Arrows of the Sun (60 page)

Carefully he lowered Korusan to the floor. The boy struggled
suddenly, all but oversetting him. He found himself crouching and Korusan
standing over him, gripping his shoulders with terrible strength. White rimmed
the golden eyes. The face was the color of bone.

Korusan let go. Estarion straightened slowly. The boy seemed
to have forgotten him, sliding through the shadowless light, veering wide round
the ul-cub and the motionless, voiceless Sarevadin, toward what lay in the
jewel’s heart.

Black stone like an altar, or like the slab of a tomb. A
sweep of white and gold: cloak of leather and fur undimmed by the years. And
laid upon it, clad as a northern king, the sleeper.

He was asleep, truly: not dead. The fire of his life was
banked low, the pulse of his heart slowed to the beat of the ages, the wind of
his breath stilled to the faintest of whispers. And yet he lived, and living,
dreamed.

Estarion knew that face. It met him in every mirror. Though
all the portraits showed Mirain clean-shaven, his beard had grown with the
slowness of his sleep. It was a little longer than Estarion’s, curling in the
same fashion. His hair was plaited along his side, his hands folded on his
breast. He would not be a tall man, standing; somewhat taller than Korusan,
maybe, compact and smooth-muscled, with a warrior’s strength, perceptible even
as he slept.

He seemed harmless as any sleeper was. And yet this Tower
was his, this light that beat in it, this mighty stillness. Estarion’s power
touched the edge of his dreams and leaped back startled, stung as if with fire.

“Yes,” said Sarevadin. “He’s angry still. It’s been a long
night’s sleep for him, and memory as keen as if it were yesterday. I’d wager
little on the life of anyone who woke him now.”

“Can he be waked?”

Estarion did not mean to ask it, but his tongue was as
befuddled as the rest of him. She answered as calmly as ever. “Of course. He’d
wake raging, and he’d sear you to ash in doing it, but wake he would. It’s easy
enough to do. Just command the spell to break.”

Estarion bit his tongue. “Is he . . .
supposed to . . . calm down while he sleeps?”

“After an age or two,” she said, “maybe. Mages drove him to
the edge before he was brought here. I doubt there’s much left of him by now
but anger. The Red Prince hoped that he’d dream his way back to sanity in this
place that was built of his own best magics, and then, if there was a world
left to wake to, go out to do the god’s will.”

“So he thought he did,” said Korusan. He had drawn back from
the sleeper, swaying on his feet. “Who is to teach him that the god is a lie
and a dream?”

“You can say that here?” Estarion asked him.

“Here above all.” Korusan stopped swaying and drew himself
erect. “Is this not a place for learning the truth?”

“Such as,” said Sarevadin, “that you are sworn to destroy
all that the Sun has made?”

“My lord knows,” said Korusan. “I told him.”

“Does he truly, cubling? Truly and surely, in his bones?”

“I know,” Estarion said.

They paid no heed to him, standing face to face beside the
bier of the Sunborn. Estarion saw a memory, or perhaps a dream: this same two,
this same battle of wills, but Sarevadin was young, as young as he, and heavy
with the child who would be his grandfather’s father.

“You are not my lord,” she said, “and yet, young lion, you
are. You love as he loved. But your Sunchild can never be yours entirely. We
ended that, you and I, when you lived in that other body. We made a new thing.
We wrought—”

“Failure,” said Korusan, too cold for contempt. “And now he
has brought me here. Is he a fool, do you think? Or merely eager to die?”

Estarion would not hear the flatness in those words, the
hate that burned beneath them. He would remember the love that had been no lie,
the despair that would lighten once he had his power again, his strength, his
throne.

He felt the rising of the power that was in this place. It
was part of the sleeper, and yet apart from him. It was all that he was not:
coolness in fire, stillness in rage, darkness in light.

It flowed softly over Estarion’s rent and ruined magic. It
soothed like a healer’s touch. It guided him through the intricacies of his
self. It began to make him whole, as he was meant to be.

He would have lain down beside the Sunborn and let the Tower
work its healing. But Korusan stood between, and Sarevadin now old, now young,
laughing in the boy’s face. “Ask yourself, cubling. Are you the fool? Are you
looking to die at your lover’s hand?”

“Together,” said Korusan. “We die together.”

“Korusan,” said Estarion through the mist of power.
“Koru-Asan. What is this talk of death? You’ll live while I live.”

“And die when you die.” Korusan drew his swords. They
glittered in the strange light, but never as bright as his eyes. “I am dead, my
lord. The fire in the cold place—it lodged in me. It consumes me.”

“You’re raving,” Estarion said. Moving here was like
swimming through light. He reached, paused as blades flashed into guard. “Here,
stop that. What you’re feeling is that you’re whole. You’ve never known what
that is.”

“No,” said Korusan. “I die.” He slapped the left-hand blade
into its sheath, shook back the sleeve. His arm was a patchwork of bruises,
wrist and elbow blackened, swollen.

Estarion caught his breath. He reached again. This time no
sword prevented him. He laid his hand on Korusan’s arm.

Pain rocked him. So much broken, so much mended, and broken,
and mended again.

Korusan smiled, bright and bitter. Bruises had begun to
shadow his face. His blood was breaking its bonds. His bones were crumbling.

“No,” Estarion said.

“Yes,” said Korusan. He sheathed his right-hand sword and
spread his arms. “Come, my love. No need to weep.”

Estarion’s eyes burned and stung, but not with tears. He
stepped into his lover’s embrace.

Iron hands flung him back. Sarevadin sprang on Korusan: impossible,
shifting, young-old creature shouting words in no tongue Estarion knew.

She had hurled him into a corner of the Sunborn’s bier,
knocking the wind from him. He gasped and wheezed, struggling to breathe, to
straighten, to stagger to his guardsman’s defense.

Steel flashed. A knife. The hand that wielded it was black
with bruises but ivory-white about them.

“No,” said Estarion very softly. He knew the trick. Who did
not? A sweet word, a proffered embrace, a dagger in the back. It was perfect
Asanian.

Not Korusan. Not his gold-and-ivory princeling, his dancer
with swords. He had slept in those arms for nights out of count, stood naked
within reach of Olenyai steel, offered his life to it again and yet again. And
Korusan had never harmed him.

They battled like brawlers in a tavern, black robes, dun
leathers, long-limbed alike, wily-vicious alike, wielding teeth and nails when
steel had failed. Estarion, though still gasping, found that he could move. He
waded in.

They turned on him. But he had fought such battles before
Asanion made an emperor of him; memory was swift and clear, here in his own
Tower, in his own city, in this half of the empire that was truly his.

The one who was armed was more immediately dangerous. The
one who was not seemed confused that he eluded and would not strike her. He
kept the corner of his eye on her, closing in on Korusan.

Korusan’s eyes did not know Estarion at all. Maybe they were
blind. His face was patched blue-black and ivory. His breath rattled as he drew
it in. He coughed. Estarion tasted blood on his own tongue.

His power was slipping its bonds again—even here, where no
Sunlord’s power should be aught but mastered.

Korusan slashed. His hand was clawed with steel. Estarion
darted in past it. Too slow, too slow. Burning pain seared his arm.

The second thrust aimed for the heart. Estarion reeled back.
“Korusan.
Korusan
!”

No use. There was death in those eyes.

Sarevadin sprang again between them. She was as mad as the
Asanian, and as murderous.

She at least was unarmed. He clamped arms about her and held
grimly.

She was strong, but not strong enough. She was a shield
against the Olenyas: he hesitated, lowering his blade a fraction, seeming to
come a little to himself.

“Put me down,” said Sarevadin. She was breathing hard, but
she sounded like herself again.

Estarion did not loosen his grip. “Give me your word you
won’t kill him.”

“Only if he swears he won’t kill you.”

“That’s between the two of us,” Estarion said.

“Not with you it isn’t. You’ve an empire waiting for you. Or
have you forgotten?”

“Would to the gods I could.”

She twisted in his arms. For a woman so ancient she was
wonderfully supple.

She slid down a handspan. He shifted his grip. She drove an
elbow backward into his belly and tumbled free.

She did nothing at first but stand just out of his reach.
While they struggled, Korusan had drawn back to the Sunborn’s bier. He stood
over it, knife in hand still, held loose at his side. He seemed rapt in
contemplation of the sleeper’s face.

As they watched, Estarion working pain out of his middle,
Sarevadin immobile and seemingly empty of will, Korusan touched the still brow.

Estarion gasped. But the spell did not break. The sleeper
did not wake. His dreams quivered with anger, but so had they done since his
haven was invaded.

This Estarion would become, if he did not master his power.
He traced in pain the line of the wound in his arm. The Tower had driven
Korusan out of his wits. It was no more than that, but no less. And Estarion
had brought him here. Estarion bore the guilt of it.

Korusan bent. His whisper was clear in the stillness. “How
like my beloved you are, and how unlike. He is a soft thing, for all his
strength. You . . .” He laughed, low and surprisingly deep. “You
are steel in the forge. Would you rule again, great king and liar? Would you
conquer all that is?”

“He’ll kill you,” Sarevadin said.

Korusan set a kiss on the Sunborn’s lips, mocking yet also,
in its strange way, reverent. “May every man be given such a death. And maybe,”
he said, “I would draw blood before I died.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Try it and see.”

Estarion was beginning to understand.

She was farther away, and seemed for the moment disinclined
to move. Korusan had laid his hand on the Sunborn’s heart. Was it beating
stronger? The air had a strange taste, like the moment before thunder. The
light had dimmed by a fraction.

“Yes,” said Korusan. “A son of the Lion stands in your own
stronghold. He would set you free, that all may fall. All of it, O bandit king.
Sun, dark, Keruvarion, Asanion, lion and black eagle—all that is. And look!” he
said. “There is a stranger on your throne. He bears the Lion’s eyes. He was
born of the night’s priestess. All that he is, you fought to avert. They have
betrayed you, your son and your son’s sons.”

There was a singing in the air, faint and eerily clear, like
shaken crystal.

Estarion’s bones were glass. One stroke and they would
shatter.

Was this what it was to be Korusan? This exquisite pain,
this perfect despair? To know that he would never be more than he was now; that
before he could be fully a man, he would die.

“I am the last,” said Korusan. “No son can be born of my
seed. When I am dead, the Lion is gone, and you are victorious.

“And yet,” he said, “I too shall have my triumph. I take
with me the son of your sons. When the Lion falls, so shall the Sun.”

But, thought Estarion, it would not. Haliya in Pri’nai,
walled in guards, made sure of that.

He almost said it, almost betrayed the one secret that
Korusan must not know. Not now. Not until he was sane again. For if he knew—if
he found a Gate—

One could love what one most feared. One could even love
what one hated. He had learned that in Asanion.

He moved softly. He knew better than to hope that he could
take an Olenyas by surprise. But that he might come close while that Olenyas
was absorbed in rousing what must not be roused—that, he could pray for.

His power strove to rage out of its bounds. Only the Tower
constrained it now. He was as vast as the crag, his body a tiny brittle thing,
creeping over the shimmering door toward the man on the bier and the shadow
above him. He willed himself down into the feeble flesh, his sight narrowing to
the compass of his eyes, his awareness focusing on this one, deadly moment.

Steel came to his hand. Olenyai dagger. He nearly cast it
off in revulsion, but his fingers clenched, holding fast. He thrust it into his
belt beside his own sheathed blade.

The sound did not bring Korusan about. He had spread his
hands over the sleeper, tracing the shape of the body.

“He knows,” Sarevadin said, the shadow of a whisper. “They
taught him well.”

She had not moved, nor would she. She would let it happen.
She would watch, and when the time came she would die; and she would have the
rest that had eluded her so long.

Estarion did not want rest. He wanted—he did not know what.
But not this.

He gathered himself and sprang.

Korusan wheeled. Estarion fell on him. He twisted.

In the last possible instant, Estarion saw what he did. No
need of spells or chanting if they fell full on the body of the Sunborn, and
Estarion bleeding power in a spray of molten gold.

Estarion wrenched, heaved. They crashed to a floor that
seemed harder than stone, smoother than glass.

Light pulsed in it. Korusan lay still. Stunned? Dead?

Estarion shifted atop him. He surged, hands clawed,
springing for the throat.

Estarion caught them. Pause, again. Blood rimmed the golden
eyes. A bruise spread across the curve of the cheekbone, swollen, nigh as dark
as Estarion’s own hand.