The Lady of Han-Gilen (20 page)

I must oppose him. The law binds me, though its upholders
sought to cast me out.

“What law? Temple law? It was never broken. The priestess
never knew man. She bore a son to the god, as all the prophecies had foretold.”

She lied. She was mageborn, and strong; and her lover was
stronger yet.

“And the Sun in Mirain’s hand? How do you deny that?”

Magery
, the Exile
said. Elian heard desperation in her simplicity. She shifted, coming closer
yet. The furred collar about her shoulders opened eyes full of malice and
grinned a fanged grin. Elian’s scars throbbed into pain.

It is the truth, said the Exile, here where no lie could be.
The Ianyn king is a monster of mages’ making, a weapon of the light against the
chains that bind the worlds. He will break them, and call it victory, and never
know the true terror of what he has done. For the sun is splendid and much
beloved, but its full force can blind and destroy. And your young king would
loose it upon us all.

“He will put down the dark.”

Has it ever risen? It is necessary, kinswoman. It is the
proper counter to the force of the light. Night after burning day; winter that
bears the seeds of summer, as the summer begets the winter.

“No,” said Elian.

The Exile stood silent. Her familiar had begun to purr.

“No,” Elian said again. “Mirain is the god’s son. I know it.
My bones know it. Even—even if his body may not be—” Her tongue tangled in
confusion. That was not what she had meant to say. “The god does as he wills.
He is Mirain’s father.”

The Exile raised her chin. Age had gentled her manner, but
never her pride. You deny what you cannot accept. You toy with the thought of
loving him. You cannot endure that he may be your father’s son.

The familiar hissed. It was laughing. It knew more than its
mistress would tell. Brother and sister mated: what terror in that? Asanians
were much given to it. In no way else could they have bred their emperors.
Ziad-Ilarios himself . . .

Elian clapped her hands over her ears, little good as it
did, crying out against it all. The lies which the outcast called truth, and
the truth that was woven inextricably with lies.

Come, said the Exile. Come to me. I can give you truth
unalloyed. I can set you free of all your bonds. You need never marry, nor bow
to kings, nor submit to the caprices of your father.

Elian tossed, battling.

Free. Be free. Come with me to the world’s aid. It must not
fall to the sword of the light. Stand with me as your power bids you do. It is
greater than you know, and wiser. Listen to it.

She could not hear it. The voice drowned it.

Come with me. Come.

Her hand stretched. Wanting—willing—

“
No
!”

She sprang awake, crying aloud. There were hands on her,
arms about her, a voice in her ear. Not that voice. Not, by the god, that
deadly voice. “Elian. Elian, wake; it was only a dream.”

With agonizing slowness the dream retreated. She crouched
trembling, gasping as if she had run long and far from a terror too great to
bear, clutching at the warm strength that held her, only dimly aware that it
was Mirain.

The awareness grew, calming her. He was the Sunborn. He
would not let the darkness take her.

Her breathing quieted. Her head drooped on his breast over
the slow strong beating of his heart. He held her there without speaking,
letting the silence heal her.

After a long while she said, “It was more than a dream. It
was power.”

He stroked her hair gently, saying nothing.

“Power,” she repeated. “Prophecy. It has been haunting me; I
have been fighting it. But power will not be denied. The enemy is arming
against us. She is very, very strong. As she should be; for she is my kin, and
trained in all the arts of power, both light and dark.” She stiffened,
straightening in his grasp. “We’ve been foolish, riding in the sunlight as if
no cloud would ever come. She will make us pay.”

“No,” he said. “She will not. I have been on guard. She
cannot enter my kingdom.”

Elian looked long into his face. “She cannot, but she need
not. She is in it already.”

He did not deny it; and that frightened her as nothing else
had. But he said, “She shall not touch you. By my father’s hand I swear it.”

It would be easy, so easy, to rest in the circle of his
protection. Her body clung to him still, and found him strong. But her mind
locked in resistance. “I’ll fight my own battles, my lord.”

“Is this your battle?”

She pulled away from him. “You can’t protect me from
prophecy. Only I can do that.”

“By accepting it?”

“No!” she said quickly. But after a moment, very slowly, as
if each word were dragged from her: “Yes. By—by letting it come. When we come
to Han-Gilen . . . there are ways and rituals . . .
O ’Varyan! Why did I have to be the one?”

He sat on his heels beside her pallet and reached again for
her, this time to take her hands and hold them. “Elian, little sister, the god
gives gifts where he chooses. You are rich in them, because in his reckoning
you are strong enough to bear them. I’d bear them for you if I could, if either
he or you would let me.”

“We won’t. I can’t. Any more than I can be what you are.”

He smiled faintly, painfully. “You wouldn’t want that.”

“Don’t try to be me, then. And don’t be so sure of yourself.
Your enemy is mortal, but she is powerful, and she serves the dark. Are you
strong enough to face her?”

His hands tightened upon hers. He could sense as strongly as
she the current of seeing that ran through her, speaking in her voice. “Who
knows?” he said. “Who can know, unless I try?”

“You can’t. Not now. Not tonight.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not tonight.” He raised her hands and
kissed the palm of each. “Rest now. The vision is gone; it will let you have
peace.”

Whether he spoke the truth, or whether it was his own power
that worked on her, she slept almost at once, deeply, without dreams.

Mirain’s vanguard looked down from the hills of Han-Gilen.
Below them spread the plain and the river and the white city. The sun, riding
low, cast long shadows behind it of wall and turret and thin wind-whipped
banner. On the tower of the temple the Sun-crystal flamed, brighter in the
evening than the sun itself.

The king gazed at it for a long, still while. He had been born
there in that temple in the chanting and the incense. He had grown to young
manhood under the care of its prince. This, more than Ianon, more than any
other province of his empire, was the place his heart longed for.

Elian beside him, raw with homecoming, could not tell which
pangs were his and which were her own. His were sharp with years of absence,
but hers were still new, edged with fear of what she would find. He could
expect a royal welcome. She . . .

Ilarios leaned from his saddle to touch the hand that
clenched on her thigh. “It will be well,” he said.

She tossed her hair out of her face, fiercely. Mirain was
already moving. He would be inside the walls by night, with great ceremony, and
up until dawn settling his people. She sent Ilhari after him.

oOo

The road to the city was rimmed with people, the gates
beyond them ablaze with light. Halenan and Mirain rode side by side, the prince
in a splendor of green and gold, the king all in white that glowed in the dusk,
with a great mantle of white fur pouring over the Mad One’s flanks. Its scarlet
lining shone in the flicker of torchlight, now blood-bright, now blood-black.

Elian would have ridden as she had ridden to the meeting at
the ford, well back among the army. But Ilhari knew her proper place: beside
her sire. With no bit or bridle to compel her, and neither the will nor the
willingness to overbear her with power, Elian had perforce to go where she was
taken.

The livery of the king was no shield here, where every man
and woman and child knew her face. They cheered for Mirain, they cheered for
Halenan, but they cried out also for her, their lady, their bright-maned
princess.

She greeted them with lifted hand and a fixed, brilliant
smile. But her eyes saw none of them.

Under the arch of the White Gate a mounted man waited alone.
His stallion was as white as milk, his coat resplendent with gold; gold crowned
his fiery hair.

Dark as his face was, black in the dusk, Elian could not
discern his expression, only the gleam of his eyes. They were fixed on the boy
he had fostered, who had escaped his care one deep night to gain a northern
kingdom, whom he had made an emperor. As the riders drew near, he dismounted
and waited, tall beside his tall senel.

Elian saw the glint of Mirain’s eyes, the swirl of his cloak
as he left the saddle with the Mad One still advancing. He half strode, half
ran up the last of the road; caught Prince Orsan in the act of bowing to the
ground; drew him into a swift, jubilant embrace.

“Foster-father,” he said, clear in the sudden silence,
“never bow to me, you or your princess or your children. You are my heart’s
kin; I owe you all that I have.”

The prince’s voice came deep and quiet, but touched with
great joy. “Not all of it, my lord An-Sh’Endor.”

“Enough.” Mirain returned to the Mad One’s back. When the
prince also had mounted, the king held out his golden hand. “I shall never
forget it; I, or all the sons of my sons.”

oOo

Ceremony was a mighty protector of sinners. Caught up in
the welcoming of the emperor to the heart of his empire, neither prince nor
princess could so far trespass upon dignity as to take official notice of the
face above the squire’s surcoat.

But they were aware of her. Painfully. Excruciatingly, as
the grand entry gave way to the presentation in the temple, the rite and the
praises of the god, and at last to the feast of welcome.

Elian stood close enough to her father to touch; her
mother’s perfume was sweet and subtle in her nostrils, the princess clear to
see on Mirain’s left side, a flawless profile, a serene dark eye. Elian could
have escaped with utmost ease, with but a word, a plea to be excused.

There was enough and more than enough to do outside in the
growing camp. Hal, having had an hour alone with Anaki, was there now, seeing
that everything was ordered as Mirain wished it. Cuthan had gone with him. Even
Ilarios had chosen to escape this lordly duty. She had no allies here.

She had known that before she committed herself to it. As
she had known what a squire’s place was: here, standing behind her lord’s chair
for every Gileni noble and servant to stare at. Wild though she had always
been, none of them had ever thought to see her there.

oOo

The end was merciful: wine and graceful words, the
departure of hosts and guests to their beds or to their duties. Prince Orsan
had repaired and refurbished a whole wing of the palace for Mirain, at what
expense she could hardly guess. He had stinted nothing.

Mirain stood in the center of the Asanian carpet as she
labored patiently to undo the fastenings of his coat. He was silent: absorbed,
she thought, in contemplation of the long night’s work before him.

She herself had little to say. She slipped the coat from his
shoulders and laid it in the clothing chest, careful of its jeweled splendor.
When she turned back, he was still in his trousers and his fine linen shirt,
watching her.

She took up his working garb, a kilt as plain as any
trooper’s. “You should take a cloak,” she said. “The nights are cold this close
to solstice.”

He accepted the kilt, but made no move to don it. “Elian,”
he said. “Why have you said no word to either your father or your mother?”

She stood still. His gaze was steady. She knew that if she
reached, his mind would be open to her touch.

Her shields closed and firmed. “There has been no occasion,”
she said, speaking High Gileni, distant and formal, with no warmth in it.

He met her coldness with a flare of heat and the patois of
the city. “You spent a whole turn of the watch within their arms’ reach.”

“They made no effort to speak to me.”

“They waited for you.”

“Did they?” She began to unbind his hair.

He pulled free. How strange, she thought within her
barriers. He was aflare with temper, and she was utterly cool, utterly in
control.

“You are not!” he snapped. “Your obstinacy lies within you
like an egg, hard and round and heavy, shelled in ice. Come away from it and
look at yourself.”

There was a mirror near the bed, polished silver. Because he
held her in front of it, she regarded the stranger there.

Whoever it was, it was not the child who had fled Han-Gilen
in the night, this bright-haired person of ambiguous gender, lean and hard with
long riding, with four thin parallel scars seaming one cheek. Its eyes had seen
much and grown dark with it; its mouth tightened on—what? Grief? Pain? Anger?
Crippling shyness?

His hands held hers in a fierce grip. “You see? How can they
speak to this? Easier to reason with the sword’s edge.”

“What could they say? That my beauty is ruined? That my
value on the market has dropped to nothing?”

“They could say that they love you; that they grieved for
your absence; that they are glad beyond words to have you back again.”

“Let them say it then.”

“They will.” His eyes met her mirrored stare, his face
beside hers, dark and eager. “Go to them. Now. They wait for you.”

She turned her back on him and on her own face. “If they
wish to see me, they may summon me.” She pulled off her surcoat and reached for
a coat as plain as the kilt he had abandoned. “Will my lord dress himself, or
would he prefer that I aid him?”

Walled in the perfection of her coldness, she could not
sense either his thought or his temper. She changed from state dress into
common garb, in silence he made no move to break. When she passed him in search
of her boots, her heart speeded a little in spite of itself. But he did not
seize her. His face had hardened to match her own.