Stained Glass Monsters (26 page)

After settling her approach while she
was escorted to Sebastian's room, Kendall was thrown off stride
when Rennyn, not her brother, answered the knock at the door.
Sebastian was noticeably absent.

"Uh, my Lady?" asked the Ferumguard
escort, a stocky, fair man. "Your brother is–?"

"Gone," Rennyn answered, shortly. "He's
out of this now."

"Gone–?" the man repeated, then took a
look at Rennyn's flat, black gaze, saluted confusedly and departed
to tell those in charge.

Kendall, not so easily cowed, asked:
"Gone where?"

Between yesterday and today Rennyn
Claire had found enough sleep to ease the haggard lines which had
marked her face. Her eyes were focused and determined, but lacking
any warmth. "Did you want something?"

"To go to the meeting," Kendall said,
worried to the point of being truthful. "I want to know what it is
you're going to tell them." And she wanted to know what in the
Hells had happened to Sebastian Claire that his sister looked so
empty. For a moment all those suspicions of ambition and plot
resurfaced, but this only prompted Rennyn's expression to lighten
marginally.

"You need to learn to hide your
thoughts, Kendall. No, I haven't done away with my brother. Of
everything I do, keeping him alive is the most important to me. As
for this meeting, it's not exactly–" She paused. "Go get Sukata.
You can both watch the attunement, and if you should follow me back
to the meeting, I doubt there'll be objections."

Not entirely happy to be given what she
asked for, Kendall went and found Sukata, diligently studying in
their dormitory.

"So why would Rennyn particularly want
you to be at this meeting today?"

"Lady Rennyn has asked for me?"

"I don't think she means to be nice,"
Kendall said, disliking the way Sukata sat up straighter, eyes
widening with pleasure. As they started back to the Sentene
barracks, she grit her teeth and asked: "What do you think she's
going to tell everyone?"

"Nothing we will like." Sukata's grey
eyes were steady. "Mother has been studying the accounts of the
Grand Summoning, attempting to discover further details of Prince
Tiandel's actions. Lady Rennyn has so steadfastly refused to
discuss the final attunement that our best guess is that it
involves Blood magic."

"Blood magic? That means killing people,
doesn't it?"

"Despite her attempts to disguise it,
we've seen how strongly Lady Rennyn reacts whenever certain matters
are discussed. The topic of sacrifice is particularly upsetting to
her."

"You seriously think she's going to ask
people to let her kill them?"

"It would explain a great deal. But it
is a guess, no more."

Kendall stared at the girl, who was
walking with an almost eager, very upright step. "You'd volunteer.
Wouldn't you?"

"Yes." Sukata was serenely certain.
"Now, will you tell me something?"

"What?"

"Why is it so important to you to not
admire Lady Rennyn?"

Kendall felt her face go hot. "Because
she lies. And she decides things for people without asking
first."

"Those are details."

"They're damn important ones."

Sukata gave Kendall a pensive glance,
but didn't comment. They found Rennyn still in Sebastian's room,
standing at the window, but she just nodded and led them to the
main hall of the barracks where Lady Weston was waiting with her
Senior Captains and a small selection of Hand Magisters.

"You have sent your brother away, Lady
Montjuste-Surclere?" Lady Weston asked.

"We're moving into the most dangerous
period," Rennyn said, even curter than before. "Shall we go?"

They went. Everyone including Lady
Weston had learned that there was no point arguing with Rennyn when
she went all brief and crisp. Exit Sebastian Claire, without so
much as saying goodbye.

Grumpily, Kendall focused on her first
excursion into the palace proper. She made herself enjoy it.
Massive halls, tapestries, fancy pictures, golden candlesticks and
mage glows fitted everywhere. It was worth looking at. Just as good
were the goggling courtiers, who would stop and stare quite openly.
Rennyn was worth watching, too; the many times great-granddaughter
of the Black Queen, sweeping through the Halls as if they were
deserted. Everything she did said hard and clear: "I want to get
this over with."

They went to a chilly pale room with a
black square in the centre, covered in glowing sigils. Rennyn
removed the active spells one-by-one, politely informing the Grand
Magister of the result of each divination, but going on to the next
before anyone could try and discuss them with her. Kendall had no
particular interest in a bunch of numbers representing the strength
and speed of the storm raging in the Hells. The way Rennyn avoided
looking at anyone except the Grand Magister was much more
fascinating.

Was she really going to ask them to let
her kill some of them? Would anyone actually volunteer? What if she
needed to kill dozens of people? How many before it became too
many? How many to make Rennyn as big a monster as the Black
Queen?

With a glance Rennyn cleaned all trace
of the divinations from the floor, leaving only the big central
circle of chalk figures. Into this she carefully lowered the Black
Queen's focus. Nothing spectacular happened. Rennyn made the sigils
glow, but the focus just sat there. Getting closer Kendall could
see that it had filled with a murky blackness, though the focus was
still visible, shining like a star in the night sky.

"This simulates the Eferum?" Lady Weston
asked.

"As much as anything can." Rennyn picked
the globe up. "The next time I take it into the Eferum, the link
will complete as the compression of the greater focus begins.
That's what we need to talk about now."

"Ah." The Grand Magister looked
relieved, as if she'd been biting back demands for answers all day.
"An explanation past due, I think. Shall we return to the
Houses?"

As Rennyn had predicted, no-one objected
when Sukata and Kendall followed them back to the Sentene barracks.
The main hall of the barracks stretched about a third of the length
of the building, and rose two levels to a dim ceiling. It was
overlooked by walkways circling the next level up, and had a single
long table down the centre with plenty of space on either side.
This was filled with a sea of black uniforms, made brilliant by the
Montjuste phoenix, and sprinkled with senior representatives of the
Hand and the Ferumguard as well. Tyrland's defenders.

While Rennyn sat at the end of the
table, Kendall tucked herself and Sukata away in the near corner.
They were close to where Sebastian's room sat empty, and had a good
view of the audience, but could only see Rennyn in profile. She was
turning the Black Queen's focus slowly in her hands, examining
it.

"This thing has a range," she said,
before everyone had quite settled in. The words brought an instant
hush, and every eye in the room focused on the dark-haired woman.
"When my family were using it to push her back at the beginning of
the Summoning the range was small, because none of the power of the
full Grand Summoning was behind it. When this is complete, it will
reach beyond the kingdom, the continent."

She looked up, her expression more
resigned than anything else. "That range is a very important thing.
Because sixty years ago was the first time a Kellian was within
reach."

Kendall felt Sukata flinch. Whatever
they'd been expecting her to say, the Kellian hadn't anticipated an
accusation.

"While Solace is in the Eferum, her link
to the Kellian is severed," Rennyn went on, her voice pitched a
little louder so she could be heard over the ripple of disbelief
running through the room. "But for the final day before she
returns, the attunement will be complete, and will act like a door
between worlds. Solace will be able to project her will into this
world. As my family believe she did sixty years ago, when my
great-grandfather was murdered."

The human Senior Captain, Lamprey, was
first to manage to speak, his hand on the arm of a Kellian woman as
if to hold back her anger instead of his own. "You – you are
suggesting that one of the Kellian killed him?"

"Solace killed him. But, yes, I am
saying that the weapon she used was a Kellian." The words were
flat, precise. Rennyn hadn't wanted to tell them this, but she was
quite certain of what she was saying.

Noise rippled through the room again,
but Sukata's mother quelled it with a brief gesture. "We are not
the original Ten, Lady Rennyn," she said, very carefully. "We have
more human than golem ancestry, and are by no means lacking in
will. Why would your family believe that Queen Solace is able to
control us?"

Rennyn had been staring across the room
– to the place Captain Faille was standing – but she turned her
head at this, then said: "Kneel."

Captain Illuma knelt. Without
hesitation. Lively astonishment crossed her face – the most human
expression Kendall had ever seen on a Kellian – then she stood up
again, every inch of her radiating shock.

"The Kellian were made to be inherited,"
Rennyn Claire said, as the entire room took a single, outraged
breath. "Though Solace's control over you will be considerably more
profound than mine."

Kendall reached out blindly to take
Sukata's hand, and had it immediately crushed. The Kellian girl's
face was frozen with horror, staring at Rennyn as if she were a
nightmare made flesh. Which, to the Kellian, she must be.

"And you've waited till
now
to
tell us this?" asked – shouted – Captain Lamprey.

"You would have preferred this was known
earlier?"

"Of course!"

"Wait." Lady Weston, pale but
unwavering, moved to the forefront. "See the consequences,
Elias."

"The
consequences
?!" Captain
Lamprey's dark skin had gone a purple shade, but he stopped
shouting and swallowed harshly as the Kellian woman he was with
took one of his hands between both of hers.

"Debates in Council," she said, gazing
steadily at Lady Weston and not anywhere near Rennyn. The Kellian
had all turned their faces from her. As if it hurt to keep
looking.

"The question of exile or imprisonment,"
the woman continued. "Imprisonment. The question of execution, for
safety's sake. It is exactly what we will face now, but with so
little time left it does not have the chance to reach the same
fever-pitch it would have after a full month. And it means we were
there at Darasum House."

This calm recitation of exactly why it
mightn't have been a good thing to know earlier did a small amount
to ease the anger in the room. But even the Kellian woman who had
spoken so reasonably could do no more than glance at Rennyn before
her eyes flinched away. Sukata was shaking.

"I am presuming that if there is a way
to prevent this you will inform us," Lady Weston said, turning to
Rennyn.

"There is none." Rennyn's face was
impassive. "The Kellian are a spell construct. Symbolic magic,
which has not altered in form for all that it is perpetuating
itself in a rather unique way. To be Kellian is to be–" She paused.
"To be at the command of the Montjuste-Surcleres. You cannot be one
without the other."

She stood, and lifted the focus in both
hands. "When this is complete, the range will be far beyond the
distance you could have travelled in a month. I cannot be entirely
certain what will happen when Solace's will replaces your own. The
original Kellian were extensions of Solace. She could see through
their eyes, experience everything they experienced. I don't know if
she will be able to access your memories. But I cannot work with
you any longer."

She turned away, pausing only when Lady
Weston caught her elbow long enough to murmur something in her ear.
With a nod she moved on, back toward Sebastian's room, walking past
Kendall and Sukata as if they weren't there, but close enough for
Kendall to see that she was white to the lips.

Sukata's grip tightened on Kendall's
hand, so hard now it felt like the bones were grinding together,
but she noticed Kendall flinch and released her.

"Let's go somewhere else," Kendall said,
and Sukata immediately turned and fled through the nearest door,
leading Kendall out into the passage and then up a stairwell to the
second floor. They paused to look down into the hall, where the
Sentene had started to slowly move, like people who had fallen hard
and weren't quite sure what was broken, then Sukata headed through
a door into a bright living room with two other doors: a Senior
Captain's quarters. The windows up here were bigger than the lower
level, and there was a huge vase of daisies on the dining table.
The faint trace of sigils chalked on the floor marked the space as
belonging to a mage.

Sukata opened one of the doors, and led
the way into a bedroom decorated with draperies of white linen,
with a big painting of a very blue lake on one wall. It was sunny,
neat and totally Sukata's, a place which was really hers, which
said 'Sukata' everywhere you looked. At any other time Kendall
would have had to be jealous.

"She changed what she was going to say,"
Sukata said, as she stopped in the dead centre of the room, rigidly
upright. "To be Kellian is to
belong
to the
Montjuste-Surcleres. We're property. She
inherited
us."

The thin voice cracked on the final two
words. Kendall grimaced, searching for anything useful to say. How
do you comfort someone when the thing they faced was something you
found completely horrible?

"The Queen gives you orders too. And if
you don't do them you could end up in prison, or executed."

"Then we at least have the choice of
imprisonment, of execution. That – that was no choice at all."