The Silence of Medair

After she’d washed, and drunk a little of the water left for her, Medair found herself worrying about clothes of all things. She drew the blue and black dress from her satchel. Although the cut and cloth were unadorned, simplistic by Court standards, it did give her the air of having dressed up. At least her appearance could not be deemed an insult, lacking the proper respect for the Kier. The ward against traces was a touch of decoration above the bodice.

Rejecting a second enquiry after her needs from the Keridahl’s too-efficient servants, Medair retreated to the balcony at the southern end of the hall outside her room. She enjoyed the cool breeze as she gazed out over this city which could no longer be thought of as home.

"How different you look from when I first saw you," Avahn said, appearing almost a decem after he had left. Medair turned away from her contemplation of the view to consider him instead.

"You, however, have merely exchanged finery for finery," she said. "Perhaps a little more costly than before."

Avahn shrugged minutely, causing the muted greens and blues of his demi-robe to shimmer. Dragonflies danced. "The Kier summons you to her presence," he said. "I make a fitting escort." He paused a beat, then added: "The Kier has expressed a wish to examine both yourself and your satchel."

"Has she?" Medair turned again towards the shadows and reflections of a late afternoon sun. "I am no longer geased," she observed, voice as distant as the jagged horizon. "Would you stop me, if I tried to leave?"

"I believe I owe you my life, Medair," Avahn replied, after a significant pause. "But there are a great many in the White Palace who have no such debt."

"And they are between me and the door." She sighed. "I don’t want to meet your Kier, Avahn, but then, I did not wish to do any of this. We had best go and get it over with."

He accepted this with an ambiguous nod, and led her on a path which he could not know was very familiar to her. Down the central stairs of Lothra Tower, through the Rumbling Tunnel to the second floor of Fasthold. Then along the Great Hall, with its ten sets of huge oaken doors, to detour at the last moment, in the very face of the silver-embossed ebony slabs which led to the Throne Room.

The private audience chamber had changed so greatly that Medair, after so much familiarity, was again disoriented. Ibisian ritual did not bend to allowing lesser beings to be seated in the presence of the Kier during any official audience, and the oak table of Corminevar times had been swept away, leaving a room which was larger for its lack of furniture. A single dark throne had replaced the Emperor’s table, and Medair felt a pang for the comfortable chairs which had once made speaking to the most powerful person in all Farakkan a little easier.

Eight pairs of eyes watched her arrival. Medair, the extreme emotions of her entry into the White Palace well suppressed, breathed deeply as she walked towards the shimmering cluster of nobility. All so very Ibisian, only a hint of Farakkian blood detectable among these tall men and women in their robes of silk, polished stones glinting through the fine, white veils of their hair. Cor-Ibis was there, and las Theomain. Medair’s eyes flicked over their formally expressionless faces, past the other three women and two men to the descendent of Kier Ieskar and a child of the Corminevar line.

Kier Inelkar Var Corminevar las Saral-Ibis resembled neither the ruler nor invader of the Palladian Empire. There were certain features which were apparent traits of the Ibisian royal line – small nose, slightly pointed face – but there was not the marked similarity to Ieskar Medair had found in Cor-Ibis' features. Nor was there any hint of Farakkian blood. The woman was as pale and remote as any of the White Snakes, without even the Corminevar jaw which had kept so many women of that line from being named true beauties. It made it better, that Inelkar did not look like either of the men Medair had known. Her nervously clenched stomach relaxed and she felt more in command of herself.

Avahn stopped some ten feet from the group gathered around the throne, and folded into a bow full of subtle complexities. Medair recognised it and decided to offer Kier Inelkar the same obeisance she had been trained to give the woman’s forebear, so long ago. The depth to indicate Medair was someone of much lower, but still courtly rank. The touches to either shoulder, but not to the heart, for Inelkar could surely not count as Medair’s sovereign and thus was owed no indication of loyalty. Avahn took himself off to one side of the chamber, leaving Medair alone before the throne.