“That will ease my mind greatly,” said Kta.
Aimu wept at the parting, as she had already been crying and trying not to. Before she did leave the house, she went to the phusmeha and cast into the holy fire her silken scarf. It exploded into brief flame, and she held out her hands in prayer. Then she came and put herself in the charge of Ian t’Ilev.
Kurt felt deeply sorry for her and found it hard to think Kta would not make some special farewell, but he bowed to her and she to him with the same formality that had always been between them.
“Heaven guard you, my brother,” she said softly.
“The Guardians of Elas watch over thee, my little sister, once of this house.”..
It was all. Ian opened the door for her and shepherded her out into the street, casting an anxious eye across and up where the guards still stood on the rooftops, a reassuring presence. Kta closed the door again.
“How much longer?” Kurt asked. “It’s near dark. Shan t’Tefur undoubtedly has ideas of his own.”
“We are about to leave.” TNethim appeared silently among the shadows of the further hall. Kta gave a jerk of his head and t’Nethim came forward to join them. “Stay by the threshold,” he ordered t’Nethim. “And be still. What I have yet to do does not involve you. I forbid you to invoke your Guardians in this house.”
T’Nethim looked uneasy, but bowed and assumed his accustomed place by the door, laying his sword on the floor before him.
Kta walked with Kurt into the firelit rhmei, and Kurt realized then the nature of Kta’s warning to t’Nethim, for he walked to the left wall of the rhmei, where hung the Sword of Elas, Isthain. The ypan-sul had hung undisturbed for nine generations, untouched since the expulsion of the humans from Nephane but for the sometime attention that kept its metal bright and its leather-wrapped hilt in good repair. The ypai-sulim, the Great Weapons, were unique to their houses and full of the history of them. Isthain, forged in Indresul when Nephane was still a colony, nearly a thousand years before, had been dedicated in the blood of a Sufaki captive in the barbaric past, carried into battle by eleven men before.
Kta’s hand hesitated at taking the age-dark hilt of it, but then he lifted it down, sheath and all, and went to the hearthfire. There he knelt and laid the great Sword on the floor, hands outstretched over it.
“Guardians of Elas,” he said, “waken, waken and hear me, all ye spirits who have ever known me or wielded this blade. I, Kta t’Elas u Nym, last of this house, invoke ye; know my presence and that of Kurt Liam t’Morgan u Patrick Edward, friend to this house. Know that at our threshold sits Lhe t’Nethim u Kma. Let your powers shield my friend and myself, and do no harm to him at our door. We take Isthain against Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef, and the cause of it you well know. And you, Isthain, you shall have t’Tefur’s blood or mine. Against t’Tefur direct your anger and against no others. Long have you slept undisturbed, my dread sister, and I know the tribute due you when you are wakened. It will be paid by morning’s light, and after that time you will sleep again. Judge me, ye Guardians, and if my cause is just, give me strength. Bring peace again to Elas, by t’Tefur’s death or mine.”
So saying he took up the sheathed blade and drew it, the holy light running up and down the length of it as it came forth in his hand. Etched in its shining surface was the lightning emblem of the house, seeming to flash to life in the darkness of the rhmei. In both hands he lifted the blade to the light and rose, lifted it heavenward and brought it down again, then recovered the sheath and made it fast in his belt.
“It is done,” he said to Kurt. “Have a care of me now, though your human soul has its doubts of such powers. Isthain last drank of human life, and she is an evil creature, hard to put to sleep once wakened. She is eldest of the Sulim in Nephane, and self-willed.”