[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (10 page)

The memory made his blood beat hot—but mates always took care to space their young at least two years apart. Whatever Tek’s charms, the young prince would never have considered their dancing again until the twins were weaned—as by now they must be, he realized with a jolt. Fury and longing rose in his breast. Instead of chasing his elusive sire halfway across the Plain, he might have sported the summer beside his mate, renewing their vows.

In exchange for Calydor’s godtales and ballads, Jan recited as best he could his own folk’s ancient lays—until, on the fourth night, the singer gently told him he much preferred to hear of Jan’s own life. The young prince blushed beneath the black hairs of his hide, certain his unpolished rendition must be the cause. Truth, he was no singer: that he knew. Yet here Calydor contradicted him with vehemence and surprise, insisting he had all the makings of a fine singer—timing, cadence, ear—but a heart that clearly joyed far more in spontaneous recounting than rote recitation of histories long past.

At last Jan relented, relating his battle with the wyvern queen, his sojourn among the two-footed firekeepers, his truce with the gryphon Illishar, his pact with the pans, the herd’s ordeal during the usurpation of mad Korr, and of Tek, his mate, whose many trials had brought their young safe into the world. Deeply absorbed, the star-flecked seer listened.

“I have no mate, no young,” he said at last. “I envy you, my son. Though life upon the Plain allows great liberty, I will say for your Vale that it lends a continuity unknown among my kind. You have friends whom you encounter every day. You do not spend your waking hours trekking from one waterhole to the next. You do not sleep each night in a newfound spot, one ear cocked for pards.”

Hearing this, Jan felt a secret triumph, savoring his companion’s admission that the Vale might have its merits. The young prince had liked Calydor on sight, sensed his admiration returned. He experienced the oddest camaraderie with the seer, a natural familiarity. Plainly, the older stallion enjoyed his company as well. Jan had never encountered such easy kinship before. It felt uncannily like something he ought to recognize, ought to have known in his colthood but missed somehow.

At last the Plain gave out. A great rift cleft the land as though the whole earth had pulled asunder. A steep slope led down to a flatter, nearly barren expanse, its soil a pale, poor alkaline color. Rounded hills and worn mesas surfaced here and there, slopes striated, alternating bands of soot and light. A chafing breeze blew, smelling of salt and dust. Below, Jan saw only patches of dying grass and leafless thornbriars.

“Behold, my son,” the star-strewn seer told him, “the Salt Waste. According to my dreams, ’twas here my folk put the dark destroyer to flight. Legends say that this was once a vast, shallow sea. Some claim seashells and the bones of great fishes can still be found here. I do not know. I have never ventured this place, nor have I any wish. My people call this a realm of haunts, where those who can find no peace withdraw to die.”

Jan stared in dismay at the vast wasteland before him, into which his mad king had fled. “How am I to find him?” he murmured. “What hope have I now?”

Calydor turned to him. “See you those mountains far, far to the east?”

The young prince peered through the wavering salt haze, barely discerned a jagged mountain range, white crags nearly fading into the paleness of dusty sky. It hovered before him, almost a dream, resembled a line of great, ridged lizards lying at rest. He nodded.

“See you where the two highest peaks pierce the sky, and the gap plunging between?”

Again, the young prince nodded. “Aye.”

“My visions promise that if you keep them ever before you as you go,” Calydor told him, “you will catch this dark other whom you seek long before you reach the peaks.”

Almost fearing to ask, Jan breathed, “Will I succeed? Will I wrest from Korr the secret that drives him mad?”

The seer’s look turned inward. “Yes, my son,” he answered softly. “You will see his madness end—but may wonder after if the news you learn be worth the cost.”

Gazing off toward the distant mountains, Jan scarcely heard the last of what his companion said. They were not real, he knew, these summits: merely an illusion that floated at the limit of his vision. The true peaks lay beyond horizon’s rim, hidden by the curve of the world. This far-off range existed much farther away even than it seemed. Jan gritted his teeth, determined to start at once.

“Little that is edible grows upon the Salt Waste,” Calydor was saying. “When you need sustenance, dash open one of the fleshy prickle-plants and take care to avoid the spines. The inside is succulent and sweet.”

Jan nodded absently, storing the other’s words, his thoughts fixed upon the far horizon still. He came to himself a moment later with a start and turned.

“I can never repay your aid and kindness, Calydor.”

The blue-and-silver stallion tossed his head. “It was little enough. Until next we meet, my son, I bid you in Álm’harat’s name, love wisely and well.”

Jan felt a great sadness stab his breast, could not say whence it came. He felt desolate suddenly, as though parting from a lifelong friend. The seer seemed similarly stricken. Jan bowed low to one knee after the fashion of the Plain. The older stallion did the same. Looking one last time into the indigo darkness of the other’s coat, the dance of stars that wound across, it almost seemed to Jan that he could see himself lost upon that path of stars. The young prince blinked. The illusion broke.

“Fare well,” Jan bade him. “May we meet again.”

He turned and began his descent down the soft, crumbling slope to the Salt Waste below.

The Salt Waste stretched on and on, its monotony numbing. His eyes reddened, ears filled with blown dust, coat caked with it. Whenever he felt his throat parching and empty belly grinding, he dashed open the nearest spiny plant to taste its sour flesh. Eventually he discovered that outcroppings of what he had mistaken for pebbles were actually plants, their waxy, grey-green surfaces concealing a sweet, juicy pulp. Whenever he found these, Jan ate greedily.

Three days he trekked, sleeping only briefly. Little sting-tailed insects crept out at night. Other animals, too, apparently inhabited this desolate place. Diminutive lizard tracks scampered away over the alkaline dust. Slithering trails of serpents or worms snaked through the sand. Once he came across delicate traces of some sort of minute pig or deer. The little creatures had been feeding on wax-rinds. Their tracks fled northward, the paw prints of some predator, equally tiny, pursuing. The young prince doubted a creature his own size could long survive here.

When, on the fourth day, he encountered Korr’s tracks, he nearly stumbled on past, so mesmerized had he become. The wind had fallen the night before, leaving the traces of the night creatures intact. Haze hung in the air. Jan came across a line of cloven-hoofed impressions leading east. He stopped. The imprints were large, unmistakably the king’s. They staggered, sometimes curving in great circles, their maker moving little faster than a shamble.

Heart quickening, the young prince started to trot. Crumbling mounds obscured his vision. The dream of white-maned mountains floated coolly before him on horizon’s edge. He found where Korr had paused to feed, tearing at thorns. He passed a spot where the king had rested, disturbing the sand beneath the scant shade of a spindly tree. Eagerly, Jan pressed on. Morning hours crept away. The sun was a fever-blaze dead overhead. He cast no shadow. The tracks wove through a meandering maze of mesas and hills.

Abruptly, his ears pricked. He heard slow hoofbeats ahead, much muffled by dust. Jan broke into a lope. He rounded a hill-mound, another. The tracks snaked on through the maze. In the stillness, the thud of his hooves, his own breathing, sounded impossibly loud. He rounded more curves. Suddenly the hoofbeats ahead of him faltered. A shrill whistle of surprise reached him, then the hard, random thumps of a warrior leaping and shying.

Jan’s heart kicked against his ribs. He bolted into a run. The shrills ahead of him continued, more peals of fury now than alarm. Whistling his own warcry, the dark prince skidded around an embankment to see emaciated Korr, rearing and plunging at a thing that writhed and whipped on the ground before him. Sand flew. Fine dust floated, a smoky curtain on the air. Jan caught a glimpse of long coils pale as salt. Korr charged it. Turning, it massed itself, hood flattened, fangs bared and ready to strike.

“No!” the prince of the Vale shouted. He dashed to interpose himself between the serpent and the king. The hissing creature lunged. The mad king struck at it. “Run,” Jan cried. “It’s poison!”

Again the viper lashed. The young prince felt its fangs click and slide against his horn as he swept it back. Seething, it gathered itself. Jan gauged himself at the edge of the serpent’s range. Korr behind him stood safe.

“Wyrm!” the mad lung raved. “Would you impede me?”

Without warning, he plunged past the younger stallion and rushed at the serpent again. Jan leapt after with a cry, threw one shoulder against him. Korr shook him off with a whinny of rage. Black hooves and pale sand flew. Jan saw the viper strike. The dark king ramped and dodged.

“Stop!” Jan exclaimed, colliding with him again. “You’ve no proof against its sting. Let me!”

With an effort, the young prince managed to shove the older stallion aside. He pinned the serpent’s body between one forehoof and the opposite hind heel, then struck its head off with his razor-edged horn. The dead thing continued to flop and bow upward even after he leapt free. Jan turned to Korr. The king stood staring at his own foreshank. Blood ran from a double wound.

“I’m stung,” he said.

The prince felt the strength drain from him. His knees trembled. He could not seem to catch his breath.

“No,” he whispered. “No. A flesh wound. A scratch, the venom already spent.”

The king shook his head, still gazing at the wound. “Deep,” he answered. “To the bone.” His voice sounded petulant, perturbed. “It smarts and burns.” He flexed his leg, then shook it. Blood trickled down.

“Don’t,” Jan gasped. Dust filled his lungs. He could get no air. Everything tasted of salt. “Stand still. Don’t help the poison spread.”

Korr tried to put his hoof down, but stumbled. Jan shied, his reflexes strung tauter than a deer’s. The king’s foreleg seemed unable to bear his weight. He stood three-legged, frowning. He muttered, “Numb.”

“Cut the wound,” Jan cried. “Bleed the poison out!”

He sprang to rake the tip of his horn across the swelling gash. Runnels of red spattered. The other stallion shook his head, staggered again.

“Late,” he remarked. “Too late.”

Jan felt a scream tear from his breast as Korr’s legs folded. He pitched forward. A grey puff of dust welled up, swirling. The king lay struggling to rise. Jan smote the ground for lack of any serpent left to strike.

“Why?” he cried. “Why did you fly at it? What harm to have let it go?”

Korr’s forehooves dug at the sand, uselessly. “It thwarted me,” he mumbled.

Jan heard himself railing, unable to stop. “Why did you not let me fend it off? You’ve no defense from serpent stings—”

The king tossed his haggard shoulders weakly, gave up trying to rise. He murmured, “I needn’t listen to you.”

“You do!” Jan burst out. The landscape around him reeled. “If not because I am your son, Korr, then because I am your prince! Even a king must obey the battleprince in time of war…”

“Prince,” the dark king snorted, refusing to look at him. “You’re no prince. I should have let your sib have the office. I should have acknowledged her at the start.”

“Lell?” Jan demanded. His sister had been but newly born when Jan had become warleader. “Lell’s barely five years old, still unbearded, not yet a warrior. She’s not even been initiated…”

Korr’s sudden glare cut short the absurd laugh rising in his throat. “Not Lell,” he snapped. “Your other sib. My firstborn. Tek’s twice the warrior you’ll ever be.”

The king’s words made no sense to him. Nothing made sense. Time stopped. Jan stood staring at the dark other. Nothing happened. Nothing moved save the airborne dust, which all around them, very slowly, was beginning to settle. The murky air gradually cleared. Jan heard his own ragged, labored breath. His lips and teeth and tongue were numb. He could not speak. Korr rambled on.

“Small matter she was born outside the Vale and by that red wych. She was an heir any prince could be proud of—until you sullied her. I warned you against courting! The pair of you pledged against my will and got your vile get. Ruined now. She’ll never lead the unicorns.”

The taste of salt swelled, closing Jan’s throat. His gorge rose. Pale dust made the other grey as a haunt. Himself, too. “What are you saying?” he managed, barely able to whisper. “What are you saying of Tek?”

Korr examined the sand-caked wound on his leg. It barely bled. “Corrupted,” he murmured. “Like all the herd. Jah-lila’s to blame. And you. Weanling sop, what have
you
ever done but nuzzle up to gryphons, renegades, and pans? As though the world were a courtship! You and your peace have betrayed Halla’s legacy: eternal vengeance and war till the day we regain our rightful Hills…”

Jan scarcely heard, hardly able to follow the gist of his words. “Are you saying Tek is your daughter?” he gasped. “Your first-born—my elder sister? Out of Jah-lila? You got foals on two different mares, and the first mare still living?”

The king’s head lolled. Roaring filled Jan’s ears as he realized the other was nodding. He felt as though lightning had seared him. The agony was uncontainable. Boundless wasteland swallowed his cry.

“Why did you never tell me? Why?”

The king’s head, dragging with weariness, lifted once more. The hollow eyes looked at him.

“I tried,” he whispered. “When you went with her to the Summer Sea, I warned you against courting…”

“You gave no clear warnings!” Jan shouted. “Only veiled threats that meant nothing. You urged me to choose a mare my own age—you never said Tek was your daughter! Never called her my sister.”

The dark king shook his head feebly. “I couldn’t. I meant never to speak of it, to…to spare her…”

“To spare yourself!” Jan choked. “To spare yourself the shame. You pledged yourself to Jah-lila long before you ever danced the courting dance with Ses by the Summer Sea. You raised me and Lell all our lives without telling us we had a sib…a sib by a different mare.”

Strength returned momentarily to the withered king. His nostrils flared. “She beguiled me, that wych. No beard, round hooves, mane standing in a brush. She was not even a unicorn! I made no pledge to any unicorn mare. Our sacred pool may have given her a horn, but it could not make her one of us. I left her and returned to the Vale, telling no one that, in my folly, I had consorted with a Renegade. I bade her not to follow me…”

Furiously, Jan cut off the other’s storm of words. “Jah-lila is no Renegade. She comes of a different tribe, the
daya
whom the two-footed firekeepers enslave. When she escaped and fled to the Plain, she asked your succor. Drinking of our sacred mere in the heart of wyvern-infested Hallow Hills, she became a unicorn. She is one of us now, and the mother of your heir.”

“I never intended—” dying Korr shrilled. “I gave my word to a mere Renegade, to no one…”

“It was still your word,” retorted Jan, “the word of a prince’s son, the prince-to-be, grandson to the reigning queen. You pledged yourself to Jah-lila, a bond unshakable in Alma’s eyes, and then deserted her.”

Korr laughed, a dry, wheezing sound. His body tremored as though with cold. The sun overhead blazed shadowless. “Aye, but she found me. Tracked me all the way to the Vale. Who would have thought it? Arrived in foal for all the world to see. Yet she never shamed me, never named her unborn filly’s sire. Hoping to tempt me to acknowledge her! Fool. I pretended not to know her.”

Again the horrible, airless laugh. Jan’s hide crawled. The king continued.

“When Teki sheltered her, all assumed him to be her unborn’s sire. Neither he nor she spoke a word of denial. Teki could easily shoulder my blame—he is the herd’s only healer, immune to censure. He could sire a dozen foals on a dozen dams and the herd would never cast him out. They need him—far more, it seems, than they needed me.”

Korr’s voice grew bitter. He sneered.

“Jah-lila haunted the Vale for months, seeking acceptance, striving to lure me back to her side. But the herd never accepted her. I saw to that.”

“They accept her now,” Jan breathed. He doubted the other heard. “They welcome and honor her.”

“At last she departed, self-exiled to the wilderness beyond the Vale. I thought me done with her and heaved a prayer of thanks. Alma had forgiven me. My granddam the queen had died, my father Khraa become king. I was prince now. I devoted my reign to serving Alma and the Law.”

“You served neither,” Jan growled. “What you called Law was tyranny; what you named Alma, madness.”

Korr ignored him, spoke on, gasping now.

“That very year by the Summer Sea I pledged your dam. She bore you to me the following spring. I reared you sternly, that you might never stray, as had I in my youth. I sought to keep you safe…

“To keep me ignorant!” Jan cried. “How is it, my sire, you loathe all Renegades so? Did you not once long to be one? Did you not, in your youth, once strike out across the Plain, make promises you spurned to keep—only to think better of your flight and return to the Vale?”

Korr shuddered. The dust on his coat rose and settled. “And if I did?” he muttered sullenly. “I came to my senses with none the wiser. Would you condemn me for mere folly?”

“Not for folly, but for deceit,” Jan answered hotly. “You told me I was prince-to-be and deprived a princess of her birthright.”

“Aye,” the dark king snarled. “The red wych bore her filly in the wild, reared her there two years till she was weaned—then brought her back to the Vale and left her in Teki’s care. To shame me! And never a word of who her filly’s father was. I made her swear never to tell what had passed between us. All these years, her silence has tortured me, chasing my reason!”

“It is your own silence,” cried Jan. “Your own silence that has maddened you.”

The other sank, sagged. “But I am dying now. My silence is broken.” Salt covered him. He turned glazed eyes toward Jan. His bony head looked like a skull. “So, my son,” he grated, “you have wrested my secret at last.” His voice was a rasp and a rattle of bones. “Has it been worth the trek?”