by Tanith Lee
“You pulled a knife, you clod. Let’s see it, then. Think you can nick me, do you, before I break your neck? Besides, it’s a hanging offense to resist the Am Dorthar.”
A voice called out: “He hasn’t a knife.”
Other voices yelled: “We’d’ve seen, wouldn’t we? You imagined it, Dortharian.”
The soldier’s face darkened. He spun to the crowd, snarling, but another soldier shouted for him abruptly from the road. With an obscene curse the Dortharian turned and glared briefly at Raldnor.
“Sometime I’ll settle with you, dung-creeper.”
He swung aside and shouldered through the press to his station.
A hand slipped Raldnor’s knife into his grasp. One or two people were going past; he was not certain who did it. He climbed back on to the box, shaking with a horrified sick fury, and saw Orhvan’s white face at the wagon flap.
A burst of trumpets. Dimly Raldnor became aware of the advent of the procession. He had a fine vantage point, which went mainly unused. He registered only a vague blur of dark soldiery, the colors of Dorthar and Thann Rashek, and the priestesses of Yasmis in their carmine garments, while the brass music howled in his ears. But then he saw the chariot.
For some reason all his senses sharpened and centered on that chariot—the vehicle of the Storm Lord, jet-black metal drawn by a jet-black team of animals. Perhaps it was the animals which first caught his attention, for he had never seen their breed before.
The man in the chariot had the Dortharian black copper skin and the black hair. His face was curious, a strangely distorted face—as if it held, half concealed, a cauldron of inner violence—though externally well-formed and boasting the large ebony eyes of his mother, Val Mala. He wore black, with a gold chain slashed across his breast. He held the reins in his right hand, in his left a gold handled whip. And that left hand had on it a gauntlet, with a smoky sapphire on the smallest finger.
And this then was the High King. This dark and odd-faced man was the royal Enemy.
Until this moment he had been merely a phantom; now, as if fated, all Raldnor’s hate transferred itself to him.
• • •
At the rose heart of Lin Abissa lay the Pleasure City, that area dedicated to the more carnal side of Yasmis, goddess of love. Xaros came in the blue dusk for him, and they soon left behind them the almost empty hostel and the pale girl sitting at the fire.
She had not wanted to go to the fine Xarabian’s house; she equated that dinner with the food and fear offered by the Ommos, Yr Dakan. Yet neither did she want to be alone in this creaking shadowy room, with its smoking, barely hospitable fire. On the hostel stairs she had brushed Raldnor’s arm.
“Must you go with Xaros?” she faltered.
“You know I must. I explained to you—we’re to see a furrier about the wolf pelt.”
“But must it be tonight?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
She could not tell him.
Soon he grew impatient. She tried to repress her tears for she knew that he hated her to cry. In his eyes there came that look which appalled her. She gave him no pleasure— how could she when she did not understand how? So he must look elsewhere. For she realized already that it was to a brothel he was going.
Now the tears ran down her face freely, and she did not wipe them away.
• • •
The narrow streets glowed with hot windows. Spangled women flaunted their sensual wares on high booths—fire dancers from Ommos and Zakoris, snake dancers from Lan and Elyr. Pimps roared out the virtues of their most expensive whores.
“Such breasts—such thighs—”
“Three of each,” Xaros remarked to the immediate crowd.
They came to a tinsel doorway and went in.
There was a naked Yasmis statue in the middle of the room, and a girl acrobat was contorting herself about it; prisms were pasted over her nipples and between her thighs a piece of mirror. Various customers were scattered here and there, drinking and observing her.
They sat down in an alcove, and a man brought them wine unbidden, and charged a ridiculous amount for it. Discomfort took hold of Raldnor. Presently two girls came drifting across the room.
They might have been twins—both pretty, both the smoke and honey shades of Xarabiss, their blue-black hair in heavy curls, gold sequins at the corners of their eyes. Their dresses were transparent gauze, cunningly pleated to opacity at breasts and pelvis, yet revealing a red gem set in each navel and a gold sunburst raying out from it across each softly curving belly.
They greeted Xaros with chirruping affection, but one sat dutifully by Raldnor and poured him wine.
“You’re very handsome,” she whispered to him over the cup, but it was a mannered sweetness. “My name is Yaini. And you’re a Lowlander.”
“Yes.”
“There’s love in the wine,” she murmured. By this he understood her to mean that it was laced with an aphrodisiac, and he set down his goblet untasted. She looked at him curiously, then smiled. “There’s a room above.”
He rose at once, embarrassed by this sexual etiquette of which he knew nothing.
He followed her to the room, which was only large enough to accommodate a bed. In the dim lamplight she reached to embrace him with a delicate, well-simulated passion. There was magic in her mouth and light-fingered hands, and, as he caressed her pliable and willing body, she seemed to quicken too, though possibly it was part of her training to seem to do so.
Much later, as they lay together in the golden gloom, it came to him suddenly that perhaps his unknown mother had been a prostitute with a sunburst painted on her belly, and he grinned maliciously at this.
“You’re smiling,” she said, raising herself on one elbow to look at him. “Why? Did I please you?”
“Naturally you pleased me. You’re very lovely and also very well instructed.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say to me after love.”
“You must think me very naive,” he said. “Am I the first Lowland peasant you’ve entertained?”
“You’re not like a Lowlander at all. Neither like a peasant. You despise me as a whore. You think you bought my pleasure automatically.”
He looked at her, and she was clearly angry. Her responses had seemed genuine enough certainly. He drew her toward him and kissed her coral mouth and honey breasts.
“Again and again and again,” she whispered breathlessly. “You’re indefatigable, a Storm Lord—” He scarcely heard that hated name. “If I please you so much, will you visit me later?”
But he did not answer her except with his body.
• • •
A hurricane rent the darkness in his skull.
He woke, crying out, and the Xarabian girl caught his shoulder.
“What is it? A dream? It was only a dream. You’re awake now.”
“No,” he said, his eyes wide, “not a dream.”
And in his brain the alien terror thundered, making him giddy, sick and afraid. He flung himself off the bed, snatched up his clothes and began to dress.
“Oh, what is it?” she sighed frantically. “Let me help you.”
But he was at the doorway and suddenly gone. Distressed, Yaini huddled on the bed. He was the first man who had ever totally pleased her. She had not expected such strength, such passion and such exquisite lovemaking from one of the moderate Lowlanders. And now he had left her—she did not know why—as if some demon had suddenly driven him mad.
Outside he shouldered through the idling customers and their whores. Of Xaros there was no sign. Intolerable waves clashed in his head. He ran from the brothel.
A black velvet night, towers stitched golden on it now, and lamp shine on snow. He thrust between knots of people, who laughed or cursed him. He lost his way and found himself in a desolate alley, sobbing and clutching a
t his skull like a drunkard in a fit.
“Anici,” he moaned, “Anici, Anici—”
He saw a tall portico of twisted white gold, and shapes of men, and he shouted at them to let go of her. He blundered down the alley, through a yard, calling out, so that faces appeared at windows.
7.
THE METAL PILLARS WERE twisted like strange sweets, and torchlight flared from the iron gates. Beyond, a dark avenue, lines of bare trees white with snow blossom.
The chariot wheels sizzled.
One of the dragon men reached out to fondle her right breast.
“And how do you like Thann Rashek’s palace, eh, little Lowlander?”
The other man laughed, turning the chariot now toward the temporary Dortharian barracks. A spear with a red drying tip leaned on the rail. It could be an amusing night. But abruptly there were new torches on the road and an imperious order to halt. The soldier pulled his chariot to a standstill; the other muttered an oath under his breath. Dragon Guard. On their black cloaks he could pick out Amrek’s personal symbol, the white lightning.
A Guard captain detached himself and came up to the chariot. He looked first at the two uneasy soldiers, next at the pale, ash-faced girl.
“You’ve got a Lowlander there, soldier.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How d’you come by her? The truth.”
The soldier scowled.
“There was Lowland scum on the procession route today, sir. Caused me some trouble, but the crowd—these damned Xarabian sheep—milled about and made things awkward. I went looking for him to teach him some manners. Easy enough to find him, sir. There’s only a few places dare to take the yellow rats in, with King Amrek here.”
“Did you find him, soldier?”
“No, sir. No such luck. But I found his wench, as you see.”
The captain smiled without mirth.
“Well, soldier, I have good news for you. All this time you’ve been on a mission for the Storm Lord and never knew it. Someone overheard your plans, man, kept an eye on you and told the High Lord. He wants to see this girl himself.”
The soldier’s face collapsed in a mixture of alarm and vindictive frustration.
“Right, soldier. Hand her over. Don’t weep, man, he’ll let you have her back when he’s finished with her.”
Argument would be fruitless and dangerous. The two soldiers thrust the girl out, and the Guard captain caught her and set her on her feet.
“Lucky lass that you are,” he sneered, “destined after all for such a high table.”
She hung her head and walked in the company of black, iron-faced men into the palace halls. They left her in a glare of torches, swaggering past her. She was briefly alone, except for the two giants who guarded the entrance with crossed spears. Then a tall woman in a diaphanous robe came. She gripped Anici’s shoulder in a ravening grasp like eagles’ claws, and escorted her along corridors and through anterooms. At a carved cibba-wood door, she halted. Her Dortharian face was a mask—black caves of eyes where unmined diamonds glinted, the blood-red mouth of a vampire.
“You go to the Storm Lord. Please him.”
Her claws rapped on the wood and it flew open. She pushed Anici through.
Anici stood like a statue, almost blind, almost deaf and dumb with fear, while the walls reeled and the floor tottered, but it was the earthquake of her fear.
A huge shadow evolved from the light. She felt herself choking on the poisonous vapors of terror. She spread out her hands to save herself from falling into the dragon’s pit, but clutched only empty air.
“So this is a Lowland girl,” a voice said. She could not calculate the whereabouts of the voice; it seemed everywhere. “Take off your pathetic rags and show me the rest of you.”
But she only stood clutching at the air and gasping. She saw him now; at least, she saw the gauntleted left hand come reaching for her, and already she invested it with the marks of damnation. The curse of Anackire. The moment it touched her she would die. So she had always believed in her nightmares.
“Oh, gods, is this what killed my father? Don’t you comprehend, girl, the honor extended to you? You, the fruit of the mating of some obscure Lowland filth. What are you afraid of? This? Well, well, there’s justice in that. The blasting of the women of your yellow hell now brought home to roost on your innocent, no-doubt virgin flesh.”
He pulled her toward him, and the hand of her death settled over her heart. A knife of fire impaled her like the water creature in Yr Dakan’s house.
Amrek lifted his mouth from her skin. He looked at her. When he let her go, she fell at once. Under the dull bleeding of the incense braziers, she lay like a white inverted shadow, stretching out from his blackness on the floor. He bent over her and found that she was dead.
• • •
Raldnor opened his eyes and knew neither where he was nor how he had got there.
After a little he moved slightly, fearing some injury had immobilized him. Yet he was unhurt and soon sat up. There was faint, cool fire in the lower sky. All around were twisting dirty alleys, littered with refuse. He thought: “Have I lost my mind in Xarabiss?” And it seemed he had lain all night in the shelter of a rotting hovel.
His head ached dully, and he remembered suddenly an unprecedented terrific blow bringing darkness. Someone had clubbed him then—some thief. Yet his knife was still in his belt, and what was left of Xaros’s loan after he had paid the girl. He got up and began to walk along the nearest alley. An old woman emptying slops cursed him for no apparent reason.
At the turning of the alley lay a broken doll on its back with its arms flung wide. The moment he saw it he remembered, and a pain like death surged up into his throat. He leaned on the wall, trembling, muttering her name. What had become of her and the frantic unconscious signalings of her mind? And what, what had brought the dark down on his skull?
A man came shuffling up the alley. Raldnor caught his arm, and before he could struggle free, asked: “Do you know the way to Pebble Street?”
The man grumbled sullenly. Raldnor thrust a coin under his nose. The man responded with vague directions, grabbed the coin and hurried off. Raldnor began to run.
The sun rose, a dim red bubble, as he negotiated the tortuous byways of Lin Abissa, asking again and again for directions. Finally he came to familiar streets and at last stumbled into the courtyard of the hostel.
Catastrophe was at once apparent.
Great wheel ruts—the marks of a chariot—gouged across the snow, and near these were other marks, as of something dragged, and a brown stain.
Raldnor moved like a somnambulist across the yard and into the hall. The fires were out and no one there. He propelled himself through the hall and up the stairs, and stopped outside the door of the tiny cramped room which had been hers. There was no sound in that room, yet there was a presence. He pushed at the door, which swung noiselessly open.
It was very dark, for the shutters were still closed on the windows. But he made out a girl lying on the narrow bed and a man sitting by her. The man looked up and straight into his face. It was Ras.
“She’s dead.”
“No,” Raldnor said.
“She is dead. If you’d gone with us to the Xarabian’s dinner, she would have come. If you’d asked her, she’d have gone with you. But you went to the brothel and left her here alone, and they came for her while you were with your harlot.” His voice was quite expressionless and very even. “Orhvan and I came too late. His soldiers brought her back after. He told them to. Amrek. She was to have pleasured Amrek, but she died before he had any pleasure from her. As a little girl, she was always afraid of him, I remember. You took her, I let you take her. I couldn’t stop you. But why did you take her, Raldnor, when you didn’t want her? She was a child, Raldnor. Why didn’t you leave her as she was?”
Raldnor stared
at Anici, wanting to go to her, to touch her, but there was such an awful stillness about her. Her white face was empty as an unworn mask. He turned and walked back down the stairs, across the hall, out into the courtyard. Who was it that had tried to protect her? Some other Lowland man, perhaps, had spilled this blood.
He went through the gate and began to walk, not knowing where he was going.
At last he found himself seated on a low stone wall, and a man was insistently talking to him, urging him to get up and go to some meaningless destination. After a little he looked at this man, and it was Xaros.
“It’s my fault she’s dead,” Raldnor said. “It should have been my blood on the snow.”
But Xaros somehow got his arm and had him on his feet, and now they were moving through crowds, and he thought that Xaros was taking him back to the brothel and began to shout at him. Xaros called to a burly cutthroat lounging in a doorway: “Svarl, my friend’s sick. Give me a hand with him.”
The cutthroat obliged with competent roughness, and Raldnor discovered they were hauling him upstairs into an unknown building. A door opened on an exotic apartment he scarcely noted at the time, and he was hustled onto a couch. A slender, dark woman came into the room.
“Oh, Xaros, you promised you’d be gentle with him.”
Raldnor could not understand the woman’s concern, for she was a stranger to him, but when her cool hand brushed his face, her touch seemed to unlock the most bitter grief, and she held him and let him weep against her as if she were a sister.
He did not know if it was Anici he wept for or Eraz—the shadow image of his mother who, nevertheless, had been exclusively dear to him, or the beloved with whom he had shared thoughts, and for whom, intrinsically, he had felt nothing. For even in his bewildered pain he understood this, and understood, too, that the white-haired girl would be his penance.
• • •
Anici bent over him and touched his shoulder. He got up in the darkness, and she stood waiting, the wind washing through her silver hair. The white moon shone behind her; he saw the shadow of her small bones beneath the skin. As he approached her, she raised her arms, and long cracks appeared in her body, like ink lines on alabaster. Then she crumbled all at once into gilded ashes, and the ashes blew away across the moon, leaving only darkness to wake him.