The girl walked to the northeastern terrace and up the steps of the undry well. The glow of the western sky edged her, so she also glowed against the dark stone.
A huge stillness balanced between heaven and earth. The birds had settled, no wind blew. The sunset hesitated.
Something was about to happen. It would be impossible not to know as much. The Vis in the Lepasin afraid and voracious, stood on mental tiptoe. The Lowlanders felt an aching of some old wound of the heart.
The girl lifted her arms.
Haut the Vardian, sometime drover of all kinds of flesh, purveyor of sheep, slave-trader, experienced the floating sensation known in the prayer-towers of the Sister Continent, where the soul could loosen in the body, letting go. All around, the crowd swayed, giving up concentrated emotion into the air. There was a sound now, an unheard sound, like the plucking over and over of a single noteless harpstring.
The girl seemed to contain fire, an alabaster lamp—her hair stirred, flickered, gushed upward, blowing flame in a wind that did not blow.
The crowd groaned. Not fear. It was like a love-cry.
What came next was sudden.
Light shot up the sky, a tower of light, beginning where the girl stood, or had been standing, for either the intensity of the light made her invisible, or she had herself become the light. For half a second, then, there was only the light. Then the light took form.
The form it took was Anackire.
She towered. She soared. Her flesh was a white mountain, Her snake’s tail a river of fire in spate. Her golden head touched the apex of the sky, and there the serpents of Her hair snapped like lightnings, causing lightnings.
So tall, so far off, the unhuman face was almost lost, indistinct even as it bent toward them. A necklace of sun-touched cloud encircled Her throat, cloud which, even as they stared, uncoiled and drifted from Her. Her eyes were twin suns. They blinded, they were so bright. The eight arms, outheld as the two arms of the girl had been, rested weightless on the air, the wrists, the long fingers, subtly moving.
The torrential tail of the snake flexed.
She was alive. She gazed at them, and unable to meet Her gaze they threw themselves down, or fell down, losing consciousness.
Anackire remained before them five eternal seconds. Then the sheen of her became, all of it, unbearably effulgent, a searing whiteness which abruptly went out, leaving only the black aftershadow on the dying sunset; presently, not even that.
As some sense came back to him, Haut beheld the girl standing before the well, unblasted by the entity she had released. She seemed in her turn only quiescent, not drained. And he saw at last her face, as it had always been, was the face of Anackire.
Leaving her mistress for the night, romantic Yeiza hoped the antechambers would be roused by the arrival of the Storm Lord. But the candle-flickering rooms stayed calm as stagnant pools. As usual, the doors were not flung open to admit the handsome white-haired King, vivid with his lust.
He might have had his given bride at once, the betrothal permitted that. But startling matters had intervened—the unexpected revelation of the Prince Rarmon, and then envoy from Karmiss presaging dealings so far unannounced. Tomorrow, however, was the marriage day. Yeiza had directed Ulis Anet’s maids in laying out the lovely garments, the jeweled headdress, the oils made from all the flowers of love. By tomorrow evening, the Princess’ suite would have been moved into another sector of the palace. She would be one of the High King’s fifteen lesser wives. And could it be, exquisite emblem of Xarabiss that she was, she would not even have a night with him? It was a fact, all Raldanash’s wives, the lesser, and the higher—those blonde queens from the other continent—were strangely and unfortunately every one of them barren. Some of the concubines had had children, but they were not legitimate, nor did they at all resemble the Vathcrian King.
Could he be impotent? It was also a fact, the King kept no boys to pleasure him, either.
The gods—the goddess—could not, surely, desire the legal line of the hero Raldnor to perish?
As Yeiza came out through a door into one of the garden courts, a man’s hand gripped her wrist. She gave a squeal, but the palace nights were full of amorous squeakings. It would require a determined scream to fetch the guard. Before she could take breath for it, she recognized the handsome face in the light from the doorway.
“Lord Iros—”
“Is he with her?”
“You mean the King? It’s his right to be,” said Yeiza defiantly.
“Not what I asked you, slut.”
“I’m no—”
“Answer me, or I’ll break your wrist.”
Yeiza believed him. She did not care for Iros, though his looks fascinated her. While, in a way, not caring for him had increased her interest.
“No then. She’s alone. My lord—you can’t go in.”
“I’ve bribed seven men to make sure I can. How do you think I got so far unchallenged?”
“If anyone found you with her, she’d die, and so would you.”
“Who’s to find us? Not him, for sure. Unless you betray me.”
Yeiza gazed into Iros’ blazing eyes and quailed. When he dragged her to him and kissed her, she yielded, melting in his heat though she knew it was banked for another. When he pushed her aside she almost sank to the grass. The door shut. Insulted and pleased, she discovered he had dropped a gold coin between her breasts as he caressed them.
The King’s regard contained a constant remote familiarity. Nothing had changed this. One sensed it never would change.
“Good evening, Rarmon.”
“Good evening, my lord. I regret I was delayed.”
“I gather I called you here straight from your chariot. You were riding in the hills?”
“In the ruined city, my lord.”
“Koramvis . . . yes. We all go to look at that. But you’ve been there more than once.”
Rarmon said nothing. It was not out of the question his half-brother the King would have him observed. It was too soon in Rarmon’s own ascent to arrange similar courtesies. His guards, were Raldanash’s soldiers. Even hired men from the streets were not advisable at this juncture.
He had not been privately in the Storm Lord’s presence since that bizarre night of the Amanackire judgment. He had seen Raldanash, of course, and been publicly recognized by him, to the consternation of the council. Warden Vencrek, one deduced, would also have set his own, more prosaic, investigation under way. Meanwhile, the crowds had cheered, an arresting noise to hear for oneself.
This summons was not entirely unexpected, however. Rarmon had at least heard of the arrival of a Karmian envoy. Though his past had not been brandished, or even elaborated upon, Rarmon had given some outline of it from necessity. Raldanash knew he had been Kesarh’s man almost two years.
Sure, enough. Raldanash said, “It seems I must go east. Officially it will be a progress. The Karmian King has sent a man across to Dorthar, a valued councilor, I intend to meet with in person, near Kuma. War games, naturally. You’ll recall how Karmis crippled the ships of Free Zakoris.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I’d like your opinion on the policies that are put forward, since you have some understanding of the aims and mind of Kesarh. You’ll come with me.”
Rarmon gave an acquiescing nod. It had occurred to him, obviously that though the King might care for his advice, he might also prefer to have the bastard brother safely at his side when away from Anackyra.
“There’s to be secrecy. The Free Zakorians have spies in Dorthar. I shall leave tomorrow. The more surprise to the capital the better.”
Something else suggested itself.
“I take it, sir, you’ll spare time to marry the Xarabian princess first.”