Sun Sword - The Riven Shield Part 8

Love had scarred him; failure to preserve what he had loved had driven him from the Terrean of Oerta to the Radann. He had thought that no one could understand the depth of the pain he had felt then-arrogance, surely. He had, with age, come to understand that all men bore scars, all men suffered loss.

The sun, in the desert scrub of the Terrean of Raverra, was rising and he would have to seek shelter soon. But from memory there was no certain shelter.

"You are Marakas el'Sol."

He nodded. Time, now, to bow and accept his choice. He glanced at the ground, his gaze sliding away from the weathered visage of a man who was not much older than he: the kai el'Sol. The man who ruled the Radann.

"Among the Radann you will have no other name."

He nodded again. There was little else he could do, and words-among men-were used sparingly.

It was the words he missed most. Amelia had chattered from dawn until dusk, and often past that into the Lady's time. When their son grasped the use of language-with a glee that encompa.s.sed the whole of his chubby little body-she would let her own words blend with his as if words were music, emotion, truth. The silence of their absence had never abated.

But the man who questioned him did not seem interested in silence, and Marakas understood that among the Lord's men, power ruled.

Still, he had waited.

"Did your family accept this?"

The Radann kai el'Sol had not smiled when he posed the question. If he had, it might have gone unanswered.

"If I still had a family, I would not be here."

"Ah." Fredero kai el'Sol had offered a moment of silence. And then he surprised Marakas, for the first time. But not for the last. "My family did not approve. When I became the kai el'Sol, I had hoped it would mollify them. But my father merely considered it proof of all that my family had lost by my choice." His smile was wry. "My brother wished me well, although in truth he understood my choice no better than my father." The kai el'Sol rose. "But I think you do, Marakas."

Marakas stared blankly at the kai el'Sol.

"Come, walk with me."

They walked, and to the surprise of the loss experienced of the Radann, they walked beneath the open sky.

Only Jevri el'Sol accompanied them, although by t.i.tle and rank, the kai el'Sol was accustomed to the presence of armed servitors; indeed, they were as much a part of his regalia as the sword he carried and the sun he bore, ascendant, across his chest.

Still, on this day, he dismissed them, and they went without demur, leaving only the old man behind. Jevri el'Sol was Fredero's man. Although he carried the name, and the symbol, of the Lord, his carriage and bearing spoke of the finest of seraf training.

But he was no seraf; no seraf could serve the Lord.

Fredero spoke first. And his words stayed with Marakas as if they were personal epiphany. "What power exists without honor?"

Marakas was silent. Not because the question demanded thought, although if a question had been asked this day that did, it was that one, but rather because the kai el'Sol's voice had taken its edge, revealing it. Marakas had not come to the Radann to die, and although he had told himself a hundred times, a thousand, that death was preferable to this searing half-life, this empty existence, he was weak enough to cling to life. His shame.

But the kai el'Sol asked no idle question; he turned once to meet Marakas' gaze, and his own gaze was a command.

The sun was high, the bright face of the Lord that Marakas hated. Before he could stop himself, Marakas said bitterly, "Does the Lord concern himself with honor?"

The kai el'Sol stopped. Jevri's breath, drawn once and held, was the only sound that followed Marakas' question.

Marakas el'Sol knew a moment of despair, and then he, too, revealed his edge; he turned to the kai el'Sol. "You know why I came."

"I believe that I understand it, yes. But I wish to hear it before I judge you."

"Is not judgment, beneath the Lord's gaze, meted out by combat, by victory, or by loss?"

"Perhaps. Do you challenge me, Marakas?"

"Not you."

"Oh? I am the first of the Lord's servants. I am the man who upholds his law."

"You are Lambertan," Marakas replied evenly.

"No man retains family ties who comes to the Radann. Was this not made clear to you when your oath was accepted?"

"My oath was accepted by men," was the reply. "By men."

"It is not the men who accepted the oath, but the man who offered it, that concerns me. Why did you join the Radann?"

"Justice," he whispered. "I desire justice."

"Justice." Fredero drew breath and began to walk again.

"Lamberto is known for its honor. If you seek to sever family ties, if you seek to deny family loyalty, I have no choice but to believe you. But you were born, bred, raised by Lambertans. Do you seek to tell me that Lamberto no longer rules your actions?"

"Am I only Lambertan?"

"No."

"Then, no, I seek no such refuge. You have not answered my question."

"Power without honor is what the bandits wield. It is what slavers own. It is what criminals demonstrate, when they buy swords and wield them against those who are helpless. The Lord bears witness. The Lord does not judge. They survive, at his whim, because they can." He should not have started, because once begun, the words had a force, a desire, a life of their own; he no longer controlled them. "What honor is there in the slaughter of the helpless? What honor is there in the destruction of the innocent? Surely, if victory is all that the Lord requires-and it seems that it is, indeed, all that he does require-then the Lord that we serve is no different from the Lord of Night?"

"Indeed. If your supposition were correct, there would be no difference."

"And how is it not correct?"

Fredero was silent. He lifted a hand, and his servant, who appeared on the brink of words-and anger-withdrew. "Your wife, your son, they were not killed by violence."

"No."

"And yet you resent the Lord for their deaths."

"I was called away by the Tor'agnate my family serves. Because of his chosen violence. A plague swept the villages in which my family lived while he was campaigning at the edge of a Torrean not his own. Because I was not there, they perished. And I would not have left them. Understand this. I would not have left them, had I the power to refuse the command given without causing their deaths."

The kai el'Sol nodded bleakly. "Surely," he said softly, "You would have perished in that plague."

Marakas had never confused Lambertan honor with stupidity. He understood, by the question Fredero offered, that the kai el'Sol knew of his gift. "No," he said softly. "I would not have perished." He looked away. "But had I been a man of power, they would not have perished either, because I would never have been commanded to leave. I did not understand that. Not then. The h.o.a.rding and gathering of power," he added bitterly, "had only been of peripheral concern."

"Do not claim to understand it now." The stern voice held some hint of the Lord's fire-the first hint. "If you had power, Marakas, what would you do with it?"

"What does any man do with power? I would live my life free of the dictates of others. I would choose the course my life would take."

"Indeed. Your dead are gone now. And it is of the living I speak. If I give you power, if I teach you its use, what will you do with it? The Lord is beyond the justice you seek; believe that. Only the men who serve him, or are served by him, however poorly, remain in your path."

"I-" He fell silent, the sun in the cloudless sky upon his upturned brow.

"You were not a student of power, not an acolyte of its use. I understand that. I was the second son of the Tyr'agnate of Mancorvo, and as such, could not avoid the lessons you did. I learned.

"For instance, did you know that predictability is considered a weakness? That adherence to stricture-of any sort-a weakness as well?"

"Men must be free to maneuver," Marakas replied, his voice as flat as the Mancorvan plains.

"Indeed. And so I learned that the enemies of Lamberto must indeed be incompetent fools if they could not unseat my father."

Marakas was surprised into laughter.

Fredero smiled.

"Of the many things I have heard said of the kai Lamberto, that is not one. He has never been called a fool."

"Not never," Fredero replied serenely. "But infrequently. He does not take well to personal insult."

"And what kai does?"

"As you say." The smile left his face. "Come. There is a small stone garden in the west courtyard; the shadows cast by sunlight at this time of day are most pleasant there."

23rd of Misteral 427 AA Sea of Sorrows The shadows cast by sunlight in the flatlands of Raverra were not so pleasant. Only those plants that could exist without the easy grace of the Lady's bounty grew upon the plains, and the ground was often harsh and dry beneath them. But it was not broken yet; it was not sand. Look carefully, and one could see where wagons had cracked the surface of the dry earth, and in numbers.

He built his shelter here, thinking about the past.

Three days pa.s.sed.

When Jevri el'Sol came to his rooms, Marakas had been surprised to see him. "Your ma-the kai el'Sol has a message for me?"

The mistake, were Jevri of rank within the Radann, would have been fatal; Jevri was not. Born into slavery and released from it solely to follow the kai el'Sol into the ranks of the Radann, he was the consummate servant. He was also proof that Lambertan dignity extended from the highest to the lowest of its subjects, for once freed, Jevri was not compelled, and could not be forced, to such service. To others, perhaps, but that was not the point. He served.

"He wishes your presence," Jevri said gravely.

"Where?"

"I will lead you."

Marakas bowed. Among the Radann, weapons were not forbidden. The Lord did not expect his servants to strip themselves of the proof of their prowess. But Marakas carried a poor man's sword, and knew it; he therefore often left it behind. It was unarmed that he walked behind the armed Jevri el'Sol.

Jevri's backward glance said much. But so, too, did his frown. He was not, Marakas thought, seraf any longer. He had mistaken the older man. No seraf of worth would have said so much by glance alone. And certainly no seraf, worthy or no, would have then paused when he felt glance alone did not convey what was necessary to find words in its place.

"Marakas el'Sol," he said evenly, "I wish you to understand what the kai el'Sol would never insult you by putting into words. The Lord's men," he added, "often forbear to speak where speaking would solve much.

"I have served Fredero for many years, and before him, I served his family. You were never born seraf; you will never be seraf. Were I given my freedom, I would have served willingly in the same capacity, and subject to the same laws, as I have lived."

"You are free."

Jevri shrugged. "In slavery, I have known freedom that men who are free have never known. Fredero is, as his father, a man who understands the value of honor, of duty, of loyalty. But that can be said of many.

"He understands more. Why do you think the Lambertans are honored?"

"For precisely those reasons."

"No. They are honored because they hold power."

"But-"

"And they consider that power a duty. For if they can cleave to those things they hold as truth, and still be honored, honorable men, they serve as an example that it is possible to do so. Fredero chose the Radann because he admires the Lord and he despairs at what is done in the Lord's name. He became kai-at some personal expense-because he hoped to impose those beliefs upon the men who carry the Lord's symbol and do the Lord's work."

"And what is the Lord's work?" Marakas asked bitterly. "I have walked among the corpses that are left at the end of a day in service to the principles the Lord holds dear. I have tended the injured, the dying; I have returned broken the men who came with youth and weapons under the service of flags and commanders who cared little for their loss. I have carried the news of their loss to their wives and their sons, and in those cases where the families were too poor, or too base, to uphold the responsibilities of the dead, I have seen women and children sold into slavery because they are not beloved of the Lord.

"What is there, in this work, to admire?"

"Nothing at all," Jevri said gravely, and with just the hint of a nod. "But let me ask a different question. If you were to change this, how would you start? By destroying the Radann? By burning their temples? By the acts of a war which would repeat, in an endless cycle, that which you have justly decried?"

Marakas stared at this seraf, this man who continued to serve.

"Is that the reason that you joined the Radann?"

"That," Marakas looked away, "and one other. I desired freedom from the dictates of the Tor'agnate, and service to the Lord was the one way in which I might find it. I have no wife, no children," he added, "to hinder me."

"And you intend to take no other."

"No. I have already failed the only woman I cared to offer my name."

Jevri nodded. He walked, and Marakas followed, but the lesson was not yet finished. "I ask you to observe the kai el'Sol. He will invite you to travel in his company; it is an honor that you may, perhaps, be worthy of. Accept that invitation."

"An invitation offered by a man of power is seldom open to refusal."

"Do not insult us," Jevri said curtly.

Marakas had the grace to feel shame. But he also felt curiosity, and something else that he did not care to name, and when he at last met the kai el'Sol, he forgot both. For Jevri el'Sol did not lead him to the kai's austere rooms; did not take him to the gardens or the platforms that the kai's position made his by right. He led him instead from the splendor of the ancient stone building into the grounds of the Tor Leonne proper, through the winding paths of tall trees that offered the illusion of privacy.

The light was upon the Lady's Lake, and in the distance, the wavering reflection of the palace of the Tyr stretched out, and out again, broken by floating lilies and the movement of summer insects. Gold leaf caught light, warming it; the rays of the sun, embroidered upon a field of azure, flew in the winds.

Amelia would have been reduced to the silence of awe and wonder, but their son would have known no such dignity. He felt her presence, for the first time in years, at the side of this solemn man, and it cut him deeply.

So deeply that he did not, at first, recognize the standing stones, the carved statuary, that Jevri led him to. There were open bowls at the feet of that stone monument, hidden from view by the low-lying leaves and petals of delicate flowers. But they were full, these bowls, and tended by birds with no necks, who wisely took flight at the pa.s.sing shadows of men.

"I will leave you now," Jevri said quietly.

Marakas nodded.

Because men did not come, in daylight, to this place, they did not gather here. Certainly not the Radann; this was the Lady's shrine.