Stained Glass Monsters (24 page)

Shrugging, Kendall followed the Sentene
mage up the hill, her calves aching by the time they reached the
inn, glad when Lieutenant Danress left her to make her own way
upstairs. Rennyn's door was closed. Kendall frowned at it and
tapped – too lightly to wake a sleeper – and bit her lip when the
handle turned and opened.

The room was full of floating things.
Rennyn lay in the bed, arms folded over the coverlet, and the Black
Queen's focus sitting in her lap. Everything that wasn't nailed
down was swooping around the ceiling, but it all settled back as
Kendall came in.

"What's that in aid of?"

The woman reached out and picked her own
focus off the coverlet, slipping it back over her head. "You never
really stop with Thought magic exercises. Just like people who
swing swords about, practice is important."

Kendall looked at her steadily. "Keeps
you occupied, too. Like giving people lectures on magic."

This only prompted a faint, wry smile.
"You wanted something?"

"My Gran used to tell me that the ends
don't justify the means. What's the difference between you and the
Black Queen if you're both willing to kill people to get your
way?"

"Probably none, to any people I happen
to kill," Rennyn said. She didn't seem surprised by the question,
or particularly upset. "If there's any difference, it's that I'll
feel bad about it after, and from what I've read of Solace's
journals, I'm not certain she would."

"
Is
that a difference?"

"Well, I tell myself that it is. Are you
trying to argue me out of continuing, Kendall?"

"N-no."

"Do you really think I'm as bad as
Solace?"

"...no."

"Then why are you so upset?"

"She didn't start out bad, did she? The
Black Queen?"

Rennyn's eyes widened, then she sat up,
revealing a plain-cut linen nightdress. "Come here."

"Why?"

"Because."

Infuriating as ever, but Kendall didn't
quite like to just walk out, so she moved slowly forward. And got
hugged for her pains, a soft, quick squeeze. The Black Queen's
focus swung against the back of her legs, cold and heavy.

"You surprise me again, Kendall," Rennyn
said, letting go. "I will do my best not to become the thing I am
fighting. You have my word on it."

Scarlet-faced, Kendall backed away. "Ask
permission first," she said. "If you're going to change other
people's lives. At least give them the choice."

This Rennyn didn't answer, only sat
looking at her, so Kendall left, just managing not to slam the door
behind her. A faint stir at the end of the landing showed her
Captain Faille on guard, looking particularly ominous and not best
impressed with her. Kendall escaped into the next room, where
Sukata was pretending to be asleep already.

Queen of Tyrland all right, taking
people over, acting like they were her business. Making decisions
about other people's lives. A scary woman.

She'd smelled like vanilla.

Lecey Forest gave Rennyn a great deal of
pleasure. It was very different from the forests of the north,
which were grand and pine-scented and overwhelming. Lecey was full
of smaller trees, none of which Rennyn had the knowledge to
identify. Primarily twisty, black-barked ones, their canopies low
overhead and the foliage dense. On a less well-favoured day it
would probably be damp and gloomy, for there was moss and lichen
decorating the undersides of all the branches, but the skies had
been fortunately clear since they'd left Sark, and so the forest
was a dapple-green playground for butterflies and sunbeams.

There were no convenient coach-roads
running past the incursion point, but Rennyn had enjoyed being on
horseback for an unhurried journey along trails winding between
bushes and trees. There were plenty of berry brambles, too,
offering a juicy selection of sweet and tart, and only a few
scratches. Every so often the trees eased back, and they blinked at
dazzling-bright clearings spattered with flowers.

The Sentene vanguard had widened and
established camp in one of these, with fewer tents than usual and
no provision for the handful of horses, which were taken back out
again by the Ferumguard, since there was little room for them in
the single circle of protection established. The trunks of
freshly-felled trees had been pulled about a big central cooking
area, and while they settled into camp one of the Ferumguard filled
two frying pans with sausages, mushrooms and bacon, then broke eggs
into the mix so they cooked together into savoury disks.

"Will you be able to locate the
incursion today?" Captain Illuma asked, as Rennyn worked her way
through lunch.

"Tomorrow morning at the earliest,"
Rennyn said, in a way glad to postpone the task another day.
"Though I might take some readings later, to see what kind of
reaction is detectable this far out."

After lunch, she checked how Kendall and
Sukata were going with their exercises, and was surprised to see
how far Sukata had progressed. Not that she could move something,
but that she'd managed to rein in her own strength, and was nudging
a small leaf about with a semblance of choosing the direction.

"The leaf's a good idea," she said,
approvingly. "Less chance of embedding it in someone."

Torn between trying to escape for a
private walk and feeling unusually settled, Rennyn watched the pair
self-consciously struggling with the task, thinking over Kendall's
accusation of the previous day. The offence not just of killing
people, but of making decisions without their permission. Did all
that come out of some past choice made on the girl's behalf, or
just the sheer mule-stubbornness of her personality?

She heard Captain Faille take a step
behind her, but didn't look back. She'd grown so used to his
presence she'd started to notice his absences instead, and that
made her hate the idea of Kellian bodyguards more than ever. Had it
been inevitable that she end up surrounded by them, using them as
Solace had? She was sure that Faille, like Kendall, would bitterly
resent decisions made on his behalf. She wished that didn't matter
to her.

Thinking about the man, Rennyn nearly
jumped out of her skin when he reached down and touched one
sun-tipped finger to the thick bracelet around her right wrist,
pushing it further along her arm. He straightened as she looked up
at him.

"Meniar," he said, "Find some way to
shield Lady Montjuste-Surclere's wrists."

Lieutenant Meniar, who had been
pretending to review his slates while he day-dreamed, gave them
both a startled glance, then came across to study what Faille's
sharp eyes had caught. Resigned, Rennyn removed the bracelet,
cradling the focus carefully in her lap, and allowed Meniar to
inspect the circle of bruises and rubbed skin. He shook his head,
then fetched salve and bandages.

"How heavy is that thing? To you, I
mean?" he asked.

Rennyn picked it up doubtfully,
controlling the faint, ever-present wobble which was its reaction
to the Grand Summoning. "About four pounds?"

"Is it necessary to wear it all the
time? Is that part of the attunement?"

"It's to stop me dropping it," Rennyn
replied, and placed the focus carefully on the ground. As soon as
she let go it sank several inches, and then the earth around it
trembled, compressing out in a series of rings which came
perilously close to undermining the fire-pit. "You can imagine what
would happen if it fell off my lap while I was in the coach,"
Rennyn added, as the entire camp stopped to stare.

Tenbury, one of the younger Hand mages,
recovered more quickly than the rest and crossed to the depression,
gauging it with probing fingers. "It mimics the distortion?" he
said, more to himself than Rennyn, then looked sharply at her,
adding: "You will allow us to divine this effect?"

His tone was more demand than request,
but Rennyn shrugged, not inclined to spoil her day arguing. She
didn't like Tenbury, who never succeeded in hiding his resentment
when she refused to share information, but she knew there was
little he'd be able to do with the focus.

She watched their initial attempts to
pick it up while Meniar salved her wrist and cast an encouragement
to healing. "The bracelet doesn't leave room for a great deal of
padding," he said, winding on a thin layer of bandage. "Can you at
least alternate hands?"

"Yes – the other's just more awkward,
especially if I'm writing. I only really need to carry it when
we're travelling. Or on marshy ground. Or in wooden buildings. It
grows heavier with each expansion of the main distortion, but I
doubt it will become impossible to cart about. That would defeat
the purpose."

As soon as both her wrists were neatly
protected with soft bandage, Rennyn changed her shoes and went for
a walk, since the area in front of her tent was now crowded with
excited mages. There were plenty of criss-crossing animal trails
through the undergrowth, and she followed them at random. Berries,
flowers, sun-spotted clearings, the occasional bird or small animal
which would leap away. Guards. It was certainly the most
well-protected bit of forest in all Tyrland.

She walked until the sun started
slanting, stopping by a small stream, perhaps the same one which
ran by the camp, though she had taken enough turns to have no idea
where the camp was. There was a rock there which made a nice seat,
and she studied the mix of sun and shadow on the water, then looked
at Faille, who was as dappled as the forest. He moved
near-silently, but she'd known he followed.

"The question of whether my distant
uncle is loyal to Solace is giving me a lot of trouble," she
said.

Shifting position from voiceless guard
to consultative strategist without blinking an eye, Faille said:
"The difficulty lies in the Azrenel."

Like Seb, he was quick to see critical
points. "Hate us or not, sane or not, for Solace to loose an
Azrenel is outside all expectations. Even if she
were
intent
on destroying Tyrland instead of ruling it, to not do so personally
is out of character. It was only through a fortunate set of
circumstances that we were able to stop it so quickly. I just can't
see her enjoying a return to an empty kingdom."

"It may be the bargain she has
made."

That was true. Being trapped within the
cycle of the Grand Summoning could have brought her to total
desperation. "Again out of character," Rennyn said slowly.

"Three choices. Queen Solace allowed it.
Prince Helecho arranged it outside her knowledge. Or the Azrenel
was an opportunist, following the activity of the lesser
Eferum-Get."

Prince Helecho. The title distracted,
raising so many issues, but Rennyn put it from her thoughts. "The
organisation of the incursions falls under the same question: with
or without her knowledge?"

"If Prince Helecho is disloyal, there
must be some bar which prevents him from simply attacking Queen
Solace. Else, we would not be facing this."

"Tiandel did give her a lesson in trust.
Helecho may be operating under a deep-set injunction, the kind of
thing where he would have to at least obey the letter of her
commands, if not the intent."

"Much as you answer questions."

She looked over at him, but matters were
coming too close to the end for her to smile at the comment. "True
enough."

"Is it so difficult to trust us?"

Faille's voice was even thinner than
usual, and she met something exposed in his gaze. She should have
known not to start a conversation, and realised she'd been drawn to
do so precisely because she did trust him. Not just to keep the
conversation to himself, but to understand the problem and help her
see it more clearly. To support her.

"This isn't about trust," she said, not
able to hold sunlit eyes. Not when the explanation she dreaded was
only a few days away, and would change everything. Not when she was
discovering that it would cost her to hurt him.

Then, because there didn't seem to be
anything else to say, she started back to the camp, letting
Solace's focus lead her. He followed silently in her wake,
voiceless guard once again. Tool in the service of a
Montjuste-Surclere.

-oOo-

"And what is that one? To the right of
the arrow?"

"Fel's Veil. Down below it is Rothyria
the Wolf."

"A wolf? How?"

"Eh, just the head, I guess. Kind of
squashed. The ears are pricked up and pointing east, see."

Kendall was introducing Sukata to the
stars. City-raised, the Kellian girl had spent too much time in
stone buildings, and not enough looking up. Besides, with almost
everyone off standing around some random patch of forest waiting
for Rennyn and any other monsters to come out of the Hells, there
wasn't a whole heap to do.

"Are you certain you're not inventing
these?" Sukata asked for the third time.

"Look them up in that library when we
get back."

"I will do that."

Kellian humour, Kendall decided. It was
growing easier to work out Sukata. Not chatty, but a lot like Nina
Lippon, who was the quiet, smart one of the Lippon brood. She
wasn't shy, she wasn't particularly stuck-up, but she liked to
listen more than talk. The thing was
all
the Kellian were
like that. Maybe talking hurt them: their voices all sounded
damaged in some way, thin and weak. Captain Faille had said the
first Kellian hadn't been able to speak at all.

"Do you see the wolf's nose?"

"Possibly."

"Look the way it's pointing and there's
a swirly clump. That's the Emperor's Clasp, the one the Emperor of
Kole lost when he was trying to walk across whatever that sea is
called."

"The Sanase. The Sea of Tears. It
is...it is a lake, not a sea, but a large lake. The legend says the
water is sweet. Have you heard the story behind that?"