A Fall of Princes Read online

  “There, priestess, you speak false. No servant of Night can abide the Sun.”

  “Is it so among your people?” She sounded both shocked and sad. “Is it all so twisted? Do you know nothing of the truth?”

  The hand with the apple in it whipped back. She sat still, clear-eyed, unfrightened. She looked horribly like Hirel.

  With a curse he spun away from her, flinging the apple with all his strength. It arced high over the wall. He never heard it fall.

  “You know,” she said. “In your heart, you know. If you did not, you would not have come to Asanion.”

  A shudder racked him. “I came to stop a war.”

  “Just so.”

  He whirled. “You came to stop me. You find I can’t be ensorceled. You think I can be seduced. First with my brother; then with your body.”

  She laughed in pure mirth. “See what Avaryan’s vows can do to a man! If I seduced you, prince, it would not be to destroy you. It would be to heal you.”

  Asanian cant. It sickened him. “What makes you think that I could want you?”

  “In your condition,” she said with sweet malice, “any female would suffice.” She looked him up and down. “You will prosper in Kundri’j. The High Court will find even your rudeness delightful.”

  “I’m going to be allowed to get so far?”

  “We have labored long to see that you do.”

  “Why?”

  “Rude,” she mused to herself, “or perhaps simply unsubtle. And young; and ill taught; and I think, though you are no coward, afraid. It is not easy to learn that all one believed in is a lie.”

  “Not all,” he whispered.

  “Most.” She laced her fingers in her lap. “I am not what you expected, am I? I am almost human.”

  “Your power stands against all that I am.”

  “Does it? Have you ever encountered a true darkmage?”

  “I have taken the power of one. I slew his ally; she took my power with her. She was,” said Sarevan tightly, “very like you.”

  “They were a testing. You failed it.”

  He shut his eyes. His fists were clenched. He should turn and walk away, for his soul’s sake. He could not. “I have faced an Eye of Power. It was evil beyond conceiving. No sane mind could endure it, still less hope to wield it.”

  “Not all power is either easy or pleasant. Some of it must be neither, just as the summer requires winter’s cold for its fulfillment.”

  That was the truth of his dream. She mocked it. For if she did not, then all that he had done had been to serve the dark, and he was worse than a traitor: he had betrayed his god.

  “We of the Mageguild know what is,” she said, “and what must be. I tell you a secret, Sun-prince. Every mage is one of two. Every initiate is chosen by a facet of the power, dark or light; and every one finds his match in another who is his opposite.”

  His eyes snapped open.

  “So,” she said, “are we complete. No dark without light. No light without dark. Balance, always.”

  “Then the other priest—is—”

  “My brother. My other self.”

  He tossed his head. His voice shook; he could not steady it. “You should not have told me that.”

  “You will not betray us.”

  He laughed. It was half a sob. “I am the blackest traitor who has ever been.”

  “I trust you,” she said. She stood and bowed in Asanian fashion, hands to breast. “Good night, high prince. May the darkness give you rest.”

  Sarevan gasped, shuddered. When he had his voice again, she was gone.

  SIXTEEN

  They called her queen of cities, heart of the Golden Empire, most ancient of the dwellings of mankind, sacred whore, bride of emperors, throne of the gods: Kundri’j Asan. She sprawled across the plain of Greatflood, Shahriz’uan the mighty that bore the heart’s blood of Asanion, flowing from the wastes of ice to the Burning Sea.

  There was no greater city, none older and none more beautiful. Its walls were ninefold, sheathed each in precious stone: white marble, black marble, lapis, carnelian, jasper, malachite and ice-blue agate; and the eighth was silver, and the ninth was gold.

  Within the circles of the city were a thousand temples, domes and spires crusted with jewels and with gold, and among them the mansions of princes, the hovels of paupers, the dwellings and the shops, the forges and the markets, tanneries, perfumeries, silkweavers and netweavers, stables and mews and shambles, side by side and interwoven in the ordered disorder of a living thing.

  Sarevan saw little enough of it, his first day in it. Aranos entered it like a storm off the plains, cleaving its crowds, thundering up the Processional Way on which none might ride but princes or the followings of princes.

  They were not acclaimed as a high lord would be in Keruvarion. Silence was Asanian reverence. It was eerie to Varyani senses to ride in that wave of stillness; to be the only clamor within their ears’ reach. And as far as their eyes could stretch, only a sea of bent backs, bowed heads, bodies prostrate on the stones.

  The Golden Palace opened to embrace them. Its arms were splendid and cold. Its secrets were impenetrable.

  o0o

  Not for long, Sarevan promised himself. He had to leave Bregalan, who was not pleased; he had Aranos’ word of honor that the stallion would be accorded the reverence due a king. Ulan and Zha’dan clung close to him, pressing against him, darting wary glances from under lowered brows.

  They were led in haste to Aranos’ chambers and there secluded, with picked guards at the door. Aranos left them with a warning. “Be free of these rooms,” he said. “But do not wander abroad, nor eat nor drink aught but what these my slaves shall bring you.”

  None of them answered him. Hirel stood very still and watched him go. Then, slowly, he turned about.

  Sarevan nearly forgot all his wisdom. Came perilously close to pulling the boy into his arms: stroking him, shaking him, shouting at him—anything to warm that slowly chilling face.

  A great anger rose to fill Sarevan’s soul. It was not his wonted, fiery temper, as swiftly calmed as provoked. It was cold; it was bitter. It found its echo and its spur in Hirel’s eyes.

  No man should live the life these chambers spoke of. Splendid, remote, and chill. Forbidden human warmth, forbidden even the touch of a hand, because he was royal, because he was sacred, because he would be emperor, and the emperor must be more than a man.

  And less. As the image of a god is more, because it stands high and apart in its perfection. As that same image is less, because it has no heart. It is only gilded stone. Lifeless and soulless, mere empty beauty, cold to the touch and comfortless.

  Flesh yielded under Sarevan’s fingers; blood pulsed, muscle tautened in resistance. But the eyes were jet and amber. “Let me go,” said Hirel.

  “I will not,” said Sarevan.

  The eyes measured him. He knew to the last degree what their judgment would be. Outlander; barbarian. Blatant and improbable mongrel. Mage who had been, cripple who was. And against all of that: Prince. Emperor’s son. Son of the son of a god.

  He was, perhaps, worthy to kiss one of those slender and surpassingly comely feet.

  Sarevan laughed suddenly, opened his hands, dealt the boy a cuff that was half a caress. “Cubling, stop trying to glare down your nose at me.”

  Hirel’s nostrils flared. “You—”

  “Bastard?” Sarevan suggested helpfully. “Son of a hound? Slave’s whelp? Sensible man?”

  “Sensible man!” Hirel spat the words. Caught himself. Struggled for composure. Failed dismally. “You?”

  “Are you? You let Aranos bring us to this place, after all. What were you hoping for? That the rest of your brothers would be here to arrange your convenient disposal?”

  “Aranos may have gone to do just that.” But Hirel was calming, and not into that cold and terrible stillness. He turned about again, more quickly than before. “I have never been here,” he said.

  “What, never?�
�

  Sarevan won a burning glance. It comforted him. “Are yours different?” he asked.

  Hirel shrugged. “Mine are white and gold. And larger, a little. He is Second Prince before the Golden Throne. I am high prince. Will be. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Sarevan agreed, setting all his confidence in it.

  o0o

  They wandered through the rooms. They were somber in their splendor, black and silver and midnight blue. There were very many of them.

  Zha’dan was round-eyed. “Ostentatious,” Sarevan said to him, deprecating room on room of nothing but clothing.

  One whole chamber held only gloves. Gloves for dancing. Gloves for riding in one’s chariot. Gloves that were all a crust of jewels, for dazzling the High Court. Gloves that were finer than gossamer, for receiving one’s concubines.

  “For receiving one’s concubines?” Sarevan repeated, holding one up to the lamp’s light. It was like a doll’s glove, tiny and perfect and utterly absurd.

  Hirel snatched it out of his hand and flung it against the wall. “Do not mock what you cannot understand!”

  They stared at him. He seemed to have forgotten them.

  He confronted a mirror. It reflected a young man in plain armor with the dust of travel thick upon him, and his face white beneath it, and his eyes wild. “Look at me,” he said.

  They were mute, staring. Hirel raised a clenched fist, bit down hard.

  Blood sprang, sudden and frightening. He did not heed it. He drew breath, shuddering. “I shall be a disgrace. They will mock me, all of them. My head shorn, my body grown lank and awkward, my voice less sweet than a raven’s. I have dwelt among the lowborn; I have broken bread with them. I have walked in the sun, all bare, and the sun has stained me. And I have touched—I have touched—”

  Sarevan did not stop to think. He pulled him in. Stroked him, shook him, murmured words forgotten before they were spoken.

  Hirel suffered it. For a very little while he clung, trembling.

  He stiffened. Sarevan let him go.

  His hand was still bleeding. He sucked on it; saw what he was doing; thrust it down. “You see,” he said, faint and bitter. “I am not worthy.”

  “You’re more worthy of princehood now than you ever were.” Sarevan took the wounded hand between his own. “Listen to me, Hirel Uverias. You’ve changed, yes. Inevitably. You’ve grown. The child I found in a fernbrake was a soft thing, plump and pretty like a lady’s lapcat. Even after his few days’ suffering, he knew surely that the world belonged to him; he was the center of it, and all the rest existed to serve him. He was an insufferable little creature. I had all I could do not to throw him across my knee and spank him soundly.”

  Hirel flung up his head in outrage. But he did not say what once he would have said.

  Sarevan saluted him, not all in mockery. “You see? You’re not a man yet, not by a long road, but you’re well started on it. You’ll certainly make a prince.”

  Hirel’s lips thinned. He raised his chin minutely. He began to speak; stopped. He spun on his heel and stalked toward the outer rooms and Aranos’ slaves and a bath and food and a bed for his weary body.

  o0o

  The slaves had no little to endure. Hirel they seemed delighted to serve, but the outlanders and the great cat both shocked and terrified them.

  Sarevan began it in the bath, by stripping and plunging into the enormous basin and swimming from end to end of it. Hirel, being scoured clean on the grate beside the pool, allowed himself the shadow of a grin.

  Sarevan folded his arms on the basin’s rim and floated, and grinned back. Zha’dan was watching the scrubbing and the pumicing with real dismay.

  One or two of the slaves eyed him; one had a razor in hand. Zha’dan took refuge with Sarevan in the pool.

  “He hardly has any fleece yet,” the Zhil’ari said of Hirel, “and look: they’re taking it. How can he let them?”

  “It’s the custom here,” said Sarevan.

  “Not for us!”

  “Certainly not,” Sarevan said, baring his teeth at the slave with the razor. The eunuch blanched and backed away. “We’re outland princes. We keep our own customs.”

  “If that’s so,” said Zha’dan, “I want a kilt. And paint. And gauds. I want to look like a man again.”

  Aranos’ slaves were ingenious: they found all three. Sarevan did his braids for him. It was not a thing a slave could do; it were best done by a lover.

  A Sun-prince sufficed. Zha’dan was almost purring, at ease with himself for the first time since he came to Endros Avaryan.

  His contentment coaxed a smile out of Hirel, which passed too quickly. The boy would not eat, though he would drink: too much, to Sarevan’s mind. He would not hear of stopping. When Sarevan pressed, Hirel drove them all out, cursing them with acid softness.

  Sarevan let himself be driven. Hirel was in no mood to accept any comfort that he could give. Perhaps wine and solitude would calm him; steel him to face what on the morrow he must face.

  o0o

  The bed to which Sarevan was led was a very comfortable one, a proper eastern bed hung on a frame of sweetwood and covered with scarlet silk. Sarevan buried himself in it. Ulan poured himself across the foot of it. Zha’dan set himself, as was his wont, across the door.

  Sarevan worked his toes into Ulan’s thick fur and sighed. Tonight, he thought, he could sleep. It made him smile, though with a touch of bitterness. They said it of his father: he always slept in perfect peace before a battle.

  He did not want to think of his father, whom tomorrow he would betray before the High Court of Asanion.

  He rubbed the healing skin beneath his beard, lazily, yawning. His eyelids fell of their own weight.

  A supple body lay beside him. Wise fingers found the knots of tension in his back. Warm lips followed, and a nip of teeth.

  Sarevan thrust himself up on his hands. “Damn it, who told them I wanted—”

  Hirel slid beneath him, all gold in the nightlamp’s glow. Sarevan pulled away with tight-leashed violence. “What are you doing here? Zha’dan’s not here; he’s over yonder. Get out of my bed!”

  “Prince,” said Hirel, and he sounded not at all like the boy whom Sarevan had thought he knew. This was a man, weary to exhaustion, with no strength left for temper. “Prince, forbear. Or I swear to you, I will weep, and if I weep you will see me do it, and if you see me I will hate you for it.”

  The tears had already begun. Sarevan wanted to groan aloud, thrust the young demon away from him, shout for Zha’dan. Who could give Hirel what he wanted; what he needed on this night of all nights. Who could dry those damnable tears.

  Hirel buried his face in Sarevan’s shoulder and clung. Sarevan’s arms went around him. He was fever-warm; his skin was silken. He smelled of wine and musk and clean young body.

  He was slender and strong, like a warrior woman. But he was no woman at all.

  He was an Asanian courtesan, and he knew precisely what he was doing.

  Sarevan lifted him bodily and bore him to the door, kneeling burdened beside Zha’dan. The Zhil’ari lay motionless, wide-eyed. Sarevan pried the arms from about his neck and held them away from him, meeting the burning golden stare. “You know I can’t,” he said.

  Hirel tore his right arm free and struck, backhanded. Sarevan swayed with the blow. “You are no man,” Hirel spat at him. “Virgin. Limpyard. Eunuch!”

  “When the wine’s worn off, little brother, you’re going to be sorry you let it rule you.” Sarevan let go the boy’s left arm. It did not strike. He brushed away a tear that crept down the rigid cheek.

  Hirel shivered convulsively. “Damn you,” he said. “Oh, damn you.”

  Sarevan stood. “Zha’dan. Love him for me.”

  He turned. It was wrenchingly hard. His torque, gold and iron both, was strangling him. He cast himself down and cursed them all.

  o0o

  Sarevan had seen splendor. He had seen the festivals with which the Sunborn had re
galed his armies. He had seen the lords of Keruvarion riding in triumph to the Feast of the Peace that ended the great wars in the empire. He had seen the consecration of Endros Avaryan, and the games of High Summer there every year after, and his own confirmation as High Prince of the Sun.

  He had seen splendor. This did not blind him, but it widened his eyes a little. The Asanians granted to the gateway of autumn that preeminence which belonged in Keruvarion to the gateway of summer.

  Then were all the gods worshipped. Boys became men, girls became women; marriages were made, children named and presented in the temples, heirs proclaimed and lordships allotted and princes taken into their princedoms. The emperor held full court in the great hall of his palace, the Hall of the Thousand Years with its thousand carven pillars upholding a roof of gold.

  So huge was that hall that an army could array itself therein; armies had, for festivals, for the pleasure of emperors: even mounted warriors whirling on the sand that lay beneath the inlaid panels of the floor. At the hall’s farthest extent the panels were lifted from a moat of glittering sand: dust of gold, and a kingdom’s worth of jewels crushed and strewn beneath the armored feet of a hundred knights. These were the Golden Guard of the Golden Throne, princes of the princes of Olenyai, a living wall about their emperor.

  He sat alone within the circle of his knights, raised high upon his throne. It was no eastern chair but a great bowl of gold set upon the backs of golden lions. Even its cushions were of cloth of gold. He sat erect, banked in them, a golden image, masked and crowned and robed in the ninefold robe of the highest of all kings.

  His sons held the foremost rank of the court, and Aranos foremost of them, standing with his guards and his mages and his priests before the emperor’s face, three spearlengths from the Golden Guard. The prince wore full court dress, almost too heavy to stand in: the robe of seven thicknesses to which his rank entitled him, with its hood woven of gold and silk laid on his shoulders, baring his artfully painted face. He was expected to stand but permitted to lean on the arms of his two most favored mages.