The Silence of Medair (33 page)

Islantar shook his head, then made an effort to stand on his own, and failed.  The chill which had gripped him had faded, but he was as ungainly as a newborn colt.

"What were you doing among the crypts?" she asked, at least in part to stave off further questions.

"I don't know.  We were going to ask permission to go to the wall, then..."  He frowned.  "I don't know."

Medair thought she should probe him on how much he remembered, but found she didn't want to know.  Such was the pattern of her life.

Emerging into the Hall of Ceremony, she winced at the sudden, alarmed shout of a guard and waited, resigned, as one of the patrols rushed towards them.  The Kierash made an effort to stand upright, gripping her arm tightly.  His change of stance must have made some impression, for the approaching guards stopped looking quite so inclined to cut her down, and slowed their charge to a merely hurried advance.

"Kierash?"  The young woman in the lead pressed a hand to her chest in salute.  "Do you require assistance?"

"I would be obliged if you would lend me an arm, Kaschen," the Kierash replied, very dignified.

"Kierash," the kaschen murmured.  Taking over the role of vertical support, she assumed a weirdly cross-eyed and awed expression.  It served to remind Medair that this was the heir to all Palladium and that even now there were protocols about whom he could touch.  The man and woman at the kaschen's back were eyeing Medair, ready to spring into action if their Kierash in any way indicated that she was the cause of his sudden indisposition.

Looking at the boy properly for the first time, Medair was unsurprised to discover a distinct resemblance to his distant ancestor.  There were also marked differences, including a more determined jaw-line, possibly a remnant of his Corminevar heritage.  He was considering her in return, blue eyes a shade or two darker than Ieskar's.

"I would like to accompany you, Keris," he said.  "But fear I would be a distraction."  He attempted to shrug, and swayed perilously, sending a momentary flash of panic across the face the woman trying to support him without intruding on the royal person.  "I can only...thank you."

He wasn't referring to her assistance in his attempts to stay upright.  He inclined his head to a more than courteous depth, without further allusion to her secrets.  Then he handed back her lambs' wool cloak, turned, and led the trio of highly confused guards down the length of the Hall of Ceremony.  Medair watched them go.  Then she looked down at the satchel depending from her right shoulder. 

She could do nothing but accept her fate.

Chapter Twenty

A light tap on the door.

"Medair?"

Avahn's voice.  Medair paused in the middle of fastening her tunic.

"Yes?" she asked, stalling.

"You
are
here."  He sounded relieved.  "I've been sent to collect you.  Can I come in?"

After a glance at the bed, Medair closed the last three buttons, and said: "Yes."

As the door opened, she picked up the cloak.  When she'd first been given the uniform, she'd made a great play of swirling it about her when she dressed.  Now, as a startled Avahn took in her clothing, she merely arranged folds of pearlescent grey properly to cover one shoulder, and clipped the two ends together with the strangle-knot clasp.

"A rare occasion indeed," Avahn managed, though there was shock in the voice he meant to keep light.  "Illukar is hardly ever wrong, and he did most particularly believe you were not going to declare yourself Medair an Rynstar reborn."

"You've stopped calling him 'my esteemed cousin'," Medair said.

"He gave me his name."  At another time, Avahn would not have hidden his pleasure.  Now he was merely distracted.

"Mm.  I am not going to declare myself anything reborn, Avahn."

Carefully, she lifted the silver badge from where she had placed it on the bed, and fastened it to her chest.  It gleamed dully, this sigil of her office.  Two crossed crescent moons, one etched with a scroll, the other with the Corminevar triple crown.  She touched the crowns lightly, then glanced up at her audience.

"Herald Savart," she whispered, and black clouded the grey pearl of her uniform, like a thimble of ink dropped into a glass of water.  A handful of heartbeats and she stood swathed in unrelieved night, her badge shining like a beacon on her breast.

"In wartime, we were Sanguine," she told Avahn, who was staring at her, caught between astonishment and disbelief.  "The red of drying blood, words of threat and anger.  Savart was for death, for the ending of things.  For surrender."

"Medair..." he breathed.

She did not respond, afraid that if she stopped to explain she would not be able to go through with this.  Closing and sealing her satchel, she drew it over her shoulder, its weight firm against her hip.

"Who sent you to collect me?" she asked.

"The Kier."  Avahn eyed her doubtfully, but visibly decided to keep his thoughts to himself.  "That map – Bariback is this Isle of Clouds and the Kier wants to question you after she has finished addressing the Court."

"She is in the Throne Room, then?  Good.  Take me there, Avahn.  It is time to end something."

Avahn hesitated.  "I am sworn to my Kier, Medair," he said, carefully.  "If you mean her harm–"

Medair laughed, a short, bitter sound.  "I am not an assassin, Avahn.  I will not raise a hand to her."

"No, you are..."  He trailed off, delicate white brows drawing together.  Then he smiled, a glow of sudden delight in his eyes.  "You are most unexpected, Medair.  I am glad to know you."

It was a reaction purely Avahn, and almost won a smile from her.  He was Ibisian, but she couldn't help liking him, any more than she could help being attracted to Cor-Ibis.  They were Ibisians, and some part of her was never going to forgive that, but they were not her enemies.  The war was over, was centuries past, and she would not put her hatred over her duty.

It was evident that many of the palace's current residents had somewhere seen a depiction of an Imperial Herald.  Their reactions ranged from dismay to anger, and Medair found Avahn's presence a useful pass as he waved away two separate patrols inclined to intercept her.

All the doors of the Great Hall were open, but Medair was careful not to glance left or right as she strode down the marbled floor.  The crowd in the Throne Room was densely packed, spilling out of the ebony doors.  Typically, they were also completely silent, listening intently to the words of their Kier.  Only the guards, who faced outwards, saw Medair's arrival.  They stirred, exchanged glances, then slid swords slowly from their sheathes.

"When have the Ibis-lar drawn weapons upon Heralds?" Avahn asked, in a clear, carrying voice.

Several of the courtiers at the rear of the crowd turned at his words, and made shocked comments.  The guards hesitated.

"My bond," Avahn said, with complete assurance, and smiled faintly at Medair.  An Ibisian, willing to vouch for her.  It felt strange.

Stepping forward, she wondered how she was to reach the Kier, and was foolishly conscious of her dignity.  A Herald should not have to push her way through a crowd.

But, whether out of ingrained Ibisian protocol, or a desire to witness a confrontation, the men and women nearest her began to move aside.  There were more Farakkians in the room than she'd expected, and they stared at her with particular shock, but none chose to bar her way.  As Medair continued to walk forward, a corridor formed through the centre of the Throne Room, accompanied by the whisper of silk and startled voices.  The Silver Throne rose above the room on a small dais, and Medair knew the precise moment when the Kier saw the cause of the spreading commotion in her Court.  The clear voice which had been addressing the gathering paused, continued briefly in a softer tone, then was silent.  Waiting.

A tiny droplet of sweat launched itself the length of Medair's spine, and she gulped air as inconspicuously as possible as she passed into the circle of space around the Throne.  She focused on those members of the Court fanned out on either side of the Kier like an honour guard.  The only faces which caught her eye were las Theomain's, stiffly affronted, and the Mersian Herald, wide-eyed.  The rest were a blur, insignificant at this moment.  The Kier was everything, blood of both usurper and the one who owned Medair's loyalty.

"You bring a message, Kel?" Kier Inelkar asked, her voice cool, her eyes cautious.  She was wary, not ready to react with immediate hostility to what must appear to her as a threat, but by no means welcoming of this woman garbed in the past.

Medair had been trained to deliver the words of others, not proclaim her own thoughts.  She felt a need to justify herself for an act of betrayal, but words crumbled to dust before they reached her lips.  But she would not fail her Emperor now, not this last time.

"I bring no messages," she said, before the Court could grow restive.  She lifted one hand and plucked her badge from her chest, bursting open the clasp.  It cut her hand, but she did not care.  She looked one last time at her most prized possession, then let it fall to the floor of the Throne Room.  The colour drained from her uniform, even as the flames had drained from around Athere. 

"There is nothing to say," she continued, hollowly.  "The past is dead.  And lost in fire.  I will not watch Athere fall to invaders, no matter who sits her throne."

She opened her satchel, to the accompaniment of a half-dozen swords drawn.  She ignored them, all her energy focused on an effort to keep control.  Her fingers tangled in a silken cord, and she drew it into sight.

The Horn of Farak was fashioned from grey-yellow bone, banded with black greshalt.  It was long and narrow, a bell of dark metal flaring at one end.  The other end was slightly knobbed, with no shielding mouthpiece.  It looked like a piece of someone's leg, fashioned into a musical instrument.  And it sang.

Medair had heard tales of singing swords and always found the idea a little ludicrous.  She had never conceived of such a sound as now filled the Throne Room.  Waves breaking on endless shores.  A bubbling brook.  Rocks clattering down a slope.  The deep vibration of rock, grinding in the bowels of the earth.  The wind: in trees, through fields, down lonely ravines.  Roaring at the heart of a storm.  The essence of Farak, expressed a thousand different ways, all in a single whisper which deafened and was impossible to deny. 

How this barely audible, wholly inescapable cacophony became melody, Medair could not explain.  But it was a song truer than any that Telsen had ever crafted, and its effect on the Court was like a physical blow.  They rocked on their heels, these proud, cold nobles, gaped stupidly and broke into cries of protest and wonder.  Medair took two steps forward and held the Horn out to Inelkar, taking care that the Kier would grasp it by the cord, rather than the Horn itself.  She had made that mistake, on first discovering the artefact, and was kind enough to not inflict such sensations on another.

The Kier brought her free hand up to the shaft, let it hover within touching for moments, then lowered the Horn so that it rested on the floor.  The thing Medair had quested for to destroy the Ibis-lar, now in the hands of their leader.

"Medair an Rynstar."  A statement, not a question.  Inelkar's voice was mild, but the part of Medair which hated herself for this deed heard it as an accusation, and shame washed through her.  She had betrayed her oath, and delivered the Horn into the hands of the White Snakes.  All the altruistic motives in the world would not excuse that.

"
Ekarrel
," murmured the Keridahl Alar, "we should shield the Horn.  It would be well not to alert those who wait at our gates of this turn of events."

"Truly said."  The Kier stood, as if the Keridahl's words had freed her to action.  She gestured peremptorily to two Court officials – Gantains, if Medair remembered the term correctly – and in a few short moments a large, disappointed portion of the Court was filing obediently out of the Throne Room.  Medair wished she were going with them.

Avahn moved to Cor-Ibis' side, presumably so he would not be swept out with the rest.  Cor-Ibis was gazing fixedly at the Horn, but lifted his head when Avahn reached him, and asked a question Medair could not hear.  Avahn shrugged and they both looked at her, wearing mirrored heavy-lidded masks, their shared blood very apparent.  Medair averted her face, and found herself looking at Jedda las Theomain, who was in turn staring at Cor-Ibis.  The woman's expression was set, as if she'd just seen a threat confirmed.

The ebony door thudded shut.  Questions waited upon the arrival of an iron-wrought chest spelled to dampen magic in the same way as her satchel.  The Horn of Farak was carefully lowered inside and a few words said to activate the dampening effect.

A look of palpable relief crossed the faces of the handful who remained.  The song made the blood rise up to dance in the body's courses, and none who heard it was left as cool in heart as Ibisians strove to be.

"Medair an Rynstar."  The Kier now addressed her more purposefully.  "Our debt to you is beyond reckoning, Keris.  This is an act of greatness."

Medair looked at her, then dropped her eyes to the bauble of silver she had discarded.  She shook her head, denying the words and her actions equally.