Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (45 page)

"The Sword's Edge has made perfectly clear that the Widan are not to be as ill-used as they were in the previous Tyr's campaign."

"Indeed," Alesso di'Alesso said, the freedom of movement over. He lifted a sealed scroll—and perhaps, Sendari thought, that was what was so alien about this map room, this map building: the paper, the consignment of words to parchment. It was very… Northern. As was breaking the seal, opening the parchment, reading the words as if they were more significant than things spoken, words passed between men.

The General—the Tyr, Sendari thought, correcting himself—crossed the room, navigating the space between tables with care. He found the map he sought—Averda, and the Averdan valleys, and bent over this map a moment, his brows drawing together. Then he nodded to himself, lifted a brush, and drew a trailing mark across the heavy parchment. "I think that should we require use of magery, we have our… allies… to rely on. However," he added, forestalling Sendari's words, although he had no need to look up to ascertain that they were indeed about to follow, "I believe that we can avoid the Tiagra entirely in this campaign. Our goal is not the North; it is consolidation of our control over the South."

Sendari nodded absently; Alesso had said as much several times, to no one's satisfaction. He had been—would continue to be—vague until he reached the army. That was his way. Generals would be made in the battles that came out of the struggle for the Dominion, but they would be appointed and acknowledged by Alesso after the fact. The war itself was
his
.

Which was as it should be; he would only survive if he won. Lord's man.

"Good."

Alesso straightened. Clapped his hands again. This time, when the mapmakers rose, he smiled and addressed the oldest of their number, a slender man with streaked hair and the sallowness of complexion that accompanies lack of sleep. "Ser Martenn, I have been pleased with your work here, and I commend you for your diligence. The reputation that you have garnered for yourself over the years is justified."

The man visibly relaxed, a sure sign that he had slept very, very little. Although it was not technically a lapse of manners, it was a display of weakness. Alesso ignored it; he was indeed well-pleased. "Let us see if those who gather information below the plateau have been one tenth as competent in the gathering as you have been in the rendering. Call for the coded containers; prepare the maps for transport."

"Tyr'agar," Ser Martenn said, bowing with a lopsided fluidity. He was not a graceful man; he would probably never learn to
be
graceful. But he was an expert, a man obsessed by turning things vibrant and real into the lines and flat curves that war makers valued so highly. He turned to his subordinates and began to bark out orders, and they fled to the various corners of the building that had been both their haven and their prison for months. Even during the Festival of the Moon, they had not found the freedom decreed theirs by the Lady—although perhaps there was an element of fear and a desire for safety in that choice, this year.

Freedom had sharp edges.

"Collect what you need—if there is any detail that has managed to escape your preparations, old friend—and meet me at the gates. We ride shortly, and we will be pressed for speed."

Sendari turned. Paused. "It appears," he said softly, although he did not turn to gaze at his friend, "that we will not necessarily ride alone."

"Ser Sendari," the Lord's creature said. He did not bow, which was both annoying and acceptable. The
Kialli
made, of bows, a thing of sarcasm that was still more perfect than the most sincere effort most mortals made.

"Lord Ishavriel. We were not expecting to see you upon the plateau before we left."

The
Kialli
lord shrugged, his wide eyes the color of a perfect, dear night. "There have been delays in my departure."

"How unfortunate."

"Indeed." The
Kialli's
gaze swept the room, which had become crowded with the simple preparations for departure. "Has any progress been made with the Lambertan Tyr?"

Alesso di'Alesso gave Ishavriel his full attention. His hand, however, did not touch the hilt of his sword. He was confident in his own ability, or perhaps confident in Lord Ishavriel's disgrace.

"That is not your concern. Your duty, if I understand our agreement correctly, is to accompany Anya to the field that is chosen for our final confrontation. Not more, not less."

Ishavriel grew still cool as stone in evening shade.

"You will therefore not question my activities or my decisions in any matter that does not relate to that duty. Ser Sendari?"

Sendari bowed formally. Properly. He had been in private quarters with Alesso for the past several weeks; he felt the edge of the bow in the stiffness of his knees and his back.

When he rose, Lord Ishavriel was gone.

"We are not so unalike," Alesso said softly, "the
Kialli
and I."

"True or no, Alesso, do not speak those words beneath the open sky, do not speak them where they can be caught or taken by breeze or wind. The Radann lost much and gained much at the Festival, and they are watching now."

Alesso nodded, grimly. "They watch," he agreed.

Marakas par el'Sol stood beneath the open sky. The Lady's Lake reflected the clarity of cloudless blue and the merciless glitter of the Lord's most severe face. It was always thus: the Lady reflected the Lord's severity. Hard to know what lay beneath the surface of either.

But upon the surface, hair now streaked with the sun's harshest glare, the line of broad shoulders bent inward as if they bore great weight, he also saw himself. And judged.

"Are you ready?"

He looked up at his companion; very few were the men who did not when that companion was the Radann kai el'Sol, the man in the Dominion, by the Lord's grace, second only to the Tyr'agar—if indeed he was counted second.

The arguments went full circle, for although only the Tyr'agar wore the crown, it was a pale conceit;
both
men were entitled to the use of the sun ascendant, and it was by that crest that they were known.

"I am… ready."

The Radann kai el'Sol's gaze fell from his face to the Lake, and rested there a long moment. Seeing, perhaps, his reflection, and the sky behind it. Both men were clean shaven, but Marakas had always chosen to be so—the request of a long-dead wife had the power of oath. Peder kai el'Sol's smooth chin, and the short, sheared brush of his rounded head, were a gift of fire. "You are not required— by the Radann—to perform this service."

Marakas nodded quietly.

"And in truth, we have some need of you here; we march to war at the side of the Tyr'agar, and the war will be a sword dance."

"He does not intend us to survive."

"No. But he cannot survive—not yet—without us."

"If any man could, it would be he. I have never seen a man so much the Lord's in all the time I have paid attention to the politics of the Court."

Peder kai el'Sol raised a single thin brow. "You have rarely paid any attention to the politics of the Court."

"Not so, kai el'Sol. Fredero made certain that I understood who was most easily offended, and why, every time I returned to the plateau."

"And I note that you did not remain."

"No. But I am not a man of the Court."

Peder bowed. It was the brief bow of respect offered between equals; Marakas accepted the graceful gesture in silence. Scant months ago, such an action would have been unthinkable; Peder had considered Marakas to be Fredero's creature, and at that, too soft a creature to be a worthy foe. So went old prejudices, old beliefs; the Lord had burned them away.

What remained was simple steel.

"You are determined to pursue this course?" The kai el'Sol asked, when the breeze had stilled a moment.

Marakas nodded. "I owe a debt of honor, and I am reluctant to leave it unpaid." He turned back to the lake. "The Lady's intervention in the Tor saved these lands from the Lord of Night. But that was the battle, not the war." He knelt. Peder kai el'Sol chose to stand, hand on the hilt of
Saval
, eyes on his own reflection in the Lady's Lake. The sun had aged him, carving crescents and creases into his skin, in the short time that the nights had been at their longest.

Funny, that. Sunlight glinted off the golden threads of the sun ascendant as he stared at the stranger in the water.

Marakas carefully removed a flat wineskin from his belt. He unstoppered it with care and then, looking first at the reflection and then at the man who cast it—who had become worthy of it—added, "with your permission, kai el'Sol?"

The kai el'Sol's lips turned up in a wry smile. But he nodded.

As the skin grew round with the Lady's water, Marakas par el'Sol said softly, "None of us foresaw the man you would become; the Lord owns you, kai el'Sol, and it… has become a privilege to serve under you."

"Does the Lord own me?" Peder responded softly. "Was not the Lord that we fought for a Lord who desired power and only power, obedience to power, and only power? Was the fitness to rule not decided by that power and the judicious exercise of its sword?"

Marakas' eyes widened, although he did not look up from the now full skin. Instead, he gazed at the brightest of the wavering reflections across moving water. The golden rays of sun ascendant. Men had killed and died for that crest; would kill and die again, just for the honor of wearing it—no matter how long or how short the wearing might be.

"Marakas?"

Marakas closed his eyes. "I thought the question might be rhetorical."

"I am not a man of many words. I do not waste a question when I desire no answer to it."

"My answer is not an answer that I feel will please you."

"There is very little in the coming war that will please me, par el'Sol," Peder kai el'Sol replied. "But it is bitter indeed to know that Fredero kai el'Sol may have been the better man, in every possible way, to fight this battle."

At that, Marakas looked up, almost snapping to attention. "He chose you," the par el'Sol said.

"I planned his death."

"Of course. But he knew. He
chose
his death; he made use of it. He saw the war coming; he did not feel that he had the skills necessary to fight it. And that is the truth. He said as much."

"And Fredero kai el'Sol—Fredero par di'Lamberto—did not stoop to lie. But he undervalued himself."

"No. He understood himself well."

Peder was silent.

"You have not yet added the fourth par el'Sol."

"No."

"And you will not?"

"No."

Marakas nodded. "Then let me answer the question that I believe you have asked. The Lord is concerned with power. But also with honor. It is why the Lambertans have prospered in all that they have chosen to do, even in the face of a weak Tyr and his foolish war."

They both knew that Marakas spoke not of Alesso di'Alesso, but of the previous kai Leonne.

"It has been the way of the Radann to value power; it is why the Lord of Night once attempted to subvert the Radann first. Or so I believe," Marakas added. "And that is why we were given the five." His hand did not stray to the sword that he spoke of indirectly. But he noted that the kai el'Sol's did.

"Yes. But we have four now."

"Would you seek the fifth?"

Peder kai el'Sol's grip on
Saval
was as tight as his momentary smile. "I will ride with the Tyr'agar and the first and second armies. But I will ride in search of
Balagar
."

15th of Scaral 427 AA

Terrean of Mancorvo

Mareo di'Lamberto stared at the sheathed sword that rested, in a position of honor, in the heart of his chambers. It was not a wise place to put such a sword, for it caught the attention of every man who entered through the sliding screens. Thankfully, they were few; only the most trusted of his Tyran, the most faithful of his servants, the most obedient of his serafs, were allowed to lay hand upon those screens and set foot across the threshold.

So only they might see the magnificent simplicity of the scabbard; only they might see the Radann kai el'Sol's crest, stylized by the scabbard's maker, spread thinly from tip to mouth in embedded gold. He wondered if they would understand what he understood as he stared at the sword: That this was the legendary
Balagar
.

He had not drawn the sword. His own sword, called, simply,
Warcry
, had been drawn and blooded countless times in service to Mancorvo, the lands Lamberto both claimed and ruled. It had never failed him, and he was hesitant to pull a blade whose fame—illusory or no, he could not say—was so much the greater.

As if his blade were a jealous wife.

He felt the gaze of Jevri el'Sol upon him every time he passed the closed screens; felt the weight of his stare, his impossible and perfect reproach, as reward for his hesitancy. He had never been a meek man.

But to wield this sword had been his brother's desire, his brother's goal, and his brother's life. Mancorvo, mountains and grasslands and the bitter edge of the desert ring, had been Mareo's, and they had both achieved what they desired.

Fredero was dead.

Mareo's son, beloved kai, was also dead.

And in between these deaths, the death of the clan Leonne.

He heard the shifting tracks of wooden tongue in wooden groove, and he turned in time to see the delicate, pale hands of a young seraf gently pull aside the doors. She stopped when they were just far enough from the adjoining wall that a woman of grace and delicacy might find entrance; she herself remained, a kneeling shadow beyond the screens after the Serra Donna en'Lamberto entered.

"Na'donna," he said softly, as she came to kneel by his side. "Have you come with word? Another letter?"

"Only a letter from my cousin's wife," she said softly. "It is of little import, but it is pleasantly worded, and it whiles away the time."

"Have you replied?"

"I find, of late, that I have little of value to add to her observations, and little of worth. She has a sharp eye and a soft voice."