Authors: Judith Tarr

Tides of Darkness (40 page)

BOOK: Tides of Darkness

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He hunted through a chain of lesser Gates. Merian and her mages had closed the Worldgates to prevent an escape, but the Gates within this world were open. There were many; most had the soullessness of the dark lords' devices. Those he broke as he found them, scattered them into the elements from which they were made. After the first three or four or five, mages ran ahead of him, seeking out these false Gates and destroying them, while he hunted through Gates that had no need of forged metal or trapped magic.

The lords were barred from both. Their power was broken. The Mage was dead, its prison destroyed in the blaze of light that had overcome the dark. Their devices of metal were only metal now; the lords had no magic with which to bring them to life.

Daros still could not think too much on these matters. The memory of the cage was too strong, the horror of it too close to his spirit. The hunt was his release, the cleansing of his mind and soul.

The last nest was the worst. They had come full circle, back to the citadel and the deep halls beneath, dungeons that descended into the bowels of the earth. There the last of the lords had barricaded themselves with walls of stone and steel. And there, at last, were the women: blind, gravid things locked in cells like the children of bees. Whether they were born or made so, he did not know or care to know. But it made him all the more grimly determined to expunge this race from the worlds.

Daros had to go down into the dark from which he had so barely escaped. The mages and the warriors of the Sun brought light with
them, but Menkare and Nefret knew the same horror that he knew: the horror of return to endless night.

They did not flinch from the long descent. He could hardly be less brave than the mages whom he had made. He steadied his mind and firmed his steps and led them all into the darkness.

One weapon he had which he had not been able to use during his long deception: the flame of his power, which was born of the sun. He clothed himself in it, and sent it before him, a wall of light. He struck their wall of stone and steel and shattered it.

They came out fighting. Desperation made them vicious; they laughed at wounds, and courted death. They would take Daros and his hunters with them if they could.

Daros had had enough of fighting. He struck them down with a mighty blow of power, laid them low without ever drawing his sword. It was yet another broken law, he supposed; mages had so many. But he was long past caring. He gathered them up and bound them, and flung them through the Gate within him, on their faces before the princessheir where she sat in judgment.

FORTY-ONE

M
ERIAN HAD LONG SINCE LEARNED TO BE SURPRISED BY NOTHING Daros did. Daros was a law unto himself; there would never be any changing it.

Even so, the arrival of a score of dark lords, beaten unconscious by a stroke of power, was more than slightly startling. Outrageous, some of her mother's generals declared. They were not mages, but they were most careful of mages' lawsâboth those which they understood and those which they did not.

It happened that she was judging captives whom Daros had brought in in the days before. They would not use the citadel; that would come down, she had decided, and the slave-cities would be razed, and new cities built for and by the slaves who still wished to live on this world. Her place of judgment was the plain on which the battle for the citadel
had been fought, just outside the camp that her armies had made. Many of them were present even so late in the judging, watching and listening as she heard such defenses as could be offered.

There were not many, but she heard them all, over and over again. She was putting off the decision, and avoiding the sentence that must be levied. There truly was no choice. Death for them all, every one. Nothing that they had said had persuaded her to let them live.

And now they were all captured, all brought before her, and Daros standing above the last of them in borrowed armor. She still was not accustomed to the changes that this world had wrought in him. He was thinner but no narrower: he had grown into a man since she first saw him, an idle drunken princeling in the ridiculous height of fashion. His face had lost its prettiness but gained in beauty. Time and pain had drawn it fine; the smile was never so quick as it had been, and the expression into which it had settled was somberâa prince's face, lordly and stern.

He was distracting her now with his presence. She made herself focus on the prisoners, all of them, conscious and unconscious. Those who were awake were sour with scorn, looking with contempt on the beasts that had conquered them. To them, all not of their blood kin were no more than animals; slaves, bred for servitude.

She rose from the seat of judgment. “These are all of them?” she asked Daros.

He nodded. He had a tight-drawn look, as if he had snapped, but somehow put himself together again. “All but the women,” he said, “but those are no more threat to us than a nest of maggots.”

She raised a brow at the thickness of disgust in his voice, but left it until she had dealt with the men of that nation. “Wake them,” she said to him.

He bared his teeth. It was not a smile. His power lashed out, sharp as the crack of a whip. Every one of his newest captives snapped erect.

The emotion with which all of them regarded him was not entirely or even mostly contempt. It was hate. He basked in it; courted it. He dared them to turn against him.

“I have heard all that I have need to hear,” she said through that fog of loathing. “My judgment is made. My sentence isâ”

“Lady,” said Daros. He did not speak loudly, but his voice carried without effort across the field of the judging. “Lady, may I speak?”

Can I prevent you?

She did not say it aloud, but with him she had no need. The twitch of his smile, though slight, was genuine.

“Lady, you choose death. I can well see why: it would seem to be inevitable. And yet, will you give them what they long for above all else? Will you offer them free passage into oblivion?”

“You would have me keep them alive?” she asked him. “Are you so eager to fight this war again?”

“Not at all,” said Daros. “But, lady, death is a reward. Shouldn't your sentence be a punishment?”

“There is no punishment great enough for what they have done.”

“Maybe not,” Daros said, “but I can think of one that they would find rather painful.”

She raised a brow. “And that is?”

“Some of their slavesâborn here, or bred of worlds that were destroyed after their captureâhave expressed a desire to stay here. Yes? Give the lords to themâmen, women, children born and not yet born. Let them be slaves to their own slaves.”

“I had thought of that,” Merian said. “But if they rise again, if they find a way to restore their ruleâwho knows what devices might be hidden here, or what powers they might call on? They escaped our world once, and even stripped of magic, still succeeded in destroying a myriad worlds before they could be stopped. I will not risk such a thing. Not again.”

“Wise,” he said. “Merciful, in its way. Even just. But I am not in a merciful mood. I would rather they live, and live in suffering, than find relief in death. Unless â¦”

She waited. All of them did, even the fallen lords: and that was tribute to the power he had over them.

“Give them to healer-mages,” he said. “Let them be made newâthe women and children most of all, but the men, too. Set the seeds of light in them, nurture it and let it grow. Teach them to be truly human: to know love as well as hate, awe as well as scorn, humility as well as arrogance. Give them hearts, and let them know the fullness of what they have done. Give them guilt and shameâeven redemption, if such is possible.”

The silence was absolute. Even the wind had ceased to blow. It was a terrible, a wonderful solution, but there was no mercy in it whatsoever.

“And if they can't be made new?” Merian asked, since no one else seemed to have power to speak.

“Then do as you will,” said Daros.

She nodded slowly. “I will grant you this,” she said, “as a gift to you. On one condition.”

He stiffened ever so slightly, but his voice was as calm as ever. “And that is?”

“That you oversee the healing and dispose of those who have been healed, if any of them can be. Likewise those who cannotâtheir deaths must be at your command.”

He bowed low. It was a prince's bow, and a prince's face that he raised to her. “As you will, my lady.”

“You will not leave this world until it is done,” she said. “It will be years; it might be a lifetime. Can you bear that?”

“I understand,” he said, “and I accept it.”

“Then let it be done,” she said.

The camp's servants had pitched a tent for Daros among the rest of his hunters, between the edge of the camp and the camp in which the captives remained under guard. He did not indulge in disappointment. He had no right, after all, to expect anything of Merian, still less to be housed in her own tentâespecially after he had undercut her judgment. It was generous enough of her to let him lay sentence on the dark lords; he could hardly ask her to admit him to her bed as well. He had the rank
and the authority of a consort, and that, as useful as it was, was more than he deserved.

The tent was luxurious, for a tent; it was suited to his newly royal rank. It even had a pair of attendants: Menkare and Nefret, who greeted him with expressions that made him ask, “What did you do to the servants?”

“We let them live,” Nefret said, even as Menkare said, “We bribed them to find other masters.”

They stopped and glared at each other. Nefret won the silent fight; she said, “We belong with you.”

“Your people,” said Daros, “the slaves whom you freedâthey need you. Whereas Iâ”

“They've been seen to,” Nefret said. “While we were hunting, they were sent home, all of themâthey all wanted to go. There's none left here.”

“Then you can go home,” Daros said. “There's no need to stay with me. These are my people who are here; my kin, my own kind.”

Her brows drew together. “Are you telling us that you don't want us any more? That we're not gods, and not worthy to be seen in your presence?”

“No!” He had almost shouted the word. Menkare winced, but she gazed at him steadily.

“Don't you want to go home?” he demanded of her. “Don't you want to see the river again, and go fishing in the reeds, and live among your own people?”

“My people are dead,” she said. “Raiders killed them all. You are my people now. My god, if it pleases you better.”

“You know I am not a god,” he said.

“Close enough,” she said.

“Nefret,” he said. “You honor me, and greatly. But I won't have you stay just because you have nowhere else to go. Waset would take you, and give you great rank and worship, after what you have done for your world. So would any city along the river, and many a king. You're a god
in your own right. You don't need me to give you a place in the worlds.”

“I know that,” she said. “I want to stay. Your lady, the golden oneâshe is even more wonderful than you. I want to see the worlds, and walk under strange suns, and know other rivers than the river of the black land.”

“We can go back, you know,” said Menkare. “Even if we serve you, if you give us leaveâwe can go home to visit, and if we're needed. There's no dark any longer. The Gates are open. The worlds are free again.”

Daros blinked. He honestly had not thought of that. He had been too intent on the fact of their exile; but they did not see it as such at all.

“And your people?” he asked them. “What if they need you to stay?”

“Then we'll stay,” said Menkare. “But we got on rather well without magic before the dark came. Now that the dark is gone, I expect the world will go on as it always has. Magic is for gods, my lord. Mortals do well enough without.”

“And you? Are you god or mortal?”

“Why, neither, my lord. I'm something between.” Menkare smiled suddenly, and patted Daros on the shoulder. “Thereâdon't look so stunned. Do I look as if I'm suffering? It's glorious, this gift you've givenâeven at the price you laid on it. I've no desire to give it back.”

Daros, who had been about to ask that precise question, shut his mouth with a click.

“My lord,” said Nefret, reading him as effortlessly as she ever had,

“we stay with you because we love youâand because you so clearly need looking after. Would you even know where to find dinner, let alone remember to eat it?”

He bridled at that. “I'm not that helpless! I've fended for myself before. What makes you think I can't do it now?”

“Princes can't,” she said with calm conviction. “It's not allowed. You are a prince of princes. You must have attendantsâit's required. Wouldn't you rather have us than a flock of strangers?”

“I'm not so sure,” he muttered.

She laughed, which was cruel, but bracing, too. “Of course you would. Now stop your nonsense and let us get this armor off you. Has it even
been
off since you put it on?”

“I don'tâ”

Her nose wrinkled. “Obviously it hasn't. Menkare, find someone who can put together a bath for him.”

Menkare was already on his way. Daros sighed and submitted. That was a prince's lot, always: to suffer the tyranny of servants. And theseâyes, he would admit it to himself: he was glad that they had stayed. They were more than servants. They were friends.

Still, he said, “If you ever grow homesick, even for a moment, I'm sending you back. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” Nefret said without a spark of honest submissionâand no glimmer of expectation that he would do as he threatened, either.

Daros lay in his soft and princely bed, scrubbed until he stung. The borrowed armor had not fit as well as it might; there were galls and bruises and a boil or two, at which Nefret had been suitably outraged. It was all gone now, and a light warm coverlet over him, sparing his hurts as much as it might.

He should have been dead asleep, but his stubborn mind persisted in keeping him awake. Even closing out all that he had done and would do, he still could not force himself to sleep.

A warm presence fitted itself to his back. Light hands stroked him where it did not hurt overmuch; kisses brushed his nape and shoulders and wandered round to the freshly shaven curve of his jaw. Fingers ran through his cropped hair, ruffling such of it as there was.

“This will not be allowed to endure,” Merian's voice said in his ear.

He turned in her arms. She was both smiling and frowningâsmiling at him, frowning at what the lords had done to him. “What, I'm not pretty any longer?” he asked her.

“You aren't,” she said. “That's all gone. But beautyâyou have more of that than ever. Will you promise to grow your hair again?”

“If you'll let me cut it now and then.”

“Now and then,” she said, “I'll consider it.”

“You do mean it, then. What you said. That I'm your consort.”

BOOK: Tides of Darkness

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