by Tanith Lee
“If he can find solace that way,” said Rarnammon, “why not? He never wanted this.”
“While you, of course,” Vencrek said, “always wanted it.”
“Maybe. I won’t deny I may have done. I am, after all, Raldnor’s son. What was he? Priest and King. I’m the part of him that coveted glory in the gaze of men, perhaps. And Raldanash is the priest—meditation, and the hills of home. What do you want to do, Vencrek? Raldanash gives me his voice. If you can’t stomach it, you must go.”
“I’ll stomach it,” Vencrek said. “I don’t want the backhills any more than you do. You’ll see how well I’ll stomach it. I can earn your favor, my lord.” The blond head lifted, the Vathcrian smiled. “Let’s see, my lord, if you can earn mine.”
Later, when the council was done with, the shouting and dissension—had not Raldnor himself cast away this very kingship in the wake of victory?—the paid gossips were sent out to ply their trade through the city, just as in Istris all those short years ago. The people would be manipulated. The council would be manipulated. The customary bribes were negotiable here, as anywhere. Rarnammon who had been Rem knew the business, and dealt ably. He had besides Raldanash’s decree to back him.
One considered Raldanash, picked up almost dead on the deck of that ship, lying dreaming the Dream of the goddess in the Lowland port of Moiyah. And the vessels of Vathcri evolving on sunset water, like an omen.
And Rarnammon wanted Dorthar. Yes, it was sure.
When the correct amount of days and nights were judged past, he rode through the city in procession and a gem-encrusted chariot. Standing in the Imperial Square on a dais beneath the giant statue of his namesake, he addressed the crowds, employing every gambit Kesarh had ever shown him, and won them, and heard them roar for him, the huge cry going up like birds. Kingship was more than triumph, more than a shout. But the King’s blood that had come down to him, from Raldnor and Rehdon, remembered the sound a people make for their King, and welcomed it, as a right.
“The coronation’s for the last quarter of Zastis. You must wed all his wives,” said Vencrek. If there was a cutting edge in that, it was softly gloved. “Every king in Vis is obliged to send his representative or be present in person. Apparently, Yl himself will arrive. The kingdom of Zakoris-In-Thaddra is no longer building war-galleys. He’s promising to give you slaves and palutorvus tusks.”
“Is there any news of a man named Kathus, an Alisaarian?”
“Yl put his counselors to death on his return. He said they’d gone against the edict of the gods, advising him to unholy conflict. One man evaded the sentence. An Alisaarian.”
(So, he was landless again, Kathaos the Fox, running, and too tired to run, Kathus-Kathaos, who despised all religion and disbelieved all gods, saddled with a continent run amok with piety. Once he had ridden for the only break of light in the sky. But the light was an illusion. Or else illusion was a reality he had not bargained on.)
“And Kesarh Am Karmiss feeds the fish,” said Rarnammon quietly.
“Pirates,” said Vencrek. “They unswore allegiance to Yl when he capitulated, did for Kesarh, and now roam the sea in packs again. The oceans north and east may need some cleaning up before the snow. We note, even the miracle,” said Vencrek, “didn’t conclude every battle, my lord.”
There were no longer Amanackire about the court. They had gone away into the hills above Koramvis. Ashni was there, men said. But it did not seem to Rarnammon that she was. The glints of the psychic beacons had died down in his mind. He no longer kept unconscious track of Yannul’s son, or Amrek’s daughter in the Zor. Raldanash had retreated on an inner tide. Ashni, like some all-pervasive light, seemed to surround them, and yet was nowhere in particular.
“There was a priestess the Amanackire may have followed,” Vencrek said, shadowing Rarnammon’s thoughts in the endless way of telepaths. One grew accustomed to it. “There’s also a priestess on Ankabek again.”
“Yes,” Rarnammon said, not listening. Music rippled somewhere. The trees beside the colonnade were sinuous with Zastis, when sex invaded everything. And there had seemed to be no time. . . .
“Astaris, according to some.”
“Astaris no longer exists.”
“Do you recall the Xarabian princess, Xa’ath’s daughter?”
• • •
In Karmiss, it was the Festival of Masks. In the east, where Istris was rebuilding, lamps strung the scaffolding, and banners dripped from gutted houses. When Free Zakoris came, the volume of smoke had blown to smear Ioli, but there was only torch-smoke now. The beer and wine flowed as it had always done. And on this occasion of war, the wines had been spared. Next year would be a fine one for the vintage they called now Salamander. It seemed one wine merchant, at least, still loved him.
Karmiss had much to talk of, between the drinking and the kisses. The Warden had fled the island. There was a Shansarian regent from over-the-ocean. A King-Elect was found among the rubble of Suthamun’s house. Something clever was managed. The boy had been got on a Karmian woman and had coppery skin to set off his fairness. Nor was he a eunuch.
There was a Storm Lord elect in Dorthar. His mother was a Vis-Karmian. Istris toasted him on the bell-ringing carts and by the fire-scorched harbor, choosing to forget, even if they knew, he had been also Kesarh’s henchman. Gossip detailed a magnificent progress, by land and river, through Dorthar. Now the Dortharian ships lay off Tjis. The Shansarian regent had gone there and clasped hands with Rarnammon son of Raldnor. A pledge had been made to raise up Ankabek of the goddess, that the Leopard had destroyed.
That isle, they said, was held by specters. But there were specters at Istris and Ioli, too, for the festival—in fancy-dress and drunk.
• • •
The royal biremes rested a mile out from Ankabek. Their emblems were the goddess and the Dragon of Dorthar. As yet, the man who was to be Storm Lord, had not selected a personal device. From the landing of the island, they looked merely charming toys. Not that any came to see. Those who had chosen Ankabek as a refuge had long since received happier news and returned across the straits to mainland Karmiss. Only seabirds were left now. Wading in the ringed shallows, they took flight, when an oared boat ran out at them from the ocean.
Presently a pavilion went up on the beach of shale. A party of Vathcrians and Dortharians, laughing and sporting or theosophically serious, strode to investigate the twice-deserted village. One man climbed away from it. He passed into the fire-blackened groves above and was lost to sight.
• • •
They were not all finished, the trees of Ankabek. Here a twig, a branch, there a whole young sapling, was bladed with the ruby leaves of summer. And from some, the quick and the dead boughs, metal discs hung quivering and unsounding, smirched or bright, in the windless air.
The walk was of the same duration as it had always been. But coming out at the crown of the island, seeing the husk of the temple, memory itself pierced the side. Events had happened here. Now everything was gone, only the walls, the trees fighting back to bud and leaf, the scope of the sea and the sky beyond, indifferent and unassociable.
The Lowlanders burned their corpses for this very reason, to expunge each physical life, its worth already integrated by the soul, and only the soul persisting. It was hard on those who remained behind.
Rarnammon, he himself one that remained in the wake of death, saw between the phantom trees, another. He had not been assured he would discover her here. Raldanash’s mind had hinted something, of her presence, the rekindling of his flagging strength through Ankabek and through the ingenuous medium of this woman.
She was seated on the ground, clad in one of the temple robes, dusty black as the burned trees. The blood-red hair matched with the sprays of new leaves. A strange picture.
He went closer, moving silently, not wanting to alarm her. He had recognized the stance as that of me
ditation. At ten yards’ distance he paused. Her face was tilted slightly up into the sunlight, and her eyes were partly open. It was Ulis Anet, much as she had been. But then, too, it was Val Nardia. For a moment he missed the tore with the pearls Kesarh’s sister had always worn at court. Before his impressions sorted themselves.
Her eyes widened abruptly, and he knew she saw him. Although maybe where he stood, there were other persons, less corporeal.
“Ulis Anet Am Xarabiss,” he said carefully. “Do you remember me?”
“Rarnammon,” she said. Because she rendered him the full name as now it was, it was obvious her awareness had been heightened. Obvious, in other less decided ways. She stared at him for some time before she said, “I’m no priestess, my lord. My being here is an accident. You’ll find me rather odd. I’ve stayed alone some while. Atonement, self-examination. What do you want with me?”
“Perhaps nothing,” he said.
She came gracefully to her feet, and the light sifted through her hair, between her fingers when she spread her hands.
“When I first looked and saw you,” she said, “I saw Kesarh. The darkness—and then—Raldanash. Your eyes, do you understand? But you’re like him. Like them both.” She wept then, slowly and thoughtfully, as if without grief. He stood and watched her. In a space, she touched her palms to her cheeks and the tears and the weeping were gone. “Let me show you a marvel of the island,” she said. She moved away toward the headland, and he went after her. Her beauty, which he had never properly seen before, flowed from her like her shadow between the stems of the trees.
West of the temple, the burned groves gave way to burned oaks, and the sea spread under them, a long stretch down. Among the grasses stood a small stone Anackire, rough layman’s work. He wondered who had put it there.
Ulis Anet walked to the edge of the rock.
“It’s curious,” she said. “I never asked the spot and I might have been misled. But the sun’s westering. This is the hour when it occurs.”
“What is it?” he asked her gently. He did not think her without reason, but he was half afraid to go near her, that his arm or sleeve might brush against her, or his voice. As if she might disintegrate. Or as if some hurt would spring from proximity.
But, “There,” she said, and pointed to the deep water below.
And suddenly something dazzled, a spear of amber light starting up from the sea.
They looked at it, each of them transfixed. And then the dazzle flickered out.
“They flung the statue down from these rocks,” she said. “Anackire. Could it be some ornament. Her hair—or a jewel—”
“The Free Zakorians took Her eyes,” he said, “but one of the Leopard ships went down. The current, maybe, brought it back—”
They gazed at the water, disbelieving now that it had ever revealed anything.
After a while, he offered her the food and wine he had brought.
They sat by the oaks above the sea to share this picnic. He recollected, he thought, Kesarh and Val Nardia sitting here. There was a timelessness and a lack of urgency, but under all, the anomalous sense of change, nervous and unanswerable.
Once, a golden snake spilled through the grass. The serpents of the goddess had survived, and now the island was theirs.
The man and woman spoke, ordinarily, of extraordinary matters.
Shadows extended in bars across the ocean, on the rocks. The west flushed; the east flushed as if in reflection, anticipating the Star.
“You don’t mean to stay here,” he said. “You hadn’t made up your mind to be an acolyte or a hermitess?”
“I considered it. But you must advise me. You were one with the great web of Power. A god.”
“No,” he said.
“At least,” she said, “for a night and a day. The hem of that fire passed over the island. I’m a witness. You were a god. You tell me then, my lord, where I should direct my steps, how I should spend my life. You know he died because of me.”
“Kesarh died because of Kesarh.”
“I put my guilt and terror aside. Ankabek taught me to do that. But not how to live out the rest. Ankabek says only: Wait.”
“Come to Dorthar, then. She speaks more loudly and to greater purpose.”
“Never to me.”
The sun stepped upon the tide. The world swam in scarlet lights and shades. The Star crushed out a rose along the eastern horizon.
“Ulis,” he said, “this conversation about gods—if this were some brothel in Istris I’d cringe with shame. I’ve had what I wanted, and it was never a woman. And now this is a ruin and a rock with burned trees on it. A damnable couch. And I want you.”
Her face was wholly blank, and then the blankness dashed away in laughter.
“The Storm Lord apologizes to his handmaiden for an uncomfortable bed?”
“And for his lack of knowledge, which fails to team with his years.”
“Zastis,” she said. Her voice was very low. “It’s Zastis. And every moment of it I was alone here, until now.”
He found her mouth then, through the sinking of the sun. It was sweet and unknown country that the sunset made.
• • •
Somewhere in the hills above Koramvis, the Thaddrian watched the stars of dusk come out, and the Red Moon among them, and then the last Star of all, redder than the cookfire on the stones.
Zastis disturbed the Thaddrian, but he was used to it and to setting his body aside.
He had made the fire on the stones to add normalcy, but it did not. The lake was far off, the mountains loomed. This hilltop seemed bizarrely out of the world while being totally within the world. All around, the Amanackire, the tawny and the icy-pale, sat meditating, some through the formula of prayer.
The Thaddrian thought of the miracle they had wrought. Then stopped thinking of it. The mystery was over. He was homesick for his temple on the plain, the fat High Priest and his wine jars—and his surreptitious ladies, at this season. For the useful scrolls and cartographies, the rituals, so empty but so pretty. He was thirsty for mediocre things. He had forgotten, having grown irritable with it, his love for mankind.
“Soon,” she said.
He glanced up and saw Ashni standing across the fire.
Her smile was so lovely, so redolent of everything that did no harm yet was limitless—sky, stars, light.
“You’re going then, madam,” he said. It was rhetorical, requiring no reply, getting none.
Gradually all their eyes, even those weird pallid eyes, were coming to her.
She told them, succinctly, with no words, that now she would leave them.
None of her Lowlanders objected. They bore it, pridefully, the Chosen Race, the Children of the Gods. He felt the loneliness creep down like wolves from the mountains. Did no other feel the loneliness, too?
She’s only a girl, he thought stupidly. Fourteen, fifteen. Long, silken hair and lily skin. But her eyes found him again. She was not only a girl, at all. There had been that legend in Thaddra of a wolf child. Some mirror-image of prophecy. What could she be now?
But she was walking away, quite briskly, as she always walked—a swift and effortless glide, hair fluttering out like butterflies—something to be done. Up the hill. There was a rock there, about a hundred feet above. She went right the way to the rock, and climbed it in three steps. She seated herself on the rock, and he could see her there. They could all see her.
What would happen?
It was like a soft little rill, a child’s giggle, or a stream’s, in his brain. His personal creed had always denied that final metamorphosis. Raldnor and Astaris had ridden into the jungle on a wagon. Ashni, at some juncture of the night, would walk away among the hills, alone.
When he woke, near dawn, the rock on the hill was vacant, and the Thaddrian priest of the Dortharian Anackire comprehended t
hat this was what she had done.
He was raking the ashes of the fire, looking for the sausage he had let be blackened there, when some strangeness made him lift his head again.
The sky was already expanding, a crystal smoked with gold in the east. Then a tiny silver sun with streaming hair was birthed out of the gold.
The Thaddrian jumped to his feet, clutching the cindery sausage in his hands, waving it at the Amanackire until they roused, some waking, some simply moving in, sleepless, across the hill.
There in the morning sky blazed the star.
In Elyr they would be whispering, murmuring in their solitary towers. They had foretold the star, the appearance, its passing away. For now, they would worship it, a sign of peace, the ray of hope.
In all Lan they would be seeing it, from their blue heights, from out of their close-wrapped valleys. The young man riding into Amlan with a ragged clatter, Yannul’s son, would look across the roofs and see it and swear, knowing others of his kindred saw it too. And Safca, in the eye of a dark tower of the Zor, like any Elyrian, would spy the star and hold out her hand, childishly to view it on her finger’s end. Raldanash, land-bereft on the sea that folded toward Vathcri, in the stern of a blue-sailed ship, would look, the outcry of the sailors lost on him. He would smile to see the star, so like a tear. All over Vis they saw it, woke and saw. On Ankabek, the man and woman, hero and heroine under the oak trees, beheld the star caught in the branches like one more disc of silver. Their bodies still locked, they turned back again to find light in each other.
The Thaddrian, having got up the hill, learned that the rock’s far side was a minor precipice from which no one could have descended save by means of wings. He loosed the sausage down it, like an offering. Ashni had stolen by all of them, then, even the sleepless Amanackire, as they snored. She was gone to be a peasant in Thaddra, or to run with wolves.
He grinned at the sky, crying with joy.
“And yet,” he said, “Ashni, you are also the Morning Star.”