Stained Glass Monsters (23 page)

Kendall cast a sideways look at Rennyn's
face. She never seemed at all concerned about evacuations, never
looked at the groups of angry folk they passed, even though there
was supposed to be some great evil conspiracy of people out to get
her. Was that likely? There'd been attempts aimed at the Sentene,
and the royal family, but the only attack on the Claires had been
Sebastian getting in the way of some Night Roamers. From what
Kendall had heard, even her Night Roamer uncle had seemed more
interested in talking to Rennyn than killing her. The gossip about
her answers in the Hall of Question made it clear she wasn't
interested in helping the Black Queen, or becoming Queen herself,
but that didn't mean she didn't have her own agenda.

Kendall was uncomfortable with her
thoughts, but mulled them over all the way south from the camp to
Sanlecey, which was a big town not far from the Lecey Forest, where
they nicely filled one of the larger inns, and another down the
road. While everyone settled in, looking after the horses and
setting up guard stations, Kendall watched the crowd which formed
outside on the street. She'd be out there herself if she was a
local. Sentene were an exciting enough sight, let alone a whole
troop of them. Did they know that Rennyn Claire was with them? Was
that why some of them looked angry?

Heading downstairs, she found Rennyn in
the smaller dining room, sitting down to table for an early meal
with a mix of the Hand and Sentene, including Sukata and her mother
and Lieutenant Danress. Kendall spent her time covertly studying
her would-be teacher and thinking over Surclere arrogance. Though
she sat at the same table with them, Rennyn was very much separate.
She listened more than talked, lost in her own thoughts or in the
meal. A real mage, a Montjuste-Surclere, with secrets.

"Why did Prince Tiandel betray his
mother?"

Rennyn, who had been deeply involved in
a gloopy trifle, looked up at Kendall's question. Her expression
didn't change, which only reinforced Kendall's growing feeling that
she was always guarding herself against them.

"What's the popular theory?"

Always answering questions with
questions, buying herself time to come up with a story. "That the
side-effects of the Grand Summoning – the stuff that's happening
around Falk now – upset him. That he couldn't accept the price she
was willing to pay in other people's lives."

"Mm – well, to be the fair, Solace
didn't know the precise details of what would happen either. They
both knew there would very likely be a general increase in
breaches, that there would definitely be great stresses placed on
the walls between worlds in a predictable pattern, and that there
would be an initial outward expression of the spell. They both knew
that people would probably die, directly or indirectly, as a result
of the Summoning. The rationalisation was that in a war – for the
threat of a Kolan invasion was very real – there are casualties.
That for the greater good, sacrifices had to be made."

"And do you believe that?"

Rennyn Claire didn't answer right away.
Everyone else at the table had stopped talking, and the only sound
was the clink of her spoon as she put it down.

"Yes and no." Her eyes were completely
black, face expressionless. "If I had to kill you, to stop Solace,
would you think it wrong?"

"Of course I would!" Kendall said
immediately, then faltered. She was here, alive, because this woman
had chosen the exact opposite.

Rennyn smiled, and stood up. "Well, if
it's any consolation, I don't plan to kill anyone if I can at all
avoid it. But perhaps that was Solace's feeling as well. As to why
Tiandel betrayed her, it was something she said to him just before
she commenced the Summoning. The Council had been playing her off
against the Montjuste Pretender in an attempt to increase their own
power, and she was very much a Queen who believed that she should
rule absolutely. She told Tiandel that after the Summoning, no-one
would ever oppose her again. That gave him a lot to think
about."

Moving to the door, she glanced at
Captain Illuma. "An early start tomorrow?"

"Shortly after dawn." The Captain's face
was particularly blank. Sukata, beside her, had that slightly
hunched posture that said she was upset.

When Rennyn nodded and left, Kendall
refused to get up and leave too. Though her face burned, she ate
all of her trifle, ignoring the muttered conversation between two
of the Hand, and the less obvious communication between the
Sentene. She hadn't done anything wrong. Everyone tiptoed around
Rennyn not asking the questions they should. Just because they were
both enemies of the Black Queen didn't mean they were on the same
side.

Finished, she pushed her chair back and
went out, unsurprised but annoyed when Lieutenant Danress followed
her.

"Let's go for a walk, hey?"

Kendall didn't want to talk, but she
knew the Sentene mage wouldn't leave her alone until she'd said her
piece, so she followed along silently, out a back door of the inn
where there wasn't such an audience, and down one of the sloping
cobbled streets. Danress wasn't wearing her coat, and in the long
shadows of late afternoon they didn't draw any attention.

Sanlecey was a pretty town, with lots of
up and down streets and tall, thin houses with dressing around the
window – they looked like the dollhouse Nan Tikal had been so fond
of boasting about. All of the houses had little patches of garden
out front – not for vegetables, but full of flowers. Roses mainly,
and sprawling bushes covered with purple and white daisies. At the
bottom of the hill was a wide curving street edged with fancy
stores on one side and a park on the other. There was a pond in the
middle, and they sat on a bench to watch two swans drift about
looking bored.

"How much of Sark will be destroyed, do
you reckon?"

Lieutenant Danress grimaced. "Between
hundreds and thousands of homes. Up to half of the city, though we
are praying we will lose only the fringe. There's pressure to
divert as many Hand and Sentene mages as possible into shielding
certain buildings that lie on the edge of the predicted
destruction. The Dawnbringer's Temple, for instance, is a work of
art, truly glorious, and it's sure to be badly damaged, even if
it's not crushed outright. They're removing the windows, hoping to
preserve them elsewhere, but the carvings -"

"There's lots of mages who aren't in the
Queen's service, aren't there? Can't they do that?"

"Some will be. But it's a question of
numbers, and the danger. Shielding large areas against crushing
force is a massive undertaking. You saw what it took Lady Rennyn to
protect a single room. For us to protect entire buildings will take
time to set up, and unless the mages are willing to trust the
shields enough to stay within them during the expansion – a thing
Lady Weston has forbidden for both the Sentene and the Hand – we
will need to factor in duration. The shields will be set as near to
the last moment as we dare, and then left."

"Saving buildings instead of people."
Kendall had lived close to Sark all her life, but never been there,
never seen the great glass windows of the Temple which were
supposed to be so special.

"We can understand the reasons – the
Temple, particularly, is one of Tyrland's jewels. But there are
things we'd prefer to be doing."

She meant protecting Rennyn. Kendall
scowled at a swan, which moved on unconcerned.

"Don't mistake what's happening here,"
Lieutenant Danress said. "We know there's things she hasn't told
us, that there's some further complexity she's keeping back.
Half-truths mostly, but the occasional bald-faced lie. She can act,
but the omissions become obvious eventually."

"Could she take control of the power the
Black Queen's summoned, instead of – whatever she's supposed to
do?"

The look Lieutenant Danress gave her was
so startled, Kendall explained the suspicion which had been growing
in her.

"She doesn't want the throne, she's no
friend of the Black Queen. She said she isn't going to cast the
Grand Summoning herself. But couldn't she take all that power and
make it hers?"

"I – I'd say that's impossible, but
given Lady Rennyn's abilities, perhaps I shouldn't underestimate
her. But that would be monstrously dangerous to the city and
there's a vast difference between could and would."

"What other reason does she have to lie?
She's – it's so obvious that she must be going to do something
wrong. She just admitted that she'd be willing to kill innocent
people to win. Lie about what she intends to do, and if she has to,
kill people. Without even telling them why, without even giving
them a choice."

Lieutenant Danress shook her head. "Lady
Rennyn may be hiding something, but do you think we – let alone the
Kellian – would not see through that kind of motive? There's no
finer judge of character than a Kellian, and whatever else this is,
they're sure Lady Rennyn isn't power-hungry."

Kendall glowered. "Don't you think the
Kellian might be a little biased? She's–"

"A Montjuste-Surclere? Believe me, that
hardly recommended her to the Kellian."

"They don't act like that."

"Hmph. Their current behaviour is
dictated by the events of the Black Night. Keste – Keste Faral and
I get along well and she tried to describe to me their first
reaction, after we returned from Finton and were speculating over
Lady Rennyn's identity. They found the idea of Montjuste-Surclere
survivors annoying."

"Annoying?" That didn't match how they
acted.

"People mistake the Kellian manner for a
lack of will, but it's totally the opposite. They are – in a way
they're very, ah, proud's not the word and nor is arrogant. They
have incredibly high standards. They don't like to be connected
with people who are...base. The Black Queen is their idea of base,
and they don't consider Prince Tiandel was much better. They have a
very low opinion of selfishness, of hurting others for your own
benefit."

"They're all
holier-than-the-Dawnbringer?"

Lieutenant Danress laughed, and
shrugged. "Not really – they certainly don't go around trying to
reform people. They just find certain people distasteful. Most of
the rest they are unfailingly polite to, and some they consider
worth knowing. When I was first assigned to be my Captain's
partner, I was in dread of not living up to him."

Kendall would have just been in dread.
"He's a scary man."

"Daunting," Lieutenant Danress agreed,
in much the same tone she'd use for 'wonderful'. "Do you know – he
knows more about magical theory than me – he just has no ability to
cast? To be a novice Sentene and assigned to be his partner was a
nightmare, but he gave me plenty of chances to prove myself and
treated any mistakes as the minor things they were – so long as I
did not make them twice."

Kendall thought Lieutenant Danress had a
bad case of hero worship, but kept that to herself. Sukata was a
bit the same way about Captain Faille, which Kendall just found
perplexing.

"There's a reason Illuma and Faille are
so respected," Lieutenant Danress went on, smiling at Kendall's
expression. "They are extraordinary, both brilliant and fair. Not
to mention very protective of their people. The idea of
Montjuste-Surcleres resurfacing, linked with someone like Solace –
as Lady Rennyn seemed she might be when we encountered her in
Finton – well, they found it annoying, as I said. Like a
sheep-thief relative showing up at a wedding.

"And then the Black Night, where
Sebastian throws himself in front of a clutch of Irisian and Lady
Rennyn – if we had taken even a minute or two longer in killing the
last of the Eferum-Get, she may have died. And she chose that, to
not let an Azrenel loose even at the cost of her life, because it
was a worse thing than the Black Queen. The Kellian stopped finding
their link to her a negative thing after that, and are almost
possessive where she's concerned. While they very much want to know
just what it is she's keeping back, they trust her overall
goals."

"Even without knowing what they
are."

"It's more the means which are in
question. We are certain she truly intends to stop Solace."

"You could just ask."

"You think we haven't, directly and
indirectly? The problem is the way she's been raised. All this was
meant to be a secret, she was supposed to avoid us even knowing she
existed. Not sensible, of course, but nothing we do seems to
convince her that we can protect her adequately. She won't even
discuss how to deal with the final incursion, which is in the Fens,
until she's done the next partial attunement in the Hall of
Summoning. We're almost certain she intends to cut loose from us
after the Fens incursion, and make her own way to the Hall of
Summoning. Frustrating, as you can imagine."

"Why does this attunement have to happen
at all? Can't you just attack the Black Queen when she shows up in
the Hall of Summoning, and kill her?"

"If only. She'll be shielded, and had at
least a rudimentary command of Force magic. With her strength she'd
swat us like bugs before we scratched her defences. With the kind
of power she'll have at her disposal, even destroying the entire
Hall before her arrival wouldn't cause her much bother. Not that we
aren't going to prepare for a direct battle, should we fail to stop
the Summoning, but–"

"What do the rest of the Sentene think
of Rennyn?"

"Oh, we're all too busy lusting after
her magical knowledge to have any opinion. Meniar made a good point
the other day, though."

"What?"

"That the Council debates had some
basis. That if Tiandel hadn't abdicated, Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere
would be Tyrland's Queen." Lieutenant Danress looked at the
darkening sky. "Shall we head back?"