Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (105 page)

The Serra Diora di'Marano had been married in front of these waters; handed from father to husband in a ceremony that extended as far back as the history of the Dominion under the rule of the clan Leonne. She had made the most important move in the game that would—for better and worse—define what remained of her life standing in them, dressed in the white and the gold that had been Fredero kai el'Sol's gift to her. The dress, of course, was gone; if she closed her eyes and tried to summon it, feel or look, she could no longer clearly separate it from the equally fine gown in which she had been married.

But his last gift she could not forget—and she was torn between trying and vowing not to. That, too, had been offered her in these waters. With no blood to succor him, and no divine blessing to strengthen his hand, he had
drawn
the Sun Sword from its scabbard.

And the Sword, instrument of the Lord's indifferent wrath— and He must be indifferent, for no god could judge the former kai el'Sol's service so poorly otherwise—had devoured him; the winds had carried his ashes away.

Yet for all that, she had not given the Lake what it was given now: respect, awe, fear, hope—and tears. She found the tears both distasteful and fascinating; she had spent so little time among the common clansmen. The serafs with whom she had been surrounded would have been as disgraced by such a display of overt emotion as she herself. Although it was a miracle, it had become a commonplace part of her life; even in captivity, she had been brought the waters of this Lake from time to time, depending on the importance of the visitor.

But she watched, now, as a small child approached the ebbing flow of water between sand and rock. Each face the Lake presented was different, as was each view. The Tyr'agar had chosen the area in which Festivals were both opened and closed to accommodate those thousands upon thousands who now made the trek from the city below to the palace above, clutching masks of varying degrees of complexity in their different hands.

This small child, hands clutching something that was supple and shapeless, knelt and began pulling small rocks out of their bed in the sand. It was hard, at this distance, to tell whether that child was boy or girl; not hard to discern that he or she had been born to a level of poverty that often meant indenture in later years.

She saw so few children now her eyes were drawn to the child; held there by the determined grimace on his or her little face. It was beautiful in an entirely different way from the Lake, and it allowed for no circumstance in which such vandalism was unacceptable. The Lake was not a special lake; it was a body of water in front of which sand and stone were set for his or her purpose.

She wondered where he had seen so much water to be so immune to the awe of it, and then realized that he was not immune; he was giving the Lake the only tribute a small child can; he was attempting to play at its edge. She waited as the inevitable occurred; the child edged forward a step; two steps. The foot found water, and then withdrew, came closer, found water, and withdrew more slowly.

She heard the sudden roar of the crowd; the word
fire
carried up the hill on a dozen voices, and carried back down again on one: Alana's hands were cupped over her mouth to stop anything else from escaping. Diora looked away from the concentric circles spreading out from the child as he dropped rock into water with a grave satisfaction and watched the effects.

A man now stood cowering on the simple, wide platform that had been set up for the commoners to stand on. The people to either side of him had pressed as far into the crowd as they could; he sat alone, his hands upon his face. She heard his cries of shock and denial. Heard the terror in them; the certainty of death, the desperate, and undignified attempt to escape it.

But the death did not come.

Instead, his cries were followed by the raised voice of a man who could only be Radann. She did not recognize the cadence of his voice immediately, but it came to her: Peder kai el'Sol. The force of his oratory carried across the murmurs and the little shocked cries of his audience. She spared them all a glance, but her eyes were drawn to the boy. To the child.

He was in the water now, to his knees. The Lake lapped against his thighs and torso before she realized that he could not know how to swim. She turned to the cerdan. "Karras," she said quietly, "please."

"Serra?" His eyes were on the spectacle and not upon its fringes.

She started to order him down to retrieve the foolish child, but the words did not make it past her lips. The boy was in the water. The boy was not allowed to stand in the water. He did not carry the blood of kings in his veins. He was not the Consort. Not a priest.

"Serra?"

"It is… nothing."

She scanned the crowd; she could not tell who, on its fringes, the boy might belong to. In truth, he might have come up to the plateau heedless of his parents, or unaware of them; the tide of moving bodies was a strong pull.

"Na'dio?" Alana came forward; touched Diora's shoulder and arm. "Na'dio, what is it, what is wrong?" But her gaze was turned to fire; turned to the fate of the man whose mask had somehow been refused irrevocably by the Lady's decree.

"There is—" she fell silent.

"There is what? What do you hear? I'm old, my ears are poor. What has happened with that mask?"

"I think it best," the Serra replied demurely, "that we listen to the words of the Radann; he is a man of the Lord and surely fire is also the Lord's dominion. He is no doubt explaining the meaning of this miracle and this sign."

Alana's eyes narrowed, but her harem child's face was serene and beautiful; mild in the shade provided by their seraf. "Na'dio," she began.

"Alana," the Serra Diora said, her eyes upon the Lake, "it is best that we watch, I think, and speak little." So easy to say. So easy.

She watched the little boy, now up to his arms, no attention upon him. All eyes were turned to the Radann who had now mounted a pedestal; who spoke of the coming of the Lord of Night, and the appointing of a new Tyr who might be strong enough to
fight
him. Clever, she thought it, but idly.

The boy would drown.

If she did not interfere.

No mother could go in after him. Where a child might— barely—be excused such an act of sacrilege, an adult, no matter what her reason, would not. These were the waters of the Lady.

Lady
, she thought,
give me a sign
.

The child stumbled.

She froze; it was the sign she had asked for, but it was not the sign she desired. She had been a fool to pray to the Lady while the Lord reigned. Her mouth opened slightly, so slightly that Alana did not notice it. Neither did the cerdan, whose attention, like Alana en'Marano's was upon the spectacle that they had come to witness.

The child fell, and when he attempted to right himself, the water's ledge deepened. She knew what would happen next. She had asked for a sign, and she was given it, and she turned away.

And then, jaw clenched, she turned
back
.

The child did not know how to swim.

But the Serra Diora di'Marano had been taught by her husband, her little loved, very important husband. He had been truly delighted to be able to teach her something she did not know; to see her graceless and flailing as she attempted to find solidity and purchase in a medium that offered none.

And she had learned, laughing with feigned delight, silent with genuine fear, to navigate the treachery of water as if it were solid. What had she learned? That it would support her weight if she worked with it, obeyed its rules; that she would sink like a stone if she did not.

But stone could be retrieved whole and unharmed from the depths of the clear, clear water; not so small boys.

She
spoke
. Her throat was too thick for words, but the words had to be forced out.

Because the child could not swim, and she could, and she could force him, through strength of will and curse of gift alone, to do what must be done.

"Do not breathe,"
she said first.
"Hold your breath and stop flailing."
The boy had no choice; he held his breath; his body relaxed.
"Now,"
she said, and the words stuck a moment as he floated limply in the water,
"turn over."

He turned. He was facing the wrong direction, but she righted him, using a voice that was implacable. He had no choice but to obey her; she had no choice but to use that obedience. It no longer bothered her to watch him cough and struggle; it only mattered that he do it on land, near sand and stone, where someone—where anyone—might notice him. The waters were like the Lady; they were necessary, but in cases like this they seldom offered a second chance. No sharp edges, this; no fire, no arrow's head, no warrior-dealt death—but death, just the same.

"Na'dio?" her father's oldest wife said, but her voice, cracked by age and wind, was distant. Diora did not speak; she did not allow her voice or her attention to waver. She brought the child by slow degrees to the edge of the Lake, and then, beyond it.

She forced him to approach the crowd held spellbound by the Radann's harsh words, and she finally heard the words that would release her from her own.

But she could not quite hear what they were. A mother's words. A mother's terror and fear and guilt and anger.

She wondered what the boy would tell his mother.

And what the mother would say in return, if she said anything at all.

Her legs were weak. Not from effort, although the effort was there. Not from exertion. But she wondered if it would happen this way every time she was foolishly moved to risk herself by saving the life of a stranger: the horrible guilt, the self-loathing, as she confronted the fact again, and again: she had not raised her voice to save the people who had become the center of her life.

The wind whirled around her face, a cool and welcome breeze. And she heard, from across the Lake, something else that was almost as welcome.

"Well done, Na'dio."

Ona Teresa.

Lady
, she thought,
I asked for a sign, and maybe you have no sign to give me but this
. She looked up again, and the boy, carried by his mother, was almost invisible beneath the dark length of her wild hair. His arms disappeared into it, and his face was obviously buried against her throat. She held him on the shelf of her hip, oblivious to the fact that he was wet, and perhaps oblivious to the fact that he had committed a capital crime.

The fires erupted again as the Lake denied a slender white mask not only entry but existence. But although the fire held everyone mesmerized, it could not pull Diora away from the contemplation of what she had done.

The contemplation of what was left
to
do.

She wondered where the rest of the Radann were.

* * *

Samadar's time on the front during the border war with the Northern Empire had left him with a permanent limp; the twelve and a half years since that battle had not worsened it. He had learned, with will and exercise, to mask it during all but the most grueling of physical activities, and as he was Radann, he traveled on horseback when any great distance was involved.

But he had assiduously avoided giving challenge or accepting it in all but a handful of cases; he was no longer young. Where he could, he substituted prudence and wisdom for the strength, the endurance, and the speed of youth, but he lacked the ferocity and the
swiftness
that had once made him the most noteworthy of the Radann.

And yet, lacking that, he managed to avoid the set of unnatural claws that came swinging for the side of his neck and got lodged instead in the side of a building. And when he rolled put from under them,
Mordagar
took half of the creature's chest.

A man would have been dead.

The demon was simply angry. He
roared
.

Samadar roared back, but his voice formed the syllables of a name.
Mordagar
.

Two people lay dead at the hands of the demon; the creature had lain in wait—as, indeed, the kai el'Sol and the Tyr'agar had guessed one might—along the path that led to the plateau. It was not in the best interests of the demons to allow their masks to be destroyed by the combined efforts of the Lord and the Lady, and it was easy enough to scare the common clansmen into immobility or flight.

The kai el'Sol had remained upon the plateau as a symbol of the strength of the Lord; the par el'Sol now scanned the streets, waiting, watching.

The Radann in this case had an advantage that they had previously lacked. The creature had taken no pains to hide its true nature. Instead, it had suddenly emerged in the midst of the long procession, unfolding to a full eight feet in height as it casually reached out with its blade-length claws and speared the two closest people by their throats.

They gurgled and died in full view of the people who intended to reach the plateau. Those people hesitated a moment in silence before the screaming began.

And by that time, Samadar had reached the demon. He wore full armor, and as much regalia as a man could competently fight in: the Sun ascendant adorned his chest and back, the eight rays emblazoned in gold, the curve of the sword beneath the high sun embroidered in shining silver. As background, instead of the darker blue favored by the former kai el'Sol, the Radann par el'Sol now wore azure. They looked like the Hand of God.

They served as protectors, but more: they made the symbol of both their office and the office of the Tyr the symbol of protection against the predations of creatures such as this. For the only people who did not flee—toward the Lake if they were closer, away if they were on the opposite side of the demon—were the Radann.

From a safe distance, Samadar gathered an audience.

And, taking up his sword in the empty space fear made between himself and his enemy, he became the root of legend, a part of the history of the Tor that would—whether he survived or no—be carried from the mouths of these witnesses to their children, and their children's children, and on, until it served as a reminder of valor, and a game for children to play at: I'll be the Radann. You can be the demon.