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aithne(Stone Sky Dramatis Personae)
Imryne, of House Melrae
Book Three: Stone Sky
Chapter Four: A Draught Very Bitter
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
--Swinburne, Mater Dolorosa
(Urlryn, in House Melrae)
It was late in the third watch, and a snore rattled around the room and echoed off the high ceiling. There was silence for a moment. Then a snort, and the snore rattled again.
Urlryn raised her head. Next to her, Tar was sleeping with her mouth open, and the ungodly noise was emanating from her. In the dim light shed by the timepiece, she could see that Jevan slept peacefully on; nothing short of an earthquake would wake him. Imryne had her head under the blankets, the only part visible of her a hand resting above her head.
Tar was curled around her swollen belly, one hand resting on the curve of it. She was due to give birth in four skeins, and according to Imryne she always snored in the last half of a pregnancy. This was Urlryn's first time going through a pregnancy with Tarithra, and unlike Imryne Urlryn hadn't yet gotten the chance to get used to sleeping through the snoring.
She smiled fondly at her wife, and slipped from the bed. She opened the door of the bedroom and stepped into the large central room of the set. The children's rooms were clustered down a short hallway off of the opposite side and she went in turn to each of the doors, peeking inside.
Angaste's bed was empty, but that was only to be expected; she was curled up with her older sister Maya. Tonight, she saw that Sabal was camped on the floor of his sister's room. He was no longer allowed to share a bed with his sisters, not after his hair had started growing out, but he did sometimes stretch the rules a bit by staying on Maya's floor.
Next door, Faeryl was curled up under her blanket, the stuffed monster she was far too old for tucked in her arms. It was threadbare in places, almost worn through, but she insisted on keeping it. She was not really a child any more, was Faeryl, and Tar's features were repeated in hers. So young, and bidding to soon be as powerful a priestess as her mother. In the next room, Ulitree slept, curled tightly around a cushion that she had retrieved from one of the far corners of the House. Urlryn watched her breathe for a moment, watching this lost child. She was having the first stirrings and longings of maturity now, and her affections had focused themselves on the four main adults in her life. Urlryn privately sympathized with her, having suffered through her own unexpressed adoration of the women and man who were now her spouses, but she knew that Ulitree's story would have a far different path than her own.
Lesrak, across the hall, didn't have a bed in his room at all, still keeping his childhood penchant for making piles of pillows and blankets to sleep in. He slept with one long arm thrown over his head, cradled in a nest in one corner of his room. He was perpetually uncomfortable in his skin, approaching the age when males had their fates decided by their mothers without a clear idea of what path Imryne was going to choose for him. He was both a fair warrior and an a reasonably good mage, though without the brilliance of Ilfryn.
Imryne was delaying giving her older son his first throat-band. Urlryn wasn't sure why, except that it signaled the end of his childhood, when he would move to quarters of his own. Even though cycles had passed since Ilfryn had died, Imryne seemed to be having difficulty letting go of any part of him.
She shook her head and stepped back. The largest room on this hall belonged to Challay, and Urlryn would have left her alone except that her door was wide open, and there was a dim light spilling out of it. Urlryn slipped to the lintel and peered around it.
Challay was sitting at her table, her head pillowed on her arms, and the coldlight in the dish next to her was dwindling. There was ink drying on a stone and a pen set next to her head. Urlryn stepped inside, putting her hand on Challay's shoulder. "Challay. You should be in bed."
Challay jerked upright, her dark eyes wide. "I--oh, Urlryn. What are you doing up? Is Tar snoring again?"
"Yes," she said, with a small smile. "I saw your light. Late night again?"
"Aren't they all?" She yawned, looking in that moment almost exactly like a blade-thin version of her mother. At over thirty cycles old, was as past time for her to move into her own rooms, but still she lingered and Imryne encouraged her to stay. "I'll go to bed. I always have such a cramp in my neck when I fall asleep at the table."
She rose, raking her fingers through her rumpled hair. Urlryn stepped back and closed the door after her, letting Challay get undressed and tumbled into bed. She left the hall and went back into the main room, listening to the muffled sound of Tar's snoring.
The big window faced up-cavern, towards the hulking masses of House Xalyth and Vandree, and the ruin of Kilsek. Eleven cycles, she thought. Seventeen surface years. Eleven cycles of the drider owning the streets, eleven cycles of a slow slide into despair.
She heard the low hum of the scrubbing spells on the window, cleaning the air that came through it. The air in the great cavern of Fanaedar was perpetually smoky and foul these days. The sewers were in poor repair, and raw waste flowed through the streets in the lower part of the cavern, pooling in stinking lakes in the lowest parts. Other systems were failing as well, systems that Urlryn hadn't even realized existed. The great turbines that kept the air moving were now broken far more than they were functioning. House Kilsek had been responsible for those turbines, and none of the other houses had chosen to stick their necks out long enough to see to true repairs on them.
This city locked in stone was dying, and none of the great houses would risk offending Vandree Imrae by suggesting solutions. The high houses all had the ability to repair their own sewers, and install the scrubbing spells on doors and windows, and those that were not noble were left to fend for themselves.
Urlryn had seen it all in her duties to House Melrae, the information trade that she had been trained for from birth. She had long since stopped trying to convince Imryne that something needed to be done. Triel counseled patience, and Imryne was ever and always her mother's daughter. Triel had also stopped having children, her youngest still Nimruil. Imryne, in the last two cycles, had become more and more uneasy about her mother, starting to wonder if there were something wrong that she was not sharing.
Triel kept her own counsel. Imrae with her drider kept the city bound in a peace so harsh that no houses great or small had perished since Kilsek.
Within the House, life was good, if somewhat circumscribed. But out there...
Urlryn spent a long time looking out the window, before going back to bed.
{Imryne, in House Melrae)
The day that everything changed started out well enough. Imryne saw the children off to their tutors and Jevan escorted Imryne to House Oblodra for her own lessons. They returned to House Melrae for mid-meal, joining Urlryn and Tar in the set. Angaste was there as well, as the only child young enough that she was not out having lessons. They finished mid-meal and settled in for a bit; this was a fine and quiet part of the ilit, a little time spent all together before Imryne would go to her laboratory, Tar would go to attend services, Urlryn would leave the house to go check on her network, and Jevan would go supervise the guard shift change.
Soon after they were settled in, though, Imryne raised her head, hearing pounding feet outside the door. She didn't have time to rise and go investigate before Maya burst in, glancing around wildly. Their usually-calm daughter was wide-eyed and panting. "Mothers, Father. Sabal is in trouble!"
Imryne was on her feet, her heart in her throat. "What's wrong?"
"We left the compound. Sabal got hit by a drider. It's going to kill him!"
By this time, all of the adults were on their feet. Despite her growing belly, Tar was still quick on her feet and was out the door first with Jevan. Imryne followed, hearing Urlryn tell Angaste to go find her grandmother and shelter in her rooms. Urlryn was right at her shoulder then, and people in the halls of the house were moving swiftly out of their way, plastering themselves against the walls. Maya was running with them, out the doors of the inner house and down to the gates. Jevan turned to Imryne, opening his arms, preparing to take her up.
Maya shook her head sharply. "No, Father, follow me." She pulled open the gate, slipping through it once it was open wide enough to admit her. The drider by the gate saw her and stiffened, raising its two front legs in a warning that an attack was about to come. Maya simply looked at it and said, "No, you saw nothing pass, nothing at all."
Those bladed legs lowered, and the drider's face assumed a blank expression, staring into nothingness. Then Maya was running again, and the rest of them followed her. Imryne had no breath and no time for questions, instead tucking her head and stretching out her long legs.
They arrived very quickly at the nearest market, and Imryne skidded to a startled halt as she saw the mess that had been made in the market square. There was blood everywhere, lumps of flesh that Imryne blinked a few times before she resolved into segments of drider body, legs and abdomen and drow torso scattered this way and that. Sabal was in the center of the mess, bleeding heavily and struggling to get out of a partial cocooning. The silk that held him tight was stained with blood, whether his or the drider's there was no way of knowing.
Imryne dropped to her knees by her son's side, Maya hovering over her nervously. Sabal's face was pinched with pain, but his wounds weren't bad enough that he was going to bleed to death in the next few heartbeats, at least. She tore apart the cocooning silk, freeing his legs. "Mother--" he started to say.
Behind Imryne, there was a shriek that impelled her into immediate motion, jumping to her feet and turning. Tar was bent double, a figure clad in flowing robes and a veil leaning almost lovingly against her, one hand curled around her shoulder.
The figure's other hand was on a dagger that was hilt-deep in Tar's abdomen, and watery blood was flowing down Tar's dress, spreading in a dark stain.
Behind the figure, four more drider stood, their front legs raised for the attack. "Jevan, take Tar!" Imryne screamed, a spell weaving itself whole and entire in her mind, the syllables beginning to flow from her lips.
Jevan moved.
He was a blur, swords moving, and the cloaked figure never stood a chance. Its head parted from its shoulders, and Jevan had scooped up Tar and was away before the headless body fell twitching to the ground. Imryne's spell completed, and a shimmering barrier flickered into being around all of them.
Urlryn was pulling Sabal to his feet, and the drider were throwing themselves at Imryne's barrier, making sizzling thuds against it. "Jevan, take Tar to Mother. I can move this barrier, we can walk back," she said. Jevan nodded and took off, and she opened a hole in the barrier to let them through.
The barrier stood strong, but Imryne was very glad that it was only a little way back to the safety of House Melrae. She started walking, holding her head high, pushing the barrier back effortlessly. It was drawing more drider who were throwing themselves at it, pummeling it fruitlessly. All of them were silent, Sabal being held up by Maya and Urlryn, Imryne's whole consciousness eaten by worry for Tar.
The barrier not only drew drider, but countless eyes from rooftops and window, and Imryne felt utterly exposed. Block by slow block they made it to the gates of Melrae, at least a hundred drider shoving and pushing and hitting her barrier. The gates of Melrae opened, and once they had closed the drider stopped attempting to attack. "They're surrounding the house," a guard on the wall called down. "Just standing there."
Imryne's gut twisted. "Set Sabal down, I can work on him. What happened?" she asked Maya and Sabal. Urlryn took off towards the inner house, presumably to find Jevan and Tar.
Maya took a deep breath and blurted, "We went out. I missed one, it ran into Sabal. It just sort of freaked out and started hitting him. Then Sabal..." She shook her head. "He went mad. They were fighting."
Imryne was bent over Sabal, muttering at his wounds. Under her hands, the blood was ceasing to flow from the deepest of them. Sabal was looking up at Imryne with an expression of intense fear on his face.
She glanced up at Maya, then down at Sabal. "Sabal? What happened when the drider started hitting you?"
She didn't think that the tension in his voice was all pain. "I didn't think it could see me. Maya was blocking it, but it ran into me and then started lashing out. It hit me and then I saw myself grab its front leg and yank it out."
Slowly, Imryne asked, "You...tore it apart?" She realized that the hair at the nape of her neck was sopping with sweat, the power she was calling on seeming vague and thin. She would pay for this day's adventure, she thought.
"I couldn't stop. It hit me, I broke its legs, it tried to use its webbing to stop me. I tore that off too, then I got to the joint of drow and spider and pulled the two apart." He swallowed. "I am sorry, Mother. I couldn't stop."
She smiled, just a little. "You take after your father. Remind me to tell you about what happened when a lower house kidnapped him, once." Under her hands, new skin knotted over the last of Sabal's wounds. "That should do it. Maya, can you help your brother back to his room? I'm going to go check on Tar."
She nodded, and Imryne was on her feet, nearly running towards the inner doors. Triel met her in the corridor outside of her apartments, a grave look on her face. Before Imryne could ask, she said, "Tar is fine. The baby, though, is lost. The dagger went through the child, and it was dead already. I took it out. The damage to Tar was minimal. She is already healed, just grieving." She took Imryne's hands in hers, meeting her daughter's eyes with a grave expression. "Take a moment to see her, then meet me at the front gate. Imrae is already here."
Imrae. Goddess, please preserve us! Imryne merely nodded and squeezed her mother's hands, then dropped them and stepped past her to see Tar sitting on a chaise in the center of the room. Jevan was holding her tightly, and Tar was sobbing, clinging to him. Urlryn had her arms around the both of them, her forehead against the side of Tar's head as if she were trying to will the grief in her to cease.
Silently, Imryne crossed the room and dropped to her knees beside the chaise. Tar opened her arms to include Imryne in her embrace. They stayed like that for a few long moments, the sound of Tar's sobbing the only thing Imryne could hear other than her heart banging loud in her ears. Finally, she said, "I have to go see if there's any way Imrae will let our house live after this."
Tar nodded. Urlryn said, "I'll stay here. Jevan, you go with Imryne."
Jevan fell in behind Imryne as she crossed the room once more, heading towards the outer house. Neither of them spoke at first, and Imryne's head was bowed, her mind whirling.
"Any way out of this?" Jevan asked in a low voice.
Imryne's hands were shaking, and she fisted them to stop the trembling. "I don't know. Imrae will demand blood. A lot of it, likely, especially if whoever stabbed Tar was important to her."
"We are ready if it comes to that," he said. "We won't survive, but I will make sure we take as many as we can with us."
"I know. If we're very lucky, the favors I've done for Imrae will weigh well." There were the carved doors that led to the outer house, and the guards opened them, their eyes worried though their posture was stiff as always. "I can't hand her any of the children."
"I know. I can't either." They passed through the last set of doors, and the thump of them closing was like a tomb door thumping closed behind them.
They were silent as they made their way towards the gates. Triel was standing straight and tall, and just on the other side of the black metal gate Imrae was pacing, rage radiating from her like a stench. Triel was talking to Imrae in a low voice.
Imrae whirled when she saw Imryne. "Seems there was an incident." Her tone and the way she was standing belied her mild words. Imryne pulled herself upright, putting away the part of her that wanted to quail in fear.
"There was, it seems," she said, her voice grave. "Imrae, I'm very sorry about this."
"Did the boy live, and the woman?"
Imryne inclined her head. "Both did, though the child she was carrying died."
Imrae was silent for a moment, regarding Imryne. Then she nodded. "Well, that can be payment for the drider. But for Larynda, there is a heavier toll."
Now Imryne's eyes widened, and her gut clenched with fear. Larynda. Oh goddess, she can demand my life in payment. "Larynda died?"
"She is in two pieces. So quite dead."
"I'm so sorry." Imryne paused, took a breath, tried to fight the feeling of dread that was building to a wave in her. "So, I'm guessing you want blood in kind." If it saves my family and my house--
Imrae shifted her weight, swaying back slightly, a motion of satisfaction. "Yes, I was inclined to take yours, but I have always liked you and your mother refused." Startled, Imryne glanced at Triel who was standing stock-still, perfectly composed except for the fidgeting fingers that were resting on her ring. Imrae continued, "I pointed out that the house will be destroyed and you would all be dead. So we came to a bargain. She offered herself and I agreed. Your house lives. Triel will pay with her blood."
There was a welter of confused voices in Imryne's head, thoughts skittering like small creatures in the darkness. No, please, no-- She turned to Triel, stretching out her hands, pleading. "My life, instead. Please."
Triel might have been a statue but for the pulse at her neck and her eyes, which met Imryne's with grave purpose. "When you are matron mother, Imryne, you can make the decisions. You are not yet, and this is mine."
A step. Two. Three, and she was close now to her mother, close enough to see that Triel was trembling slightly. Tears were blurring her vision. "Mother, please, reconsider."
"I know you don't want this, daughter. But you have the ability to lead, better than I. You know what needs to be done. My children are grown, yours still need you. Jevan needs you. Your wives need you." Triel raised one hand palm-up, and Imryne felt her heart contract in love and fear. Her mother was beautiful, and terrible, and too calm. "Jevan most of all. Without you, he would be dead in the battle he would start. House Melrae would fall anyway. It's the only way to preserve the house."
Wordless, Imryne stared at her mother. The world's edges were very sharp, and for a moment Imryne thought she might shatter if she moved. It is too much--
Mother and daughter exchanged a long look, and the force of Triel's will beat down on her. Imryne's hands were fisted, the nape of her neck cold, ready to stand and fight. She felt the bulk of House Melrae lying behind her, felt the gazes of the guards as they watched the scene. Felt Imrae's presence, the restraint that hid an implacable, perfected will. I cannot submit to this.
I must.
She found her courage, and bowed her head, weaving her fingers together with the palms down. Her chin went to her chest, and her eyes closed. "Then I accept your decision, Mother." The words came from a throat choked almost closed.
"Tell the children I loved them, all of them. Lead well, lead strong." Triel stepped close, and Imryne lifted her head. For the last time, Triel folded her daughter in her arms, pulling her into a tight hug. "Make sure they suffer when you kill them," she murmured into Imryne's ear. "I love you."
She kissed Imryne and released her, walking with her back straight towards the gate. The jeweled pins in her hair glittered as they caught the pale light from the sconced coldlights set in the walls. She did not look like a woman walking to her death. Instead, she was a woman moving with calm eyes to embrace an old enemy. Jevan was beside Imryne now, and she was holding onto his hand with a painfully hard grip.
Triel stopped at the gate and thrust her hand through. Imrae shifted her weight, and a small dagger appeared in her hand. It flashed, and for a moment Imryne thought Imrae had missed.
Then the blood welled on the back on Triel's hand, and she doubled over, making a whistling noise of pain. Imryne could not move. Must not move. This was part of the ritual of execution, and if it had been Imryne crumpling to the ground, Triel would have stood and watched, as helpless in the grip of etiquette as Imryne was now. Triel turned her head so that Imryne could see her face, but her mother was not seeing Imryne, or the courtyard. Instead, there was an unearthly light entering her eyes. Ecstasy, longing, terrible pain, her face twisted with everything that was crossing it. Imryne shuddered as she saw her mother remember everything that the spells she had set on herself had taken from her.
The breath coming out of Triel was a sigh, carrying with it words that twisted Imryne's heart.
"Khaless, I am coming."
Then the breath rattled in her throat and she convulsed, and stopped moving entirely.
Nobody moved, all eyes on the matron mother who lay crumpled on the stone. Then Imrae said, her voice low but carrying, "We will put this unpleasantness behind us. We both have dead to entomb. I will alert the drider to allow you passage to your place of resting. I am sorry, Matron Mother Imryne."
Imryne could not hide her flinch. She raised her eyes to meet Imrae's gaze. "As am I, Matron Mother Vandree Imrae."
Without another word or any acknowledgement that Imryne had spoken, Imrae turned away and walked from the gates of Melrae, her drider falling in beside and behind her. And then, only then, could Imryne move, let go of Jevan's hand and stumble to her mother's side. Her knees hit the stone with force that would leave bruises, but at the moment she could not care, reaching out to touch the still-warm skin of the shell that had a few moments before been her mother.
Sobs were dragged out of her, painfully rising from her chest through her throat, and Jevan was there, his arms around her shoulders. At the edge of her darkened vision, she could see shapes moving, people coming from the buildings to sit down around the body. The first one she was aware of was Ruathym, her mother's first husband, sinking to his knees beside her head, a terrible expression on his face. There were tears spilling from his eyes, and he bowed his head, letting his long hair obscure his expression. He had loved Triel for much longer than Imryne had been alive.
Others drifted in to sit down in the courtyard. Husbands, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, daughters and sons of cadet lines, all of them related to the woman who had been the absolute center of all their lives, the one they lived to protect and serve. She had lived her life for them, and without her, the house might now spin out of control, collapse in on itself.
No.
Those who were not looking at Triel were looking at Imryne kneeling next to her. Matron Mother Imryne. The thought made her want to flatten herself on the stone, face-down in the puddle of blood that leaked from the cut on her mother's hand. Instead, she raised her head. The courtyard was crowded, stuffed full of crying drow, and Imryne realized that she was now the head of what was probably the largest family in the city.
All hers, to lead or to abuse as she saw fit.
She wondered if this was what her mother had felt, when her own mother had died. This crushing grief, this paralyzing fear, and this knowledge that she was going to have to be adequate to the task set before her. There was no option otherwise.
After an hour or so had passed, Jevan picked up Triel's body, cradling her against his chest. He took her to the matron's apartments, and Gaussiara and Nizana began to do what was necessary, to clean and prepare their mother's body for the tomb. Imryne tried to help, but her chest was burning and her hands shaking so badly that at last she sank down on a familiar chaise. One of her mother's perpetual games of qithak was still set up on the low table.
She found herself surrounded. Nendra pressed herself against Imryne's back, and her sister Laele and her youngest brother Nimruil sat at her feet with their arms around her knees. Tar crowded in on one side and Urlryn on the other, and Imryne was the center of a quivering knot of grief and comfort. "I arranged to have the gate draped," Jevan said, leaning over the gathered knot to kiss Imryne's hair. "I have an escort preparing, as well."
Imryne lifted her gaze. Mizzrym was braiding Triel's hair elaborately, and Nizana was gently daubing her skin dry. "I need--" She stopped, and coughed. "We need to talk to Maya and Sabal. All four of us." She leaned forward and brushed Laele's hair. Laele sniffled and scooted away, and so did Nimruil. Imryne put an arm around Tar, and pulled her to her feet. As they made their way through room, brimming with people who had loved Triel, she saw several of the husband take their spot on the chaise, pulling Nimruil and Laele and Nendra into their laps. Maya and Sabal were in the hall outside, clustered with their brothers and sisters. They came willingly when Imryne crooked a finger at them, though their heads were hanging low.
The six of them were silent as they made their way down the hall to their set. Maya and Sabal both sat on the chaise when Imryne motioned them over, huddled in on themselves, looking miserable. Sabal was big even now, when he still had four cycles of growing to do before he reached his adult height and weight. Jevan occasionally joked that Imryne had slipped off to have sex with an orc, Sabal was so big. He wasn't ugly; he had inherited Jevan's patrician nose and Imryne's mouth. He was just more than twice the weight of the delicately built Maya who sat next to him.
Imryne regarded her daughter, born of Tar's body but more lightly built than Tar. Triel had always said she looked like Khaless. She was bright and beautiful and right now, Imryne could barely look at her and her brother.
But look she did. At last, she said, "Maya. Sabal. Where were you going, today?"
Maya raised her head. Her blue eyes were narrowed with pain. "Just out, honestly. No purpose, no destination, just out."
"And I take it you've done this before?"
She curled in on herself, just a little. "Yes."
"How often, and where did you go?" Imryne asked.
"Once or twice a strand," Maya answered. Sabal looked like he was trying not to squirm. "We go to the market, we go all around the city, looking and exploring, old houses, just about everywhere."
Sabal looked up. "When Ryld contacts her. He rides along sometimes. In her head." Maya gave her brother a dark look, and he gazed calmly back at her, and shook his head.
Imryne firmed her mouth. "I see. I am very, very disappointed with the both of you."
Maya looked up at her mother, shivering. "I know mother. We are the cause of Grandmother's death. You can't make us feel much worse."
She looked at the both of them, Sabal with his hands clenched, Maya bent, trying to make herself smaller. The cause of Triel's death, and it was her own blood. She took a long breath in, then breathed out. "I know. You're not to leave the house again unless you have permission."
If anything, her words seemed to make the children seem even more miserable. "We understand," Maya said quietly.
"Good." She kneeled in front of them, pulled them both into a hug. Sabal put his head down on Imryne's shoulder. "You're both still alive, though. At least we have that."
"I'm sorry, Mother," Maya said quietly. Sabal muttered agreement.
She hugged them even tighter. "So am I." She released them and stood back up.
Jevan asked, "Maya, what did you do to that drider?"
Maya's head dropped low, and Sabal glanced at her, looking worried. "Blocked him from seeing us," she said at last, her voice low.
Imryne took a startled breath. She had almost forgotten the strange behavior of the drider when they had left. "How?"
"I can't explain. Like this." Maya vanished.
Imryne looked around wildly, and jumped when she felt a touch on her shoulder, turning to see Maya next to her. "That's--a little odd."
"You couldn't see her?" Jevan asked. Imryne shook her head. "She was there the whole time, you just stopped seeing her. How many people can you take with when you do that?" he asked Maya.
"About five, including myself," his daughter answered, looking at him with those faded eyes that were so much like his. She went to sit down again next to Sabal.
"You've tested this?" Imryne asked. Maya nodded. "Anything else we ought to know, Maya?"
She looked down, silent. Sabal lifted his gaze, looking at Imryne with a mixture of frustration and trepidation, and then nudged Maya. "Maya. You have to tell them."
Maya took a shaky breath. "I hear thoughts sometimes," she said without lifting her head.
"From people nearby, or farther away?" Imryne asked.
"Both. I can hear the illithid a lot, and his people. Ryld, too."
That last was not surprising. Maya occasionally gave them messages from Ryld, most reassuring Imryne that he was still alive. The dreams from him had become few and far between, and Imryne had never had a chance to ask why. "Anyone else?"
She looked up. "Grandmother, the four of you, Sabal, cousins, most everyone in the house. I learned to tune it out."
Oh. No wonder--
She swallowed. It didn't bear thinking about at the moment. "I see. And you, Sabal. Was today the first day that something happened like your fight with the drider?"
He shook his head slightly, slowly. "Almost a cycle ago, I got mad at Lesrak and punched him. He flew back about twenty feet or so. He was fine," he hastened to add. "That was the first time, the drider was the second."
"It was Lesrak's own fault," Maya said. There was a sharp edge in her voice. "He was teasing Sabal about not inheriting any mage talent."
Imryne tried not to wince. She was not unaware that Lesrak, as the only one of the male children with the talent, occasionally tried to lord it over his younger siblings. The adults tried to let the children work it out among themselves. "And is there anything else we ought to know that's been happening to you?" she asked Sabal.
"That's it," Sabal said.
She looked at the two children and tried not to see superimposed over them the body of her mother, lying on the stone. "Off to your rooms, both of you." The children hastened to get out of the room and down the hall to their own rooms. Once they were gone, Imryne sat down heavily. Tar dropped down next to her, curling up around the belly that was so much flatter than it had been this morning. Imryne stroked her smooth scalp. "Sabal takes after you," she said to Jevan.
"Just stronger and not as fast," he said. Urlryn had sought the shelter of his arms, and he tucked his head down, kissing the tip of one sharply pointed ear. Urlryn had her eyes shut tight, her expression tense.
"If you've ever learned anything about controlling that rage you go into sometimes, you might want to think about teaching him," she said.
"His strength could make a very large mess," he said, and then visibly flinched as he remembered just what sort of mess that strength had already created. "I will start on those lessons, as well as sword skills. What about Maya? She can walk out of here anytime she wants and we won't be the wiser, if she does that to us."
Tar shivered a little bit, and Imryne tightened her arms around her. "I know. We can't really force her to stay here, though I think she'll stick close to home for a while."
Jevan paused, and then said, "I hate to even say this, but that could come in very handy."
"I know. But if she's out by herself and gets into real trouble...we'll never find her." She shook her head. "She can go anywhere she wants. Must be nice."
His eyes were soft as he looked at her. "I am sorry, love. But if you take Maya with, so can you. Still dangerous if she misses someone. Besides, we have been virtual prisoners for how many cycles, now? We have found ways around that, too."
Shock was still settling in, something cold taking up residence beneath her breastbone. Distantly, she realized that this was going to hurt later, but for the moment everything felt cold and fragile. "It sounds as though Sabal actually ran into the drider, which is what caused it to see him."
"As long as Maya sees them first, she can block them out."
"It might be prudent to have her taught in the ways of stealth," she said. "Urlryn, would you be up to it?"
"Soon," Urlryn said. She was relaxed in Jevan's arms now, her head on his shoulder. "Just now..." She trailed off, and closed her eyes.
"Let's go to bed, loves," Jevan said. "The next few ilit will be long. Entombing Triel, and we have to move."
Caught off guard, Imryne stiffened. "Move? Oh. Into my mother's rooms."
"Matron mothers live in those quarters," he pointed out. She looked up and saw his whole body carved in lines of watchfulness, and the cold place inside of her burned. "Being what you are, it's traditional to occupy them. But you are the matron mother, if you want to stay here."
I am the matron mother. She felt as she had in the courtyard, desperately desiring to press herself into stone. "No, we should move. The matron's apartments are the most secure place in this compound. I want to take some time to see what my mother might have left behind for me there. And I need to see if any of her husbands wish to return to the families of their births." Though, thinking about it--only the youngest two were from houses that were currently standing. Three of them were from Nurbonnis, two from Kenafin, most of the rest from houses whose names had been swallowed by time and stone and blood.
"Been a long time, I doubt it," he said. "They will probably stay to defend the house and their children."
"Likely." Imryne knuckled one eye. "Bed? Please?"
There was little sleep through that long night. Imryne and Tar coiled around each other in a tight knot of pain and grief, Jevan behind Imryne and Urlryn wrapping Tar up tightly. "I'm so sorry, Tar," Imryne murmured into her wife's ear.
"I don't even know if it would have been a boy or a girl," Tar whispered back. "Triel died before she could tell me anything, before I even knew that I wanted to know. And now...Imryne, I'm afraid."
Imryne felt tears welling in her eyes. "So am I."
(Tarithra, in the gallery of the dead)
I don't think anyone's told her how much she looks like her mother, Tar thought as she stood beside Imryne, in the vault of Melrae.
Though the vault was large, it was crowded and fusty and unpleasant-smelling, and Tar's stomach was already touchy from grief and the murder of the child that she'd been carrying. She swallowed, her throat raw, and reached out a hand for Urlryn. She kept her eyes on Imryne, who was stepping forward with Jaelryn, escorting the four of Triel's husbands who had volunteered to carry their wife's body to its final resting place.
The mother's bier had been cleared of its last occupant. Her moldering bones and rotted shroud had been gently removed to one of the niches on the wall, her bones stacked in a respectful pattern, ribs protecting the skull with its empty sockets. The husbands laid Triel's body on the bier, and two more brought up the shroud to hide her body from view. Imryne and Jaelryn took their places, Imryne as matron mother at Triel's head, Jaelryn as the first daughter of Triel's body at her feet. The husbands stepped back, into the crowd.
Imryne looked around, her eyes seeking Jevan and focusing on him. Then she found Urlryn and Tar, and for a terrible moment Tar thought that Imryne was going to crumple on the spot, dissolve into tears and howling.
But she did not.
Instead, her back straightened, her face settling into familiar taut lines. The immediate family was here, Triel's husbands and children and grandchildren. Even Zyn had come down with Talabrina and her son. Zyn was part of the honor guard, falling into his place here as if he had not left for the surface cycles ago, his scarred face a welcome sight amongst the grief of the past two ilit. Tar hated to admit it, but she missed the taciturn male, if only because Imryne's soul seemed easier when he was around. Her brother had been Imryne's sword and shield since she was tiny, and nothing that changed in her life could alter that. Jevan might be her husband and her bodyguard, but Zyn was her blood. Him being gone to the surface was a wound that Imryne never spoke of, but that Tar knew existed anyway.
The only grandchildren who were not here this day were Maya and Sabal. Even if there had not been a ritual interdict against those who caused a death being present at the entombment, Imryne would not have allowed them to come. She had risen from the bed an ilit ago with an implacable anger in her, and Maya and Sabal were the unfortunate targets of her rage. Tar understood the anger at the same time that she knew that if it went on much longer, it would destroy Imryne's relationship with the two of them. She hoped the interment would put part of it to rest.
Imryne began to speak, beginning the first lines of the interment with a voice that started off trembling but soon grew strong. Imryne's part in this ceremony was the embodiment of death, of the enclosing dark that stole the breath of the body. Jaelryn was the voice of the House, the voice of all of those who loved Triel, who would not give her up without a fight.
Their voices wound around each other, Jaelryn's rich, deep voice, Imryne's sharper one. No matter how many times Tar heard these prayers, this ancient ritual discussion between a goddess and the forces that even she could not conquer, it always seemed new, tugging like a river at her soul. The prayers ended, as they always did, at an impasse; playing out the first conflict between a goddess who loved life and a force that did not sorrow at what it devoured, a promise made to keep life going by making new even as the old passed away. Tar listened, her heart soaking in the words. Life came from death. She fisted one hand pressed against her belly, pressing it into the vicinity of her empty womb. Goddess, help me survive. For the children, for all those I love.
Then it was done, and there was a moment of silence as the collected crowd held their breath. Imryne had a handful of glittering dust, which she sprinkled over the shroud. "For you are gone, but we remember, Matron Mother Melrae Triel, daughter of Melrae Brigantyna, daughter of Shulvallriel." She dropped her hands to her side, and took a breath.
They filed out of the vault, and Zyn and Jevan closed the door behind them. They walked the catwalks back to the entrance, crossing the gaps to the accompaniment of the flutterings and scrabblings of the denizens of the gallery, the things that had become more numerous once the outcasts had departed. Imryne led, her staff in her hand. She was casting an illusion on Zyn, who walked beside her, altering his appearance. The reason for the illusion was waiting for them at the mouth of the gallery, under the jagged arch.
Twelve drider waited, making scratching noises as they shifted in place. They cleared a space, pressing against the rough stone on either side of the arch, and paced beside the mourners all the way up to Fanaedar.
Tar kept her eyes down, her teeth gritted and her hands fisted. Attacking the drider would be useless. They were just abominations, without any free will of their own. They were just the very visible reminders of Lloth's terrible perfection and the oppressive peace that they had brought. She resented them anyway, feeling them looking at her, their gazes crawling on her skin.
They were silent on the way back. None of the babies cried, and all the children kept their mouths closed. They paused for a moment at Shobalar to let Jaelryn and her husbands through the gates, then proceeded to Melrae, leaving the drider on the outside of the gates when they passed through. The husbands departed for the matron's apartments in a clump; they would spend the day moving their things to rooms elsewhere in Melrae. Even those whose birth houses still stood had declined to returned to them.
Tar stood and watched, her and Imryne and Urlryn and Jevan a still dock in the river of motion. Urlryn had an intense expression on her face, her eyes half-closed, her hands wrung together. Imryne was staring up at House Melrae, the house she was now officially in charge of. Jevan stood back a little, his hands on his swords. Being in the company of the driders made him nervous for hours afterwards, and irritable.
She let Imryne have ten long breaths before she went to put a hand on her wife's hip. Even through the heavy dress she was wearing, she could feel the jut of her hipbone, and checked her disapproving sigh. "Inside," she murmured, leaning in to Imryne.
Imryne's body swayed towards her, pressed up against her, and she made a strange noise, almost a moan.
Then she crumpled where she stood, and Tar caught her before she hit the stone.
(Imryne, in House Melrae)
Imryne padded around the matron mother's apartments, her feet bare, the shift she was wearing brushing gently against her knees. Her mother's rooms. Her rooms, now.
These apartments were the largest set of rooms in the house, a small maze of interconnected bedrooms, offices, dining rooms, bathing rooms, vaults, playrooms. They had every comfort, including windows that brought air and starlight down from the surface, a ready supply of hot water, a small but well-appointed kitchen, thick rugs, padded furniture. Every comfort, and a forlorn feeling, as if the stone itself mourned for the woman who had occupied the rooms. The husbands had all moved to their own rooms, and Imryne had asked that she go into her mother's rooms alone.
The doors of the vaults opened to her touch. They were embedded in the floor of the library closest to the matron's bedroom, and hissed as they spiraled open from their center. If Imryne were to fall through, she would find herself standing upright on the other side of the doors. Some ancient mother of Melrae, when this house had been built, had twisted the space that the vaults were in somehow. Going into them bent Imryne's mind in ways she did not like.
Looking inside, she could see that they were full, stuffed almost to bursting. With this alone, Melrae could live for a hundred cycles without any coin coming in, longer if they cut back on the frivolities that made life bearable sometimes. She closed the door to the vault and the rug shimmered back into place over it.
This library had been her mother's personal collection; it was filled with all kinds of books in an order that Imryne couldn't comprehend at first glance, what appeared to be fiction mixed in with works on religion, strategy, histories. There was reading material enough here for cycles, and this was only her mother's personal collection; the House had another collection, stored close to the mage laboratories.
And speaking of--
Imryne looked at the steel-bound door opposite her that was framed by a carved archway, the motif of naked, twined bodies a magnificent work of art on its own. Imryne had never been past this portal. She didn't think anyone but Triel and her husbands had in Triel's lifetime. Now that it was hers--how strange that thought, that any of this could be hers--none but Imryne and her spouses would go within. This was the most secret of secret hearts of the house.
Am I worthy?
I will have to be.
She shuddered, and made herself step forward. She drew close to the door, and laid her hand on the wood.
There was a tingling under her hand, and the door swung soundlessly inward. She stepped past the threshold, smelling the clean scent of incense and herbs and under it a slight whiff of things more primal, sweat and sex. It was not a large room by any means, probably fifteen paces across, curved walls holding carved shelves and a carved granite altar. There were cabinets that probably held linens and pillows for when ritual was held in here, a low table where Triel would create objects with the arts given to her by the goddess.
The thing that kept Imryne's attention was the altar, and she approached it, reaching out to run cautious fingers over the edge of the stone. Images flashed over her mind, her mother naked and gasping on this stone, surrounded by her husbands, face twisted in ecstasy. Imryne's heart contracted painfully, and she went to her knees before the altar, pressing her forehead against the carved edge of the stone. "I am sorry," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
Daughter of your mother's darkness, best beloved, most difficult, most needy, most glorious--
Tears were burning in her eyes and dripping to the stone. She clung to the altar, riding the wave of pain, drowning in it. It passed, leaving her breathing hard. She forced herself to her feet, and turned to look at the shelves as a distraction.
On the table was a simple bowl made of white marble. It was full of water, as it would be for seeing spells, and the water was steaming slightly. Frowning, she dipped her fingers, finding that the water was just warmer than her blood. She tilted her head and let her mind relax as she had been taught to do when casting seeing spells, and let her mind wander. She wondered where Tar was, if she had managed to get to the temple as she had said she was going to. She was worried desperately about Tar. Her wife's bright light was very dim right now, as her too-soon emptied womb broadcast signals of distress to her whole body. Drow women died of miscarriages sometimes, apparently of broken hearts. Imryne didn't think it was going to happen to Tar, but she fretted anyway.
An image shimmered in the water, Tar before the main altar in the sanctuary, her head bowed and her lips moving in prayer. Pleased, Imryne set her mind wandering elsewhere. Urlryn was pacing a hall in the house, deep in conversation with a male Imryne recognized as one of the guards and a protégé of Urlryn's. Jevan was in the weaponsyard, training Sabal. It looked, at first glance, as if Jevan was beating the stuffing out of Sabal. On second and third glance, it was possible to see that they were merely being very rough with each other, and neither was in imminent danger of killing each other.
Her mind ranged outward. She got no response from the bowl when she thought of Ryld or of any of her enemies; it seemed that the only ones she could see were those wearing house symbols. "No wonder she knew everything I'd been up to," she murmured. This was how Triel had kept her eye on her entire household. Another way for her to travel without leaving the house.
Imryne rubbed her eyes. It was getting too hard to be in here by herself, though she knew she had needed to come here by herself the first time. She retreated, closing the door behind her. She spent the next while going through papers and such in her mother's office, setting aside what would need to go into storage, making room for her own things, familiarizing herself with the contents of the various ledgers and account books.
In a drawer, she encountered an object that made her jump back with a smothered cry of alarm. There was a crystal in the bottom of the drawer, but it felt somehow wrong. It was warm, and somehow a little squishy. It lay in the bottom of the drawer, looking innocuous, a clear crystal with just the slightest pink blush to it. On one facet, Imryne was written in her mother's clear hand.
She steeled herself and picked up the crystal. It lay in her palm so innocuously, though it still felt alien, disturbingly organic. She rolled it over in her hand, and then wrapped her fingers around it, pressing slightly.
Light burst forth from it, flowing between her fingers and coalescing into the form of her mother, standing in a plain dress that Imryne recognized as one of her mother's ritual outfits. She smiled at Imryne, and Imryne felt her entire body curl in on itself, gritting her teeth as pain broke over her.
"Imryne, this first one is just a recorded message." Triel's voice rang in her ears, confident and gentle. "I have left a part of my soul in this crystal to help you if you need it. It will work three times more. I will come back to answer your questions as best I can. I do not know if my knowledge will only be historical or if death will give me the ability to see the future." She paused, and Imryne looked up to see that the image of her mother had taken on a stern look. "The house, Imryne, is more important than one life, but Ellistraee's worship and survival of that worship is so much more important than even that. You will have to weigh that in your decisions, but I know you will make the right ones. I love you, Imryne."
The image faded. Imryne doubled over, cradling the crystal against her stomach. "I love you too, Mother," she murmured through teeth gritted tight. "Thank you."
After doing the work that needed to be done, Imryne straggled into the set that was to be her home for only another ilit more. They retired early, Imryne with Jevan wrapped around her and Urlryn in her arms, Tar draped over Urlryn and Imryne.
Grief sank them into sleep.
(Ryld, in House Xalyth)
I can see it, now.
Melrae Triel and Xalyth Jhalass. Twisted together, joined by the common thread of their association with House Fanaedar. Melrae Imryne and Xalyth Greyanna, both born third and now first, both plagued by madness.
Mother, this house is what Melrae could have been.
What we could still be.
Watch, Mother, and learn.
(Greyanna, in House Xalyth)
"She's dead," Greyanna said, her voice hollow.
She stepped into her daughter's bedroom, dropped into a nearby chair, buried her head in her hands. The room showed signs of having been abruptly abandoned, Haelra's husbands and wives quickly sent away after Greyanna had knocked. Greyanna's unbound hair spilled forward, hiding her hands and arms entirely. Her daughter Haelra crouched at her knee, carefully resting her fingers on Greyanna's bare ankle. "Mother--"
"Jhalass is dead," Greyanna said. "She was only thing standing in the way of Imrae razing our house. Jhalass had Imrae's respect, something that I obviously don't."
Haelra was shaking. "What do we do, Mother?"
"The thing I have been dreading." Greyanna raised her head. Her eyes were dry, her expression set hard. "Going to House Melrae and see if we can forge enough of an alliance with their faction that we can end House Vandree. It would have been so much easier with Triel, but Imryne is a logical woman. I hope I have enough to bargain with to make her see reason."
"Imbros?" Haelra asked.
"Anything could be on the table, Haelra. House Xalyth needs this to survive, and I will do anything to survive."
The two of them sat together unmoving, Greyanna staring into the distance and Haelra worriedly watching her mother's face. Around them the house slumbered, unaware.
Imryne, of House Melrae
Book Three: Stone Sky
Chapter Four: A Draught Very Bitter
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
--Swinburne, Mater Dolorosa
(Urlryn, in House Melrae)
It was late in the third watch, and a snore rattled around the room and echoed off the high ceiling. There was silence for a moment. Then a snort, and the snore rattled again.
Urlryn raised her head. Next to her, Tar was sleeping with her mouth open, and the ungodly noise was emanating from her. In the dim light shed by the timepiece, she could see that Jevan slept peacefully on; nothing short of an earthquake would wake him. Imryne had her head under the blankets, the only part visible of her a hand resting above her head.
Tar was curled around her swollen belly, one hand resting on the curve of it. She was due to give birth in four skeins, and according to Imryne she always snored in the last half of a pregnancy. This was Urlryn's first time going through a pregnancy with Tarithra, and unlike Imryne Urlryn hadn't yet gotten the chance to get used to sleeping through the snoring.
She smiled fondly at her wife, and slipped from the bed. She opened the door of the bedroom and stepped into the large central room of the set. The children's rooms were clustered down a short hallway off of the opposite side and she went in turn to each of the doors, peeking inside.
Angaste's bed was empty, but that was only to be expected; she was curled up with her older sister Maya. Tonight, she saw that Sabal was camped on the floor of his sister's room. He was no longer allowed to share a bed with his sisters, not after his hair had started growing out, but he did sometimes stretch the rules a bit by staying on Maya's floor.
Next door, Faeryl was curled up under her blanket, the stuffed monster she was far too old for tucked in her arms. It was threadbare in places, almost worn through, but she insisted on keeping it. She was not really a child any more, was Faeryl, and Tar's features were repeated in hers. So young, and bidding to soon be as powerful a priestess as her mother. In the next room, Ulitree slept, curled tightly around a cushion that she had retrieved from one of the far corners of the House. Urlryn watched her breathe for a moment, watching this lost child. She was having the first stirrings and longings of maturity now, and her affections had focused themselves on the four main adults in her life. Urlryn privately sympathized with her, having suffered through her own unexpressed adoration of the women and man who were now her spouses, but she knew that Ulitree's story would have a far different path than her own.
Lesrak, across the hall, didn't have a bed in his room at all, still keeping his childhood penchant for making piles of pillows and blankets to sleep in. He slept with one long arm thrown over his head, cradled in a nest in one corner of his room. He was perpetually uncomfortable in his skin, approaching the age when males had their fates decided by their mothers without a clear idea of what path Imryne was going to choose for him. He was both a fair warrior and an a reasonably good mage, though without the brilliance of Ilfryn.
Imryne was delaying giving her older son his first throat-band. Urlryn wasn't sure why, except that it signaled the end of his childhood, when he would move to quarters of his own. Even though cycles had passed since Ilfryn had died, Imryne seemed to be having difficulty letting go of any part of him.
She shook her head and stepped back. The largest room on this hall belonged to Challay, and Urlryn would have left her alone except that her door was wide open, and there was a dim light spilling out of it. Urlryn slipped to the lintel and peered around it.
Challay was sitting at her table, her head pillowed on her arms, and the coldlight in the dish next to her was dwindling. There was ink drying on a stone and a pen set next to her head. Urlryn stepped inside, putting her hand on Challay's shoulder. "Challay. You should be in bed."
Challay jerked upright, her dark eyes wide. "I--oh, Urlryn. What are you doing up? Is Tar snoring again?"
"Yes," she said, with a small smile. "I saw your light. Late night again?"
"Aren't they all?" She yawned, looking in that moment almost exactly like a blade-thin version of her mother. At over thirty cycles old, was as past time for her to move into her own rooms, but still she lingered and Imryne encouraged her to stay. "I'll go to bed. I always have such a cramp in my neck when I fall asleep at the table."
She rose, raking her fingers through her rumpled hair. Urlryn stepped back and closed the door after her, letting Challay get undressed and tumbled into bed. She left the hall and went back into the main room, listening to the muffled sound of Tar's snoring.
The big window faced up-cavern, towards the hulking masses of House Xalyth and Vandree, and the ruin of Kilsek. Eleven cycles, she thought. Seventeen surface years. Eleven cycles of the drider owning the streets, eleven cycles of a slow slide into despair.
She heard the low hum of the scrubbing spells on the window, cleaning the air that came through it. The air in the great cavern of Fanaedar was perpetually smoky and foul these days. The sewers were in poor repair, and raw waste flowed through the streets in the lower part of the cavern, pooling in stinking lakes in the lowest parts. Other systems were failing as well, systems that Urlryn hadn't even realized existed. The great turbines that kept the air moving were now broken far more than they were functioning. House Kilsek had been responsible for those turbines, and none of the other houses had chosen to stick their necks out long enough to see to true repairs on them.
This city locked in stone was dying, and none of the great houses would risk offending Vandree Imrae by suggesting solutions. The high houses all had the ability to repair their own sewers, and install the scrubbing spells on doors and windows, and those that were not noble were left to fend for themselves.
Urlryn had seen it all in her duties to House Melrae, the information trade that she had been trained for from birth. She had long since stopped trying to convince Imryne that something needed to be done. Triel counseled patience, and Imryne was ever and always her mother's daughter. Triel had also stopped having children, her youngest still Nimruil. Imryne, in the last two cycles, had become more and more uneasy about her mother, starting to wonder if there were something wrong that she was not sharing.
Triel kept her own counsel. Imrae with her drider kept the city bound in a peace so harsh that no houses great or small had perished since Kilsek.
Within the House, life was good, if somewhat circumscribed. But out there...
Urlryn spent a long time looking out the window, before going back to bed.
{Imryne, in House Melrae)
The day that everything changed started out well enough. Imryne saw the children off to their tutors and Jevan escorted Imryne to House Oblodra for her own lessons. They returned to House Melrae for mid-meal, joining Urlryn and Tar in the set. Angaste was there as well, as the only child young enough that she was not out having lessons. They finished mid-meal and settled in for a bit; this was a fine and quiet part of the ilit, a little time spent all together before Imryne would go to her laboratory, Tar would go to attend services, Urlryn would leave the house to go check on her network, and Jevan would go supervise the guard shift change.
Soon after they were settled in, though, Imryne raised her head, hearing pounding feet outside the door. She didn't have time to rise and go investigate before Maya burst in, glancing around wildly. Their usually-calm daughter was wide-eyed and panting. "Mothers, Father. Sabal is in trouble!"
Imryne was on her feet, her heart in her throat. "What's wrong?"
"We left the compound. Sabal got hit by a drider. It's going to kill him!"
By this time, all of the adults were on their feet. Despite her growing belly, Tar was still quick on her feet and was out the door first with Jevan. Imryne followed, hearing Urlryn tell Angaste to go find her grandmother and shelter in her rooms. Urlryn was right at her shoulder then, and people in the halls of the house were moving swiftly out of their way, plastering themselves against the walls. Maya was running with them, out the doors of the inner house and down to the gates. Jevan turned to Imryne, opening his arms, preparing to take her up.
Maya shook her head sharply. "No, Father, follow me." She pulled open the gate, slipping through it once it was open wide enough to admit her. The drider by the gate saw her and stiffened, raising its two front legs in a warning that an attack was about to come. Maya simply looked at it and said, "No, you saw nothing pass, nothing at all."
Those bladed legs lowered, and the drider's face assumed a blank expression, staring into nothingness. Then Maya was running again, and the rest of them followed her. Imryne had no breath and no time for questions, instead tucking her head and stretching out her long legs.
They arrived very quickly at the nearest market, and Imryne skidded to a startled halt as she saw the mess that had been made in the market square. There was blood everywhere, lumps of flesh that Imryne blinked a few times before she resolved into segments of drider body, legs and abdomen and drow torso scattered this way and that. Sabal was in the center of the mess, bleeding heavily and struggling to get out of a partial cocooning. The silk that held him tight was stained with blood, whether his or the drider's there was no way of knowing.
Imryne dropped to her knees by her son's side, Maya hovering over her nervously. Sabal's face was pinched with pain, but his wounds weren't bad enough that he was going to bleed to death in the next few heartbeats, at least. She tore apart the cocooning silk, freeing his legs. "Mother--" he started to say.
Behind Imryne, there was a shriek that impelled her into immediate motion, jumping to her feet and turning. Tar was bent double, a figure clad in flowing robes and a veil leaning almost lovingly against her, one hand curled around her shoulder.
The figure's other hand was on a dagger that was hilt-deep in Tar's abdomen, and watery blood was flowing down Tar's dress, spreading in a dark stain.
Behind the figure, four more drider stood, their front legs raised for the attack. "Jevan, take Tar!" Imryne screamed, a spell weaving itself whole and entire in her mind, the syllables beginning to flow from her lips.
Jevan moved.
He was a blur, swords moving, and the cloaked figure never stood a chance. Its head parted from its shoulders, and Jevan had scooped up Tar and was away before the headless body fell twitching to the ground. Imryne's spell completed, and a shimmering barrier flickered into being around all of them.
Urlryn was pulling Sabal to his feet, and the drider were throwing themselves at Imryne's barrier, making sizzling thuds against it. "Jevan, take Tar to Mother. I can move this barrier, we can walk back," she said. Jevan nodded and took off, and she opened a hole in the barrier to let them through.
The barrier stood strong, but Imryne was very glad that it was only a little way back to the safety of House Melrae. She started walking, holding her head high, pushing the barrier back effortlessly. It was drawing more drider who were throwing themselves at it, pummeling it fruitlessly. All of them were silent, Sabal being held up by Maya and Urlryn, Imryne's whole consciousness eaten by worry for Tar.
The barrier not only drew drider, but countless eyes from rooftops and window, and Imryne felt utterly exposed. Block by slow block they made it to the gates of Melrae, at least a hundred drider shoving and pushing and hitting her barrier. The gates of Melrae opened, and once they had closed the drider stopped attempting to attack. "They're surrounding the house," a guard on the wall called down. "Just standing there."
Imryne's gut twisted. "Set Sabal down, I can work on him. What happened?" she asked Maya and Sabal. Urlryn took off towards the inner house, presumably to find Jevan and Tar.
Maya took a deep breath and blurted, "We went out. I missed one, it ran into Sabal. It just sort of freaked out and started hitting him. Then Sabal..." She shook her head. "He went mad. They were fighting."
Imryne was bent over Sabal, muttering at his wounds. Under her hands, the blood was ceasing to flow from the deepest of them. Sabal was looking up at Imryne with an expression of intense fear on his face.
She glanced up at Maya, then down at Sabal. "Sabal? What happened when the drider started hitting you?"
She didn't think that the tension in his voice was all pain. "I didn't think it could see me. Maya was blocking it, but it ran into me and then started lashing out. It hit me and then I saw myself grab its front leg and yank it out."
Slowly, Imryne asked, "You...tore it apart?" She realized that the hair at the nape of her neck was sopping with sweat, the power she was calling on seeming vague and thin. She would pay for this day's adventure, she thought.
"I couldn't stop. It hit me, I broke its legs, it tried to use its webbing to stop me. I tore that off too, then I got to the joint of drow and spider and pulled the two apart." He swallowed. "I am sorry, Mother. I couldn't stop."
She smiled, just a little. "You take after your father. Remind me to tell you about what happened when a lower house kidnapped him, once." Under her hands, new skin knotted over the last of Sabal's wounds. "That should do it. Maya, can you help your brother back to his room? I'm going to go check on Tar."
She nodded, and Imryne was on her feet, nearly running towards the inner doors. Triel met her in the corridor outside of her apartments, a grave look on her face. Before Imryne could ask, she said, "Tar is fine. The baby, though, is lost. The dagger went through the child, and it was dead already. I took it out. The damage to Tar was minimal. She is already healed, just grieving." She took Imryne's hands in hers, meeting her daughter's eyes with a grave expression. "Take a moment to see her, then meet me at the front gate. Imrae is already here."
Imrae. Goddess, please preserve us! Imryne merely nodded and squeezed her mother's hands, then dropped them and stepped past her to see Tar sitting on a chaise in the center of the room. Jevan was holding her tightly, and Tar was sobbing, clinging to him. Urlryn had her arms around the both of them, her forehead against the side of Tar's head as if she were trying to will the grief in her to cease.
Silently, Imryne crossed the room and dropped to her knees beside the chaise. Tar opened her arms to include Imryne in her embrace. They stayed like that for a few long moments, the sound of Tar's sobbing the only thing Imryne could hear other than her heart banging loud in her ears. Finally, she said, "I have to go see if there's any way Imrae will let our house live after this."
Tar nodded. Urlryn said, "I'll stay here. Jevan, you go with Imryne."
Jevan fell in behind Imryne as she crossed the room once more, heading towards the outer house. Neither of them spoke at first, and Imryne's head was bowed, her mind whirling.
"Any way out of this?" Jevan asked in a low voice.
Imryne's hands were shaking, and she fisted them to stop the trembling. "I don't know. Imrae will demand blood. A lot of it, likely, especially if whoever stabbed Tar was important to her."
"We are ready if it comes to that," he said. "We won't survive, but I will make sure we take as many as we can with us."
"I know. If we're very lucky, the favors I've done for Imrae will weigh well." There were the carved doors that led to the outer house, and the guards opened them, their eyes worried though their posture was stiff as always. "I can't hand her any of the children."
"I know. I can't either." They passed through the last set of doors, and the thump of them closing was like a tomb door thumping closed behind them.
They were silent as they made their way towards the gates. Triel was standing straight and tall, and just on the other side of the black metal gate Imrae was pacing, rage radiating from her like a stench. Triel was talking to Imrae in a low voice.
Imrae whirled when she saw Imryne. "Seems there was an incident." Her tone and the way she was standing belied her mild words. Imryne pulled herself upright, putting away the part of her that wanted to quail in fear.
"There was, it seems," she said, her voice grave. "Imrae, I'm very sorry about this."
"Did the boy live, and the woman?"
Imryne inclined her head. "Both did, though the child she was carrying died."
Imrae was silent for a moment, regarding Imryne. Then she nodded. "Well, that can be payment for the drider. But for Larynda, there is a heavier toll."
Now Imryne's eyes widened, and her gut clenched with fear. Larynda. Oh goddess, she can demand my life in payment. "Larynda died?"
"She is in two pieces. So quite dead."
"I'm so sorry." Imryne paused, took a breath, tried to fight the feeling of dread that was building to a wave in her. "So, I'm guessing you want blood in kind." If it saves my family and my house--
Imrae shifted her weight, swaying back slightly, a motion of satisfaction. "Yes, I was inclined to take yours, but I have always liked you and your mother refused." Startled, Imryne glanced at Triel who was standing stock-still, perfectly composed except for the fidgeting fingers that were resting on her ring. Imrae continued, "I pointed out that the house will be destroyed and you would all be dead. So we came to a bargain. She offered herself and I agreed. Your house lives. Triel will pay with her blood."
There was a welter of confused voices in Imryne's head, thoughts skittering like small creatures in the darkness. No, please, no-- She turned to Triel, stretching out her hands, pleading. "My life, instead. Please."
Triel might have been a statue but for the pulse at her neck and her eyes, which met Imryne's with grave purpose. "When you are matron mother, Imryne, you can make the decisions. You are not yet, and this is mine."
A step. Two. Three, and she was close now to her mother, close enough to see that Triel was trembling slightly. Tears were blurring her vision. "Mother, please, reconsider."
"I know you don't want this, daughter. But you have the ability to lead, better than I. You know what needs to be done. My children are grown, yours still need you. Jevan needs you. Your wives need you." Triel raised one hand palm-up, and Imryne felt her heart contract in love and fear. Her mother was beautiful, and terrible, and too calm. "Jevan most of all. Without you, he would be dead in the battle he would start. House Melrae would fall anyway. It's the only way to preserve the house."
Wordless, Imryne stared at her mother. The world's edges were very sharp, and for a moment Imryne thought she might shatter if she moved. It is too much--
Mother and daughter exchanged a long look, and the force of Triel's will beat down on her. Imryne's hands were fisted, the nape of her neck cold, ready to stand and fight. She felt the bulk of House Melrae lying behind her, felt the gazes of the guards as they watched the scene. Felt Imrae's presence, the restraint that hid an implacable, perfected will. I cannot submit to this.
I must.
She found her courage, and bowed her head, weaving her fingers together with the palms down. Her chin went to her chest, and her eyes closed. "Then I accept your decision, Mother." The words came from a throat choked almost closed.
"Tell the children I loved them, all of them. Lead well, lead strong." Triel stepped close, and Imryne lifted her head. For the last time, Triel folded her daughter in her arms, pulling her into a tight hug. "Make sure they suffer when you kill them," she murmured into Imryne's ear. "I love you."
She kissed Imryne and released her, walking with her back straight towards the gate. The jeweled pins in her hair glittered as they caught the pale light from the sconced coldlights set in the walls. She did not look like a woman walking to her death. Instead, she was a woman moving with calm eyes to embrace an old enemy. Jevan was beside Imryne now, and she was holding onto his hand with a painfully hard grip.
Triel stopped at the gate and thrust her hand through. Imrae shifted her weight, and a small dagger appeared in her hand. It flashed, and for a moment Imryne thought Imrae had missed.
Then the blood welled on the back on Triel's hand, and she doubled over, making a whistling noise of pain. Imryne could not move. Must not move. This was part of the ritual of execution, and if it had been Imryne crumpling to the ground, Triel would have stood and watched, as helpless in the grip of etiquette as Imryne was now. Triel turned her head so that Imryne could see her face, but her mother was not seeing Imryne, or the courtyard. Instead, there was an unearthly light entering her eyes. Ecstasy, longing, terrible pain, her face twisted with everything that was crossing it. Imryne shuddered as she saw her mother remember everything that the spells she had set on herself had taken from her.
The breath coming out of Triel was a sigh, carrying with it words that twisted Imryne's heart.
"Khaless, I am coming."
Then the breath rattled in her throat and she convulsed, and stopped moving entirely.
Nobody moved, all eyes on the matron mother who lay crumpled on the stone. Then Imrae said, her voice low but carrying, "We will put this unpleasantness behind us. We both have dead to entomb. I will alert the drider to allow you passage to your place of resting. I am sorry, Matron Mother Imryne."
Imryne could not hide her flinch. She raised her eyes to meet Imrae's gaze. "As am I, Matron Mother Vandree Imrae."
Without another word or any acknowledgement that Imryne had spoken, Imrae turned away and walked from the gates of Melrae, her drider falling in beside and behind her. And then, only then, could Imryne move, let go of Jevan's hand and stumble to her mother's side. Her knees hit the stone with force that would leave bruises, but at the moment she could not care, reaching out to touch the still-warm skin of the shell that had a few moments before been her mother.
Sobs were dragged out of her, painfully rising from her chest through her throat, and Jevan was there, his arms around her shoulders. At the edge of her darkened vision, she could see shapes moving, people coming from the buildings to sit down around the body. The first one she was aware of was Ruathym, her mother's first husband, sinking to his knees beside her head, a terrible expression on his face. There were tears spilling from his eyes, and he bowed his head, letting his long hair obscure his expression. He had loved Triel for much longer than Imryne had been alive.
Others drifted in to sit down in the courtyard. Husbands, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, daughters and sons of cadet lines, all of them related to the woman who had been the absolute center of all their lives, the one they lived to protect and serve. She had lived her life for them, and without her, the house might now spin out of control, collapse in on itself.
No.
Those who were not looking at Triel were looking at Imryne kneeling next to her. Matron Mother Imryne. The thought made her want to flatten herself on the stone, face-down in the puddle of blood that leaked from the cut on her mother's hand. Instead, she raised her head. The courtyard was crowded, stuffed full of crying drow, and Imryne realized that she was now the head of what was probably the largest family in the city.
All hers, to lead or to abuse as she saw fit.
She wondered if this was what her mother had felt, when her own mother had died. This crushing grief, this paralyzing fear, and this knowledge that she was going to have to be adequate to the task set before her. There was no option otherwise.
After an hour or so had passed, Jevan picked up Triel's body, cradling her against his chest. He took her to the matron's apartments, and Gaussiara and Nizana began to do what was necessary, to clean and prepare their mother's body for the tomb. Imryne tried to help, but her chest was burning and her hands shaking so badly that at last she sank down on a familiar chaise. One of her mother's perpetual games of qithak was still set up on the low table.
She found herself surrounded. Nendra pressed herself against Imryne's back, and her sister Laele and her youngest brother Nimruil sat at her feet with their arms around her knees. Tar crowded in on one side and Urlryn on the other, and Imryne was the center of a quivering knot of grief and comfort. "I arranged to have the gate draped," Jevan said, leaning over the gathered knot to kiss Imryne's hair. "I have an escort preparing, as well."
Imryne lifted her gaze. Mizzrym was braiding Triel's hair elaborately, and Nizana was gently daubing her skin dry. "I need--" She stopped, and coughed. "We need to talk to Maya and Sabal. All four of us." She leaned forward and brushed Laele's hair. Laele sniffled and scooted away, and so did Nimruil. Imryne put an arm around Tar, and pulled her to her feet. As they made their way through room, brimming with people who had loved Triel, she saw several of the husband take their spot on the chaise, pulling Nimruil and Laele and Nendra into their laps. Maya and Sabal were in the hall outside, clustered with their brothers and sisters. They came willingly when Imryne crooked a finger at them, though their heads were hanging low.
The six of them were silent as they made their way down the hall to their set. Maya and Sabal both sat on the chaise when Imryne motioned them over, huddled in on themselves, looking miserable. Sabal was big even now, when he still had four cycles of growing to do before he reached his adult height and weight. Jevan occasionally joked that Imryne had slipped off to have sex with an orc, Sabal was so big. He wasn't ugly; he had inherited Jevan's patrician nose and Imryne's mouth. He was just more than twice the weight of the delicately built Maya who sat next to him.
Imryne regarded her daughter, born of Tar's body but more lightly built than Tar. Triel had always said she looked like Khaless. She was bright and beautiful and right now, Imryne could barely look at her and her brother.
But look she did. At last, she said, "Maya. Sabal. Where were you going, today?"
Maya raised her head. Her blue eyes were narrowed with pain. "Just out, honestly. No purpose, no destination, just out."
"And I take it you've done this before?"
She curled in on herself, just a little. "Yes."
"How often, and where did you go?" Imryne asked.
"Once or twice a strand," Maya answered. Sabal looked like he was trying not to squirm. "We go to the market, we go all around the city, looking and exploring, old houses, just about everywhere."
Sabal looked up. "When Ryld contacts her. He rides along sometimes. In her head." Maya gave her brother a dark look, and he gazed calmly back at her, and shook his head.
Imryne firmed her mouth. "I see. I am very, very disappointed with the both of you."
Maya looked up at her mother, shivering. "I know mother. We are the cause of Grandmother's death. You can't make us feel much worse."
She looked at the both of them, Sabal with his hands clenched, Maya bent, trying to make herself smaller. The cause of Triel's death, and it was her own blood. She took a long breath in, then breathed out. "I know. You're not to leave the house again unless you have permission."
If anything, her words seemed to make the children seem even more miserable. "We understand," Maya said quietly.
"Good." She kneeled in front of them, pulled them both into a hug. Sabal put his head down on Imryne's shoulder. "You're both still alive, though. At least we have that."
"I'm sorry, Mother," Maya said quietly. Sabal muttered agreement.
She hugged them even tighter. "So am I." She released them and stood back up.
Jevan asked, "Maya, what did you do to that drider?"
Maya's head dropped low, and Sabal glanced at her, looking worried. "Blocked him from seeing us," she said at last, her voice low.
Imryne took a startled breath. She had almost forgotten the strange behavior of the drider when they had left. "How?"
"I can't explain. Like this." Maya vanished.
Imryne looked around wildly, and jumped when she felt a touch on her shoulder, turning to see Maya next to her. "That's--a little odd."
"You couldn't see her?" Jevan asked. Imryne shook her head. "She was there the whole time, you just stopped seeing her. How many people can you take with when you do that?" he asked Maya.
"About five, including myself," his daughter answered, looking at him with those faded eyes that were so much like his. She went to sit down again next to Sabal.
"You've tested this?" Imryne asked. Maya nodded. "Anything else we ought to know, Maya?"
She looked down, silent. Sabal lifted his gaze, looking at Imryne with a mixture of frustration and trepidation, and then nudged Maya. "Maya. You have to tell them."
Maya took a shaky breath. "I hear thoughts sometimes," she said without lifting her head.
"From people nearby, or farther away?" Imryne asked.
"Both. I can hear the illithid a lot, and his people. Ryld, too."
That last was not surprising. Maya occasionally gave them messages from Ryld, most reassuring Imryne that he was still alive. The dreams from him had become few and far between, and Imryne had never had a chance to ask why. "Anyone else?"
She looked up. "Grandmother, the four of you, Sabal, cousins, most everyone in the house. I learned to tune it out."
Oh. No wonder--
She swallowed. It didn't bear thinking about at the moment. "I see. And you, Sabal. Was today the first day that something happened like your fight with the drider?"
He shook his head slightly, slowly. "Almost a cycle ago, I got mad at Lesrak and punched him. He flew back about twenty feet or so. He was fine," he hastened to add. "That was the first time, the drider was the second."
"It was Lesrak's own fault," Maya said. There was a sharp edge in her voice. "He was teasing Sabal about not inheriting any mage talent."
Imryne tried not to wince. She was not unaware that Lesrak, as the only one of the male children with the talent, occasionally tried to lord it over his younger siblings. The adults tried to let the children work it out among themselves. "And is there anything else we ought to know that's been happening to you?" she asked Sabal.
"That's it," Sabal said.
She looked at the two children and tried not to see superimposed over them the body of her mother, lying on the stone. "Off to your rooms, both of you." The children hastened to get out of the room and down the hall to their own rooms. Once they were gone, Imryne sat down heavily. Tar dropped down next to her, curling up around the belly that was so much flatter than it had been this morning. Imryne stroked her smooth scalp. "Sabal takes after you," she said to Jevan.
"Just stronger and not as fast," he said. Urlryn had sought the shelter of his arms, and he tucked his head down, kissing the tip of one sharply pointed ear. Urlryn had her eyes shut tight, her expression tense.
"If you've ever learned anything about controlling that rage you go into sometimes, you might want to think about teaching him," she said.
"His strength could make a very large mess," he said, and then visibly flinched as he remembered just what sort of mess that strength had already created. "I will start on those lessons, as well as sword skills. What about Maya? She can walk out of here anytime she wants and we won't be the wiser, if she does that to us."
Tar shivered a little bit, and Imryne tightened her arms around her. "I know. We can't really force her to stay here, though I think she'll stick close to home for a while."
Jevan paused, and then said, "I hate to even say this, but that could come in very handy."
"I know. But if she's out by herself and gets into real trouble...we'll never find her." She shook her head. "She can go anywhere she wants. Must be nice."
His eyes were soft as he looked at her. "I am sorry, love. But if you take Maya with, so can you. Still dangerous if she misses someone. Besides, we have been virtual prisoners for how many cycles, now? We have found ways around that, too."
Shock was still settling in, something cold taking up residence beneath her breastbone. Distantly, she realized that this was going to hurt later, but for the moment everything felt cold and fragile. "It sounds as though Sabal actually ran into the drider, which is what caused it to see him."
"As long as Maya sees them first, she can block them out."
"It might be prudent to have her taught in the ways of stealth," she said. "Urlryn, would you be up to it?"
"Soon," Urlryn said. She was relaxed in Jevan's arms now, her head on his shoulder. "Just now..." She trailed off, and closed her eyes.
"Let's go to bed, loves," Jevan said. "The next few ilit will be long. Entombing Triel, and we have to move."
Caught off guard, Imryne stiffened. "Move? Oh. Into my mother's rooms."
"Matron mothers live in those quarters," he pointed out. She looked up and saw his whole body carved in lines of watchfulness, and the cold place inside of her burned. "Being what you are, it's traditional to occupy them. But you are the matron mother, if you want to stay here."
I am the matron mother. She felt as she had in the courtyard, desperately desiring to press herself into stone. "No, we should move. The matron's apartments are the most secure place in this compound. I want to take some time to see what my mother might have left behind for me there. And I need to see if any of her husbands wish to return to the families of their births." Though, thinking about it--only the youngest two were from houses that were currently standing. Three of them were from Nurbonnis, two from Kenafin, most of the rest from houses whose names had been swallowed by time and stone and blood.
"Been a long time, I doubt it," he said. "They will probably stay to defend the house and their children."
"Likely." Imryne knuckled one eye. "Bed? Please?"
There was little sleep through that long night. Imryne and Tar coiled around each other in a tight knot of pain and grief, Jevan behind Imryne and Urlryn wrapping Tar up tightly. "I'm so sorry, Tar," Imryne murmured into her wife's ear.
"I don't even know if it would have been a boy or a girl," Tar whispered back. "Triel died before she could tell me anything, before I even knew that I wanted to know. And now...Imryne, I'm afraid."
Imryne felt tears welling in her eyes. "So am I."
(Tarithra, in the gallery of the dead)
I don't think anyone's told her how much she looks like her mother, Tar thought as she stood beside Imryne, in the vault of Melrae.
Though the vault was large, it was crowded and fusty and unpleasant-smelling, and Tar's stomach was already touchy from grief and the murder of the child that she'd been carrying. She swallowed, her throat raw, and reached out a hand for Urlryn. She kept her eyes on Imryne, who was stepping forward with Jaelryn, escorting the four of Triel's husbands who had volunteered to carry their wife's body to its final resting place.
The mother's bier had been cleared of its last occupant. Her moldering bones and rotted shroud had been gently removed to one of the niches on the wall, her bones stacked in a respectful pattern, ribs protecting the skull with its empty sockets. The husbands laid Triel's body on the bier, and two more brought up the shroud to hide her body from view. Imryne and Jaelryn took their places, Imryne as matron mother at Triel's head, Jaelryn as the first daughter of Triel's body at her feet. The husbands stepped back, into the crowd.
Imryne looked around, her eyes seeking Jevan and focusing on him. Then she found Urlryn and Tar, and for a terrible moment Tar thought that Imryne was going to crumple on the spot, dissolve into tears and howling.
But she did not.
Instead, her back straightened, her face settling into familiar taut lines. The immediate family was here, Triel's husbands and children and grandchildren. Even Zyn had come down with Talabrina and her son. Zyn was part of the honor guard, falling into his place here as if he had not left for the surface cycles ago, his scarred face a welcome sight amongst the grief of the past two ilit. Tar hated to admit it, but she missed the taciturn male, if only because Imryne's soul seemed easier when he was around. Her brother had been Imryne's sword and shield since she was tiny, and nothing that changed in her life could alter that. Jevan might be her husband and her bodyguard, but Zyn was her blood. Him being gone to the surface was a wound that Imryne never spoke of, but that Tar knew existed anyway.
The only grandchildren who were not here this day were Maya and Sabal. Even if there had not been a ritual interdict against those who caused a death being present at the entombment, Imryne would not have allowed them to come. She had risen from the bed an ilit ago with an implacable anger in her, and Maya and Sabal were the unfortunate targets of her rage. Tar understood the anger at the same time that she knew that if it went on much longer, it would destroy Imryne's relationship with the two of them. She hoped the interment would put part of it to rest.
Imryne began to speak, beginning the first lines of the interment with a voice that started off trembling but soon grew strong. Imryne's part in this ceremony was the embodiment of death, of the enclosing dark that stole the breath of the body. Jaelryn was the voice of the House, the voice of all of those who loved Triel, who would not give her up without a fight.
Their voices wound around each other, Jaelryn's rich, deep voice, Imryne's sharper one. No matter how many times Tar heard these prayers, this ancient ritual discussion between a goddess and the forces that even she could not conquer, it always seemed new, tugging like a river at her soul. The prayers ended, as they always did, at an impasse; playing out the first conflict between a goddess who loved life and a force that did not sorrow at what it devoured, a promise made to keep life going by making new even as the old passed away. Tar listened, her heart soaking in the words. Life came from death. She fisted one hand pressed against her belly, pressing it into the vicinity of her empty womb. Goddess, help me survive. For the children, for all those I love.
Then it was done, and there was a moment of silence as the collected crowd held their breath. Imryne had a handful of glittering dust, which she sprinkled over the shroud. "For you are gone, but we remember, Matron Mother Melrae Triel, daughter of Melrae Brigantyna, daughter of Shulvallriel." She dropped her hands to her side, and took a breath.
They filed out of the vault, and Zyn and Jevan closed the door behind them. They walked the catwalks back to the entrance, crossing the gaps to the accompaniment of the flutterings and scrabblings of the denizens of the gallery, the things that had become more numerous once the outcasts had departed. Imryne led, her staff in her hand. She was casting an illusion on Zyn, who walked beside her, altering his appearance. The reason for the illusion was waiting for them at the mouth of the gallery, under the jagged arch.
Twelve drider waited, making scratching noises as they shifted in place. They cleared a space, pressing against the rough stone on either side of the arch, and paced beside the mourners all the way up to Fanaedar.
Tar kept her eyes down, her teeth gritted and her hands fisted. Attacking the drider would be useless. They were just abominations, without any free will of their own. They were just the very visible reminders of Lloth's terrible perfection and the oppressive peace that they had brought. She resented them anyway, feeling them looking at her, their gazes crawling on her skin.
They were silent on the way back. None of the babies cried, and all the children kept their mouths closed. They paused for a moment at Shobalar to let Jaelryn and her husbands through the gates, then proceeded to Melrae, leaving the drider on the outside of the gates when they passed through. The husbands departed for the matron's apartments in a clump; they would spend the day moving their things to rooms elsewhere in Melrae. Even those whose birth houses still stood had declined to returned to them.
Tar stood and watched, her and Imryne and Urlryn and Jevan a still dock in the river of motion. Urlryn had an intense expression on her face, her eyes half-closed, her hands wrung together. Imryne was staring up at House Melrae, the house she was now officially in charge of. Jevan stood back a little, his hands on his swords. Being in the company of the driders made him nervous for hours afterwards, and irritable.
She let Imryne have ten long breaths before she went to put a hand on her wife's hip. Even through the heavy dress she was wearing, she could feel the jut of her hipbone, and checked her disapproving sigh. "Inside," she murmured, leaning in to Imryne.
Imryne's body swayed towards her, pressed up against her, and she made a strange noise, almost a moan.
Then she crumpled where she stood, and Tar caught her before she hit the stone.
(Imryne, in House Melrae)
Imryne padded around the matron mother's apartments, her feet bare, the shift she was wearing brushing gently against her knees. Her mother's rooms. Her rooms, now.
These apartments were the largest set of rooms in the house, a small maze of interconnected bedrooms, offices, dining rooms, bathing rooms, vaults, playrooms. They had every comfort, including windows that brought air and starlight down from the surface, a ready supply of hot water, a small but well-appointed kitchen, thick rugs, padded furniture. Every comfort, and a forlorn feeling, as if the stone itself mourned for the woman who had occupied the rooms. The husbands had all moved to their own rooms, and Imryne had asked that she go into her mother's rooms alone.
The doors of the vaults opened to her touch. They were embedded in the floor of the library closest to the matron's bedroom, and hissed as they spiraled open from their center. If Imryne were to fall through, she would find herself standing upright on the other side of the doors. Some ancient mother of Melrae, when this house had been built, had twisted the space that the vaults were in somehow. Going into them bent Imryne's mind in ways she did not like.
Looking inside, she could see that they were full, stuffed almost to bursting. With this alone, Melrae could live for a hundred cycles without any coin coming in, longer if they cut back on the frivolities that made life bearable sometimes. She closed the door to the vault and the rug shimmered back into place over it.
This library had been her mother's personal collection; it was filled with all kinds of books in an order that Imryne couldn't comprehend at first glance, what appeared to be fiction mixed in with works on religion, strategy, histories. There was reading material enough here for cycles, and this was only her mother's personal collection; the House had another collection, stored close to the mage laboratories.
And speaking of--
Imryne looked at the steel-bound door opposite her that was framed by a carved archway, the motif of naked, twined bodies a magnificent work of art on its own. Imryne had never been past this portal. She didn't think anyone but Triel and her husbands had in Triel's lifetime. Now that it was hers--how strange that thought, that any of this could be hers--none but Imryne and her spouses would go within. This was the most secret of secret hearts of the house.
Am I worthy?
I will have to be.
She shuddered, and made herself step forward. She drew close to the door, and laid her hand on the wood.
There was a tingling under her hand, and the door swung soundlessly inward. She stepped past the threshold, smelling the clean scent of incense and herbs and under it a slight whiff of things more primal, sweat and sex. It was not a large room by any means, probably fifteen paces across, curved walls holding carved shelves and a carved granite altar. There were cabinets that probably held linens and pillows for when ritual was held in here, a low table where Triel would create objects with the arts given to her by the goddess.
The thing that kept Imryne's attention was the altar, and she approached it, reaching out to run cautious fingers over the edge of the stone. Images flashed over her mind, her mother naked and gasping on this stone, surrounded by her husbands, face twisted in ecstasy. Imryne's heart contracted painfully, and she went to her knees before the altar, pressing her forehead against the carved edge of the stone. "I am sorry," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
Daughter of your mother's darkness, best beloved, most difficult, most needy, most glorious--
Tears were burning in her eyes and dripping to the stone. She clung to the altar, riding the wave of pain, drowning in it. It passed, leaving her breathing hard. She forced herself to her feet, and turned to look at the shelves as a distraction.
On the table was a simple bowl made of white marble. It was full of water, as it would be for seeing spells, and the water was steaming slightly. Frowning, she dipped her fingers, finding that the water was just warmer than her blood. She tilted her head and let her mind relax as she had been taught to do when casting seeing spells, and let her mind wander. She wondered where Tar was, if she had managed to get to the temple as she had said she was going to. She was worried desperately about Tar. Her wife's bright light was very dim right now, as her too-soon emptied womb broadcast signals of distress to her whole body. Drow women died of miscarriages sometimes, apparently of broken hearts. Imryne didn't think it was going to happen to Tar, but she fretted anyway.
An image shimmered in the water, Tar before the main altar in the sanctuary, her head bowed and her lips moving in prayer. Pleased, Imryne set her mind wandering elsewhere. Urlryn was pacing a hall in the house, deep in conversation with a male Imryne recognized as one of the guards and a protégé of Urlryn's. Jevan was in the weaponsyard, training Sabal. It looked, at first glance, as if Jevan was beating the stuffing out of Sabal. On second and third glance, it was possible to see that they were merely being very rough with each other, and neither was in imminent danger of killing each other.
Her mind ranged outward. She got no response from the bowl when she thought of Ryld or of any of her enemies; it seemed that the only ones she could see were those wearing house symbols. "No wonder she knew everything I'd been up to," she murmured. This was how Triel had kept her eye on her entire household. Another way for her to travel without leaving the house.
Imryne rubbed her eyes. It was getting too hard to be in here by herself, though she knew she had needed to come here by herself the first time. She retreated, closing the door behind her. She spent the next while going through papers and such in her mother's office, setting aside what would need to go into storage, making room for her own things, familiarizing herself with the contents of the various ledgers and account books.
In a drawer, she encountered an object that made her jump back with a smothered cry of alarm. There was a crystal in the bottom of the drawer, but it felt somehow wrong. It was warm, and somehow a little squishy. It lay in the bottom of the drawer, looking innocuous, a clear crystal with just the slightest pink blush to it. On one facet, Imryne was written in her mother's clear hand.
She steeled herself and picked up the crystal. It lay in her palm so innocuously, though it still felt alien, disturbingly organic. She rolled it over in her hand, and then wrapped her fingers around it, pressing slightly.
Light burst forth from it, flowing between her fingers and coalescing into the form of her mother, standing in a plain dress that Imryne recognized as one of her mother's ritual outfits. She smiled at Imryne, and Imryne felt her entire body curl in on itself, gritting her teeth as pain broke over her.
"Imryne, this first one is just a recorded message." Triel's voice rang in her ears, confident and gentle. "I have left a part of my soul in this crystal to help you if you need it. It will work three times more. I will come back to answer your questions as best I can. I do not know if my knowledge will only be historical or if death will give me the ability to see the future." She paused, and Imryne looked up to see that the image of her mother had taken on a stern look. "The house, Imryne, is more important than one life, but Ellistraee's worship and survival of that worship is so much more important than even that. You will have to weigh that in your decisions, but I know you will make the right ones. I love you, Imryne."
The image faded. Imryne doubled over, cradling the crystal against her stomach. "I love you too, Mother," she murmured through teeth gritted tight. "Thank you."
After doing the work that needed to be done, Imryne straggled into the set that was to be her home for only another ilit more. They retired early, Imryne with Jevan wrapped around her and Urlryn in her arms, Tar draped over Urlryn and Imryne.
Grief sank them into sleep.
(Ryld, in House Xalyth)
I can see it, now.
Melrae Triel and Xalyth Jhalass. Twisted together, joined by the common thread of their association with House Fanaedar. Melrae Imryne and Xalyth Greyanna, both born third and now first, both plagued by madness.
Mother, this house is what Melrae could have been.
What we could still be.
Watch, Mother, and learn.
(Greyanna, in House Xalyth)
"She's dead," Greyanna said, her voice hollow.
She stepped into her daughter's bedroom, dropped into a nearby chair, buried her head in her hands. The room showed signs of having been abruptly abandoned, Haelra's husbands and wives quickly sent away after Greyanna had knocked. Greyanna's unbound hair spilled forward, hiding her hands and arms entirely. Her daughter Haelra crouched at her knee, carefully resting her fingers on Greyanna's bare ankle. "Mother--"
"Jhalass is dead," Greyanna said. "She was only thing standing in the way of Imrae razing our house. Jhalass had Imrae's respect, something that I obviously don't."
Haelra was shaking. "What do we do, Mother?"
"The thing I have been dreading." Greyanna raised her head. Her eyes were dry, her expression set hard. "Going to House Melrae and see if we can forge enough of an alliance with their faction that we can end House Vandree. It would have been so much easier with Triel, but Imryne is a logical woman. I hope I have enough to bargain with to make her see reason."
"Imbros?" Haelra asked.
"Anything could be on the table, Haelra. House Xalyth needs this to survive, and I will do anything to survive."
The two of them sat together unmoving, Greyanna staring into the distance and Haelra worriedly watching her mother's face. Around them the house slumbered, unaware.
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Date: 2008-04-12 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 02:33 pm (UTC)Tar in my original thought was going to die there. I needed something to make Jevan react so strongly that he would kill first and not care what he had just done. But Tar, unlike Ilfryn wasn't done yet, she had more to do and say so I opted for the death of the child to add more grief to the situation.
Having messed with Imryne with Greyanna for so long, I wanted to twist the whole story and see if I could make an alliance with House Xalyth and Melrae. That took some doing and some great concessions that you will read about soon.
These scenes set the tone of the rest of the book and even here I was setting the ending to the series but as Kris will tell you its still a long way off.
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Date: 2008-04-14 10:39 pm (UTC)