by Judith Tarr
Mirain was first off the field as he had been the first on it, leaping out of the battle and snatching the least sodden of the drying-cloths. “’Varyan!” he said. “I’m dying of your foolishness. Go on then, drown yourselves in mere water. I’m for mine host’s good wine.”
As Elian watched him saunter away with his cloth flung over his shoulder, Cuthan spoke beside her, half amused, half somber. “He’s always like that: looking for a better way to die.” He bent, took up a cloth, wrapped it calmly and boldly and quite firmly about her. The others had quieted and begun to scatter, drying one another, sorting out the tangle of clothing.
Elian looked up. She had to crane her neck a little. Cuthan’s face was unwontedly still; he looked more than ever like his brother. Quietly, rather slowly, he said, “I have no wizardry, but my nose is keen enough; and there’s that in the air which I don’t like. This trap is not as it should be.”
Elian hugged the cloth to her, trying not to shiver. “I know. I can’t find the army Vadin spoke of. If it’s gone, I yearn to know where, and why. But if it is not . . . My power is strong, Cuthan. Any mage who can hide an army from me may prove too much even for Mirain.”
“Maybe there is no army after all,” Cuthan said. “Maybe Lord Garin is no more than he seems.”
“Maybe.” Elian sat on the pool’s edge, running her fingers through her hair, wrestling out the tangles. “This is a strange place. Every mind is clear enough to me, down to a certain point. Then nothing. Nothing at all. It’s uncanny. Like looking at a crowd and realizing all at once that none of them is real; they’re only masks set up on spears.”
“Even the lord?”
“He’s the worst of all. And yet he’s no sorcerer. He has no power.”
“A lord may be without magic but employ a mage. There are all too many such in the north: court wizards and tame enchanters, and shamans of the wilder tribes. Most are foreign-trained, mages from the Nine Cities or followers of one or several of Asanion’s thousand gods.”
The name of the Nine Cities rang in Elian’s head like a gong, dizzying her, catching her breath in her throat. It was in Ashan that the Exile had found her; into the wilds of Ashan that she had vanished. If she was here, if it was she who raised these walls of nothingness, then Elian had need of more than fear. She needed all the strength she had, and all the resistance.
She made herself face Cuthan steadily, speak coolly, calmly. “I’ve heard the songs,” she said. “Mirain and the Insh’u Master; the Sunborn and the Mage of Arriman; the Ballad of An-Sh’Endor and the Thirty Sorcerers.”
“There were only six,” said Cuthan with a surprising touch of severity, “and four were apprentices.” He grinned suddenly, and that was more surprising still. “But what’s a song if it cleaves to the truth? I’m composing one now. A good one, I’m so presumptuous as to think: the tale of the Sunborn and the Lady Kalirien.”
For once Elian could not return his lightness. Her power had been stretching itself, of itself, with no will to compel it. Her fear was mounting. “Cuthan,” she said very low, “this strangeness has another face. It hems my power in. I can’t mindspeak to anyone outside of these walls; I dare not force the barriers. Whoever, whatever wields power here”—Not the Exile, her inward self keened, O Avaryan, may it not be she—“must not know what our brothers will do. Which means—”
“Which means,” he said, and she loved him for that quickness of wit, “that my lord cannot give the signal to attack. And morning may be too late.”
“Morning will be too late,” she whispered. It was dark behind her eyes. In the dark was light, grey-cold like a winter dawn; and Mirain fallen on cold stone.
Cuthan’s hands were warm, gripping her. She let them hold her to the world of life and love and hope of victory. “I’ll go if I can,” he said, “as soon as I can. I’ll bring the army to you.”
She smiled. It was not as hard as she had feared it would be. Cuthan was very easy to smile at. “To me, my captain? Not your king?”
He looked down abashed, but he looked up again swiftly, with lordly pride. “I am your captain, my lady.”
“Gallant knight.” She rose. “Come. Let us gird ourselves for the slaughter.”
oOo
With the wine, which was the sweet golden vintage of Anshan-i-Ormal, Lord Garin had sent robes of honor. White Asanian silk for Mirain; and for Elian a gown the color of flame, and a golden veil.
The gown might have been made to her measure. The veil she almost cast away; but she paused. It was a lovely thing, cloud-soft, cloud-fragile. If it was meant for an insult to the notorious Lady Kalirien, why then, let it become a badge of honor.
She draped it carefully. Nimble hands aided her: Igani, the beauty of her Guard. The warrior woman was as deft as a lady’s maid, but no maid ever wore such a wicked smile, or said as she settled the golden fillet, “Give ’em hell, my lady.”
Elian met her own mirrored eyes and smiled slowly. Paint and perfumes she had none, and no jewels but the fillet, yet she was—fair. More than fair. She would not shame her king.
Nor did he put his own legend to shame. Despite his words, he had drunk but a sip of wine; the glitter in his eyes was his own, and the sheen that lay upon him, of danger and daring and of high royalty. She, meeting that splendid gaze, for a moment was blinded.
He bowed low and kissed her fingertips; her palms; her throbbing wrists. Whispering with each: “Lady. Queen. Beloved.”
She looked down at his bent head, bent her own, and kissed it.
He straightened. Her eyes, freed, flicked round. The guards had drawn together about them, a living shieldwall. Beyond them the door stood open, with Lord Garin in it.
The ruler of Garin had put off his riding leathers for a plain brown coat. No jewels, no precious metals; only a belt with a simple clasp, and a knife hanging sheathed from it, both hilt and clasp of hammered bronze. Like his people, like all his castle save this tower, he affected no elegance.
That in itself, perhaps, was an affectation. He regarded the king and the queen with a careful scrutiny and a bow that conceded very little. And yet, veiled though his mind was, Elian sensed strong stirrings beneath. Tension, tight-reined fear, and—elation?
The gloating of the wolf before it pulls down its prey. But, Mirain said in her mind, this victim is armed and ready. It will not fall as easily as he may hope.
He offered his hand. Elian laid hers upon it. With a smooth concerted movement, the wall of guards parted.
King and queen paced forth. The guards followed them, save only those who warded the chambers behind them.
oOo
Whatever splendors the elder Garin had brought to his hall, his son had long since stripped away. The chamber was long, its grey stone bare, with no softening of trophy or tapestry. Torches illumined the walls, thrust into brackets of iron. Its center was a hearth in which roared and smoked a mighty blaze.
Just within the cavernous door, Elian stopped. The folk of Asan-Garin stood along the walls or sat on benches or crouched in the rushes. Faces, eyes—tens, hundreds. Men in brown, men in grey, men in yellow, men in mottled green.
With all her power she mastered her face. She could have cried aloud for purest relief, and for purest, most exhilarating terror.
An army, after all. An enemy to face and, the god willing, to overcome.
As if some will had worked upon it, the hearthfire leaped up, then died abruptly. Beyond it spread a dais and a high board. People sat there in state: men, a veiled woman or two. Elian’s eyes, blurred with smoke and sudden dimness, would not come clear.
They had no need. She knew those handsome black-bronze faces, those affable smiles. They were all there as they should have been: Luiani of Ashan, the Prince-Heir Omian foremost and on his feet, and in the tall canopied chair of the lord, the Prince of Ashan himself.
But those faded and paled before the one who sat at Luian’s right hand. Tall, gaunt, clad in black, with eyes like flawed pearls. Her familiar purred
in her arms.
Four thin lines of fire seared Elian’s cheek, but she hardly felt the pain. Prophecy was a keener fire, and cleaner. It burned away her fear, left her calm, almost content.
So, her mind observed, it has come at last. And the sooner come, the sooner gone, for good or for ill.
Behind her the doors boomed shut. Shouts sounded dim beyond, the outrage of the guards, the mockery of Garin’s men. One only had outrun the closing of the gates: Cuthan, swift to see and swift to move, and closest to his lady.
Mirain stood at his royal ease, almost smiling. As Cuthan halted behind him, he said to the man who had guided him here, “There is no need of that, my lord Garin. I shall not attempt to escape.”
Coolly he moved forward, Elian at his side, the Ianyn lord a bulwark behind, down the length of the hall, skirting the fire. His smile was quite visible and quite amused. “Prince Luian; Prince Omian. This is a pleasant meeting. Have you settled the matter of Eridan?”
The prince examined him minutely, as if he had been a stranger. Elian, watching him, for the moment unregarded, reeled with vertigo. He was not there. He could be seen, he could be heard; he could even be smelled, a faint musty odor like old rooms long untenanted. But to the mind there was nothing.
Her power unfolded. Her outward senses cried out to her of crowding bodies: Luian’s men, Garin’s people, the followers of the woman called Kiyali. Her mind met only void. Even Mirain—even he—
Wrath drove back her panic. The Exile sat as a queen of mages, smiling at Elian. Without a word of mind or tongue, she beckoned. She invited. She offered strength that was infinite beside Mirain’s haughty weakness, and power that knew no bonds of light or dark.
Elian raised all her barriers and huddled within them. Immovable, by the god; unassailable. Though bolts of seduction battered the gates, and temptation sang its sweet song, beckoning her into the deadly air.
Luian spoke, dry and cold. She took refuge in his insolence. “Eridan shall be dealt with in its proper time. Meanwhile I have other and more immediate concerns.”
“Such as myself.” Mirain tilted his head to one side, all bright interest. “You were rather clever, prince. I would have expected you to trap me in Sheian, or even to wait until we came to Eridan. But this is much more convenient. A spacious and isolated prison for my army; a strong castle to lock me in, with ample room for your forces; a lord who is, by his own admission, a loyal man. You have even managed to tame a sorceress to oppose my famous wizardry; and that one of all sorceresses . . . has she ever told you why she is blind?”
The Exile’s smile gained an edge. “I have told him, King of Ianon. All of it. You took me once by surprise; you can never do so again.”
“No,” said Mirain willingly, “I cannot. You have grown strong since you betrayed my mother.”
“I executed her by the law of her order. The order you claim, priestess’ child, no-man’s-son. You have risen high on the strength of her lies. But every falsehood must be uncovered at last; and the greater the lie, the more terrible is its revealing.”
Mirain looked about him. “They believe you, I see. Your skill in mind-twisting is impressive. But then, you build on strong foundations. My lord Garin, the loyal man; Prince Omian, whom I forced into close and constant commerce with his ancestral enemy; my royal lord of Ashan, displaced from first and greatest ally to scarce-regarded vassal. Men were content with their wars and their petty thieveries before I came to disturb them, I with my mad conviction that the world is mine to rule.”
“By your own words are you condemned.”
“And quite cheerfully, kinswoman; for some vices make excellent substitutes for virtue. You know that well, who slew the bride of Avaryan. I regret that I took such vengeance as I did. I should have killed you cleanly, or let you go wholly free.”
“You had no such power. You were a child then, untaught, unrestrained. You are a child still. Else you would never be here before me.”
“I might. I might have decided, kingly-wise, that it is time you were disposed of. You subvert my people; you disrupt my kingdom. You are, in short, a nuisance.”
The Exile laughed softly. “Am I not? We are always troublesome, we defenders of the truth.”
“Can you even tell what is truth and what is a lie?” Mirain mounted the dais, moving with that swift grace which made him so deadly in battle.
The Ashani princes drew back from him, their smiles long gone. Luian, trapped by the proud bulk of the throne, held his ground, though Mirain leaned on the table and fixed him with a steady, glittering stare. “So, prince. I have obliged you; I have fallen into your web. I admire art, even in treachery. But this I cannot forgive: your cruel misuse of your messenger. Kingslaying may have its excuses. The murder of an ill and innocent man has none.”
The prince’s eyes hooded; his face was unmoved. “Lord Casien is an utterly honest man and an utter fool. As for his illness, the songs give you great powers of healing. Are they lies then?”
“Prince,” said Mirain softly, “you cannot have two truths. If the tales of me are true, then I am indeed the king, and you are a traitor. If the tales are false, you are something less foul, perhaps, but more despicable: a murderer of his own good servants.” He leaned forward slightly, resting on his hands. “Whichever you are, Luian of Ashan, and whichever I am, mind you this: You have me. You do not have my empire. And it will avenge me.”
“Will it, King of Ianon?” murmured the sorceress. “Are you so greatly beloved? With arms and songs you won the north. The Hundred Realms came to you by gift of the man who fostered you. Fathered you, it might be thought. But for his power, you could never have come so far; never, with all your pride and your vaunted wizardry, have laid claim to an empire. It is Orsan of Han-Gilen who rules in the world’s heart, and who has always ruled there, whomever he raises as his figurehead.”
Mirain stood straight, still at his ease, unruffled. “That may well be. You who were of the Halenani know well their greatest pride. Kings they are not and will not be. They are princes among the princes of the Hundred Realms; they claim no greater title, and no less. And they accept no king over them save one of their own choosing.”
“A puppet king. An illusion of power, a pretense of royalty.” The blind eyes opened wide, fixed on him as if indeed they could see.
Elian’s nape prickled. Power gathered like summer thunder, swelling in the smoke-dimmed air, filling the emptiness where minds should be.
“Puppet,” whispered the Exile, wind-soft, wind-cold. “Little bantam cock, dressed to seem a king. Men are slaves to their eyes and to a clever song. Let them see and hear the truth. You are nothing. You are an empty thing, a counterfeit, a shape of air and darkness. Long ago I knew you; long have I suffered for that knowing.”
She raised her hand. Shadow filled it. She cast it outward. “Down, liar, child of lies, begotten in falsehood. Down, and know your master.”
That voice froze Elian where she stood: low, vibrant, thrumming with power. Her knees had locked, else she would have fallen. Her eyes swam with darkness.
Mirain swayed in the heart of it, wrapped in it, helpless, powerless, lost. It buffeted him; he reeled to his knees. His splendid sheen was gone, leaving him stripped bare, a smallish unhandsome man in an extravagance of gold and silk, his face drawn taut with anguish. The little power he had had been enough to blind simple folk, to erect a semblance of kingship. Against true magery he had nothing: no strength, no magic, no god-born splendor.
His head fell back as if he had lost control even of his body. The skin stretched tight over the proud bones of his face, grey-pale where they thrust forth, blue-pallid about the lips. A tremor shook him. His teeth bared, white and sharp and strangely feral.
With an effort so mighty that it seemed to shake the very stones of the hall, he lurched to his feet. His hands worked convulsively, the right clawed, trembling in spasms. Light dripped from it, slowly, like blood.
It snapped shut.
The
darkness shattered. The sorceress cried out, sharp and high.
Elian nearly collapsed in the sudden, mind-numbing clamor. All shields had fallen. The hall thronged with thoughts as with men, throbbed with astonishment, quivered with hostility. Only at her back was there a refuge, the strong fierce loyalty of her captain who was her friend, warmed to burning with the love he bore his king.
Mirain stood upon the dais in a cloak of light, head high, strong voice ringing from end to end of the long hall. “Now I see. Now I see it all. As I am called Prince Orsan’s puppet, so does Prince Luian dance to your piping. I was most skillfully deceived: I looked for naught beyond mere mortal treachery.”
“Not all men are blind to the truth,” the Exile said.
Mirain’s lips stretched, baring teeth. It was not a smile. “How easily you mouth the words. Truth; falsehood. What would you now? A simple slaughter? A refinement or ten of torment?”
“Neither,” the Exile answered him. “I am neither murderer nor torturer.”
His lip curled; she sensed it.
“Nor,” she added, “executioner. No longer. You who were a half-mad child have become a king; you are renowned for your honor. I would face you in fair combat. Power against power; mage against mage. Have you the will to face me?”
Elian could say no word; could not even move. Nor was it the sorceress who held her.
It was Mirain. Mirain sparking with something appallingly like delight. “I have the will,” he said. “I have will and to spare. I have fought body to body against a slave of the dark; I have waged the duel arcane with demon-masters in the lands of the north. But never have I faced an equal in wizardry, servant of the goddess as am I of the god. Formal combat by the ancient laws: to the victor, my empire. To the vanquished, death.”
The Exile turned her eyes toward him, as if to search his face. “You would set the stakes so high?”
“You have trapped me. I know that I cannot persuade you, of all women in this world, to let me go; nor will you ever be my ally. I can work free by painful degrees while my people wage war to win me back, or I can risk all on a single cast of the dice.” His grin flashed, wide and white and fearless. “I have never been noted for my prudence.”