HM02 House of Moons (5 page)

Then the swirling darkness swept her beyond pain and fear.

* * *

Enissa opened her mind to the ilsera crystals set into the portal housing, concentrating on their soundless vibrations. Somewhere beyond the thicket of surrounding trees and bushes, one of the House silshas snarled and another screamed in answer, apparently enraged. A shiver ran down her spine, and, suddenly feeling something was wrong, she glanced back at the House of Moons, two stories of solemn grayness outlined in the muted glow of silvery Sedja, the largest of Desalaya’s three moons.

A few late lights still shone in the girls’ windows, but the sense of menace was already fading. You’re getting old, she scolded herself, but that’s no excuse for jumping at shadows. She sighed and turned back to the portal, focusing her mind again, then altering the wavelength to match the crystals in the Lenhe’ayn portal, having to reproduce it from Kevisson’s relayed memory since she had never set foot on Lenhe ground.

Wouldn’t her late husband, Rhydal, be scandalized if he could see her now? she mused. Here she was, setting off into the night by herself, going to a place she’d never been before, to tend a woman who wasn’t even a member of one of the High Houses. It was a wonder her long-dead Sithnal husband didn’t march back from the Darkness itself to haunt her.

The distance from the Highlands to the Lowlands passed in less than a flash, stealing her breath with the instantaneous bite of deep cold between. She opened her eyes to the torch-lit, white-painted portal of Lenhe’ayn.

“Enissa!” Kevisson Monmart stepped out of the shadows and reached up to take her arm. Four fiery red scratches trailed down the left side of his face. “It’s good of you to come all this way, and at this hour, too.”

“That’s Healer Saxbury to you, young man, when you have me out in the middle of the night on a call.” She smiled. She had known this boy’s family all her married life—the Monmarts having been one of the few Lowland Houses, besides her father’s, that her husband, Rhydal, would tolerate—and she had always liked young Kevisson. She had to keep reminding herself that although he was some twenty-odd years younger, he was no longer a boy at all. She peered down at him. “What in the name of Darkness happened to your face?”

Kevisson glanced back at the massive house. “Myriel is out of her mind with grief.”

“She fought you?” Enissa sighed, then stepped down from the portal platform onto the crushed gravel path. “You should have called me sooner.”

He turned for the main house. “We’d better get inside. I did set a guard, but I don’t know how safe we are exposed out here like this. The raiders could come back, although they left little enough worth bothering. Most of the zeli fields were yet to be harvested. I don’t know how Lenhe’ayn is going to make it through the winter now.”

Shouldering the weight of her pouch, Enissa fell in beside him, each of her steps equaling only half of one of his strides. “And how is your mother?”

“Complaining, as always, but I’m sure that comes as no surprise.” He stopped at the side door and rapped sharply. One of the chierra servants, still dirty and smudged from the day’s cleanup work, peeked out, then hastily opened the door.

A bit breathless from trying to match his pace, she followed him into the half light of the long hallway. “Naevia still wants you to come home and take over Monmart’ayn?”

“I’m afraid she speaks of nothing else.” Kevisson led her to a side staircase. “Of course, if my father were still alive, it would be different. Because of my ...” He hesitated. “My coloring, as well as my commitment to Shael’donn, he always intended my sister, Mairen, to inherit, and I really don’t see why she shouldn’t.”

Enissa watched his strong back striding easily up the long flight of steps, then put a hand to her chest, took a deep breath, and followed him. You ought to take your own advice, she scolded herself, and lose some weight!

He waited at the top for her as she struggled up the stairs, and she stopped on the last step to ease the knot in her chest. “Was Lady Lenhe badly injured?”

His mouth straightened. “Physically, she isn’t hurt. All the harm is here.” His fingers brushed his temple. “Her only son was killed in the attack, and it seems the old Lord entailed this estate solely upon her male heirs. Now she won’t be able to hold this land. She—” He broke off and gazed down the hall. “Perhaps I’d just better let you see her. Then you’ll understand.”

Enissa nodded and mounted the last step. “I’m ready.”

Another few doors down, he stopped and nodded to a plump gray-haired chierra servant. “Any change, Dorria?”

“No, sir.” The old woman dabbed the corner of her eye with a worn shawl. “But I didn’t let no one in or out, just like you said.”

He took the key from her hand. “You’ve done well. Now I want you to go to bed and get some sleep. We’ll see after your mistress now.”

“Oh, no, sir!” Dorria touched the door with trembling fingers. “I want to take care of her myself. I won’t be able to sleep a single wink, knowing how she is and all.”

“Dorria ...” He reached out and put a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Go and get some sleep. I insist.”

Enissa felt him put the full force of his mind behind that statement and stared at the pair of them. Andiine Masters were well known for their restraint in such matters. Things must be very bad indeed.

Dorria’s lined face looked puzzled. Then she turned to go, wrapping the shawl around her hunched shoulders and walking slowly.

Enissa frowned up at him. “I suppose that was necessary.”

“She’s almost as badly off as her mistress.” He turned the key in the lock. She heard it click, then stepped aside as he swung the door open. Inside, the room was a terrifying mess, with clothes and other possessions ripped to shreds and thrown everywhere, vases smashed and ground into the thick carpet, furniture splintered.

“Myriel?” Kevisson stuck his head through the door, then motioned to Enissa. “She must still be asleep.”

Enissa followed him in, picking her way through the wreckage of slippers and lace and cosmetics strewn across the ruined carpeting. “Grief does terrible things,” she murmured.

He pointed to the blue canopied bed, then stood aside. Enissa took up the hand dangling limply off to one side and held her own fingers against the hollow of the sleeping woman’s wrist, but the skin was cold, far too cold. She pressed harder, feeling for the pulse that should be there.

Appalled, she stared down at the pale form on the disordered bed, seeing the hollowed shadows under the eyes, the lines of grief so strong that they were still visible, even though Myriel Lenhe had passed beyond this world.

“I did the best I could, but I’m no healer.” Kevisson leaned against the bedpost at the head of the bed and shifted uneasily. “How is she?”

Enissa laid the bloodless wrist beside the woman’s body, then reached across and straightened the other arm, too. She moved back, wondering what had happened and how she was going to explain this—indeed, how Kevisson was going to explain.

“Is she worse?” He reached out and touched the white forehead, then stood there in shock.

“She’s—gone.” Enissa sighed and looked about the room, wondering if there was an intact length of silk left somewhere for the traditional shroud.

“She can’t be!” The color drained from his face. “She was sleeping when I left her, only sleeping!”

“Perhaps she didn’t want to live.” Enissa took his arm and pulled him toward the door. “Wake the servants. I’m afraid there is much to be done here before morning.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Did any of the rest of the family survive, or was she the last one?”

Kevisson took a deep breath, then shook his head, his eyes dark and miserable. “She said there were two more children, both girls. I haven’t seen them yet.”

Enissa opened the door and guided him out. “Poor little tykes,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to tell them as soon as it’s light.”

As she watched him walk away, his shoulders slouched in shock and weariness, she was touched by an uneasy feeling that Myriel Lenhe’s death had been no accident.

THE POUNDING IN
Haemas’s head crested, ebbed, then resurged again until even the effort to breathe was torment. She was freezing, as if she’d been left on an exposed ledge high up on the mountains that overlooked Tal’ayn. Her body felt like an ice-riddled lump, and every inch of it ached.

She’s nearly conscious!

That transmitted thought, although not aimed at her, thundered in her head and rattled around as if she were trapped inside one of the great festival drums she’d seen once in the Lowlands, bringing so much pain that she almost tumbled back into the beguiling darkness again. She groaned and her teeth chattered from the cold.

“She looks half dead,” a voice said.

“That’s because she fought it.” The second voice paused. “We need to get some of this down her.” An arm propped up her aching head and something hard was thrust against her lips. She tried to turn away. “Drink or I’ll drown you in it.” Although the words were hard, surprisingly the tone was not. Haemas swallowed a little of the warm tea, then choked while the rest ran down her chin.

Sometime after that, the pounding in her head receded a little, though the cold settled into a knot in her middle. Opening her eyes a crack, she gazed at a small, dingy room with only one dim, half-melted candle burning in a sconce high up on the wall. The air smelled dank and stale, as if the room hadn’t been opened in years. Her fingernails dug into patched bedclothes. Something was wrong. These weren’t her chambers.

Several shadowed figures stood looking down on her. “Welcome, Lady,” one of them said softly, then touched his fingertips to his lips in a salute.

She felt she ought to know that mocking voice, but his identity was locked up somewhere in her head behind all the pain. The walls began to swirl. Her stomach lurched and she had to close her eyes. Who were these people? Where was Enissa? If she was ill, then Enissa should be called. She didn’t want some healer employed by one of the High Houses. They were always so grim and disapproving.

Fabric rustled, then voices murmured as footsteps walked away. After a while, she found that, if she lay very still, hardly breathing, the pounding lessened even more. She opened her eyes again, staring into the unsteady half-darkness, trying to understand what had happened.

Shaking, she hitched herself up on her elbows. Again, the room spun crazily. She broke into a cold sweat and thought she would lose what little was in her stomach. Clutching at the mattress, she made herself get up anyway, and staggered a few steps before sprawling face down on the floor. The icy darkness came in waves, rolling over her until she couldn’t see or hear, receding a little, then sweeping back again.

Between waves, she struggled to her knees and hung there, the pounding in her head now a blinding torment. She wanted to call Enissa or one of the girls, but the pain was a universe unto itself and there was no way out.

Slowly she pushed herself back onto her feet, then with her hands out, felt her way through the room, unable to see clearly for the agony behind her eyes. She took one step, then another, and fumbled around a corner where the light seemed to be brighter. She heard voices again, but far away, as if she were at the bottom of a deep hole.

“She’s gone!” one said.

“Dammit, she can’t be far! Get out there and find her.” Her legs buckled and her back slid down the wall that she had been leaning against for support.

“Lady Haemas!” a male voice suddenly cried. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“Please ...” Haemas tried to focus through the shimmering waves of pain on the indistinct form before her. “You must send for Enissa!”

“Of course.”

A strong arm slipped around her shoulders and braced her to stand. “Just lean on me.”

She wavered back onto her feet. Darkness hovered above her in a giant wave, ready to break and carry her far out into an empty black sea.

“Diren, you’ve found her!”

“Of course I have,” the male voice said calmly. “I told you she wouldn’t get far in this shape. Now lock her up the way you should have done to begin with, and see that she isn’t left alone this time.”

Just as the darkness crashed down on her, she finally understood she was not in the House of Moons anymore.

* * *

An icy, penetrating rain soaked the procession of mourners as the priest, Father Orcado, flung open the double doors of the Lenhe chapel and led the way through the burned fields to the towering pyre of wood that had been stacked for young Lat Lenhe and his mother, Lady Myriel.

Kevisson walked behind the two biers, watching the healer, Enissa Saxbury, steady the two remaining Lenhe daughters with a hand on each child’s shoulder. Their hair, a deep shade of copper-gold, had been left undressed to flow down their backs, and quickly became soaked, as did their clothes and everything else under the freezing downpour.

He drew his sodden cloak more tightly about him, wondering again how he could have been so stupid as to leave Myriel alone last night. Whether she had somehow managed to take her own life or not, the responsibility for her death had to be laid at his feet.

One by one, the entire staff of chierra workers preceded the two biers into the ruined fields, lining up before the pyre of wood cut by field hands who had labored all night. Father Orcado pushed back the hood of his ebari-wool mantle and stood with his bald head bared to the pouring rain, his hands folded, as the chierra workers struggled to climb the pyre and position the two biers side by side at the top. The air smelled of wet wood and burnt grain.

Kevisson moved into place behind the little girls. The younger one of the two, who seemed about seven or eight, turned to stare at him with puzzled greenish-gold eyes.

“Are you our father?” she asked as the rain dripped down her young forehead.

“Be still, Adrina!” The other girl, who looked to be ten or so, reached across the healer’s tunic and jerked the younger child’s arm. “Mother said we would never know our father.”

Adrina looked from her sister to Kevisson, then sniffled, the tears welling up in her eyes. “But—” She stopped, her chest heaving, plainly trying to control herself. “I thought that now—maybe—”

Kevisson dropped to one knee, careless of the mud mixed with charred grain underfoot, and used his thumbs to wipe the rain and tears from her face. “I wish you were mine, little one. And whoever your father is, I’m sure he would be very proud to know you.”

“You mustn’t say that to her.” The other girl narrowed her eyes, then turned back to the pyre. Her shoulders were stiff, and she held her dripping head high. “Mother said it was wrong to want things you can never have.” She studied the chierra servants picking their way back down the mountain of wood. “She said it weakens you.”

Enissa pressed her lips together, then drew the younger girl to her side and held her close.
Let them be for now, Kevisson,
she said silently.
We’ll have to decide what can be done for them later, after we get through this.

Nodding, he stood up and brushed ineffectually at the chill mud soaking through his pants. Perhaps since the girls could not inherit Lenhe’ayn, he would take them back to the House of Moons, where they would at least be with other children while the Council bickered over what should become of their shattered lives. He could count on Haemas to take good care of them.

Slowly the priest circled the towering pyre, his expression solemn. Kevisson glanced through the crowd for faces he knew, but the assemblage of mourners seemed to be mostly chierra servants. One of the younger Castillans had come as a representative, since Myriel’s mother had been a Castillan daughter, but there were only a few other Kashi sprinkled about, none of whom he recognized. Lenhe’ayn had been a solitary House these last few years since the old Lord’s death.

Together, chierra and Kashi waited in heavy silence as the priest paced the perimeter the traditional five times, one for each appearance of the Light that had changed the people of this world, transforming them from mere humans into Kashi and chierra, rulers and ruled. His slow, measured steps through the mud were the only sound, except for the muffled sobs of the household staff and the occasional distant roll of thunder.

After the fifth and final time, he stopped before the two girls and stared down at them from under thick eyebrows. “Adrina Castillan Lenhe and Kisa Castillan Lenhe, are you the only remaining kin of this woman and this boy?”

The younger child, Adrina, only clutched at Enissa’s skirts, staring back at the tall, imposing priest with tearful eyes, but the older girl dipped her chin in a faint nod.

“Then it falls to you to light their way into the next world.” Father Orcado picked up a wet, unlit torch from the bottom of the pyre and thrust it toward her. “You must kindle the flame in the ancient Kashi fashion so they may be sent on.”

Kevisson raised an eyebrow as young Kisa took the torch, obliged to use both hands to support its weight. Orcado couldn’t mean that! He glanced around at the crowd of onlookers in surprise. Even an adult would have to use an inordinate amount of energy to light that thing in such heavy rain, and there was no way to know how much training this child had been given.

Kisa lifted her pale face to the cold rain and closed her eyes. Her fair brows furrowed and he felt her concentrating on the old ritual used to call forth the spark sacred to the Kashi’an, the People of the Light. Holding his breath, he monitored the buildup of energy in her mind, felt her tense to focus and pour it forth, and knew at the last second that it would not be enough.

The end of the torch sizzled, then smoked as the soaking rain smothered her spark. The priest shook his head, his broad face impassive. “You must try again. They can be sent on in no other way.”

Kisa’s mouth tightened, then she closed her eyes again. Kevisson felt the heat of Enissa’s anger and found it almost matched his own. Before the priest could forbid it, he laid his hand on the back of Kisa’s neck.
Concentrate,
he said into her mind.
This time you will get it.

The young girl trembled underneath his hand, but she went through the litany again, the familiar words from
The Book of Light
taught to all Kashi children as one of the first lessons learned in the mindarts.

Fire is the first aspect of the Light. I will respect and tend it just as I would the Lord of Light himself.

Her small body tensed with the effort of her concentration. Kevisson found himself reciting the words in his mind along with her.
Feel the heat ... see its brightness ... hear the crackle ... smell the smoke.

The image of fire formed in his mind just as he, and indeed all Kashi, had been taught since time beyond knowing. He felt the warmth of flames bathing his rain-chilled face, saw the crackling yellow-orange fire in his inner vision, smelled the acridness of smoke curling through the damp air.

Take the spark—
Kisa’s slender young body tensed—
and Light the Fire.

Kevisson poised, prepared to boost her spark, but this time the child’s flame was bright and true, leaping into life at the end of the sodden torch. The priest took the burning brand from her small hands and walked to the edge of the pyre. “So do we all return to the Light.” Then he leaned down and fired the wet wood, holding the torch in place until it reluctantly burned with a heavy, roiling black smoke.

Slowly the priest circled the five-cornered pyre, setting the soggy timber alight every few steps, until the flames crept toward the two biers and their untimely occupants.

Exhausted by her effort, young Kisa wavered on unsteady legs as the flames slowly ate their way upward. Kevisson sensed the child had worked beyond her strength and was about to pass out where she stood. He swept her into his arms and turned back to the main house, even though traditionally family members were supposed to remain until the pyre was fully consumed.

He heard Enissa murmur to the other girl, then follow him, slogging wearily through the muddy fields. No doubt Orcado would be angry at this flaunting of tradition, but Kevisson didn’t care. Tradition was going to be very cold comfort to this young pair of sisters in the foreseeable future.

* * *

Summerstone stepped out of the shimmering blue perfection of the nexus into sluggish, bitterly cold air in the deep forest. Behind her, the immense waterfall roared over the rocks, pouring down into the green river below, spilling kinetic energy into the ground and air and water with a recklessness that usually delighted her as much as the ilserin. But something was wrong. The anxious males had scattered, hiding in the surrounding trees, too upset even to play or swim.

Why have you called me?
She assumed her most solid form to reassure them.

They crept down the scaly gray trunks, a host of slim young males, heads bowed, shoulders hunched, black eyes dull with misery. One finely grown son, with a long, narrow chin and round eyes, ventured nearer than any of the rest.
Gone, gone! It is gone!

What is gone—
she plucked his name from his conscious thoughts,
Leafcurl?