“And when the sea’s open,” said Galud, who was watering a pillar, “the Leopard moves north, east, west, and south.”
“The war will get here. But you’ll be going back to Dorthar to meet it?” said Tuab Ey.
“No,” said Rarnammon.
Tuab Ey said lazily, “He’ll need you, won’t he, your illustrious brother?”
“Yes,” said Rarnammon. “Not necessarily beside him.”
“Enigma.”
“Fact.”
“Well? I’m your host, remember. Tell me.”
Rarnammon, who was looking down, a long slow look, at the city, smiled. He did not say anything.
Galud stood scowling at them, and then walked from the terrace and some way off. He supposed they were lovers and was jealous, although his own coital inclinations did not run that way.
Tuab Ey stretched himself out for the sun.
“So, you won’t tell me anything.”
“I shall find a suitable place and remain alone there. Wait.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. I only know what I’ve told you.”
“You’re a mystic, then.”
“Maybe.”
Tuab Ey moved on to his belly, leaning up on his elbows. He stared at Rarnammon until, feeling the powerful gaze, the elder man turned.
“You said alone. Or shall I come too, and act your page, lord King’s son?”
Initially he did not know what Rarnammon would do now it was said, and Tuab Ey experienced again the unaccustomed, uncanny sensation that was like awe. But then Rarnammon grinned, and the grin made him very young.
“A mystic remains celibate,” he said. Tuab Ey found himself grinning too, charmed or provoked into it. And then Rarnammon turned away again toward the north. “My father was in Thaddra,” he said. “If he didn’t transmute into fire or ether, then he’s still there, somewhere. Part of the stones, perhaps, or the black light through the trees.”
Tuab Ey shivered in the bright heat of noon.
“My own father,” he said, “had dealings of escape with a slave-trader, whose name was Bandar. Bandar, whom I saw as a child, was a fat and insalubrious oaf. He had one story he always forced on everyone. How he carried Astaris into Thaddra as a slave—not his fault, of course—and she was pregnant with Raldnor’s child.” Rarnammon did not glance about at him, but he was listening. Tuab Ey continued deftly. “There was another story, of a wolf child, in the northern forests—you know, a baby left with wolves and reared by them to be a wolf. Except wolves are scarce this side of the mountains. More likely wild dogs. But the child was said to be supernatural, white as pearl and winged, with a star on her forehead—” He stopped because Rarnammon had softly laughed. “Well, I never believed a word of it,” said Tuab Ey, and gave himself up again to the sun.
22
The eastern ice began to break. It was like the sound of the earth tearing apart.
In Dorthar, as the marble world gave way, mankind began to move more plentifully on its surface. Through mud and milky rains, a small caravan ploughed toward the capital, Anackyra. Then skirted it, made on toward the hills, Koramvis, the Lake of Ibron, where they said a mighty statue lay asleep; Anackire, dreaming. . . . The poor wagons were escorted by soldiery of the Storm Lord, which seemed to have been sent to meet them. In the villages and towns they passed, the blazon of the Serpent and Cloud was sighted and remarked upon. Occasional strange rumors flew back and forth. A poisoned well had been found clean, after the caravan had stopped beside it. A woman going out to mourn her dead returned without her sorrow. Someone sick had been cured, after the shadow of something, a cart or a snake, had gone over him as he wandered at the roadside.
A group of Amanackire were seen riding toward the hills above Anackyra.
There was a faint shock on the plain, in the city. Nothing gave way. Many did not feel it.
Vencrek, privately approaching his King, with whom he had spent time but never precisely known when they were children at Vathcri, said, “Raldanash, you can tell me anything about these tales of a priestess given royal escort to the ruin up there?”
Raldanash said, “The tales are true.”
“Who is she?”
“A priestess, as you said.”
“There’s, a lot of common talk—”
“Yes,” said Raldanash, with one of the rare flashes of humor, “there often is.” And then, quite lightly, conducting the Warden to the great table-board which described, approximately, the surface of Vis, Raldanash began to discuss with him the strategies of war. They shifted the small carved galleys, and the units of men and cavalry about, with wands of ivory. Such plans of attack as offered had been revised since Prince Rarmon’s traitorous withdrawal—or abduction. Spies had brought word he was dead. This too might be a lie.
Although he had got no answer to his curiosity, Vencrek succumbed to the charisma of his King. While some part of him stood sophisticatedly aloof, the cousin from Vathcri was yet flattered and warmed to play war-games alone with Raldanash. It did indeed, rather disgracefully, become a boys’ game in the end. Drinking the mulled wine, briskly deploying the ships, the Lord Warden consented to be Free Zakoris, and sometimes Karmiss, to the Storm Lord’s Dorthar. When Vencrek lost he let out a boy’s roar of outrage, and then caught the joke. “By Ashkar. Let’s hope they play as messily as I do.” And heard Raldanash laugh, which was more of a rarity even than wry humor. And remembered he loved him, a male love, not sexual, love of the blood, love of the honor and the steadfast integrity of Raldnor’s son.
And when, later, Raldanash fell asleep before the columned hearth, as if immensely tired, Vencrek looked at the beautiful unhuman face, touched and almost angry at being so trusted.
In Ommos the Dortharian garrison had been increased. Four and a half thousand of the Storm Lord’s men augmented the Ommish defenses. There was also a company of mixes, almost two thousand strong, and freelance mercenary units, Vathcrians and Tarabines, though the pure Shansarians had gone away.
Ommos was afraid.
The last war had raked her over. Like Zakoris, she too had been scourged and shamed, but Ommos had none of the valor of Yl’s long wish to fight back, only the suppuration of puny hatred. She feared the Sister Continent men who were there to help her, as she feared her own Lowlander Guardian and the white-haired King in Dorthar. The hero Raldnor had remained anathema to Ommos. No one loved her and she loved none. Only in corners, where a peculiar radiance had brushed in passing, had the mood softened and strengthened in different form. In the alleys of Hetta Para some still spoke of a long-haired religious—a boy, the dream must be translated—who was tolerant and kind to them. Zarok had been shown in another guise. The image of Anackire, which had likewise been shown and which, some said, had left an imprint on walls, had also in a mysterious way been Zarok. It was explainable as a female alter ego, which they could respect at last, the cloak of the god.
But these pockets of retention and strength were small. Ommos had never been fertile soil for things of light. A fire-worshipper, she had lost even the light of her fires. They were dulled by blood. She was like Free Zakoris, too, in that.
In Xarabiss. Thann Xa’ath had not hung back, as his father had, waiting to see how the cat might jump before he moved.
Then again, the fiasco of Ulis Anet’s escapade with her guard commander had brought considerable embarrassment. Though Xa’ath did not entirely accept the case as presented—there were other notions (she had in some way annoyed Raldanash and been quietly smothered?)—yet he was obliged to observe diplomatic rules. Thann Xa’ath must act, therefore, as if owing an apology to Dorthar. He brought his army smartly into the field, and dispatched a vassal’s token four thousand troops to Raldanash, to deploy as he saw fit. They were on the march before the snow was gone. Slung with spitting braziers, they tramped through the endless rain of the thaw. Thirty men were lost in a boiling river near the Ommos border. But it had been necessary to bustle this spring.