Arrows of the Sun (15 page)

“He broke faith,” the Master said.

And that, Korusan reflected, was the greatest of all sins to
the Olenyai.

He returned the mask to its place. The veil was a burden
greater than gold; but that, he had earned. That, he would keep.

Nor did he sit in the chair that so clearly was meant for him.
He took it from the dais and set it aside, and sat cross-legged where it had
been. “I have as yet no throne,” he said, “and no empire. Now what do you wish
of me? To be persuaded to embrace your haste? Is there a purpose in it?”

He did not think that the Guildmaster was pleased. The
Master of the Olenyai seemed to have expected this defiance. He raised his
hand.

A small company of veiled warriors came quietly from behind
a tapestry, where must have been a door, and took station round the room.
Guard-station, with Korusan in its center. It felt strange, awry, that he
should be the guarded and not the guard; trapped in the center and not on the
rim with Marid on his right and a second brother on his left and duty clear
before him.

Korusan rested his hands on the hilts of his twin swords.
They were solid, comforting. He was being tested, there could be no doubt of
it.

It was the Guildmaster’s game, he suspected; Olenyai did not
waste training time in trifles. But perhaps the mage was not having all as he
would have it. He was alone, no mages with him, surrounded by black-robed
warriors.

The Master of the Olenyai took station at Korusan’s right
shoulder. “Prince and brother,” he said, “be at ease. No harm will touch you.
Only speak as your heart moves you to speak, and be silent as you will to be
silent, and remember what we have taught you.”

They had not taught him to sit as a prince in the hall of
audience. But they had taught him to speak and to be silent, and to know what
was sense and what was folly. He sat as straight as he might, composed his body
as one should before battle, and waited.

There were but a handful of them, white-faced and staring,
with the dazed look of men who had traveled far and long with their eyes
blindfolded. Before that, maybe, they had traveled in curtained litters, taken
here and there and round about until even the keenest-witted of them was
hopelessly confused.

And here, where they had been brought at last, stood a
circle of faceless men. Their eyes leaped to the one face bared among them all,
that of the mage; but that was as blank as the mask upon the table. Then, as if
reluctantly, they sought the center.

Korusan had leisure to study them. They were all Asanian, as
indeed they must be. None bore the marks of rank. They looked like common
tradesmen, priests of little temples, one or two in the garb of journeymen
artisans, a smith from the look of one burly figure, the other perhaps a
juggler or a player, with his long smooth hands and his mobile face.

When the Lion ruled in Kundri’j Asan, such creatures would
never have been suffered in the presence of the emperor. But the High Court was
all turned traitor, the Middle Court gone over to the enemy, the Low Courts
fallen under the rule of the Sun-god’s servants. Only the little people
remembered what had been, who had ruled them before the black kings came.

Korusan’s lip curled slightly behind his veil. The Sun-brood
made much of its affinity for the common man. But in Asanion the common man
despised his outland conquerors and yearned for the rule of his own kind.

Korusan looked at the pallid faces, the fear-rounded eyes,
and knew only a weary contempt. He was bred to walk among princes. Not to beg
charity from sweaty commoners.

Having ascertained at last that he, seated in the center,
must be the one they came for, they flung themselves before him. None of them was
clean. But none dared so vastly as to touch him, still less to stare at his
hidden face.

Save one, who bowed down patently for prudence’s sake, but
kept his eyes on Korusan. “And how do we know,” he demanded, “that this is the
one we’ve looked for for so long?”

Korusan did not pause to think. If he had, he would have
stopped himself before he went too far. In one hand he took the mask of the
emperor. With the other he unfastened his veil. He held the mask beside his
face. “Do you know me now?” he asked.

The bold one dropped down flat. But he was bold still, and
wild with it. “You’re younger than the one I dream of. And the mask, golden
one: it too is older than you.”

“Surely,” said Korusan. “It is a death-mask.”

“Ah! Poor god. He died young.”

“Emperors often do.” Korusan’s arm was growing weary. He set
down the mask again and said, “You have seen my face, and I am both Olenyas and
Lion’s heir. For that, then, you must die.”

They started. Not one had failed to look up when their
fellow spoke, to give way to curiosity that defied even fear.

“But I choose when you die, and how,” said Korusan. “Now I
let you live, so that you may serve me.”

Their gratitude was as rank as their fear. When he was
emperor—if he came so far—he would command that petitioners be bathed before
they approached him.

“You are the Lion’s son,” said the one who dared to speak,
the bold one, the player with his half-trained voice and his half-mad courage.
“You are the chosen of the gods. You will rule when the black kings fall.”

But, thought Korusan, there were no gods. “I will rule when
my line is restored.” And how briefly that would endure, with no heir to follow
him.

They waited, trembling, on their faces. No one else moved,
not the Olenyai, not the Guildmaster. He must speak, or the silence would
stretch, and turn awkward, and then humiliating, and then dangerous.

There were words in him. Whether they were useful words he
did not know, but they were all he had. “Swear to me now, men of the Lion.
Swear that you will serve me. If you betray me, you die. If you lose this
battle that is before us, you die. If you fail me in anything, for any cause . . .”

He paused for breath that came suddenly short. Their voices
rose, finishing what he had begun. “If we fail you, majesty, we die.”

This was power, to sit so, and look down, and know that
these lives were his: his to keep, his to cast away.

“I am the emperor who should have been. I am the emperor who
is to be. I am the heart of the Golden Empire. They who dream that they
conquered me, they dreamed only, and they lied.

“And now he comes, my people: the barbarian, the savage, the
bandit king. He jangles in outland gold. He speaks with the tongues of apes and
birds. He goes naked, shameless as the animal he is; he wears the fell of a
beast. And he dares to boast that he rules us. Will you deny him, my people?
Will you refuse him? Will you turn your backs on him?”

“Aye!” they cried.

“We are but the least of the least,” the bold one said. “Our
allies are hundreds, thousands strong. Asanion is full of us. Wherever he goes,
there he must find us, the false king. Whatever he does, he must run afoul of
us. Shall we slay him for you, majesty? Shall we lay his flayed hide at your feet?”

Korusan stiffened. “The usurper is mine. But all that you
may do to aid us, you will do. Go; remember me. Fight for me. Take back this
empire in my name.”

o0o

“He does have a talent for this,” the Guildmage said.

Korusan caught himself before he spoke untimely. He rose
from the dais, taking no open notice of the mage, and stepped down to the
carpeted floor. He was dizzy; he had to struggle not to shake. He drew long
breaths, calming himself, bringing his temper to hand.

“He is bred for it,” said the Master of the Olenyai after a
perceptible pause.

Korusan turned, still refusing to acknowledge the
Guildmaster, and faced the Olenyas. “I trust that this mummery has been of
use.”

“Of much use,” the Olenyas said. “Those were unprepossessing
enough, but they have a great following. And now they know what they follow.
They will serve you the more assiduously hereafter.”

“There are no lords among them,” said Korusan.

“Lords we have,” the Guildmage said, “and many. They have no
need for this spectacle.”

“No? I should think that they would need it more.” Korusan
straightened his robes and raised his veil once more to conceal his face. “Am I
done? May I go?”

“The emperor may go as he wills,” the Guildmage said.

Ah, thought Korusan, but who was the emperor?

Dark. Darkness and blood. Voices gibbering. Eyes—

Estarion flung himself headlong out of sleep.

The lamp flickered, burning low. Ulyai blinked at him. Her
mind saw a cub under her gentling paw, and her tongue licking him until he
settled, comforted.

He half-fell on her, wrapping arms about her neck, burying
his face in warm musky fur.

His breathing quieted. The sweat dried cold on his body. The
shivering came and went. “I can’t remember,” he said to her. “I—can’t—”

But he could. That was the terrible thing. He could remember
too well. Deep down, where the darkness was, and the long fall into death and
the soul’s destruction.

Not his death, not his soul torn asunder and scattered to
the winds of the mageworld. Oh, no. He had caused it. His power had done it,
had killed the mage who killed his father, and in killing, slain itself. His
power was maimed and perhaps would never be mended. The soul it had destroyed
was lost beyond retrieving.

They thought they knew, those people who loved and guarded
him. They gave him wisdom, gave him compassion, lashed him with impatience when
they judged he needed it. But they did not know the truth of what he had done.
To sunder a soul from a body: that was terrible. To shatter that soul—that was
beyond any hope of forgiveness.

In the beginning, when the horror was new, he had let
himself fall into the blessed dark. They had found him, dragged him back, shown
him the way to the restoration of his power.

He was weak. He had let them. He thought he could atone, if
only by living and remembering, and suffering that remembrance.

Instead he had forgotten, or chosen not to remember. It was
simpler. It won him Vanyi, who was water in a dry place, coolness in the
terrible heat of his desert. And it had lost her. There was no escaping what he
was. Even his body betrayed him.

He struggled to his feet. Ulyai growled and batted at him.

She kept her claws sheathed. He evaded them, staggering away
from the bed. His knees were as weak as a foal’s.

Standing steadied him. He pulled on a robe and let his feet
take him where they would.

Ulyai followed him, but she did not try to stop him. He was
glad of her presence. She held him up when he stumbled.

It was a peculiarity of Sun-blood that it sought the
heights. Mountains if there were any. Roofs else, and the stars that seemed dim
and strange, and the night air.

The roof of this house was made for standing on: it had a
wall about the rim, and a garden of flowers sending their sweetness into the
night. Estarion plucked one palm-wide moon-pale bloom and bore it with him to
the parapet and leaned on the rail.

It was not far down. Five man-heights, maybe. Six. Hardly
enough to break one’s neck. For that one needed a tower, or a crag.

“It doesn’t work in any case,” Sidani said from the shadows
of the roof. “Mageblood saves itself. You’d find yourself flying, or landing as
light as a bird on a treetop.”

She came to stand beside him, leaning as he leaned.
Brightmoon was down. Greatmoon’s light limned her face in blood, dyed her hair
as red as any Gileni prince’s.

“You’ve tried it?” he asked her.

She held up her clenched fists and her lean corded arms. Old
scars seamed them, tracing the lines of the great veins. “I thought that this
would be surer. It only made work for a healer.”

“But you’re not a mage. No more,” he said bitterly, “than I.”

Her brow went up. The irony was pure Sidani. “And why,” she
asked, “does death seem so much more alluring than the life of an emperor?”

And why not tell her? He did not know her at all, no more
than he could know a hawk in the sky or a fish in the sea. She could be his
blood enemy. She could be the prophet Vanyi spoke of, though he doubted that
Asanion would follow a woman, still less a woman who was a barbarian.

“Do you know,” he asked her, “that it’s possible, if one is
a mage, to do more than kill the body of one’s enemy? That one can kill his
soul?”

“Nothing can kill a soul.”

“I did.”

She neither laughed nor recoiled. “What makes you think
that?”

“The man who killed my father hated us with a perfect hate,”
he said: “so perfect that I could only kill it by matching it. And in matching
it, I destroyed it.”

She pondered that. Either she chose to believe him, or she
was better at feigning it than anyone he had ever seen. “Maybe it only fled too
swiftly for you to follow.”

“No,” he said, though hope yammered at the corners of his
mind. “I felt it shatter. It was indescribable. And where it had been, there
was nothing. Not even the memory of a scream.”

“They say you can’t remember.”

“I don’t want to. Oh, there’s darkness in plenty. I can’t
see my father fall. I don’t know what I did when he died, or after his assassin . . .
ended. But the ending: that I’ll never forget. Not if I live a thousand lives.”

“So. You’re not as callow as you look.”

He rounded on her. She smiled her sword-edged smile. “We
were all young once,” she said, “but it’s fools who say it’s either easy or
simple. You looked the Dark in the face when you were twelve years old. You’ve
been running from it ever since.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve been running since before your grandfather was born.”

Stories. But in this light, almost, he could believe them.

A rumbling drew his eyes downward. Ulyai leaned against
Sidani, purring thunderously, while the strong old fingers rubbed the sensitive
places behind her ears.