by Tanith Lee
• • •
In Thaddra the sea was never obdurate. Snow, to Thaddra as to Zakoris, was only an infrequent crown upon some distant miles-high mountain.
The Leopard, feeling the spice-wind of spring, stretched itself.
The two great fleets, one hundred and three ships, one hundred and twenty-seven, flexed themselves in the deep-water bays. Farther northeastward, a scout fleet of fifteen vessels peeled off from the larger units, sentinel, waiting. With the coming of softer weather, others already drove toward the eastern seas.
On the South Road, the cadavers of slaves made paving. It would never be done in time, yet the whips bit and the flames ate up the trees. Charred birds made sacrifice to Zarduk.
In Ylmeshd the minor ceremonies were ended.
The cave of Rorn was already flooded by a valve, and sealed, left afloat with drowned beasts and men, who would now decompose to the satisfaction of the god. A young priest of Rorn, inspired by the drugged incense and the cries and the gongs, had flung himself down from a high ledge as the sea started to come in. Independent immolation was always pleasing to a deity. The omen was good.
As a heavy sunset began to consume Ylmeshd, King Yl entered in turn the temple of Zarduk, by its city-door.
It was already midnight in the cavern, but as Yl advanced—preceded by priests, followed by his kindred, his commanders, a tail of slaves, and a black-lacquered box, windowless and man-sized, borne high—brands burst into tall red leaf.
The last fire was uncovered as curtains of black hide were dragged away. Zarduk appeared, a carved stone, twelve feet in height, massively underlit by his own fiery intestines. He was finer than he had been, for they had gilded him recently with much melted gold, hung him with golden rings. It was his portion of the loot from Ankabek.
He did not have the ancient ugliness of Ommos, this engoldened fire god from the west. He possessed not only a head, but shoulders and a torso. His hands were sculpted flat against the skirt of his garment, seeming to grasp the furnace of his vitals.
They brought swamp leopards to him, ten of them, and ten men cut their throats. The blood steamed and stank.
Yl, himself clad in the pelts of black leopards, a collar of rubies, a pectoral with onyx and sardonyx, moved to the hewn step before the god. He took a knife from a priest, and slicing his own arm, the King let fall his blood into the hissing flames of Zarduk.
A growl of approval rose about the temple. Priests came instantly to stanch the wound.
Yl went to the statue’s side, and the priests brought him the mask of hammered brass that he must now put on. When he was adorned in it, had been amalgamated into it, he became an entity of the god, a priest himself. The gathering saw as much, and did him reverence. Yl pointed, and a slave approached, carrying an enormous topaz. It was dirty, the topaz, or obscured from within. It did not glitter in the torchlight or the glare of Zarduk’s guts, even when laid on the ground where the length of the god finished.
Yl poured wine now, over the topaz, as if to wash it.
It did not change.
Yl pointed again. The closed black box that had followed him in was brought forward and put down, and its hinged doors were lifted up.
After a few moments, a figure came from the box.
It was a youth, perhaps sixteen, slim yet strong. He was, at first glance, true Zakoris, velvet black of skin, hair and eyes. But there was a handsomeness in the features Zakoris had almost weeded out. The nose had never been splayed, the nostrils were proud and wide, winking with gold. His lips were full, a thing not racially usual; nor was he scarred.
There were golden circles round his ankles, arms, wrists. Otherwise he was naked.
His eyes, dreamy, almost blind—a narcotic—were fixed on nothing.
Drums beat. From behind the Zarduk, two girls emerged, fire on their hair and polished flesh.
They danced, invited, writhed. They ventured to the naked man, caressed him and drew him down, against the skirt of the statue.
The Zakorians looked on, soundless. This ritual too, was old as the Old Kingdom.
A girl lay under him, her hair across the Topaz, in the blood and wine. He parted her thighs, pierced her. As he strove, the red light of the oven of the god strove with him, along his back, buttocks, legs. The other girl stretched against him, her body moving with his, her fingers and her mouth urging him, pressing him to the brink, inexorable.
As he arched, both women arched with him, two curious shadows flung from his silhouette against the light. Orgasm, the magic energy. When he sank down, the women slid and rolled away, and like shadows still, faded through the light and were gone.
His seed was holy. The girl he had chosen to mate with would be examined in due course. If she were with child, this omen also would be propitious.
But now the priests came and turned him, so his face was toward the cavern’s ceiling. He stayed as motionless as if he slept.
Again, the priests had given Yl a knife, broader than the other.
Despite what they had fed him, as the knife went in, the sacrificial victim shrieked—but if with shock or pain was impossible to divine. The cries, oddly remote and unhuman, went on, for the first blow did not kill. This, like the rest, was ritual, old as the name of Zakoris. The viscera, disengaged, were flung into the belly of the god, a bizarre juxtaposition. The cries faltered, stopped.
The dying body still twitched, however, as they poured the oils upon it. It was proper some life should remain—Yl had been skillful and swift. A torch was cast. The image of the victim erupted in a gout of flame.
At last, the Free Zakorians shouted.
Zarduk had been honored and would remember them.
Beyond the burning sacrifice, against the burning statue, filmed now with smoke and gore, the topaz which had been the Eye of Anackire looked on.
• • •
In Karmiss, there were tiny golden flowers craning to drink the rain in the garden courtyard. Ulis Anet, bending to gaze at them, knew the harbor of Istris, now less than half a day away, would be open.
She had had a premonition Kesarh would come here today, perhaps tomorrow. He had ridden out one further time during the long snow. She had not expected him. She was given over to despair that afternoon, lying in her bed, unable to tolerate any physical evidence of self which arising would force on her. One of the attendants ran in first. And then he—like a storm from somewhere—moved into the room and filled it; electricity and darkness. “Stay where you are,” he said. He even smiled. “What could be better?” He was eager and clever and demanding, just as before. Her own hunger and its release seemed to obliterate her, the death-wish inherent in sex. In the night she woke and he was already gone. She rose and cursed him, true curses, Xarabian and coarse. He had sent her many gifts. She found the latest of these and dashed them all over the room. Some days after, when she failed to menstruate, she thought she was with child and was shaken by an unconscionable horror or triumph, unsure which. But at length, the blood began to come. She made plans to bribe and connive and somehow to get away when the thaw freed the land. She would go to the Lowlands, seek asylum in some obscure temple of Hamos or Hibrel. Val Nardia had been a priestess.
But then she predicted this return, today, tomorrow. Very strangely, she knew she was somewhat telepathically receptive to him, though he had stayed unaware of it, and unreciprocative.
There had been the macabre dream in Dorthar before his men took her—the sunset sea, the shore of ice, she in his arms. She heard much more now her Karmian servants were used to her. He had come back with his dead sister from Ankabek, some soldier had said, holding the corpse as if it slept.
When he arrived, she would welcome him cordially, with all the coolness that could mean. She would not lie with him. If he forced her, she would evince no pleasure even should her flesh condone.
It would mean little to
him. Symbolically, for herself, it might redeem. Momentarily.
She had contemplated taking a lover during the long snow alone. Some attractive groom or guard. Kesarh would discover. He might be irritated. He might have the man punished or executed: She did not want the guilt of that.
Often she brooded on Raldanash. Or on Iros. Someone had let slip that Iros had died.
She had learned a great deal about Val Nardia. Ulis Anet was uncertain now if she had questioned so constantly, or if they had only constantly volunteered to inform.
Occasionally, she theorized to herself that she could attempt to murder Kesarh. But this idea was too melodramatic, like everything else, and vexed her.
She watched most of that day at the windows which looked toward Istris. The sky grew tawny, and she did not think he would come after all.
Fifteen minutes later, as they were lighting the lamps, there came the give-away flurry all through the house. She went down to meet him. He should not find her spread out for him tonight, or even malleable.
She was prepared, and when he walked in, she thought, you see, he’s just a man. You are obsessed by him, but he has not allowed you to love him. It can be borne.
But she avoided his touch and his eyes.
The dinner was served then, in the salon. They spoke desultorily of basics, the needs of the house, the climate. If he was amused, he did not display it. She felt his glance on her, and now and then the intensity of a prolonged stare, which she did not meet.
Inevitably, learning so much of Val Nardia, she had copied her, some of it without knowing.
The dinner ended, and he had not mentioned the bed upstairs.
He walked to the hearth and leaned there, drinking wine.
“Tomorrow, I shall be sailing for Lan.”
“Lan?” she said, courteously, as if she had never heard of it.
“There seems to be some trouble.”
She said nothing, did not care. He had invaded Lan, probably Lan resented it.
“The forthcoming war no longer seems to interest you,” he said. “They say on the streets, Free Zakoris could destroy Istris in an hour. The whole island in six days.”
“But you are the beloved of Free Zakoris.”
“Ah. You do listen, then.”
“I shall pray,” she said, “that the sea is tempestuous for your crossing.”
“It’ll take more than salt water to drown me,” he said. He emptied his cup and she came solicitously to refill it. “Val Nardia,” he said, “often had her hair dressed in that same way. Did they tell you?”
She raised her head and met his eyes then, and said quietly, she did not know why, “Her shade comes to me and instructs me, how to resemble her the most.”
“Bleach your skin,” he said, “and say ‘no.’”
“I shall,” she said, “say no.”
The blackness of his eyes, live as something pale and molten, bore down on her.
“What a pity,” he said, “to have ridden all this way only for supper.”
“There are several pretty girls in the house. One of them even dyes her hair red.”
He smiled slightly. He seemed to be jesting with her as he said, “Or I’ll take you anyway. I sometimes enjoy a little opposition.”
“Of course. Do whatever you wish.”
“You aren’t like her,” he said, “at root. Not like her at all. When you consent, when you refuse. When you most remind me of her I can most perceive it’s a reminder, nothing more.”
“Why am I here then?” He said nothing. She said, “Yes. A man loses a jewel of great worth from a ring. He replaces the jewel with another which, though flawed, will complement the setting. He values it less, but there. The ring is to be worn.”
“And she,” he said, “could never have thought to frame that so wittily.” He drank the rest of the wine. “You know where I’ll be sleeping, if not with you. Send some girl along. I leave the choice to you.”
An hour later, she herself went to the guest chamber.
In the morning, she told herself this too did not matter, that to prevaricate was senseless. Her body had been pleasured. Why not?
But she could no longer rely upon herself, traitor and liar that she had become.
And to admit this, in itself was another form of traitorousness, as she discovered.
They breakfasted together in the salon. She disliked the normalcy of it, her position fixed: His mistress, with all that title’s most dismal connotations. Already, she heard the going about below, his men readying to leave.
When he rode away, what? Another long vacancy, further peering after his sister’s phantom, impotent plans.
“Do you,” she said, “ever remember me when you’re elsewhere?”
He acquiesced amiably. It was a woman’s question. He seemed deliberately to miss the sharper point.
“Yes, Ulis. You’re my haven.”
“From what? The cares and toil of state? But you are in love with those.” With the little knife she sliced open a fruit, and looked into the stained glass of pulp and seeds as if to read portents. “Perhaps I should give you some token to remind you of me. A lock of hair. Like the hair that was sent to Iros, to mislead him to his death.” She said: “You went to great lengths to obtain me. Am I worth it?”
He rose. He nodded to her, said he must be off, remarked that she was beautiful, and that essentials the house required would be delivered in his absence.
Something absurd happened. “Get out,” she said, and her voice was like a cough, and she had snatched the little fruit knife off the table.
She saw she had his attention. He was nonplussed. She had done this, maybe—Val Nardia—
But then he turned and walked toward the door. And Ulis Anet hurled the knife after him. It was a wild cast, aimed for no vital spot. It went through his left sleeve, hovered, and dropped spent on the rugs.
He paused. He did not glance at the ripped sleeve, the knife. He moved slowly and came back to her and she, out of character, lost, stood before him waiting vulgarly for some blow. He did not lay a finger on her. Only the eyes struck down. And a few words.
“Tame yourself, lady,” he said. “We lack conversation as it is.”
“I didn’t mean to do such a thing,” she said. She was void of expression, or excuse. “It serves no purpose.”
“None,” he said.
Soon, the door closed, and he was gone.
• • •
The trio of ships, thrust by the rain-speared wind, made speed. Then, as Lan’s bladed coastline came near, they began to throw a shadow in the north. The tall, knife-edge shape of three Zakorians bore down on them. The Karmian vessels flew merely the Lily. The Zakorians hoisted no flag, but their sails had relinquished the Double Moon and Dragon of the Old Kingdom, and of old piracy. Each wore now the sigil of the Black Leopard.
Kesarh’s captain, standing in the bow, said, “Are they after a fight, my lord?”
“You forget, the Lily and the Leopard are fast friends.”
The ships hailed each other peaceably. Thereafter they moved together on the last of the day’s journey into the rocky shelter of the land.
An orange sun went down behind them, and through the burnt, wet shade on the sea, a parcel of Free Zakorians rowed over. Kesarh’s galley took them aboard.
“We thought your King was here,” said the Free Zakorian commander.
Kesarh, mailed, unjeweled, without device, said, “Did you? Never mind. I have his authority.”
The Zakorian was not a fool, not deceived, but neither prepared to argue with conviction. Tall and brutalized, he had one memorable adornment. The left eye, which was gone, had been replaced by a smooth ball of opal.
“King Yl sends greetings then, to your King, through you.”
“Thank you,” said Kesarh. “I’ll rememb
er to convey them.”
“And I’m authorized to offer assistance.”
“In what capacity?”
“There is awkwardness in Lan.” This polite, sarcastic phrase delivered in the Zakorian slur was nearly laughable. Kesarh did not laugh.
“What awkwardness is that?”
“Karmian troops in Lan have rebelled against King Kesr.”
“King Kesr,” said Kesarh, “would be most surprised to hear this.”
There was a stasis. Then the Zakorian said:
“My galleys will escort yours to the port of Amlan.”
“No,” said Kesarh. He smiled gravely. “Karmiss holds Lan. The entry of Free Zakorian warships into her harbors at this time would be regarded, by the King, you understand, as an act of aggression against Karmiss herself.”
The commander had not really believed he would get any other answer.
They exchanged brusque civilities, and the Free Zakorians went away.
In the hour before dawn when the Lily ships began their pull down the coast, the three shadows dogged them, too far off now to be hailed, or accused, simply a very positive menace.
The official word from Lan had been uncomplex. The new command had taken power, Raldnor Am Ioli was ousted and would consequently be disposed of. But much later, other words drifted in, even over the snow and ice—Kesarh’s roundabout skein of spies had seen to that. Details were obscure, yet it appeared—though Raldnor had died—he had won over the troops at least in Amlan and her port. Some puppet leader was now set up, a blond Shansar, who had captured, somehow, their cloddish imagination.
For Kesarh to lose his grip on Lan at the onset of the war could be fatal. He had used Lan as ballast, and needed it. Despite the kudos of his navy, the strategic excellence he had crowed from in Dorthar and by proxy in Free Zakoris, was irreplaceable.
And the Free Zakorians, their own spies active—intelligent in a way they had never been till Alisaarian Kathus had taken over their reins—had also caught a whiff of decay.
Three and a half thousand soldiers were quartered at Amlan through the snow. To go in with less than three hundred men at his back was Kesarh’s gamble, also a necessity.