Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows Page 16

  Morretz frowned. "I don't know," he said with a shrug. "They did not seem the correct doors to enter."

  "Astute." The instructor surprised him. "Very astute. There may be some hope for you."

  "Hope?"

  "If you will follow me, the correct doors to enter by— and to leave by—will be the doors on your right as you face them."

  "Correct doors?"

  "Yes. To the left are the doors used by those who work for the guild in various positions. In the center, those who seek to contract the service of a domicis. And to the right, those who serve. Those who would serve." The older man turned away, and then turned back; his expression was serious, but there was some play in the lines around his eyes that suggested a smile.

  "Not, of course, that we do not excuse newcomers their ignorance. But it is an auspicious sign in a newcomer to be so sensitive to nuance. I will leave you to make your decision."

  "My… decision?"

  "Yes. You have not yet answered my first question. Not honestly. And perhaps that is because you have no honest answer to give." The old man bowed. "My name, should you enter and have cause to seek me out, is Ellerson."

  He had returned to the guild several times as the domicis of Amarais Handernesse ATerafin. He wore finer clothing than he had as a failure of a mage's apprentice; certainly better shoes. He spoke, when he spoke at all, with the guildmaster, Akalia, a woman now so old one's natural instinct was not to breathe in her direction for fear it might knock her over. Her mind, however, was sharp, and her tongue a match for it.

  It was not to Akalia that he went now.

  Not to Akalia that his thoughts turned.

  He almost walked away. His hand found the stone railing that had been replaced three times in the history of the guild—the last, years before Morretz' birth in a distant, border village—and he steadied himself. He had agreed to help Finch ATerafin, and she had been grateful.

  But he had not expected the arrival of Teller ATerafin.

  Teller had not waited by the Terafin Shrine, as Finch had done; his visit had been an act of indiscretion that Morretz was certain Finch would not have condoned.

  The domicis had been summoned to the doors of The Terafin's library by one of The Chosen. Possibly the last person he expected to see when he opened those doors— from a safe distance, with the expedient use of cautionary magic—was a slightly winded Teller. His build, a product of a very underprivileged youth, had changed little over the years, and he maintained that peculiar hesitancy in speech that one associates with shyness—itself a youthful trait; both beguiled.

  But he was not young, not in the way that Morretz had been before he had lost his earlier life. Not in the way he had been afterward either, unable to sleep or eat or speak without rage and fear dogging every physical gesture. Teller's peculiar quiet seemed undisturbed by the wrongs done him; unperturbed enough that he failed, when he achieved a position of power, to do those wrongs to others in the name of justice. Yet he was scarred.

  These were the wounded that Jewel had gathered. Of all the things about her besides the obvious—the gift she was born and cursed with—they were proof of a singular talent: the ability to find the very little gold buried beneath the rubble. Her den were like the gemstones found in the dark and intricate maze of stone tunnels.

  And they did not come to him.

  "The Terafin is currently involved in study for negotiations of the merchant Crown route through the Western Menorans. Even those who have been granted permission to risk visiting the library without an appointment have not been granted leave to disturb her today." It was meant as a rebuke; it was something that anyone who worked for Jewel should have been aware of.

  But Teller nodded slowly. "I have very little to add to her studies," he said. "But I need to speak with you."

  "ATerafin," he replied, "my role here—"

  "Finch asked you for help."

  "I see. Yes."

  "You said you would. Help."

  "Indeed."

  "It has to be now."

  "ATerafin—"

  Teller shook his head, his eyes wide, the expression on his face unguarded. Hard to look at.

  "We don't have time."

  It was always a matter of time.

  "And if we wait too long, it'll be too late. They don't know," he said at last. After a moment, "they" resolved itself in Morretz' mind as "the den"; Finch, Carver, Angel, Arann, and Jester. "And I wouldn't tell you if I didn't think you needed to hear it—but I do. Jay left."

  "There is not a member of this House that is not aware of that," Morretz replied, cool and dry.

  Teller took that, swallowed it, found strength in the distance. "Jay accepted what wasn't much of a choice, and she left. She said her good-byes. No," he raised a hand as if it were a weapon or a shield. Teller, who never interrupted and rarely spoke. "Let me finish," he said, into Morretz's muted surprise. And he did the worst thing possible; he met the domicis' pale eyes, and he looked away.

  There are men who look away when they lie; their eyes glance slightly off the cheek or the forehead, evading the pinning grace of sight. Morretz had learned, quickly, to understand this shorthand of expression. But there are men who glance away to spare you their knowledge of your reaction when they speak—or are about to speak—a truth that they know will cause pain.

  Very, very little in Morretz's life could cause him pain. But not nothing; he was alive, after all. Still alive. He might have told the younger man that his concern was baseless. But he didn't believe it.

  Years of training made him graceful. He let Teller ATerafin speak.

  Aware that he would never let a man approach him with a knife, never let him strike the certain blow, with such bitter equanimity, although the knife's cut would be far, far less terrible. He knew what he would hear.

  "The Terafin's going to die while Jay is gone."

  Morretz was not surprised.

  He should have been. No one had ever said that of The Terafin, except during the House War that had made them—domicis and lord—what they had become. But those words were separated from these, for these were true.

  He knew they were true. His honesty was of the type that made him acknowledge The Terafin's particular silence, the barriers she had erected against his knowledge, as if ignorance would lessen pain. He had never spoken of it, because he waited for her, always for her, although the knowledge had lingered like a baleful ghost from the moment The Terafin had made clear her desire to select an heir.

  "How?" he asked softly. Coldly.

  Teller met his eyes again. Held them, this time. "We don't know. Not even Jay knew for certain. But—"

  "But?"

  His gaze dropped again. "People—in power, like her— they have to trust people." His lips thinned. Twisted. "Sometimes it doesn't pay out."

  "Someone she trusts is going to betray her?"

  Teller shrugged. "I don't know. Jay didn't know. The Terafin is one of the smartest people I know; hard to imagine anyone else could kill her. But… Jay saw it."

  "Teller—"

  "Jay has never been wrong. She misses things. Things happen that she doesn't see beforehand. But what she does see…" He had the grace, again, to look away. "The Terafin is important to us. Not because we know her—we don't. Because she's the House. She's never lied to us; she's never screwed us over. She—she deserves to wear the Terafin sword."

  "But, Morretz—she knows."

  "She?"

  "The Terafin. She knows. She knows she's going to die; she doesn't know how. If she knew how—but it doesn't matter; what matters is she knows. She knows Jay, she knows seers, she knows there's no point in spending the time trying to prevent her death when she can—"

  The flow of words stopped as he caught up with them.

  Silence. Silence was comfortable.

  "They're alike, Morretz. That's why she chose Jay. And Jay left us behind to guard the House." Teller looked suddenly far younger than his years. Miserable. Terrified. "
Because she trusts us. But we always let her do the shark walking, and now when we need to, we don't know how. We fail, we fail her. And more."

  "If you don't go to the Guild of the Domicis now, I'm not sure we'll survive when—when The Terafin goes down. And if we don't survive, neither does anything she's spent her life as lord here building."

  "ATerafin."

  Something in Morretz's voice surprised them both.

  Teller stilled; the obvious panic slowly submerged itself beneath the surface of nondescript eyes.

  "You are talking about the death of my lord."

  Teller bowed his head. He turned without another word and walked away, but when he reached the end of the hall, he turned back to where Morretz stood guard, against all truth, and he offered the domicis a bow.

  Morretz returned nothing.

  But the following morning, with strict instructions to the Chosen who guarded her, Morretz left The Terafin to make an early report to Akalia, the woman in whose hands the Guild of the Domicis had been so carefully nurtured for decades.

  And he paused, in front of a door that had been the start of his life; gripped an old stone railing, and left some of his skin on its porous surface before he chose to enter the building.

  Just as, exactly as, he had chosen years before.

  He walked, for a moment, not into the horrible necessity of the present, but the uncertainty of the past:

  The man was old.

  The building that contained him—as most buildings fortunate enough to be situated on the poverty free political stronghold that was the Isle—had changed little over the length of both of their lives, and Morretz knew that, should he be granted some brief recess from Mandaros' Halls long after his death—and should he choose that recess to come here—the building, like the institution itself, would be fundamentally unchanged—a monument that defied fashion, that embraced tradition. It was not overtly fine, but the details were there if one knew how to look. The foundations were solid, and no less enduring was the framework, • from joists below the floor to the broad ceiling beams beneath which students, in varying degrees of discomfort, learned the limitations of the life they hoped to someday lead.

  Less than a handful would live up to that hope; as the illusions were pared away, so, too, was the desire.

  Some came to this guild who were too passive, who confused service with the abrogation of responsibility, men and women so crippled by the fear of decision that they wanted a life in which all choices were made for them—as if that were ever possible, as if anyone could truly escape the responsibility of their lives.

  They learned.

  Had he been one of those men? The domicis were never required to examine their past, searching for answers to their voyage here amidst the emotional debris. But required or no, there was about the debris of one's own life both attraction and repulsion; enough so that he visited it with morbid fascination as the unchanging halls that housed the domicis brought him into momentary contact with his youth.

  This had not been the first place in which he labored as an apprentice. But something in his tenure here had provoked more than simple intellect, no matter how passionate that intellect might be; it had touched something deeper, something so carefully buried beneath the horror of memory that he had assumed it safely dead.

  Belief.

  "You have all learned—and I see it in all of you so don't waste your breath or my time denying it," no one doubted which of the two was the more valued, "that there is no justice in the world. Power rules."

  He had learned something equally valuable: You could only be hurt if you cared. Care nothing, care for nothing, and the world passes above you, beneath you, around you.

  Silence.

  Ellerson's silences were akin to another's punctuation; break them at the wrong place and you not only courted obvious disapproval, which was usually given anyway, but you committed the greater crime of breaking the stream of thought that led to the words themselves. And they had learned to value the words, so they waited.

  Of course, he was a temperamental man, and often inserted a silence as a form of question.

  The difference between punctuation and question was length and a certain chill if silence lasted too long.

  Into the chill, a younger voice said, "Power rules. Did we spend three years studying just to come back to such basic truth? We've chosen to serve," the younger man added, "and most of us have chosen to serve people of power."

  "Indeed. You have all chosen to serve people of power."

  "Not all."

  "Not all of you have chosen to serve people whose power is purely political or financial, but you have chosen the avenue of power that best represents your own interests."

  Silence.

  "You," he said, pointing at one of the older men, "have chosen to serve the maker-born. And you, their distant cousins: the painters who rule the academy on the Isle. You have chosen to serve the magi, and although they do not rule the Isle, they are unarguably among the most powerful men and women upon it.

  "The only men and women you will never serve are the Kings and Queens; all others might come, if not now, then in a decade or two, through the doors of the guild itself, seeking service and not merely suitable people to employ.

  "You have chosen to serve them. To place yourself in the path of their power; to accompany its rise or its fall, and to prevent that fall where at all possible. We have seldom spoken of ethics, of morality; we have spoken of the oaths and the service itself, as if those oaths and that service are blind in their binding."

  No one but a fool would have spoken then. No one.

  Morretz had never thought of himself as a fool. "If we had come seeking power, we could have stayed where we were. Not a man among us has not set foot on that path."

  The piercing glare of Ellerson of the domicis made him feel—on that day—as if he were alone in the room, a supplicant, a student from the streets who thought only of a roof over his head and a permanent home. "And yet you choose to serve it."

  "Yes."

  "What does that acknowledge, Morretz?"

  The room collectively exhaled. The man who was teacher and distant friend had not chosen to descend to the cool mockery that was often his trademark when, from a distance of wisdom and experience, he looked down upon his students.

  "Acknowledge?"

  "Yes. You of all people have reason to distrust the powerful."

  He was silent, but not for long. To speak of power was in all ways to speak of things personal, but having begun, he had chosen to take that risk. "I cannot speak for the others," he said at last. "I am not as subtle as they; I choose to serve the politically powerful and in my time, if the gods are willing, I will serve one of The Ten. But speaking for myself, I can say that I would not serve just any of The Ten. I would not give my service and my life's work to a lord whose desire for power did not in some ways mesh with my own desires, my own goals."

  "And you value your goals so highly? Is not your chosen life to serve? Is it not the goals of the lord you choose to serve that should be paramount?"

  "The lord I have chosen to serve is the guild," Morretz replied evenly.

  Ellerson snorted. "Evasion."

  "Yes. Evasion. You ask a simple question, and you've spent years telling us that there are no simple answers. I will not demean your teaching by attempting to provide them."

  The old man's brow rose into his hairline, and then he did something that Morretz had never seen him do in this room: he laughed. The sound carried to the heights of stone and wooden beam, the echo of his mirth remarkable for its resonance, the richness of its changing tones. It deprived him of years and dignity.

  "You were always too clever by half," he said, the smile still lingering in the corners of a mouth that was usually caught in a thin line or a frown. "But let me turn it around. I have spent years waiting for you to resolve the complexities of a difficult answer."

  Morretz nodded. "I have."

  Expressions
defined a man; Ellerson's, brow and lip lifted in something akin to mockery, was proof, if it were needed, of that truth. Time had gentled it, the way salt and storms will take the sharpest lines from harbor statues which possess no magical blessing, but it remained, a blending of skepticism, reproval, and a vague hint that approval could still, with Cartanian dedication, be won. It sometimes was. "That, in the end, is all that is required. Would you share that resolution with us?"

  The class was silent. The stiffness of tables and chairs had given way over the years—when the students had proved their knowledge of the many idiosyncrasies the guild considered law—to an environment that was, in theory, less formal.

  It was certainly more threatening.

  "Understand," Ellerson added softly, "that that was a genuine request; I will not compel you to divulge what is private."

  "But you asked."

  "Yes. I am an old man." It hadn't been true, not then, but it was one of the many phrases he wore, masklike, in conversation. "I'm curious to know what it is you feel you have learned."

  "If it was simple curiosity, you would have asked me in private."

  "Perhaps," Ellerson had replied gravely, "your reaction to the nature of the request in the presence of your peers will tell me more about what you've gleaned from our lessons than the answer itself."

  Morretz, sitting in the Great Hall as a visitor, as a man who had passed all the tests it was possible to pass, remembered that moment clearly.

  He had reached for a cut crystal goblet; water sluiced up its side as he lifted it. The sun that filtered in through long narrow windows, cut by lead and colored by glass, was nonetheless bright enough to cut across the surface of the water in a sharp, bright spray of color, the glimmering of a deity seen through merely mortal eyes.

  He took a breath and set the water down, seeing, as the glass passed into the shadows cast by his shoulders, some glimmer of his own reflection. He knew then that he would speak. After all, what he would say out loud in this room, in front of these men, would never be said again, although he would return to it, like a pilgrim, as the years tested his resolve with experiences, some very bitter. How could he speak of his own goals in such a direct fashion where his lord might hear them, without becoming akin to peer, rather than remaining a domicis?