A Fall of Princes Read online

  “Preposterous,” said Hirel.

  “Utterly.” Sarevan lay near the fire, and Ulan came to be his bolster. “When we come to Endros, you must meet Merian. My mother is fostering her, and I when I can be near her. She’s a very charming impossibility.”

  “You are impossible.” Hirel sat on his heels. Sarevan had closed his eyes. The lids were painted, following the tiger-patterning of the rest, so that his features seemed to blur and shift, eluding the steadiest stare.

  But if Hirel narrowed his eyes and glanced sidelong, he could see the bones thrusting high beneath the thin-stretched skin. That was not paint which paled Sarevan’s lips, nor dew which gleamed on his brow. For all his seeming ease, his body was taut, its trembling not quite invisible.

  Hirel blinked and found himself meeting Ulan’s eyes. The cat yawned. His tail twitched and raised and came to rest over Sarevan, protecting, guarding. Sarevan seemed to have slid into a doze.

  Hirel went away in silence, found what he needed, came back. As he touched sponge to the damp brow, Sarevan’s eyes snapped open. Hirel considered modes of unarmed combat. But Sarevan lay still.

  With oil and salve, then water with cleanroot rubbed in, Hirel washed away the paint. Then having done that, for thoroughness he bathed the rest, as if he were a servant; and Sarevan never said a word. Except, at the end: “You have light hands.”

  “Training,” said Hirel with a touch of irony. It helped to hide dismay. If he had looked on a dying man before the Zhil’ari found them, now he saw one all but dead.

  And yet Sarevan rode so well—pretended so well. How could he do that?

  “Because,” answered Sarevan when it burst out of Hirel, “I must.” He smiled, alarming as the grin of a skull. “I won’t die. When I come to Endros, my father will heal me. I’m certain of it.”

  It was well for him that he could be. Hirel lidded jars, wrung out sponges, emptied the basin into the roots of a tree. The sun had gone down at last; the stars were coming out, and Greatmoon waxing to the full, broad as a shield in the darkening sky.

  Savory scents hung over the camp where the Zhil’ari gathered and babbled and waited to be fed. The lovers were done, sitting by one another; the green-painted one oiled and braided the other’s hair.

  The lake was silver and black, glowing with the last of the light. A flock of water birds drifted and murmured, black-waked black shapes on the sheet of silver. Hirel dropped his garments and waded into the water’s sudden chill, drew a breath, plunged.

  Midway between the shore and the gathering of birds, he floated on his back. The air was cold on his wet face, the water warm about the rest of him. One lone splendid star stared down into his blurred eyes.

  Tonight he could do it. Take the striped mare and a sackful of food and run. Last night he had wandered, testing, and the sentry had only grinned and saluted him, taking no particular notice of his rovings.

  None of them seemed to know who Hirel was, or to care; nor did any keep watch. Feckless boys, all of them.

  Sarevan was too ill and too urgent to give chase for any great while. If Hirel slipped away as soon as everyone slept, and rode uncaught until morning, he would be safe thereafter.

  He turned onto his face and swam slowly to shore. In camp they were eating, and being uproarious about it. Hirel dried himself, pulled on his breeches, slung coat and cloth over his shoulder.

  There was meat on a spit still. Hirel slid around a savage who was not inclined to move. Laughter rumbled; Hirel spun, startled.

  The man looked down at him. Very far down. The eyes were dark in the gaudy face, taking Hirel in at leisure and with unmistakable intent. Hirel bared his teeth, which were very sharp, and let the hulking lout choose whether to call it a grin or a snarl.

  The eyes began to glitter. A hand closed around Hirel’s privates. With all his strength he held himself still, though his teeth set. “Let me go,” he said.

  The savage let go, not without a bit of fondling. He said something; the others laughed.

  Hirel’s fingers clawed. The man grinned all over his harlequin face, and went to fill it with roast wildbuck.

  “He said,” said Sarevan, “that for some things a dagger is more effective than a broadsword.”

  “Would he know?” Hirel retrieved the spit and addressed himself to its savory burden.

  o0o

  Azhuran’s hellions drank and copulated and caterwauled themselves toward sleep. Sarevan, having eaten—yes, Ulan was getting most of it, even under Zha’dan’s reproachful eye—rolled himself in his blanket and closed his eyes.

  Hirel lay down as if at random some little distance from the fire’s light, and pretended to sleep. One by one the others succumbed.

  Hirel waited. Sleep crept up on him; he beat it back with a litany. Asanion. Asanion and the Golden Palace, and his royalty restored.

  With infinite slowness the fire died. The last rowdy youth dropped like a stone, cup rolling from his hand.

  Hirel counted, and almost crowed. Their sentry had come back to eat, and had tarried to finish the last of the mares’-milk wine, and they had forgotten to post another. They were all asleep in a tangle by the embers.

  Hirel drew a breath. No one stirred. Inch by inch he drew his blanket over his head. Waited. No sound but snoring.

  Dark-swathed, veiled in night, Hirel crept away from the sleepers. The seneldi grazed near the lake, loose as these tribesmen liked to leave them, trusting to the training that kept each beast within sight of its master.

  The saddle was still in the brush where Hirel had hidden it, and the bridle, and the waterskin and the laden saddlebags. He rolled his blanket and bound it to the saddle, and, taking a bit of fruit, went to find the mare.

  Darkness surged out of the earth, rolled over him, threw him down on the cruel hardness of defeat.

  “I thought you’d try it tonight,” Sarevan said, dropping to one knee beside the massive shadow that was Ulan. Greatmoon made his face a featureless darkness; his eyes gleamed in it like an animal’s, his teeth flashing white as he spoke. He seemed more amused than not. “A brave effort, cubling, but alas, perfectly predictable. Ulan, let him up.”

  Hirel rose slowly, judging distances. One of the stallions was close enough to—

  “Don’t even think of it,” Sarevan said softly.

  “So that was a lie,” Hirel said. “You still have your magic. You can read my mind.”

  “I can read your eyes. And your face. And your body. I fear I’ll have to bind you, for a little while. Until we’ve gone too far to make escape worth the trouble.”

  “Then you will have to drag me in chains all the way to Endros Avaryan.”

  “I brought no chains. Leather thongs will have to do.” Sarevan bound Hirel’s hands in front of him, firmly though not cruelly, and led him back to the fire.

  No one woke to see. No one needed to. Even the bonds were not entirely necessary: Ulan set himself by Hirel, and Hirel raged and wept behind his frozen face, but he did not fancy bolting for it with the cat on his heels.

  Sarevan laid his head on Ulan’s flank and went to sleep. Hirel sat wide-eyed, motionless, and watched the sky wheel into dawn.

  Long before then, he was certain. Sarevan had plotted this. To test Hirel. To seal his captivity.

  And Hirel had been within a whisper’s span of pitying him, racked with sickness as he was, bereft of his bright magic.

  o0o

  Sarevan did not make good his threat. In the grey morning he loosed Hirel’s bonds and said, “If you will give me your word, I will let you ride free.”

  Hirel flexed his stiff shoulders, eyes burning on that hated, mongrel face. It waited without expression. Would wait until the sun fell, in perfect patience.

  Hirel’s gaze dropped. “Yes,” he muttered. “I give it.”

  “It is accepted.”

  Then Hirel was forgotten, left to gather his belongings and tend his mount and fall into the line of riders. Sarevan led, as always; Ulan kept pace with
him. The others rode in no perceptible order, except that Hirel took care to hold the rear.

  They left the lake, winding up a steep wooded ridge, and wound down into a long valley. Trees closed in, but the valley’s center was clear, like the last gasp of a road: grass and stones and stretches of barren earth.

  Toward midday the vale bent westward, rising into a long gentle slope lightly furred with trees. Stones crowned the hill, a rough circle that held a suggestion of men’s hands, but hands long fallen to dust.

  Hirel slowed his mare as if to stare. No one noticed. He let the gap widen. Sarevan was far ahead, striking for the eastward ridge, and Ulan loped in front of him.

  Hirel clapped heels to his mare’s sides, bending over her neck. She bolted toward the hill.

  Behind them, a shout went up. Hirel lashed the mare with the rein-ends; she shifted from flat gallop to full flight.

  They were far behind, all his jailers. Hirel grinned into the teeth of the wind.

  His jubilation shuddered and died. A grey shadow flowed over the ground, and its eyes were green fire. It was closing. Angling. Moving to cut him off.

  “No,” he said, not loudly. He bent lower still, singing into the flattened ear, praising, cursing, willing the mare onward. Up the hill. Up.

  She stumbled. He caught her, bearing her up by main force, driving her forward.

  Ulan filled the corner of his eye. The great jaws gaped; the white fangs gleamed.

  The stones. If Hirel could only come to the stones, he could defend himself. Before he fell. As he must. Damn that unnatural cat to the hell that had spawned it.

  The circle floated before him. Avaryan sat above the tallest stone and laughed, a great booming roar, filling Hirel’s brain.

  Even in his desperation he could reflect that he was at a sore disadvantage: he had no god to set against this flaming monstrosity. Logic was a poor defense; philosophy crumbled like a tower of sand. And all Asanion’s thousand gods were but a tale to frighten children.

  The mare veered. Ulan’s jaws clashed shut where her throat had been. Hirel fought with rein and leg, beating her back toward the west.

  She struggled, stiff-legged, throwing up her head. Ulan snarled. She went utterly mad.

  Slowly, leisurely, Hirel wheeled through the air. The earth was a bitter shock. Sharp cloven hooves flailed about him. He could only lie and gasp and wait to die.

  A blur of fire and shadow became Sarevan’s face. Hirel sucked in blessed air. Sarevan’s expression, a cool corner of his mind observed, did not bode well for him. He had seen it once ablaze with temper, and that had been frightening. But this cold stillness was more deadly by far.

  Little by little his lungs remembered their office. The rest of him was bruised but unbroken.

  He sat up shakily. No hand came to his aid. They were all mounted, staring, save for Sarevan on one knee beside him.

  Sarevan watched with eyes that granted him nothing. Not mercy, not fury, not even contempt.

  Hirel rose dizzily, swallowing bile. He was eye to eye with Sarevan. In spite of themselves, his fists had clenched.

  At last the Varyani prince spoke, soft and cold. “You gave me your word.”

  Hirel laughed, though it made his head throb. “I do not waste honor on animals.”

  This silence stretched longer even than the one before. Longer, colder, and more terrible.

  Sarevan stood. He towered like the standing stones, like the god enthroned upon them. He raised a hand.

  The Zhil’ari who came at the signal had no illusions of gentleness. He bound Hirel’s hands behind him, a tightness just short of pain, and set him in the saddle of the lathered and trembling mare, and bound his feet together beneath her belly.

  Taking the reins, he mounted his own tall stallion. Sarevan was astride, waiting. They turned again toward the east.

  SIX

  It was not hurting in the proper places.

  Hirel steeled himself to endure his bonds. He had earned them; he bore them as brands of pride, that he was neither coward nor traitor to ride tamely into his enemy’s stronghold. After the first grueling hours his captors relented, securing him by his hands only, and those in front of him.

  He could suffer the constant watch by day and by night. He could face his guards without rancor, the more for that they bore him none of their own.

  Indeed, they looked on him with something close to respect. They saw that he was fed, that he was clean, that his needs were looked after.

  “You tried,” Zha’dan said once. “That’s the act of a man.”

  No, it was not his captivity that hurt. It was the chief of his captors. Only Sarevan never spoke to him or went near him or deigned to take notice of him.

  The others would be enemies if war compelled it, but they bore Hirel himself no ill-will. Sarevan did not merely hate Hirel; he despised him.

  And what had Hirel done, that Sarevan himself had not equaled or surpassed? He was a fool and a child to be so outraged; and Hirel was mad to be so troubled by it. It should not matter. They had been born to be enemies, the sons of two emperors in a world wide enough only for one. Their meeting and their companionship had been scarred with contention. They would come together inevitably in war, that last battle which would raise one throne where now were two.

  Yet it did matter. Hirel did not like Sarevan, had never liked him. Nothing so harmless or so simple.

  This estrangement, this cold distance, with Sarevan riding always ahead, growing thinner and frailer, fighting harder with each hour to remain erect and astride—Hirel wanted to burst his damnable bonds and kick his mare to the red stallion’s side and rail at the fool until he smiled his white smile and bowed his haughty head and let himself be carried.

  Or at least until he acknowledged Hirel’s existence. And let someone, anyone, bolster his waning strength.

  o0o

  Sarevan entered the Hundred Realms like a shadow of death, but he entered them alive and breathing and guiding his own senel. In one thing only he had yielded to necessity: he had bidden his Zhil’ari to tie him to the saddle.

  They did not like it, but they obeyed. They understood that kind of pride.

  Hirel had it. It had held him aloof and silent, royalty imprisoned but never diminished. It brought him at last to a crux. If he must go in bonds to Endros Avaryan, he would not go with Sarevan’s contempt on his head.

  Fool or madman or no, Sarevan was a prince. That much, Hirel would grant him. Princes could be enemies, could hate one another with just and proper passion, but scorn diminished them both.

  Greatmoon, waning, still filled the sky. Though this was a richly peopled country, the company had camped at a distance from the last town.

  Sarevan had no wish to be slowed by the duties of a prince. He wore again his paints and his finery, and such a welter of gauds in his hair and beard that their color was scarcely distinguishable.

  Riding in the midst of his savages, with Ulan wandering where he would, even on the highroad the prince was scarcely remarked. Hirel won far more stares, with his High Asanian face and his Zhil’ari fripperies and his bound hands. People ogled the wild barbarians; they spat on the yellow spy. Sarevan they did not know at all.

  o0o

  Even so, he did not test his disguise in inn or hall. This night they had fish from the swift icy stream, and bread which they had had of a farmwife going to market; and Zha’dan made a broth of herbs and grain and the long-eared kimouri that Ulan brought from his hunting, and coaxed it into Sarevan.

  Hirel watched from across the firepit. Sarevan could not feed himself; he could barely swallow.

  He was no more than skin stretched over bone. As he lay propped against his saddle, only his eyes seemed alive; and those were dim, clouded. He was not fighting his nursemaid. He had no strength for it.

  Hirel stood. Rokan was his guardhound tonight, he of the crimson paint; the Zhil’ari watched but did not hinder as Hirel skirted the fire.

  Sarevan did not see him
. Would not.

  He sank down beside the prince, letting his bound hands rest on his knee. Zha’dan acknowledged him with a glance. Sarevan was as still as before, but the air around him had chilled.

  Zha’dan lowered the bowl. It was scarcely touched. His finger brushed the bandage on Sarevan’s shoulder. It was new, clean, startlingly white.

  “It’s festering,” he said, not trying to be quiet. “He’s been hiding it. Keeping anyone from looking, till I noticed that the wrappings hadn’t been changed in days. It needs cautery; he won’t let me. He’d rather lose his arm than chance a little pain. Maybe he figures to die first.”

  “Only cautery?” Hirel asked, reckoning days, and the little he knew of such wounds, from when a slave had pierced himself with an awl in the stable. The man’s arm had swelled, and streaked red and then black, and begun to stink; he had lost the arm, but he had died. The surgeon had waited too long to cut.

  One could not see the poison’s spreading on skin the color of nightwings. But one might be able to feel the heat of it.

  Bound, Hirel was awkward. He did not try to unwrap the bandage. His fingers searched round about it. The skin was dry, taut, fever-hot, but fevered everywhere the same. It did not flinch away from him.

  “If it has spread,” Hirel said to Zha’dan, “it has not spread far.”

  “Must you discuss me as if I were already dead?”

  Hirel was careful not to start or stare or blurt out something unwise. He favored Sarevan with a cool regard, and rebuked his heart for singing. “Would you rather we went away and whispered?”

  The dark eyes were clear and perhaps not altogether unyielding. “I do not fancy hot iron in my shoulder. My father will heal it more gently and much more completely.”

  “Your father will heal everything, it seems. If you get so far.”

  “I mean to,” said Sarevan.

  “He will fulfill your expectations, or he will answer to me.”

  The eyes widened. “What right have you—”

  Hirel held that burning stare and made it fall. “There is,” he said levelly, “a debt or two. And the issue of . . . comradeship.”