The Lady of Han-Gilen (28 page)

“The north holds the dark.”

He frowned. “It’s Midwinter, sister-love. It chills us all.”

“No,” she said with swift heat. “I can feel it.”

She had touched his pride. “My realm is like my body to me.
It lies at rest, deep in winter’s grip. Save only for the uneasiness in the
south. And,” he added more slowly, “a little in the north. A very little. A
raid or two. The tribes thrive on them; without them, all the young men would
go mad and turn on one another.”

“Tribes? In the Hundred Realms?”

“It is not—”

oOo

It was Ashan. The messenger came in late and chilled to
the bone, his mare all but foundered.

With wine in his belly and a warm robe about him, he told
his tale. “Men of Asan-Eridan began it,” he said. “A girl of theirs, a favorite
of the lord’s favorite bastard, caught the eye of a visitor. He was a man of
little enough account, but he had kin in Asan-Sheian. He accosted the girl and
raped her; her man caught him at it, and quite legally and rightly, if somewhat
precipitously, saw to it that the outlander would never enjoy another woman.
The culprit, turned loose, made his way back to Sheian, where his kin by then
were weary of winter and eager for a diversion.

“That would have been little enough, sire, and easily dealt
with. But my lord Omian is marriage-kin to Sheian’s lady, and he was there when
the wounded man returned. He bound his own men to Sheian’s cause.

“Now Eridan lies near Ebros’ border, and has close ties of
alliance and kinship with a handful of its Ebran neighbors. Faced with Luian’s
troops, Eridan’s lord called on his friends. And now we have the beginnings of
a healthy war.”

He left his seat to kneel before Mirain. “We would not
trouble you, Sunborn. But my lord is old and his heir is not minded to make
peace, and of the rest of the sons, most have arrayed themselves with the
younger lord to rouse war against Ebros. Before the end, Ashan may well turn
upon Ashan, and fight as fiercely within as without.” The man clasped his hands
in formal pleading. “Majesty, if this small fragment of your great empire is of
any worth to you, we beg you, aid us in our trouble.”

Mirain looked down at the messenger. Elian knew that look:
dark, level, and utterly unreadable. She had seen high lords flinch before it.

This man was no lord, of blood or of spirit. He crouched on
the floor, shielding his head with his hands. But he had the strength to cry,
“Sunborn! By your father’s name, give us your aid.”

The words rang in silence. In the heart of it a note sang,
faint yet clear: the chiming of a bell. Mirain raised his head to it. “Avaryan
sets,” he said. “The temple waits for me.”

The envoy clutched his knees: great daring and great
desperation.
“Sire!”

“After the rite,” said Mirain, “you will have my answer.” He
seemed to do nothing, but he was free and striding through the hall, the
messenger kneeling still, gripping air.

oOo

Though crowded with the folk of the city, Avaryan’s temple
held within it a black and ancient cold. The high ones felt it in their places
near the altar, prince and princess seated side by side, their son and their
daughter standing close behind them. Although no fire lightened the darkness, a
glow clung to them, a faint red-golden shimmer: the mage-light, that was always
strongest in the heart of Han-Gilen. It shone even through Elian’s cloak.

She barely heeded it. The cold within her had deepened to
burning. Her mind was brittle, clear and bright and fragile as ice. The thoughts
of the gathered people rang upon it.

Stronger than they was the call of the darkened altar, the
mantle and the water of prophecy. All her will scarcely sufficed to hold her in
her place.

It is time, sang the water. Time and time and time. Come,
seer. Come and rule me.

Her jaw set, aching-hard. There was no one to cling to, even
if she could. Orsan and his lady were just out of her reach. Hal supported
Anaki, who would come to this ritual, even though she came in a chair. Mated,
all of them, and centered on one another.

Light flared blinding-bright in the gloom. A child’s voice,
high and piercingly pure, rent the murmuring silence.

Every priest and priestess in Han-Gilen walked in that
endless procession, a stream of white robes, golden torques, fine-honed voices.
Before them trod the novices in saffron gold, bearing tall candles. Behind them
came a great light.

The Halenani shone with power. But this was Avaryan’s own
child in Avaryan’s greatest temple: robe and torque like all the rest, voice as
pure as a sacred singer’s, yet all of it but a veil over light. Elian’s eyes
blurred and flinched before its brilliance.

If he will not be called high priest now, her cold self
said, then the name is nothing. He is only what he is. The god’s son, greatest
of the priests of the Sun.

He mounted to the high altar and bowed as a flame will bow
in a high wind. She never heard what words he sang, nor saw the movements of
his dance, the dance of the binding of the goddess.

The darkness’ binding loosed other powers, Elian’s own far
from the least of them. With no memory of movement, she stood no longer beside
her brother but shivered in deep shadow. Perilously close, close enough to
touch, lay the Altar of Seeing.

No mind but hers focused on it, no eyes turned toward it. She
was as much alone there as if the temple had been empty.

Her hand stretched out. The mantle was thick and startlingly
soft, pouring over her hand like water. Black water, glistening in its hollow
in the stone, stirring and shimmering. She should fight—fight—

Come, it whispered. Rule. Be strong and see.

Strength lay in surrender. Strength was to open wide the
mind, to let the water pour into it with its burden of dreams and nightmares
and true sight, to master the visions; to gather, and shape, and rule.

Rule
. Her brain
was a dazzle of images. Her eyes saw, her mind knew where she stood: by the
altar of prophecy, with the black mantle cast over Mirain’s gift of green
velvet and
hazia
.

She was no longer cold. The temple flared with the Sun’s
fire: while she bound her visions, Mirain had kindled the light of Sunreturn.

Priests and Sunborn sang the great antiphon, deep voices
shot with the silver brilliance of the novices and the priestesses.
The god came forth
, they sang,
and clove to his bride. And the darkness was
cast down, and the light rose up: sun in triumph, conqueror unconquered, king
forever. . . .

King forever
, a
single voice echoed him. With a shock she knew her own, though higher and purer
and fiercer than she had ever known it could be.

The ranks of priests wavered. The people turned, staring.
Their eyes smote her.

The voice ran on of its own accord, like a bell that, once
struck, continues to sound, untouched by any hand: “King forever or king never,
son of the Sun! Look; even as you stand here binding the dark with chains of
light and song, it moves against you. And you sing, and you dance the Dance,
and you ponder this small trouble in the north. You are restless with
winter—you will go yourself to settle it, to cow your rebellious people with your
own mighty presence. Ill pondered and ill chosen, Sunborn. North waits the full
power of ancient Night. North lies your death.”

Mirain stood unmoving behind the high altar. His light had
faded to a shimmer, barely perceptible in the splendor of the full-lit temple.

He wore no mark of rank, only the vestments of a priest in
the rite, white without adornment, and his torque. His face blurred through the
flocking visions: Mirain the boy atop Endros; Mirain the youth on his throne in
Ianon; Mirain but little older, locked in deadly combat with a giant of the
north; Mirain come to manhood, riding to claim his empire.

Mirain lying on cold stone, eyes open to the sky, all light
fled from them; and over him a shape of shadow, mantled in night. It stretched
forth a long gaunt hand, and bent, and reft his heart from his breast.

“Send another,” Elian said quite calmly, quite clearly.
“Send one who will be strong at need, ruthless at need, and tarry here. Then
indeed shall you be king forever, you and all the heirs of your body. All the
worlds shall bow before you.”

It was strange how clear her mind was. She could see through
Mirain as through a glass; the others, the lesser ones, were like bright water
babbling unheeded on the edge of perception.

He was still, clear-eyed and completely unafraid. “How may I
send another,” he asked, “if I dare not send myself?”

“It is not a matter of daring or of cowardice. It is a
matter of the world that hereafter shall be. You are the sword of Avaryan
against the dark. If you are broken before the time appointed, what hope then
has any child of the light?”

“You are the seer,” he said. “See for your king. Is my death
inescapable?”

“If you go not into the north, you may escape it.”

“And if I go? Is all hope lost?”

She shivered. But the sight knew neither mercy nor human
fear. It spoke through her, cold and distinct. “Your death waits in Ashan. Yet
on one thread of time’s tapestry—one thread only, of all the myriads— there is
hope. Hope for your life. What that life shall be, whether prisoned in deep
dungeons or hounded into exile or even—pray the god it be so—set again upon
your throne, I cannot see. A shadow lies upon my sight.”

“But I will live.”

“You may. If you pursue that one course of the many, make
the one proper choice, speak the word and make the gesture and face the danger
as the seeing demands. But the word and the gesture I cannot see.”

“No. You would not. My enemy is strong enough to darken even
prophecy. Yet hope cannot be hidden.” His voice rang out, clear and strong. “I will
venture it. I will go forth and crush this serpent in the grass of my kingdom,
and my father will defend me. No mortal can conquer me.”

“But a goddess may,” said Elian.

No one heard her. They were all crying his name. And he—he
chose not to listen. He even smiled; and he turned back to the rite, singing
more splendidly than ever, with the power of the god in his voice and in his
eyes.

 
“Will you
go?”

Mirain was clad for the feasting in full Ianyn splendor, but
Elian wore still the gown and the cloak she had had in the temple, with the
prophet’s mantle cast haphazardly over them. No one had touched her or spoken
to her. She was a figure of awe now, the seer of Han-Gilen.

She hardly heeded it, or the servants who moved around
Mirain, settling his broad collar of gold, braiding gold and pearls into his
hair, painting the sunburst of his father between his brows.

“Will you go?” she demanded again.

He left his servants to approach her. He was not like the
rest; he dared to slip black mantle and green from her shoulders, to touch the
lacings of her dark plain gown. “I will go,” he said.

He beckoned. One of his dressers came forward with a cascade
of gold and white, the robe of a princess, a queen.

They dressed her as if she had been a carven image, women who
came from she knew not where, with faces she might have known. They suppressed
sighs over her cropped hair, though that had grown out a little, binding it
with a jeweled fillet, painting her eyes and her cheeks and her cold lips.

When they were done they held up a silver mirror, but she
did not need it. Her beauty shone in Mirain’s still face. He bowed over her
hands, and kissed the palms one by one. “You are the fairest lady in the
world,” he said.

She was empty of words. Over his royal finery, death lay
like a cloak.

His touch was warm and living, his arm strong, his smile
luminous. The small child in her wanted to cling to him and never let him go.
The newborn prophet held herself aloof, suffering him to lead her, but offering
nothing of speech or of gesture.

They walked from his chambers, maids and manservants falling
in behind. Two guards stood at the door: one of his men in scarlet, one of her
women in green. Mirain smiled at them. Elian could muster nothing but a bare
inclination of the head.

Haughty lady, her mind mocked her. How can they endure you?

“Because they love you,” Mirain said softly, for her alone
to hear.

A deep shudder racked her. The coldness fled. She stopped
short, tangling the retinue behind her.

“You will go,” she said. “So be it. But first you shall make
me your queen.”

He glanced at their followers, who were careful to be
oblivious. His brow, raised, conceded the justice of her assault now, all
unlooked for, in front of a full company of servants. But she had had no
thought at all of revenge.

“Is that your seeing?” he asked her.

“It is my will.”

He looked hard at her. She stared back. His lips tightened.
“Why? Why now, after so much resistance?”

“Because,” she said. Fire came and went in her face; her
fists knotted. “Because—after all—I see—I love you.”

“Because your power tells you I will die.” That was brutal,
but he struck harder still. “I will not marry for pity, Elian.”

She stiffened at the blow, yet she answered calm with
flawless calm. “Even for the sake of the dynasty that will be?”

His breath hissed between his teeth. “When I return from
Ashan,” he said with great precision, “then we shall be wedded. If that is
still your will.”

She tossed her head, her fear bursting forth in a flare of
temper. “No! I want it now. Tonight. The feast is ready. We’re both arrayed for
it. And afterward . . .”

“Child,” said Mirain with utmost gentleness, “whatever you
wish for, you wish for with all that is in you.”

“You want it as much as I.”

“Not this way. When I take you, I shall take you as a queen,
not as a battle-bride. Without haste, and without regret.”