Hall of the Mountain King (35 page)

“So. You’re making the best of it.”

“I am more than content.” She considered him. “You do not
look well, my lord.”

“War is hard on a man.”

“Yes,” she said. “And rebellion is cruel, is it not? One
must destroy so much that one yearns to preserve.”

He stiffened at the blow. His eyes flicked to his mother,
hating, pleading.

She watched without a word. Her startlement had given way to
something less easily read; but it was not dismay. Not at all. Almost she might
have been smiling.

She looked like Ymin. Serene, superior, secure in the
certainty that the world was hers to shape as she willed.

Ymin met her gaze. “You know that if your son fails, you
have no hope.”

“My son will not fail.”

“That is no child whom he faces. It is the son of a god. He
is stronger by far than he seems; he is the fated king.”

“My son shall be king in Ianon.”

“So he may be,” said Ymin. She turned back to Moranden. “So
you can be. Do you think that Mirain will linger here? This is only his
beginning. And when he rides to take his full inheritance, Ianon will need a
man to rule her. What better man than his own kinsman?”

“His dear kinsman.” Moranden bared his teeth. “I’m no sage
and I’m no god’s get, but I’m not an utter idiot. I know how much love I can
expect from Mirain the priestess’ bastard. He’d see me dead before he’d let me
near his throne.”

“Would he? You have begun all amiss, I grant you, but he has
grown since he took the kingship. He can forgive you, if you will allow him. He
can give you all you ever longed for.”

Moranden’s face contorted with sudden passion. He flung his
hand toward his mother. “Even her head on a pike?”

“Even that,” said Ymin steadily.

Odiya laughed, free and startlingly sweet. “Why, this is
better than a troupe of mountebanks! Singer, have you lost your wits? Or is it
merely the madness of desperation? Your lover has no hope in combat, you know
as well as we. But you will not buy his life with empty promises.”

“They are not empty,” Ymin said.

Odiya merely smiled.

Ymin rose. She raised her chin; she pitched her voice to
throb in Moranden’s heart. “You are no fool, my lord; no woman’s plaything. And
yet your mother rules you. Without you she is nothing. Without her you are a man
of strength and wisdom. Cast off your shackles. See the truth. Know that you
can be king, if only you have patience.”

He wavered. She tempted him. She lured him with a vision of
splendors that would be. Freedom, joy, a throne at last. And no Odiya to make
his life a misery.

He shook himself heavily, hands to head, breathing rough and
hard. “No.” His fingers clawed. He tore them away. The pain was less than the
marks of his mother’s hand, than the burning cold of her stare. “No. Too late.
It was too late the day my father named Sanelin Amalin his heir. This is only
the last movement of the long dance. I must finish it. I will be king.”

“My lord,” Ymin began.

“Madam,” said Odiya, “the king has spoken.”

“He has sealed his destruction.” But Ymin’s strength had
faded into mere defiance. She was trapped here; her back knew that guards
waited beyond the tent, armed and braced to take her.

Moranden might have let her go. Odiya would never surrender
so precious a captive.

She glanced about, swift, desperate. She drew breath,
mustering what magery she had, focusing it in her voice.

“Spare yourself,” said Odiya.

She spoke a Word. Ymin was mute, without even will to
struggle. Odiya took her slack hand. “Come, child.”

Ymin could not speak, nor could she resist, but she could
smile. It was not the smile of one who had surrendered, nor was there any fear
in it, although she saw her death in Odiya’s eyes.

She met them levelly. She made them fall. Her smile grew and
steadied.

oOo

Alidan drew herself together. Horror, having darkened her
mind, now swept it clear. She knew what she would do, and what she must.

Captor and captive emerged from the tent. In their moment of
blindness between light and night, Alidan sprang.

Demons and serpents, a body too sinuous-strong to be human,
a gleam of deadly eyes. The knife pierced flesh, caught on bone, tore free.
Breath broke off sharp in Alidan’s ear.

Iron fingers wrenched the hilt from her hand and locked
about her throat. Too many fingers, too many hands beating her back and down.
Firelight blinded her.

“By the gods!” a man burst out. “A woman.”

“Ho there! The queen’s hurt. Quick, you, fetch a
blood-stancher!”

“Enough!” rapped the voice Alidan knew too well now, too
strong by far for a woman sorely wounded. “She has but scratched me. Move back;
let me see her.”

The circle of shadows widened and fell away, but their eyes
lingered on Alidan like burning hands. She thought of covering her nakedness;
she thought of laughing, and she thought of weeping.

She had failed. She had slain herself for nothing, not even
for a savorless vengeance. They would die together, she and the mute motionless
singer.

A new shadow loomed over her. A suggestion of great beauty,
an aura of great terror, a tang of blood.

“Goddess,” whispered Alidan. “Goddess-bearer. ”

“Who are you?” The words boomed in her mind.

“Woman.” She smiled. “Only woman.”

“Who?” pressed the queen who was not.
“Who are you?”

“Lost.” Alidan’s smile faded. The sorceress bent low, eyes
alarmed to cleave her soul. The goddess dwelt in them, all dark.

“But,” protested Alidan, “she is not—she is not all—” No
use; the sorceress could not know, would not. No more than she would know who,
or why, or whence.

There was blood bright and lurid on her black gown, pain in
the set of her face, wrath and power in her eyes. Great wrath, for with blood
she lost strength, with strength the power to work her sorceries. Yet her power
was great enough still to deal with this frail madwoman; and it promised
torment.

Terror gibbered on the edges of Alidan’s mind. Madness
coiled at the center. Ymin’s eyes burned between.

Words flamed in them.
Run.
Run now.

Wise fool. There was no escape for either of them.

The singer stumbled. Her body lurched against Odiya’s,
striking the wounded side.

The woman reeled, blind with pain. Ymin’s eyes, Alidan’s
feet, met and clashed and chose. Alidan bolted into the night.

oOo

As the stars wheeled toward midnight, Vadin eased himself
into Mirain’s tent.

Ymin was gone. Mirain lay alone, sprawled like a child,
smiling faintly in his sleep.

Vadin settled beside him. It was not a thing of conscious
thought. Mirain was warm and sated, fitting himself into the hollows of Vadin’s
body, sighing even deeper into sleep. But Vadin woke nightlong, guarding his
dreams.

oOo

Mirain passed without transition from sleep into waking. One
moment he was deep asleep; the next, he met Vadin’s stare and smiled.

That was unwonted enough to freeze Vadin where he lay. The
king looked bright and clear-witted and almost happy, freed for once from his
morning temper. Today, his eyes said, might be his death day; it might mark the
first great victory of his kingship. Whatever the end, now that he came to it,
he welcomed it.

Although it was barely dawn, most of the camp was up and
about. None of them seemed to have had any more sleep than Vadin had. And all
of them, soldiers, squires, lords and captains, were grim-faced, hollow-eyed,
as if they and not Mirain would be dead by evening.

He was light and calm. He ate with good appetite; he smiled,
jested, wrung laughter from them all. But it died as soon as he turned away.

Nuran and Kav took him in hand, bathed and shaved him,
plaited his hair and bound it about his head.

While they were occupied, someone hissed from the door.
Adjan caught Vadin’s eye. The arms master’s face was set in stone.

Moving without haste but without tarrying, Vadin emerged
into the cold dawn. “What—”

He stopped. Adjan supported a second figure, one to which,
even cloaked and staggering, Vadin could set a name. “Alidan!”

It was all he could do to keep his voice low. She was naked
under the mantle, her hair straggling, matted with mud and blood. But her eyes
were the worst of it. They were quiet, they were sane, and they had lost all
hope.

He tried to be gentle. “Alidan, what’s happened?”

“I left my mark on the western witch,” she answered him,
soft and calm. “She will have no power to betray my king.”

Vadin’s anxiety went cold. He could not even take refuge in
incomprehension. He was too far gone in magecraft. He knew what she was saying;
he had begun to suspect what she had left unsaid. She rejoiced in what she had
done: black treachery, betrayal of all honor, and perhaps the one hope of
Mirain’s salvation. But her joy was turned all to darkness.

Adjan said it, short and brutal. “They have the singer. If
she’s lucky, they’ll have killed her quickly.”

Vadin’s feet carried him toward the ashes of the fire. He
stood over them. There was no life in them.

Adjan and Alidan were warm and painful presences at his
back. His stomach wanted to empty itself. He exerted his will upon it; with
dragging reluctance it yielded. “Why?” he demanded of Alidan. “Why did you do
it?”

The woman closed her eyes. It was too dark to see her face;
her shape in the gloom was stiff, her voice level. “We were not together. I was
going to rid us of the rebel. I wounded his mother instead. The singer was
going to persuade him to surrender. His mother overcome her. She was mad,” said
Alidan who for revenge had walked naked into the enemy’s camp and blooded her
blade in a witch’s body. “She trusted in her singer’s power, and in a few
nights’ loving long ago. He was her daughter’s father, did you know that? He
never did. Now he never will.”

“Damn her,” whispered Vadin. “Of all the people in Ianon—she
knew what it would do to Mirain. She knew!”

“If she had succeeded—” Alidan began.

“If she had succeeded, she would have shamed him beyond retrieving:
she would have proved that even his lover had no hope for his victory.”

“It would have prevented bloodshed, and won him a mighty
ally.” Vadin tossed his aching head. Women’s logic. Damn honor, damn glory,
damn manhood—nothing mattered but the winning.

He flung up his fists. Alidan did not flinch. She said, “It
was a sacrifice. Now the woman of Umijan must die. Now the old king shall be
avenged. You speak of shame; what do you call my lord’s folly in suffering his
assassin to walk free?”

“She may not only walk free. She may rule us.” Vadin knotted
his hands behind his back, lest he strike the madwoman down. “Get out of sight
and stay out of sight. I’ll keep this from Mirain for as long as I can.” He
groaned aloud. “Gods! She was supposed to be one of his judges. Adjan, can we
rescue her before the sun comes?”

“No.” Adjan was quieter than Vadin, and much more deadly.
“There’s a solid wall of sentries around the camp. They let one woman go;
they’re keeping the other. She’s their best weapon, and they know it.”

“It may turn in their hands.” Obri the chronicler stood at
Vadin’s elbow as if he had always been there, no more perturbed than ever by
Ianyn size or Ianyn temper. “May I offer a thought?”

Vadin snarled at him; he took it for assent. “The king has
prepared his mind, no? It is all on the battle before him. Let it stay so. I
will go in the judge’s cloak, if someone will cut it in half for me.” His teeth
gleamed as he smiled. “After all, I need to see it to write of it. The singer
is indisposed. Poor lady, she loves too much. She has broken, her friend is
with her, they will not weaken the king’s courage with their tears.”

“Mirain will never believe it,” Vadin said. “Another woman,
maybe. Not Ymin. She’s royal born; her heart is Ianyn iron.”

“But,” Obri persisted, “the king was born in the south,
where both men and women are gentler. While he has the battle to think of, he
will have less leisure for questions; I will see that he asks none.” And when Vadin
would not soften: “Trust me, young lord. I was hoodwinking princes when your
father was in swaddling bands.”

“What in all the hells are—” But Vadin was conquered.

Obri grinned, bowed his mocking bow, and melted into the
night. In his wake he left a flicker of amusement, and an image of an infant
wrapped from head to foot like a spider’s prey.

Vadin shuddered. “Go on,” he snapped to Alidan. “Vanish. And
you, Captain: stay as far from the king as you can. And pray that we carry it
off, or we’re all done for.”

They obeyed him. He was rather surprised. He paused,
steeling himself, and went to face Mirain.

oOo

He seemed not even to have noticed Vadin’s absence. His
squires were arranging the last fold of his scarlet cloak.

Almost before they were done, he turned with that
unmistakable grace of his, and paused. His armor lay all in its place, cleaned
and burnished. He ran his finger along the edge of his shield, toyed for a
moment with his helmet’s scarlet plume.

Abruptly he turned away. They watched him, all of them. He
lifted his chin and smiled at them, bright and strong. They parted to let him
pass.

oOo

On the easternmost hill of the camp an altar had risen in
the night: a hewn stone banked with earth and green turf. The sacred fire
burned upon it, warded by the priests of the army, Avaryan’s warriors armed and
mantled in Sun-gold.

Already before Mirain came to them they had begun the Rite
of Battle. Ancient, half-pagan, its rhythms throbbed in the blood: blood and
iron, earth and fire, interwoven with drums and the high eerie wailing of
pipes. They set Mirain upon their altar, anointed him with earth and blood,
hedged him with iron tempered in the god’s fire.