Hall of the Mountain King (28 page)

“Are they not?” asked Mirain softly. The elders, opening
their mouths to protest this outrage, choked on their words.

Her hands gripped his arm. “Maybe,” she said with sudden
fierce hope, “maybe they will listen to you. You are a man; you look sane. Make
them listen, or all Ianon is lost!”

“I have no need to compel them.” He met her eyes. “I am the
king.” For a long moment her hands held. She had hardly seen him yet, had seen
only her grief and wrath and her terrible urgency. She strained to focus her
weary eyes, to make him real, not only her listener and her source of strength,
but the king for whom she had lost all she possessed. “I sought you. I sought
you all across your kingdom. To see . . . if . . .” Her voice died.

“To see if I was worth the life of your son.”

Her eyes closed in pain. Exhaustion held them so; she forced
them to open. To her own dismay she began to laugh. Grimly she mastered
herself. “Your majesty. I should have known.” She would have knelt at his feet;
he held her to her chair. His strength surprised her. “My lord—”

“You are my guest; you owe me no homage. Come. You need
food, and healing, and sleep.”

She braced her will against him. “I cannot. Until I know—Do
you believe me?”

“I have called up my levies. When Brightmoon is full, we go
to war.”

The elders gasped. Neither Mirain nor Alidan heeded them.
She clasped his hands and kissed them one by one, and slowly, very slowly, let
her body give way to its weariness. “You are my king,” she said, or thought, or
wished to think.

Her last memory was of Mirain’s face, and his hand warm almost
to burning on her torn cheek.

Even before the full of Brightmoon, the levies of Ianon
began to fill the castle and the town.

“Three thousands,” Mirain reckoned them, standing at his
grandfather’s old post on the battlements. Brightmoon hung above the eastern
mountains, its orb as yet two days from the full. There was a tang of frost in
the air, harbinger of the long northern winter. He shivered slightly and drew
his mantle about him.

Ymin sat on the parapet, shaping an odd winding melody on
her harp. Beyond her Vadin paced, restless with waiting. “Three thousands,” he
said, echoing the king. “A fine brave number to look at. But there should have
been twice as many.”

“Rumor gives Moranden more still,” said Mirain, “and has him
marching slowly eastward, pillaging and burning as he advances. I can’t ask any
lord to leave his lands unprotected.”

Vadin laughed sharp and hard. “Can’t you? They’re holding
back. Moranden they know; not everyone loves him, but he’s famous for his
strength. You may be the rightful king, but you’re untried, and you weren’t
born here. This way, if you win, every petty baron can say he helped you; if
you lose he can declare that you forced him, and point to all the men he kept
home, and use them for a threat if anyone argues.”

“I will force no one to follow me.”

“When you use that tone,” murmured Ymin, “I know you long to
be contradicted.”

Mirain laughed, but his words were somber. “I will not lead
unwilling men to this battle. Better three thousand who are loyal than twenty
who will turn against me at a word.”

“You’re a dreamer,” growled Vadin.

“Surely. But I’m a mage; I dream true.”

“A king can’t rule a country full of friends.”

“He can try. He can even be truly outrageous and dream of
ruling a world of them.”

“Can any man do that?” Ymin asked, soft beneath the ripple
of harpsong.

Mirain’s face was lost in shadow, but the moon caught the
glitter of his eyes. “When I was begotten, my father laid a foretelling upon
me. When I had won the throne ordained for me, I would come to a parting of my
fate. Either I would die in early manhood and pass my throne to my slayer and
be forgotten, or I would triumph over him and hold all the world in my hand.”

“You are doing what you can to choose the first.”

“I am doing what I can to be true to both my people and
myself.”

“Mostly the latter.” She shrugged. “You are the king. You do
as you will. The rest of us must live with it, or die trying.”

“You sound like my council. They’re horrified not simply
that I should contemplate riding to war, but that I’ve called up my forces
without consulting them. To silence them I had to invoke my kingship. Now
they’re convinced that I’m a tyrant in the making, and quite mad.”

“I would not call you a tyrant. Nor would I call you mad.
Not precisely.”

“My thanks,” he said dryly.

A fourth figure joined them. The moon limned the long pale
scar on one cheek.

“Alidan,” said Mirain.

She bowed to him and moved toward the parapet, letting her
cloak blow free about her. Given to choose, she had put on a woman’s gown but
belted it with sword and dagger.

Both lords and commons looked askance at her; she had yet to
acknowledge their existence, or indeed that of any but the three who stood with
her now. “Look,” she said, “Greatmoon is rising.”

The Towers of the Dawn shimmered blue-pale as if through
clear water; above them curved the great arc of the moon, a bow of ghostly
blue, dimming the stars about it. At the full it was glorious; so close to its
death it seemed a huge cancerous eye, glaring westward over the Vale of Ianon.

Alidan turned her back on it and her face to the wind.
Mirain was close beside her. Without her willing it, her hand went to her
cheek. “They say,” she said slowly, “they say, my lord, that you have powers. A
power. That you know all that is hidden. That you can bring down fire from
heaven. Why do you not simply blast all your enemies now and have done?”

A gleam drew her eyes downward. Greatmoon shone in his palm,
the Sun turned to blue-white fire. Darkness covered it: his fingers, closing
into a fist.

His voice came soft out of the night. Soft and strange, as
if he were not truly there at all, but spoke from a great and dreaming
distance. “What power I have, I have from my father, through his gift. Knowing
and making and healing; ruling, perhaps. The fire is his own.”

She hardly heard him. “If you smote them now, you would
preserve your kingdom and the lives of your people. Ianon would be free again.”

“Ianon would not be free. Ten thousand men would be dead,
and I would still have lost.”

Alidan strained to see his face. For all her efforts she
gained only a blur of darker darkness, a suggestion of his profile. “It is a
waste, all this war. You need not even destroy the enemy’s army, only the
leaders. Surely you would shed more blood than that if you rode into battle
against them.”

“I cannot use my power for destruction.”

“Cannot or will not?”

For a long while he was silent. Surely he remembered Umijan,
and a man who had died, lured into the blade that had been meant for himself.
At last he said, “It is an ancient war, this between my father and his sister.
His victory is life. Hers is destruction. Were I to use his gifts to sweep away
all my enemies, I would but serve his great enemy.”

“Death by fire, death by the sword: what difference is
there? It is all death.”

“No,” Mirain said. “Against the fire nothing mortal can
stand. And I am half mortal. I would vanquish my enemies, but I myself would
fall, crumbling into ash, and my soul would belong to the goddess.” His voice
turned wry, though still oddly remote. “So you see, beyond all the rest I think
of my own safety. It’s my father’s law. For the works of light I may do
whatever my will and my strength allow. But if I turn to the dark, I myself
will be destroyed.”

“And if that befalls—”

“If that befalls, the Sunborn will be no more, and the
goddess will have won this battle in the long war. For I am not only the god’s
son whom he has made a king. I am also his weapon. The Sword of Avaryan, forged
against the Dark.”

She shivered. Quiet though his voice was, the voice of a
young man, a boy scarcely older than the son she had lost, its very quiet was
terrible.

Her hand found his arm. Under the mantle it was rigid. “My
lord. My poor king.”

“Poor?”
It came
from the depths of his throat, yet it comforted her. For the growl in it was
wholly human, drawn back entirely from whatever cold distances had held him. “
Poor
, say you? Dare you pity me?”

“It is not pity. It is compassion. To bear such a burden: so
much fate, so much divinity. And for what? Why must it be you? Let your father
fight his own battles.”

She uttered heresy and certain blasphemy; and he was a
priest. But the shadow of his head bent; his response was softer even than his
words before. “I have asked him. Often. Too often. If he ever answers, it is in
truth no answer at all: that it is his will, and that this is my world. And
that even gods must obey the laws which they have made.”

“As must kings,” said Ymin. It was not quite a question.

“As must kings.” A sound escaped him. It might have been
laughter; it might have been a sob. “And the first law of all is: Let nothing
come easily. Let every man strive for what is his. Without transgressing any
other of the laws.”

“Which of course,” she said, “by making the striving more
difficult, strengthens the first law.”

“The universe is perfect even in its imperfections.” Mirain
wrapped himself more tightly in his cloak. “It’s cold on the heights.”

“Even for you?” asked Alidan.

“Especially for me.” He turned away from the battlements.
“Shall we go down?”

oOo

Ten of the king’s squires would ride to war with him, and
Adjan at their head to see that they did not disgrace their training. The
chosen few, still reeling with the honor and the terror of it, had won a
night’s escape.

“Get out,” Adjan had snarled at the pack of them, “and leave
the others in peace. But mind you well, we ride at the stroke of sunup. Any man
who comes late gets left behind.”

They saw Vadin as he came to the alehouse in search of Ledi,
and they were far enough gone in ale to forget that they were in awe of him.
“Share a cup,” begged Olvan, thrusting his own into Vadin’s hand without heed
for the great gout that leaped onto the table. “Just one. It’s good for you.
Warms up your blood.” He winked broadly.

Vadin started to demur, but Ayan had his other hand and they
were all crying for him to stay; and he could not see Ledi anywhere in the
thronged and boisterous room. Someone pulled him down; he yielded to the
inevitable and drained what little remained in the cup.

They cheered. He found that he was grinning. He had Ledi
back again, and in a little while he would go to her, and now his friends had
remembered their friendship.

And yet it was not the same. With Ledi, it was better.
Deeper, sweeter. Sometimes at the peak of loving he thought he could see her
soul, and it was like a glass filled with light, inexpressibly beautiful. But
crushed in with all these raucous young men, reeling in the fumes of wine and
ale and dreamsmoke, he could think only of escape.

Not that he disliked any of his companions. Some maybe he
came close to loving. It was only . . . they seemed so foolish, like children
playing at being men. Did it never occur to them that they would be utterly
wretched when morning came?

He smiled and nursed a cup and waited for Ledi to find him.
The others were growing uproarious. Nuran had begun a wardance on the table to
a drumming of hilts and fists.

Suddenly Olvan loosed a shout. Nuran lost the rhythm and
toppled laughing into half a dozen laps. Olvan sprang into his place. “Men!” he
proclaimed. He had a strong voice and a gift for speechmaking; he won silence
not only among the squires but for a fair distance round about. “Are we the
king’s men?”

“Yes!” they shouted back.

“Are we going to fight for him? Are we going to kill the
traitor for him? Are we going to set him firm upon his throne?”

“Yes!”

“So then.” He dropped to one knee and lowered his voice.
“Listen to me. I say we should show him how loyal we are. Let’s do something
that brands us his in front of all Ianon.”

Fists rocked the heavy table on its legs. “
All
Ianon!” the squires chorused
joyfully.

But Ayan drew his brows together. “What should we do? We
wear his colors. He’s given us his new blazon, the Sun-badge that we all wear
on our cloaks. We’ll ride with him and wait on him and take care of his
weapons. What else is there to do?”

“What else?” cried Olvan. “Why, my love, a thousand things.
But one will do. Let’s show him how we love him. Let’s sacrifice our beards for
him.”

Jaws dropped. “Sacrifice our—” Ayan stopped. He caressed the
wisps of down that he had struggled so long and so hard to grow. “Olvan, you’re
mad.”

“I’m my king’s man. Who’s got courage? Who’s with me?”

“All the girls will laugh at us,” said Suvin.

“They don’t laugh at the king.” Nuran struck his hands
together. “I’m with you! Here, whose knife is sharpest?”

Once one had fallen, the rest tumbled after, Ayan last and
dubious and yielding only for love of Olvan. Vadin said nothing, and no one
asked him to; when they poured into the courtyard to draw water, yelling for
lamps and towels and cleansing foam, he followed in silence, surrounded by
clamorous onlookers.

Olvan went first, Ayan next with the air of a prisoner
approaching the block. Kav whose hands were steadiest wielded the knife,
transforming the lovers into strangers. Ayan was as pretty as a girl. Olvan,
square and solid and bearded to the eyes, had a strong fine face beneath. Ayan
looked at him and saw no one he knew, and fell promptly and utterly in love.

The rest crowded past them to the sacrifice. Kav yielded the
blade to Nuran and gave himself up to water and foam. His beard was a man’s
already, full and thick and braided with copper; they roared as it fell away.
He roared back. Nuran had nicked him. “Blood for the gods!” someone shrilled.