The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) (9 page)

They finished quickly, putting the
guinne
up in a simple, comfortable style; and for once in a long time Soku found
herself not having anything urgent to do. Indio,
her favorite bather, chose that moment to come in with the light meal and the
other servants retired as he silently suggested a more pleasant alternative to
spending the eve in contemplation.

the
light waned, turned its back to darkness...

In the center of the Palace another also washed her
shimmering wealth of midnight hair, but in the liquid moonslight, rather than
in water. The glistening mass of floor length, silken ropes of jet-black
guinne
were piled high and tight on her head as she strode to the Estern roof-court,
twin
dom’ma
riding her hips. There, laid out in cream and lavender marble, was a practice
circle. Audola stood quietly, shaking her hands to warm them up as the last
moon,
Lor’ima
slipped shyly into the eve sky. She listened as the silence she had commanded
spread throughout the
city’lon
of
Ava’Lon, Ritious City of the Supreme One and the central
seat of power of
Ava’Lona
.

She had changed from court formal dress of light
wrap, bustiere,
pec’ta
and mantle to a sheer lavender
body-suit of gossamer, with light ornamental veils fluttering from waist to
knee. The
dom’ma
had hanging tassels of deep purple and sheaths of black. On her feet were soft,
calf-skin slippers.

In a tangible wave the silence spread, rippling
outward, blanketing everything until only the sounds of tasks silently being
carried out and the calls of nature could be heard. Somewhere a child laughed
and was gently rebuked though no word was spoken and no thought was shared.

Audola drew the swords, and the ring of steel seemed
to hang in the air before her, drowning, for a moment, the ring of silence. As
the engulfing soundlessness descended again, the weight of all that had passed
crushed heavily on her. She stood facing the Palace center, the
dom’ma
hanging limp, heavy, useless in her hands.

Useless.
With all my skill, I cannot keep my daughter safe.

Her eyes, unfocused, watched the turning of light as
it flowed in aqua swirls toward eve. She became still. As still as a frightened
breath. Her servants knew this sign all too well when they saw it. The High
Queen was deeply distressed, and showed it only through utter lack of distress,
and utter lack of any other kind of expression.

The swords flashed up, glowing like slices of the
moons themselves, and they began the first sequence of sword-dance, the
War’don’mi
,
and Audola was more an extension of them than they were of her. The blades
pointed two points off of
zenith
in ready
position. Her movements were fluid, flawless as she took her first stance, one
sword pointing to Av’setting, the other parallel to the horizon. She then
whirled and launched a furious attack on her unseen opponent. Her right leg
swept a graceful arc through the softly darkening air, followed by the right
dom’ma
as the left swung low and flat to the ground. She landed on the ball of this
leading foot, the left shooting out to the back and the twin swords slicing the
space before her, a study of balance and grace, her body describing a gentle
curve that extended through the swords.

She was
sick with worry.

Though she did not show any sign of that or any
other emotion as the air slid off her blades and pooled in invisible blood
before her, within her heart she cried with frantic hysterical fright over her
daughter the Heir. The Heir, who had not been heard from in over a ten’turn,
disappeared without a trace, without a sound. The Heir, whose innocent little
sojourn into the Western
Border’lons
had met
with some unknown end, causing her to miss the
Bolorn’toyo
.
The Heir, who, though she was powerful enough to create an
av’tun
that could span the entire Realm if she wanted, could not seem to find her way
home.

Her eyes remained dry. Her body remained relaxed,
flowing as the stream of wind flows. Her breathing remained even. She was
frantic with worry.

Where
are you, child? Where are you that you cannot even av’tun a message to me? What
has become of you?

Her mind whirled as fast as her
dom’ma
,
but she could not cut through to the heart of the problem. She made a series of
leaps that took her about the periphery of circle, her left foot leading this
time, the swords framing her like parentheses, the one in her right hand
reversed to follow the curve of her forearm. The veils flowed out about her,
floating, turning her into a flower that danced bell-down, with the deadliest
of leaves.

Her eyes remained dry in the darkening light. She
moved to the second sword dance without breaking stride.

She blamed herself, for this could have all been
prevented. She could blame no one but herself. She could have forbade the Heir
to go, could have insisted that she remain with her escort, could have had the
Heir report directly to her. Any of a million things that would have prevented
this. Any of one...

Why
couldn’t I see this coming? I am High Queen, Keeper of Ava’Lona, all wise and
all powerful. So why couldn’t I keep my daughter safe? Why didn’t I refuse to
let her pursue this mission of hers, that would take her to the far end of my
Realm, and out of my reach? Why?

She knew why. The rhythm of her dance quickened,
beating out with her body what she could not accept with her mind. The swords
became solid silver streaks, weaving a killing sinusoid as she turned to each
point of the compass, stepping wider and deliberately sliding her weight from
the ball of one foot to the other. Both blades were now reversed, making her
arms into scythes. Sixteen of these steps took her around the circle again. She
pivoted and ran four paces, sprang into a handless cartwheel and ended with a
forward flip and roll that took her to the edge of the roof. There she froze
for two heartbeats.

She had let the Heir go, because the Heir, though
obedient and dutiful, had been champing at the bit, straining at the yoke,
yearning for a touch of freedom such as others had. Freedom from duty and
responsibility, such as she would have gotten on Journey. But the Heir to the
High Throne did not go on Journey, as such, where she would have complete
freedom and all the joys and pains that went with it. The Heir’s Journey was
dogged by guards,
warru
acting as
not-so-unobtrusive protectors. For, yes, all royal persons on Journey had
keepers, those that watched over them, but only as a last resort, the fail-safe
if things went beyond their ability to cope with. Not so with the High Heir. No
such chances were taken with the High Heir’s life - unless permission were
given by the High Queen. She would not know the hardy, rough living that
tempered the personality - without permission. The Heir’s Journey was no such
thing, more like a vacation, which was not what the Heir had wanted. And the
Heir could not, would not come right out and ask that the fail-safes of her
Journey be nullified - that defeated the spirit of the whole thing. But if, for
some reason, the Heir were out on a mission of some sort, and something
happened that required that she leave the majority of her escort behind...

She let herself collapse backward and rolled - once,
twice, and on the second she twisted and came up with a thrust under the
sternum with the right
dom’ma
. She whipped
around with a savage slash to a nonexistent throat with the left
dom’ma
,
followed through with a body cut that would have parted her opponent from
collarbone to opposite hip.

Audola knew this. And she knew that this ‘mission’
that the Heir had concocted, though it had a legitimate and specific purpose,
was a substitute for Journey, a mild bending of the rules so that the Heir
might glean a taste of what others of lesser rank bandied around frivolously.
This was the Heir’s way of getting her Journey.

Had Audola not done the same? Had not every Heir to
the High Throne?

That’s
why I had allowed it. That’s why I agreed to let the Heir part company with her
escort for a few turns. How could I have refused?

She slashed both swords down in a diagonal parallel,
then a horizontal parallel, once, twice, thrice, four times, her face pointing
Weste. The pattern repeated to the Norae, Este and Sor’n.

Her
only taste of freedom - and what end has it come to?

At least the Heir was not dead. Audola would have
felt it - they all would have felt it. The entire Realm would have felt a great
tearing, wailing moan of anguish had the Heir parted with her life to come into
the arms of the God of Death.

The High Queen paused for just an instant, her muscles
singing, but her breath controlled, then began the fourth sword dance, against
two opponents.

The Heir was not dead. But she had come close. She
had come close to death, had brushed the Hand of the Beloved
Ans’ra
,
until some agent had pulled her back. Audola had sensed it, like a warm, slimy
chill up her spine, when her daughter had walked close to Death. She had lost
some of her control of herself the eve that had happened, tears of fright
streaming down her face as her baby had looked the
Beloved
in the eye and smiled. She had stayed awake, praying to the Ancestors, praying
to the Goddesses, praying to the Supreme One,
Shalgo
Imantu Solu,
for the life of her child. She had prayed all the
next turn, and the turn after that, and she was still praying...

Please.
Foremothers, hear me. Please keep my child safe until I find her...

The blades became streaks of silver in her hands as
she jumped and whirled to avoid a low cut to the shins, and lashed out with her
feet. She in turn swept low, right foot leading, right sword parallel to it.
The left was tucked in close, once more reversed. She duck-walked in a low
squat, taking four fast steps and cutting up with one blade and down with the
other, right-left and left-right. With a roll she was on her feet again, the
swords extended and describing silver-white arcs as she brought her arms up and
swung them down again. Her left leg went back, in a wide forward stance, the
dom’ma
out before her, curves pointed to the ground. Her knee came up and snapped a
front kick, and she took a springing step and threw herself into three forward
cartwheels that ended with a split.

But the
Heir was not dead. She was alive somewhere, hurt, yes, sick, yes, but alive.
Alive. The fourth dance ended and the fifth slid under her
dom’ma
in quick succession.

How
was she hurt? My child, what has befallen you...?

Audola knew she was hurt. She had to be. That was
the only thing that would keep her from finding her way home, the only thing
that would bring her so near to death. Only incapacitation could keep the Heir
from
av’tunning
from wherever she was straight to her own suite of
lains
.
Because the Heir was second to none in the wuman Realm, save Audola and the
Av’rujo
,
in
av’rito’ka
,
the power to wield the spirit of light. None could restrain her against her
will unless they had managed to surprise her and put her down before she could
react - which was near impossible - or they had found her in a weakened state
and imprisoned her. For the Heir was not proof against accidents.

So she was somewhere to the Weste, hurt, weak, at
one point close to death. Someone had found her, vulnerable, and was nursing
her back to health, but using her as a
brit’ina
, a
bargaining chip. Could that someone perhaps be Tokia sul Ottanu?

The threat of tears receded, was replaced by a
hardness, a granite rage that did not register upon her features. It showed in
her movements, which became even faster, harder, almost wild - almost, and she
cut the moonlight before her as if she were cutting down the Ottanu Queen.

Is
that why Tokia issued challenge? Does she hold the Heir’s life in her hands and
does she hope to force reparations from the High Family? Is she perhaps even
hurting the Heir, bringing her close to death so that I can feel it?

She
wouldn’t dare. Twisted as her ways of Trade are, she wouldn’t dare use my
daughter that way. She wouldn’t
dare
harm her...

The rage boiled, outrage broiling, black thunder and
shattering skies reflecting in her eyes that remained dry. But if blades could
reflect rage, these were glowing mirrors. The living steel became a shield, her
defense a ravaging offense that drove her non-attackers back. The steel again
following her forearms, she slashed out bloody x’s in the shrieking eve air,
her feet sweeping out semi-cirlces as she chased her thoughts around the
training circle.