Shadowfire

by Tanith Lee

  “He is a tame creature of Prince Erran’s. The prince says the old man was among the infantry that marched on Purple Valley, under Vazkor. He got some wound that saw him home before the offensive broke.”

  “Ask him if this is true.”

  “My lord.” Zrenn strolled over to the old man and toed him away from me as if clearing garbage. “Do you hear the Javhovor? Did you fight under Vazkor?”

  The emissary stumbled upright. He mumbled an affirmative. His eyes pleaded with me not to visit my wrath on him. The bronze guard clanked through the narrow door at some fresh signal of Zrenn’s, and pulled the gray messenger away.

  For all the visitations of my father’s memory, this had shaken me. It might have been his ghost reproaching me for my fear, my lack of ability; for whatever power had been in me, I seemed to have exhausted it.

  “Where is the meeting place, and when?” Kortis said.

  “The Temple—Prince Nemarl’s joke, I venture to suggest. Midday.”

  “How many of their swords in attendance?”

  “Nemarl says five captains, one hundred bronzes. I think Erran will bring more.”

  “See we are equal to them, and preferably superior.”

  “My lord.” Zrenn went to the door, hesitated, and said, “Javhovor, my kinswoman asks that she may accompany you.”

  “Demizdor shall remain here,” Kortis answered.

  “That will grieve her, my lord. She’s hungry to see the savage writhe.”

  “No, Zrenn,” Kortis said, “it is you who are hungry for that. Demizdor hungers for other things. I will have no ladies at such a meeting. Vengeance is a slender thing to make a truce from. Tell her to stay in her apartments.” He turned to follow Zrenn out, nodding at me, courteously. “Bear with the dark a little longer, son of Vazkor. Soon you shall have light in plenty.”

  Certainly, there was light, a bright, still day at the brink of the young winter, sky like hammered platinum. A scatter of leaves blew in the streets from trees in overgrown gardens, charred cinnabar papers at the base of the looming deadness of Eshkorek.

  Light in the Temple, too. A goddess temple, rededicated, as I had been told, to Uastis (mother-mine) in the days of her power, since decimated, roof fallen, walls breached and left gaping—a colossal, empty, echoing forum, filled only at its eastern end. Nemarl’s joke. Yes, surely. To decide my punishment under the shadow of she who had been my father’s wife.

  For the great goddess statue was still standing. A giantess of yellow stone stained by ancient fires, a skirt of bronze and gold and necklets of emerald and jade, with ruby nipples in her breasts. She stood too high to be looted, like a small mountain. You would need heroes to scale that scarp and wrench out the gems. She seemed as tall as the sky. She would have seemed taller if she had retained her head. But the same shot that brought down the ceiling had severed the skull of the Eshkirian Uastis. In those days they had cared enough for religion to sweep up the pieces like broken eggs, but you might note the cracks in the mosaic floor where her marble brains had been dashed out.

  So much for Kortis’ promise of light, and for Nemarl’s joke.

  There was another joke, Zrenn’s.

  They came in my cell, unchained me and led me above. In a little mildewed bathing chamber, they stripped my krarl garments and offered me the bath, gracious as for a prince. I mistrusted the barber with the razor, but he only shaved me carefully, and did not cut my throat, as I half imagined he would. This done, I was clad in black velvet breeches and tunic, royal finery, even boots of leather with buckles of gold. Bronze-masked men, with grinning eyes behind the glass eyepieces, brought me a chain of golden links, an armlet of jade thick as two fingers, a black ring.

  I knew very well what they were at; I could hardly miss it. They were dressing me as Vazkor had dressed, perhaps in the very clothes that had covered his body—though I doubted it. I had surmised already from their talk and whisperings that his corpse was never found beneath the fallen Tower. Only certain soldiers of his who had unintelligently surrendered to the besiegers, had left the six cities a legacy of their black gear and silver skull-masks with which to frighten the tribes.

  If it was Zrenn’s joke, it was not a jest for me. No longer chained but clothed as a prince, I felt my courage come back to me, strong enough to make me wince at the fear I had felt before. If they were to kill me, they would do it. They should not at least be titillated by my cowardice into the bargain.

  In the yard before Kortis’ palace was a black gelding trapped with purple, green, and gold. When I mounted up, their Javhovor and his soldiers came down the steps. Zrenn ran forward to me, swept off his mask, and bowed extravagantly.

  “Greeting, Vazkor, Overlord of White Desert, Chosen of the Goddess!”

  He was like a boy going on his first hunt, so joyous was he at the prospect of grief and torture to come.

  I was ready when he looked up smiling, and spit in his face.

  This he did not like. His smile twisted, and he wiped his smooth cheek with one hand, searching for his sword with the other. He had got too close. It was easy for me to catch him lightly in the chest with my new boot, and topple him backward. He went sprawling. No one ran to help him, but there was all about the rasp of metal abandoning scabbard.

  Then Kortis said, like a man quieting rowdy children, “No, sirs. Leave him be. Zrenn, if you have made a Vazkor of him, then you must honor him as a Vazkor. If you cut him into joints now, how will you console my fellow princes?”

  Zrenn had regained his feet. He showed his white, hating teeth at me, and donned his pretty fox-mask, and called to his horse.

  I saw that many of the silver men had kept on the livery of Vazkor’s guard for this drama, the skull-heads and the black. A man of these moved up on either side, his drawn sword across the saddle bow, pointing at me. Others rode in behind. The strong, cold sunlight did not spare the mangy garments, all that remained of antique splendor. The braid of my harness was half-eaten away.

  Kortis Javhovor wheeled his gray about and trotted ahead of us, five of his captains and the bronze soldiery following. My own part of the procession began to trot after. I glanced back. Thirty behind me, parody of Vazkor’s men. No chance to make a break and no weapon in my belt. On foot, runners keeping pace with the horses. Each resembled each, ugly, muddy-dark of flesh with blue shaved pates, maskless. I recalled seeing their brothers in the fortress on the rock: city slaves, and born to the destiny, slave right through, the soul bred out of them.

  Rather be free and die than live and live death.

  Of the legendary quantities of enslaved tribal warriors, culled on raids, I had seen none.

  The white midday sun balanced above the Temple when we reached it, and somewhere a bird was cawing harshly from a roof or autumn tree; I remember that for it was the only one I ever heard in Eshkorek.

  We passed into the Temple, and there were mounted men already arrived, and waiting.

  Kortis’ band halted; across the way the first band stared from their masks, six of which were of the gold. The ragged furs were much in evidence there, and under them dark gray and saffron. It was another kind of gold phoenix-mask their leader wore, but still a golden phoenix. He raised his arm listlessly and Kortis replied, each like a doll on a string, with no verbal greeting exchanged.

  The second phoenix called, “It seems Lord Erran declines to meet you, my lord. Afraid of the risen one, I suspect.”

  Thus I knew him to be Nemarl. I was wondering what plans he had devised for me, what plans Kortis had devised, how long they would make my dying last—all this in a kind of dire, calm, inner debate, numb as if every one of my nerves were gone—when a third group of riders came stealing out of the shade at the statue’s back.

  Ten faces of yellow metal here, and the foremost not the phoenix but a golden leopard, and his tunic sewn with plaques of gold, gone bald in spots.
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br />   “Not afraid of ghosts, my lords,” he said, “cautious of men. I see Ezlann has come to Eshkorek. That is how Vazkor looked in the days of his magnificence, eh, Kortis? It must make you feel young again to have him so youthful.”

  “No, Prince Erran,” Kortis said, “it doubles my years. But he is very like Vazkor.”

  “And I hear that he himself claims it as his heritage.” Erran turned to me. Confronted only by masks now, the scene was becoming like some awesome dream. “What shall we do with him, then? Make him our king?”

  Nemarl said heavily, “We have a score to settle with Vazkor. The crimes of the father have descended to the son. This one shall pay the debt. It is on this understanding that we meet. To savor justice too long delayed.”

  It occurred to me Zrenn himself had joked when he spoke of Nemarl’s joking. Nemarl was not a man for jokes. He was perhaps forty years of age; he, too, would recollect my father.

  The soldiers about me began abruptly to ride forward, and my horse trotted obediently with them.

  We were at the center of the space now.

  I thought, If I had a sword, a knife even, I could cut free of them.

  There was part of a column left there, in the paving, like a splinter of bone left in a wound.

  Zrenn came around my horse. He bowed, more of a safe distance from me than the last time.

  “Dismount, Overlord,” he said.

  Could 1 swing at him again? Get the short sword from his belt?

  I knew I would not do it. I knew that no man could be quick enough, that they would have me down, disarm me, carefully not kill me. I would not give them that honey to sweeten their wine. I would not struggle with the fate they laid on me.

  Someone bound me to the pillar stump.

  With a deft stroke, Zrenn tore the velvet tunic across my breast. His eyes were slitted behind the mask. I could hear him breathing, quick as a dancer. This was the drink he had thirsted for.

  He glanced around at the company, the princes and their men. He said, “There’s some story, is there not, that Vazkor could heal from any hurt. We shall see—” and a tiny slender knife flicked out in his narrow hand.

  The first cut was like a silver razor or the sting of ice. He laughed and danced back at me, and the iron licked me again. I felt the blood flow. It was not particularly real. I said quietly, just loud enough for him to hear me, “You will never get a son this way, little man, spilling it in your drawers.”

  That drove him mad, as I had meant it to, for in fact his pleasure was not quite of that order. He slashed me across the face and I felt my skin fold off from the bone. I had hoped he would open the neck vein, which would be quicker for me, but he missed it, from fury or cleverness. I was trying to plot the stages of my execution as they were, in order to outwit them, and I think I was part out of my head, for never before, and only one time since, have I been so negative, so dull on the outskirts of my death.

  Abruptly Erran shouted, “Enough! Kortis, whistle off your hound; he’s stealing the meat.”

  One of my eyes had gone blind with the running blood. One-eyed, I saw the statue of the goddess looked to be tottering. The solitary bird cawed, inside my brain now.

  Erran had walked up to me to inspect Zrenn’s handiwork.

  “These are elegant sculptings. If he heals from them, I shall truly consider the dead has risen from his tomb.” He spoke indifferently. Presently he added, “Well, Kortis. He is your captive. What now?”

  “My messenger has already told you, my lords,” Kortis said. “If I am to make a show of him for you, you must pay me. And, like any thrifty merchant, I should prefer a portion of my fee in advance.”

  “Odd to hear the great Phoenix bargain,” Erran said.

  Nemarl said, “For a little sport, you can’t ask a high price.”

  “A moment ago, you called it justice, my lord,” Kortis murmured. “But, no, I ask little. A friend’s measure of the yield of your southern fields, Nemarl. You recollect, I think, my plantings perished in the harsh weather, together with the slaves who might have saved them. From you, Erran, I ask less. You never knew Vazkor, your hate is necessarily more abstract. Give me the three foals your mares bore last spring.”

  “By the yellow whore”—Erran jerked his thumb at the headless giant-woman—“I will give you one. And it is too much.”

  “Two at least I will have,” Kortis said calmly.

  Nemarl turned away, as if disgusted by their wrangling like tribal wives over a bronze pot. To this the lords of the cities had been reduced. I leaned on the pillar, my ears buzzing and my blood soaking in the fine tunic they had given me, listening as they haggled away their honor and my life.

  Presently the chaffering stopped. They had agreed my worth and I had not listened to it.

  They were mounting up, not bothering to take me with them, talking, as they did it, of some ceremony of justice here tomorrow, when they had seen how Zrenn’s carving had progressed, how much of Vazkor there might be in me. Erran rode back to me.

  I looked with my single eye at him, the other sealed fast.

  “You speak the city tongue,” he said, “so the old Phoenix tells me. Speak then.”

  I said, slowly, in order I should get it right, “May you eat dung and pass blood, and may the ravens squabble for your liver.”

  “You will regret your good wishes, tomorrow,” he answered pleasantly, and spurred his horse away.

  It appeared I was to be excellently guarded. About the open forum some twenty of Kortis’ bronze soldiers were lingering, and the dark slave-men building fires and raising awnings for them against the chill, in the angles of the ruined walls. Three silver captains of Kortis’ band were dicing near the statue in a shelter already prepared, and well heated by a brazier. It seemed no golden-masks—commanders or kin—were left to Kortis Phoenix since his men fell on their swords in the pavilion on the fortress rock. Maybe he had special cause to hate me for that.

  The sun’s brilliance was already darkening, seeping away into a twilight afternoon, taking my perceptions with it. Blue clouds bulged in the western sky. The wind passed like a comb along the streets of the city.

  Perhaps I could die in the night, if it obliged me by growing cold enough.

  The rats in my cell would be sorry I had not been returned to them. I could feel their teeth gnawing, even so, in the slashes on my chest and belly and the great chasm in my face, the rat teeth of pain.

  Kotta, the blind woman, had called me handsome.

  It would take a blind woman to think me handsome now.

  4

  I woke suddenly, hanging in my bonds like a carcass, and felt the strangeness that was in the night, or in me.

  It was cold, but not bitter, the sky above the open Temple roof more white than black with all its stars and the low hunter’s bow of the moon. The shades and lights lay straight across the paved floor in stripes, with only the few dull gems of the dying fires to break them. Not a sound in the world, even the wind sleeping. The soldiers were sleeping, too, or mesmerized at their watch-posts, if any had been set.

  My face tingled, and itched like new beard pushing through. I worked my jaw, and felt the dried cake of blood crack, but there was no pain, no stiffening in the raw flesh.

  And I thought at last of the snake bite, the tattooing needles, the warrior wounds that healed clean and left no scar.

  No time for more. There was a soft, insistent surging of vague movement all around me, deceptively fluid and gentle—then the clatter of the brazier going over, the red coals spilled, and from the shelter of the three silver captains, one silver-masked man staggering out with another on his back, like some play of drunks or children. But the silver-mask fell heavily, and the man astride lifted his arm and plunged it down with the almost noiseless thunk a blade makes penetrating human fiber. Presently he excavated the knife, wiped it on the
corpse, and stood. As all around Prince Erran’s men were standing up from the dead guard Kortis Phoenix had left me. They had stolen in, soft as snow, and done their work like a kiss.

  I saw I was to become another man’s property. Like any valuable buck ram, I had been captured, bought, sold, and finally thieved.

  Erran drank wine, green wine in a golden cup. He said, “I do not pretend I am not a man, you see. I eat, I drink, I urinate, I defecate, I sleep, and on some day shall die. If my ancestors were gods, the strain has failed and I am not a god. Kortis and Nemarl and two score thousand may pretend otherwise, but I am not one of them. Which is why I have subtracted you from their guardianship. Why waste you on godly vengeance when you might be put to use?”

  He had taken off his leopard’s face to drink, for the city masks had no aperture at the mouth. He was a young man with blond clever looks and little amused eyes.

  “Well, you may answer, my Vazkor. Tell me. Would you not be better pleased to live than to die? You shall be a kindly treated slave, don’t fear it. Your blood is half good at least. My rival princes would chop off your limbs; I would rather put them to work. Instead of castrating you, I will send you the comeliest of my bronze and satin mask women, and you shall get me fine, strong slave-sons on them. You shall have a pleasant and not overarduous existence in my service.”

  I was no longer bound. Watching him, I put my hand to my face, and felt again the whole healed skin.

  “Yes,” he said, “there is always that. I am hoping you will pass on that gift with your seed, as the Black Wolf of Ezlann did with his when he fashioned you. I have been wondering. If Kortis’ dog had lopped off a hand, or dug out an eye for his sport, what then? Should you have regrown the member as you have regrown flesh without scar?” He came and looked more nearly at me. “Yes, it is remarkable. Just a coloration, pale now as if your lady had petulantly slapped you there. It will be gone by sunrise, I would judge. The wounds on your body, of course, have vanished completely.”

  He was close enough; I could have strangled him. He seemed to become aware of this, and walked away, grinning at me. He poured green wine into a second cup, not gold like the first, but polished wood, good enough for a slave.