by Judith Tarr
Scarlet pooled on the scaffold. Not blood, thank god and goddess, but the emperor’s cloak, blood-red for war.
Estarion lay as if asleep. He did not wake when she touched him. His ul-cub crouched beside him, bristling, but did not snarl or threaten.
A shadow' fell across her. She looked up into Olenyai veils, and eyes all amber-gold.
A great anger swelled in her. It was not reasonable, she knew it was not, but she was past reason. “You,” she said. “Where were you when he needed you?”
“Fighting,” the Olenyas said. His voice was as cool as always, but there was a tremor in it. “I could not come to him.”
Yes, he was shaking, and trying not to. She had no pity to spare. “Look after him now, then. And by all gods there are, if you lay hand on him except to guard him, I’ll flay your hide with a blunt knife.”
“He is not,” said the Olenyas, as if he struggled with the words. “He is not—he is not dead.”
“We all may wish he were,” Vanyi said, “before the day is out. See to him, damn you, and stop fluttering.”
That stiffened his back for him. He called up others of his kind, and did as he was bidden.
She looked up. She was being stared at. Dark eyes, yellow eyes, eyes of every shade between. No sea-grey or sea-green or sea-blue. That mattered suddenly, very much. They were all alien here. And they were all begging her to do their thinking for them.
The empress was dead. Estarion was worse than that, maybe. Iburan was alive, half kneeling, half sitting with the empress’ body in his arms. But as Vanyi came down off the scaffold, he sighed and slid sidewise. She braced herself against the weight of him, and gasped. “You’re hurt!”
“Assassins’ knives,” he said calmly, “as we know too well, are poisoned. Not that that need have stopped me, you understand, but it slowed me when I should have shielded. Do you know what I was to him? A stinging fly. He plucked the wings from me and let me fall.”
“No,” said Vanyi.
But that was her tongue, being a fool. She hardly needed power to know that his magery was gone. He was all dulled for lack of it, his great body shrunken. The eyes he raised to her were wry. “I always did misjudge him,” he said. “Here I thought I could stop him, or at least slow him down, and he never even knew I tried. You’re going to have your hands full with him, Vanyi.”
“I?” She thrust the thought away. “I’m not anyone to deal with a Sunlord gone mad.”
“Who else is there?”
“Oromin,” she answered promptly. “Shaiyel.”
“No,” said Iburan. He sighed. It bubbled; he coughed. “They don’t know—they can’t master him. You have the power. No one—else—”
He coughed again, a froth of bright blood, struggling to say more, all that there had been no time to say. That she had more magery than she would ever admit. That he had meant her to follow him—but not now. Not so soon. Not until he was ancient and august and tired, and she was fit to take his place.
“No,” she said. But he only smiled, damn him; and the life pouring out of him as she watched.
She must not weep, nor could she linger. She set the burliest of Estarion’s northerners to work fashioning a litter, and the rest to taking up the dead and clearing away the flotsam of the battle.
Iburan might have called that taking his place. She called it plain common sense. Someone had to make order of this chaos. It had nothing at all to do with magic, or with mastering emperors.
o0o
Somewhere in the midst of it Lord Shurichan appeared. There was not a mark on his armor, not a drop of blood on his prettily drawn sword. He had ambitions, Vanyi saw, to take matters in hand. He was the only great one left standing, and the only man of rank in that place.
Just as he drew breath to issue orders, she set herself in front of him. She was markedly smaller than he was, and markedly female, but he could hardly ignore the hand that plucked his sword from him and returned it to its sheath, or the voice that said with acid clarity, “My lord Shurichan. How convenient that you should appear. I was just about to send a messenger to inform you that the battle is over; it’s safe to come out.”
His mouth was open. He shut it.
“I commend your prudence,” Vanyi said, “and I forbear to remark that a lord of a province who fails to stand at his emperor’s back when that emperor is threatened might find his loyalty called into question. You were taking the road of greater sense, I presume, and trusting to your men—who are as brave as a lord can wish for, and as faithful in defense—to guard his majesty. Since of course if he emerged alive, you would be present to aid him in your fullest capacity; and if he should, alas, fail to survive the consequences of his rashness, why then there would still be a lord in Ansavaar, and the empire’s unity would be preserved.”
His face had gone crimson as she spoke; now it was vaguely green. She smiled sweetly. “Set your mind at rest, my lord. Everything has been seen to, and at no cost to your comfort. Surely now you are weary from so much excitement; you should rest. These gentlemen will assist you to your rooms.”
A company of Estarion’s Varyani took station about him. The smallest topped him by a head.
He looked, she thought, like a gaffed fish. By the time he reached his chambers he would be bellowing; but that was no concern of hers. If Estarion came out of this alive, he would soothe the man’s ruffled feathers. If he did not, then Vanyi would fret about it when she came to it. Estarion dead and his heir nine cycles in the womb, and no surety that the child would live to be born—
She would not think of that. Shock and the suddenness of attack kept order now, but once it had faded, there would be war.
Not if she could help it. She straightened her back and set her jaw and did what she had to do.
o0o
There was an ungodly lot of it, and no sleep until it was done. Somewhere amid the endless hours—it was dark beyond the window of the room in which she had taken station, but how long it had been so, she did not remember—some of Estarion’s Guard came to her.
Shaiyel was there. He had come ostensibly to tell her that Iburan lived still, but she could have ascertained that with a flick of magery. He thought to guard her; when the guardsmen entered, he was working his subtle western way round to coaxing her to sleep.
They were the young hellions she had always liked best, with redheaded Alidan in front. He looked tired and unwontedly grim, his fire banked for once, but no less fierce for that. He had a captive, a figure in soiled and bloodstained white, chained, gagged, and stumbling. The man behind him dragged another such. They flung both at Vanyi’s feet.
The assassins lay unmoving, save that one of them twitched as he struck the tiled floor. Alidan kicked him. He jerked and went still.
“Do you need to be quite so emphatic?” Vanyi asked.
“With these,” Alidan said, all but spitting, “yes.” He hauled the man onto his back.
Man, no. The hair was cropped, the breasts were small, but the face was too fine even for a boy’s. The robe was torn. There was another under it, or a shift, neither blue nor purple but somewhere between. And the other, who was male, wore grey beneath the white.
Vanyi drew a long slow breath. She did not need the touch of power on minds that had been stripped naked and left to find their way unwarded; she did not need to sense here two of those who had threatened Estarion with magecraft. The robes were proof enough.
“Guildmages,” she said. “They were to rise up in triumph, I suppose, and cast off their disguises, and proclaim the Guild’s return.”
The man was nigh dead; his life ebbed low. The woman opened bruised and swelling eyes. She did not speak. Her mind offered nothing but contempt.
“Half a mage I may be,” Vanyi said, “but I’m more now than you. Is there another invasion coming? Should we look to be besieged?”
The answer flickered in the shallows of the ruined power, tangled in a weed-growth of nonsense. Vanyi swooped to pluck it out.
> It fled darting-swift. She made a hedge of her power’s fingers, and snapped it shut.
On nothing.
The woman’s eyes stared up. Life faded from them; but even in death they gleamed with mockery.
The other was dead and growing cold. Vanyi straightened, swallowing bile. “See if you can find more of these. And quickly, before they’re dead, too.”
“There are no more,” Alidan said. He sounded more angry than regretful. “These were the only two who lived. They waited, I think. To mock you.”
“They were fools,” she said. “Shaiyel, go with these men. Find what there is to find.”
He was willing, but he hesitated. “And these?”
Her shoulders ached with keeping them level, her neck with holding up her head. “Search them. Then dispose of them.”
There was nothing to find, of course. Their minds were wiped clean. That was a mage’s trick, to leave no trace of themselves behind, even in the helplessness of death.
But she had learned enough. She had proof that the Guild yet lived, and ways, maybe, to track them down.
They had built a Gate. It was fallen now—Estarion had seen to that. But she had memory of how it had come, and how it had stood, and how it had broken.
She needed time, which she did not have, and leisure, which was forbidden her, but she would search out the truth. She swore a vow on it, alone in the dark before dawn, with the weight of empires on her shoulders, and the emperor clinging to life in a guarded chamber.
o0o
Haliya was with him. Vanyi had been aware of that from the first: how the little idiot crept through all the tumult, melted the guards with tears, and established herself at his bedside. She had not done anything foolhardy, and she did not make herself a nuisance. Now and then she bathed his brow, as if that little could bring down the fever that raged in him, or tried to coax water down his throat.
She was harmless enough where she was. If anyone ventured the chamber, he would be dead before he touched either, emperor or empress who would be. And if Estarion woke, he would not threaten her, Vanyi did not think. Even if he woke raging.
Vanyi need not approach him while Haliya was there. It was cowardice, she knew that, but she clung to it.
Of Korusan there was no sign. He had been with Estarion in the beginning. Now the Olenyai who stood guard were all strangers.
Vanyi might have pursued that, but her solitude was broken. There were disputes for her to settle, lordlings to placate, merchants of the city to soothe. All of them repeated the rumor that the emperor was dead, that he must be seen to be alive or they could not answer for the consequences. She put them off as best she could, but there were more behind them, always more, and no rest to be had.
And Estarion lived so his life long. Vanyi thanked the god that she was not born to it; that she could walk away from it. Soon. When there was someone to take the burden from her.
44
Peace was blessed for half of an eternity, but then, in the way of things, it began to pall. Estarion knew first a glimmer of restlessness, an ache that might have been boredom. The dark that had been so sweet now seemed an unrelieved monotony. A single star, even the flicker of a candle, would vex less than this endless night.
He stretched, flexed. The darkness yielded, but still it conceived no light.
And should he wait for it? Light, he said, thought, willed. And there was light. One star, then another, then another. Once begun, they gave birth to one another, a blooming of stars like nightlilies in the fields beneath Mount Avaryan. All creation was stars, and all dark was turned to light.
And it was not enough. He floated in a sea of stars upon the breast of Mother Night, and it was only light, and he was only he, naked fish-sleek self whose heart was fire.
Beyond light, beyond dark—what was there, what could there be? All that was not light was dark; all that was not dark was light. And where they met, they wrought a wonder: a miracle of living flesh.
He was flesh. He lived. He breathed: great bellows-roaring; drumbeat of the blood along the white tracks of the bones. He counted each one: all those that were whole, the arm that had been broken long ago and set just perceptibly out of true, the ribs cracked and cracked again but healed the stronger for it.
He traced their curve with fingers of the soul. And there, see, the chalice of the skull, a goblet full of fire, light within light, flame within flame, lightnings leaping from promontory to promontory. The Sun itself was in it, in what had been mere mortal brain.
Even that was insufficient. There was world beyond this world of the self. He opened his eyes to it.
And screamed.
“Hush, dear lord, hush. Hush.”
The hands on him were agony, the voice a dagger in his skull. Everything—everything-—
“Too much! Too much!”
“Hush,” said the other. The Other. The half that was himself, but was outside himself. He struck it away; he clung with the strength of terror, till the creaking of bones, soft awful sound, brought him somewhat to his senses.
Korusan’s face of flesh was a blur. Within was both darkness and flame, and pain, such pain—
“Peace,” said the soft cool voice. Soft like velvet on the skin; cool like water, but with still the edge of agony.
Estarion lay gasping in his arms. The world was itself again, or near enough. It was Korusan who made it so, Korusan in his black robes with his veils laid aside.
Gently—Estarion would not have said cautiously—he laid his hand on Estarion’s cheek. “My lord,” he said.
Estarion closed his eyes and let that touch hold him to his body. “Oh, unmerciful gods.”
“You wished to die?”
Estarion’s eyes snapped open. “Better if I had!”
“My lord—”
Estarion spoke much more quietly, much more carefully. “I have the great-grandmother of headaches.”
“That would indeed,” Korusan said dryly, “make a man wish himself dead.”
“How much wine did I—” Estarion broke off. “No. Oh, gods. I didn’t dream it, did I? She’s dead. My mother is dead.”
“She is dead,” said Korusan.
The storm of weeping swept over him, battered him, left him abandoned.
Korusan held him through all of it, saying nothing. When even the dregs of it were gone, and Estarion lay exhausted, Korusan lowered his head and kissed him softly.
It was not meant for seduction. It was comfort; warmth of living flesh before the cold of the dead.
Korusan straightened. His cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were somber.
“Tell me,” Estarion said. “Tell me everything.”
Korusan frowned. Estarion saw himself in the boy’s eyes: waked screaming from a sleep like death, shaken still, sweat-sodden, grey about the lips; but grim, and clearheaded enough, for the moment.
Korusan told him. Merian dead. Iburan alive but like to die—the mages sustained him with their magic, but he was failing. Assassins dead and burned; two mages caught, but dead before they could be questioned.
“Guildmages?”
Korusan frowned more darkly. “Yes.” He went on with the rest, which was simple enough. “Your empire is secure, or no less so than before. Your priestess has it in hand. She does all that must be done.”
“My—” Estarion struggled against a sudden thickening of wit. “Vanyi?”
“The Islander. The fisherman’s daughter.”
Estarion did not think that he would ever smile again. But warmth welled and spilled over, and maybe a little touched his face. “Ah, Vanyi. She’ll be my empress yet.”
Korusan did not say anything to that, but his grip tightened nigh to pain.
“But you,” Estarion said, “are the half of myself.”
The golden eyes closed. The face, the beautiful face, was as white as Estarion had ever seen it, but for the flush that stained the cheekbones.
Fever again. Estarion uncoiled a tendril of the fire that wa
s in him, took the fire of fever to himself. He was not even aware that he had done it until it was done.
It was a shock, like cold water on the skin, or joy at the bottom of grief. Korusan shivered.
“You are ill,” Estarion said.
The boy laughed, breathless, bitter as always. “Am I ever not?”
“No longer,” said Estarion.
“No,” said Korusan. But what he meant by that, Estarion could not tell. He would have had to break the wards that were on the boy’s thoughts, and that, he feared, would break the boy’s mind. Later, when both of them were stronger, would be time enough to take down the wards, to heal the sickness, to put all fever to flight.
Now . . .
He sat up slowly. Korusan, at first resisting, suddenly let him go.
He swayed. The ache in his head was blinding. Wind roared through his soul, wind of wrath, wind of grief.
He pulled himself to his feet. He did not remember this room, although it must be the one in which he had slept before this all began, the lord’s bedchamber in Pri’nai. Memory of trifles was lost to him. But the great things, the grim things, the ranks of the dead—those he would never forget.
His hands were full of fire. It dripped from them, splashing on the floor. Each droplet congealed into gold, rayed like a sun.
He clenched his fists. The fire welled in them. He willed it to subside. It did not wish to. Its anger burned.
Korusan’s eyes were wide and blank.
“Warrior child,” Estarion said to him. “Lion’s cub.”
Korusan blinked, started, came to himself. The quick flash of temper was deeply comforting.
“Yelloweyes,” Estarion said, “don’t tell anyone.”
“What?”
Estarion flexed his throbbing hands. They bled fire still, but more slowly. “This. It’s not . . . it’s nothing to be afraid of. But I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone about it.”
“Liar.”
Estarion went stiff.
“Your magic,” said Korusan. “It has mastered you. Has it not?”