“Not deductions merely, Raldnor. I knew your—mother. Her name was Lomandra. She was a court woman and, for a long while, my mistress.” Kren paused, seeing some irony in what he had said. “But, of course, I’m not your father. One of your parents, as you know, was a Lowlander.”
The flaring eyes in front of him seemed to burn upward out of their pits.
“You’re my host, my lord. I can only wonder at your humor. No man can think himself safe when he’s named one of the Plains people.”
“I know that. You see there are no witnesses to what I say. Let me go on and things may become clear. Lomandra had a good reason for taking you from Koramvis. She was making for the Lowlands, and she required my help, because her errand was dangerous. I gave her an escort—two of my captains. One of them loved her; I thought it might bring them luck. She would have sent me word when she was safe; it was her way. No word came. So I detailed a man to track them down through Xarabiss to the Plains. He found the wreck of the chariot and its driver on the Xarabian border, and, some way off, what was left of the other man, although the tirr had picked him fastidiously clean. It was only by chance he found the shallow grave, small enough for a woman. He unearthed her for me, to be sure, and there was no child. I didn’t know then if whoever took you had found her dead or had killed her. As for you, I thought some slave master had carried you off. The caravans go all ways. There seemed no hope of finding you. Besides, I had then my grief for her.”
Raldnor leaned forward and said: “You knew my mother. Who was my father? Do you know that too?”
Kren’s level eyes darkened with their unhidden trouble.
“The gods play some strange tricks on us, Raldnor.”
Overhead the sky was deepening toward dusk, and a flight of birds, catching the last of the invisible sun on silver wings, soared and swooped toward the river. Raldnor was acutely conscious of their passage.
“Raldnor, have you heard of the Lowland temple girl Rehdon took on the night of his death? He put a child in her, though it’s been suggested it was the bastard of the lord Councilor, Amnorh.”
“I’ve heard of her. Ashne’e. The women were always saying they saw her ghost in the Palace of Peace.”
“Raldnor, Ashne’e was your mother, your Lowland mother. Rehdon, the Storm Lord, was your father. Val Mala feared your birth because it threatened her status through her son. She instructed Lomandra to kill you, and she demanded your smallest left finger as the token of your death. Ashne’e cut off the finger while you lived. Lomandra took you to the Xarabian border and died there, so you knew nothing of what you are.” Kren studied the young man’s face but could discern no trace of emotion. There was only that blankness in his eyes which spelled an inner turmoil too frenzied to rise to the physical surface. “It’s the custom of the Vis that the last child conceived of a King is his heir. Amrek was plowed before you. You’re Rehdon’s last child. You are the Storm Lord, Raldnor. And if you leave this Garrison, your own Dragon Guard will hack you to pieces.”
Book Four
Hell’s Blue Burning Seas
14
In the sunset the mountains were crusts of flame.
After sunset the darkness came slowly, spreading like ink in the crevasses. Once its work was done, the great spires were entirely featureless, except for the distant red dots of hunters’ fires or the occasional eyes of what was hunted.
Each time, as the light went out of the mountains, some reflected meaning stirred faintly in her mind. But she was mainly dead. Once it occurred to her: “I am a slave.” But this meant, on the whole, very little.
Astaris never wondered if Amrek had planned this fate for her in lieu of the stake. In point of fact, the merchant had taken matters into his own hands.
There had been a cloaked stranger in the market in the dim hour before dawn.
“Are you Bandar the merchant?”
“What if I am?”
“This, if you are,” and the amazing bag of gold was put in his grasp.
“For what am I given this?”
“You’re taking your caravan over the pass to Thaddra, now the trouble’s settled? Well, there’s to be a passenger for you. A court lady. One of the Princess Astaris’s women. A Karmian.”
“For what do I want a passenger to eat my food?”
The cloaked man had shifted a little, and somehow the edge of his cloak slid aside and revealed the silver lightning which was Amrek’s personal blazon. After that, Bandar ceased arguing.
It was a dangerous task, running through the lower ways of the palace, first alone, next with the—court lady. Oh, indeed. He knew well enough who she was once he had seen her hair. At first he had been terrified, his bowels scalded with terror. But once he had her safe away, other emotions came to him. He had heard, by then, the tale of her adultery, for Koramvin gossips had briefly joined his caravan on the road. Bandar and his woman dyed the princess’s hair black in the secrecy of their wagon. The old fool was probably too stupid to guess what was up, but to be sure, he swore her to silence on the name of one of the ten thousand gods she believed in. Bandar knew now exactly what he had in his possession, and it was more than a bag of gold. She was adrift, without a prayer, this Astaris. Whoever had got her safe away—could it truly have been Amrek?—had no claims on her now, and she, she seemed living in a listless dream. Perhaps the shock had unhinged her. At any rate, her looks would fetch a good price in the markets of Thaddra. For want of inspiration, he had renamed her Silukis, after his Iscaian mother, and considered the bitch honored. In any event she answered to it obediently, as if her own name meant nothing to her.
The trek over the pass took a month. No robbers attacked or came to gather tax. The Storm Lord’s men had incidentally cleaned out most of their nests for the present. All told, it was a propitious journey.
The morning the wagons moved down into Thaddra, the mountains were hot and hard and blue.
It was a dark land—humid black jungle forest and still heat without much brightness from the sun. Rarnammon had built a city here once, but it lay in ruins. Now each area had its own guardian, or little king, all giving lip service to Dorthar and to Zakoris, and all bickering between themselves. It was a land to be lost in, and not found. A dark land indeed.
They came to a place called Tumesh, where there was a large and ugly town of squat swarthy buildings which resembled perfectly its inhabitants. Tumesh, as Thaddra went, was wealthy. She had, therefore, the money for Bandar’s goods—mostly ornaments and women—for metal ore, gems and prettiness were rare in Thaddra.
They settled in the great marketplace, and the old fat woman came puffing into the wagon. She stripped Astaris, and adorned her in a dress of mauve gauze and copper bangles, with paper orchids for her black hair. Astaris put up her hand and touched her hair, and smiled faintly. She was thinking of Raldnor and the dye that had preserved his secret, like hers. The woman, judging her quite insane, clucked at her and prodded her out on to the square.
There was a rostrum with a bell-hung awning. Under it Astaris was set to stand along with other girls who wept or smirked. Her surroundings affected her no more than a passing mist, for she was thinking only of him. It was her grief and her sustenance. She had no being except in what had gone before.
“You be careful, Bandar,” the fat woman muttered to him. “Don’t haggle too long over that one. She may have looks, but she’s daft and they’ll see it. And she’s got a brat coming.”
That last piqued Bandar’s curiosity. Was it Amrek’s child or the Sarite’s bastard? Well, no matter. It didn’t show in the gaudy dress, and she would probably lose it anyhow; she looked too fragile to bear, and she ate like a mouse, praise be.