Arrows of the Sun (36 page)

He was alert enough in court and when he went to the harem.
He did not seem to be dying of a broken spirit. He was quiet, that was all.
Still. Unmoved and unmoving, neither content nor discontented, neither happy
nor sad, simply being.

Korusan hated it. The bright, restless, eternally
unpredictable barbarian was gone. In his place sat a poor shadow of an Asanian
emperor. He still would not wear the mask, and he still kept his barbarian
beard, but that had the air of habit too long ingrained.

On a grey raw morning between the harem and the High Court,
Korusan found him in his bath, eyeing the razors in their case. He was testing
one of them on his arm.

Korusan had no memory of movement, but the razor was in his
own hand, the case clapped shut and his free hand clamped on it. Estarion was
quietly amazed—that too so unlike him that Korusan wanted to shake him. “I’m
not about to kill myself,” he said.

“No,” said Korusan. “Merely to lose yourself.”

Estarion’s brow went up. He tugged at his beard. “There’s
more to me than this.”

“Will you become all Asanian?”

“Is that so unbearable?”

Korusan returned the razor to its case and secreted it in
his robes. “I prefer you as you are.”

“Barbarian.”

“Barbarian,” Korusan agreed, “and honest in it.”

That gave Estarion pause. And Korusan: Korusan understood,
at last, too much.

o0o

The summons came as he changed guard at midday, while the
emperor held court and the grey rain came down. Marid brought it, walking
lightly, with a brightness in his eye that was more than simple love for his
swordbrother. “The Masters,” he said. “They bid me tell you. It’s time.”

Korusan stood still. Marid stared back at him, amber eyes,
black veil, restless fingers on the hilts of his swords.

“At last,” said Marid, “you shall have what is yours.”

Korusan drew a careful breath. “I shall speak with the
Masters,” he said. “Guard well, guardsman.”

Marid’s eyes laughed with the irony of it. “I keep his life
for you, prince.”

“Hush, brother,” said Korusan. “I am but a guardsman here.”

“Indeed,” said Marid, unrepentant, “guardsman.”

o0o

Korusan prepared himself carefully. He put on his best
robes. He armed himself with all the weapons that a warrior might carry: the
swords and the dagger that anyone might see, the others that were known only to
the Olenyai and to the dead, who had known the bite of them. When he was the
perfection of an Olenyas, he went to his Masters.

Korusan passed the guards and the watchers and the hidden
ones who made his hackles rise. That he was protected from them was little
comfort. They were shadows on the edge of vision, voices on the edge of
hearing, movements not quite sensed. His instinct, inevitably, was to hunt them
down.

It was quiet in this stronghold within a stronghold. No
women or veilless children dwelt in this place. They were all men and warriors
here, doing their turn in the emperor’s service; and they were trained to
silence.

He found the Masters together in the room behind the hall.
There were attendants of the Guild among the Olenyai, robed in violet and grey
amid the somber black.

Korusan chose not to notice. He was awaited: he was not
challenged at the door, or forbidden entry. He entered with beating heart,
chiding himself for a fool. Was he not the son of the Lion? Did they not call
him lord and rightful emperor?

He was still but an initiate of two ranks’ standing, and
please the nonexistent gods, no mage at all.

A warrior did not trouble with preliminaries unless they served
his purpose. Korusan bowed to his own Master for true respect, and to the
Master of the Guild for careful courtesy, and said what he had come to say. “It
is not time.”

Neither of them betrayed astonishment. The mage seemed about
to smile as one smiles at a child who thinks itself a man. Master Asadi lowered
his veil, which was a mark of great trust in this company, and said, “We
believe that it is time.”

“No,” said Korusan. He did not bare his own face. That was
noted, he knew, though no one spoke of it.

“Why?” asked Asadi.

“Because,” said Korusan, “it is not.”

“Are you a seer,” the mage inquired, “or a thaumaturge, to
know the art of times and places?”

“I am the emperor’s shadow,” said Korusan, “and I hold his
life in debt. How fare the rebellions, my masters?”

“Well,” said Asadi, “and prospering. But they need their
prince and prophet. They need your conscious presence.”

“Soon,” said Korusan.

“It were best you do it now,” the mage said. “The people are
fickle, and the emperor’s mages are not all fools. The more we do, the greater
our workings, the closer we come to setting you on your throne, the greater the
danger of discovery.”

“I see,” said Korusan, “that you are afraid for your
secrecy. Wise, that. Prudent. But the time is not yet come. Your magics are
succeeding—they are your magics, I trust?” He received no answer, but he had
expected none, nor needed it. “The emperor is mewed in the palace. He stirs
forth less with each day that passes. He is learning to be content with his
harem and his court and his confinement. He has no knowledge of aught but what
he sees and hears, and that is nothing. When he is perfectly closed in,
venturing forth no longer even to preside in court, then we may move.”

“Then will be too late,” the mage said.

Korusan studied the man. His face was sleek, complacent,
deceptively harmless. His eyes were as cold as ever, as quietly merciless. They
did not fall before Korusan’s stare.

Korusan smiled. “You are a worthy opponent,” he said, “but I
am the Lion’s cub, and I hold the Sunlord’s life in my hand. I judge that we
must wait. Now is too soon.”

“When will it be time?” the mage demanded. “Can you judge
that? The Sunlord may have little magery that he can wield at his will, but he
casts spells with his simple presence. The light of his eyes can bind worlds.”

“And you dare oppose him?”

The mage did not bridle at Korusan’s mockery. “I have not
his native power, but neither have I maimed and squandered what is mine. You,
my young lord, have no magery, no power but what guards your mind from
intrusion. You are easy prey for the spell that he casts.”

That could indeed be true. There was a remarkable
fascination in the black king, more than his oddities might account for.

But Korusan was no fool or child, to be snared by outland
magics. “When I am ready, I will kill him. I am sworn to it. His life is mine,
mage. Remember that.”

“I do not forget,” the mage said. “Do you?”

Korusan laughed, cold and clear. “Never for a moment. Do you
think that I sit idle? I have him in my power. He calls me friend, he tells me
his secrets, he speaks to me as much as he speaks to anyone. I shall teach him
to love me. And when he has learned it well, then, mage, I shall strike.”

“Be swift, then,” the mage said, “or we shall fail.”

“We will not,” said Korusan. “I shall slay him with my own
hand.”

“Soon,” the mage said, like a chorus in a song.

o0o

It occurred to Korusan afterward to wonder that he had won
so easy a victory. Perhaps after all the Guildmaster granted him the right of
his lineage.

Or perhaps, he thought, the mages did not need his
complaisance to do what they willed to do. Their spells were sapping Estarion’s
will with his strength. In time he might care too little to live. Then he would
rob Korusan of the life that was Korusan’s, take it with his own hand, and
spare the mages the effort of disposing of him.

Not, Korusan swore to himself, while he had power to prevent
it. Estarion must care that he died; must know who slew him. Else there was no
purpose in aught that Korusan did, and he was but a puppet after all, to dance
at the mages’ whim.

Toruan the singer had come back.

Estarion learned of it by accident. As he was returning from
court by another way than the usual, in part to avoid a gaggle of lords who
sought to waylay him, in part to vary the monotony, he heard the singer’s name
just as he turned a corner, and paused.

Two of his Varyani Guard idled in the passage, new come it
seemed from the city, warm with wine. “He’s doing a play for the High Court
tonight,” one of them said. “One of Lord Perizon’s men owes me a fortune at
dice. I’m going to make him pay me off by getting me into court. How do you
think I’ll look in yelloweyes livery?”

“Beautiful,” said his companion.

The other cuffed him. “Go on, laugh. I was a pretty thing
before that bastard broke my nose for me.”

“Lovely,” his companion agreed sweetly. “The whole fathom
and a half of you.”

They would have brawled happily in the corridor, if one, the
plainsman with his sharp narrow eyes, had not caught sight of Estarion. He
pulled the northerner about, wide-eyed both, bowing arm in arm like players on
a stage.

Estarion looked them up and down. “I don’t suppose the two
of you could be troubled to escort me to court tonight.”

“No, my lord!” the northerner said. “Yes, my lord. My lord—”

Estarion left him still babbling. He was weary suddenly, as
he was too often of late, weary to exhaustion. But he would be glad to see
Toruan again. He mustered the will to send a messenger and the wits to inform
the servants before he rested that he would attend court that evening; and
there was Ziana to think of. Or Eluya. It was time to change the guard again in
the harem.

All the more reason to avoid it tonight. He stood while his
servants freed his body from its robes and his hair from its inevitable knots, and
when they went away, lay on the couch that was closest.

Korusan was nowhere to be seen. The Olenyas on guard was the
nervous one, taller and narrower than the run of them, with fingers that could
never be still.

After a while his twitching grew unbearable. Estarion
ordered him out. He went without protest, leaving Estarion in peace.

Estarion drowsed, neither truly asleep nor truly awake. Some
part of him resisted; protested; begged him to wake, move, do something. But he
was too tired.

It was not Estarion’s custom to attend court in the evening.
His servants informed him so, at length. He took no notice. They dressed him in
robes so heavy that he could barely move, and crowned him with gold, and
touched his eyelids with gilt.

He had not allowed that before. Tonight he did not care. He
would have let them shave him, even, if Korusan had not taken the razors.

Odd child; presumptuous. He still had not appeared. Estarion
hoped that he was resting well, or whetting his swords on slaves, or whatever
Olenyai did when they were not on guard.

o0o

The court at night was a restless glittering thing, lit
with lamps, flashing with jewels and gold, murmurous with voices and music and
even laughter, soft as the canons prescribed, and deep. No women’s voices. No
ladies, and no women of lesser repute, though those, Estarion had heard, might
come forth later, after the wine had gone round.

His presence gave them pause, but only briefly. Custom,
which was always their salvation, bade them bow as one, grant him the accolade
of silence, then return to their dance of precedence. He was neither expected
nor permitted to join in it. His place was to sit before and above them, and
watch, and be silent.

His two guards and he were the only men in the hall who were
not Asanian. And, when they appeared, Toruan and certain of his troupe.

The court quieted at their coming, settling to chairs and
stools that servants placed for them, making a circle before the throne. As
they had in Induverran, the musicians came forward first, took their places,
began to play. The singers followed.

This was not the masque of Sarevadin and her prince, nor was
it any tale Estarion knew. It was Asanian, maybe, yet Toruan sang in it. He was
the lord in his palace, or perhaps the god in his temple, to whom the people
came for guidance or for healing or for surcease from their troubles. He wore a
white robe, which was royal or divine, and he carried a mask, an Asanian face,
which sometimes he held before him and sometimes he bore at his side.

He did not speak to the people who came to him. Another did
that. And what that one heard, he rendered differently to his lord. A man would
ask for aid against his enemy, and the speaker between would sing to the lord
of praises sung and tribute promised. A woman—a eunuch in a veil, surely—would
beg him to heal her child of a sickness, but he would hear that she asked for
his blessing on her womb. A youth would bid him attend to a great injustice,
and he would hear that he must work stern justice in the youth’s demesne. The people
cried their grief. He heard only praises.

The people, given false coin or none to heal their ills,
grew angry with their lord. Or with their god; it still was not clear which he
was. They came together. They resolved to beg him, all of them at once, to
listen, to hear them, to give them what they needed. Bread for their bellies,
for they starved. Wine for their throats, for they thirsted. Healing for their
children, for they were dying.

And he heard only praise. He smiled, he blessed them, he
sang sweetly of their joy and their prosperity. The louder they sang of grief,
the sweeter he sang of contentment, until their patience shattered.

They rose up. They tore him from his throne, rent his mask
asunder, slew him in a roaring of drums and a rattle of sistra and the thin,
high, sweet descant of his unshakable complacency.

o0o

“That,” said Estarion, “was quite the rashest thing I have
ever seen. Preaching sedition in the High Court of Asanion—it’s a wonder they
didn’t rend you limb from limb.”

Toruan was somewhat grey about the lips, but he laughed.
“Oh, they wanted to. But not in front of you.”