She brought the wine jar to him. Her eyes were lowered. He had never looked into them. Yellow eyes, of course. He had noted that from the beginning.
“It’s too hot to go on today,” he said to her. “We’ll stay here now, till sunrise tomorrow.” He knew she was dumb. That might be an advantage. She had filled his cup and stood meekly. Eyes lowered. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” he asked. “Of course not. I’m helping you reach your own people. Safe from the greedy Vis. Perhaps you’d like to give me something in return.” He hesitated. She made no move. He said, “Lie with me.”
She did not flinch. She did not seem pleased.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I know you’re young. I’ll be gentle. Am I the first?” She said nothing. He wondered if he would have to force her to comply. He preferred not to use force. “Go over to the water and get clean, around the rock where the others can’t see. Then come into my tent.” Rather to his relief she turned at once and went toward the waterfall. Probably she was not a virgin, and used to being had. Her quiet was servility not distaste.
It was dark red in the tent from screened-off sun. When she entered, light came in with her and stayed.
For a moment he could not think what it was, then he sat up with an exclamation. He went to her slowly.
“By Ashkar! The brutes dyed your hair in that dung-hill town.”
For she was golden-blonde. She was sheer Lowland stock.
And she was beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. So white, so golden. Her eyes—golden. They expanded as if with tears, but it was pure luminosity.
The Vardian trembled with his need. He took the edge of her dress in his fingers. The fastenings were simple.
He pulled the garment from her. She stood before him naked.
Again, he was almost shocked. Her exquisite high breasts were capped with gilt. In her navel a drop of yellow resin spat. The hair on her loins resembled spun metal.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he muttered.
“It is you who fear.”
He jumped away at the voice. She could not speak—had not spoken. The words had been inside his skull. The Vardian was familiar with telepathy, had experienced it with his own kindred, if mostly as a child. Beyond the initial astonishment he was not unnerved by the mere fact of mind speech. This mind speech was, however, unlike any other.
He shuddered. Her eyes seemed to eclipse the world.
Then he fell to his knees. It happened, his body’s reverence, before he knew why. On his knees, only then, he knew.
Cast from her light, a shadow rose behind the Lowland girl on the hot red wall. It was the shadow of a being much taller than the girl, though also long-haired and high-breasted, its many arms outstretched and swaying upright upon the coiled tail that formed its lower body.
“Ashkar,” said the Vardian.
He bowed to his face as wave upon wave of ecstatic and wondrous terror burst through him, until eventually he fainted.
Book Three
Cities of Rust and Fire
11
The Xarabian ship reached home port uneventfully, on a smooth evening sea. Next morning, Rem and Lur Raldnor rode inland for the capital.
Lin Abissa was the first true city Rem had laid eyes on for over eight years, and Raldnor’s first ever. You could not count Amlan, whose charm was all in her littleness, her impression of a sturdy painted town.
The high slender towers flashing crystal at the sun, the high walls with their parapets, crenellations, bastions, the combination of refined delicacy and obdurate strength—here was Vis, Visian supremacy and beauty, still upright in an altered world.
They entered through the Gate of Gourds. Above it, the banner was flying, Xarabiss’ dragon woman. There was a tale of the Lowland War, that the tyrant Amrek had accused Xarabiss of using Anackire as a device. And indeed, there was some resemblance.
With the political unsettlement of the seas, Zakorian spies were apparently suspected. Papers must be produced at the gate. Not everyone had papers. The ecstasy of the first-seen Vis city began to pall in a long wait. Then, when Lur Raldnor’s own impressive credentials were produced—Yannul’s letter, marked with the council seal of post-war Koramvis he still had the right to use—an escort of soldiery was brought round to conduct them to the palace of the King.
They had reckoned they would get this treatment (the servant had banked on it), and Lur Raldnor had facetiously postulated a plan of false names.
People on the wide streets turned to look after them. Chariots whipped past, drawn by the fire-swift leaping chariot-animals of the Middle Lands.
But it was as they crossed a corner of Lin Abissa’s Red Market that the initial scene of the alteration was impressed on them.
Members of the pale race, as well as mixes, came and went in Amlan. But they were Vardians or Shansars, in Xarabiss they had so far set eyes on one Tarabine merchant, riding in a litter through the port, the curtains well-back, so all could see him laughing and sharing sweetmeats with his Vis hetaera.
Until now, neither of the Lans, nor Rem himself, had got sight of a born-blood Lowlander, save gentle Medaci.
The Red Market was lazily energetic in the hot afternoon. Under the fringed awnings every kind of ware imaginable was up for sale, even to a row of sequined slaves hung in a flower-strung cage. The ten guard of the escort were good-naturedly prodding and cursing the turgidly moving crowd aside, when suddenly all activity seemed to terminate. Only a drove of cattle was abruptly hurried, lowing and stamping, into an aisle between the booths.
The captain of the escort had raised his mailed hand to halt them, and now held it upright as if congealed in the air.
Clearly, someone of utmost importance was about to enter the Market.
“Who’s coming?” Lur Raldnor asked the captain.
The man lowered his hand. He said, “A Lowlander.”
Lur Raldnor raised his eyebrows. “But who?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the captain. There was no clue in his voice.
“You mean you stop all traffic, clear all paths like this, for any—”
“For any of the pure blood of the goddess. Yes.”
Lur Raldnor looked at Rem, shrugged, grinned, and said: “Proud?”
Rem laughed.
There was hardly any other sound.
Rem had looked for an entourage; litter, outriders, bearers of fans and parasols, something Karmian.
Then the Lowlander came, walking quite slowly along the human avenue. There was only one. A woman. She had no attendants, no accessories.
She was simply dressed, but the robe was silk. Her hair was the whitest blond Rem had ever seen, snow hair, and her skin looked as white. On her arms, almost the only ornament, were bracelets of amber, row on row of them. Round her neck was a serpent tore he took for polished white enamel—then it moved, and he beheld it was a live snake.
The Amanackire woman barely seemed to notice the crowd. She did not glance at them. Only once her eyes swept outward, to the place where the mounted guard sat their animals, waiting with the rest. Her eyes were not gold, but as with her hair, nearly colorless, eyes that were almost white—like the eyes of the albino snake. The pores of Rem’s skin stiffened along shoulders and neck. The captain bowed.
A moment later the woman herself halted. She beckoned to a seller of fruit. At once he and his assistant ran forward, and laid panniers of citruses and grapes before her. She selected, by pointing at it, one fruit. It was taken up and given her. Offering neither thanks nor payment, the woman moved on.