House War - The Hidden City Part 91

In safety for the Magi.

But she offered him no threat, and indeed, the courtesy of a nod, and he closed the distance between them and offered her his arm, his elbow bent at the correct height, his bearing, so often discarded, the bearing of the son of a n.o.ble family of old blood.

She glanced at his face, but made no comment; she did, however, accept the use of his arm, and she let it bear some of her weight. If she was not ancient, as she often chose to appear, she was not young.

But then again, neither were the trees that girded the Common from great height. She chose frailty as her mantle, but it was one she could put aside at will or necessity. And she saw no need, in this room, to do either. Not yet.

But she saw, as well, the daggers that lay in isolation across the perfect sheen of a long table, and her steps faltered. Her hand, in the crook of his arm, shook. He could feel it, although he could see none of it in the seamless neutrality of her expression.

Were all women of power so guarded?

Jewel, in her youth; Amarais in her prime, and this woman in her aged wisdom-they could have been kin, for a moment. He saw traces of each in Sigurne's face, and knew that he would search, in future, for such traces in Jewel's. But his sister, he did not intend to see again while he lived.

And for the first time, he regretted it; the bitter pride. But regret was not enough to break what had given his life meaning to this point. Now? He had to find a different meaning, for the anger he felt had shifted and changed. His sister's betrayal had become a shadow, a ghost; it no longer lived in him, and through him.

His own betrayal was greater, and more personal, and there was only one way to expunge it. He had done this. And he could live-barely-with the loathing he now felt for himself. Because to die was to leave it unanswered; to leave Jewel unavenged. This, he would not do.

For he was certain, and meant to be more certain, that this had not ended with the death of the Patris; that it had not ended with the demise of Lord Waverly. Even that-even that had been denied him; Jewel had taken it from his hands, had offered it-demanded it-of Duster.

He could have interfered-but she had suffered everything for just that demand. And having paid the greater price, he could not sunder the possible failure or success from her without paying a heavier price than the one he paid now.

Sigurne said, in a flat voice, "So."

"Yes," he told her, equally uninflected. He walked her to the table, and there, removed his arm so that he might pull out a chair. She accepted it wordlessly, as if it were her natural right. And it was, in this place, although he knew she had not been born to it.

"Who?"

"Patris AMatie."

"Where, Ararath?"

He did not deny her the use of the name he despised. Because he owned it now. Son of ancient Handernesse.

"In the Ivory Retreat," he told her quietly.

Her brows rose slightly. "There were witnesses?"

"None." He paused, and added, "No body." Not of the demon; Lord Waverly was a different concern. But Lord Waverly was not entirely Sigurne's concern, and he did not intend to share everything.

She nodded. "Both daggers," she said. "What was he?"

He frowned. Understood the question only after a moment's pause. "He had wings," he said at last, joining her in the chair closest to her side. "Large and dark. He had talons that were the length of these daggers, but in other aspects, he was not dissimilar from either you or I."

"He was a lord, then," she said, and age seemed to weigh more heavily along the slump of shoulders. "And not merely kin; he was of the Kialli."

"He is dust now."

"They are not so easily destroyed," she replied, "although we will not see his return in our lifetimes. And for that, we must be grateful."

He was not grateful, but did not tell her so; it would have been beneath his station. And he had thought nothing beneath it, in his time. But the thought that the Patris would return, and that he could be killed again and again, had an appeal to Rath at the moment that mere words could not contain.

All of his times, all of his life-it led here. He had never thought that it would lead to this place.

She said, "You are not here merely to return these to my keeping."

"You grace me with your perception, Member Mellifas."

She looked at him carefully, as if attempting to glean some humor in the words, some lightness of expression, some hint of triviality; there was none. "Why, then, are you here, Ararath? You are not . . . calm, now. Nor are you frightened, and given your evening's work, you should be."

"You do not-and G.o.ds willing will not-understand my evening's work," he replied bitterly. "And I am not man enough to admit or confess it. But I know that it is not yet done. The Patris was not here alone."

She was silent. Almost, she rose, but he caught her frail hands in his, and she subsided. "You suspect that there are those within your Order who have been compromised in some fashion; you suspect that because of the investigation that is ongoing in the death of Member Haberas, a man I admired, and held in some esteem." He paused and said, "Yes, I mocked him, but never without affection; he was what he was, and he was of aid to me."

She nodded. "All that you have said is true, Ararath. But all that we might speak of is forbidden. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"What help you offer-I cannot accept it in any legal fashion. I cannot acknowledge it plainly; I cannot claim it. You cannot work with the magisterial guards; you cannot work with the Order itself. There is only one other that I would trust completely, and you have met him. There are few indeed within the Order who could work either under him or by his side; we are known for being somewhat fractious."

"I don't care," he said. "I have not cared for decades about the official and the unofficial. I have not claimed a role for myself-"

"You have claimed many, Ararath." Her eyes were now intent and pale; he could not see his reflection in them. Magic, he thought; she used some sort of magic. But let her. Let her understand the intensity of his intent. The truth of it.

"If I cannot come to you," he told her quietly, "I will not. But what I do, I must do."

"And if I ask why?"

"You will not ask me why."

She nodded after a moment. "Your girls-"

He shook his head. "Nor about them. I have played my first hand, and played it poorly."

"But you did not lose them."

"No," he told her, and he told her more than he had intended and more than he desired. "But not through any skill of my own. I have learned much about myself that I would have been happier not to know, Sigurne.

"And I accept it as truth and judgment. There are demons in this city, and they play a game that neither you nor I fully understand. But I want them. I will have them, with or without your help."

"You are mortal," she said slowly. "Do you understand that they have seen millennia pa.s.s? That they have witnessed the death of G.o.ds?"

"I neither understand nor care. Give me the weapons that you have given me, and I will return them with my reports. Or deny me them, and I will find other weapons."

"You play a dangerous game," she told him, and her tone, rather than hardening, softened. "And it will consume you, Ararath. You can only play with fire so often before you get burned."

"It will likely kill me," he replied. "War does that. But I have learned one thing in my life, and I offer it to you now: all things are games, and the games that I have chosen have consumed me in one way or the other. I am called Old Rath by many, and I intend to survive. But intent and success are not the same, to my great regret.

"What will you do? I will not let go of this. I cannot."

"I will, as you guessed, give you everything within my power to give. Not more, Ararath, and not less. But if you walk this edge, you risk more than just death."

"I know. But in the end, it is mine to risk."

She nodded. And then she reached out to touch his face, as gently as a mother might. His, long dead, had often brushed his hair, not as an act of grooming-there were of course servants for that-but as an act of wonder and affection.

And he thought of that, now, when he was so long past her. He thought of peace-and death-and wondered if for him they would be one and the same.

"Then come," she said. "We have much to discuss, you and I. I should turn you out of this tower, and send you back to the tenuous safety of the life you have chosen.

"But the life you have chosen would not allow it, and in the end, I am a practical woman, and I will use what you will not set aside."

"Don't speak with such bitterness on my account, Sigurne. It is all that I desire."

"So speaks youth, to the elderly, and with just such focus. But desire is illusion, and illusion is a tool."

"Then if I am to be your tool, let me be a sword, and let me fall as I must, and swiftly."

When he returned to the apartment, it was quiet. Dark. The evening had started and ended, and although dawn had not yet paled the sky, it was coming. He could feel it in the ache of shoulders, the tension of muscles that had not once relaxed during his conversation with Sigurne.

But he was still Rath, and although the apartment was silent, he knew instantly that not all of its occupants slept. The door to Jewel's room was closed; the door to the room that the boys now occupied-a much more crowded room-was likewise closed, and all was still.

But he turned toward the square, unlovely arch that led to the kitchen, and in it, he saw just the barest hint of magelight, glowing, cupped as it was in fingers through which light bled.

Jewel sat on a chair, huddled over that light, her eyes wide and dull. She was rocking on the chair in absolute silence; her lips were so tightly pressed together they were white.

He felt it all then: his failure, his horror, his self-loathing. They did not lessen his pride in her, and this-this waking nightmare-did not stain or tarnish it, but made it stronger until it was almost unbearable.

"Jewel." He spoke her name from the arch, just her name. He was grateful that he had come up with a false ident.i.ty; had she used her name, he might never be able to speak it again in the darkness, like this.

She startled and looked up, and her eyes lost some of their unfocused, blank horror. She even smiled, although her lips gained no color. "Rath," she said wanly. "You're late."

"I'm always late." He smiled down at her. Seeing, now, the things that he had lost. Aware that he would discover more in the days and weeks to come. Because before tonight, he might have gone to her. He might have lifted her, carried her in his arms, offered her that comfort.

And it would be no comfort now, and he could not do it; could not stand to see what must follow; the flinch and the silence.

"I couldn't sleep," she told him.

And because she did not dissemble, he could not. "Vision?"

"Nightmare. Just-nightmare."

"Does the light help?"

She nodded, holding it before her like a talisman, like a captive ray of hope. That was Jewel. But in the darkness, the fear was balanced with that hope, and she sat immobile.

He could not touch her, no. But he had met many people who could not easily be touched. "Come," he told her quietly. "You need to sleep."

"I can't."

"You can. Not there," he added, nodding to her room. "But I have work to do, Jewel. I will not sleep for some hours yet."

No fear of him shadowed her face, and for that, he could be grateful; had it been there, he might have gone insane. Trusting him, still, after his failure-it was almost too great a gift, too large a burden. But she levered herself out of the chair, and as he walked casually down the hall-and it was hard-he could hear the light fall of her steps as she followed him.

She had slept in this bed before, when she had been ill. When he had first found her. Before he had understood how much she meant to him, and would mean; how much she would change his life. He had, in his arrogance, a.s.sumed that his life could not be changed.

But he turned back the covers as she entered the room, and she hesitated. "You need to sleep," she said. And he heard the other words that she did not say.

"I need to work," he told her, "and you need to sleep. Sleep, Jewel. I will work here. I will watch over you."

He stepped aside, and she sat on the side of his bed, watching him, her eyes shadowed and heavy. But she was exhausted, and after a moment, she fell over, her knees curled almost into her chest, her hands still clutching the magestone. His own, he set upon the pedestal on his desk.

"I will watch over you," he said again. "No one will enter this room without my leave. Here, you are safe."

She nodded.

He waited until she stopped moving, and then with care not to touch her, he pulled the covers up and over her, letting them fall as gently as he could. He started a fire in the grate, for the room was cold, indeed; he had been in it so little, there was only ash for warmth.

And for heat, and fury.

He would endure the dreams she had, the sounds she made, the way she struggled with what sleep held. Endure it all, because he expected it.

But his own loss was harder to accept.

He stood guard, this first night, as he would stand guard on later nights, but only when her breath was even and there was a lull and a silence, did he bow his head to his arms. They all had something to hide.

The Finest in Fantasy by MICh.e.l.lE WEST.

The House War.

THE HIDDEN CITY.

The Sacred Hunt.

HUNTER'S OATH.