Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows Read online

A hundred years ago, a thousand, in lands held by different men, that hesitation would have been their death. But he expected it; he waited, refusing to turn toward them; refusing to see their indecision. He was not so kind a teacher that it would not have angered him or insulted him; the words were not, and could not be construed as, request.

  Gyrrick reached the rail first. The wind carried the familiar sound of his step, coveting the momentary silence of drawn and held breath that was particular to Gyrrick. He was the boldest of the students, but also the man who best understood consequences: seldom did such an alliance of traits sit so easily in a person. His hair was short; Meralonne suffered no man the foolish grace of lengthy hair save himself. His shoulders, though slender, were strong, and his jaw was not weak; he was attractive in the way that men who wield power as if it were breath so often are; naturally, without artifice.

  He stepped into air, and the air held him.

  There were two approaches to training men such as these; the first was to break their natural leader and replace him; the second, to co-opt that leader, to become that leader's lord. He had chosen the latter course, the former being almost certain to draw Sigurne's wrath, but he was surprised at how well it had worked. It took more patience than the first option; it left one vulnerable.

  After Gyrrick, they followed. He counted them by the scrambling uncertainty of their steps.

  Twenty-four.

  Twenty-four men.

  He turned only when the balcony was as it should be: occupied by one. He knelt, although the wind was howling in outrage at the burden he had placed upon it. "Magi," he said. "We are at your disposal."

  What the students had not granted, the master did, in their full view: respect for the authority Sigurne Mellifas had chosen to accept; acknowledgment that she was the guild's ruler, inasmuch as an Order made of quirky men and women could have one.

  She surveyed them all, the bowed man and his students. Then she nodded, grimly, accepting what he offered—both halves, the adepts and his respect—as the necessities they were. "Save our city," she said, her voice carrying without interference over the wind's current. "Only you can."

  The words carried them, and they rose, the wind gathering behind and beneath them like a wild horse that would only—barely—tolerate what had been set upon its back.

  Look, look there— the magi told it, and the wind, in fury, did as bid.

  The wind saw fire.

  Everything has its natural enemy.

  Fire, earth, water, and air. Burn the world, bury it, drown it, tear it to pieces; each, in its natural dominion.

  The common wisdom—in this tame world where wilderness was a dream's dream, buried so far beneath mortal knowledge it never came to light—pitted fire against water, and earth against air. But it was not so: they were, each of the four, powers, and in any world, only one power could claim dominance.

  Torn between rage at the indignity of being a beast of burden and rage at the indignity of the presence of its natural enemy, the wind balanced a moment before turning, like a great dragon, to make its way toward the Common where the hearts of trees were cracking.

  Gyrrick could not speak; he could barely breathe. But the difficulty of gasping for breath did not bother him in any visible fashion. Following his first step into the insubstantial air from the height of a tower he might one day hope to occupy, he readied himself for his second. Meralonne expected no less… but he was old enough now that the fulfillment of expectation was its own peculiar joy. The mage rode the wind, inches above the ground; the students tumbled into the streets like flotsam carried by unnatural tide. They would right themselves, or they would not.

  It had become immaterial.

  The last thing the mage was peripherally aware of before he drew his blade and spoke its name to the wind was Gyrrick's long shadow across the broken ground.

  That and the enemies who turned, as a single creature, to face blue fire and elemental air.

  "They told us," one said, rising as if ground were illusion, "that you were here." Red fire seeped out of his fingertips in lazy circles, becoming brighter and darker as Meralonne approached. "But I hardly credited the reports as truth. I did call your name when I arrived, but perhaps you failed to hear it."

  "Perhaps I considered it inconsequential."

  "Judge, then," the creature replied, its lips spreading in a smile that split its slender face.

  "You did not come here for me."

  "No. You are considered less of a concern than the Warlord." Fire became sword; sword became the symbol of all battles, past and present. This battle would become one of many to the victor. The loser would become memory.

  But he wanted the experience that would form that memory, be it insignificant or not. Because this creature was a creature he understood. He asked for no quarter; he offered none. He had spent his existence fighting for survival and supremacy, and clearer proof of his success could not be found than this: his sword was his own. Red light and fire, grace and death.

  The clarity of combat was a joy Meralonne APhaniel had dutifully ordered his students to be wary of seeking. Proof, if needed, that observation was a substitute for personal experience in the classroom—and only there.

  Sigurne's face wore the shadows well. She took comfort in them.

  The city was burning.

  She watched in silence as the light and the fire of Meralonne's students burned themselves into the unblinking field of her vision. The men who lay dead in the Common had done the demons no harm.

  She wondered how many of her own would join them.

  The demons were fast.

  The mages expected speed. They had not been given leave to summon demons in order to hone their craft—

  Sigurne would have had them all killed had they attempted it, and if rumors were true, slowly—and what they had been left to study did no justice to the truth of this first meeting.

  But Meralonne had taught them. No summoned enemy? It mattered little. Their lack of knowledge was matched only by their pathetic skill. Had Sigurne taken sudden leave of her senses—or come into them, depending on who one asked—and allowed them the use of demonology, they would all be dead. Sigurne aside, they would all be dead when they eventually encountered the enemy in something other than song, story, or faded, crumbling book, and that would be an embarrassment that he would not tolerate; it had been costly to gain the Council's permission to create their small division within the Order's more peaceful fold.

  Therefore, they would learn. And as there were no demons, they would have to content themselves with facing something superior: the master himself. Meralonne APhaniel made it clear that he would stop short of killing them. They discovered that he didn't differentiate between "short" and "just short"; the healers grew fat the first year.

  Gyrrick had learned the hard way—they all had, and Meralonne was not a kind master—not to close with the magi. He bore three scars, one of which earned Meralonne the dubious distinction of being the first member of the Council of the Magi to be suspended in over a century.

  But more important, that scar had taught them clearly— what Gyrrick learned, the rest learned—that to close with the master was death. Their reflexes always paled in comparison. They needed a stretch of ground—or air—in which to react to his power; to diminish that distance in any way led to injury. In the classroom.

  Here, it was death.

  And when will we be good enough? When can we stand and fight?

  Not in this decade, Gyrrick.

  And the Kialli?

  You are skilled enough now that you should know on sight who presents a threat… and who is certain death. I am not Magi Mellifas; it is not my intent to rob you of the battles you can win. But my tenure within the Order depends on your ability to gauge danger and survive it. If I had discovered you as a child…

  Gyrrick's hands trembled as he raised them.

  The demons were closing, and not all of them were bound—as Gyrrick and his men were—
to earth.

  He barked out orders, reminding his men that distance was-—for the moment—their best defense. But it was only that: defense. All of the stories that he had studied became fodder for children. He gazed upon the enemy, upon their numbers, upon the damage they had casually done to the Common, and he knew that what the master had taught— what had never been tested—would either save or damn them.

  But his hands were shaking.

  Hold any other weapon, he heard the master say, and you will perish if you close with the enemy. Do you understand? You do not have the fire, cold or hot, to best the Kialli in direct conflict. But in your long history—much of it forgotten—you had the power. And you still have it, if you are willing to take the risk of using it.

  What risk?

  Here, the sound of demons keening like rabid dogs, their language high and sharp and piercing as they rushed in like air filling vacuum, the master's answer returned.

  Of death, of course.

  Gyrrick had fought demons before. But not many, and not Kialli. The master had said he would know the difference, and as always, he had been correct. They were closing.

  He could not afford to let them close unhindered.

  Why do you not teach us all this?

  Because, idiot, not all of you are capable of learning. You may not have noticed, but I abhor wasting my time.

  Gyrrick's compatriots knew almost as well as he did that to let the Kialli close meant death. Plumes of fire—of human fire—and lightning were coaxed from air and sky; walls of coruscating orange light—if one had the gift and knew how to look—sprang into shimmering life at the command of will and a few hasty words of focus. Meralonne would have failed them in their exercise had he heard those hasty words, because he loathed foci as much as he loathed stupidity. Possibly more. He considered them crutches, not necessities, and he reserved his harshest words for those who could not let go of the security of their use, for they telegraphed much to an enemy. It didn't matter; there was no classroom now; no reprimand to fear.

  There was only death.

  He shouted out orders; the words were short and harsh. If he hadn't felt the vibration of his throat, he wouldn't have known they were his. But his men knew, and they responded entirely by reflex, doing as they were ordered. No consensus, not here. No committees.

  Just his judgment, forced into words as reflexive as his compatriots' response, while they could hear it.

  Meralonne had given them that. Had humiliated them, time and again when they failed to respond as quickly as he wanted (which seemed—which had been—impossible), or with the precision he desired. He would not, Gyrrick thought, be satisfied with them now.

  But now…

  The fires cut through the lines of their defense as if orange light and enchantment were spider's gossamer. He saw three men bisected by something that looked like red light. And he heard the enemy laugh. Distorted as it was by long fangs and impossible, slender jaws, by lips that seemed things of leather or steel or jade, he knew contempt when he heard it.

  In the air, in the sky above, there was no laughter; Meralonne had drawn sword, and his enemy had replied in kind—which was as much attention as Gyrrick could spare them. But in that brief glimpse, he understood that Meralonne was no object of contempt; he had somehow proved himself a danger, a worthy foe, in a way the enemy could understand.

  Two more men died. The others scattered, retreating carefully, defensively. None of the demons had even been singed, although Alain—he thought it was Alain's signature—had killed lesser demons with his firestrike before.

  Gyrrick spoke to his men across the distance; they heard his words, acted on them, following a command that he had beaten, one way or another, into their subconscious.

  The creatures looked up. One of them, tall and slender, with wings as supple as fine hide, said, "I will take the… leader." Gyrrick would remember the sneer for as long as he lived. However long that might be.

  He summoned, not fire, because fire was not his element, but earth; sent a benediction, torturous and slow, as the enemy's fire lapped holes in the pathetic defenses Meralonne APhaniel had taught them to erect before they drew breath. The earth replied, ponderous, weighty.

  The stones above it snapped in jagged, cobbled lines, throwing the creature off its feet.

  Or it should have; the cost to Gyrrick was enormous, given the speed of the earth's breaking, the change of its shape. But the creature rose to air; smiled red fire, cast it with contempt and ease. Gyrrick's defenses were second only to Meralonne's. The creature's eyes widened slightly in surprise—even at this distance, surprise was evident— when they held.

  Gyrrick struck again; lightning, something forced from the folds of the sky. The bolt passed by the creature, veering at the last moment as it lost shape and structure, as a liquid might. It struck something behind the creature's tall back; wall—brick or stone or clay or wood; something that shattered easily with the force of the blow. Gyrrick heard screaming, and something twisted inside him; not fear of his own death, but fear of the deaths the use of that much magic had just caused.

  The cure, he could hear Sigurne say, must not be worse than the disease. There is no justification for our existence if the damage we do is as great as the damage we prevent.

  It almost cost him his life.

  But he was fast, and other voices crowded in on him as the cobbled stones hit his cheeks and the broken dirt provided a momentary cover against needles of sharp flame. When those needles struck, they struck hair, cut flesh, searing wound with heat and pain. Only Meralonne APhaniel was fast enough to wear armor without paying a price for its encumbrance.

  The creature was grinning.

  You have a weapon. Not fire, and not ice; it is not elemental, and not, in the end, magical, although it is through your mageborn talent that you will reach it. It is human. Manifest it.

  Manifest it? How?

  Summon it. Summon it from the same place you summon

  the earth; bespeak the darkness and shadow that you carry within you.

  And?

  Must I spoonfeed you, Gyrrick? Tobacco, glowing like fire-touched wood, leaves crackling in memory and in reality: perfect harmony. I cannot tell you how to call upon your talent; it is the first lesson all magi learn. Assuming, of course, that you have learned it.

  Yes, Master.

  Power is power, and the cost of its expenditure is always the same. But the summoning? Unique. No two men will find their power in the same way. No two ever have, in all of your history.

  But I—

  Within you, the weapon resides, waiting. The master's sword met sword in the air; the clash of steel, of something that was more than steel, rang out across the broken landscape.

  Gyrrick dodged again, easily now, at home in the fissure his power had made; at home in the earth.

  Burial was a thing that most men feared; not Gyrrick; cremation was his: that in the end, not even ashes remain. Let him be given to earth, instead.

  The creature growled.

  And when I find this weapon, if I can?

  Take care. If it breaks, it is broken, but not as your arm, or your leg might be; it will not heal. To fix it requires an ability to forge that has not been seen in centuries, and if it is broken, every skill you now possess will be diminished.

  Then why? Why risk it? This seems to be power made emblem, and emblem exposed.

  Indeed. It is when we are exposed in our entirety that we have truly set aside all fear. The fearless are fools, but they have ruled this world throughout the millennia.

  I'd rather be cautious. He had weathered the glare of Meralonne's contempt for many, many years. It stung, but it did not deter.

  Fire did. The shields that Meralonne had spent years forcing upon him—upon them all—through tiresome, demanding exercise dissolved; he faced death, hands lifted and shaking. But the earth rose in response to something beneath the surface of his fear, and against the earth, fire had to work for its victim.
/>
  He felt, rather than saw, the buildings shattering like glass; heard screams that started—and worse, stopped, cut off from the air that fueled them. Here, in the trench, these things were muted. Earth. Defense. Meralonne would have scoffed, pipe in the crook made of lips dependent on its stem.

  There is no weapon as effective against the Kialli—or any other immortal—as a weapon of this type.

  And what will it cost?

  His answer had been the making itself. No other. And that answer had nearly killed him, and nearly killed Meralonne when Sigurne Mellifas had—as she always did—discovered what had transpired between them.

  He had been unable to face the master for three weeks while he convalesced. And he refused to draw what had been made by earth and blood and magic and will again.

  Oh, he had dared the darkness. He had thought of fire. Of pain. Of sacrifice. He had been willing to die the noble death in a heroic attempt to do the right thing. Younger. He had been much younger.

  But he had discovered that his darkness was a quiet, strong shadow, buried someplace between two things: Earth. Magic. He understood why the art of fashioning weapons such as this had died; most men who had tried it had probably taken their own lives shortly afterward. There were things about oneself that one should never have to face, but in order to reach the weapon, the killing force, one not only had to face them.

  One had to become them.

  Slumbering in a metaphysical shadow, beside the thing he defined as his power and the thing he denned as himself—until that day—he had discovered things that he would have killed men for accusing him of. Sadism, desire, fascination with things too ugly to be human. But not too ugly to be Kialli.

  Of course not; if he wished to fight the Kialli, could he fight them without becoming them, measure for measure? He had been naive, and the master delighted, coldly, in the destruction of naivete. Why wouldn't he? He had his own weapon. And he never hesitated to call the sword. It sang in his hands; scored the field of vision if one was careless and watched it at play for too long. Meralonne APhaniel had faced his own demons.

  But a man that arrogant probably thought anything demonic about himself was a matter of fact. A man that arrogant could not possibly be stopped by selfloathing, doubt, fear of—for the first time—one's own power. A man like the master was at home with his demons.