Arrows of the Sun (57 page)

And if that would be so, then there could be no Golden
Palace set apart, and no Palace of the Sun in the heart of the Hundred Realms.
Kundri’j and Endros must not be separated. There must be a new city, a city
that was of both and neither, set between the empires. And a new court, not
Court of the Sun and Courts of the Lion but both together, Varyani, Asanian,
and no distinction made between them.

And was he the Sunborn, to conceive such a purpose? He would
be dead when the sun rose again, or worse than dead.

Nothing that he thought or willed or dreamed could be. He
was a broken thing, a marred beginning. He would never come to more than that.

But his son might. He would give the child that, write it
down when the rite was done, entrust it to the child’s mother. Who would, god
and goddess help her, be empress when he was gone.

The hymn soared to its crescendo and faded. He must sing the
last words, the words that sealed the rite. For a terrible moment he had no
words at all, no memory, only darkness and silence.

Then again he was full of light, and in the light, the
music, and in the music, the words. “Dark lady, lady of the silence, Lady
Night: come now, take your child, grant her rest. May the sun be gentle upon
her. May the wind caress her. May the years tread light upon her bones.”

o0o

Vanyi heard the singing from the heart of her own working.
She was never there; there was always a duty to keep her away, always something
to be done in Estarion’s name.

She should resent him profoundly. But she was not a
reasonable creature when it came to Estarion. He knew what prices she paid—she
had felt it when Iburan died, a tendril of thought that uncurled to touch her,
then shrank away. He had expected her to be enraged.

That, not the necessity of her absence, roused her temper.
So little he knew her. So ill he judged her.

And had she done anything to prove him false? What he had done
in Asanion was as much her fault as anyone’s. If she had not driven him away,
he would not have gone to his yellow women. Haliya would not be huddled in her
phalanx of guards, watching her emperor sing the empress mother to rest and
reflecting in spite of herself upon the child she carried—how he too would sing
these words, if the gods willed.

She knew no sadness in the thought, and no fear that Vanyi
could discern. She was not expecting to be empress as Merian had been. Women in
Asanion did not rule like men, with their faces naked to the world.

This would be empress-by-right if the night’s working
failed. This would rule, whether she willed it or no. This child, this
innocent, this creature who was neither mage nor simple woman, but something
between.

“She won’t do badly,” said Sarevadin, startling Vanyi back
into herself.

The walls of the palace chapel closed in once more, the
wards set but not sealed, the substance of the Gate gathered but unformed.
There was nothing to see with eyes of the body, and little with eyes of the
mind but a mist of raw power under a shield and a ward. It was lumpen to the
touch of her senses, inert.

Sarevadin crouched in front of it as if beside a wanderer’s
fire, arms resting on knees, eyes fixed on Vanyi. The angle of the light caught
the scars on her neck, brands of the torque that she had worn as priest and
priestess, until she cast it away.

“She’s a child,” she went on, “but she’s wiser than she
knows, and stronger than she thinks. He chose her with his temper, true enough;
but a Sunlord always judges best when he’s not trying to think.”

“Are you saying,” Vanyi asked, “that Sun-blood is better
brainless?”

“Often,” said the Sunborn’s child, “yes. If the god
exists—if he’s not the dream of a mage afraid of his own power—then I think we
may be one of his more splendid failures. Or maybe we’re the joke he plays on
the world’s fools. My father honestly believed that he was sent to bind the
goddess in chains and raise up an imperishable empire. I learned what folly
that was; I lost my magery to it, and my very self. But I had my own idiocy. I
thought that I was to make one empire of two, I and my lord. I thought that I
had done it; or close enough, once my lord was dead and I had killed my name.
When I left, I meant to leave forever—to become nothing, a nameless thing, a
leaf on the wind.

“And I did, priestess. For a lifetime of simple men, I did. Then
I wandered back through the empire I had forsaken and by then nearly forgotten.
I paused by a river, and saw a young man fishing. He looked like any other
princely idiot with a line and a hook and a bag of Islander tricks, which made
me smug, because I had brought the Isles into the empire.

“Then he turned his eyes on me. I had no name yet. I refused
to have one. But he forced me into his orbit. He made me remember. He spelled
me as my father spelled the princes he would conquer, or as I would trap my
lords of the warring empires. I was the biter bit, priestess. I was a Sunlord’s
slave.”

“What are you trying to do?” Vanyi asked her mildly enough,
all things considered. “You don’t need to snare me in lies. You won’t snare
him. He’s past that.”

“Well,” said Sarevadin, unruffled. “It’s not untrue. He did
startle me. He did remind me of what I’d been. And he’s lethally charming when
he wants to be.”

“So are you,” Vanyi said. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me
how you got in here. There are wards. Or didn’t you notice?”

“Isn’t it a little late to wonder?”

“You aren’t a mage. I think that much is true. But you’re
something else.” Vanyi’s eyes narrowed. “You
are
magic. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what the mages did to you.
They shattered you and made you anew; but when they did that, they made you a
new thing: a human shape, a human soul, but sealed with power. I could sever
myself from my magic, if I were driven to it; or Estarion could, as he did to
the mages who fought him. You can’t do that. Every part of you is woven with
magery.”

Sarevadin shrugged. Perhaps she truly did not care; perhaps
she had known it for so long that it no longer seemed to her a wonder.

“And,” said Vanyi as the truth unfolded in her, “that’s why
you didn’t die when Hirel did. You can’t, can you? Not while the power is in
you. You made yourself age, for a disguise. Left to yourself, you’d still be as
you were when you left Endros. And that wasn’t as a woman of threescore years
should be. In yourself, in truth, you haven’t aged since the mages made you
anew. Have you?”

Sarevadin smiled. “Are you going to remake yourself,
priestess, and be immortal?”

Vanyi shuddered. “Gods, no. I’ve earned the scars the years
have given me. I want to die when my time comes, and go where the dead go.”

“If that is anywhere,” said Sarevadin, “and not to
oblivion.”

“Oblivion would be pleasant enough,” Vanyi said. “You’re
barred from it, yes? You tried to enter it, and it refused you. And Hirel went
without you. Will you ever forgive him for that?”

“No,” said Sarevadin. She was no longer smiling. “You should
be less wise. You’ll live longer.”

“Are you going to kill me, and kill Estarion, and take back
your throne?”

Sarevadin shuddered precisely as Vanyi had. “I’m going to
keep you children alive. We made a royal mess of things, my father and I; we
need you to patch it together. Estarion will, you know, if he doesn’t shatter
before morning. And you, if you don’t do something ridiculous.”

“And if we do,” said Vanyi, “you’ll live. You’ll do what
must be done. Promise me that.”

“I promise nothing,” said Sarevadin.

“Then I give you nothing,” Vanyi said. She stretched out her
hand, limbered her power. “No Gate. No help. No defense against the mages.”

She would do it. She was angry enough, and tired enough of
all of it. She was not royal, not even noble. She cared nothing for honor or
duty or any such foolishness.

Sarevadin sighed. She was looking younger; or maybe it was
the light. There was a faint coppery sheen in the frost of her hair. “Avaryan
defend us from stiff-necked commoners. If we’re trading threats, then shall I
threaten to separate you from your magic?”

“Then I’ll be no good to you,” Vanyi said. “And Estarion
might object. He’s stronger than you.”

“But younger,” said Sarevadin, “and completely without
guile. I learned trickery from the greatest of masters.”

“So do it,” Vanyi said. “What difference does it make
whether he destroys himself now or later?”

“There now,” said Sarevadin. “Where’s your insouciance?
We’re going to win this game, priestess. Win it or lose it splendidly.”

“I’m not a Sunlord’s get,” Vanyi said. “I don’t know about
bravura. All I know is stubbornness.”

“That will do,” said Sarevadin.

o0o

Korusan waited for Estarion. He seemed to do a great deal
of that, some of it voluntary, some not.

Korusan could not tell which this was. He could have been at
the death-rite. Should have, perhaps. But he chose to stand guard on the empty
chambers.

They echoed without Estarion to fill them. He wandered
through them, pausing to touch a vase that Estarion had liked, a cup that he
had used, a cushion on which he had sat.

When he had walked the circle of rooms, an Olenyas stood
waiting for him. Marid.

He was almost still. In him that was ominous. His eyes held
no malice, his stance no danger; but no friendship, either. None of the warmth
that should be between brothers. He said, “The Masters summon you.”

“Do they?” Korusan almost laughed. It was not mirth. “Tell
them that I shall come to them.”

“Now?”

“After sunset.”

“They said now.”

“I am in trouble, then?”

Marid’s eyes widened in honest surprise. “Of course not. How
can you be?”

Easily, thought Korusan. Aloud he said, “I shall come to
them after the sun has set.”

He thought that Marid would protest. But his swordbrother
sighed, shrugged. “He’s to die tonight. I heard them say it. With or without
you, they said. Some are wondering if you really are the Lion’s cub.”

“That,” said Korusan, “I am. Have no doubt of it.”

“They say he has you bewitched. Is he such a master of the
high art as that?”

“No.” Korusan leaned against the wall. It was not that he
had grown weaker; he was past that. He should sleep, maybe, if the pain would
let him. “He has no art. He is all instinct.”

“I had a northerner once, for curiosity. It was like
coupling with a panther.”

“So it is.” Korusan considered Marid slantwise; thought of
killing him. Thought of dying, and of taking Estarion with him. “Tell them.
After sunset.”

“You’re ill again,” said Marid.

“Go,” said Korusan, “or I drink your blood.”

Marid stiffened. If he had reminded Korusan of the bond that
had been between them, Korusan would indeed have slain him. But Marid was wise,
or too angry to speak. He bowed with precision that came close to insult, and
did as he was bidden.

When he was gone, Korusan let himself slide down the wall
until he crouched on the floor.

His veils stifled him. He flung them off. The air was cold
on his cheeks. The brands of his rank stung like fire. They had magic in them,
maybe, to discern his treason.

He was no longer Olenyas. Son of the Lion he was born, Son
of the Lion he would die. The brotherhood of the sword that had bred and
trained him, kept him alive when he should have died, shaped him for their
ends—they had never been his, nor he theirs.

He should have known it long ago. It was written in his
face, branded in his eyes. His only kin was the one whom he was sworn to
destroy. No one else bound him. No one else could command him.

He drew a breath. It stabbed, but it would do, for a while.
He felt light; free. He had no masters. He had no brothers but the one, who was
his lover, whose life belonged to him. But for that one he was alone.

He would keep the robes, because they were warm; and the swords,
because he would have need of them. He moved to rend the veils to shreds, but
paused. They too might serve a purpose. He thrust them into his belt and
settled to wait.

o0o

The feast of the dead would go on till dawn, with wine and
singing and merriment that increased as the feasters undertook to forget the
death that had brought them here. Estarion left them long before the sun went
down. If any noticed, he did not know of it. They would expect him to grieve in
solitude. And so he had, and would again, if he came back a living man.

They were building the Gate: Vanyi, the priests and
priestesses who had been Iburan’s and were now, in default of another, hers,
and a strangeness that he knew was Sarevadin. He felt their working in his
bones, as he felt that his presence would be no help to them. His power burned
too fiercely. It would seize them all and wield them, and in the end destroy
them. Wiser to keep apart and bind his magery, and pray that it would not burst
its bonds before he came to the Tower.

Korusan waited for him with the patience of a child or an
animal. The boy had taken off his veils. There was meaning in that; but he gave
Estarion no chance to ask what it was.

“Dance with me,” he said before Estarion was fairly past the
door.

Yes, thought Estarion. In the dance was forgetfulness. He
should worry, maybe, that they danced with swords, and Korusan an Olenyas, a
spy, possibly a traitor, against whom he had been warned. But Korusan was his,
heart and soul. He knew that as he knew his own name.

They danced as they always danced, without rest, without
quarter. Estarion was stronger, and longer of arm. Korusan was swifter. Deadly
swift now, with death in his eyes.

Estarion matched him stroke for stroke. He laughed as he did
it, because if he died it did not matter, and if he lived, he would die soon
enough.