The Sun Sword - The Broken Crown Part 6

She stared at the candle until the image of its light had burned itself, blue, into her vision, and then she carefully blew it out.

The screen was heavy this night, as if her reluctance added weight and stiffness to its movement. She put her shoulders behind the action; they had borne greater burdens than this.

Moonlight silvered the gra.s.s and the leaves of the tall trees beyond the village. Starlight, starcloud, and the deepest of blue filled the sky. Somewhere, there were men and women who understood the beauty of things that were glimpsed, not seen. She smiled wryly. Dreams. And then the smile dimmed. The sight of sky was lost. "Ashaf kep'Valente."

She stared at the dark, dark robes of the man who stood before her door as if he were a stranger. There was something about his face, something about his eyes, that she had not seen during their dawn meeting, or their twilight one.

He spoke a guttural word, and from the folds of his cloak a lamp fell, swinging as if in a heavy breeze although the night air was still. She was not surprised to see that no hands held it, although it was suspended in air. Not surprised to see that his eyes were all blackness, his face almost white.

It was the Lady's night.

"Isladar of no clan," she said. She did not bow or kneel. "Have you come to offer me a choice?"

At those words, spoken in such a quiet tone, he raised a dark brow. She had surprised him, and from his reaction, he was not a man who enjoyed the unexpected. But he nodded after a moment.

"Then enter," she said, standing aside. "Enter into the home of Ashaf kep'Valente for this third night."

"Ah." He smiled grimly. "This is the third night. You are superst.i.tious, Ashaf. It is... charming."

His cloak shifted; in the light his lamp cast she could see that he carried something beneath it. "I will accept your offer."

"I have water," she said. And it was true.

"Water? Ah. I forget. In the South there is the custom of water as an offering of either hospitality or respect. It is not often pursued in the Averdan valleys."

She walked to the table, the small, scarred table that was so much a part of her life she couldn't clearly remember a time that the house did not have it. Oh, she knew when it had arrived, but knowledge and memory did not always speak the same language.

"Sit," she said quietly as she retrieved her bowls. They were shallow; she saw this clearly in the glow of the lamp that no hands held. "You are not Widan."

"I bear no Widan's mark," Isladar said agreeably.

She lifted the skin that Yollana had left her and poured, sparingly, into both bowls. The first, she offered to Isladar, and the second, she took for herself. She lifted the bowl, waiting; he lifted his.

And then, as he brought the edge of the delicate clay to his lips, the waters taken from the lake of the Tor Leonne began to steam.

His brow rose again, and then his lips turned up in a genuine smile. "I think," he said softly, "that the hospitality of this house is both too fine and too dangerous for one such as I." The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. "Very well, Ashaf kep'Valente. I will not ask you how you came by this water; it is of little import and little consequence. This evening, I wear no disguise; I hide nothing."

"You do not speak all the truth," she said, which was as close as she had yet come to accusing a man with great power of lying. She felt no surprise at all that the waters did not pa.s.s his lips. Fear, yes-but not a visceral fear. A subtle one. A deep one.

"No one does." He nodded politely to her. "If we are to travel together, you and 1, we must travel this evening. Already, I have been gone too long."

"What is the choice that you offer me?"

"To remain here, in this little village, as Ashaf kep'Valente. Or to travel with me, to a North that you cannot possibly imagine." He rose, and threw back the folds of his cloak. In the light, in his arms, there lay a small, poorly swaddled child. The child was crying; its face was almost purple with effort. But Ashaf heard no sound at all. She looked up, once, to see Isladar's face; such an expression could have been carved out of stone, so unmoved, and unmoving, did it seem.

"What are you doing to the child?" She rose as well, her arms already extended.

"I? I am merely silencing her cries. She can breathe."

She. Her. Ashaf asked for no permission as she took the child from Isladar's arms. At once, the

child's pitiful cries filled the room. They were not strong.

"How old is she?" Ashaf said, all sternness.

"She was born," Isladar replied, "Upon the fifteenth of Wittan."

"The Lady's dawn," Ashaf said softly. "The harvest." She looked down into the child's face. The

infant's face. "You don't know anything about children." It wasn't a question.

"I know a great deal about how to twist a person," he replied affably. "But not one so young, no. I see to her feeding."

"And who cleans her?"

He shrugged. "Does it matter? She is cleaned. She is healthy."

"And she's hungry."

"She is always hungry." Isladar frowned.

"No, I mean, she's hungry right now. And I don't have much to feed her." She stopped a

moment, staring into the child's purple-red face. It wasn't lovely, and it was, and she felt it sharply as memory stung her.

"Where is her mother?"

"In the Hall of Mandaros," Isladar replied. And then he smiled coolly. "I forget. Annagarians are... quaint in their beliefs, and entirely incorrect; you do not know who sits in judgment. Her mother is quite dead."

Motherless.

This is not my child, she told herself, as she began to bounce her up and down while she gave thought to milk and liquid rice and who she might ask for either. Then she stopped again, and stared down at the waters of the Tor Leonne as they lay in her shallow drinking bowl.

She sat carefully, holding the child with the ease of years of long practice, before she lifted the bowl. No, she thought, too young yet.

"I would not, if I were you," Isladar said softly, although he made no move toward her.

Ashaf lifted her chin, met the blackness of his eyes with the solid brown of hers, and then turned her attention away from his gaze, his words. She rose, walked to the mats upon which she slept, and beside them found a clean cotton shirt. Dropping the edge of this into the water itself, she waited a moment. Then she lifted the wet cloth, and laid it, cool, against the child's lips.

A second, two, and then the infant began to suck. She cried out once, twice-a third time-and then she relaxed as the waters of the Tor Leonne took the edge off her hunger. Rising again, balancing child and shirt, Ashaf came to the table and picked up the Voyani skin. She filled her bowl, and fed the child, knowing that the girl would sleep soon.

Infants this young slept and ate and dirtied themselves in both the Lord's and the Lady's time. They did not see, they did not hear, and they did not crave the company of their mothers.

And so it was that Ashaf knew, by two signs, that this child was no normal infant. First, the satiated child raised her reddened, newborn face to gaze upon the person who had offered her the waters of the Lord. And second, as those eyes met Ashaf's, she saw that they were liquid gold. They had been brown when Isladar had placed the child in her arms. Infant brown.

But the waters of the Tor were special.

Demon child.

Ashaf paled, but she did not drop the child, or in any way frown as the infant's lids closed slowly over those d.a.m.ning eyes.

"You're a demon," she said softly, not to the child, but to Isladar.

"I am a demon," Isladar agreed.

"The waters of the Lord would not even bear the touch of your lips."

"Indeed."

"And this child-is this child yours?"

Isladar laughed, and the laughter was like a slow, deliberate cut. "Not mine, no."

The Radann did not suffer the golden-eyed children to live. And often, did not suffer their mothers to survive such an ill-omened birth.

But... but the child had taken the waters of the Tor Leonne. Had even, after a moment, been comforted by them, as any child would be. Surely, if the Lord's waters burned at the very closeness of Isladar, they would have harmed the child had she been of such evil birth.

Her arms tightened a moment as she gazed down at the sleeping face, seeing in it so many sleeping faces, so many sleepless nights, so many memories that had nothing at all to do with the baby herself. "What is her name?"

"It is not important," Isladar replied evenly. "Either you will accompany me, or you will not. If you will not, it is better that you do not know."

Knowing the answer before she asked the question, Ashaf said, "What is the choice that you have come to offer me?"

"You know it," he replied. "But I will say it, if you feel it must be said. You may remain here, with your memories and your people and your dead, or you may travel with me-a long way, and not a pleasant one-and when we arrive at your new home, you will be given sole care of the child until she is of an age to learn. Then," he said, seeing that she intended to interrupt him, "I will teach her. To read, to write, and to use what powers she may be gifted with. But when she is that age, while I am teaching her these things, you will teach her, Ashaf kep'Valente, to be human."

Her arms tightened again as she stared at a now sleeping infant, thinking that the golden-eyed were demon-kin. Thinking that they must not be suffered to live. Thinking that, for a demon's child, this one was warm and light and scrawny, like any new life, any new possibility. Arms tightened, hands shook; she had held each of her own, her own precious burdens, just so. Each of them, wizened with new life, free forever from the element of water, the body of the mother. Had she begun each life with a prayer? Had she begun each new possibility in both pain and in hope, and ended each- Ah. She stood, babe in arms, history surrounding her like a shadow family. Thinking, because she could not stop from thinking it, that Evayne of Nolan had said this one, this only, important thing two evenings past.

You will never have to bury her.

ANNAGAR.

CHAPTER ONE.

st of Scaral, 415 AA The Tor Leonne.

Serra Teresa di'Marano was uneasy, and if she was very careful, and kept her thoughts upon the festive celebrations, she hoped not to put a name to that unease, for things named were things with power. And she knew well that it was hard to rise above those things in life that held power.

Her lips, turned up in a gracious smile, and her chin, lowered just enough that she might not meet the eyes of the gathered crowd too boldly, were steady, but these were the perfected surface of manner, of grace, of social standing. And of these things, by necessity, the Serra Teresa was master. Her hands, folded around the handle of an ivory fan, sat in the lap her bent knees made; she wore a white silk sari, fringed in a deep, sapphire blue, with golden stars and moon and sun embroidered across the swath of the perfect cloth.

She was thirty-two years old, long past the first blush of the youth men found so pleasing, yet even so there was about her a beauty that endures, and the poets made much of the fact that long into the twilight of her life-should the Lady will it-she might capture more than the l.u.s.t of men by her mystery and her strength.

Strength. A chill touched her beneath the skin-a night chill, here, at the sun's height. She could hear the howling of the desert wind.

"Teresa, you must be so proud. The children of Marano have voices worthy of the Lord himself!"

Proud? Ah, yes. It was Serra Teresa's gift to the festival to find those voices-young voices, as pleased the Lady-within clan Marano that she thought noteworthy, and to train them so that they might, in their unblemished innocence, in turn please the clansmen who gathered in the Tor Leonne for the Festival of the Moon. If, she thought wryly, such unblemished innocence existed, ever, outside of the boundless realm of a poet's heart.

"Worthy of the Lord? But this is the Lady's Festival." She smiled perfectly, gracefully, hoping the momentary unease would pa.s.s. Then, remembering herself, she said, "Lissa, when we are not in the harem, you must remember to use the honorific."

"Yes, Serra Teresa."

Lissa en'Marano, youngest of Ser Sendari par di'Mar-ano's sub-wives, was perhaps the Serra's favorite; she therefore spoke with affection as she offered her correction. Had any of the important clansmen-the Tors, or the Tyrs, although none of the latter were in attendance- heard the comment, she would have saved the correction until they returned to the harem, but upon return, would have been much stricter.

And perhaps she showed a little weakness now. But it was the Festival of the Moon, or it would be in three days, and she felt the pull of that singular night of freedom already taking root.

Or she felt the unease growing.

The voices of the children were superb. An eight-year-old boy, Na'sare-Ami's son-sang the praises of the Tor Leonne and its magical founding, while the seven children at his feet-three boys and four girls-added harmonies. A child's song could never attain the full range of emotion that an adult's could, but there was a softness, a sweetness, a delicate Tightness to the voice that one lost as one aged. And in the telling of legends, with their ideals, their valor, their optimism, what better voices to sing?

It was cold, in the heat of the day; the notes reached by the thin, pure voice chimed a warning. She raised her fan; she was Serra Teresa, and the showing of unease was not for a woman of her age and her responsibility.

The Tyr'agar Markaso kai di'Leonne ruled them all, demanding their service, and their death, when that death was deemed necessary, as his clan's due. His line had ruled unbroken for hundreds of years, untouched by desert wind and change of rain and shifting season. It was, or so the songs said, the will of the Lord. The Lord respected power.

As did the Serra Teresa.

The clan Leonne, led by Leonne the Founder, had vanquished their enemies and rivals, and before the slaughter of the servants of the Night Lord-he whose name was never mentioned within the Dominion-they came to the Tor, seeking the blessing of the Lord of the Day. For some said that the Night Lord was the Lord of the Day, given dominion in darkness as well as light, and they wished a sign that they did not act against the Lord.

Yet it was not the Lord who gave the sign, or at least, there was no sign during the sunlight hours, rather it was the Lady, worshiped only in a secret way that often ended with death when the worshipers were discovered, who by her powers and mystery created the lake beside which the Tyr'agar and his family-and all of their descendants- ruled.

Water was the source of life and of blessing; thus was Leonne answered.

And it was thus that the Festival of the Moon began- with the tale of the Tor. And the Tyr.

The clansmen raised their whips and their crops in approbation as Ami's son, delighted by the gravity of their approval, bowed low. He held the dying note of the setting sun nonetheless, and Serra Teresa smiled in spite of herself. The smile froze. Unease?

The harpists shifted, silence descending as serafs moved with grace-and speed-to take the instruments that the Northern bards had inspired from their masters and return to them the more traditional samisen. The children, nervous, looked over their silk-swathed shoulders to her; she nodded gracefully, flicking the fan in her lap either left or right as she reminded the youngest of how they were to arrange themselves.

"The clansmen are pleased. Look! Tor'agar Leo kai di'Palenz just nodded! This is a coup for Marano." Lissa again, soft-voiced, her excitement coloring her words. The folds of her sea-green sari hid the quickening life she carried; she was still small enough that she was allowed out of the harem's confines.

"You recognized the Tor? Very good," Serra Teresa said. She meant it. Lissa was new to the harem, and she had come from the lowly family of a seraf who worked the lands Marano held; her familiarity with the clansmen- and their leaders-was not yet all that it should be. Frowning, she added, "but the t.i.tle, Lissa, is Tor'agnate." The lowest of the ruling clansmen's ranks. "Above the clan marking, the sun-it has only four rays. No, don't squint, it is very unbecoming. There are four rays, not six." Her smile was gentle. "Leo di'Palenz is one of the Tor'agnati of the Terrean of Raverra; his t.i.tle gives him the right to... ?"