The Silence of Medair

Thinking of Alaire’s marriage always made Medair furious, but anger was immediately followed by hopelessness. This was a cycle she had experienced over and over. Anger, misery, numbing apathy. Even after the marriage, had Medair returned something could have been done. But not now, when half Palladium was in some part White Snake. So wretchedly stupid and pointless to hark back to their arrival. Palladium was their home now. They were Palladian.

This inescapable reasoning had kept her far from the ranks of the Medarists, had driven her to her mountain retreat. Medair had once knelt before the Silver Throne and made an oath. It hadn’t been to the Emperor or the Corminevar Family or even primarily the Silver Throne, for all it was called the Oath of the Throne. It had been to Palladium, heart of the Empire, now peopled by those who had destroyed the Empire.

"Oddly, I had thought you had guessed what prize we sought," Illukar las Cor-Ibis said into her silence. That soft, detached voice only served to further lacerate wounds he did not begin to suspect. "The size of the blast would be beyond the ability of most magi not employing a rahlstone."

Their explanation had the ring of truth, and she had said she would return the stones to their owners, but she hadn’t wanted to hear that they belonged to Ibisians. Could she really do as she had planned, and give them back? To White Snakes? She looked at the man on the bed, watching her with eyes that cut far too deep. Medair felt so old. There was too much history behind her, issues which had become irrelevant. Simpler just to forget the hate and the loss and all that boundless irony and look merely at the fact of ownership. They belonged to Palladium.

"I did know it was rahlstones, yes," she replied, speaking almost as if someone else had control of her tongue. Hauling her satchel onto her lap, she unsealed it. "As to who had the victory after that wholly inadvisable casting…" There was a swift, indrawn breath behind her as she drew out the anonymous little purse, radiating its distinct aura. With only a small twinge, she tossed it to Cor-Ibis. "I rather think you did, Keridahl."

-oOo-

"AlKier!" breathed Avahn, while Jedda las Theomain made some incoherent noise of disbelief. Cor-Ibis, who had caught the stones neatly, tipped two out onto his palm. Wholly inscrutable. Medair watched him replace the rahlstones, then raise those silver eyes.

"Thank you," he said, for all as if she had just passed him a bowl of sugar over a tea table. "Might I see that satchel, Kel ar Corleaux?"

There was a knot inside Medair’s chest, and she knew her face was far too set as she resealed her satchel and handed it over. Even that felt like a betrayal. She wished very much that she could take back the last few moments.

"You defeated a truth-spell," las Theomain said, a thread of confusion in her voice. She moved forward to the opposite side of the bed and stopped, watching as Cor-Ibis ran long, sensitive fingers lightly over the embossed scroll. "No. Your answers were within a very limited scope of the truth." She seemed to look at Medair properly for the first time. "Why did you not produce these before, Kel ar Corleaux?"

"I didn’t know they were yours," Medair replied. It was becoming easier to breathe. Thought was gaining control over irrational feeling. The past was dead and the dead did not care and she should not either. But she always would. They were White Snakes! White Snakes.

"Those stones are worth…I would not care to estimate," Avahn las Cor-Ibis said softly, voice suddenly very similar to his cousin’s. "I had taken the impression that you were Kyledran. What profit to you to simply return them?"

"I saw what happened to the last woman who tried to profit from them," Medair replied, then turned back to Cor-Ibis, adding in explanation: "The merchant killed herself in the casting. It did not look as if any but you survived."

"That result had not occurred to me," he commented, not taking his eyes from the satchel.

"Keridahl, what is this woman? Is she, after all, a Medarist? Or an agent of some unknown player?"

This time Cor-Ibis did not rebuke las Theomain for speaking Ibis-laran. Perhaps he no longer considered Medair a guest.

"This is the truest reproduction I have ever seen of the old Heralds' satchels," he said, voice still conversational. "It must possess near-perfect shielding, since I can only barely sense its emanations, even with it in my hands. Far beyond what we are capable of. I will presume it has also been gifted with the same capacity for self-destruction as the satchels described in the histories." He turned it about in his hands once again. "Only four or five years old." Silvery eyes lifted to Medair. "I would very much like to meet the one who created this."