A Fall of Princes Read online

  “Not now,” Hirel answered her.

  The tears fell; she shook them away, scowling to make up for them. “Thank Avaryan! We’ve all been praying our hardest. I wanted to do my praying where he was, but no one would let me. It’s because I’m still too young; I haven’t come into my power. But when I do . . .”

  Hirel gratified her with a visible shiver. She was formidable enough now; she would be a woman to walk well shy of.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Would you be the empress’ fosterling? The one whom Sarevan—”

  “Yes, I’m the one who’s here because he did something with his power that he shouldn’t have. That’s why I’m mageborn. A mage made me. When I want to make him annoyed, I call him Mother.” She tilted her head, bright-eyed. “He must be fond of you. He doesn’t tell everybody. Only people he trusts.”

  Hirel blinked. She waited for him to gather his wits. She was another mongrel, a small wiry brown creature with hair and eyes of purest Asanian gold. When she was older she would be striking.

  She was going to be very dangerous indeed.

  She grinned, gap-toothed, and patted his cheek. She had to stretch to do it. “Poor child, you’re shaking. What’s the trouble? Is it all too much for you?”

  “It is impossible!” he burst out.

  “Of course it is. We’re mages.” She took his hand without the least suggestion of diffidence. “Come now, we’re dallying.”

  o0o

  Hirel had not known what to expect. A priest certainly. A mage, from the child’s chatter. But not precisely this.

  The blunt earth-colored face bespoke the Nine Cities, whence had come the Order of Mages; the greying braid, the torque, the white robe marked him a votary of Avaryan. He sat over a scroll in a bare sunlit chamber, companioned by a small bright-eyed creature that sat on his shoulder and purred.

  “I had not known,” said Hirel, “that a mage of the Guild would endure Avaryan’s yoke.”

  The man looked up with perfect calm. His familiar coiled its long tail about his neck and yawned in Hirel’s face. The priest stroked it; it arched its supple back.

  “I had not known,” he responded, “that an heir of the lion would endure captivity in Keruvarion.”

  Hirel smiled with a distinct edge. “It is given out that I am a guest here.”

  “Are you?”

  “I bow to the inevitable.”

  “Of course.” The familiar left its perch to stalk a shadow. Its master rolled and bound his scroll and turned to face Hirel fully. “Have you approached the Asanian ambassador?”

  “Is that a concern of yours?”

  The wizard-priest folded his hands. To the eye he was harmless, a small aging man with tired eyes. “It concerns me that I be able to trust you.”

  “Why?”

  The man sighed. “The heir of the Sunborn has known betrayal in one of its more appalling guises. He may yet die for it. And you are the highest lord but one, of the people who betrayed him.”

  “I am no stranger to treason.”

  “From which side of it, prince?”

  Hirel drew himself up, measuring his words in ice and iron. “Much ill can be said of me, and much has been said, by your own prince not least. But of that I am not guilty.” He advanced a step; his voice quickened, heated. “What can you know of all that he has suffered? How can you begin to comprehend it?”

  “Peace,” said the priest, unruffled. “I but do my duty.”

  “They did their duty likewise, who would have left your high prince to die within call of his father.”

  The priest rose. His familiar wove mewing about his legs. He cradled his arms; it sprang up weightlessly and curled there, fixing Hirel with a steady golden stare. He glared back, gold for gold.

  The mage’s voice seemed almost to come from within the creature’s eyes, a soft voice, but implacable. “If you had brought him here, there would have been no such contention.”

  “I brought him to his father as he desired.”

  “Commendable,” the priest said evenly.

  “Why have you summoned me?” Hirel demanded. “What use can I be to you? Will you make an example of me, and execute me for a traitor?”

  “That is the emperor’s province. Not ours.”

  “Why, then?”

  The priest looked long at him. Certainly he used more than eyes. Hirel’s nose twitched at the tang of wizardry.

  At last the priest spoke. “I wished to see you. To know what you are.”

  “And?”

  “You are not what you think you are.”

  “Folk seldom are.”

  “Your self-possession is admirable.”

  “I am a prince.”

  The priest bowed. Mocking, and not mocking. His familiar purred. “I would not doubt the truth of your birth. But do you know the fullness of it?”

  “I have been instructed.”

  “By philosophers.” The priest was above scorn. “Logicians. Men who see with their eyes, but who are blind to the vision within.”

  “What is there to see, save the reflection of one’s own face?”

  “What was it that slew your mother?”

  The blow rocked Hirel to his foundations. His eyes went dark; his mind emptied. From far away he saw himself, frozen, stunned; and watched his body spring from immobility into deadly flight. The mage fell back, raising neither hand nor power in his own defense.

  With all the strength that was in him, Hirel quelled the killing stroke. He withdrew a step, two, three. He remembered who he was, and what he was, and how he had come there. He said, “She died by her own hand.”

  “Why?”

  A prince did not give way to pain. Hirel was surely and entirely a prince, but his training was not yet perfect. He had not learned, yet, not to feel the wound. But he could speak through it with quiet that was only cross-kin to calm. “She failed of her blood. She could not learn to be a queen.”

  “She looked within and saw only void; looked without, and saw only a cage.”

  Hirel saw her more clearly now than he saw his tormentor. He was growing into his father’s image; in childhood he had been his mother’s.

  Her softness, like his own, had been only for the eye. She was steel beneath, but steel flawed, trammeled in the chains of womanhood and royalty. She had wanted too much: a life of the body as well as of the mind. She had won from her husband the training of her son. She had made him what she herself would have been, had she been born a man.

  “They say that she was mad,” Hirel said. She faced him in his memory as she had been the day she died: gold and ivory, perfect in her beauty, with eyes that had forsaken hope. “My father accepted the burden of his birth. She could not. She resisted to the utmost, until she broke. She denied even the gods.”

  “Often,” said the priest, “one denies what one most fears.”

  “Do not you yourself do the same?”

  “I deny your thousand gods. I do not deny the One who embodies them all.”

  Hirel hissed. Memory was fading; impatience was rising to rule him. “What has my mother to do with you, or with me, or with your god?”

  “Little,” answered the priest, “and much. She could not bear to face herself; she took refuge in death. What did she see that so frightened her? Not prison bars alone. In extremity, she saw the truth. It slew her.”

  “Truth.” Hirel’s lip curled. “I have heard no truth here. Only cruelty.”

  The priest bowed his head. It was a convincing semblance of humility. “Truth is cruel. Your mother raised you well, prince, but not well in all. It would have served you better to have learned somewhat from your father. Of gods; of magery.”

  “Prince Sarevadin has done what he may to fill the void,” said Hirel.

  “He has indeed. But do you believe?”

  “In magic,” said Hirel, “perforce. In gods, not yet. I can hope that it may be never. I have no desire to be bound by the caprices of divinity.”

  The temple did not quak
e; the priest did not rise up in wrath. “Caprice may prove to be purpose, and chance a design beyond our frail conception.”

  “Ah,” said Hirel. “You have brought me here to convert me. A mighty coup that would be: a servant of Avaryan on the Golden Throne.”

  “It will yet be so.”

  “Not while I live.”

  “Swear no vows, prince, lest they betray you.”

  “I swear them. I swear that I will not bow to your god. Nor will I surrender my throne to him.”

  “Even for love?”

  Pain drew Hirel’s eyes downward. His nails, growing long again, had drawn blood from his palms. He had fallen out of the habit of allowing for them.

  With great care he unclenched his fists. “I may acknowledge that a god exists, if it can be proved to my satisfaction. It is not reasonable to demand that I love him.”

  “Love is not demanded. Often it is not even wished for. But it comes.”

  “Not to the High Prince of Asanion.”

  The priest looked long at him, but not with pity. “You name yourself truly. You do not know what your name signifies. But that will come. I pray my god that it will not come in pain.”

  o0o

  Hirel escaped from that quiet wizard-priest with the bitter eyes and the oracle’s tongue. He knew he trod the bare edge of courtesy; he chose not to care.

  The impudent novice had made herself scarce. He found his own way of the temple—it was much simpler, he noticed, than the path by which the child had led him—and walked slowly back through the city.

  Anger pricked him. So many words, to so little purpose; and yet they had struck deep, at wounds that would not heal. He had been tested, he knew surely; but for what, he did not know. He did not want to know.

  His mother had fled her lineage and her duty. He would not. He had tarried long enough, both within bonds and out of them. Now he would see what place this world had left for him: if he was a prisoner here, or if he was a free guest; if Asanion was prepared to reject him or to have him back.

  o0o

  Sarevan was up. More, he was walking, with Ulan for a prop, and after a moment’s astonishment, Hirel. He tried not to lean heavily. Hirel could feel him trying, shaking with the effort.

  His face was grim. “Once more,” he gritted when they had struggled from bed to wall and back again. Hirel swallowed the words that came to him, and steadied the lunatic with an arm about his waist.

  Sarevan fell into his bed, grinning like a skull, panting as if he had run a race. “Every hour,” he said with all the strength he could muster. “Every hour I’ll do it.”

  Hirel kept his face expressionless, spreading the coverlet over the wasted body. It shifted, restless already, though it must have been a great labor even to raise a hand, to catch Hirel’s wrist. “I’m mending, infant. I’m sure of it. I’m stronger already than I was this morning. Tomorrow I’ll be stronger yet. Two days, three—I’ll ride.”

  Hirel’s mouth wanted to twist. Such a creature, this was. Not only did he cherish hope; he clutched it with both hands.

  He let Hirel go and shifted again, lying on his side. His grin had shrunk to a wry smile. “I bore you to tears, don’t I? Why do you keep coming back?”

  “I am still your prisoner.”

  Hirel had not wanted it to sound so flat, or so bitter. Nor had he meant to wipe the smile from Sarevan’s face. Not so completely.

  “You are not,” Sarevan said with as much heat as his weakness could muster. “I promised you. As soon as we came to Endros—”

  “We have been four days in Endros.”

  Sarevan closed his eyes. He looked weary beyond telling. “You are free,” he said just above a whisper. “You were free the moment you faced my father.”

  Hirel voiced no thanks. He owed none. As he turned, the thin hand caught his wrist once more. He looked down into a face that had willed itself to life.

  “What are you going to do?” Sarevan demanded.

  “Nothing unduly treacherous,” answered Hirel. The dark eyes shamed him with their steadiness; he said more reasonably, “I had in mind to speak with the Asanian ambassador.”

  “Is it wise?”

  “That is what I intend to discover.” Hirel sat on the bed. Sarevan reclaimed his hand, turning it so that the Kasar caught the light. Hirel slitted his eyes against the flame of it. “Will you stop me?”

  “Of course not. Old Varzun is safe enough; he’s impeccably loyal to his emperor, and my father says he’s been mourning you with honest grief. But some of his people may not wish you well.”

  “I do not doubt it,” said Hirel. “I would send a summons worthy of his rank. May I borrow one of your guards?”

  “Avaryan! You’re slipping. You actually asked.” Sarevan grinned at Hirel’s scowl. He raised his voice and called out with surprising strength, “Starion!”

  The guard burst in with a mighty clatter, armed for war. Once again Hirel met hostile eyes over the glitter of a spearpoint.

  “Cousin,” said Sarevan mildly. The spear lowered a fraction; the glare abated not at all. “Cousin, if you can spare a moment from your heroics, we have a task for you.”

  The young Gileni flushed dark under the bronze. He did not look well in the scarlet of the emperor’s squires: it clashed abominably with his hair. Yet he was a handsome young man, and he acted as if he knew it.

  He grounded his spear with a flourish that came close to insolence, but that was for Hirel; his eyes on Sarevan were a roil of love and grief, anger and anxiety and simple worship. “Is he troubling you? Is he sapping your strength with his nonsense?”

  “Not as much as you are with yours.” Sarevan’s smile took some of the sting out of the rebuke. “Do you think you can bring yourself to be civil to Asanian?”

  The boy’s thought was as clear as a shout: If only it need not be this one. Aloud he said stiffly, “Stop chaffing me, Vayan. What do you want me to do?”

  Sarevan glanced at Hirel, who told him. He listened; repeated his message word for word; bowed with perfect correctness and left.

  Sarevan contemplated the emptiness where Starion had been. “Bless the boy,” he said, half amused, half dismayed, “he’s jealous. And he’s the one who prayed for the day when I’d find someone else to play elder brother to. Or is it—” He laughed suddenly. “I have it! He’s afraid you’ve displaced him as the beauty of the family.”

  “That,” said Hirel, “is not possible. Not while you live to outshine both of us together.”

  “Ah now, I’m nothing much. This nose of mine . . .”

  Hirel snorted. Sarevan wisely fell silent.

  NINE

  “Iduvarzun InKeriz Ischylios,” the servant announced with proper dignity and passable accent; then shattered it with a grin and a wink that, by fate’s own mercy, the ambassador did not see. Hirel set himself sternly to be as blind.

  He received his father’s envoy in a chamber small enough for intimacy, large enough for dignity; seated in a tall chair, not quite a throne, with attendants about him and the sun ablaze on his golden robes. Seven of them, one atop the other, and the eighth, the one that marked his rank, pouring over the chair and pooling on the floor about his bare and gilded feet. Its sleeves flowed over his hands, permitting a glimpse of gilded fingertips; its collar rose high, his face within the frame of it almost stark in its plainness: barely touched with either gilt or paint, ornamented only by a single earring, vivid against the darkened skin.

  Still though he held himself, his heart thudded painfully as the man appeared upon the heels of his name. Hirel knew him. He was a kinsman, and the old blood was strong in him; age had bleached his hair to the ivory of his skin and brought out the fine proud bones beneath, but the eyes in deep sockets were keen as a falcon’s, the gold of them rimmed just visibly with white.

  Even as he went down on his knees, he stretched the limits of protocol. The face of a high prince was to be stared at, scrutinized, committed to memory, as an emperor’s was to be hid
den forever behind the golden mask; but this stare endured for an eternity, edged with doubt and shock and slowly dawning hope. “My lord?” Varzun whispered.

  Hirel beckoned. The ambassador came forward on his knees, with much grace for one so old.

  At two paces’ distance he halted and held up his hands. They trembled as Hirel touched fingertip to fingertip, the greeting of close and royal kinsmen. Varzun looked long at the thin brown fingers with their blunted nails, and up into the altered face. “My prince. What have they done to you?”

  Hirel rose and signed a command. Varzun resisted but obeyed, rising also.

  He was a little the shorter. He blinked, then found a smile to brighten the sudden tears. “Little one, you have grown. But this”—his hand sketched a gesture toward Hirel’s hair, toward the sharpened cheekbone—“this is unpardonable. Who has done it?”

  “No one in Keruvarion,” Hirel answered him. “I owe my life to the Varyani prince. He found me where my flight had cast me, and preserved me from the hounds that would have torn me, as from the men who would have sold me gelded into slavery.”

  With each word Varzun paled further; at the last of it he nearly toppled. “My prince. Oh, my prince!” But he mastered himself; he stood straight and spoke clearly. “Your brothers?”

  “The slaves’ whelps: Vuad and Sayel. And no doubt,” said Hirel, “Aranos from amid his priests and his sorcerers, although he would never stoop so low as to take part openly in the plot. That might jeopardize his claim to my place.”

  “It is rumored that Aranos will be named high prince when the time of mourning is past. It is also rumored that the princes are quarreling over the spoils.”

  “They are very certain that I am dead. What tale do they tell of that?”

  Varzun lowered his eyes, reluctant. Hirel waited. Slowly the old man said, “It was sickness, they say, my prince. Something swift and virulent, that made imperative the burning of your body and your belongings. They gave you a great funeral, with many sacrifices.”