The Children of Kings

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  He caught the shift in his opponent’s eyes an instant before the attack came. He pivoted, sweeping his own sword to catch the cut on the strongest part of the blade. The man lashed out with the knife in his other hand, closing quick and hard. Gareth jumped back, fueled by luck and instinct.

  They engaged again, a flurry of quick jabs and parries. The man stumbled on the jutting edge of one of the floor stones and came up more slowly. He really was drunk, Gareth saw now, fighting by reflex in a style designed for a brave show and an early victory.

  Gareth didn’t want to kill the man. Was there no other way to end the fight? Every moment of delay only increased the possibility that one of them would end up maimed or dead. And why? Because one man was too ignorant to know what he was doing, and the other was too drunk or too in love with his own kihar? Was that worth a man’s life? The waste, the obscene, futile waste of it infuriated Gareth.

  They circled again, slashed and countered and broke apart. On impulse, Gareth stepped into the next opening, aiming not for a vital target but for the man’s face. The tip of his sword flicked across the weathered cheekbone, almost by chance in the same place Gareth had been cut. Dark blood welled.

  Gareth drew back, momentarily abashed by the anger that had driven him. His opponent raised one hand to his cheek and stared at his bloody fingers. The room seemed to hold its collective breath.

  “Now,” Gareth said, throwing away all caution, for what did it matter anyway? “Now you’re as ugly as I am!”

  The men froze, audience and combatant both. Even the noises from the kitchen fell away. The only sound was the buzzing of a single fly as it circled the unattended wine cups.

  The other man threw back his head and laughed uproariously. Gareth stared at him, dumbfounded. The watching men relaxed, slapping each another on the back, and returned to their drinks. Within moments, the room returned to how it had been when Gareth entered. His erstwhile opponent, sword now returned to its owner, lowered himself to the floor and gestured to Gareth.

  “One has only to look at you to see that the Double-Tailed Scorpion-Ant has graced you with his blessings. Ah, but I see you are already under Nebran’s protection—”

  Gareth’s hand went to the neckline of his shirt, where Linnea’s locket swung freely on its chain.

  “—and so, as the Toad survives the drought and lives to snare the Scorpion-Ant, so all men of kihar must prosper. Come, come, sit with us. And if Nebran extends his blessings, the next round of drink will be paid for.”

  Returning his sword to its sheath, Gareth squatted beside the other men. As the conversation continued, he found it was unnecessary to say anything, only to nod in agreement and to slip the wine shop owner a coin or two when he arrived with pitchers of sour, watered wine.

  Several mugs later, Gareth’s opponent, even drunker than before, became effusively friendly. Gareth himself had downed more of the foul-tasting stuff than he had intended. When his new drinking companion asked what his business was in Shainsa, he shrugged and tried to look bored.

  “I’ve taken a try at trading,” Gareth said. “This and that, looking for something no one else has. Willing to go—” he gestured in what he hoped was the direction of Daillon and Black Ridge, “—out there to get it. Unusual trade goods, y’know. Things that go boom or flash or whatever. Y’know what I mean?”

  His new friend, whose name was Rasham or Raseem or something like that, slapped his thigh. “To see things like that, one must be touched by the gods. And to be touched by the gods, one must be either very holy or else wanting very badly to leave this cursed life. You don’t look holy. Do I?” He leaned forward, breathing heavily. The smells of wine and hideously bad breath washed over Gareth. The next instant, Rasham toppled sideways.

  Suddenly disgusted at himself and the whole situation, Gareth disentangled himself and clambered to his feet. He gave the wine shop owner another few coins and shambled outside. He had wasted the rest of the day, almost gotten himself killed, received a cut that would surely leave a scar he’d have to explain to his hysterical mother, and now his belly threatened to spew forth all the cheap wine he’d poured into it.

  Gareth could not make out any landmarks, only that the sun hung low in the sky, red and swollen, but where he was in relation to the square and Cyrillon’s camp, he could not tell. As he made his way down the dusty streets, he tried to appear confident, so as to not present an obvious target for pickpockets. For a time, he could have sworn he was being followed, but when he turned to look, he saw nothing but shadows.

  He got turned around and ended up in a twilit alley, hot and reeking with the gypsy glare of fires that burned, smoking, at the far end. The street was far from deserted, for at this hour, the city surged back to life. A wind sprang up, heavy with the smells of incense from a street shrine, unfamiliar spices, and rancid cooking oil.

  Gareth felt a stirring, a breath across his neck. He turned. A Dry Towner, rangy and scarred, wearing a stained red shirtcloak, had come up behind him.

  Gareth tried to pull himself into a posture of vigilance. He greeted the man with the formulaic, “I do not know your face. Have I a duty toward you?”

  The man’s eyes were as pale as ice. Lips twisted back from teeth that were surprisingly white. “No, but that can be arranged. I may have what you are looking for.” He spoke clearly, but with a strange thick accent.

  Gareth’s heart gave a leap. “Let us find a place where we can speak freely.”

  “Not here.” Pale eyes flickered to where a clot of men in ragged shirtcloaks stood talking, voices low and hands on the hilts of their swords. “Tonight, when only Mormallor shines in the sky, come to The Place of the Silver Fan Ladies. Perhaps we will each learn something to one another’s advantage.” Again the man gave that rictus smile, and turned to go.

  “No, wait!”

  “There are things in the deep desert, things hidden in the Sands of the Sun, things beyond the power of men. Things sent in answer to our prayers. Things that will at long last grant us a holy victory over the witches of the north.”

  Aldones, the witches of the north meant the Comyn! The man was talking about war with the Domains.

  “But—”

  “Come alone. I will know if you are followed. Even the shadows have ears.”

  Without another word, the Dry Towner strode away.

  By the time Gareth reached the traders’ encampment, it was full night. The dregs of adrenaline had faded from his veins, leaving him queasy and shaken. Rahelle and Cyrillon sat around a fire of dried oudrakhi dung, such as they had used on the trail. The pungent odor rankled Gareth’s senses.

  Rahelle offered him mint-infused tea and a dish of boiled greens and grain seasoned with tiny seeds. Nauseated, he waved the food away and lowered himself to the ground. He was still a little drunk, the cut on his cheek throbbed, and his muscles had begun to stiffen after the fight.

  “What happened to you?” she demanded. “What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?”

  Gareth tried to make light of the duel, but the encounter still sounded like one hideous mistake after another. Rahelle glowered at him but said nothing. She was undoubtedly thinking that he was incapable of opening his mouth without endangering life and limb. In her mind, he would leave a trail of blood and mishaps wherever he went.

  Why did he care what she thought? He could not remember a time when the people around him had regarded him with anything approximating respect. The only difference between then and now was that he was no longer cowering in the shadow of his disgrace.

  Cyrillon, on the other hand, did not press Gareth for details. At the end of the tale, he nodded and said, “Seeing how well you fought on the trail, I do not think you were in much danger. You resolved the encounter and showed presence of mind.”

  I showed what an idiot I am!

  “Next time,” Cyrillon finished, �
�you will do even better.”

  “If you want my opinion, there shouldn’t be a next time,” Rahelle broke in. She looked as if she’d like to tie Gareth hand and foot to keep him from causing even more trouble.

  “It is unwise to hold forth on subjects on which one has little knowledge and even less understanding,” Cyrillon said.

  She shot him a furious look but said nothing more. Gareth remembered how, after being told to remain in the wagon, she had fought alongside the men against the bandits. Now she dipped her head and began gathering up the dishes to scrub them clean in the sand.

  “Drink the tea.” Although Cyrillon did not add, his voice implied, You’ll need it.

  The aromatic tisane settled Gareth’s guts. Stretching out on his blanket, he closed his eyes. He thought only to rest for a few minutes, while the tea finished its calming work.

  After a moment of groggy confusion, he realized that some hours had passed. A sweep of stars glimmered across the night sky. Now fully awake, he slipped from the tent. The embers of several fires glowed dimly. Beyond, in the city, he made out dotted torchlight. He checked his weapons—sword and boot knife—and tucked the amulet containing his starstone inside his shirt.

  Making his way back through the city, Gareth passed a street shrine, little more than a hut with a threshold dotted with offerings of dried flowers, figurines of soapstone or basalt, cracked pottery bowls, and a scattering of wrapped candies. Sheltered from the sun by a gable, a painted tile depicted the Toad God.

  Was Nebran following him everywhere?

  He reflected that he could ask for a worse patron among the gods of the Dry Towns. The Toad God might be squat and ugly, its spotted hide covered with warts, but at least its followers did some good in the world.

  No, wait . . . Gareth paused, looking around, trying to remember if he’d passed the same shrine earlier in the day. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Cursing silently, he retraced his steps.

  Eventually, he found a landmark he recognized, a weapon shop with a distinctive sign, its emblem an improbably gore-covered sword. Everything, even the drops of painted blood, looked different in the night. Idriel had set, and Mormallor now hung solitary through the heavens, a tiny marble of pearly white.

  At last he found The Place of the Silver Fan Ladies, a small plaza on the edge of the red-lantern district. Lights winked from second-story windows. A door opened, and a man stumbled into the street. Gareth caught a whiff of incense and the tinkling of some kind of stringed instrument before the door closed again.

  Singing, the man staggered on his way. The plaza fell silent. Gareth hesitated, and then some instinct hurried him into the gloom of an overhanging eave, well out of the light. A moment later, he spied movement in one of the side streets.

  Gareth had always seen well at night, and now his eyes adapted quickly. He was rewarded by the sight of a lean, tall shape moving with the calculated grace of a sword fighter. The figure paused, head turning slightly from one side to the other.

  Gareth started to move away from his hiding place. Before he could take a step, however, three men burst from the darkness and rushed the first. Gareth could not make out anything about them, other than their size and the speed of their attack. His ears caught the clash of steel on steel and a clink-clatter, perhaps of some smaller weapon or a chain. With a effort, he forced himself to hold still.

  Their voices were low, but he recognized the heavy accent of the man whom he was to meet. And from the others, he caught muttered phrases, a syllable here, a word there.

  “. . . Lord Dayan . . .” “. . . secrets . . .” “. . . tales out of . . .” “. . . the desert . . .”

  And then, so quick and quiet he could not be sure over the pounding of his heart, “. . . thunderbolt . . .”

  In a flurry of shadows, the men hurried away in the direction of the Great House. Gareth could not see well enough to tell if his informant went willingly, but that made no difference.

  Lord Dayan’s men were following me. I led them to him.

  Gods, what was he going to do? What could he do? His head filled with thoughts of Dayan’s torturers, from every tale of Dry Towner savagery he had heard as a boy.

  They will have the secret out of him, if not by bribery then by force.

  Lord Dayan had been looking for information about strange happenings—weapons—in the deep desert. That was why he questioned traders coming through Shainsa. He must have heard the rumors, even as Gareth had.

  An image sprang up behind Gareth’s eyes, the Shainsa lord sitting on his throne, the keen, hawk-bright eyes watchful and measuring. A proud man Dayan was, ruthless enough to seize and hold power here, with the ages-old enmity of all his kind against the Domains.

  Now he had within his grasp the best—the only informant Gareth had been able to locate.

  13

  “Mother,” Dani Hastur said in a tight, controlled voice, “you had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

  Linnea reached for the calm she had cultivated over the years, first as a very young Keeper, then as Lady Hastur, and now as Keeper again, and faced her son. She had, she thought, done well to make sure this conversation took place on her own home ground, the chamber of Comyn Tower reserved for receiving important guests. It was a small, gracefully proportioned room, its walls a mosaic of fine-grained granite and translucent blue stone.

  Dani Hastur had never been at ease in the Tower. She needed no laran to see that. His normally relaxed features betrayed his tension. His eyes, a clear, pellucid gray that reminded her so poignantly of his father’s, were troubled. He had come charging into the audience chamber to announce that his son had gone missing. His wife, Miralys Elhalyn, now slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind her.

  “Gareth has been studying with me, yes,” Linnea said, deliberately not answering the question. Her son and daughter-in-law had arrived in Thendara earlier than expected, and had dealt with the news of Gareth’s absence worse than expected. “I have tried to give him what he would have learned in a Tower, not only the knowledge but the self-discipline to best use his talents.”

  “That isn’t what I asked. I want to know if you had anything to do with him going off on some hare-brained scheme to who-knows-where.” Although the words were terse, Linnea found herself responding to the pulse of love and concern beneath them.

  “Will you not sit down?” She indicated the pair of well-cushioned chairs opposite her own. “Both of you?”

  Dani recovered himself, guided his wife to the smaller chair, and sat. “I’m sorry I was rude, Mother. When we arrived, we found Gareth was not at home. The old retainer babbled some story about a secret expedition to the Dry Towns—what was I to think? Gareth’s a good boy, you know that, but he’s impulsive and easily influenced.”

  Weak-willed, he meant.

  Linnea said nothing. Too clearly, Dani was thinking of that hideous episode from years ago. If Gareth’s own father could not set it aside, what hope was there for those who did not know the boy as well?

  “Easily influenced,” Miralys repeated. Her voice, although low and pleasant, a lady’s well-modulated tones, bore an edge of concern. “Gareth has always loved stories of adventure and daring. I—we couldn’t help thinking of Dom Regis and all the wild things he did when he was young, like riding off to Castle Aldaran to rescue Uncle Danilo. Gareth’s just the sort of hopeless romantic to run away on a whim.”

  She didn’t add, although Linnea caught her thought, But Gareth isn’t Regis, and these times are different. He needs to prove himself serious and dependable.

  And, Linnea added silently, who better to aid in a young person’s rebellion than a doting grandmother?

  Her own grandmother, Desideria Storn, had lived life on her own terms, defying convention until the day of her death. I come by it honestly.

  Gazing into the anxious faces of her so
n and daughter-in-law, however, she could not bring herself to laugh at their worries.

  “Gareth confided in me, and when I could not talk him out of it, I provided him with the best help I could.”

  “If I had known he intended such a thing, I would have put a stop to it,” Dani muttered.

  “Which is why, since I am sure he was aware of your feelings, he did his best to make sure you did not know,” Linnea said.

  Miralys’s taut expression softened as Linnea described the arrangements Gareth had made, a guide who was experienced and trustworthy, a credible disguise as a trader, “and such protections as I myself could give him.”

  Linnea deliberately omitted the possibility of contacting Gareth through his starstone. Few telepaths could manage such a thing over any distance, so it was a measure to be undertaken only in the direst emergency.

  “At any rate,” she concluded, “Gareth intends to return to Thendara before the opening of Council season. He is aware of his responsibilities. I would caution you, however, that if you greet him with censure, the most likely result will be that he will shut you out even more the next time he decides to do something like this.”

  “Next time!” Miralys cried.

  “There will not be a next time,” her husband said.

  “But there will be a next time,” Linnea corrected him, “and one after that, until the wild streak within him has run its course. We can reason with him, we can pray for him, we can try to protect him in the world, but we cannot turn him into an obedient puppet. Javanne tried, and we all know the result.”

  For a long moment, neither Dani nor Miralys spoke. A faint flush suffused Dani’s features. As it faded, it left a film of sweat. His wife’s pale complexion did not alter; she might have been marble.

  “You are right, there is nothing to be done,” Dani agreed, still looking unhappy. To Miralys he said, “Gareth is no longer a child. We cannot lock him up like a prisoner. How can he have a future on the Council, whether he is ever crowned or not, if he never learns to govern himself?”