Stained Glass Monsters

Chapter Nineteen

There was a valley where home used to be, flat and wide like some great round footprint. All the world which had been Kendall’s for fifteen years was gone, had been stepped on.

Around the road they’d used, trees lay flat or splintered, radiating out from the heaviness' outer ring, where a crust of debris was oozing slowly up. At the centre a woman in white would still be lying. Kendall probably wouldn’t have been able to see her, even if it hadn’t been raining. Too far away. But the rain, a steady downpour, made it easy to judge just how big an area the heavy air now covered. It was huge, a grey dome where ordinary drops suddenly became a grey blur of needle-hard darts. They weren’t allowed to go close enough to hold a hand into it, but Kendall could see the impact, the way those darts churned and stitched the ground. The whole of the world thrummed and was pulled by the weight of that air.

And everywhere were angry people. The cordon of militia, dripping and scowling as they blocked a road but not the fields beside it. The miserable clumps of townsfolk returning to view the wreck of their lives before the next expansion. The Hand and Sentene mages, faces hidden by hoods they’d attached to their uniforms, silently surveying a magical problem so immense they couldn’t even go near it, let alone fix it. And the Kellian.

Angry Kellian were scarier even than the crab-thing. They were all grey and unseeable in the rain, but so intensely there they were like storm clouds lowering. They didn’t frown or mutter or anything like that, but energy, a coiled readiness for action, rolled off them until Kendall could hardly stand to be near them. Even Sukata felt like someone who might turn and rip your head off at any moment, if she decided you were to be held to account.

Only Rennyn Claire seemed unmoved. She’d eyed the dome critically, cast a couple of spells, then pulled a big book out of one of her bags and sat in the coach making notes. The Black Queen’s focus hung from her wrist, awkward and obviously heavy, but she’d made no move to take it off since leaving Asentyr.

Ignoring the wet, Kendall drew back from the coach so she could watch the way everyone moved about Rennyn. The Hand mages hovered, itching to see what she was writing. The Sentene mages and Kellian, angry as they were, still kept a protective eye on her position. Militia and townsfolk angled for a glimpse in the coach door, wondering who warranted such heavy protection. Captain Faille standing near the rear wheel, surveyed everyone else because it was his turn to be bodyguard. He only moved his eyes, and felt liable to crush anyone who came near.

Not that any assassin had a chance. They were travelling with a third of the Sentene: some had stayed behind another day to deal with the natural breaches which followed the ones they knew were coming, and another group had gone ahead to prepare the ground at the next site. Like the White Lady, no outsider could get near Rennyn.

Kendall headed back to Rennyn’s coach just as Captain Illuma, becoming a little less like an imminent storm, crossed as well. "Do you wish to observe the next expansion, my Lady? We have time enough to delay."

"No need." Rennyn peered out the coach door, studying one of the big cracks in the ground which radiated out from the heaviness. "Have there been earthquakes?"

"It is a stable region. But the last expansion was felt well into Sark. That helped speed the evacuation."

"My best guess is that the final expansion will fall short of the southern edge of the city. But there will be considerable damage purely from the concussion." Rennyn turned back to Captain Illuma, started with, "Have–" then stopped, and looked fleetingly annoyed. "I’ve added minimum and maximum range for the final distortion to the map, but the range of the concussion and debris is outside my expertise."

"Where are they putting everyone?" Kendall asked.

Captain Sarana looked down from her unnecessary height and said: "Esson, Nelk, a dozen other locations. Mages of the Sentene and the Hand have been working with the non-specialist forces in ensuring that there are strong circles, and some kind of shelter. Temporary measures, since a large portion of the evacuations are merely precautionary and only the very southern fringe of the city is expected to be left uninhabitable. Much of Sark will be able to return to their homes and repair."

And a lot wouldn’t, would be looking for places to live. Bundling her wet smock and trying not to drip on everything, Kendall thought about where Mayor Dorstan and the Lippons and everyone from Falk had ended up as Captain Illuma nodded and set them moving toward the military camp coordinating the evacuation.

Kendall cast a sideways look at Rennyn’s face. She never seemed at all concerned about evacuations, never looked at the groups of angry folk they passed, even though there was supposed to be some great evil conspiracy of people out to get her. Was that likely? There’d been attempts aimed at the Sentene, and the royal family, but the only attack on the Claires had been Sebastian getting in the way of some Night Roamers. From what Kendall had heard, even her Night Roamer uncle had seemed more interested in talking to Rennyn than killing her. The gossip about her answers in the Hall of Question made it clear she wasn’t interested in helping the Black Queen, or becoming Queen herself, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have her own agenda.

Kendall was uncomfortable with her thoughts, but mulled them over all the way south from the camp to Sanlecey, which was a big town not far from the Lecey Forest, where they nicely filled one of the larger inns, and another down the road. While everyone settled in, looking after the horses and setting up guard stations, Kendall watched the crowd which formed outside on the street. She’d be out there herself if she was a local. Sentene were an exciting enough sight, let alone a whole troop of them. Did they know that Rennyn Claire was with them? Was that why some of them looked angry?

Heading downstairs, she found Rennyn in the smaller dining room, sitting down to table for an early meal with a mix of the Hand and Sentene, including Sukata and her mother and Lieutenant Danress. Kendall spent her time covertly studying her would-be teacher and thinking over Surclere arrogance. Though she sat at the same table with them, Rennyn was very much separate. She listened more than talked, lost in her own thoughts or in the meal. A real mage, a Montjuste-Surclere, with secrets.

"Why did Prince Tiandel betray his mother?"

Rennyn, who had been deeply involved in a gloopy trifle, looked up at Kendall’s question. Her expression didn’t change, which only reinforced Kendall’s growing feeling that she was always guarding herself against them.

"What’s the popular theory?"

Always answering questions with questions, buying herself time to come up with a story. "That the side-effects of the Grand Summoning – the stuff that’s happening around Falk now – upset him. That he couldn’t accept the price she was willing to pay in other people’s lives."

"Mm – well, to be the fair, Solace didn’t know the precise details of what would happen either. They both knew there would very likely be a general increase in breaches, that there would definitely be great stresses placed on the walls between worlds in a predictable pattern, and that there would be an initial outward expression of the spell. They both knew that people would probably die, directly or indirectly, as a result of the Summoning. The rationalisation was that in a war – for the threat of a Kolan invasion was very real – there are casualties. That for the greater good, sacrifices had to be made."

"And do you believe that?"

Rennyn Claire didn’t answer right away. Everyone else at the table had stopped talking, and the only sound was the clink of her spoon as she put it down.

"Yes and no." Her eyes were completely black, face expressionless. "If I had to kill you, to stop Solace, would you think it wrong?"

"Of course I would!" Kendall said immediately, then faltered. She was here, alive, because this woman had chosen the exact opposite.

Rennyn smiled, and stood up. "Well, if it’s any consolation, I don’t plan to kill anyone if I can at all avoid it. But perhaps that was Solace’s feeling as well. As to why Tiandel betrayed her, it was something she said to him just before she commenced the Summoning. The Council had been playing her off against the Montjuste Pretender in an attempt to increase their own power, and she was very much a Queen who believed that she should rule absolutely. She told Tiandel that after the Summoning, no-one would ever oppose her again. That gave him a lot to think about."

Moving to the door, she glanced at Captain Illuma. "An early start tomorrow?"

"Shortly after dawn." The Captain’s face was particularly blank. Sukata, beside her, had that slightly hunched posture that said she was upset.

When Rennyn nodded and left, Kendall refused to get up and leave too. Though her face burned, she ate all of her trifle, ignoring the muttered conversation between two of the Hand, and the less obvious communication between the Sentene. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Everyone tiptoed around Rennyn not asking the questions they should. Just because they were both enemies of the Black Queen didn’t mean they were on the same side.

Finished, she pushed her chair back and went out, unsurprised but annoyed when Lieutenant Danress followed her.

"Let’s go for a walk, hey?"

Kendall didn’t want to talk, but she knew the Sentene mage wouldn’t leave her alone until she’d said her piece, so she followed along silently, out a back door of the inn where there wasn’t such an audience, and down one of the sloping cobbled streets. Danress wasn’t wearing her coat, and in the long shadows of late afternoon they didn’t draw any attention.

Sanlecey was a pretty town, with lots of up and down streets and tall, thin houses with dressing around the window – they looked like the dollhouse Nan Tikal had been so fond of boasting about. All of the houses had little patches of garden out front – not for vegetables, but full of flowers. Roses mainly, and sprawling bushes covered with purple and white daisies. At the bottom of the hill was a wide curving street edged with fancy stores on one side and a park on the other. There was a pond in the middle, and they sat on a bench to watch two swans drift about looking bored.

"How much of Sark will be destroyed, do you reckon?"

Lieutenant Danress grimaced. "Between hundreds and thousands of homes. Up to half of the city, though we are praying we will lose only the fringe. There’s pressure to divert as many Hand and Sentene mages as possible into shielding certain buildings that lie on the edge of the predicted destruction. The Dawnbringer’s Temple, for instance, is a work of art, truly glorious, and it’s sure to be badly damaged, even if it’s not crushed outright. They’re removing the windows, hoping to preserve them elsewhere, but the carvings -"

"There’s lots of mages who aren’t in the Queen’s service, aren’t there? Can’t they do that?"

"Some will be. But it’s a question of numbers, and the danger. Shielding large areas against crushing force is a massive undertaking. You saw what it took Lady Rennyn to protect a single room. For us to protect entire buildings will take time to set up, and unless the mages are willing to trust the shields enough to stay within them during the expansion – a thing Lady Weston has forbidden for both the Sentene and the Hand – we will need to factor in duration. The shields will be set as near to the last moment as we dare, and then left."

"Saving buildings instead of people." Kendall had lived close to Sark all her life, but never been there, never seen the great glass windows of the Temple which were supposed to be so special.

"We can understand the reasons – the Temple, particularly, is one of Tyrland’s jewels. But there are things we’d prefer to be doing."

She meant protecting Rennyn. Kendall scowled at a swan, which moved on unconcerned.

"Don’t mistake what’s happening here," Lieutenant Danress said. "We know there’s things she hasn’t told us, that there’s some further complexity she’s keeping back. Half-truths mostly, but the occasional bald-faced lie. She can act, but the omissions become obvious eventually."

"Could she take control of the power the Black Queen’s summoned, instead of – whatever she’s supposed to do?"

The look Lieutenant Danress gave her was so startled, Kendall explained the suspicion which had been growing in her.

"She doesn’t want the throne, she’s no friend of the Black Queen. She said she isn’t going to cast the Grand Summoning herself. But couldn’t she take all that power and make it hers?"

"I – I’d say that’s impossible, but given Lady Rennyn’s abilities, perhaps I shouldn’t underestimate her. But that would be monstrously dangerous to the city and there’s a vast difference between could and would."

"What other reason does she have to lie? She’s – it’s so obvious that she must be going to do something wrong. She just admitted that she’d be willing to kill innocent people to win. Lie about what she intends to do, and if she has to, kill people. Without even telling them why, without even giving them a choice."

Lieutenant Danress shook her head. "Lady Rennyn may be hiding something, but do you think we – let alone the Kellian – would not see through that kind of motive? There’s no finer judge of character than a Kellian, and whatever else this is, they’re sure Lady Rennyn isn’t power-hungry."

Kendall glowered. "Don’t you think the Kellian might be a little biased? She’s–"

"A Montjuste-Surclere? Believe me, that hardly recommended her to the Kellian."

"They don’t act like that."

"Hmph. Their current behaviour is dictated by the events of the Black Night. Keste – Keste Faral and I get along well and she tried to describe to me their first reaction, after we returned from Finton and were speculating over Lady Rennyn’s identity. They found the idea of Montjuste-Surclere survivors annoying."

"Annoying?" That didn’t match how they acted.

"People mistake the Kellian manner for a lack of will, but it’s totally the opposite. They are – in a way they’re very, ah, proud’s not the word and nor is arrogant. They have incredibly high standards. They don’t like to be connected with people who are…base. The Black Queen is their idea of base, and they don’t consider Prince Tiandel was much better. They have a very low opinion of selfishness, of hurting others for your own benefit."

"They’re all holier-than-the-Dawnbringer?"

Lieutenant Danress laughed, and shrugged. "Not really – they certainly don’t go around trying to reform people. They just find certain people distasteful. Most of the rest they are unfailingly polite to, and some they consider worth knowing. When I was first assigned to be my Captain’s partner, I was in dread of not living up to him."

Kendall would have just been in dread. "He’s a scary man."

"Daunting," Lieutenant Danress agreed, in much the same tone she’d use for wonderful. "Do you know – he knows more about magical theory than me – he just has no ability to cast? To be a novice Sentene and assigned to be his partner was a nightmare, but he gave me plenty of chances to prove myself and treated any mistakes as the minor things they were – so long as I did not make them twice."

Kendall thought Lieutenant Danress had a bad case of hero worship, but kept that to herself. Sukata was a bit the same way about Captain Faille, which Kendall just found perplexing.

"There’s a reason Illuma and Faille are so respected," Lieutenant Danress went on, smiling at Kendall’s expression. "They are extraordinary, both brilliant and fair. Not to mention very protective of their people. The idea of Montjuste-Surcleres resurfacing, linked with someone like Solace – as Lady Rennyn seemed she might be when we encountered her in Finton – well, they found it annoying, as I said. Like a sheep-thief relative showing up at a wedding.

"And then the Black Night, where Sebastian throws himself in front of a clutch of Irisian and Lady Rennyn – if we had taken even a minute or two longer in killing the last of the Eferum-Get, she may have died. And she chose that, to not let an Azrenel loose even at the cost of her life, because it was a worse thing than the Black Queen. The Kellian stopped finding their link to her a negative thing after that, and are almost possessive where she’s concerned. While they very much want to know just what it is she’s keeping back, they trust her overall goals."

"Even without knowing what they are."

"It’s more the means which are in question. We are certain she truly intends to stop Solace."

"You could just ask."

"You think we haven’t, directly and indirectly? The problem is the way she’s been raised. All this was meant to be a secret, she was supposed to avoid us even knowing she existed. Not sensible, of course, but nothing we do seems to convince her that we can protect her adequately. She won’t even discuss how to deal with the final incursion, which is in the Fens, until she’s done the next partial attunement in the Hall of Summoning. We’re almost certain she intends to cut loose from us after the Fens incursion, and make her own way to the Hall of Summoning. Frustrating, as you can imagine."

"Why does this attunement have to happen at all? Can’t you just attack the Black Queen when she shows up in the Hall of Summoning, and kill her?"

"If only. She’ll be shielded, and had at least a rudimentary command of Force magic. With her strength she’d swat us like bugs before we scratched her defences. With the kind of power she’ll have at her disposal, even destroying the entire Hall before her arrival wouldn’t cause her much bother. Not that we aren’t going to prepare for a direct battle, should we fail to stop the Summoning, but–"

"What do the rest of the Sentene think of Rennyn?"

"Oh, we’re all too busy lusting after her magical knowledge to have any opinion. Meniar made a good point the other day, though."

"What?"

"That the Council debates had some basis. That if Tiandel hadn’t abdicated, Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere would be Tyrland’s Queen." Lieutenant Danress looked at the darkening sky. "Shall we head back?"

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

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

"What’s that in aid of?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Is that a difference?"

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

"N-no."

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

"…no."

"Then why are you so upset?"

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

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

"Why?"

"Because."

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

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

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

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

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

She’d smelled like vanilla.