by Tanith Lee
And down in the wells of her pale brown eyes, he saw a slither of disappointment, which now disgusted him.
He left her to sleep, and went to sit in the other end of the tent. Quite soon he heard her softly snoring. She had had a busy day.
When he slept himself, he did not know it. He stood in a dark place, and said over and over, “Her brother, her brother.” Stars glittered and shot by, tipped on Phaidix’s arrows.
Had he been shown the mirror, himself and Calistra?
Was he in some hell, sent there to atone?
The stars flashed past and on, and were no more, and then he saw he had immovably reached the bank of a river, which was black and very still.
On a rock which jutted from the water, a static flare of gold, which was a man, stood waiting for him.
Amdysos carried no mark of any mishap. He wore the clothes from the Race, gleaming and perfect. But his face—his face was closed behind a golden priestly mask.
Then he spoke. His voice was recognizable, though pure and far off, as when he had officiated sometimes in some religious rite.
“Klyton,” he said, “don’t you remember the bees at Airis, in the shrine?”
“The bees …” Klyton said.
“Glardor,” said Amdysos through the priest’s mask.
Klyton thought in the dream, how Glardor had died of the sting of a bee.
“And Pherox,” said Amdysos, “dying of the silver apple. And I of the eagle of gold.”
“I was afraid,” said Klyton, “to remember the bees.”
Yet through him, like a tempest of fires, some splendor came, returning. And in the dream he retraced the other dream, when he had been the eagle above Akhemony, and the world was his.
“What you felt before the Race,” said Amdysos.
“I—feel it now, again.”
“Your way,” said Amdysos, “is made certain.”
“But I thought that way was for both of us. For myself, and for you, as my King—”
“I was the sacrifice,” said Amdysos the priest. “I have gone down into the dark that you may soar up into the sunlight.”
“The God—is too harsh—”
“No prize is given for nothing. We are gone from your path. Take your trophy, Klyton, or you demean my death.”
At his table in the tent, Klyton woke with a leap of flame. Blazing, he stood, and all the space seemed swirling, burning, till it settled, and only the golden light poured on through his brain. He had become a ghost, but now the web tore from him.
And hearing the girl snore on the rugs, a million miles below the height of his fate, he laughed aloud.
He recounted this to me later, all this, as a true dream, sent by the god. But I do not think it was.
I, Calistra, was in Oceaxis that night, as I had been, night on night, day on day, left like a shell upon a shore.
The Heart had stopped, and begun again. Prepared, I had only waited out the interval. It felt of death, as in the whirlwind of Thon’s temple it had. But what had stunned me then seemed now far less. I had learned of other separations. And I did not die.
That night, this night. As Klyton dreamed his true dream, I lay awake.
The lamp does not show a circle of rose red on the ceiling, as once it did. They have changed its position. Lut crouches by Gemli.
They have an understanding now. Lut, like the others, has forgotten me, since I am no longer quite a creature of his band.
In the morning I will wake, and day on day, night on night, time will pass. Kelbalba will scold me and make me dance and exercise before her. I will do it in a dream unlike the dream of Klyton.
And a morning will arrive, and Ermias will appear, wearing the jewelry her noble gave her, yet angry, scornful, showing her teeth like a cat.
“Well. He’s wed.”
Uninterested, I will glance.
Ermias will shake her curls. “The precious Prince Klyton. Some slut he’s wanted seven years in the flea pits of Sirma. Couldn’t wait, they say. What tastes he has, for a Sun. And she brought no dowry. He was so eager.”
And walking to the window, forgetting all the dictates of policy and alliance, how treaties are made to hold nation to nation, I will see him for one second in the arms of a lovely goddess-like girl. And the Lakesea will turn green before my eyes and stream into a narrow, fiery line, as I loudly weep my soul from my body, and Ermias, in horror, clutches me back from the brink where already I have tumbled down.
4
Winter came. I see again an early morning in Phaidix’s garden, when the last tall brassy flowers were black, burnt by frost to sugar, crumbling at a touch. Snow bloomed on the mountains and closed the higher roads. Hot stones put into my bed, and under my silver feet, to warm them before I should draw them on. And Ermias, she too I recall, very straight and still as she stood behind me, reflected in the electrum mirror Stabia had sent. Ermias and I said nothing to each other of that other morning when I, like a frost-burned flower crumbled into my tears of blazing glass. It was not like her, to be so reticent. And she was kind to me. She brushed my hair herself, sending Nimi away. What went through her mind? No doubt that I was simply a poor dolt, inevitable victim of unsuitable obsession. Yet she treated me with dignity.
For myself, I did not cry again where any could see me. And now there were no helpers, no one came to tell me it was Calistra he wanted, none other. Though Stabia had delivered the costly, promised mirror, she did not add any message.
I went to the Hall one night in three or four. I stayed until the harpers were finished, or if there were no harpers, until the men’s singing began. I sat among the women, but not close to any of the queens. Of course, I must have seen them, Stabia with her amiable brisk ways, Udrombis, with the new tide of white breaking through her black hair. Even Elakti, who now was present, sitting with one hand pressed to her stomach, which still looked perfectly flat. But they were not real to me, as he had not seemed real. And if I saw him, he was less real than anything, now. I marvel at myself, partly for the remoteness I felt on seeing him. But this Klyton moved behind a pane of crystal. He was further from me than the sky.
Events, naturally, had happened, although I paid them no attention. Returning to Melmia with his borrowed troops and the little Sirmian wifelet, Klyton had been ridiculed on one hand, praised on the other. The general story went about that he had lusted after Bachis all those years, and swept her up without dowry. Then put himself to total shame in the rubbish heap town, stones thrown, and oxen and chieftains lowing under the window, as he did business with her body.
Presently the tale changed, as his strategy was pointed up. To the town in Sirma, Klyton sent, at his own expense, some extra, very handsome gifts. He summoned the chief and his Spear Tall Son—that is the eldest—with two or three other relatives, to Oceaxis, and made a fuss of them there as his kin, for five whole days and nights.
They began to say Klyton had the wit King Okos had had, willing to make a firm strategic wedlock, and then cementing it in. Such niceties Glardor had never bothered with. Soon enough rustic Bachis, strewn with trinkets, had—unlike Elakti—a round, hard, budding belly. Her suite was small, but in a pleasant part of the palace. There was nothing to complain of.
And Sirma lay quiet, well stroked down and purring.
By then, Glardor’s funeral rites were long past. No spark had come for his cremation. It had been an overcast day of the drought, though lacking rain. They had had to use the priestly trick with the chimney.
Following this, from among Akreon’s sons, a Great Sun was chosen. He was selected by means of ancient precepts that must operate, should the descended Sun and all his foremost male offspring of age die in battle. Omens and signs, supposed to attend the process, were duly fabricated. The new High King was twenty-five years old, in the prime of his health, the son of a Daystar Akreon had turned to, they said, only that once.
I have not until now spoken of Nexor. Nor do I summon any scenes of him, before the first ceremony of
his Kingship. He was an effulgent, mighty prince, like them all, standing forward to receive the Winter Diadem, since his crowning could not come till next summer, the time of the Sun’s waxing. His hair was reddish, they said from his mother, a Uarian woman. No doubt the compliance of Uaria was considered, in electing him.
He had been in many wars, performed hardily, though never shone. He was said to be a forceful man, not weighty in Glardor’s manner. And Nexor had no hankering for the fields. He was, besides, young.
He stands up in my inner vision only like a puppet. I see no further than the bold face with its glimpse of Akreon. Their beauty, in those days, my half brothers, the lesser gods of Akhemony, was a weariness to me.
For Klyton, he was waiting. He had had two dreams. Besides, Udrombis had forgiven the single terrible transgression. And one night she called him to her after supper.
He found at once she had dispensed with all her power games, unless this was another played by default. A chair with golden lions’ heads on arms and feet had been set for him. Her chair of cedar-wood was not one of the larger ones. He did not at first quite believe, but came to see, the golden chair was that which Akreon had used, when in private with her.
It was strange there, that evening. The winter dark not quite dispelled by the soft lamps of Arteptan alabaster, her lion desk crouching in the blue-black shadows. Before a shrine of the god, a flame fluttered redly. Klyton knew all her apartment at Oceaxis, all save her sleeping chamber. With the years the rooms had grown smaller, as had she. Tonight they had, peculiarly, the feel of an open place—not especially cold, yet peeled wide somehow to heaven, the watching eyes of other beings.
“I have something for you, Klyton,” said Udrombis. She brought it to him—she had sent the women away. As she put it in his hand, he saw how the white had flooded her hair since Airis.
“A ring—”
“It was Akreon’s ring. His hands enlarged with age, and work. He said it was a pity to alter the gold.”
The ring was a knotted round of golden leaves, holding one searing cat’s-eye, an unflawed, greenish topaz. By the richness of it, the gem’s quality, the workmanship, he knew it was worthy of a King.
“I wish you to have this, Klyton,” she said.
“I’ll treasure it, madam.”
“You were clever in Sirma. I was pleased with you. A little matter, but such little pebbles, laid all together, make a hill.”
“So I thought.”
They sat down, and he drank the wine laid ready. She had poured it with her own hand, as she had brought the ring.
“I’ve something less happy to say.”
“Have I offended?”
“No. You’ve been busy at a prince’s affairs. Your mother, have you noticed, has lost some weight.”
“I hadn’t, but I expect she’s pleased. The stairs have been annoying her.”
“It is an illness, Klyton. Your mother is sick.”
He put down the cup.
“Why didn’t she—”
“She doesn’t know it, not quite. But I’ve spoken to her physician.”
Klyton frowned. A boy’s affection, a slight, half-sinister sadness, brushed him. He had gone far from Stabia, as a man must. But she was yet his mother.
“What should I do?”
“Nothing. Will you leave it with me?”
Klyton said, “Stabia has always loved and trusted you utterly, lady. If you will assist her, I’d leave it nowhere better.”
Udrombis inclined her head. For a while they sat in silence. He thought of his boyhood, but could not keep hold of the past. The shadows flowed in the lamps’ pulse. Drapes moved, as if figures shifted behind them. The god seemed on his stand to smile, and then to frown as Klyton had; it must be a new icon, Klyton did not remember it from before.
At last, her voice came up from the night. “I have lost my sons. You will lose Stabia. Now, you are my son.”
Klyton rose. He went to her and kneeled at her feet as he had that time of the abyss.
“I dreamed of Amdysos,” he softly said. “When I was in Sirma. He glowed in the darkness of Thon’s land. He seemed—to give me the life he should have had.”
Looking up at her, he saw she had become old, but she had achieved with age the glamour of the mystic Hag, the dark of the moon, when Phaidix herself became old, and walked in disguise unseen across the world.
Her black eyes gleamed like the topaz in the ring, as she gazed down at him.
She said, “We know, you and I.” That was all. We know.
One man did not, could not wait.
Melendor was the friend of Uros, Uros the friend of usually boastful Ogon. Uros did not have legitimacy on his side. But then, while Uros had been got by Akreon on a Daystar’s wild-haired Maiden, Ogon and Melendor belonged to the outer kindred, nobles, not sons of Akreon at all.
“I lost the Race for you.”
“That was your choice. Any way, if you’d won—that thing was out there. The God punished the winner.” Ogon, his hair just growing straight where he had chopped his locks askew, freeing himself of the bat in the caves, turned from Uros. “It isn’t a debt.”
Uros shrugged. He had followed after Ogon, down a side-working of the old mines. In the dark there they had miserably joked about the mishap. When they came up, the world had changed—Amdysos was in the sky.
“The gods are trying to lesson us,” said Uros.
“You’re wrong. Anyway. I don’t want this.”
“All right. But the line of the Kings is stale,” said Uros stubbornly. It was his stubbornness which had made him track Ogon into the working, to be sure he had survived. Like this, you saw Uros did not have the fineness of most of Akreon’s sons. One shoulder was set too high, his nose was thick and his mouth too thick in the upper lip.
“It’s a madness on you,” said Ogon. And walked off.
But stocky Melendor said, “Go to your folk in Ipyra? Stir them up? What are you aiming for?”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” said Melendor thoughtfully, “the priests’ law makes this happen, by delay. According to the law, Nexor has to wait for summer, to be full crowned. It’s as if there’s meant to be this time—for someone to step in.” He looked lovingly at Uros, with whom, indeed, on cold campaigns, he had shared more than the blanket. “They say, the man who risks nothing gains nothing.” He was like a huge boy off on an adventure. But Uros wanted what he always vaguely had. Aiton had taken the crown in just this fashion. That was long ago. But so was last year.
Perhaps it was madness too. The drama by which the three direct heirs of Akreon had been removed. Akreon’s own finish. The gods offered a cup of gold. You had to reach for it, or always wonder.
Uros, Melendor, their households and men, these last numbering jointly at nearly one thousand, rode north. They managed it, surprisingly, with some secrecy. Reportedly there was a local trouble, a feud in the hills, where Uros had a farm. He was heading there. With the real journey, despite the increasingly hard going, they got to Ipyra, and over the partly frozen river, inside a month. Uros’s rough-haired mother had been, in her turn, the illegitimate daughter of an Ipyran Karrad, a little king. So to the Karrad, Uros went.
Ipyra, like her restive mountains, seemed always ready to erupt. In the stone hall with its roof of beams and thatch, above the mud-village city of the king, Uros declared the hour was right for conquest, that Akhemony lay luscious and helpless as a fallen peach, soon to be rotten. Nexor was no use. All the strong sons were dead.
Among the torch smoke they cheered him, it seems, while the dogs scratched for fleas. The Ipyran royalty ate a roast of mountain lion, which sour meat was reckoned to make them proof to all ills, and valorous in battle.
Meanwhile Ogon, though he had sworn otherwise, boastfully betrayed Uros to Nexor, the new Great Sun.
Ipyra had her own inner alliances. She had never been very quiet. Though winter might now hold them back, spring would come, unlocking the ice of t
he rivers, unlocking the roads and the hearts of warriors.
5
My mother, Hetsa, was the daughter of a Karrad, an Ipyran king. I was half of Ipyran blood.
I did not think of it, ever. I had been taught early to regard my other side, the blood of Akreon.
The talk in the palace at Oceaxis was of war again. I knew Klyton would be going to fight, as generally he did. What could I do, what could it mean? Nothing, nothing.
I dreamed three or four times instead, that someone had stolen my silver feet. Again, as in childhood, I must sit hopeless in my chair, at the grudging mercy of those who would carry me, but all of them had gone away.
Kelbalba often remained in the evenings. She brought chestnuts to roast at the hearth or in the brazier, while the turtle slept under my bed—which had been changed, apparently at the order of Udrombis, to a large platform on clawed feet.
I hear that voice still, Kelbalba telling me her hoarse tales of the hills, and of an earth before recorded time. Sometimes I would forget, minutes long, the slough of misery in which I had sunk, the ache so deep I no longer felt it, even as it crippled me.
The Winter Festival was past. One night, when I thought Ermias away with her lover, she scratched at the door and came into the inner room. She wore a dress of warm, flaming yellow, and seemed herself like a live flame, her hand uplifted, and the pink of blood showing in it, her face flushed and eyes contrastingly so dark and still, like a messenger of mysterious extraordinary news. She was.
“Madam,” she called me that now, “the Sun Prince is here.”
I turned my head. She seemed to have spoken in an unknown tongue.
It was Kelbalba who disjointedly said, “The Lord Klyton mean you, is it?”
“Yes,” said Ermias.
I stood up. I now felt I burned, but inside myself I was cold and heavy as the snow. I did not know what to do.
Then Klyton was in the doorway, moving Ermias gently aside with his hands.
“Kelbalba,” he said, “I hope you’re well.”