A Fall of Princes (5 page)

He could not see. He could not think. He could not—

A strong arm swept him up. Hooves and horns and seneldi
bellings ramped where he had been, clove a path through the press, and
vanished.

Hirel’s arms had locked about Sarevan’s neck. His breath
came in quick hard gasps. “Take,” he forced out. “Take me—”

Sarevan wasted no words. He breasted the crowd, and no one
touched him; and in a blessed while the crowd was gone.

Hirel raised his head, blinking. It was dark. Sarevan was
speaking. “A room, a bath, and wine. Silver for you if you are quick, gold if
you fly.”

Slowly Hirel focused. They were in a wide room, surrounded
by carpets, cushions, tables, an effluvium of ale. An inn.

Eyes glittered out of the gloom, many eyes, every patron
struck dumb it seemed by the spectacle at the door. One man stood close: a
round buttery creature with an astonishingly sour face. “Show me your silver,”
he said.

Sarevan’s grip shifted on Hirel, and Hirel thought he saw a
glint of gold. Certainly the innkeeper saw something that satisfied him.
“Come,” he said.

The room was tiny, no more than a crevice in the roof;
Sarevan could stand erect only in the center. But it was clean, it had a window
that opened after a blow or two of the barbarian’s fist, and its bed-cushions
were deep enough to drown in. The bath when it came was hot and capacious, the
wine cool and sweet, and cakes came with it, and dumplings filled with meat and
grain and fruit, and a dish of soft herbed cheese.

“No,” Sarevan was saying, “it’s not catching. He’s always
been delicate, and the excitement of the festival . . . you
understand. With these thoroughbreds, one has to take such care, but the beauty
is worth much; and he serves me well, in his way.”

Hirel fought his way back to full awareness in time to see
the innkeeper’s leer, and the closing of the door upon it. He lay in the deep
soft nest of the bed, and he was wrapped in a drying-cloth, damp still from a
bath he could hardly remember, with the taste of wine on his tongue. The
innkeeper had been ogling him. The mongrel had said—

“How dare you call me your slave.”

“Would you rather I called you my catamite?” Sarevan
inquired.

“You did just that!”

“Hush,” Sarevan said as to a fretful child.

Hirel raised his voice in earnest. “May all the gods damn
you to—”

A hand clapped over his mouth. “The gods do not exist,” the
priest reminded him with poisonous sweetness.

He choked and gasped and twisted, and found the edge of that
quelling hand, and bit hard.

He won all he could have wished for. Sarevan’s breath left
him in a rush; his hand snapped back.

Hirel stared. The priest’s skin was not opaque at all. It
was like black glass; and a corpse-light burned ghastly beneath. His lips were
grey as ash.

But Hirel had not even drawn blood.

Sarevan withdrew as far as he might, which was only a step
or two. His hand trembled; he thrust it behind him.

It was his right hand. Hirel committed that to memory. This
man of limitless strength and overweening arrogance had a weakness, and it was
enormous and it was utterly inexplicable, and it was worth bearing in mind. It
evened the score, somewhat.

“Cubling,” Sarevan said, and his voice did not come easily,
“did your teachers never instruct you in proper and honorable combat?”

“With proper and honorable opponents,” Hirel answered,
“yes.”

Sarevan tilted his head. Considered. Bared his white teeth
and saluted left-handed, as a swordsman would concede a match.

“And I am not your servant,” Hirel said.

“So then, you are my catamite.”

Hirel hissed at him. He shook out his hair, laughing almost
freely, and availed himself of the cooling bath.

Hirel slept a little. When he woke, Sarevan was gone.

He knew a moment’s panic; then he saw the worn leather of
the priest’s scrip hanging from a peg by the bed. Everything was in it, even
the small but surprisingly heavy purse. He had not gone far.

Hirel relieved himself, nibbled the remains of a seedcake,
poured a cupful of wine and peered out of the window. Nothing below but an
alleyway.

He wandered back to his cushions, sipping the sweet strong
vintage. It was not one he knew; not nearly fine enough for a high prince in
his palace. But in this place it was pleasant.

He settled more comfortably. The room was warm but not
unbearable.

One of his scars itched within where he could not scratch
it: one of the deep furrows in his hip and thigh. The guardhound had caught him
there, terrifying him for his manhood; he had found strength he had never known
he had, and broken the beast’s neck. The hound had paid the proper price, but
Hirel would bear the marks until he died, livid and unlovely against his skin.

He was changing. He was thinner, with ribs to count. His
child-softness was sharpening into planes and angles. A fleece of down was
coming between his legs, and he was not the same beneath it. He was becoming a
man.

Perhaps he would call for a woman. That would wipe the leer
from the innkeeper’s face. Sarevan, poor maiden priest, would wilt with envy.

Hirel frowned. He could not imagine Sarevan wilting. More
likely the creature would stand by the door and fold his arms and smile his
most supercilious smile, and make of manly virtue a creeping shame.

“Damn him,” Hirel said. His voice lacked conviction. “I will
go. I will go now and find my own way home. My brothers will fall down in
terror when they see me; and I will have my vengeance.”

He clasped his knees and rocked. His eyes blurred; he could
not stop them.

Alone, all alone, with only a demon-worshipping madman to
defend him. No one in the empire even knew he lived; and those who cared could
care only that he was not safely dead. His mother who had loved him, and yes,
spoiled him shamefully, his mother was two years dead by her own hand, and his
father was a golden mask on a golden throne, and his brothers would have sold
him a eunuch into the south.

And he was going home. Home to hate and fear and at best
indifference; to the nets of courtiers and the chains of royalty, and never a
moment without the dread of another betrayal.

A shudder racked him. He must go back. What else was left to
him?

He knew what he must do. Dress. Gather the last of the food.
Take a handful of silver from Sarevan’s purse. Just enough to buy a mount and
to keep him fed until he came to Kundri’j Asan. When he was done, he would repay
the lending a hundred times over: send a bag of gold to Orozia in the town the
name of which he had never troubled to learn, and instruct her to give it to
the priest.

He went as far as to rise and turn toward his clothes. They
were wet. He was close to tears again.

The door opened. Sarevan had to stoop to pass it. Lean
though he was, his shoulders were broad; he filled the cramped space. His face
was set in stone. His eyes were burning.

The wall was rough and cool against Hirel’s back. He did not
even remember retreating to it. Somehow the priest had divined what he would
do. Theft; flight.

No. Only true mages walked in minds, and there were no true
mages, only charlatans. Sarevan turned blindly about, hands clenching and
unclenching. One, the bitten right, rose to his torque and fell again. “They
burned it,” he said low in his throat. “They burned it to the ground.”

“What?” Hirel snapped, sharp with guilt and startlement.

At first he did not know if Sarevan heard. The eyes never
turned to him. But at length the voice answered, still low, almost rough.
“Avaryan’s temple. They burned it. They burned it over the heads of the
priests, and sowed the ashes with salt, and set up a demon-stone in the midst
of it, cursing Avaryan and his priesthood unto the thousandth generation. But
why? Why so immeasurable a hate?”

It was a cry of anguish. Hirel’s throat ached with the power
of it; his own words came hard, half strangled. “Avaryan is the enemy here, the
symbol of the conqueror, of the empire that has dared to rise and challenge us.
His priests are suspected as spies, and some have been caught at it. But hatred
of that magnitude . . . I do not know.”

Sarevan’s laughter was frightening. “I know. It is politics,
cold politics. A game of kings-and-cities, with living folk for pawns. Burn a
temple, open the way to the destruction of its patron’s empire. They died in
torment, my brothers and sisters. They died like sea-spiders in a cauldron.”

“Perhaps,” said Hirel, “they offended someone in power. No
great conspiracy; a personal vendetta. But whatever is the truth of it, you are
not safe here, and you should not linger. By now all Shon’ai will have seen
your torque.”

“Oh, yes, they have seen it. They have all seen me, the
mongrel, the monster, the demon’s minion. I cast down the cursed stone and laid
a curse of my own upon it, and sang the god’s praises over it.”

“You are stark mad.”

“What! You did not know?”

“They must be hunting you now.” Hirel’s heart raced, but his
brain was clear. “We can run. The crowds will hide us. You can stoop, and cover
your body and your hair, and feign a limp, perhaps.”

“No,” Sarevan said. “One at least of my torque-kin remains
alive, though the prison is hidden from me. But I will find it. Before Avaryan
I will find it.”

He spoke as if the prison’s hiding were an impossible thing,
a deep and personal insult. Yet when he looked at Hirel he seemed perfectly
sane, cool and quiet, reasonable. “You will go. Ulan will come to you when you
have passed the gates; he will guard you and guide you and bring you safe to
your father. No one will molest you while you travel in his company.”

True, all true, and very wise. Hirel had intended to do much
the same.

But.

“I will not abandon you,” he said stiffly.

“Cubling,” said Sarevan, “you cannot help me, you are
certain to hinder me, and it is altogether likely that I will get my death in
this venture. It was a mage who laid the curse on the temple; he is strong, and
he will not be merciful.”

Hirel sneered. “A mage. I tremble where I stand.”

“You should, child. He’s no trumpery trickster. He has
power, and it is real, and it tastes of darkness.”

“Superstition. I know better. I have seen the mages in
Kundri’j Asan. Powders and stinks and spells and cantrips, and a great deal of
mystical posturing. It deceives the masses. It enriches the mages. It amuses my
father to retain a few of the more presentable in his court. They can do him no
harm, he says, and one day they might prove useful.”

“That day has come, and the lord of this province has seized
upon it. I am going to do battle with the sorcerer.”

“You dare it?” Hirel asked, meaning to mock him.

“I dare it. You see, cubling,” Sarevan said, “I am one
myself.”

Hirel blinked at him. He did not sprout horns or cloak
himself in stars or spawn flights of dragonels from his cupped hands. He was
only Sarevan, too large for that cupboard of a room, and rather in need of a
bath. The reek of smoke and anger lay heavy upon him.

He gathered Hirel’s garments and dropped them on the bed.
“Dress yourself. You must be away from here before they close the gates for the
night.”

Slowly Hirel obeyed. He would be well rid of this lunatic.
Mage, indeed. Gods, indeed. A little longer and the barbarian would have had
Hirel believing it.

o0o

Sarevan saw to Hirel’s bag, packed the seedcakes and a
napkinful of dumplings, added his own waterskin, and rummaging in his scrip,
brought out the purse. Without a word or a glance, he laid it in the bag.

Hirel’s throat closed. Sarevan held out the bag; Hirel
clutched it to his chest.

“Come,” the priest said.

Hirel tried to swallow. Time was running on. And he could
not move.

Sarevan snatched him up; and he left the inn as he had
entered it, carried like an ailing child. The streets were as crowded as ever,
the shadows growing long with evening.

Hirel began to struggle. Sarevan ignored him. There was a
new tension in the priest’s body, a tautness like fear, but the press was too
tight, the current too strong; he could breast it, but he could not advance
above a walk, with many turns and weavings and impasses. It was like a spell, a
curse of endless frustration.

At last he could not move at all, and from his shoulder’s
height the inn was still visible, its sign of the sunbird mocking Hirel’s
glare. “I will do it,” Sarevan muttered. “I must.”

“What—”

Sarevan stood erect and breathed deep, and Hirel
felt—something. Like a spark. A flare of heat too brief to be sure of. A note
of music on the very edge of hearing. The small hairs of his body shivered and
rose.

“There!”
Sun
flashed on helmets; a senel tossed its horns and half reared, its rider calling
out, sweeping his arm toward the priest.

Sarevan plunged into the crowd. It parted before him. But
against the company behind came a second, barring the broad way, and the throng
milled and tangled itself, and no escape but straight into the air.

Sarevan seized it. He launched himself upward.

For a soaring, terrifying moment he flew, and Hirel with
him, and people cried out to see it. Then darkness filled the sky. Something
like an eagle stooped above them, but an eagle with wings that spread from
horizon to horizon. With a sharp fierce cry Sarevan reared back, gripping Hirel
one-handed, hurling lightnings.

Hirel saw the arrow come. He tried to speak, even to shape a
thought. The dart sang past his cheek and plunged deep into the undefended
shoulder. Sarevan cried out again, sharper and fiercer still, and dropped like
a stone.

o0o

“Fascinating,” said the Lord of Baryas and Shon’ai when he
had heard his captain’s account, inspecting the prisoners bound and haughty before
him. Hirel had only a set of manacles, which was an insult. Sarevan was wrapped
in chains, his shoulder bound with a bandage, and his face was grey with pain.
But he met the lord’s stare with perfect insolence.