He opened his mouth. Then tower discipline itself cracked, the ice-face disintegrated, and the living man looked out at me, shaken, scandalized, laughing, through those startled topaz eyes.
“Oh . . . Tellurith!” he said quakily.
And went after the cups.
* * *
She made us wait, of course, with malice certainly aforethought, until mid-afternoon, time of work-lulls and courtesy calls. She brought an entourage of elders, predictably. I had time to relish their coming discomposure while I wrestled Sarth in the kitchen doorway, hissing, “Get back in there!”
He gave me one desperate look: Don’t risk it, don’t insult them, I’ll bungle it, don’t lay the House’s honor on me. Alkhes would have raged and raved; when I growled, “Don’t you drop a thing!” Sarth went without a word.
Sure enough, the first bristle among the elders told me his mere presence was less insult than tactical point; they had not thought to damn my blasphemy to its face. When Iatha had settled them, and I said, “Sarth, will you bring tea?” for one delirious moment I thought they would all walk out.
Darthis was of sterner forging. When he set a cup at her very elbow, it never touched her monumental calm. So finally, with Sarth back at the hearth-side, I had to open the dance.
“To what do I owe this honor, Ruand?”
She sipped the tea. Inclined her head, stately, decorous compliment; she would not cede him even that much spite.
“Ruand,” she answered, “I have a duty to Telluir House.”
* * *
Settling. Week 5.
Meditations. Alkhes-Assandar
Living with her, watching her use those maddening passive tactics, you forget that Tellurith’s a strategist first. A political strategist. All I could think, while that woman planted herself like a rock settling was, Here it comes. Disaster. And there’s nothing I can do.
When she spoke, Tellurith just inclined her head and looked polite. Second nature. House-heads did it with everyone from apprentice Crafters to visiting kinglets. Fifty times a day.
“For a vassal, my door is always open. Especially to Iskarda’s Ruand.”
I knew enough to know they were tossing obligations. And that the skirmish had gone to Tellurith.
Darthis drank her tea. “It has come to me,” masterly, I have to admit, you’d get no better sidestep from a courtier, “that Telluir House has suffered an—affliction. Blossoms lost in the bud.”
She must have known I would spring the ambush. She must have trusted I’d tell truth, knowing the thing’s own weight. And I had to feel Sarth go away beside me, the way he had when I told them. Why did I never learn to hold my tongue!
“The Mother waxes.” Tellurith never flinched. “The Mother wanes.”
“The Mother is not wont to have her omens lost.”
“I am the Head of Telluir House. It was I who spoke—and listened—to the qherrique.”
Turn looks like that to sword-blades, you’d drop an army at a slash.
Darthis folded her arms. A rock, poised to roll.
“I am Telluir House’s vassal. I am Iskarda’s Ruand.” Tellurith inclined her head. The jaw’s tension said it was a flanking maneuver. “I ask, What befell Amberlight?”
This code takes unraveling too: as vassal, she had right to query her protector. As Iskarda’s Ruand, she had right to protect her folk. On those credentials, she was challenging: if you can read the qherrique, the voice of the Mother, and three sons were truly not a pestilence—why did your city fall?
“It was the will of the Mother,” Tellurith said.
You’ll get as pretty a bromide out of any River-lord’s priest when a flood takes your cow. Trying not to let my lip curl, I remembered: Darthis is a traditionalist. The one riposte she couldn’t block.
“Assuredly.” Head bent, meek as a temple neophyte. “I am a village Ruand. But one who heard the qherrique can tell us: why was it the Mother’s will?”
All the Iskardan faces said, Get out of that. Sarth nearly disappeared into the hearthstones. And Tellurith, bless her, the lovely bitch didn’t crack a smirk.
“We abused the qherrique. We sold it to those who abused it. who used it for blood-sorcery, for battles, to murder and enslave. So the River rose against us. And the qherrique used them for its own salvation. It destroyed Amberlight.”
How, after her opening gambit, could Darthis retort, You’re a liar?
Give her this, she’s a veteran. Presently, she said, “Will my House-head enlighten me wholly? How—could this be?”
And Tellurith, the damned woman, said, “Alkhes, will you come here?”
Even Iatha thought she’d ruined it. All those five strides across eternity, I was thinking, they’ll get up and go.
They sat. I stood by Tellurith’s shoulder. Man’s place. I had to remember it was a revolution I was there at all.
“The River,” Tellurith said, “sent Alkhes to Amberlight. As agitator, as spy. A River-quarter gang ambushed him. We saved him. Because the qherrique told me, It matters, if he dies.”
No one had to wonder if she was telling the truth.
“He had lost his memory. He had lost his name. When he asked for one, the qherrique told me: Call him, Alkhes.”
All the faces changed. Maybe, it was awe, after the shock.
“But when a Cataract assassin aimed for me at Diaman House-head’s funeral,” sacrilege, all the Iskardans gasped, “he saved my life. And then, I think—the qherrique told him who he was.”
Darthis was not blinking. But her eyes had a certain glaze.
“So he went back to Dhasdein. Having—obligations. And knowing the River was fixed on destroying us—he tried to save what he could of Amberlight.”
Damn, it’s worse than a punishment parade to have your life hung out like washing. I thought of sentry duty in Riversend, out-of-town brats giggling, trying to look up your corselet. I hope I kept my face.
“So we lost the city. And the Houses. Until at the last, the qherrique bade me surrender. And I did as it said.”
Now even Darthis stared. Tellurith looked back at her. A consummate orator, playing her pauses as exquisitely as her audience.
“But when Alkhes asked, Shall I go to the mother-face? Can men cut qherrique? It answered, Yes.”
Darthis was too controlled. It was the second at her elbow who burst out, “Pigwash! Men can’t hear qherrique!”
Tellurith gave them a stare to kneecap an imperial dekarch. “I have seen this man bespeak the qherrique. And it heard.”
They were vassals, peasants, traditionalists. They sat and goggled. Trying to re-frame the world.
Tellurith turned to me. When she put a hand on me I nearly jumped a spearlength myself.
“For its own plan, the qherrique used us both. But at the end . . .”
She stopped.
“At the end—when the hill—it saved him. It told him, Run.” A tiny pause. As if she braced herself. “And at the very end—it spoke to me. It said: Daughter, be blessed.”
And the break in her voice nobody could ever counterfeit.
“That is why,” looking back at Darthis, “I am sure the Mother’s omens were no curse. And that it was the Mother’s will