by Tanith Lee
* * *
When we left that place there was the unmistakable dawn scent in the air.
We saw then what made free in the formal and civilized streets of Ankurum. Large frogs burped at us from every garden, some on the walls, staring with their jewels of eyes. On the paving, a colony of snails nibbled at grass between the flags. Two hill foxes, silvery in the dark, their tails stiff, their heads disdainful, padded by us on a main thoroughfare. A little ahead, one waited courteously for the other to relieve itself against an archway. Then both ran around a corner on their ticking paws.
I turned my head to look at a huge white star, amazed at its brilliance and size in the lightening sky. We were in an open place, the buildings around us not very high. I stopped.
“Look,” I said.
We watched the star, which, even though we were still, continued to move. It slid slowly as a blazing tear over the roofs of Ankurum.
“Now what is that?” Darak said softly.
I thought of Asutoo, and his talk of gods who rode the sky in silver chariots, and came sometimes to earth. A sudden terror seized me that the thing would fall into this street, blazing bright, disgorging beautiful burning giants, whose look would melt flesh from bone.
But suddenly, as if it sensed scrutiny, the star speeded, vanished into cloud, and was gone.
We stood silent in the street. My body prickled. I felt abruptly that we were not alone. Very slowly, I turned, looking around me. There were shadows everywhere, yet none of them seemed filled. I shook the feeling from my shoulders.
“Darak,” I said, “let that moving light be an omen. I will ride with you in the Sagare.”
But if omen, then black omen. There was a sense of doom in me. I would go with him because I was compelled by fear. A dark thing in my mind uncoiled itself, length by length. It whispered, soft as the rustle of silk, that he would die in the Sirkunix at Ankurum, having tempted death too often.
4
The man came early from Raspar, and had to wait for us. We had woken late, still twined, in the hostelry bed. Our clothes, everything, lay on the floor. The white silk of the dress, born only yesterday, was crushed and rumpled, torn at the hem and knees from the places we had trampled through, stained brown and green by moss. The jades were still around my neck, and Darak, lying over me, had impressed their shapes into my throat.
When we were ready, Raspar’s servant, a sallow fidgety young man, led us out to the stables. Darak, Ellak, Maggur, and I followed on our horses his fat reddish mare, and were conducted through the winding streets of Ankurum, empty of foxes, out of the Ring Gate, and up into the higher hills.
It was a sharp blue morning, the air very pure and cold. The mountains seemed closer and more distinct the farther one rose, gray, stippled with white and, lower down, heavy with pines. We passed a small stone temple with red pillars, set up to the goddess of the vine.
The farm was only an hour or so away from the town, but a rich one, producing wine and cheeses besides its prospective horses. It seemed Raspar liked to dip into every pie. The buildings, Ankurum stone, with russet roofs, all matted by the legendary vine, stood around a square court. Beyond were vineyards, and meadows of milch cows, an orchard or two, and past these, in the distance, the horse fields.
A brown-robed Raspar, courteous yet brisk, had wine brought to us, but did not waste time on formality. In an open carriage we trundled out across the fertile acres. He glanced at me and my male clothes quizzically once or twice, but said nothing. To Darak he chatted amiably about the land and its yield.
“The Warden himself will have nothing but my cheese on his table,” he said. “A great honor.” It was obvious that Raspar was not at all honored, simply amused at the boost it gave his produce.
The grape harvest had already begun. Women moved along the terraces, baskets on tilted hips. Ellak eyed them thoughtfully.
Poplars lined the avenue between the horse fields. Blacks, grays, chestnuts turned and galloped away from us, tossing their long heads. We passed among another group of buildings, stables and barns presumably. Beyond was a great open place, shaped in a huge oval, fenced around by a high hedge of stakes. At the center, another smaller oval, this time a raised platform of piled rock.
The carriage stopped.
“The practice track,” Raspar announced smoothly.
We got out, and a man came toward us from one of the stone buildings. He was lean and tanned, sun-wrinkled around the eyes black and darting as a lizard’s. He limped a little, his right side leaning curiously atwist, away from the arm that no longer hung on it. The left arm ended at the wrist. He was still some distance from us as Raspar murmured:
“This is Bellan. He has been my man since the chariots did for him in Coppain two years ago. Now he is my horsemaster. He has run many races like the Sagare, and won all of them.”
Bellan reached us, bowed to Raspar, flicked his eyes over us. I had expected bitterness, hatred even. Surely there was hatred at least for Darak, straight and tall, the charioteer Bellan would never be again. But I sensed none of this. He smiled and nodded to Darak as Raspar brought them together. He seemed friendly, yet noncommittal. His voice was deep, oddly pleasing to the ear.
“If the gentleman is ready, I have a chariot for him.”
A groom came around the buildings, leading a plain metal car with three chestnuts in the shafts.
“To cut your teeth on,” Raspar remarked. “The blacks come later. Take one lap.”
A gate section in the fence was pushed open, the chariot and team led through. The horses pawed the ground and shook their heads; for all they were not the wild black prides of Raspar, they were still racers, volatile and nervous. Darak studied them a moment, stripped his tunic, gave it to Ellak, then leaned on a carriage wheel while Maggur pulled off his boots.
Bellan gave a small approving grunt.
Darak went in at the gate and around to the horses. He fondled them a little, talking to them, then, apparently satisfied, he mounted the chariot. He unwound the plaited reins from the prow-boss, shook them out, flicked them, and the horses started forward. They were badly matched for a team, and moved unevenly; the chariot bumped, but Darak had their measure in that second. The right outsider he let alone, the left insider he pulled back hard, and the center horse he slapped lightly with the rein, making him start ahead. The chariot moved, slow at first, little more than a walk. I saw him shift, getting the balance of the car, his bare feet testing with their own senses. The unevenness flowed from the three chestnuts as they felt the guide of the reins, compelling or restraining. They settled, joined, and he began to give them their head. Halfway up the track the reins moved slack and tautened, and abruptly they were galloping. I saw Darak had indeed known chariots, though where or when I did not understand. They seemed one thing now, one flying thing, a unison of movement. Dust clouded up, acrid gold in the sunlight. I glanced around. Ellak was grinning, Raspar stroking his chin, smiling slightly. Bellan, at the stake fence, was leaning forward. His eyes glittered, at the same moment almost unfocused. He was breathing fast, nostrils flared, his feet restless, the ruined left arm twitching. He, too, rode the chariot.
They took the turn, light and sweeping, a bright blur behind the rock platform, which represented the Skora of the Sirkunix. The second turn, and through the dust billows, the straining copper power held back. The chariot slowed and stopped. Darak looked at us.
“Good horses, Raspar, but ill matched.”
“I know it. You’ve earned better.”
The chestnuts, angry at this abrupt terminus of their flight, started forward again. Darak pulled them hard, and the groom ran in to release them and lead them away.
Darak came out of the enclosure, his brown body slightly whitened by the dust.
“Well, Bellan?” Raspar asked.
“Yes,” Bellan said. He turned to Darak. “A man for chariots
has a look to him, like the lion in the desert—well-hidden, but easy to spot when it moves. Have you never raced before?”
“Not in a stadium. There was a track at”—Darak hesitated, not wanting to name any place he had visited in the past—“at a town I stayed in. I had time on my hands.”
“Yes,” Bellan said, “a god’s gift is on you and you play with it. You are a charioteer, but rusty. Like a good wheel, you will need much oiling before you are ready. But still, a good wheel. Now I will let you try my blacks, and see if they like you.”
They had brought them already. They were amazing in the sun, unreal, three animals carved from a single jet, highly polished to a silver gleam, with rubies set in their nostrils. They stood quite still, but there was nothing quiet in them. They were waiting, tensed and dangerous.
“Introduce our friend to them, Bellan,” Raspar said.
“With your pardon, I’d rather he introduced himself.”
Darak shrugged. He went forward, steady but not slow. A ripple ran through them. All three heads tossed almost simultaneously. Darak laughed softly. He was seduced already. He did not slip around to right or left, but walked on toward the middle of the three. The horse lip drew back, and the other two snarled also. Front hooves lifted a little way, unsure. Darak’s hand slid, firm and caressing, across the satin muzzle. Stroking, he drew the dark head down, whispering. It was sensual, almost sexual, strangely beautiful. The horse nudged his shoulder. The other two on either side extended their faces to receive his attention.
Bellan chuckled.
“Very good, very good, my Darros.”
“One brain in three bodies,” Darak said. “Is that how they take the track?”
“Try them. They will go with you now. Twice only mind. We shall need them again, and they must not be tired. Besides, we have much to discuss together.”
The groom put them between the shafts, arranged their harness. Darak was in the chariot, impatient to begin. The blacks quivered, vibrant. The groom ran out and shut the gate. The reins flickered and drew straight.
The first time had been flight, but this was fire. Black fire leaping through oil. The horses stretched forward straining to catch the very shadows they had cast behind them on the previous lap. Darak stretched forward also. Too fast now to see clearly, only the curve, the impetus, orgasmic, unstoppable, making the world a frozen thing, transfixed around this core of speed. I felt I must run with them, to be still was blasphemy.
“Enough! Stop, you Sigkoan dog!” Bellan roared out.
The chariot flared, simmered, slackened. The horses trotted back around the turn to us.
“Did I not say two times, no more?”
Darak grinned.
“They and I forgot.”
“They and you must learn to remember.” But Bellan too was smiling.
Darak bowed, left the chariot, and, taking the light rugs the groom had brought, slipped them over each horse himself. They nuzzled him.
Ellak seemed surprised. He had not heard his leader take smilingly the orders and insults of any man before. Perhaps he had been expecting a fight; he looked bewildered, but his attention was distracted by a pretty girl coming out with cooled wine for us.
“There is much you will need to learn,” Bellan said, “and the black ones also. We must work on that. You know a little of the Sagare. By the gracious foresight of my master, you will know more of it very soon.” He nodded at the track. “Earth, air, fire, and water. A race of joy and fear and hate. But before that. Your archer.” He glanced at Maggur, at Ellak, who had drawn off a little with the wine girl. “These men will be too heavy. The team do not need to love the archer as they do the driver, but they must be able to suffer him.”
Raspar said, “Darros has suggested his lady rides with him.”
Bellan looked astonished.
“A woman? Graceful in bed perhaps, but in a chariot as clumsy as an ox.”
“I am Darros’ archer,” I said.
Bellan looked at me, intense and interested for the first time.
“You? I thought you a tribal boy. I see you’re not. I beg your pardon.”
“Only women of the tribes wear the shireen,” I said.
“Indeed?” Bellan was not concerned at this mistake. “Do you shoot?”
“I am Darros’ archer.”
He assessed me fairly now.
“Small. Good weight for it.” He half turned and shouted for the groom who ran up at once. “Arrange the target. And get a bow and plain arrows.”
I thought I was to be tried on firm ground, but this was not the case.
The horses were uncovered. Darak was in the chariot and I up behind him. Bellan limped after us.
“What do you think now, my three songs of night?” Bellan asked the team. He rubbed his face against their faces and they responded at once. Then he moved to the chariot’s back. “Take off the boots. You must feel the life under you, the life of the chariot. Your feet must be like hands and heartbeat to hold you steady. I’ll get you sandals; your soles will be too soft for this as yet.”
“My feet are hard,” I said. I stripped the boots. The day was warming and the metal layers of the floor were hot from the sun. I felt giddy with tension, the air around me fragile as cracked blue glass. They handed up to me the bow and long-flighted arrows—I had not known what they meant when they called them “plain.” I would learn later.
The groom came up and fixed a metal bar against the open chariot back, about level with my waist, then locked it into place.
Two men on ponies rode onto the track behind the chariot, facing me. Between them they carried, swinging on a cord, a large oval wooden target, marked with patches of dark blue, yellow, and red.
“When the chariot is at full stretch,” Bellan said, “aim for the colors of the target. Blue is best, being hardest to see, red fair, and the bright yellow passable.”
Bellan moved out of the enclosure. The gate shut.
A jolt. I took it. A second jolt and I was flung against the metal bar, almost winded. Damn Darak. I heard him laugh.
“Courage, Imma.”
My feet balanced on the moving thudding floor, apart, over the backs of the wheels. I braced my body, taut against the metal, and waited. We were going fast now. The dusty ground whirled past, fizzing with speed. Behind, in front of me, the ponies galloped, the target swinging. I drew up the bow, steadied, aimed, fired. The arrow went wide. Hair blew forward around my face from speed. I would have to plait it or club it, like the warriors of a krarl. Again I aimed and fired. The arrow nicked the board and flopped in the dust. The chariot was still incredibly gaining. Another jolt that almost pitched me forward over the bar. I reeled back against the metal side, blinked my eyes clear of dust, took aim, and shot. The arrow lifted, came down, and caught red. I straightened, then relaxed my knees a little. I had more of the feel of the jouncing floor now. I leaned out over the bar and took three blues, one after the other.
“Darak,” I said, “three blues, one red.”
He did not hear me.
The ponies gained on us. I filled most of the reds, many blues. Ahead of us. I swung around and fired from the side. The rest of the reds. We passed. I took a yellow and two blues.
Bellan waved us down.
I left Darak with the horses and walked back to them. The target bristled like a porcupine. I had left five blues unscored.
“I see you did not really bother to try for yellow,” Bellan said. “This is very good. I have splendid archers among my horsemen here. They do this for sport. They score perhaps three or four blues, fifteen reds. You have twenty blues and all twenty-five reds.”
Raspar smiled.
“I will leave you in Bellan’s charge,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll dine at my house this evening?”
5
So our days formed a new pattern, a str
ange pattern, one strand wildness, one strand business, and one strand elegance, and the three plaited together.
The wildness was the practice track. That first day with its horse sweat, metal sweat, pepper of dust, and back-breaking, bone-bruising exercise, was merely the prologue to skill, discomfort, and danger. Bellan was a hard exacting tutor. He would swear as vilely as a bandit when Darak failed to achieve his demands, and Darak would listen, without apparent anger or resentment, and then try the thing again, and get it right. Each night, as he lay on the hostelry bed, I would rub salve into the tear along his spine, where the three blacks, straining at either of his strong arms, had tried to rip his body in half. Bellan, stripped, bore, among many scars, one long hard whiteness along his spine, tough as leather. As for me, my right arm was raw from the weals the shield bracelets had made, holding that bronze monster across my body. Here I saw the disadvantage in my inability to scar—I could not form protective tissue. Each dawn my arm was healed, but by evening the skin was gnawed open again. Unlike my feet, the soles of which had been like iron since I woke under the mountain, my self-renewing flesh made me vulnerable as a baby. Bellan did not think any more of it than that I was a soft girl, for all my archer’s skill. He told me to wind linen bandages around the weal marks, and had leather rings set inside the metal bracelets. This helped, but it was still bad enough.
By the third day, when we thought ourselves masters of bow and chariot, Bellan began to wean us to the meat of the thing. I had not yet seen the stadium at Ankurum, or a design of the Straight, when prepared for the Sagare, but, by Raspar’s grace, the practice track became a fair copy. We had Straight, turn, and Skora. Now we learned the pillars of Earth and Air. They were sheer treachery, and, more than the other two obstacles to come, we could only prove ourselves against them in the arena. Earth was an oak-wood wall on wheels, rolled in and fixed in the ground before the race. In the wall were four arches, each wide enough to take one chariot. There would always be six chariots at least competing to get through these four openings; we knew already that this year the Sagare had garnered seven contestants—besides ourselves. Air was represented by two pits, only five feet in diameter, it is true, but stretching down some ten yards. There was plenty of space between and to either side of them, so that a chariot ahead and on its own would manage well enough. But, given a bunch of them, some would be driven into the trap; a horse’s legs would go in and snap; if the back wheels caught, the driver and archer would probably be thrown out despite the bar, down the shaft or under the hooves of the teams behind. Two days we spent on the wall of Earth, dodging two other practice chariots of Raspar’s, held by Bellan’s men. There were spills, but nothing bad. A man broke his leg, and one team, not ours, ran mad right through the wood—luckily flimsy stuff that did not do much harm. The two days after that we played the pits of Air, dug not so deep, and covered, fortunately, by a light mesh frame. Several times the blacks would have floundered into them, but by sunset of that second day, we had learned the trick of speed or dropping back that would take us clear or leave us last, to catch the others when the stretch was open again.