The Silence of Medair

She opened her satchel, to the accompaniment of a half-dozen swords drawn. She ignored them, all her energy focused on an effort to keep control. Her fingers tangled in a silken cord, and she drew it into sight.

The Horn of Farak was fashioned from grey-yellow bone, banded with black greshalt. It was long and narrow, a bell of dark metal flaring at one end. The other end was slightly knobbed, with no shielding mouthpiece. It looked like a piece of someone’s leg, fashioned into a musical instrument. And it sang.

Medair had heard tales of singing swords and always found the idea a little ludicrous. She had never conceived of such a sound as now filled the Throne Room. Waves breaking on endless shores. A bubbling brook. Rocks clattering down a slope. The deep vibration of rock, grinding in the bowels of the earth. The wind: in trees, through fields, down lonely ravines. Roaring at the heart of a storm. The essence of Farak, expressed a thousand different ways, all in a single whisper which deafened and was impossible to deny.

How this barely audible, wholly inescapable cacophony became melody, Medair could not explain. But it was a song truer than any that Telsen had ever crafted, and its effect on the Court was like a physical blow. They rocked on their heels, these proud, cold nobles, gaped stupidly and broke into cries of protest and wonder. Medair took two steps forward and held the Horn out to Inelkar, taking care that the Kier would grasp it by the cord, rather than the Horn itself. She had made that mistake, on first discovering the artefact, and was kind enough to not inflict such sensations on another.

The Kier brought her free hand up to the shaft, let it hover within touching for moments, then lowered the Horn so that it rested on the floor. The thing Medair had quested for to destroy the Ibis-lar, now in the hands of their leader.

"Medair an Rynstar." A statement, not a question. Inelkar’s voice was mild, but the part of Medair which hated herself for this deed heard it as an accusation, and shame washed through her. She had betrayed her oath, and delivered the Horn into the hands of the White Snakes. All the altruistic motives in the world would not excuse that.

"Ekarrel," murmured the Keridahl Alar, "we should shield the Horn. It would be well not to alert those who wait at our gates of this turn of events."

"Truly said." The Kier stood, as if the Keridahl’s words had freed her to action. She gestured peremptorily to two Court officials – Gantains, if Medair remembered the term correctly – and in a few short moments a large, disappointed portion of the Court was filing obediently out of the Throne Room. Medair wished she were going with them.

Avahn moved to Cor-Ibis' side, presumably so he would not be swept out with the rest. Cor-Ibis was gazing fixedly at the Horn, but lifted his head when Avahn reached him, and asked a question Medair could not hear. Avahn shrugged and they both looked at her, wearing mirrored heavy-lidded masks, their shared blood very apparent. Medair averted her face, and found herself looking at Jedda las Theomain, who was in turn staring at Cor-Ibis. The woman’s expression was set, as if she’d just seen a threat confirmed.

The ebony door thudded shut. Questions waited upon the arrival of an iron-wrought chest spelled to dampen magic in the same way as her satchel. The Horn of Farak was carefully lowered inside and a few words said to activate the dampening effect.

A look of palpable relief crossed the faces of the handful who remained. The song made the blood rise up to dance in the body’s courses, and none who heard it was left as cool in heart as Ibisians strove to be.

"Medair an Rynstar." The Kier now addressed her more purposefully. "Our debt to you is beyond reckoning, Keris. This is an act of greatness."

Medair looked at her, then dropped her eyes to the bauble of silver she had discarded. She shook her head, denying the words and her actions equally.

"An act born of lack of alternatives."

"Perhaps. How came you to be here, Keris an Rynstar? Centuries have passed."

Medair made a gesture toward the chest. "The Hoard of Kersym Bleak slumbers outside time," she said. "As did I." The words sounded pretentious and false, an attempt to hide the simple fact of falling asleep in the wrong place. "I erred," she continued, trying to make herself clear. "Chose to rest where I should have had better sense, and found the–" Her voice broke, and she inhaled sharply, as if she had been forgetting to breathe. "– I found that the war had passed me by."

It was not condemnation she read in their faces then, but pity. These White Snakes pitied her for failing to defeat them. That at last seemed a good reason to hate them, but she did not have the energy.