Sun Sword - The Riven Shield Part 107

But the Serra shook her head. "I want you to have it," she said, firmly now. "It is my gift. To you. To the Serra-to the woman who walks at the side of the Matriarch of Havalla. We are in your debt, Serra Diora, even if it is a debt that we cannot acknowledge and can never repay. This is a token, and only that. But if-" She shook her head.

"If?" Although she had been impatient, at times, with the volume of the words Celina chose to speak, she surprised herself; she desired to hear what the Serra had not yet said.

"If the Lady blesses you, if the war you must fight is won, it would honor us all to hear you play it upon the plateau."

"I am not a warrior, Serra Celina, to be called upon to fight."

"No more was the Serra-was your aunt." She caught the strands of hair wind had pulled from combs, her fingers shaking as the words left her in a rush. "I have taken the liberty of sending my own palanquin with my husband's men. It will carry two, for I travel at times with a seraf for company."

"Then that is all the payment any debt requires. I cannot take this."

"She listens for your voice, Serra Diora."

Diora frowned, but the expression was lost to the pleated fold of fan.

"If you will not take it for your own sake, take it for hers, and if you will not incur debt on her behalf, please, take it for mine. I ask it, who have no right to ask anything further of you. I know what you bear."

She had no strength left to argue, and no desire at all. But the bow she offered the Serra Celina was far too deep, and far too obeisant, and when she rose, she clutched the samisen to her in a way that she had never once held the Sun Sword.

"Please, keep him safe," the Serra Celina whispered.

Diora nodded. She did not offer politeness; she did not deny the ability to do what men could not do. And the Serra Celina understood that the silence was her vow.

"The Serra Teresa is already within my palanquin," the Serra Celina said quietly. "She cannot walk; nor can she be called upon to ride. If you accept what Lamberto offers," and she nodded to the palanquin, her eyes shunning the sight of the man who still waited, beaded curtains in his mailed fist, "I would be honored if you would allow the Matriarch pa.s.sage at the side of the Serra."

"It is my honor," the Serra Diora replied, thinking that Ramdan would have been the kinder companion. "And my debt."

Diora rose, and turned toward the Lambertan palanquin. But as she made her way toward it, someone brushed past her in haste, his feet heavy against stone.

Ser Janos kai di'Clemente.

He came to stand before the Tyr'agnate, and he bowed, his hand upon the hilt of his sword. "Tyr'agnate," he said, youth in the earnest folds of his expression, "I beg leave to travel with your men."

"It is not of me that you must ask permission," Ser Mareo kai di'Lamberto replied, but not unkindly.

The boy who was not yet man, but no longer child, frowned. Serra Diora could see his expression clearly as she approached it, and she smiled in spite of herself. Ah, she had lost caution in the desert, and perhaps it had died there; things moved her now in a way that they had not done since the night of fires and the death of her wives.

"I have asked my uncle," he said quietly.

"He is your lord," the Tyr'agnate replied gravely. "Are you so eager to see battle?"

"My Tor is injured." Ser Janos straightened the line of his shoulders; they were gaunt, but time would fill them. If he survived.

"He is not unmanned; he is capable of riding, and of wielding sword."

"And most of his Toran perished in Damar."

The Tyr's expression became grave, but his words held the faintest hint of amus.e.m.e.nt if one knew how to listen. The boy did not; the Serra did.

"You are not, and will never be, Toran, Ser Janos."

"But I am kai Clemente."

"You are."

"And he will not give me permission to join you."

"Ser Janos, have you noticed my kai among the cerdan?"

The boy's frown was swift, and it lingered. "No, Tyr'agnate."

"Good. He is not present because I refused his request."

Shoulders fell.

"I need him in Amar."

"But there is no war in Amar."

"There is no war yet," the Tyr'agnate replied gravely, and the Serra Diora heard what the young kai could not: the edge of untruth. It was not, quite, lie. But close enough to surprise her; he was Lambertan.

But even so, unexpectedly gentle. "But in time, it may be that all of our cities will be besieged and embattled. I will not leave my wives and my daughters at the mercy of our enemies; my kai has the force of my law behind his words.

"There is no man that Ser Alessandro trusts with such a responsibility," he continued, "save you, yourself. We are warriors, yes, but we are something else: leaders. We cannot follow the dictates of desire; we cannot simply cleave to the warrior's path, even if that desire is born of loyalty. You have your duty here."

The boy looked as if he would argue.

Serra Diora watched them both as the curtains waited her pa.s.sage. She had often seen Ser Mareo kai di'Lamberto at a distance; to see him so close was a revelation.

He looked much like Fredero kai el'Sol.

"You should be proud of the trust he places in you," Ser Mareo said, placing an arm upon the boy's shoulder. The difference in the hand that rested upon armor and the face that rested an inch above it told a long tale, and an endless one. "I am. And if we fall in battle, if our enemy succeeds in his goal, I will rest easier knowing that Sarel is in your care."

Gently defeated, Ser Janos hung his head. His beard was not yet a man's; it was too thin for that. But his resolve, untested, was all that she needed to know of Ser Alessandro kai di'Clemente.

Ser Janos knelt at the Tyr'agnate's feet, his knees giving slowly. She saw him swallow his bitter disappointment; he took no comfort in the praise offered him. But he lifted his sword, slowly and awkwardly, from the sheath that bore it, and in silence, he offered it to the Tyr'agnate.

The Tyr accepted the blade, and in turn, offered what was rarely offered: his blood. The edge of the blade glinted like rubies, like the emblem of the Sword of Knowledge, but although Ser Mareo was no Widan, Diora saw the subtlety of the magic he worked.

"You have not made the trek to Amar, Ser Janaos. When we return, I will call you to Court."

"Tyr'agnate." Gravity remained.

Diora chose that moment to sequester herself in the palanquin.

In the presence of any other Tyr, the boy had just committed a sin against his Tor; no man-no wise man-went above the head of his clan in such a fashion.

But Ser Mareo kai di'Lamberto had chosen to witness what was offered from the heart with heart; he did not call upon the Tor'agar to bear witness to his kai's obvious disobedience.

She liked him, then, and it surprised her.

But she had liked the kai el'Sol as well, and it was his death-and only his death-that had given her the gift she required in order to win the battle that she had chosen.

Avandar Gallais chose to accept the kai Clemente's offer of horse; it was the first time that Jewel had seen him so mounted. The destrier was restive beneath foreign knees, and the robes that Avandar had chosen were not designed to part with ease for such a pa.s.sage; they were seraf's robes, and serafs did not ride.

But Jewel did; the Winter King bore her aloft, his tines gleaming like new growth in the dawn sky. Purple had given way to pink, and pink to the endless blue of the Lord's regard.

Jewel, in Voyani dress, gripped the stag's antlers. Her hands were shaking.

Jewel?

She shook her head.

ATerafin?

But although she could ignore the question in the Winter King's secret voice, she could not-quite-ignore Avandar's.

The war, she told him softly. Just that.

You fear it.

Of course I fear it. I'm not an idiot.

His chuckle was not so hidden as his words, and she swung to face him; his horse gave him more of an advantage of height than he already possessed.

After a moment, she said, I had a dream.

The laughter fled his face, as anything sane would.

What dream. ATerafin?

You didn't see it?

His frown was his frown. In the days after Damar, he had become his old self; there were now whole moments when she could pretend that she was traveling with a merchant caravan, her domicis by her side, her duties to Terafin, and only Terafin.

He didn't condescend to dignify the question with an answer, although his impatience served in its stead.

I've had it before, she said again, but quietly.

When?

In Averalaan. I saw- Kiriel.

She closed her eyes. She could do that; the Winter King had never let her fall.

And this?

She's on the field, Jewel told him, as if they were in the kitchen in their wing of the Terafin Manse. And she sits astride a . . . demon. She carries a banner, but it's long and dark; if it has a standard. I can't see it. I'm not sure I want to.

The demons follow her, Avandar. She looks so unlike the Kiriel I left, I shouldn't recognize her. I wouldn't, if it weren't my dream. But I know her sword. And I know the man who walks by her side.

Man?

Demon, she said softly. He almost killed Angel.

ATerafin. Pause. Jewel. He almost killed you.

I try to call her. To call her back. She laughs. She . . . laughs at me, Avandar.

Is this a true dream?

I . . . don't know.

His brow rose, changing the line of his face. She loved that expression.

But it doesn't matter, does it? Because she's riding at the head of Allasakar's army. And if she does, we don't have a hope in h.e.l.ls of winning.

Where is she now, Jewel?

Questions. As her eyes were already closed, she couldn't retreat beneath lids.

He cursed her gift. Or rather, he cursed her inability to direct it, to contain it, to manipulate it as if it were dagger or sword.

As if it were a talent, he corrected her.

I won't learn that, she snapped, her lips moving noiselessly.

It appears that you will not, he replied, his own face composed and dignified in its stillness. What are you afraid of?

If I learn, she told him, knowing the truth was in the words she was about to say, but unable to hold them back, people will die.

If you don't, ATerafin, can you say that people won't?

She had no answer to give him.

But she looked to the North and the East, and after a moment, she said, Kiriel is in the North, at the side of the kai Leonne.

But it was not of Kiriel that she thought, although her thoughts drifted to the North.

Her lips moved slowly around silent syllables; she did not give them the play of air or breath.

But she wondered what they were doing. Teller. Finch. Jester. Angel. Carver. Arran.

The Finest in Fantasy from MICh.e.l.lE WEST:.