Andrea Höst - Voice of the Lost

"You want me to help with the hurdle."

"Yes." He nodded, his glance a mix of gratitude and concern. "I know it is not a role you are eager to assume, but you saw the power of your words on Tarsus. It is not merely that you are Medair an Rynstar, long made legend, but that you were there . And that for you, the war is over. I ask that you allow me to use that."

Medair looked away from him. She wanted little more than to find herself another Bariback, run away from all which could remind her of Illukar, and weep. But she wouldn’t. She thought, hoped, that she had reached beyond such cowardice.

"I used the Horn," she pointed out. "All the fury, grief and outrage which is the consequence of that will focus on me. You may find I cause more damage than good."

"Even hating you, they will want to hear. You said it yourself: at least they will know your reasons."

It would be a life of being spat at. Not a weapon to save an Empire, not a path of honour and glory, but a fumbling kind of recompense which would do nothing to dull the loss of Illukar. How could she stand it?

"I will try," she told Islantar, and saw him stand straighter. Relieved. He had not been certain of her.

"I am glad of that," he said, then looked down. The power of the Blight thrummed all around them. "Will you come back to The Avenue now?" he asked, and his voice had lost some of its strength.

"I would rather stay here."

Islantar looked at her intently, then nodded. "I will return for you in the morning."

He started to turn away but she reached out and again caught one of his hands. "I think the Emperor would find you worthy of his throne," she said, thickly. "And I think you will make him proud." It was not Grevain she meant. "Good luck."

"I shall make my own luck," Islantar replied, the light from the glowstone shimmering in his eyes. "It seems the safer course."

He returned the pressure of her hands briefly, and followed Tarsus and Thessan into the night. Medair watched him go, then turned to find Kier Ieskar at her side.

Medair did not flinch or cry out. Too much had happened for her to even be startled. She clenched her jaw and took a deep breath, but was able to stand quietly while Ieskar looked in Islantar’s direction. He was as he had appeared in the garden of The Avenue: transparent and luminescent, clad for death. When the glow of Islantar’s stone had been swallowed by the night, Ieskar turned on Medair the unfeeling gaze she had long thought to hate. He was drawn and wasted, the fine bones of his face standing out clearly beneath his pale skin, but the cold expressionless mask was the same.

"Did I summon you this time," she asked, unsteadily, "or is this excursion on your own account?"

"A little of both, perhaps." His soft, composed voice was exactly as she remembered it. "I wish to mark my brother’s passing. You would like very much for me to find a way for Illukar to live."

"And will you?"

"I cannot." There was a ghost of honest regret in the words, and the knot of hope which had clutched Medair’s chest unravelled. She turned away to look out at the night, wishing for miracles. None came, of course. The Blight still beat invisibly at her across the ever-decreasing Shimmerlan. Ieskar didn’t suddenly produce a solution, or even go away and leave her alone. She felt poorly served.

"He’s not your brother," she said abruptly, unable to stand his silent presence at her back.

"Merely a descendent of his line?" Ieskar was unperturbed by her denial. "You are wrong. Illukar does not remember the past, but that does not make him any less my brother."

She looked over her shoulder at him, but that was pointless. There was never any expression on Ieskar’s face. "He was reborn to face the Blight?" The idea sickened her.

"Perhaps." Ieskar gazed out over the water. "It is the fourth time he has lived, only to have that life cut short. As if the first sacrifice was imprinted onto the world itself."

"Born to die."

Ieskar did not deny it. "The cycle may be broken this time. He has no children, and it is unlikely that he would be reborn outside the direct path of descent."

"Is that meant to be comforting?"

"No." Ieskar’s cold blue gaze did not waver from the dark water, but he moved one of his hands, a gesture she could not interpret. "Illukar faced the Blight because I did not," he added. "It was my place to do so."

"What? Then why–?"

"Sar-Ibis was dying," he said, as if that would explain it. When she only stared, he went on. "The Ibis-lar ensured the health of the land by binding it to the Kier. As Sar-Ibis failed, so did I, until I did not have strength enough to face the Blight, though it was my role. Eventually I had not strength enough to live." There was still no flicker of expression on his face. "It is possible that the substitution is the reason why I endure and Illukar dies and dies again."

"Why you endure ?" Medair repeated, feeling ever less capable of dealing with this encounter. "You are not–?"

He looked at her then, shifting first his gaze then turning so he faced her. Tall and upright and eternally composed. "I am not a construct of Estarion’s Conflagration."

It was something which she had not properly thought about, but which had lurked at the back of her thoughts. She’d half-believed this ghost Ieskar to be conjured from her own memories, given form by wild magic. But then, like Finrathlar, he would not even know the truth of his own existence.

"My memories are those of the past known to you," Ieskar said, reading either her thoughts or the expression on her face. She stood staring at him, at the trailing sleeves of his funeral robe and the way his pale hair was untouched by the wind, and that unwavering gaze which had haunted her longer than he’d been dead. And she had to turn away.

"Will Islantar succeed?" she asked, to stop herself from thinking of either Illukar or Ieskar. She felt like she’d been running. Ieskar didn’t oblige her with an answer, so she covered her unease by finding herself another rock to sit on, too aware of his steady gaze.

"He appears determined to try," Ieskar said, after an interminable pause. "There are routes other than conciliation."

This provided her with a revivifying spurt of anger. "Should those who can’t forgive the invasion be driven out, then? Or simply be suppressed, ignored? You would watch Tarsus relinquish his claim to the throne, but have nothing given back? Shouldn’t Islantar make some meaningful sacrifice?"

The mask gave her nothing. "You are adept at both sides of this argument, Keris."

"I have seen both sides," she said, hotly. "I don’t see a solution."

"It is possible that there is no solution," Ieskar replied, serenely. "Not for every side, every interest. Islantar will try to find some balance, a way of easing the hatreds. I think it likely that he will be more inclined to listen to matters of redress than many of his predecessors. As for sacrifices–" He turned again to look out over the Shimmerlan. "He has already begun to pay."

Medair felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She drew in an unsteady breath and tried not to lose herself. Her anger was gone as if it had never been and she felt only helpless hurt. For a bare moment anger had taken her thoughts from Illukar, from that fact that he was going to die, that there was no way to save him.

There was.

The odd certainty which had preyed on her at Falcon Black returned. There was something which could be done. She knew it like she had known that Vorclase had been waiting. But how? Had Ieskar told her the truth, when he’d said there was nothing he could do to save Illukar? She’d never known the Ibisian Kier to lie, but Medair was certain she would not be able to read him one way or the other: Illukar was transparent by comparison. If there was something Ieskar knew, how could she winkle it out of him?