Margret took no such trouble to hide weakness or her distaste for this unnatural cold; she cursed loudly and forcefully, in two different languages. "I hate it here."
"I know." She did not ask why the Matriarch had sought her; she knew. Placing one hand firmly upon the tower battlements, she lifted the other, pointing.
They stood, side by side, in silence, watching the progress of a distant stranger, and seeing, in the steps he took, the end of their own journey together.
The Serra Diora had thought to be done, forever, with farewells. But the desert had offered her one more chance to say good-bye to something she had grown to care for, and she did not relish the opportunity.
Margret brought the lip of her hood down, to better shield her eyes from the sun"s glare. "Who is he?"
The Serra Diora could have said that the distance between the solitary stranger and the tower"s height was too great for certainty; it was. But she bowed her head instead.
"Diora?"
"I believe . . . that he is a man who owes Arkosa a great debt. And he has come to pay it."
Margret stiffened. She had none of Diora"s subtlety, and that lack was her strength. Everything could be read in the language of form, of posture, of expression that tightened lip and narrowed eye. Diora knew this; she did not look. "He will be here within three hours."
"On foot?"
The Serra hesitated just a moment, and then said, "Mark his speed. Mark the length of his stride. If the desert has diminished him, he has changed greatly since . . . last I saw him."
Margret did turn. "When?"
"When?"
"When did you last see him?"
"On the day the kai el"Sol drew the Sun Sword."
"Margret."
The Matriarch of Arkosa did not turn at the sound of the voice; she knew it well enough, by now. She did, however, acknowledge her name with a curt nod.
Yollana of the Havalla Voyani drew close; her shadow was short and awkward. She had not yet regained full use of her legs. "You will let her go," the older woman said.
Margret started to speak, and stopped. "I am the Matriarch here," she said at last, but it sounded petulant, even to her own ears.
"Even so," Yollana said quietly. "I am sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor."
"The kai el"Sol? He will not be here for some hours yet."
"Not the kai el"Sol," Yollana said, and something about the unusual control in her voice at last pulled Margret around.
"You," she said. It was all she could think of to say.
Standing like shadow-unnatural, unwelcome-in the lee of Yollana"s more natural form, stood the mysterious Evayne. A younger Margret would have been paralyzed by sudden anger. But she had in truth left the Voyanne; she was instead weary.
"What have you come to take from us this time?" she asked.
The woman seemed to flinch. But she did not ask what Margret meant; instead she drew the hood from her face. "Margret of the Arkosa Voyani," she said quietly, "I have come with information."
"You always come with information," she said bitterly, before she could stop herself. "What will it cost us?"
"Some part of your ancient magic," was the unexpected reply.
"What ancient magic?"
"In the towers of the Sen adepts were many things that were crafted by mages whose knowledge has since been lost. I will not speak of the act itself; you know what the cost was."
"I do," she said, stilling. "But you? How do you know?"
Evayne a"Nolan did not reply. She was younger than Margret remembered, and the smooth lines of her face could not be illusion. Her eyes were dark, and her expression was not the cold expression that Margret knew. Who was she, who could change everything so easily? She almost asked. But asking was a sign of weakness.
"The Serra Diora di"Marano must leave the Tor Arkosa, and she will miss it."
Margret"s turn for silence, and the Voyani did not love silence. "What of it?" she said, to break it.
"She will carry with her what she brought to the desert, and she will carry it into lands that will be . . . hostile. It is a gift, and it is a duty; I would have that duty made easier."
"You speak of the Sun Sword."
"Yes."
Margret turned to Yollana. "Matriarch," she said curtly, and Yollana surprised her by bowing. She left slowly, but she did not look back.
"I cannot offer you a sheath, although you will find many within the towers. Not one of them could contain the Sword without dimming it; it is not in the nature of their magic. But there are also veils and cloaks, blankets and boxes, things that were touched by makers long dead. Among these, you will find something in which the whole of the Sword might be placed."
"What am I to look for?"
"A box, I think. Something about this size, this width, this length." She placed her hands as she spoke; it was a very small box.
"It cannot contain a Sword."
"It can contain more," Evayne replied, "but not the living."
"And if I do as you ask, how then can this box be used?"
"She must blood it to make it hers," Evayne replied.
"She doesn"t much like bleeding."
"She is the Flower of the Dominion; she has done much worse. Go to the West tower. The wards there will allow you entry. On the third floor, in the North room, you will find what you seek."
The Radann Marakas par el"Sol saw the City in the distance, and sight of it caused him to falter for the first time that day. He lost a step; lost motion; settled into a stillness so profound he could not disturb it by breath. All of his wisdom, acc.u.mulated over the years at such expense, had not prepared him for this, and he wondered-although as one born to healing, he also knew-if he were affected by the Lord"s glare.
Still, if he faltered, he did not fall; if he stumbled, he did not lose his footing. He had come to pay a blood debt, his debt alone, and he knew for a moment the exquisite grace of an honor that knew no bounds. He bowed his head. He touched the hilt of Verragar and the sword seemed to sing a moment in the curve of his exposed palm.
He walked.
He stopped twice for water, and each time he did, he looked up quickly, to see if the City had vanished like the ripples of a distant mirage. He had walked the desert in his time, and he knew that it offered visions to men almost as often as it offered death.
But the City did not waver.
And the Radann did not waver. They drew closer together by dint of his will, until at last he reached the outer wall. Stone-if it were stone, it was so smooth and so unblemished-rose skyward in a perfect stretch that ended in unmanned curtain walls.
The gates were open. Beyond them, towers rose at heights undreamed of even in the Tor Leonne, for the lay of the land was flat from edge to edge. But the river that he had followed as guide and path led beneath that city, and before it, arrayed in silence, he saw men.
They were few, and in the end, as was so seldom the case, they were inconsequential; it was the women who waited that counted; the women who held power. He knew them by height, at first, for of the four present, none were tall.
Of the four, one stood, hands gripping the curved k.n.o.bs of canes, and one stood by her side, in the lengthening shadows cast by the walls themselves. It was cool, in this shade. One woman stood, hands on hips, and at her side, still as the stone walls themselves, another, the smallest of the four.
They wore the masks and the hoods of desert travelers, as did he.
He did not kneel, but after a moment, he reached up and shed both mask and hood, revealing his face for their inspection.
"Well met, par el"Sol." The foremost of the women reached up and likewise pulled hood and mask from her face.
He bowed his head. "Matriarch." The word was a whisper. "Matriarch of Arkosa."
"Aye," she replied, coolly, "I am that, now." He thought she would say more, for her expression was sharp as knife"s edge, curtained by strands of fallen hair.
But he spoke first, forestalling the accusation in her eyes. "I have come," he said, kneeling for the first time, "to discharge the debt I owe the Arkosa Voyani."
It was the oldest of the women who spoke next. She, too, shed mask, although her hood still framed the wild gray of her hair. "Radann," she said, a glimmer of a bitter smile twisting the corners of her lips. "You were always a strange one. Will you kneel before mere women?"
"There is no love lost, no love owed, between the Voyani and the Radann, but there has always been respect."
She snorted. It was graceless, a sign of her power. Only the Voyani women could be so careless. He said nothing, waiting. Recognizing-as perhaps few of the Radann would-Yollana of the Havalla Voyani.
"What debt does a man of power in the Dominion claim to owe its women?" Margret of the Arkosa Voyani asked. Her lips were thin, her nose thin; she wore her age as all women did who toiled beneath the open sky.
"A debt of blood," he replied, feeling the weight of his body against the folded bend of his knees. He adjusted Verragar"s length across his bent lap. "A debt of honor."
"So." Margret"s frown deepened. "Do you understand what it is that you offer?"
He nodded.
"And to who?"
Nodded again. The line of his shoulders straightened, as if he was shedding the weight of a great burden.
Life could be that, could seldom be less than that, in the Dominion. He waited, in the calm that comes with surrender.
"What you have seen today you must not speak of to any who does not bear the name and the blood of Arkosa."
He nodded.
"Swear it."
And stiffened. Marakas par el"Sol was a man of his word; he was accustomed to the respect that reputation demanded.
She waited.
"What oath would you have me swear?" he asked at last, when it became clear that she would not speak.
"Blood oath."
It was almost an insult. Almost. But a simple insult did not absolve him of the part he had played in the death of Evallen of Arkosa. He reached for the hilt of Verragar, and drew her from her scabbard.
She was blue lightning, a flash of steel and old magic, as she came, unhoused, from her sheath.
Yollana of the Havalla Voyani cursed and lifted a hand; her cane was caught by the woman who stood at her side before it could strike ground.
Behind them, a large man drew his own sword, and Margret barked a single word. The man did not sheathe his sword, but he did not advance. Marakas noted that the Matriarch had not even glanced over her shoulder; she was certain of her people.
Marakas par el"Sol drew the edge of his blade across his palm. He had done so perhaps a handful of times in his life, and this stroke would create a new scar, a new line to be read by the ceaseless eye of Voyani fortune-tellers in the shadowed hovels of their secret life upon the open road.
"By blood," he said softly. "I swear to preserve the secrets of Arkosa. Beneath the open sky."
"Beneath the open sky," Margret replied. "I accept your oath. You will wait here. Tor Arkosa will never be home to the Radann; it will never house the clans. It is of, and for, the Arkosa Voyani.
"But we share a common enemy, a common danger. Evallen of Arkosa chose to journey by your side for her own reasons, and she paid the price that in the end we will all pay if we fail or falter.
"You owe a debt to Arkosa. You owe a debt to me."
He nodded. The blood ran from his injured palm to the spa.r.s.e greenery that was, in itself, a miracle in this place.
"Pay it. Accompany these women, these three, to the Terrean of Averda."
"Averda?"
She turned, then, to the woman who stood so perfectly still by her side. In a much different tone of voice, she said, "Are you ready?"
And this smallest of women raised her hands delicately, deliberately, and pulled the mask from her perfect, pale face.
Eyes wide, dark, unblinking, she met the stare of the Radann par el"Sol.
He bowed his head again, deeply, thinking: Fredero. Un-looked for, unexpected, the Flower of the Dominion blossomed in the heart of the Sea of Sorrows. "Serra," he whispered. Seeing not the desert robes, but the pale, white dress of the Lord"s Consort, golden hem lost beneath the waters of the Tor Leonne, hands cupped beneath the weight of the Sun Sword.
If a sword had a heart as fierce as hers, it would never break; it would never lose its edge.
"Radann."
The Serra turned to the Matriarch of Arkosa. "Yes," she said, straightening her shoulders. "Bring me only the burden that I must bear, and I will bear it."
The Matriarch of Arkosa hesitated; it was the first sign of vulnerability she had shown since he had arrived at the gates of a city he knew now must be the end of the Voyanne. The Voyani did not speak of the Voyanne to strangers, but Marakas par el"Sol was born with a healer"s gift, and he had offered that gift in their service.
He knew what such an ending must mean.