Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  He paced across the pavement and started up the stair. “I am yours,” he called to the mountain, to the moon, to the night, “sacrifice or consort, as you will. Now let it end, or let it now begin!”

  The wind murmured wordlessly in his ear. The water in the basin rippled with shimmering moonlight and then grew dark.

  Chapter Eight

  The writhing tangle of clothing and limbs that was Raksula and Odo suddenly froze. Their two faces, swart and flat in the feeble light of the butter lamps, rose from the tangle like cobras from their baskets.

  A cold breeze knifed through the yurt. The lamps flickered; the two faces melted into gape-mouthed, open-eyed astonishment.

  A silver shimmer gathered about the cloak and the arrowhead, shaped by the breeze into the form, perhaps, of long delicate hands. Shaped perhaps into the elegantly feathered wings of a falcon.

  The shape beckoned. The arrowhead rose from its bed in the cloak, hovered in midair, plummeted into one of the lamps. Fiery butter splashed. A tendril of flame lapped at the crimson cloak, tasted it, consumed it in a quick flare of light like a many pointed star. The stench in the tent cleared.

  Odo and Raksula reeled back, covering their eyes against the light; when they looked again, the cloak was only a pile of glowing ashes, the arrowhead a lump of gleaming slag. “Magic,” gasped Raksula. “A warding spell, turning ours back upon itself.” She pushed Odo away and scrambled across the carpet, grasping at the remains of her sorcery. But the breeze laughed, swirling the ashes around and around the dim tent, dusting its furnishings with silver.

  Odo waved his arms, trying to repel the ashes. Raksula grabbed at the arrowhead and choked back a scream as the heat of it seared her hand. She dropped it, and it, too, was plucked up by the wind. A cold wind, like that from the top of an ice-crowned mountain.

  The ashes, the arrow, the wind were gone. Only the faraway sounds of revelry disturbed the night. One of the butter lamps lay spilled and extinguished on the sooty rug.

  Raksula slumped down. “Magic,” she stated between her teeth. “By the short hairs of Khalingu, Bellasteros’s gods are powerful. We almost had him, we almost had the damned sword!”

  Odo’s voice squeaked. He swallowed, steadied it, said, “Did you see that star? The shield of Sabazel, I hear, is emblazoned with a many pointed star.”

  Raksula spat upon her burned hand. “Sabazel,” she hissed. Her thin lips curled with hatred. She brushed Odo aside and burst through the cloth covering the door of the yurt.

  Khalingu’s image huddled in its cart, shifting uncomfortably under the onslaught of the moonlight. The hangings hung still and lank around it. Behind them one clawed hand opened and shut, opened and shut, dimly. Raksula spat again. “Yes, Khalingu, we shall avenge this insult.”

  The celebratory bonfires subsided into dull embers. The moon rode high, serene, implacable across a star-studded sky.

  Chapter Nine

  Sardis was overarched by the great crystalline bell of the sky, every small night noise reverberating again and again in its moon- and star-embedded vault: rattling carts delivering goods to the city’s shops; rivers lapping at their piers; the creaking of many masts; the guards’ footsteps measuring cadence through the courtyard of the palace; hoofbeats, not measured at all, but broken, as if the horses had been ridden far and hard.

  Patros leaped from the bed and seized a loose robe as the guards’ shouts echoed through the night. Shurzad twitched. opened one eye in puzzled annoyance, burrowed farther into the bedclothes.

  Patros flung open the door just as the guard outside was raising his hand to knock. Behind him was the panting, disheveled form of a secretary. “My lord, messages from the emperor at last.” The young man’s eyes rolled white in the light of the lamp he carried, more fearful than relieved.

  Patros ran, his bare feet hammering down the long marble corridors to the travertine staircase and the entry hall. The statues of long-dead kings shifted, startled, and peered after him. A statue of Bellasteros stood at the head of the steps, hands outstretched in generosity, stone lips smiling, stone eyes blank. “Marcos,” Patros pleaded softly, under his breath.

  Most of the men below wore the livery of Farsahn, an escort, evidently; at the core of the group were four ragged guards from Iksandarun. They were hollow-eyed, gray with exhaustion, their clothing stained and torn with the urgency of their journey. Patros began a headlong rush down the stairway, caught himself, managed to descend with some semblance of dignity. A soldier with four parchment scrolls in his hand bowed and began, “My lord, I am Miklos of the emperor’s guard—”

  “What of Iksandarun?” demanded Patros. “What of the emperor?”

  “Iksandarun fell to the Khazyari under the last full moon.”

  Patros’s cheeks went stark white under their stubble shadow. “Fell?”

  “A traitor opened the gates,” Miklos said bitterly. “Only through the loyalty of an old servant, and that of Prince Andrion, did the emperor escape. He lies wounded but safe in Sabazel.”

  “Sabazel,” Patros repeated, like the response of a prayer. “No, Ilanit would not turn him away. But what of the others?”

  “The lady Chryse is dead,” stated Miklos, as emotionlessly as if through repetition he had wrung all emotion from the words. “And the lady Sarasvati. And Declan Falco, the high priest—”

  “No,” commanded Patros, cutting off the terrible litany. He turned away, averting his face, allowing it to twist suddenly in grief. His voice faded to a whisper. “Andrion lives, you say?”

  “Yes, my lord. He lives. Here, I have letters for you.” Miklos grimaced. “And from Proconsul Nikander in Farsahn. The relief army was turned back in a bloody battle, and has retreated north of the pass at Azervinah.”

  “Gods,” Patros hissed. “I expected evil news, but this . . .” With a deep inhalation he steadied himself, smoothed his features, and turned back to the pitiful remnants of Iksandarun’s legions. He took the stained and crumpled scrolls from Miklos’s hand. “You came from Iksandarun through Sabazel in only one month?”

  “Ten days from Sabazel,” said Miklos, as if such a trip were well within the bounds of his duty. “I fear, however, that we killed three horses.”

  “Gods,” Patros said again. “Your efforts shall be rewarded, I assure you. Now rest.” He turned to the secretary. “Send the captains-general of the army to me. Send scribes. Summon Bonifacio from the temple.” And, under his breath, “Harus, he is not strong enough to be high priest.”

  Attendants scattered. The soldiers vanished down the hallway. Patros, turning to the stairs, glanced at the scrolls. Brisk, controlled letters—Ilanit. A deliberate if uneven hand—Andrion. Short straggling sentences, smeared and drooping dispiritedly off the parchment . . . A shudder rippled through Patros’s body. “My lord, Marcos, this is the writing of an old man!”

  He did not open the message sealed with the insignia of Nikander at Farsahn. He looked up. There, at the top of the sweeping expanse of white stone, stood Shurzad. The hand that grasped her gown about her was clenched into a fist; the other held the amulet. “Iksandarun has fallen?” she asked faintly. “The southern provinces are lost?”

  “Yes, my lady. But Bellasteros and his son live.”

  “In Sabazel?”

  “Yes.” Patros bounded up the stairway and paused at her side. “Return to your sleep, my lady. I must plan—”

  “Sabazel?” she repeated, her features contorted in bewildered outrage.

  “Allies, my lady,” Patros said tightly. “Our allies.” And he was gone, striding down the corridor with his back as straight and taut and stubborn as a banner blown outward in the wind.

  Shurzad slammed the bedroom door behind her. Her cat Qemnetesh waited, yawning, tongue curling between sharp teeth. “Come, my pet,” she said. “We must have the courage to venture a little farther, a little farther.” She pulled aside a tapestry at the head of the bed and pressed a lever; a panel of the wall slid away.

 
Inside was a small dark chamber, illuminated by a solitary oil lamp. The light flickered as the door opened, and the carved jade statue of a cat seemed to stretch, flexing its claws. A cloud of incense swirled about its tail, and its tail twitched.

  Shurzad knelt before it. “Qem, please, guide me. The Empire must be preserved. Andrion must be delivered from Sabazel, or he will be devoured as my husband was long years ago . . . What can I do, what?”

  The tiny lamp fluttered. The living cat leaped onto the statue and settled on its shoulders. Topaz eyes and jade eyes fixed dark slits of pupils on Shurzad’s flushed face.

  “Who is the Khazyari god?” she demanded, shriller, faster. “How can I placate him, turn him aside? How can I bring Andrion here, to safety and to your guiding Eye?”

  A distant yowling echoed through the night, as if some great feline hunted its prey deep below the palace. Shurzad bowed her head, wringing her fingers, contemplating a small offering bowl set before the image. In the bowl was a curl of dark auburn hair.

  * * * * *

  Andrion struggled upward. It seemed to him that the path was marked, rocks smoothed by generations of feet and clinging hands. The moonlight gathered in shining pools on each shaped stone; the slowly moving moon watched him, pouring its light over Cylandra to guide him. “You call me,” Andrion said between his teeth. He grasped another spire of rock, pulled himself over a narrow crevasse. “You goad me.”

  The jagged, untouched stones were obscured by dark runnels of shadow, black like Khazyari arrowheads. The shadows circled him like accusing faces, moving just at the corners of his eyes, but his eyes were dazzled by the light.

  He skirted a waterfall, a veil of stars softened in their passage to the boundaries of the earth. He slipped on a wet stone and fell. The shadows licked out at him. For a moment the mountain heaved, trying to throw him off; Andrion clung to the ground until the moment passed, then stood again. “Not yet,” he said. “This is not the testing place.”

  He had wrenched his leg and scratched his hands, leaving the mountain an offering of his flesh. He moved on, limping slightly, denying the physical pain. The night wind cooled his face. He had been here before, he realized; in his mother’s womb, no doubt, and in his dreams. He wanted to plunge forward, throwing himself from rock to rock, but some clinging shred of common sense counseled caution. Slowly, he thought. The cave has been here forever, and now it waits for you.

  Dana had told him about this place, where those girls seeking to become warriors fasted and slept. Their dreams accepted some of them into the Companions of the queen. But nightmares came to those unsuited, terrifying visions that could mark a woman for life, and many girls would not even attempt this initiation; Sabazel was not served only by warriors, and initiation came to all in time.

  Dana, Andrion told himself, the descendant of queens, had been honor bound to try the cavern, had been honor bound to succeed. And I am a dishonored descendant of those same queens.

  He realized the ground was no longer rising. He stood on a narrow terrace in the mountainside, bordered on the right with a sheer cliff, on the left by the yawning gulf of night. The moonlit world was laid before him, shades of black and gray and silver, silent and serene, as if mocking his agitation.

  There was the tunnel. He inhaled deeply and ducked into it. I should not be denied this rite, he thought, simply because I was born male. A cool breeze, murmuring with voices, with distant music, touched him. His shoulders tightened, waiting for the blow, but none came.

  The tunnel was dark, not black but a deep, clear indigo. His questing fingertips touched walls that had been smoothed by human hands. A faint luminescence drew him on.

  He came out onto a promontory and stood, blinking, bracing himself against a sudden vertigo. He could see no border to the cavern, no ending, just eternal crenellations of gently sparkling stone, shaped by the song of wind and water; it was as if the earth opened under his feet, sucking him into some blue depth, not land nor sea nor air but an ethereal combination of all three.

  There was the solitary flame in its basin, a beacon beyond the shadows. Andrion found a stairway and stepped carefully down its hollowed steps. A trail led through the cavern, following close beside a water channel. The path was treacherous with bits of rock and slithering creatures; a serpent passed by his sandals, and each scale gleamed on its undulating back. Each scale gleamed like the sheath of Solifrax. Heartened, he went on.

  The fire had burned in its carved stone basin since time began, fed by some seepage in the rock. Andrion paused beside it; the flame fluttered, bowing, and he bowed in return. Behind the basin was a small grotto, filled with soft golden light and the echo of rushing water. Here, he told himself, here . . . He stepped in.

  There were the clay statuettes of goddess and consort, shaped by fingers long dead. Andrion did not dare touch them. He knelt by the slender waterfall that filled the stone channel and splashed his face and head, but the cold bath did not still his trembling or soothe his aches, body and mind. “Mother,” he sighed, and looked up.

  Painted figures danced across the wall before him, human simulacra engaged in some ancient and terrifying rite. The summer king was sacrificed by his queen, the priestess of the goddess, as the land died in the autumn. His son or his twin, the winter king, met his fate by the same hands as the land awoke. But it had been millennia since men and women had believed such sacrifice necessary to ensure the great cycle of the year.

  “Do you betray my father and me to a superstition, Mother?” Andrion asked. “Or do you place some greater trust in us?”

  Sistrums rattled in the outer cavern and he started. Sistrums, like those held by the aged priestesses at the quarterly rites, a rattle like racing pulse and heart and fevered blood.

  The noise ceased as suddenly as it began. Andrion cried, his tongue rasping in his mouth, “I am not strong enough to save my father or even his sword; how can I be strong enough to be your consort?”

  A brief rattle. A scent of anemone and asphodel. Distant voices chanted harsh, uncompromising words that he could not quite hear. Yes, his heart raced. The drops of water clinging to his forehead seemed as hot as drops of molten gold. Gasping for breath, he tore off his shirt and trousers and stood as naked as the clay dolls before him; his necklace, moon and star, glinted and sparked rhythmically on the pulse in his throat.

  A breeze probed his body, and the fine hairs on his neck rose. Andrion extended his scraped hands in supplication and surrender mingled. “Speak to me!”

  And the goddess spoke. So then, find strength in forgiveness, or peace in death.

  Andrion’s senses reeled. The cavern swayed around him, and he fell onto a bench strewn with fresh rushes, clawing among them as they flew from his hands. His vision spun in wheels of light. Was this, he asked himself with one last tendril of rationality, what Dana felt when the Sight came upon her—merely a vessel for some greater thought, some greater feeling?

  Rationality dashed itself against the stone, shattering, spinning away, disappearing. The light winked out. The rushes were hot tendrils reaching up to coil about him and tie him with rich bands of searing metal.

  The rich scent of flowers filled his nostrils—anemone, the wind flower, and asphodel, the lily of love and death. He was dead, and this was the otherworld. No. He still lived; this ceremony was a wedding.

  Torches blazed suddenly and he winced, trying to cover his eyes. But he was still bound, tied at ankles and wrists and throat. Faces circled around him, the faces of women, many different women and yet the same one. Green eyes, blue eyes, the sky-blue eyes of Ashtar herself.

  She was insubstantial, an image molded by a fitful wind. A young face, yet to be tried, or a face strong in maturity, or an aged face engraved by wisdom; Andrion could not tell. Her hair spilled over him like a shining mist and he tried again to reach up, to embrace her, to pull her down beside him.

  Her lips were solid. They touched his, burned his, seared away his mortal flesh; her hands caressed his
body, plucking it like the taut string of a lyre. He moaned with desire, straining toward her, aching in every fiber for the consummation. But she was gone. The torches danced and leaped, the flames doubled and redoubled by shining bronze knives, held aloft, falling. The blades struck and struck again; the pain was sharp and sweet, and he heard his own voice scream in agony, in ecstasy—they were the same. His blood flowed from him, draining away dishonor.

  The torches went out. He was cold, heavy and cold, wrapped in a shroud, and darkness encompassed him.

  No, not complete darkness. There was a long tunnel, and a pinprick of light at the end. Andrion tried his limbs. He was no longer tied, and was, it seemed, unwounded. He struggled up, brushing away the brittle shafts of dead rushes and flowers. He fought free of the linen shroud.

  Voices chattered in the gloom, hooting derisively at him, “Bastard, Sardian bastard.” He quailed a moment; then, gathering himself, he shouted back, “My father and I, the only sons of Sabazel, wear the label bastard like a badge of honor!”

  The light was pure, crystalline, unsullied by any evil spell. He took a step. He was as weak as a newborn babe, and fell. He rose and took another step. And another. Each step was steadier.

  The voices eddied about him, softening. Wings beat against him like rough caresses. The light at the end of the tunnel summoned him. Slimy things crawled over his feet, tried to swarm up his legs, but he kicked them away. The light grew closer.

  It was not a doorway, but a hole in time, a passage from this world to the next. The voices called him affectionately, “Andrion, beloved of the gods, come.” Music and sunlight and the scent of spring filled him to bursting, and the pain ebbed. No more pain, and eternal peace, here, in this green-gold shimmer . . .