by Tanith Lee
So tall, so far off, the unhuman face was almost lost, indistinct even as it bent toward them. A necklace of sun-touched cloud encircled Her throat, cloud which, even as they stared, uncoiled and drifted from Her. Her eyes were twin suns. They blinded, they were so bright. The eight arms, outheld as the two arms of the girl had been, rested weightless on the air, the wrists, the long fingers, subtly moving.
The torrential tail of the snake flexed.
She was alive. She gazed at them, and unable to meet Her gaze they threw themselves down, or fell down, losing consciousness.
Anackire remained before them five eternal seconds. Then the sheen of her became, all of it, unbearably effulgent, a searing whiteness which abruptly went out, leaving only the black aftershadow on the dying sunset; presently, not even that.
As some sense came back to him, Haut beheld the girl standing before the well, unblasted by the entity she had released. She seemed in her turn only quiescent, not drained. And he saw at last her face, as it had always been, was the face of Anackire.
• • •
Leaving her mistress for the night, romantic Yeiza hoped the antechambers would be roused by the arrival of the Storm Lord. But the candle-flickering rooms stayed calm as stagnant pools. As usual, the doors were not flung open to admit the handsome white-haired King, vivid with his lust.
He might have had his given bride at once, the betrothal permitted that. But startling matters had intervened—the unexpected revelation of the Prince Rarmon, and then envoy from Karmiss presaging dealings so far unannounced. Tomorrow, however, was the marriage day. Yeiza had directed Ulis Anet’s maids in laying out the lovely garments, the jeweled headdress, the oils made from all the flowers of love. By tomorrow evening, the Princess’ suite would have been moved into another sector of the palace. She would be one of the High King’s fifteen lesser wives. And could it be, exquisite emblem of Xarabiss that she was, she would not even have a night with him? It was a fact, all Raldanash’s wives, the lesser, and the higher—those blonde queens from the other continent—were strangely and unfortunately every one of them barren. Some of the concubines had had children, but they were not legitimate, nor did they at all resemble the Vathcrian King.
Could he be impotent? It was also a fact, the King kept no boys to pleasure him, either.
The gods—the goddess—could not, surely, desire the legal line of the hero Raldnor to perish?
As Yeiza came out through a door into one of the garden courts, a man’s hand gripped her wrist. She gave a squeal, but the palace nights were full of amorous squeakings. It would require a determined scream to fetch the guard. Before she could take breath for it, she recognized the handsome face in the light from the doorway.
“Lord Iros—”
“Is he with her?”
“You mean the King? It’s his right to be,” said Yeiza defiantly.
“Not what I asked you, slut.”
“I’m no—”
“Answer me, or I’ll break your wrist.”
Yeiza believed him. She did not care for Iros, though his looks fascinated her. While, in a way, not caring for him had increased her interest.
“No then. She’s alone. My lord—you can’t go in.”
“I’ve bribed seven men to make sure I can. How do you think I got so far unchallenged?”
“If anyone found you with her, she’d die, and so would you.”
“Who’s to find us? Not him, for sure. Unless you betray me.”
Yeiza gazed into Iros’ blazing eyes and quailed. When he dragged her to him and kissed her, she yielded, melting in his heat though she knew it was banked for another. When he pushed her aside she almost sank to the grass. The door shut. Insulted and pleased, she discovered he had dropped a gold coin between her breasts as he caressed them.
• • •
The King’s regard contained a constant remote familiarity. Nothing had changed this. One sensed it never would change.
“Good evening, Rarmon.”
“Good evening, my lord. I regret I was delayed.”
“I gather I called you here straight from your chariot. You were riding in the hills?”
“In the ruined city, my lord.”
“Koramvis . . . yes. We all go to look at that. But you’ve been there more than once.”
Rarmon said nothing. It was not out of the question his half-brother the King would have him observed. It was too soon in Rarmon’s own ascent to arrange similar courtesies. His guards, were Raldanash’s soldiers. Even hired men from the streets were not advisable at this juncture.
He had not been privately in the Storm Lord’s presence since that bizarre night of the Amanackire judgment. He had seen Raldanash, of course, and been publicly recognized by him, to the consternation of the council. Warden Vencrek, one deduced, would also have set his own, more prosaic, investigation under way. Meanwhile, the crowds had cheered, an arresting noise to hear for oneself.
This summons was not entirely unexpected, however. Rarmon had at least heard of the arrival of a Karmian envoy. Though his past had not been brandished, or even elaborated upon, Rarmon had given some outline of it from necessity. Raldanash knew he had been Kesarh’s man almost two years.
Sure, enough. Raldanash said, “It seems I must go east. Officially it will be a progress. The Karmian King has sent a man across to Dorthar, a valued councilor, I intend to meet with in person, near Kuma. War games, naturally. You’ll recall how Karmis crippled the ships of Free Zakoris.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I’d like your opinion on the policies that are put forward, since you have some understanding of the aims and mind of Kesarh. You’ll come with me.”
Rarmon gave an acquiescing nod. It had occurred to him, obviously that though the King might care for his advice, he might also prefer to have the bastard brother safely at his side when away from Anackyra.
“There’s to be secrecy. The Free Zakorians have spies in Dorthar. I shall leave tomorrow. The more surprise to the capital the better.”
Something else suggested itself.
“I take it, sir, you’ll spare time to marry the Xarabian princess first.”
“Yes. I don’t want to insult Xarabiss. I’ll be taking her with me, it helps give reasons for such a progress—a show of the land to my new bride. Thann Xa’ath should be flattered. None of the other women had such treatment.” Raldanash did not smile. His eyes seemed far away, held by distant things, that looked like vistas neither of concupiscence nor of war. “So I must give you another task, that of messenger to Ulis Anet. Go tonight to her apartments and tell her my news. She’s to be ready to leave once the morning’s ceremony is concluded.”
Rarmon allowed a moment or two to pass. Then he said, “It’s late. She may have retired.”
“Take a couple of guard with you, and a chamberlain, enough to make it formal. Wait for the women to fetch her. She should be told personally of the journey—but not the Karmian matter. I shall see to that later. And decorous apologies. You understand why I’m asking you to do it?”
Rarmon had ideas. He said, “No, sir.”
“Because etiquette demands someone of importance, while the fewer who are privy to the plan the better. Impress this also on my betrothed.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rarmon waited again, then said quietly, “and if she should wonder why on such a secret matter you yourself—”
Raldanash said flatly, “If I go myself, she’ll suppose I’ve arrived to claim betrothal rights in her bed.”
The frankness, rather than funny, was unnerving. Raldanash displayed no trace of anything, no self-consciousness, not even ruefulness.
It would be politic to say nothing.
Rarmon said nothing.
Outside, summoning two guard and sending for the chamberlain, Rarmon was aware of a further notion ranked with the rest. The Kin
g did not particularly want his latest wife, if he had wanted any of them. It might be convenient to fob her off with one’s dramatically important half-brother. Later, maybe, to discover the two of them, and have both executed. Rarmon could not assume Raldanash had learned his sexual preference, even after the psychic delving of the Amanackire. Incriminatory situations might, in any event, be stage-managed. Then again, Rarmon would not swear the King was capable of that. Actually, you could not be sure what the King was capable of, either for good or ill. His charisma was valid, but how he used such a utensil on the fields of life and kingship was not yet clear.
• • •
Turning from one gorgeous corridor to another, the chamberlain found his path blocked by the noteworthy son of Yannul, who—politely about to make way—perceived Rarmon and hailed him.
“Can I ask the favor of a word?” Lur Raldnor, now known as Lur Yannul about the palace, was a picture of casual equilibrium. His eyes looked into Rarmon’s and said This is vital and must be now. Rarmon stepped aside from the escort. He and Raldnor stood in the embrasure of a window.
“Is he going to Ulis tonight?”
“You mean Raldanash. No. I’m sent with a message.”
“Someone cast a rumor and has been spreading speculative gossip. The King’s reckoned to be rushing there to have his rights. Which is what Yeiza overheard.”
“Am I to take it the Princess isn’t alone?”
“That damnable clown Iros bribed a way in, through the garden. To get out he has to leave via the antechambers—guard changes—and the antechamber route, due to the rumor, is now awash with members of the entourage.”
“I see.”
“If there’s any hint she’s got a man with her now—you know the laws of Dorthar on adulterous treason. Raldnor just missed them by a dagger’s length, didn’t he?” Yannul’s son smiled, then laughed. Rarmon was not unimpressed by this actor’s camouflage. “Can you do anything?”
“Maybe. If neither of them panics.”
They beamed at each other and parted. Rarmon with his escort went on. Minutes later they were at the doors of the suite, the guards saluting. There were persons in the passage, too, hangers-on come to gawp.
When the doors were opened, Rarmon saw the interlinking anterooms were busy with people. Xarabian servants, even clerks loitering about, as if they might be needed to take letters. All of them looked disappointed not to have caught Raldanash in the act. Ulis Anet’s ladies, or most of them, were also to be seen. Luckily Yeiza, young and frightened though she was, had had the urge to come back.
The chamberlain announced Rarmon unnecessarily. The chamberlain portentously added that the Prince was here on the Storm Lord’s business. Everyone kept a straight face. Spoken in the theater, such words would have had the tiers in thigh-slapping uproar.
Rarmon intervened before the next speech. He thanked the concourse for attending, and dismissed them. His personal authority coupled neatly to his fame, and the rooms were nearly empty in less than a minute. Rarmon then addressed Yeiza, asked her to enter the bedchamber and represent him to her mistress.
There was the chance that Iros, being the impulse-ridden flamboyant he was, might rush from the room, flourishing a sword, sure Raldanash’s soldiers had come for him. But the murmurous noise had so far kept him pinned. Yeiza’s sinuous entry, drawing the inner door closed behind her, did not precipitate disaster.
Rarmon expected that Ulis Anet would master herself and come out, leaving the guilty evidence within.
He was surprised when Yeiza reappeared and said, “The Princess has not retired to bed, my lord. As the King’s brother and her illustrious kin, you may enter.”
This was all so absurd that for a moment he suspected the springing of a trap.
Then he walked into the bedchamber, wondering if Iros had been stuffed in a clothes closet, as in the sort of theatrical farce events seemed to be emulating.
But Iros was standing by the far wall in plain view. Ulis Anet, despite the lie garbed for bed, stood facing Rarmon. Yeiza shut the door, and leaned on it.
“As you see,” said the Princess, “we are at your mercy.”
Her voice was low, but not tremulous as Yeiza’s had been.
Noncommittally. Rarmon said, “I shall render you the King’s message. Then I’ll leave. You need not expect the King himself. In fifteen minutes it will be safe for the gentleman to depart. Using the anterooms, which I shall see are vacant, and wearing the unfashionable cloak I will have Yeiza send him. One more dawdling clerk.”
Iros swore, but had the sense to keep his voice down.
Ulis Anet did not take her eyes from Rarmon.
“You saved me from maiming and death during the earthquake. It must affront you to see me take such a stupid gamble as this.”
“Those risks you take voluntarily are nothing to do with me.”
“And this, my lord, had nothing to do with me.” She lifted her head and there was a tension to her eyes and lips. Again, unavoidably, he was reminded of Val Nardia, the uncanny physical likeness; but they were not the same. “Lord Rarmon, I feel I might trust you. I hope you’ll be my witness before this man that I didn’t invite him here, nor do I wish him here. In fact, my lord, I’m invoking your protection against him.”
Iros made a sound that was altogether too loud. He was gathering himself to speak or to shout, and Rarmon went to him and struck him across the head. Iros slumped back against the wall. Rarmon caught him by the throat.
“Be quiet. She denies you. You ventured this without her consent.”
Iros struggled, but his rage had grown flaccid. Rarmon let him go.
“The bitch can only deny me now, to protect herself.”
“Don’t call her names. If she’d cared to, she might have accused you of rape. If you’d valued her, you might have had the good manners to admit to it.”
Iros rubbed his jaw. He did not like his beauty bruised.
Rarmon said to him steadily, “I’ll be waiting for you in the North Walk, beyond the Fox Garden. Should you be late leaving here, I’ll be compelled to return. It will then have become a charge of rapine, for which you’ll answer to my own men.”
“You upstart slime of Karmiss, do you dare—”
Iros faltered in mid-cry. One did not serve with Kesarh and learn nothing.
“Try to remember,” Rarmon said, “who I have become here, and what you have remained. You’re a braggart and a clot, but you live. I can and will alter that condition if you persist in your folly.”
• • •
Later, in the North Walk, they met again for the briefest of conversations. It seemed by then Iros had begun to remember what Rarmon had become.
When at length the commander strode off through the topiary, Rarmon leaned on a pillar and watched the moon go down, and eventually the blazing heat of the amber ring went out. It had been burning from the instant Yannul’s son spoke to him in the corridors. Why? Some new warning? But one could not think of this and not think also of the child.
Eight years, nine years of age, she had shown herself as a woman of fourteen to him, in the flesh at Olm, a ghost in the ruins of Koramvis.
Where was she? No longer among wolves. What did she want from him? She had vanished when he moved toward her, the spell after all broken by proximity or outcry. Yet still there was the sense of something asked. Or to be asked. And the binding of the ring.
Strange, for he did not truly now believe in her anymore. He had no faith in her goddess.
14.
AFTER THE KING HAD LEFT HER, Ulis Anet sat a long while under the dying lamps, still as any other object in the tent.
It was a hilly road, to Kuma, and she had begun it in her bridal finery, the wedding flowers still fresh against her cheeks. When they settled their tents for the night on the rim of the hills, a scene spangled with torches and stars, to w
hich she was becoming inured, a wedding gift arrived. A collar of golden kissing birds and clusters of fruits in rose-quartz and sapphire, with heavy earrings to match. It was all very proper, and more than adequate. She knew then he would be bound to come to her, and so he did.
The lamps had dimmed, the perfumes been sprinkled and the flagons of wine put to hand. Her women had arrayed her for the nuptial bed.
He arrived with an escort, men with torches, singing the marriage songs of Dorthar, perhaps of Vathcri, too, for there were foreign words mixed with the bawdy ones.
When they had gone, and the women gone, Raldanash was alone with her for the first time, in the closed and perfumed tent.
She had seen his beauty in the first chaotic moments on the Imperial Square. Instinctively, she had not responded to the beauty, as to anything positive. There could be no allure in it, it offered nothing. She knew he had not come here to make love to her, and she was right.
“I see you comprehend, Ulis,” he said at last.
She might have reigned her tongue, but she was angry, not specifically with him, with everything, a restrained courteous anger.
“No, my lord, I don’t. But I know what is required of me.”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “if that dismays you. It was never my choice, to bring you to a sterile pairing. We are both victims of policy.” He seated himself then, and said with no show of concern, “Because of policy, I must spend some time with you tonight, and for most of the nights of this journey. It would be thought odd if I did not, and might disgrace you. I realize such a sham may be offensive, but I think you appreciate the need. When we return to Anackyra, you’ll be able to make such arrangements as you prefer. Providing you are discreet, I shan’t tax you.”
“You’re telling me I may take lovers, my lord?”
“If you wish. That’s only fair, Ulis, since I will never be your lover.”
She marveled, even while she anticipated nothing else, at his coolness.