Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  He ate. The bread and cheese, fruit and honey, were ashes in his mouth. The thin pink wine was gall.

  The door of the house opened. Bellasteros supported by Ilanit and Dana, tottered out into the evening and was seated in a comfortable chair. The moonlight fell upon his face, smoothing it, tinting his hair and beard with silver; his eyes gleamed darkly again. His ruined arm was only a bulge in his carefully draped cloak.

  “To think of the years I hid from women, fearing them,” he said. But his smile was bittersweet; a warrior brought low, cared for like an infant, with only dignity to call his own.

  Ilanit brought out the star-shield. She seated herself and with a cloth began to burnish it, brushing slow sparks from its emblazoned star. Dana sat beside the conqueror. “Sing to me,” he asked. “Sing the lay of Daimion. Not the Sardian version, which forgets Mari, but the true one.”

  She took his remaining hand, cradling it in her own. Her voice floated like distant chimes down the wind.

  “When the world was young and the sunlight red, Daimion walked among the children of the gods.”

  Andrion sipped once more at the wine, and it was a little sweeter upon his tongue. His mother’s hand touched his hair, gently, as if reassuring herself he really existed. “Auburn hair,” she murmured. “Dark, like his, but tinted with the fires of a midsummer’s passion, of a midwinter’s battle.

  “It used to be that a king went willingly to his death so his land might live; failing that he sent to death his chosen surrogate, the summer king twinned with the winter king. But the goddess no longer demands such sacrifice. Compromise, ever compromise, and love as strong as death.”

  “Then why are we now betrayed?” Andrion asked.

  “Are we? Or are we trusted to begin again?”

  He shook his head. His uncertainty was like a wound improperly healed. With a sigh he folded his long limbs to lean against her knee.

  “Daimion, beloved of the gods, sought the tree at the end of the world. Sought the sword forged in the world’s dawning.”

  The diadem and the sword still rested beside the shield of Sabazel. Bellasteros refused to take them up again, a wounded king incapable of healing a wounded land. Andrion could not bring himself to touch them, feeling himself a naughty boy playing with things not meant for a child. He had taken the image of Harus to Ashtar’s temple and set it where it could see the pool and the sky. The aged priestesses left offerings of grain, but still the bronze figure seemed worn and wasted, grain alone not enough to feed it. “Forgive me,” Andrion muttered. “Please, mighty Harus.”

  A breeze purled past him, kissing his cheeks. “Forgive me, Ashtar,” he said.

  “Mari of Sabazel was her name;

  she met Daimion on the field of battle, sword to sword.

  But their eyes met, their swords dropped,

  and another kind of fire passed between them.”

  Danica laughed softly. “Another kind of fire indeed.” She touched the necklace at Andrion’s throat. “A sword in the shape of the crescent moon, and the star-shield at its tip. Sardis and Sabazel meeting on the field of battle, mating, making an empire.”

  Andrion drifted on the familiar song, on the purity of Dana’s voice and the breeze that carried it. Daimion and Mari found the tree and the sword just as Bellasteros and Danica had. But Daimion betrayed Mari and her shield called him to his death, in a cavern deep underground, shorn of the light of sun or moon.

  Dana came to the end of the song. Her voice rippled away down into the wind. Bellasteros gazed up into the sky, thoughtful and silent. Then it was Danica’s voice that filled the evening, reciting the familiar story of Sabazel like a soothing catechism. “Once the goddess Ashtar, the great mother, ruled the world. Once everyone bowed to women, for from a woman’s body comes new life.

  “Then the role of men in the making of children was realized, and the goddess took a consort, as was right and proper. At times she killed her consort, more often she gave him life; the world prospered.

  “But the pride of men demanded a father god. Women reminded them of their broken vows to the goddess, and they scorned women. Those who would remain free came to Sabazel. For a time Sabazians rode openly through the world, and their queen did not have to be a warrior. I hoped such a time had come again.”

  “Yes,” said Andrion. And then, “But not all men are evil, Mother.”

  Danica laughed quietly. “I thought, once, that they were. I was wrong. Compromise, Andrion, and change.”

  “Yes.” He leaned against her, inhaling her scent, the scent of Sabazel itself. He watched the stars, Ashtar’s lamps, blossoming in the sky above him. But the radiance of the moon, the radiance of the shield, drained the light from the stars and filled his eyes with a silver glow like a translucent liquid. If only he could slip into it, he mused, drown in it, forget who he was.

  “Sardis almost forgot Ashtar,” continued Danica. “The Empire, more indulgent, allowed her discreet worship even among their noblewomen. So it was that Viridis, given to Gerlac of Sardis to end the endless war between them, came through Sabazel to consecrate herself to Ashtar in the rites. But proud Gerlac took offense when Viridis bore a nine-month babe in seven moons, suspecting her visit to Sabazel. He killed her for it and challenged the child, challenged him to be strong.”

  “He was,” said Andrion. “He is.” But the name of Gerlac tightened the back of his neck, pulling each fine hair erect. Surely the old demon had been laid to rest. Why shiver, except at the horror of an old tale?

  Bellasteros said something quietly to Dana. She rose and went into the house.

  The emperor’s dark, pellucid gaze turned upon his lady and his son; his eyes were haunted, clinging desperately to the tattered edge of sanity. I shall heal you, Andrion shouted silently. But his thought mocked him. How?

  Danica’s voice softened. Her eyes rested on Bellasteros’s face, its familiar lines a pleasing scroll for her to read. “When Bellasteros became king, there were those who suspected his birth, who would have used it against him. Only when the goddess, through me, brought him here to Sabazel; only when he had the courage to acknowledge her, and I the courage to acknowledge my love for a man, did the war end at last. And you were set as a seal upon the victory, not as an ending, but as a beginning.”

  “A victory not without cost,” said Andrion.

  Danica chuckled under her breath. “The ways of the goddess are subtle indeed.”

  “Yes,” he said acidly. He shifted again, restless. “The queens of Sabazel carry the star-shield; the king carries Solifrax; Dana, for good or ill, bears the Sight; for a time you even bore the power of Ashtar herself. But what do I have, Mother? The goddess will not even speak to me.”

  “The shield, the sword, the magic of the gods is meant only to supplement our own wills. More would be sorcery and corruption. You can hear the goddess, if you listen.”

  He shook his head, not understanding. The wind sang down from the vault of the sky, flowed over the height of Cylandra, danced among the trees; the moonlight was so bright that the shadows were dense and black. Andrion’s neck was tense, his shoulders tight with a strange urgency.

  Dana came from the house bearing the sword Solifrax solemnly across her hands. The moonlight flickered in quick crescents of light along its snakeskin sheath. Bellasteros straightened, moved with his right shoulder, grimaced and reached for the sword with his left hand. Ilanit laid down her cloth and stood, lifting the shield onto her arm.

  Slowly, tentatively, as if he expected the sword to turn upon him, Bellasteros pulled Solifrax from its scabbard and held it to the sky. The curved blade, so highly polished as to seem like crystal, flashed in the moonlight. Andrion rose, drawn to it. But even as he stood, its light failed and the blade dulled. The wind was suddenly chill.

  Dana’s eyes widened with a glimmering green light. Andrion reached toward her, but did not dare touch her.

  “Andrion,” said the emperor. He lowered the tip of the sword; it wavered a mome
nt, and he steadied it, wincing with effort. “Andrion, come to me.”

  The young man stepped across the dark-dappled grass, his blood stirring with some strange lust; he felt again the hilt of Solifrax searing his hand. The hilt made not for his hand, but for his father’s.

  “Take this sword,” said Bellasteros. “Take Solifrax.”

  “What?” The unease of the evening gathered itself, crashed over him.

  “Listen to me. Take Solifrax and place it in the water of Ashtar’s basin, there, on Cylandra’s flank.”

  Andrion heard Danica gasp in dismay. Or perhaps it was the wind that hissed suddenly in his ear. He could not move. No, I am not hearing this final rite, he thought. It cannot be. But the sword was given to Bellasteros because he was strong enough to bear it, and now neither he nor his son was strong.

  The emperor’s smile was thin and taut. The darkness in his eyes ebbed. “You heard me. Do it, Andrion.”

  Swallowing his grief, he replied, “Yes, my lord.” He knelt, extended his hands, received the soft sheen of the blade across his palms. And it was not hot; the metal was cold, drawing the warmth from his hands, from his arms, so that his body ached with it. “Father . . .”

  Bellasteros’s eyes were stern, for his son and for himself. Andrion could only grasp the sword, set his jaw against the pain, stand and turn. Danica stood draped with shadow, watching, her hands clasped before her. Dana knelt suddenly by the chair, bowed over the now mute and dull scabbard. “Sorcery,” she whispered. “Black smoke, reaching even over the borders of Sabazel.”

  Ilanit saluted the sword, and the shield gleamed in some faint memory of their combined power. No! cried Andrion silently. They cannot be separated; from them I draw my life! But he turned, spurred by his father’s will, forcing his legs to flex and loosen.

  The garden lurched past him. Dim tree shapes withered, and gray flowers folded their petals. Shadow lapped his mind, swallowing thought, swallowing hope. “No,” he cried aloud, but his voice was a thin wail snatched away by the wind.

  The steps up the mountainside were narrow and well worn, and Andrion stumbled. Ten steps, twenty—surely the stair would stretch on forever, surely he could bear the sword into some eternity and there preserve it. Thirty steps, and the stairway twisted beneath his feet, throwing him into the murky hollow in the mountainside. The water in the great basin waited, dark and still. He stood staring into it, the ragged thuds of his own heart counting irrevocable time. I must!

  I cannot. The sword was too beautiful to abandon to a tub of water. The wind muttered in his ear, murmuring reproof, but if other words were in it, he could not understand them. Carefully Andrion laid the sword on a great boulder, released it, turned way.

  The blade sparked in the corner of his eye. Tendrils of noxious black smoke swirled around it, muting it. He turned back. No, the sword was as smooth and clear as the face of the moon. Slowly he walked back down the steps, rubbing his hands together to warm them. To warm his shame.

  Danica knelt beside Bellasteros, holding his hand in her own. Dana huddled on the ground at his other side. Ilanit crouched, wary, holding the faintly glowing shield. “What did you see?” asked the emperor of his son.

  “Ah.” Andrion took a deep breath. “I saw the wind ruffling the water and drinking the stars.”

  Danica and Bellasteros exchanged a glance, rue eroded by grief and fear. “Did you?” asked the emperor.

  Andrion’s hands were still cold, and the cold flowed through every vein in his body, turning his blood to strands of ice. He shivered. “I could not put the blade in the water; I laid it down. Forgive me.”

  His father’s weary smile was worse than any reprimand. “Go, Andrion. Give the sword into the goddess’s protection. Quickly.” Bellasteros’s voice cracked. He turned his face to the sky, surrendering to it. The moon sheen faded from his eyes, his face went pale, he gasped in sudden pain. Ilanit strode across the garden and called to a passerby, “Bring Shandir.”

  Andrion turned, turned back again, rent by uncertainty. Dana’s eyes were upon him, not seeing him, churning with horror. “If the sword is not returned to the gods,” she said, “it will be taken by the sorcery that seeks it, that seeks—” She choked.

  Some evil did indeed darken the sky and dim the stars. The moon faded, covered with a dim mist. Andrion’s heart wrenched in his chest and every nerve quivered. You can still mend your disobedience, hurry! he told himself. But his feet were leaden weights. A barrier pushed against him, thick shadows stirring in the folds of the moon’s cloak. Mother, please! He forced his body to struggle up the stairway.

  Solifrax lay on the boulder where he had left it. Darkness gathered around it, gnawing at it. Andrion threw himself forward, plucked it up, brandished it. The sword shimmered quickly, briefly, and then lay cold again in his hand. The shadows, cut by the sharp gleam of the blade, shredded into trailing wraiths and then thronged again.

  Darkness sucked at him. Tiny teeth and claws seemed to rake his back. He fought to the edge of the basin and leaned into the blinding swirl of light and shadow that was the water. With a cry of agony, tearing loose part of his own existence, he cast the sword away.

  Glittering droplets rained upward as the water surged to meet it. Andrion felt no dampness, only the biting kisses of a cold so deep it burned his shivering flesh. The sword and the water flashed so brightly that his own shadow leaped across the hollow, a great black figure climbing the mountainside. Come, beloved . . . “Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, I shall come.”

  The sword was gone. The pain was gone. The shadows were gone. Starlight and moonlight together illuminated the depths of the basin, and nothing was there save a slow sparkling whorl, leading down, down, to some other realm.

  Andrion shook himself and straightened. Now he felt the wetness of his soaked shirt. Now he felt the chill of the night breeze. An owl hooted amidst the rocks, locusts buzzed. He went trembling down the steps to see lamps flickering in the house and the chair empty. His heart jerked crazily—of course, the spell was not only for the sword, but for the bearer. He plunged through the door.

  Bellasteros lay again in the bed, eyes closed, cheeks hollow, a desiccated waxen figure. Shandir bent over him. “Black sorcery.” she sighed. “By the gods, Danica, I can do nothing. He is dying.”

  Danica grimaced in a terrible bitter desperation. The lamps leaped, fire licking the gathering darkness. The star-shield glittered on Ilanit’s arm.

  Dana threw the scabbard of Solifrax down by the diadem, discarded toys. She rounded upon Andrion, her eyes wild. “The arrow,” Dana demanded hoarsely. “Andrion, what of the arrow that struck him?”

  Andrion reeled back, his thoughts scrabbling for purchase.

  “The arrow!” insisted Dana.

  The words exploded from his lips. “I threw it away. In the ravine where we stopped at dawn. They found it, did they not?” He smashed his fist into the door frame, unable to deny his folly. Heal him? his mind howled. I have killed him!

  “And the crimson cloak was missing?” Dana asked. “Great mother, they have that, too!” She swayed and reached blindly for support. “No, no, his task is not yet done!” Ilanit pulled her tight against her side and covered her with the glowing shield.

  Shandir’s eyes swam with despair. “The arrowhead. It works its way to his heart.”

  “No!” Danica cried, her voice echoing, strong and fierce. She laid her own body over the emperor’s supine form. “Love is as strong as death, and I chose long ago to love him. Ilanit! Bring the shield. Bring Dana. We must ward this evil spell. Ashtar, grant your son, your consort, continuing life!”

  Shandir clung to the bedpost, hand pressed to her mouth. Ilanit and Dana stepped forward. Danica seized the edge of the shield and lowered it over the silent form of the emperor.

  Three sets of eyes, matched emeralds, gleamed as one. The emblazoned star in the center of the shield hummed with power. It flared, filling the room to bursting with a clear white light, the moon and the su
n, unsullied. The darkness fled.

  Andrion stood numbly in the doorway, not inside the room, not outside, grasping the necklace at his throat like a powerful amulet.

  The light of the shield ebbed. Bellasteros’s face still gleamed, freed of despair and grief. The three women parted, queen-that-was, queen-that-is, queen-yet-to-be. Andrion shook himself. His mind crumbled to ash and floated away down the cold, clean night wind.

  Shandir touched the emperor’s cheek. “He lives,” she whispered. “A waking death, a deathly sleep. How long his soul can exist like this, I know not.”

  Danica collapsed on the bed. Her features were furrowed by anguish, chalk-white, as if part of her own vital force had passed into Bellasteros. Her voice now was stretched taut, close to breaking. “I have done this—compromise to him. I shall stay by him to the end, until his task is done.”

  Ilanit bent over the now dim shield, grimacing as if straining after some voice in the wind, in her mind, and not hearing it. Dana turned to the doorway. Her empty eyes, slightly unfocused, sought Andrion’s. He could not read them. Accusation? Scorn? Or sympathy, the worst of all? In one lunge he was out of the door. The garden rushed by him in streamers of black and silver and dark carnelian like dried blood. The steps heaved under his feet.

  Again he came to the hollow in the mountainside, the place of the basin. “Mother,” he gasped, “take my life for my father’s, which I have thrown away. I am the winter king.” But the basin held nothing but moon-dappled water. The wind stroked his hair.

  His shadow had leaped up the mountain. There was the stairway up Cylandra’s flank, the path to the cavern of Ashtar, the heart of Sabazel forbidden to men. Andrion raised his chin and gazed up the mountainside. It was a dangerous path, they said, even in daylight.

  The chill of fear, of grief and despair, drained from his limbs. His face flushed hot as anger sang through his body. Anger, and the ultimate defiance. The sword was gone, the man who had wielded it was gone, nothing remained but to test himself against the perfidious gods, will to will. “Yes, I shall come to you. If you call me to my death, payment for my weakness, so be it. If I deserve to live, then you will speak to me.”