Arrows of the Sun (56 page)

Korusan sank down, wrapped in his robes. He was shivering,
the ache in his bones returning after its few hours’ grace. He drew up his
knees and clasped them, and rocked.

Now, he thought, was the time. Sarevadin had shown herself
to her grandson’s grandson. He had offered her his throne, and she had laughed
him down. And given Korusan, at last, the key to what he must do.

He should go to the Master of the Olenyai. Once Estarion was
gone on his wild hunt, the field would be free; the empire would be theirs, to
win and to hold. And if Estarion came back, he would come back to a battle long
since lost; and if he did not, then he was dead, and nothing that his people
did could matter.

They would think so, Olenyai and mages both. The mages would
find a way, no doubt, to trap Estarion in his Tower, or at the least to confine
him to Keruvarion. Estarion in Endros would set Asanion free.

And yet. Korusan rocked, frowning at nothing.

Suppose, he thought. Suppose that there was a way . . .

The Sunborn was alive. The mages said so. Mages could lie,
but in this they swore to truth. The great mage and traitor, the Red Prince of
Han-Gilen, had laid a sleep on him within his own Tower, because he would not
yield to the constraints of peace.

That sleep preserved him, unaging and undying, until the end
of days. Or, some said, until he was called anew to war. He was always a
warrior king, was Mirain An-Sh’Endor.

And if he woke, what then?

He had been mad when he fell into his sleep. Mad as
Sarevadin feared that Estarion would be: conquered by his magic. It seemed to
be a hazard of Sun-blood, that the Sun overwhelmed the man.

Suppose . . .

Korusan counted the aches in his bones. The priestess had
given him days, who might have had but hours before he died. He dreamed no
longer that he would live to wear the mask of the emperor. If his own frailty
did not kill him, the mages would see to it that he died before he took thought
for rebellion.

Then they would rule. Or not. He cared little. He did not
have Estarion’s soft heart for the people who lived outside of palaces.
Veilless, swordless, halfwit multitudes; they were no kin of his. If he freed
them from the barbarian yoke, then that was no more than his duty. He could not
be expected to love them on top of it.

Mages of the Guild would be no worse for the empire than
mages of the Temple. And Asanion would be Asanion again. Let Keruvarion have
its conquerors. The Golden Empire would suffer no rule but its own.

Estarion could live, if that were so. Emperor of half an
empire, to be sure; but so had he been before his mother pricked him into
entering Asanion.

Korusan’s arms tightened about his knees. Estarion alive,
not dead. Estarion alive without Korusan. For Korusan would be dead, and soon.
That was as certain as the cycles of the moons.

Korusan alive without Estarion was inconceivable. Estarion
without Korusan . . .

“No,” said Korusan, loud in the stillness. “He is mine. No
one else shall have him. No woman, no man, no throne or empire. No one.”

o0o

Estarion stalked snarling into his chambers, with the
he-cub stalking at his heels. His vigil was broken, his mood ungodly. And it
was barely midnight; long hours yet till dawn.

He had stripped, flinging garments and ornaments at anything
that would stop them, before he knew that he was not alone. The ul-cub crouched
in front of a small huddled person with eyes even yellower than the cub’s. They
watched one another with equal, wary intentness.

“Did he grow overnight?” Haliya asked, looking up into
Estarion’s face.

Estarion bit off sharp words. She looked cold sitting there,
even wrapped in furs, white and amber and spotted gold. He, naked, was like a
fire burning. He knelt and wrapped arms about her.

Haliya was tense in the circle of his embrace. “He has a
name now, I think,” she said. “Has he told you what it is?”

“No,” Estarion said, startled. “You said you weren’t a
mage.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m a Vinicharyas, which is something
different. He’ll tell you when he’s ready, I suppose. Do you have a fever?
You’re hot as iron in the forge.”

“That’s Sun-blood,” he said. “The colder it is, the hotter I
burn.”

“And you’re angry,” said Haliya. “She got at you, didn’t
she? That horrible old woman. She says she’s dead. Her body just hasn’t
admitted it yet.”

“Her body has been failing to admit it for fifty years.”
Estarion shuddered in his skin. “I used to worship the memory of her. The
reality . . . it’s so much more. And so much less.”

“That’s usually the way of it.” She eased a little, enough
to stroke his face. “The dead should stay decently dead.”

Her hand was small and cold and yet surprisingly strong. He
turned his head, kissed her palm. There was no desire in him, not for her, not
tonight, but he was not sorry, after all, that she was here. Friends had been
simple for him once, and many, and since he came to this cursed half of his
empire he had lost them all. But he had gained Haliya.

She was warming as he held her. Her shivering had stopped.

“You were with me,” he said, “while I slept, and worse than
slept. You kept running away before I could wake. Did I frighten you so much?”

“No,” she said. It was not precisely a lie, but she could
not meet his eyes while she said it. “I didn’t want to trouble you.”

“You could never do that,” he said.

The he-cub thrust in between them. Haliya went rigid. The
cub sprang into her lap. He filled the space between them.

Her face was white beyond the cat’s shadow-dark head.
Estarion let her go, moved to thrust the beast away.

“No,” she said, catching his hand. “No, don’t.”

“You’re terrified of him.”

Temper brought her eyes flashing up. “I will learn not to
be. He’s young, he’s small. By the time he’s grown I’ll be as brave as you.”

“By the time he’s grown he’ll be big enough to ride.”

She put out a hand. It trembled, but it stroked the cub
capably enough. He filled her lap and flowed over, lolling in her furs, butting
against the curve of her belly.

Estarion was not terribly surprised. Not then. Not after all
the rest. Ulyai’s son traced the shape of her with remarkable clarity.

She must have conceived the first time Estarion went in to
her, or the second. Unless—

No. She had been a maiden. She had known no man since. And
he knew already how determined the Sun’s arrows could be.

He laid his hand where the life in her was strongest, where
it swam and rolled and dreamed.

It, no. He. Bright web of Sun-blood, its center a spark of
fire. He would be mageborn; was mage already, waking to the touch of the
Kasar
.

Her hand leaped to cover Estarion’s. “He moved! He kicked
me.”

“He hasn’t before?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “but never so hard. He knows you, my
lord.”

“Estarion.”

“My lord Estarion.”

She was laughing at him, crazy with relief. He narrowed his
eyes. “That’s why you were afraid. Why you hid. You didn’t want me to know.”

“I was afraid you’d send me back.”

“So I would have,” he said.

“You can’t now,” said Haliya. “It’s safer here than anywhere
out there.”

“Gods,” he said. “If my enemies knew . . .”

“They don’t,” said Haliya. Her face was hard, her voice was
iron. “Nor shall they. I won’t give them another target.”

“You won’t be able to hide it much longer,” he said, “even
wrapped in furs and hiding among the women.”

“They guard me well,” she said. “Especially your mother’s
armored women. And your priestess.”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know?”

She barely flinched. “Your priestess has known for a long
time. The others either guessed, or I told them when your mother died. They had
to know, to guard the heir.”

“The heir.” His tongue stumbled on the word. “You . . .
really . . .”

“I won’t lose him,” said Haliya. “Vanyi has promised me
that. He will be born alive, and he will be born strong.”

“Vanyi knows.” Estarion did not know what he felt. Pity,
maybe. Fury, that she had tricked and trapped him, and never told him that it
did not matter; that if he died, it was not ended. There was an heir. The line
would go on. “She let me think that I was all there was.”

“Maybe she thought it would be easier for you if you didn’t
know.”

“Or easier for you,” he said, “or for herself. She’s a
bitter, cruel creature sometimes, like the sea she comes from.”

“And you love her,” said Haliya.

She said it without pain, and without jealousy that he could
perceive. “I love you,” he said. He meant it. And not only for the child
pressing against his hand, seeking the light of his presence.

“A man can love many women,” said Haliya. “A woman finds it
easier to love one man. I love you, I think. I like you more. Love’s
uncomfortable; it burns out. Liking is made to last.”

“You’ll teach him well, this son of ours,” Estarion said.

“And you.” She let fall her armor of furs and flung arms
about his neck. The ul-cub spilled squalling to the door. She did not notice.

His altered senses would have known her for a Vinicharyas
even without the proof of her name. She made the world a clearer place while
she held him in her arms. He was quiet there, at rest if not content.

Even his power was gentled, tamed and harnessed to his will.
But this new clarity forbade him to dream that he might not after all be bound
to seek his healing, or his death, in the Tower. There was no hope of escaping
that.

He did not know that he wanted any. It was comforting in its
bleak way, this knowledge that in two days, three at the utmost, he would most
probably be dead.

She said nothing of it. She knew—he felt it in her. Vanyi
had told her. Vanyi was not one to spare any creature pain, if she reckoned
that pain necessary.

Haliya yawned, sighed, like the child she still in great
part was. He carried her to bed. She would never be the singing fire that Vanyi
was, or even Ziana; she did not need to be. Tonight she was content to hold and
to be held, warm in his warmth, quiet in his quiet that she had made.

o0o

He closed his eyes, briefly as he thought. When he opened
them, the air had changed to the chill that promises the dawn, and Haliya had
left him. Servants were waiting with lamps and candles and the robes of the
rite.

He was calm, greeting them. He submitted himself without
protest; but it was not the empty passivity of his time in Kundri’j. He allowed
this. He willed it. Tonight, by the god’s mercy, he would end it.

Darkness was the goddess’ portion, and silence. But an
empress must have the light and the singing for her honor’s sake, now that she
was dead.

Merian had never been one to shun the sunlight. She had
mated with it, keeping the rites of the moon’s dark, but when they were past,
she stood in the sun when it was strongest, and loved it for its bright fire.
Her child was the sun’s child, but night’s child, too, with his dark face and
his sun-gold eyes.

He gave her honor, and the music she had loved, singing the
death-rite over her in the bitter-bright morning. The shell of her was cold
under his hands, with ice in its still heart.

He could have warmed her; burned her as he had her lover.
But she would have the darker comfort of the tomb, and her emperor’s bones
beside her under the black Tower of Endros. Her cortege was chosen, her bier in
the making. When the embalmers had done with her, she would go, across the long
leagues of empire to the City of the Sun.

He would go before her. Tonight, at sunset and Greatmoonrise,
god and goddess passing in the door of the night, the Gate would open. He would
do what he must do. She might find him there when she came, laid on the stone
beside his father.

He was calm now, empty even of grief. Some thought him
numbed with wine, but he had touched none since before the death-vigil. He had
not eaten, either, or drunk aught but a little water when he woke.

There would be a feast after this rite. He would pretend to
eat, although he did not need it. The sun was enough, and the cold clean air.

The hall was full of people, a glitter and shift of myriad
minds in his mage-sight. He was seeing almost wholly with it, had been since he
left his chambers. It was a potent effort to see with eyes of the body, to look
on dull flesh, mere stone, plain light of lamps and candles. So much simpler,
so much more beautiful, to ignore the flesh and look on spirit bare.

And he had reckoned himself content without magery. It had
come close to killing him, in soul if not in body. No spell of the Golden
Palace, that, but a twisting in his own will.

And yet, he thought as the rite left him standing still and
silent, and the choir of priests and priestesses sang the last of the great
hymns: and yet it was an ill thing, what he had suffered this empire to become.
He had not begun it, no, nor done more than continue what his fathers had done
before him. But he had fostered it.

There should have been one empire, one people, and there
were two, eagle of the Sun and lion of Asanion yoked to the single chariot.
They hated one another. They spoke of conquest and of conquerors. Keruvarion
looked in scorn on fallen Asanion. Asanion turned on its Varyani emperor—not
its own, never its own, always the barbarian, the alien, the foreigner—in
murderous resentment.

They must be one. He might have said it aloud. No one heard
him: the priestesses’ descant soared high and piercing clear over the deep
voices of the priests, drowning any lesser voice. He shaped the words again in
the silence of his mind.
They must be
one. Whatever comes of this that I do, whether I come back alive or lie dead in
the Tower, the empires must be one empire. Or they break and fall, and shatter
into warring shards.