Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2 (22 page)

Tarsus looked at Kel ar Haedrin for a long moment, and the Velvet Sword blinked back impassively.  "The White Snake invasion was wrong," he said, apparently trying to rebuild the foundations of his animosity.

"Yes.  And the Empire defended itself."

"They
stole
the throne!"

"They conquered Palladium," Medair said.  "Five hundred years ago.  And became part of it."

"What of those who don't think White Snakes are a part of Palladium?  What of those who raise their voices to me, to the true heir of that line, and ask for their freedom?  Should I just ignore them?"

"Perhaps not."  Medair looked at him, and her own anger faded.  So earnest, so impassioned.  But no longer sure that hate was the way.  "Where would the killing have stopped, Tarsus?  How many would it have taken, before you considered Palladium cleansed?  Would you have killed all who were pale, or over-tall, just to be sure?  Or would it be permitted to have a quarter Ibisian blood?  An eighth?  People who have lived in Palladium all their lives, who think of themselves as Palladian, who speak Parlance and who would consider you the invader?  Will you also oust those who are Farakkian blood who have been appointed by Ibisians?  Yes, you could make the Ibisians pay, but is it worth destroying Palladium in the process?"

"It can't be forgotten," Thessan broke in.  "It can't just be put aside.  They will always be invaders, they will always have been the ones who made war.  They can't be allowed to live."  His voice was a pitch higher than usual, and he said the words as if he repeated a child's well-worn lesson, a litany to block out any doubt.  "A war does not finish merely because the victors have claimed the prize."

"What is your position, then, Thessan, by that way of thinking?  Decia just invaded.  Should that never be forgiven?  Should Palladians not tolerate Decians to live?"

"No doubt the White Snakes are greedy for our land–" Thessan retorted, hotly, but Islantar's cool voice slid into the fray.

"Palladium has no interest in expanding her borders," the Kierash said, with serene confidence.  Thessan rounded on him as if looking for relief in action, and Medair saw the guards surge forward a step.  Islantar didn't move.

Held back, perhaps by the utter calm in the Kierash's eyes, Thessan did no more than clench his fists.  "The White Snakes are the problem," he said, desperately stubborn.  "Without the White Snakes, there would be no war.  Farakkan would be united once again."

Medair sighed softly.  "I doubt it," she said.  It was as much an admission to herself as anything.  "The Ibisians invaded, true, but the Empire fell because the West took the opportunity it had been given."

Tarsus lifted a hand as if pushing that argument away.  "The West was used by the White Snakes," he said, tightly.

"The West broke free of a conqueror.  Don't you see?  Clinging to old grievances raises older ghosts.  The West longed to go back to its old, fractured, fractious ways, but the Empire was too strong until the invasion.  A Corminevar conquered Decia once.  Made it a part of the Empire and installed a Duke.  If you look back far enough, there was a time when Athere's hill overlooked the grazing land of some cow-lord who had never heard of Corminevars."

Thessan shook his head, as if he had a bee trying to beat its way out of his skull.  "This leads us nowhere.  Cow-lords, the old disputes with the West.  We are talking about
now
."

"Yes.  We are."  It was Tarsus who said it, holding his head very high and still.  "Thank you, Lady an Rynstar.  I will – I am obliged for your opinion."  He took Thessan's arm in a tight grip and, with obvious effort, turned and walked through the line of guards and into the night.

"He's thinking about it," Medair said when she and Islantar were alone.  Half Kel ar Haedrin's contingent remained, but had withdrawn so that they were barely visible.  "Though perhaps bringing Thessan along was a mistake.  He obviously has influence over Tarsus."

"But it is Prince Thessan I must convince," Islantar reminded her.  "Tarsus might be used as he has been already, but unless we remove Queen Sendel's line from Decia's throne, Prince Thessan is the one who will fund a cause which should be long dead.  And he does not have Tarsus' depth of empathy, nor the shock of causing this."  Islantar glanced toward the Blight, and his face tightened.  It could not be long, now, before Illukar attempted to stop what Tarsus had begun.

"I have asked Queen Sendel to allow me them both, for a year's visit in Athere," Islantar continued.  "And in that time–"  He looked into the dark in the direction the Decian pair had gone.  "Tarsus is already beginning to see that a ruler is owned by the people, not the other way around.  Perhaps his ties to Thessan will be strong enough to bend the more rigid of that pair.  And with both of them, and you, I may be able to weaken this eternal clutching of an old grievance to each new generation's breast.  The deaths of the past days will be a vivid wound, of course, but I can hope to ease it once the hurdle of the old is overcome."

"Were you ever given the chance to be a child, Kierash?" Medair asked, feebly.  Islantar looked surprised, then smiled.

"For a short while.  Even in my family, there is a childhood.  But no more escape from the burdens of position than Tarsus."  He paused, and then added with stark honesty,  "Not killing him is the hardest thing I have ever done."

Medair felt a tremor run through her, and bit down on her lip, nodding, and so glad of him in that moment, sharing her loss.

He was holding himself very straight, eyes wide, and held out his hand.  "I give you my name, Keris.  I would ask that I might use yours."

"Of course," Medair said, automatically gripping the slim, pale fingers.

"Thank you, Medair."  That young-old face briefly relaxed, then firmed, Kierash once more.  "I have a more difficult request."

"You want me to help with the hurdle."

"Yes."  He nodded, his glance a mix of gratitude and concern.  "I know it is not a role you are eager to assume, but you saw the power of your words on Tarsus.  It is not merely that you are Medair an Rynstar, long made legend, but that you were
there
.  And that for you, the war is over.  I ask that you allow me to use that."

Medair looked away from him.  She wanted little more than to find herself another Bariback, run away from all which could remind her of Illukar, and weep.  But she wouldn't.  She thought, hoped, that she had reached beyond such cowardice.

"I used the Horn," she pointed out.  "All the fury, grief and outrage which is the consequence of that will focus on me.  You may find I cause more damage than good."

"Even hating you, they will want to hear.  You said it yourself: at least they will know your reasons."

It would be a life of being spat at.  Not a weapon to save an Empire, not a path of honour and glory, but a fumbling kind of recompense which would do nothing to dull the loss of Illukar.  How could she stand it?

"I will try," she told Islantar, and saw him stand straighter.  Relieved.  He had not been certain of her.

"I am glad of that," he said, then looked down.  The power of the Blight thrummed all around them.  "Will you come back to The Avenue now?" he asked, and his voice had lost some of its strength.

"I would rather stay here."

Islantar looked at her intently, then nodded.  "I will return for you in the morning."

He started to turn away but she reached out and again caught one of his hands.  "I think the Emperor would find you worthy of his throne," she said, thickly.  "And I think you will make him proud."  It was not Grevain she meant.  "Good luck."

"I shall make my own luck," Islantar replied, the light from the glowstone shimmering in his eyes.  "It seems the safer course."

He returned the pressure of her hands briefly, and followed Tarsus and Thessan into the night.  Medair watched him go, then turned to find Kier Ieskar at her side.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Medair did not flinch or cry out.  Too much had happened for her to even be startled.  She clenched her jaw and took a deep breath, but was able to stand quietly while Ieskar looked in Islantar's direction.  He was as he had appeared in the garden of The Avenue: transparent and luminescent, clad for death.  When the glow of Islantar's stone had been swallowed by the night, Ieskar turned on Medair the unfeeling gaze she had long thought to hate.  He was drawn and wasted, the fine bones of his face standing out clearly beneath his pale skin, but the cold expressionless mask was the same.

"Did I summon you this time," she asked, unsteadily, "or is this excursion on your own account?"

"A little of both, perhaps."  His soft, composed voice was exactly as she remembered it.  "I wish to mark my brother's passing.  You would like very much for me to find a way for Illukar to live."

"And will you?"

"I cannot."  There was a ghost of honest regret in the words, and the knot of hope which had clutched Medair's chest unravelled.  She turned away to look out at the night, wishing for miracles.  None came, of course.  The Blight still beat invisibly at her across the ever-decreasing Shimmerlan.  Ieskar didn't suddenly produce a solution, or even go away and leave her alone.  She felt poorly served.

"He's not your brother," she said abruptly, unable to stand his silent presence at her back.

"Merely a descendent of his line?"  Ieskar was unperturbed by her denial.  "You are wrong.  Illukar does not remember the past, but that does not make him any less my brother."

She looked over her shoulder at him, but that was pointless.  There was never any expression on Ieskar's face.  "He was reborn to face the Blight?"  The idea sickened her.

"Perhaps."  Ieskar gazed out over the water.  "It is the fourth time he has lived, only to have that life cut short.  As if the first sacrifice was imprinted onto the world itself."

"Born to die."

Ieskar did not deny it.  "The cycle may be broken this time.  He has no children, and it is unlikely that he would be reborn outside the direct path of descent."

"Is that meant to be comforting?"

"No."  Ieskar's cold blue gaze did not waver from the dark water, but he moved one of his hands, a gesture she could not interpret.  "Illukar faced the Blight because I did not," he added.  "It was my place to do so."

"What?  Then why–?"

"Sar-Ibis was dying," he said, as if that would explain it.  When she only stared, he went on.  "The Ibis-lar ensured the health of the land by binding it to the Kier.  As Sar-Ibis failed, so did I, until I did not have strength enough to face the Blight, though it was my role.  Eventually I had not strength enough to live."  There was still no flicker of expression on his face.  "It is possible that the substitution is the reason why I endure and Illukar dies and dies again."

"Why you
endure
?" Medair repeated, feeling ever less capable of dealing with this encounter.  "You are not–?"

He looked at her then, shifting first his gaze then turning so he faced her.  Tall and upright and eternally composed.  "I am not a construct of Estarion's Conflagration."

It was something which she had not properly thought about, but which had lurked at the back of her thoughts.  She'd half-believed this ghost Ieskar to be conjured from her own memories, given form by wild magic.  But then, like Finrathlar, he would not even know the truth of his own existence.

"My memories are those of the past known to you," Ieskar said, reading either her thoughts or the expression on her face.  She stood staring at him, at the trailing sleeves of his funeral robe and the way his pale hair was untouched by the wind, and that unwavering gaze which had haunted her longer than he'd been dead.  And she had to turn away.

"Will Islantar succeed?" she asked, to stop herself from thinking of either Illukar or Ieskar.  She felt like she'd been running.  Ieskar didn't oblige her with an answer, so she covered her unease by finding herself another rock to sit on, too aware of his steady gaze.

"He appears determined to try," Ieskar said, after an interminable pause.  "There are routes other than conciliation."

This provided her with a revivifying spurt of anger.  "Should those who can't forgive the invasion be driven out, then?  Or simply be suppressed, ignored?  You would watch Tarsus relinquish his claim to the throne, but have nothing given back?  Shouldn't Islantar make some meaningful sacrifice?"

The mask gave her nothing.  "You are adept at both sides of this argument, Keris."

"I have seen both sides," she said, hotly.  "I don't see a solution."

"It is possible that there is no solution," Ieskar replied, serenely.  "Not for every side, every interest.  Islantar will try to find some balance, a way of easing the hatreds.  I think it likely that he will be more inclined to listen to matters of redress than many of his predecessors.  As for sacrifices–"  He turned again to look out over the Shimmerlan.  "He has already begun to pay."

Medair felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.  She drew in an unsteady breath and tried not to lose herself.  Her anger was gone as if it had never been and she felt only helpless hurt.  For a bare moment anger had taken her thoughts from Illukar, from that fact that he was going to die, that there was no way to save him.

There was.

The odd certainty which had preyed on her at Falcon Black returned.  There was something which could be done.  She knew it like she had known that Vorclase had been waiting.  But how?  Had Ieskar told her the truth, when he'd said there was nothing he could do to save Illukar?  She'd never known the Ibisian Kier to lie, but Medair was certain she would not be able to read him one way or the other: Illukar was transparent by comparison.  If there was something Ieskar knew, how could she winkle it out of him?

The idea of trying to manipulate the Kier was ludicrous.  She looked at his luminescent figure out of the corner of her eye and decided that she would not attempt it.  But she would ask.

"Did you tell me the full truth," she began, hesitantly, "when you said there was no way to stop Illukar's death?  Is there, perhaps, something I could do?  Someone who is – who is not dead?"