Oracle: The House War: Book Six (23 page)

“You are not, however, betting on that whim, now. What I want is independent of The Terafin.”

“It is not.”

“Yes, Finch, it is. She is, like any other piece on the board, some element of the game; she has no value to me beyond that.” He did not smile. His face was almost as expressionless as Haval’s. Haval glanced at Finch, but found Jarven the more compelling of the two.

Finch, however, did not shrink; her eyes narrowed as she lowered her chin, as if to gaze at her hands. “You want what Meralonne wants.”

She had surprised Jarven. “Meralonne APhaniel?”

Finch nodded.

“And what does he want?”

“He wants the battle, Jarven. He wants the challenge. He wants an opponent worthy of his power at its height. For Meralonne, that means demons, and possibly Lord Celleriant. The games we play—or the games I do—are not, and will never be, of interest to him.”

“But it is of interest to the demons.”

She shook her head. “It has utility for the
mortals
who have aligned themselves with the Lord of the Hells. If the shape of the world changes, mortals still require sustenance; they require shelter; they require offspring. They do not
require
power, although many feel it is as much of, if not more of, a necessity.”

“Those who have power value it highly. More highly than either sustenance or shelter.”

“They’ve never lived without the latter,” was Finch’s quiet reply.

“You make assumptions based on your early life, and fail to add to those assumptions with your current experience. In the eyes of most of this city,
you
have never known hunger or cold. You are ATerafin. You define power, in this city. You are not, in the end, so different from me.

“I know hunger, Finch. I know cold. I know it at least as well as you and your den, but at a greater remove. There are some things that are never forgotten.” He rose. “I understood the need for power in the streets of my youth. It was the only thing that stood between me and pain or death.

“Where I did not have power, I bluffed. There was no risk inherent in that—if my bluff was called, I was in the same position I would have otherwise been in had I not made the attempt at all. I was,” he added, with a very slight smile, “quite good at it. I was not slight of build. I was not meek; I could not afford to be gentle.

“But I was young. In the way of the young and the naive, I believed myself
better
than my tormentors. A better man, if you will. I believed that were
I
to have power, things would be different.” He chuckled.

Haval clasped hands behind his back. He lowered his chin as he studied Jarven’s profile. He said nothing.

“Were you foolish enough to believe as I did?” Jarven continued.

“No. I believed that my mother loved me. I did not entirely trust the affection of my brothers. I did not expect to be sold to a brothel.” She smiled. It was a cool turn of lip. “The walls were not soundproof. I was not harmed.” She met, and held, Jarven’s gaze. She did not flinch. “I was to be saved for something bigger, something better. I did not have the ability to lie to myself, even then. It was a matter of time.

“And the time itself was not mine. I was trapped in it. I didn’t daydream of power,” she continued softly. “Only of escape. My dreams were not kind, but my sleep was repeatedly broken. When given a chance to escape, I took it. I didn’t wait. I didn’t attempt to rescue anyone else trapped there. I ran.

“Perhaps because I could run, I didn’t believe that I would do better, if given power. And perhaps I would have become like you.”

“You do not say that with any belief.”

“No—but I don’t want to believe it, Jarven.”

He smiled. There was no kindness in it.

And Finch, Haval realized, did not require Jarven’s kindness. Not now. He wondered if she ever had, or if she had sheltered behind Lucille, a woman whose tongue was sharp and whose heart was open.

“But I ran to Jay.” She used the unadorned name, now; the name that only the den used. Jarven did not appear to note it—but of course he had. “I ran to freedom in the form of a total stranger, a girl my own age. She wasn’t rich. She wasn’t powerful—not the way the men who bought me claimed to be. Not the way you must have been. She was almost incapable of lying.”

“She is still incapable of lying,” Jarven said.

“Yes. You can argue that she never learned because she never had to. I won’t disagree. I won’t, however, believe it.” Her answering smile was serene and impregnable. “And because I can’t, I’ve never had to wonder what the world would be like if I were in charge of it. I’ve never had to wonder what the House would be like. Jay was our leader. Jay will be our leader while she lives—and I believe that everything she has been until now will guide us if she dies.”

“That is almost disappointing.”

“But not surprising, surely?”

“No,” was the grave reply. “Not surprising. You have not answered my question.”

“I told you—you want what Meralonne wants.”

“Poorly done, Finch. That is not the question to which I refer. Will the Empire stand if Terafin does not?”

“I am afraid to answer your question.” She spoke, however, without a trace of the fear she claimed to feel.

Ah, Haval thought, watching her, and watching, as well, the one man he had once considered his superior.
You will never reach the potential that Jarven sees in you. That I see in you. And perhaps, just perhaps, that is a blessing.

“But I ran, Jarven. I ran into a city in which I had no friends; I ran because I had no power. I found a home. I found the only home I’ve ever wanted. If I could, I would be like Jay. I’m not. She would die before she let harm come to any of us—but harm comes, anyway.

“My death would never prevent it. But I will do everything within the power I’ve been given to protect the House she’s built.” She closed her eyes. “Yes, Jarven. It’s my absolute belief that if the House falls—if
we
fall—the city won’t stand against the god.”

“The god.”

She opened her eyes. She had chosen to gamble, Haval thought. “The god is coming, Jarven. If Jay isn’t ready—if she doesn’t have something to lose—the city won’t stand.”

T
HE JOURNEY THROUGH AN arch that was constructed of poorly melted stone was neither swift nor immediate—at least not in a forward direction. A door had been opened, and it had swiftly shut when the last member of Jewel’s party stepped through. It had shut, on the other hand, with a bang that echoed in the cold, dark air, almost as if it meant to hit the straggler.

Given that the straggler was Celleriant, Jewel wasn’t as concerned as she might otherwise have been; she could not conceive of a door—any door—that could kill the Arianni Lord. Angel walked to her right; Adam walked to her left. She held his hand.

This would have offended her den-kin in the past, when they’d been close to Adam’s age; they had been far too old to be publicly treated like children. Adam, however, was not the child Jewel had been. He was certainly not Angel or Carver. In many ways, she thought him closest to Arann—but Adam was good with words; he could speak and he could listen, and generally if he did the latter, he heard what was said. Many people heard what they wanted to hear, or feared to hear.

Terrick, to Jewel’s surprise, had chosen to take the lead. Senniel College’s most famous bard pulled up the rear, walking to the right of Celleriant. Avandar walked to Adam’s left, surrendering the spot he usually occupied. This wasn’t an act of grace on his part, in Jewel’s opinion; nor was it a desire to protect Adam. They’d brought the cats with them, the possessive, attention-seeking, demanding cats who considered the place of pride to be at Jewel’s side. They were happy to shoulder anyone who occupied that space out of the way.

Adam didn’t seem to notice them. Then again, the cats usually stayed out of Adam’s arm’s reach.

This marching order remained in force as they walked beyond the Oracle’s door, although they walked through what seemed mist—but mist that had weight, texture, viscosity. It caused no pain, no injury, but the suspicious sense that it was webbing made the walk increasingly uncomfortable. Terrick spoke in brief bursts of almost inaudible Rendish. Angel translated, although it was clear that Kallandras understood the Northern man. He was calling all clear and asking, briefly, for guidance.

When none was forthcoming, he continued to forge ahead. Jewel could see the naked ax in his hand; he was the only man present who carried a readied weapon. It seemed part of him, in keeping with his hair, his taciturn, pragmatic demeanor. She wasn’t certain what to make of him, but she trusted him because Angel did.

The stop and start nature of his speech was rhythmic; it was, given the harsher syllables of Rendish, unexpectedly soothing. There was a cadence to his brief report, a cadence to his equally brief questions, that engendered confidence, and she grabbed it and held onto it for all she was worth, because she herself had come with so little.

“How
long
are we going to
stay
here?” Night demanded, for perhaps the dozenth time. The cats had started the journey with a surprising amount of decorum—for cats. Shadow, in particular, had been menacing in his silent, exposed fang, way. He didn’t trust the Oracle, and that was fair. Jewel had no doubt at all that there was only one way to pass this test, and none of that relied on the Oracle’s capacity for either helpfulness or mercy.

There were traps here. There was death, madness, or both. The Oracle had implied that Jewel carried the seeds of that death and that madness within her—but not in those words. Perhaps not in words that anyone else might hear and understand as the challenge and the threat that they were. No. The Oracle carried the seer’s crystal. She carried the heart, exposed. All good and all evil, all joy and all despair, lay within the clouds at its center. They lay, Jewel thought, within the clouds at her own—but hers was hidden, guarded, defended. She exposed it seldom, and only at need.

And oh, that was a lie. It was a lie, or her needs were so large and endless they’d informed the whole of her life. They were, in some measure, the whole of her life.

She knew why she had come. She knew what she hoped to find. And she knew that the Oracle knew the truth. Jewel had not undertaken the journey to the heart of the Oracle’s land simply for the sake of obtaining a seer’s crystal. She wouldn’t have left home—and Terafin—for the possible advantage of control over the visions that had haunted her, waking and sleeping, since her distant childhood.

No. She had come for the sake of her kin. For Carver. And for Ellerson, although she had no idea if Ellerson had survived, as Carver had. They had disappeared through the door of an unremarkable closet because the closet door had opened onto more than tidy rows of expensive dresses. But Ellerson had gone first. Carver had gone in search of him.

At Jewel’s unspoken request.

Where’s Ellerson?

Where is Ellerson, indeed.

Not here, she thought, and knew it for truth. Neither of them were here.

 • • • 

The gray of amorphous landscape gave way slowly. It might never have given way at all, except for the cats.

They had been walking long enough that Jewel’s shoulders had begun the ache heavy packs sometimes caused. Her thoughts had drifted inward to the empty space left by Carver and Ellerson, but the cats, being cats, interrupted everything with their sniping, their squalling, and their attempts to leave rents in each other’s fur. They had also begun the litany of boredom, in three parts.

Boredom was apparently going to kill them.

By the hundredth iteration of
I’m bored
and
it’s boring
, Jewel wasn’t certain that it wouldn’t. Even Celleriant was beginning to look unimpressed with repetitive cat whining, which was a first. While it was true that the cats always whined, it was also true that the rest of the world intervened with its frequent and many crises and distractions.

Here, there was a lot of gray. If a crisis happened, it would come from the nowhere through which they now walked, but it hadn’t, yet. And the cats were getting impatient.

When Celleriant opened his mouth and lifted his right hand, Jewel shook her head. She considered the apex of boredom had been reached, and when the cats were bored, they could forget themselves in unfortunate ways. Usually this resulted in scarred baseboards, walls, and furniture. Here, there were only people.

Shadow hissed. “
Yes?
”

Celleriant’s jaw tightened. He had too much dignity to call out a cat—but too much ego to retreat. He had never considered the cats a personal danger; he had considered them a threat to Jewel.

Remembering that Shadow had almost killed her—that she would, in fact, be dead if not for Adam—she knew he was right. She just had difficulty remembering it every time the cats opened their mouths. They did more than open their mouths here, though. They extended claws, unhooded fangs, and gained the visual height that rising fur lent them.

Adam said, in hushed Torra, “Are they going to fight?” The last syllable had barely cleared his open lips before Night roared in fury and leaped at Snow. Snow moved before he landed, swiping at his flank on the way past.

The colorful language that accompanied these moves was new, and it implied the cats had spent far too much time in the gutter, which was impossible. The second and more likely explanation involved the occupants of the West Wing.

“You better not have used that language around Ariel!” she shouted. She had, entirely unintentionally, released Adam’s hand; both of hers were now balled fists sitting on her hips.

“
What
language? We use
their
words.
He
says it!” Snow hissed, pointing a wing in Angel’s direction.

“Ariel can’t understand most of what Angel says,” she shot back, “so it doesn’t matter!”

“If we use
his
words,
she
won’t understand
us
.”

Shadow hissed laughter. Night was still growling, but his fur had descended. They went on a round of far less violent
stupid, stupid girl
, and while they did, Jewel noticed that the ground and the air into which claws had been inserted, or across which claws had been driven in fury had . . . tear marks.

“You two, stop for a second. Did you . . . tear . . . the ground?”

“It wasn’t
me
,” Night said. “It was
him
.”

“
You
jumped. You’re too
heavy
. It’s
your
fault!”

Shadow, however, sauntered between them and stomped on both of their feet before either could move their paws, which was impressive; Jewel hadn’t seen his feet move. “Say
yes
,” he advised them. “It’s
good
.”

They immediately stopped speaking—for at least five seconds—and reversed the direction in which they were pointing their figurative fingers. It would have been funny—it almost was—but they began to squabble, and words descended into the usual accusations before they were tossed aside, once again, for fur, claw, and feather.

Jewel let them fight, watching their claws; watching the way the sharp and sudden descent of wings ruptured the gray, thick air—as if it were dirt and grime that clung to another surface, shrouding it. She couldn’t hear tearing—but if they’d been shredding cloth, she wouldn’t have been able to hear that, either, given the rest of the noise they made.

“While this is amusing in small doses,” Avandar finally said, “it is repetitive in the extreme.” He lifted his left hand, palm flat, fingers straight and extended. Jewel saw light gild it briefly, too faint in the gray to have enough color to give her some warning of what he intended.

Hand became fist between one heartbeat and the next; he drove that fist down, toward the ground on which everyone was standing—except, at the moment, Night. The sound that was too quiet to survive the hissing and growling of giant cats was thunderous in response to that single gesture.

It even managed to silence the cats for a few minutes.

 • • • 

What appeared to be viscous, dimly lit fog lifted. Or, in this case, tore and shriveled. Strands were caught in Avandar’s fist before he literally burned them away. Webbing, Jewel thought, or spun silk. She didn’t attempt to touch it, because as it burned, the light that had emanated from it guttered.

She had assumed they were walking beneath some sort of clouded sun. They weren’t, from the brief glimpse of surroundings before all was plunged into darkness, walking in the open at all. She could see a hint of ceiling above before light faded; it was stories in height.

Snow said, “Oh,
that
.” His ability to retain anger was vanishingly small. Night had likewise fallen silent; he snorted and sniffed, but failed to renew his furious acts of aggression.

Shadow snickered.

“Did you know?” Jewel asked him.

“Know
what?
”

“He knows more than
you
know,” Night said, for spiteful good measure. “Where
are
we?”

“It’s still
boring
,” Snow observed, just in case the subject of cat boredom had been forgotten.

No one else had a memory as short and convenient as winged, quarrelsome cats.

Jewel was fumbling in her bag for a magestone when Avandar gestured in silence. Light came to his hand. It illuminated the underside of his face, as if it were lamplight, lending a bronze glow to his exposed throat. His breath came out in thin mist. Jewel’s followed when she remembered to breathe. She noticed that Celleriant’s breath did not. Here, in the dark that light only barely penetrated, he looked like a Winter creature; silent, cold.

The silence, unlike the darkness, was broken as Jewel exhaled.

“If you didn’t
mean
to be
stepped on
, you wouldn’t have left your
tail
there.”

“If
you
weren’t clumsy, it wouldn’t
matter
where my tail was.
You’ve
been living with
mortals
for
too long
.”

“And if both of you don’t start walking, there’s going to be trouble soon,” Jewel told them. She dropped a hand on the heads of the white and the black cat, and flattened her palms between their ears. They hissed in unison.

“What
kind
of trouble?” Shadow demanded, nudging her back with his head.

“Something interesting and creative. Maybe I’ll feed you to a dragon.”

Shadow hissed laughter.

Snow just hissed. For some reason Jewel was afraid to examine too closely, the mere mention of dragons caused his fur to rise six inches and his belly to reach for ground.

“How would
you
feed
us
to dragons? You would need to call them, and they would need to
hear
you. You have a
puny
roar.”

“Don’t
challenge
her,” Snow said, in a sulky voice. He fell quiet for at least five minutes.

 • • • 

Jewel was grateful that she had dressed for Averalaan’s Winter. Although there was no wind, the chill was pervasive; she could feel it through layers of clothing.

She glanced, now, at the ceiling. It was worked stone, curving in arches above pillars that were both wide and tall. The cats could, if they chose to do so, fly at the heights with ease. Not, she thought, glaring at Night when he “accidentally” stepped on Angel’s foot, that they would do it with any subtlety. If things slept in this great hall, they wouldn’t be sleeping for long.

She couldn’t see wall for darkness. Exhaling, she turned to Celleriant. “Do you recognize this hall?”

He was silent. It was a stiff, watchful silence—but he had yet to draw either sword or shield. “No, Lord. I recognize the style in which it was built, but I do not believe I have entered it at any other time.”

She glanced at Angel. His brow was furrowed, his eyes narrowed, as he looked up at the ceiling.

“Avandar.”

“I do not consider it wise, at the moment. Husband light; there is no guarantee that further evidence of our presence will not disturb that which should remain undisturbed.”

She glared pointedly at the muttering cats. “Determined gods couldn’t sleep through that ruckus.”