Spear of Heaven Page 6

  “It is strange,” Talian agreed, “like everything else here. They don’t have mages, either.”

  “Everyone has mages,” said Vanyi. “How can they help it? Even where there’s no Guild to teach the spells, mages are born, and grow up to wield the lightnings.”

  “There are none here,” said Talian.

  “None that anyone will admit to, you’re saying.” Vanyi frowned at the map. “Suppression, then. Witch-hunts, I’d wager. Children disposed of when they begin to show the gifts.”

  “It could be, lady,” Talian said. “They are afraid of magic; they won’t talk about it, or let it be mentioned.”

  “It took mages to break the Gates,” said Vanyi.

  “But need they have been native mages?” Chakan met her glare with limpid eyes. “Consider, lady. Between the Mageguild and the priesthood of god and goddess, our part of the world has made magery a known and regimented thing. We take it for granted. Here in Merukarion, how do we know what’s common and what’s not? The gift might not appear here, for whatever reason. If there are mages, who’s to say they’re not renegades of our own country, who hate the Guild and mean to break it as they can?”

  “Possible,” said Vanyi. “But my bones don’t think so. They tell me it’s something else, something that comes out of here.” Her finger tapped the map where it marked the kingdom of Shurakan. “Tell me about the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  The Guardian looked briefly rebellious, as if she wanted to remind the Guildmaster that she had been told everything that anyone knew. But she controlled herself. Maybe she reflected that everyone here might not have shared the counsels of the Guild, and that they should know what they confronted before they went out to face it.

  “The Kingdom of Heaven,” she said after a pause, in the tone of one teaching a lesson to a circle of intelligent children, “is called Su-Shaklan in their language. Our tongues are more comfortable calling it Shurakan. It keeps to itself, people say here, to the point that while it permits foreigners to pass its guarded gates, it does so only on sufferance, and never allows them to stay past a certain fixed term. That varies according to the purpose for which the strangers come. Ambassadors may linger a season; two, if they come too near the winter, when the passes are shut and the mountains impenetrable till spring.”

  “Why are they so wary?” asked Chakan. “Have they had enemies so bitter that they fear all strangers?”

  “I think not,” Vanyi said. “Consider where they are. Here are the mountains, so high they touch the sky—there’s no air to breathe, it’s said, and anyone who climbs so high, unless he’s a mage and spell-guarded, will die. And they have no mages, we’re told. And here’s their kingdom, a valley no larger than a barony in our empire, and a small one at that. It’s green, warm, rich, everything that’s blessed, and more so after the barrenness of the mountains. They’ve made themselves a haven, difficult to reach, small enough to crowd quickly. Strangers would be rare there, but when they came, they’d threaten to strain the little space, and drive its people out by simple force of numbers.”

  “And,” said Talian, “their minds are walled as high as their country. They’re afraid of new things, strange things. Their kingdom is old—ancient, they say—and set in its ways. And they fear and hate magic. Their first rulers were a god’s children, king and queen, brother and sister, who fled some calamity that had to do with magic, and led their people to the valley, and set up a kingdom that would be forever free of the taint. The word for magic in their language is the word for evil, and for the excrement of their oxen.”

  The mages were appalled. Chakan laughed.

  He caught Vanyi’s eye and sobered, if only a little. “Well, Guildmaster. There’s your reason for the breaking of Gates, however they went about it. How in the million worlds did they let one be set up there at all?”

  “There is a faction in their court,” Vanyi said, “that wants to be sensible, not to mention practical, about the existence and practice of magic. It’s a heresy, I suppose, but it’s strong, and it’s been ruling Shurakan. Its leaders welcomed our mages and allowed them to raise the Gate.”

  “Ah,” said Chakan slowly. “So. This, you didn’t tell the emperor.”

  “Or me,” said Daruya, startling them all. They had forgotten her, as quiet as she had been, sitting in a corner with her daughter playing at her feet. “If you had, my grandfather would never have let me come here even before the Gate fell. He wouldn’t have given you a company of his Olenyai, either.”

  “No,” said Vanyi. “He would have wanted to come himself with an army at his back, and whole temples full of priest-mages to bring the Shurakani round to the error of their religion.”

  “He is not as bad as that,” Daruya said stiffly. “A company of cavalry, yes, he would have wanted that, and more Olenyai. And a priest-mage or two, such as he is himself, in case you forget.”

  “And himself,” said Vanyi. “There’s the trouble, child. He’d have insisted that he was the only right and proper ambassador to such a benighted people, and run right over me, too, because he is strong enough to do that. He’d want to conquer these people as he conquered the whole of our half of the world, because it’s in his blood to do exactly that. How not? He’s the god’s child. He was born to rule the world.”

  “And I wasn’t?”

  Vanyi faced her full on. “You, I think, for all your crotchets and your persistent conviction that you have to be a scandal in order to be noticed, are at heart a more reasonable creature than he is. And if you aren’t, you’ll refuse to conquer Shurakan simply because your grandfather would conquer it—purely for its own good, of course, and because he’s the god’s however-many great-grandson, supposing that you accept the dogma that Mirain An-Sh’Endor was the god’s son in truth and not the bastard-born offspring of a northern priestess and the Red Prince of Han-Gilen.”

  “They still repeat that slander?” Daruya was surprisingly calm about it. “Ah well. You explain this”—she flashed her golden hand, dazzling Vanyi briefly—“and then we consider who sowed the seed of the Sunborn. Meanwhile, what if I decide that I can’t resist the urge to be a conqueror, either?”

  “I doubt that,” said Vanyi. “Men conquer by force of arms. Women have other methods. Some of which I hope you’ll see fit to use.”

  Daruya eyed her narrowly. She gave nothing back to that stare but a bland expression and a faint smile.

  “He can’t come now,” said Daruya, “even to drag me back home in disgrace. By the time we have the Gates back up, we’ll have had time, I should think, to fend him off. Unless you’re going to give him a new war to fight, somewhere in his own empire?”

  “I should hope not,” Vanyi said tartly. “He can find his own war. His own places to meddle in, too.”

  “And a new heir?”

  The girl was trying to goad her into an indiscretion. Vanyi gave her smile a little more rein. “I suppose, if he had to, he could see to that for himself. With as many females as he has, flinging themselves at his feet—”

  “He does not!”

  Vanyi laughed aloud. “Oh, there’s nothing like a sinner for outraged virtue! Of course he does, silly child. I suppose he looks horribly old and decrepit to you, but to any woman who’s not his granddaughter, he’s a big beautiful panther of a man—and he brings with him a promise of empire. Many’s the woman who’d leap at the chance to bear a Sunlord’s heir. She’d have to wait to share the throne, but share it she certainly would, with the empress growing so frail.”

  For a moment Vanyi wondered if Daruya would spring. But she had more control than that, if not much more—not enough to find words that would suffice. Vanyi hoped that she had made the child think. It would do her good.

  In the barbed silence, Chakan said, “So. We’re to have guides through these mountains?”

  Talian answered him with evident relief. “Certainly. Pack animals, too—some of their hairy oxen.”

  Chakan raised a brow. “You found men here wh
o would endure the company of demons and dark gods?”

  “Some men,” said Talian stiffly, “are less superstitious than others. Even here. And greed is as potent an encouragement here as anywhere.”

  “Greed for gold?”

  “Gold isn’t what they crave,” said Talian.

  If Chakan found the Guardian’s coyness annoying, he showed no sign. His face of course was never to be seen by anybody but his brothers and, Vanyi was reasonably certain, Daruya, but his eyes were limpidly clear, betraying nothing but calm curiosity. “Oh? What do they value above gold?”

  “Silk,” said Talian. “Silk of Asanion, in the most gaudy colors imaginable. One bolt of it can buy a princedom here. Or a troop of guides through the mountains, with oxen and provisions.”

  “Remarkable,” said Chakan. “Silk, so precious? I wish I’d known that. I’d have brought a bolt or three to do my own trading with.”

  “Warriors will stoop to trade?” Talian asked, shocked out of discretion.

  Chakan’s eyes laughed. “Warriors do whatever they must do to win their wars. If the weapon of choice is silk—why, so be it.”

  Talian clearly did not know what to say to that. Vanyi found the silence blessed, but doubted that it could endure for long. She broke it herself before anyone else could be minded to try. “We leave as soon as we can be ready. The guards are waiting, I hope?”

  “They have been sent for,” said Talian.

  Poor child. She had not found any of them comfortable guests. Vanyi had a brief, wicked thought of commanding the girl to accompany her. But although she could be ruthless, she was not needlessly cruel. Talian was only a child, just past her making as a mage, when she gained no twinned power, became neither darkmage nor light, but showed herself for a Guardian of Gates.

  It was a false belief among the young mages that Guardians were weaker than twinned mages, lesser powers, mere servants of the Gates; but from the look of this one, she believed it. The Olenyai alarmed her. The Guildmaster rendered her near witless with terror.

  Vanyi took pity on her, after a fashion. “Fetch the guides here. If they’re to lead us where we want to go, it’s best they know now what we are—all of us at once.”

  “Demons, dark gods, and all,” said Chakan, impervious to her withering stare.

  oOo

  He, with his Olenyai, had eaten before they came in, when they could do it without the hindrance of veils. They had no breakfast to abandon. None of them was obvious about it, but now that Vanyi took the time to notice, they were standing idly, comfortably, casually, in a circle that encompassed both herself and the emperor’s heirs. There was a placid deadliness in the way they stood, hands well away from swordhilts, faces hidden behind the black veils, yellow eyes calm, fixed on nothing in particular.

  All but Chakan, who took an easy stance beside and just behind Daruya’s chair. Kimeri looked up from playing with what looked like a ball of string, and smiled.

  He did not do anything that Vanyi perceived, but the child got to her feet, dusted herself off conscientiously, and held up her hands. The Olenyas swung her whooping to his shoulders, where she sat like an empress on a throne.

  Vanyi wondered very briefly if there was more to that than anyone would admit—if the child had been fathered by the Olenyas. But her bones said not. If Olenyas and princess-heir had been lovers, it was utterly discreet and long over. They were guard and princess, friend and dear friend, or Vanyi was no judge. But nothing more than that.

  Pity, rather. An Olenyas in Daruya’s bed might be better protection than an army of mages.

  No one spoke while they waited for the Guardian to come back. The mages were still stunned by the Gate’s fall. Miyaz and Aledi seemed to cling together. Kadin, who had lost his lightmage, sat with them and yet irrevocably alone. He had eaten nothing, drunk little. His fine dark face was grey about the lips. His long fingers trembled as he picked up his cup, paused, set it back down again.

  Vanyi watched him but did not speak to him. It was too early yet. A mage who lost the half of himself died as often as not, either from grief or by his own hand.

  She did not think that this one would do that. He was a northerner, from Ianon itself that had been the Sunborn’s first kingdom. He had pride, and strength of spirit.

  The mark of his clan was painted fresh on his forehead—a good sign, even if it were no more than habit. His beard, that had been chest-long and plaited with gold, was cut short, his hair cropped to the skull in mourning. Again, good enough. He could have turned the blade against himself.

  They would all suffer if he did. Six mages and a master had been ample for the embassy that Vanyi had in mind. Three of them dead left the rest overburdened, even if Kadin came through this grief intact. If he did not . . .

  She would think of that when she had to. She let her eyes return to the map, tracing and retracing the ways they must take. Guides they might and must have, but she never trusted to one expedient if several would do.

  “Daruya,” she said abruptly. “Come here.”

  Daruya came, for a wonder; what was more, she seemed inclined to pay attention as Vanyi set about teaching her the map and the journey. But, thought Vanyi, this mattered to the girl. It touched her pride.

  Pride was useful in swaying kings, and kings’ heirs.

  8

  The guides were a woman and her three husbands. Daruya at first would not believe what her magery told her she was hearing; surely her gift of tongues was failing or turning antic. But the woman’s mind quite clearly perceived the three men with her as husbands—men who shared her bed and stood father to her children. They were brothers, sturdy-built middling-tall men like heavyset plainsmen, with bronze skin seared dark by sun and wind, and narrow black eyes, and black hair worn in cloth-wrapped plaits. Their wife was much like them, near as tall as they and quite as solid.

  She did the speaking for them all. Her name was Aku, which meant Flower; she named her husbands, but Daruya paid little attention. Names were not what they were. They were stolid, at least to look at, but there were festoons of amulets about their necks, and they eyed the Olenyai in what they fancied was well-concealed terror.

  The Olenyai, without the mages’ gift of tongues, had leisure to observe, and to be amused. Daruya hoped that one of them would not take it into his head to do or say something appropriately demonic, and lose them their guides before they even started.

  The woman seemed fearless enough. She was brusque, striking a hard bargain with Vanyi, whom she had singled out without prompting as the leader of the expedition. That spoke well for her perception, since Vanyi had not been trying to look conspicuous. The other mages in their robes— lightmage silver, darkmage violet—were far more impressive than she was in her plain coat and trousers and boots; and the Olenyai were alarming, faceless black shadow-men with golden demon-eyes. Vanyi could have been a servant, an old woman of no particular height or distinction apart from a certain air of whipcord toughness.

  But Aku knew, and for that, Vanyi let herself be haggled with. Daruya might have done it herself, for the matter of that, if she had had occasion. At the moment she seemed to have been included with the Olenyai in the class of demons, in the minds of the men, and as young and therefore insignificant in the mind of the woman.

  Old age held great power here. Daruya made note of that.

  At length the bargaining was concluded, the guides given half a bolt of scarlet silk in payment, the rest to follow at the end of the journey. Daruya rose in relief and gathered up Kimeri, who had fallen asleep in Chakan’s lap. Kimeri murmured, burrowed into Daruya’s shoulder, and went back to sleep again.

  “Poor baby,” said Chakan. “She hardly knows where or when she is.”

  “She knows it very well,” Daruya said. “She wore herself out, that’s all, creeping through the storm in the Gate.”

  He looked as if he would have said more, but he did not. She was glad. It frightened her that ki-Merian of all people was so docile and sl
eeping so much. She could find no wound in the child, of mind or body, nothing but tiredness and a desire to be near her mother. But that was disturbing enough. Kimeri was the least clinging of children, and the least inclined to sleep when she could be up and doing.

  Daruya did not want to say anything of that, even to Chakan whom she trusted. She busied herself with the flurry of departure—a last meal eaten in haste, farewells said to the Guardians, gathering and mounting and forming their caravan in the temple’s inner court. The seneldi were snorting and rolling their eyes at strangers, hairy oxen as Talian had called them: great shaggy beasts, taller than a tall senel, with broad curving sweeps of horns, and feet as broad as banquet-platters.

  There were four of them in the court, wearing harnesses that translated into saddles and bridles of a sort, as each guide approached his beast and mounted by climbing its harness like a ladder. He had only one rein, and a stick that he used to turn his massive mount and to drive it forward.

  Daruya, fascinated, almost forgot to mount her own fretting, head-tossing mare. Chakan passed Kimeri up to ride on her saddlebow, still asleep and dreaming peacefully of riding her pony in the empress’ perfume-garden. Once the mare felt the twofold weight she settled, though she still snorted at the oxen.

  Vanyi was speaking, not loudly but clear enough to be heard over the stamping and snorting of the animals. “We’re shadow-passing through the town for convenience’s sake—this many seneldi appearing from nowhere would raise a frightful riot. Daruya, will you anchor the casting?”

  That meant riding in the rear and securing the edge of the working. It also meant great trust, and a degree of concession that she had not expected so soon. She sat her mare nonplussed, until she found her tongue somewhere and put it to use. “I’ll ride anchor. Chakan, you, too. I can use you.”

  Vanyi’s approval was quick, sharp, and surprisingly warm. Daruya began to wonder exactly how surprised the Guildmaster had been to find her with them in the Gate—and exactly how unwelcome she had been.