, listening. No one listened as well as he. "The ACormaris came. The Lord… of the Compact… has forbidden interference in this affair. She thought… to warn me… not to interfere."

The frown fell a moment; it was like Miri to spite Duvari in some things, and he could hear her now: "I am not allowed to speak about the circumstances surrounding the death of the Annagarians because Duvari finds it strange that they died in captivity, apparently within a few minutes of each other…" She had told him as much.

But he did not understand why she had come to Meralonne. Not now.

Not until he spoke again, laboring over each word. "You have heard… their names."

He reached out then, caught Meralonne's hands in his own.

Felt them shaking with fever's strength. "APhaniel," he said, voice low, denying nothing because in the end there was nothing to be gained by denial. "There were not nine names."

"No… I did not think so. But there were at least eight." He slumped, then.

Ice, here, as if the cold could be transmitted by touch, and perhaps it could. "Brother," he said quietly, his word for Meralonne alone.

The mage smiled, lips moving up in a rictus of emotion so alloyed with pain it was impossible to separate them. "Go."

He released the magi's hand, and then turned back. Speaking with the bardic voice, speaking with a fury of something that he had thought himself beyond, he said a single word.

"Live."

Eight names. Eight names.

Had he been stupid? They were eight, and he had thought that number high, and it had been weeks ago—but he had not thought that those eight would be part of this nine. And why?

Because the names had been taken in Annagar; of that he was certain. They had been taken, and they had been given back, to the Lady. To
his
Lady.

Over the years, he had come to peace, of a kind, with his life, and the death that would follow it. He had betrayed Her. He had betrayed his brothers. There was truth in it, but it was not so bitter now as it had been. He had come to peace, of a sort, because he had seen the demons, and he understood the whole of what they presaged.

Still, he knew when another brother became one with the
Kovaschaü
, for he was still one with them, in his fashion. And he knew when one died; that, too, was given to him. They dwindled, those that he had loved best, those that he had known.

Years had passed since he had been given a task such as this. Years, and the passage of time had dulled his senses, had given him a false security. One of his brothers was here, in the city. And somehow, although he did not understand the how of it, the Lady had given him permission to take those lives. She had refused it for the Kings, and for the Exalted; he knew it for fact. She had refused it for Valedan kai di'Leonne not once, but twice.

The stars were light and low above the seawall.

"Kallandras," she said, and he did not turn; he knew her voice, knew her age by it, knew everything he needed to know.

"Evayne."

"He is not finished yet," she said quietly. "He is not finished; they have come, and he will be given four names. Four names, and you will recognize all of them.

"I am not your master here. I have not come to order you; neither you nor I are what we were when we first set out upon this road."

He turned then, bitter, angry as he had not been angry for decades. "How generous of you, Evayne. Am I now so well-trained, to be trusted to kill my brothers without even the threat of the end of everything?"

She flinched; it surprised him into silence. They stood a long moment, the sea's waves gentle against the seawall.

"It is almost over," she said softly, with a bitterness to rival his own. "I thought we were beyond our beginnings." She raised a hand to the collar of the robes by which he—and any others of her victims—knew her best. "Three names, Kallandras; the fourth will take care of herself."

"Does it matter?" he asked, containing the emotion in the cold of the words. "Does it matter, if
he
walks the world? Have we not already failed?"

"We are alive. We are free. While these two things are true, there is no failure." And then she lifted her hands to her face, and he saw, in the moonlight, that her left was slick with blood.

"Where have you walked, Evayne?"

"Does it matter?" she said. "Your suffering is so much greater than mine, after all. You must meet again the men that you betrayed once a lifetime ago—and I must meet anew people I have yet to betray. You loved your brothers, and your Lady—and I?

"I leave behind those that I barely know at all. Barely."

Rawness there, anger, and hurt, all rushing inward to fill a terrible, terrible emptiness. He had taken two steps before he could stop himself.
I am not what I was
, he thought, and knew it for truth. In his youth, he had had no pity.

"Where were you?" he said, and she said only one word, and because he was a bard, it was enough.

Askeyia.

He had heard the name before, once or twice, although he did not immediately remember from where. It didn't matter. The word itself was like a curse, a prayer, a darkness, and a secret; it was a wound that had scarred, that would scar, when it healed. If it healed.

She did not weep because she was far too old for weeping. But he heard the youth in her voice this eve, as he felt the youth in himself, tangled up with the mesh of experience and the certainty of necessity—and the terrible burden of guilt, the desire for peace.

What world
, he thought, although he did not say it,
is worth this? What world can we leave behind that can justify what we have done, and what we have yet to do
?

Beyond the question itself, the answer came back over the hush of the sea's night lull: voices raised in merriment and in argument, in joy and in anger, in hope, in glee, and in momentary despair. Softer, but not completely hidden to a man who knew how to listen, the blend of those sounds as acts of love.

"Are you finished with me?" She tried to keep her voice as neutral as possible; it was hard. It was hard to speak at all. The day had been longer than she had thought possible and the end of it kept receding as she watched. She could barely believe that Duvari had no more use for her.

If she'd had the energy, she'd have been angry. Didn't.

Devon ATerafin looked up from the balcony, his hands tightened a moment on the simple stone rails. The only acknowledgment at all that he'd heard the question.

Daine and Avandar waited in the room at her back in the uncomfortable silence the domicis often produce with people who feel some need—no matter how slight—to converse politely. Avandar was worse than most. She wondered what he would be like as a man stripped of responsibility; she couldn't imagine that he would be any friendlier than Duvari.