by Tanith Lee
Ships sailing to and from the port of Amlan received an escort that safeguarded them from Zakorian attack. The east harbors of northern Xarabiss, and of Ommos, were open again. As yet, from political tact, escorting Karmian galleys did not venture inside a five-mile limit of the Middle Lands.
There were other limits.
A Lannic curfew was in force, in order to regularize traffic and commerce.
The sound of that bell, clanging across the dusk, turned the blood of Yannul to ice. The first time he had heard it, Medaci had come running to him and sobbed in his arms like a child. The sound was too well remembered from the Shadowless Plains, Amrek’s curfew rung every sunset in the ruined Lowland city, the message of the mailed fist, and the edge of steel to come.
Now, standing at midday in the old audience chamber of Lan’s painted palace, Yannul reviewed the insecure scenes of his young manhood with uneasy foreboding. He had looked for peace with the years, at home.
Presently his host came in, Kesarh’s Chief of Command in Lan. He was the mix type made fashionable by Raldnor of Sar, dark-skinned and blond. He had the hero’s name, too. And all the Vis patina of display.
Wine and cakes were brought. They sat down before windows that gave a fine panorama of dripping feather trees and sodden tents, and a Karmian unit at drill in the mud.
“It goes without saying,” said Raldnor Am Ioli, “you see why you’ve been asked to come here.”
Yannul looked at him blandly.
“The great hero of Lan,” said Raldnor Am Ioli. “We had some difficulty in finding you, though you live so close. But the King was eventually persuaded to reveal your secret.”
“And how is the King these days?”
“His doctors assure me the fever’s broken.”
“Something you may have guessed,” said Yannul. “Lan is barbaric in its royalism. The King and Queen have an almost sorcerous significance to us. A sudden death would be—upsetting.”
Karmian Raldnor laughed.
“My dear Yannul, are you suggesting my Lord Kesarh has left any orders that your King and Queen should be murdered? That’s not kind, sir, to a benefactor. Your King himself invited the Lord Kesarh to send troops to Lan.”
“Our gratitude,” said Yannul, “flows like the rain.”
Karmian Raldnor was not without wits. He said softly, “But the rain’s stopped.”
There had, of course, been no invitation, save the invitation an unarmed country always offered to a predator. Karmian ships had docked at the port after their epic sea fight, been lauded and welcomed. They then lingered, for fear Lannic prophecies of stray Free Zakorian marauders should come to pass. After a while, a small party of troops marched to Amlan’s walls and offered its assistance to the King. He had not been so ingenuous as to accept it, but, with some Karmian influence already at the gates, they were let in. The crowds had cheered them, and thrown flowers. Ten days later, a thousand Karmian infantry and four hundred cavalry with chariots had landed, and swarmed along the port road. Their fellows had the gates by now and ushered them through into the capital. They were a preliminary. Inside a day, Lan was Lan no more.
Kesarh himself had not bothered to sail over. He had matters to see to elsewhere. The invasion was just his goodness at heart.
“Well,” said Karmian Raldnor, refilling Yannul’s full cup so it spilled, “what we desire of you is a small piece of spectacle.”
“My days as an acrobat are over.”
“Oh, I think not.” They smiled at each other. Raldnor Am Ioli said, “there’s been unease. We shouldn’t like it to spread. Your King, as soon as he’s fit, will address his subjects. I’d take it as a favor, sir, if you would be there, and add some encouraging words.”
“Encouragement to what?”
Raldnor Am Ioli sighed.
“You’re a respected, almost a mythical figure, Yannul. You know about policy. Assuage the people. Explain, Karmiss is their friend. That you yourself accept this as a fact.”
Yannul said, “Yes, it’s stopped raining, hasn’t it.”
There was a prolonged pause.
Karmian Raldnor said, “Think of all you enjoy, sir. Your villa-mansion and the land. Your wife—one of the Amanackire. I believe. Your sons. Treasures. It would be a pity to let it all go.”
“You’re threatening me?”
Karmian Raldnor said nothing.
“As you mentioned,” said Yannul. “I’m something of a hero in Lan. I told you how we are about our royalty. In a way, an aspect of that applies to me. Destroy me, and you could have trouble all the way to Lanelyr. I would deferentially remind you also that there are Shansarians, Vardians and other men of the second continent in this country, who stood by Lan’s neutrality in the War, and have since evolved flourishing business concerns on our soil: it would anger them to see those disrupted.”
“The Lord Kesarh is himself half Shansarian.”
“The Lord Kesarh, half Shansarian though he is, has tended to forget, I think, that simply because the Sister Continent is invisible from our own, it has not ceased to exist.”
“Now, I believe, you’re threatening me,” Karmian Raldnor said.
“Not at all,” said Yannul. “I’m only telling you that when the King publicly says whether it is you’ve asked him to say, I shall be indisposed.”
• • •
Raldnor Am Ioli, returning to his well-guarded palace apartment, evinced mild irritation.
In the long term, such stumbling blocks as Yannul would not matter. But here and now one could trip over them and go sprawling. Raldnor was anxious to impress Kesarh, though not from any of the fear-admiration the King seemed able to induce in his soldiery. Raldnor had not forgotten the cryptic tidings he had awarded himself in that council chamber at Istris: Once you were of no use to him, he would leave you to burn.
Raldnor Am Ioli the opportunist, had so far followed Kesarh’s dark planet into the ascendant. Raldnor had taken pains along the way to cement his luck. He had also learnt a lesson or two from Kesarh himself, and in this manner had come to execute some bold strokes in the line of insurance. Finding himself sent on this mission to take Lan and Elyr, Raldnor had decided that in his absence from Karmiss, certain routine but exhaustive investigations would be made into his affairs. He had accordingly left everything immaculate, and brought the only incriminating element with him, a touch of utter simplicity, or genius.
His thoughts turning on this eased him, and he consigned Yannul to later deliberation.
Raldnor went out into a private corridor and so walked into a modest room flung with Lannic cushions. In their midst, teasing a kalinx kitten, was the figure of a sullen girl. Her long blonde hair was plaited with ribbons, her fair skin had paint and ornaments upon it.
“Mella, if you tease that cat, it’ll bite you.”
The girl looked up and grimaced at him.
“Why must you—”
“You know I’m thinking of your well-being.”
Mella gnawed her mouth. She pulled the tail of the kalinx and was rewarded by a dagger-thrust of claws and teeth. Leaving the victim screeching, the kitten lied past Raldnor and down the corridor to a tiny window that provided escape.
Raldnor looked on. The remaining furious creature licked its wounds. Mella was known by his men to be a young mistress brought from the estate of Ioli. She was pretty in her way, and though her breasts were small and her feet somewhat on the large side, Raldnor was entitled to his personal taste in bed-girls.
“How long must we stay here?” Mella inquired eventually.
“You’re bored? My humble apologies. You know why I brought you, and you’ve some idea, I hope, as to the sort of action I have to take to ensure Kesarh’s purpose.”
“Kesarh,” said Mella. Her reedy voice was imbued by loathing.
“Yes. For now, Kesarh’s purpose. You
’ll have to be patient, as I’ve often warned you, before you can indulge your hate of him.”
“And what of my hate for you?”
“Why should you hate me?” said Raldnor calmly. “I’m your savior. You should be grateful.”
“Grateful to have this done to me?” Mella’s torn hands suddenly dragged down her bodice. Raldnor looked away. He found the sight faintly revolting, though he had once traveled in woman-hating Ommos, and been shown such things as a commonplace.
“Yes,” he said, gazing at the frescoes on the wall, “grateful. Because it’s kept you alive.”
“And will it,” said Mella with dreadful fifteen-year-old scorn, “give me my rights?”
“Keep your voice down. There are Karmian sentries beyond that window out there.”
“But will it?” Mella shrilled, and broke into a repulsive jeering laughter.
“Again, I’ve told you, such things can be managed. But your best safety lies for now in reticence. Or do you want to lose your tongue with the rest?”
Mella paled. Tears sluiced from her eyes and the paint ran. She sniveled at Raldnor’s feet. What an amalgam the thing was!
• • •
Medaci turned from the little garden and the ephemeral pale sun came in with her hair. “And must it be so?” “I think it must.”
She sat beside her husband and Yannul took her hand.
“It seems so strange,” she said.
“I promised you peace, here.”
“Is there peace anywhere?”
They stayed still awhile and remembered aloud to each other the past. Yannul understood the litany. It seemed to cry, We have survived all that and can now survive this.
But it would be hard to go away, to abandon the farm and the land, abandon Lan itself which in his youth he had abandoned cheerfully, knowing he could always come back. Fighting by Raldnor of Sar. Yannul had not been so certain of that. Yet he had lived, and taken his golden-haired girl with him at last across the sea and home. There came the first shock, then. The old farm in the hills was empty, most of the roof down, wild bis nesting in the walls. And, beyond the well, the marker of his mother’s grave. Finding one of his sisters in another valley, wed to a stranger, he heard of sickness and hard times, his two other sisters dying, one in childbirth. One of his brothers had gone to join the Lowland army, but did not get there, or if he had, was dead in Ommos or Dorthar, never having made himself known. More likely robbers or shipwreck had been responsible. The other brothers went north, hunters and seekers of the savage wilds. Yannul never found them. All this had been a series of blows across his heart. In the thick of danger himself, he had somehow never reckoned his family anything but safe. In the dark cold nights, they had beamed there for him, in Lan, a distant beacon that could never go out, his mother happily heavy with child as she seemed perpetually to be, his sisters singing and squabbling round the loom, or nursing birds fallen frozen by the door, and his brothers boasting that one day they would eat at the King’s table in Amlan. Well, Yannul had done that very thing. When he remembered remembering that, the blows had seemed to break his heart.
It was Medaci who comforted him. Not only with her words and her touch. By her presence. It came to him that though he had lost his kindred, still he had kindred. He had been enamored sexually of Medaci, fond of her, protective, but in that moment of revelation had begun to love her.
And then his country gave him riches. The villa-farm arose, clasped in the indigo hills which, as Rem had long ago concluded, seemed to hold everything of note in Lan. So there was largesse, and love; presently the boys came. Life heaped them with harvest.
When the shadow began to creep out of Free Zakoris they acknowledged it, for shadows must be acknowledged, and put it aside, for neither must shadows be allowed to drive out all the light.
The Karmian initiative was not looked for.
It was like snow in summer. The end of the world.
“Basjar’s a good man,” said Yannul now, “half Xarabian, a demon for finance and tricks, but trustworthy. He’ll keep the farm in perfect shape, if nothing happens. If the worst happens, he’ll salvage what he can and keep it by for us.” Medaci smiled. Basjar, Yannul’s agent, had always paid courtly love to her in his Xarabian way. She liked him. He was kind, lethal only to enemies. “To find Vardians to make the journey with is also a stroke of fortune,” said Yannul. “Karmiss is still careful of the yellow-haired races.” He had arranged their travel plans yesterday, as soon as he received his invitation to the palace. He had comprehended what that would mean, and had not erred. It would not take long for the blond Karmian to decide that, though Yannul might not be slain, there were other forms of coercion.
The Vardish caravan would wend southward at sun-up tomorrow, and they, Yannul, Medaci and the boy, would accompany it. She was Amanackire and his younger son, fair but for his dark eyes, could pass for it. They would be honored and protected all the way to Lanelyr. In Elyr, Karmian development was still haphazard. Once into the Shadowless Plains they were on the Middle Lands, where Karmiss dare not stake a claim. As yet.
They discussed these things and then Medaci said, “what if Lur Raldnor comes back?”
“The last letter placed him safe in Dorthar. The King would have more sense than to give him leave to return. Raldanash will have work for him.”
“But he might not listen to the King.”
“He’ll listen. Raldnor knows we’ll take care of ourselves. He’ll keep where he is and wait for news. When we reach the Plains, we can send word.”
“Yes,” she said.
She did not cry. Her eyes were only full of yearning, still fixed on her garden sweet with lilies, and shrubs which blossomed at night into fireflies.
The sudden picture came to him again, and Lowland ruin in the snow, blood on the streets and dead Dortharians, and the Amanackire passing like silent wolves with gleaming eyes. And then Yr Dakan’s house, with its own dead, Ommos this time. In the round hall, an indescribable thing hanging half-in, half-out of the Zarok god’s oven-belly. And nearer, crouched by the table, Medaci. She had stared at him, then jumped to her feet, running to the doorway, trying to escape by him. When Yannul caught her shoulders she screamed. And then she had flung herself against him. “Why was I made to kill him?” she had cried in terror, her tears burning through his clothes into his skin.
She had, with her doubt, rescued his sanity that night, and perhaps he had rescued hers.
But he knew, even in flight from the new oppressors, she was afraid to return to the Lowlands.
• • •
The army of Lan was already being formed.
Any Vis, or man of dark enough mixture, was from the twelfth year eligible. Or vulnerable. The levies were taken by demand, where necessary by force.
In Amlan, and the towns, a public exhortation was employed. All suitable candidates were ordered to report to the local Karmian station. Those who did not give up their sons or themselves and could not buy exemption, received a visit from Karmian soldiery. A parcel of carpenters’ lathes were chopped up on the cobbles, a chain or so of extra zeebas appropriated by the military, a few score beer jars smashed. That was normally enough to set an example. Youths and men arrived at the recruitment centers and became part of the Lannic militia. The lit Torch emblem of Lan was displayed over each makeshift barracks, under a great scarlet Salamander.
To civilization’s outposts—the little wild villages swept across the uplands, through the bowls of valleys—Kesarh’s troops proceeded and merely took. Men were dragged from their fields or out of their beds, and hauled, stunned and roped, toward a soldier’s life, leaving their women and children to wail and perhaps to starve behind them.
One witnessed such sights on the way south. In the north, rumor said, it was worse.
As the Vardish caravan came down toward the borderland of Lanelyr, it skirted a
burning village. Out on the hill a couple of women had been raped to death. Several men, too old to interest the levy, lay about broken. Other women and livestock were being herded away to pleasure and feast Karmian warriors.
The Vardians refused to intervene. Not much, in any event, could be done. The Karmians were many. The dead were dead.
Beyond the scene, those mountains which were the spine of Lan, stood blind against the sky.
• • •
In Lanelyr, in the guardian’s house at Olm, Safca was dreaming. In the dream, a Lowland girl stood at her window, with a golden moon behind her head. Come and see, said the girl, but without words.
Safca approached the window with diffidence. She had never thought to meet the Lowlander again. Safca looked where the girl indicated, and noticed her window had a vista in the dream it did not have in actuality, looking out on the great mountains beyond the town. A huge snake was winding up the hills toward them, glittering. Then she saw it was not a snake, but streams of lights.
“Where are they going to?” Safca asked the Lowland girl.
The Lowland girl told her.
Safca was disbelieving, incredulous.
Then she saw that on the mountain tops the golden moon had become the shape of a luminescent woman with a serpent’s tail. For some reason, Safca laughed with delight.
When she woke she was still laughing. She found she knew the Lowlander’s name.
• • •
There were only fifty of King Kesarh’s soldiers in Olm. Two stone houses had been given them—the occupants had fled. Their captain had required quarters, for himself and his most immediate officers, in the palace. The levy began on the first morning, and the guardian himself went into the marketplace and instructed the Olmians to cooperate. Karmiss was aiding Lan toward a proper self-defense that was surely needed. There was no rebellion. The influx had been expected for days, and Olm’s population grown even smaller from the resultant exodus. Those who were left had already given in.