He pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. Her lips were cool and tinted with venom, her tongue as cold as a serpent’s. Venom coursed into his mouth and sent shivers of pain, sharp and sweet, through his body. Intoxicating pain, drawing him on and on. But some rational part of his mind hammered at him, an insistent rhythm beating counter-measure to the pounding of his blood. The sword sparked, just at the rim of his vision.
Surely it was his skin that sparked, blazing bright and hot. He devoured her mouth, letting her fiery venom take him, glorying in it; his senses filled to bursting like fruit ripe for the plucking. A sudden wind was cool against his heated face, but did not clear his mind.
Andrion clasped the woman tightly against himself, rolling her over him, rolling on top of her and fumbling at both their garments. His whole awareness was intent on only one goal, to plunge himself into the inferno of ecstasy this woman promised him, and there to lose all identity.
She looked up, roused by the intimacy of his touch. Her mouth opened in a long, silent scream. Not quite silent; the sound rent his mind and he started back. He fell against the sword. Its sharp edge pricked through his cloak and chiton, ice condensing the steaming cloud of lust that veiled his senses. Drops of horror showered him and his mind convulsed with reality and illusion, wrenching itself awake. He looked with clear eyes at the face close to his. It was Valeria.
No, it was not Valeria. That one scream was the last protest of the enspelled girl. Now a demoness glared at him, cold fire leaping in her narrowed eyes and licking at her parted lips, her flesh glowing and smoking without heat. She slipped toward him as sinuously as creeping flame. Her hand searched his thigh, demanding his manhood, his name, his life.
“No!” exclaimed Andrion, and the sound of his own voice steadied him. “No, by Ashtar. no!” He seized the sword, batted away the grasping hand, held the bright, clear blade between them. She reeled back, her arms raised against the crystalline glow. “In the name of Harus, Valeria,” Andrion cried, “wake up!”
The flame in her body died, and the fire in her eyes became gray, cold ashes. Her own consciousness filled her face. With a scream of uncomprehending horror she threw herself into the pillow and began to sob.
Andrion sat numbly, Solifrax heavy in his hand, mouth hanging open in appalled amazement. His thoughts scalded him more deeply than Valeria’s kisses had as he berated himself for his stupid, drunken lust.
But sorcery was at work here. His eyes had been clouded by more than lust and heady Sardian wine. He closed his mouth and raised his hand to comfort and reassure Valeria, but she started back, trembling violently, eyes rolling at him from behind laced fingers. He snatched his hand away.
A movement stirred at the edge of his sight. He spun about, still clutching the sword. Dana stood in the open doorway, holding Shurzad by a fold of her gown, her hand on her dagger. Dana’s mouth was pinched tight, her face contorted with fear and fury and loathing mingled. Shurzad seemed only half conscious, swaying, eyes glistening slits of white.
Her eyes were like those of the dead sentries at the Jorniyeh bridge. Andrion shook his head, jarring his mind into coherence. His throat was scorched. “God’s talons!” he croaked. “How long have you been standing there?”
Dana looked steadily at him. “Only a moment. I realized too late what was happening. I almost abandoned you.” She swallowed as if her throat, too, was parched.
“I did not,” Andrion began, stammering, “I did not . . .”
“I know. If you had, you would have died.”
Valeria curled into a tight ball, shivering, still crying. Shurzad fell against Dana’s side, and Dana thrust her away. But she did not release her. Shapes stirred in the darkness of the corridor, gaping servants, guards, Patros himself. Patros’s gaze darted to each figure in the room and widened in shock. He ordered a guard to disperse the crowd and firmly shut the door behind them.
Which was worse, Andrion demanded of himself, to be found assaulting Patros’s daughter with his body or with his sword? Solifrax fell from his limp hand and landed with a muffled thud on the coverlet. Its light failed, its blade grew dull and chill. Groaning, Andrion crawled off the edge of the bed. His cloak flopped lopsidedly over one shoulder.
But Patros passed no judgment. He went quickly to Valeria, embraced her, cradled her tearstained face against his strong shoulder. Her sobs ceased and she clung to him, her hands knotted in his robe.
Gods help me, thought Andrion. I have violated her as surely as if I did enter her. But she came to me. Or was it her? His eye moved reluctantly to Shurzad.
Every eye in the room went to Shurzad. The woman seemed to wake, gather herself, straighten. She realized that Dana was holding her, and she wrenched herself away. Her hand clutched the amulet at her throat; her lips pouted, like a small child caught in mischief.
“What is this?” Patros asked wearily, not wanting to know but unable to turn away from the truth. His cheek rested on Valeria’s tumbled head.
“I slept,” said Andrion. “I dreamed. I thought Dana came to me . . .” He trailed off lamely. To have thought it was Dana was not much better.
Tersely, Dana told her father of how she had seen Shurzad lead a sleepwalking Valeria to Andrion’s room and thrust her inside. Of how she had sensed sorcery at work, and Andrion in peril of more than just marriage.
Patros frowned, turned to Andrion.
“She was not Valeria,” Andrion shrugged, feeling utterly foolish. “She was a . . . a succubus, consuming me with fire. Forgive me.”
Patros sighed, “You are young, you are ruled by your body.” His eye touched Dana. “As I once was.”
“I saw Shurzad pass him a cup of wine,” muttered Dana, looking at her feet. “An aphrodisiac, perhaps.”
Lighting a fire already lit, Andrion sneered at himself.
Patros, pale as if a dagger stabbed him to the heart, looked squarely at Shurzad. His voice was quiet and even. “So you spell our child into seducing Andrion, knowing that he would burden himself with the deed and marry her? Unworthy, Shurzad, of us all.”
Shurzad’s face collapsed. Her eyes were dark, writhing with some furtive struggle; no, they were flat and dull. “What difference?” she pouted. “You do not care about Valeria or me. Only those whores from Sabazel.” She saw Dana’s baleful glare upon her and stopped.
The dagger in his heart turned, and Patros flinched.
“Hear me.” Dana leaned forward urgently. “It was not that simple a spell. Valeria was possessed of a demon, and if Andrion had taken her, he would have died. Even I cannot believe that that was Shurzad’s purpose.”
The lines in Patros’s face deepened. His body shivered and then stilled itself. He patted Valeria’s shoulder and helped her up, and he offered his other arm to his wife, regarding her with sadness, not anger. “Come. Show us your secret shrine, where you practice these sorceries. Where you have sold yourself, it seems, in your spitefulness.”
Shurzad looked at him, through him, uncomprehendingly. Her own personality seemed to be only a glaze on her shadowed eyes. She set her hand, a dried claw, on her husband’s arm and let him lead her from the room. Dana glanced warily at Andrion. Andrion grimaced, hoisted the weight of Solifrax, and followed them down the dark corridors of the palace to a sumptuous bedroom and through a hidden door into a small, dark shrine.
Dana’s nostrils flared, and Andrion, too, noted that the air was dank and still, not unlike the tomb’s. An odd acrid scent permeated the shadows, that of a distant fire, perhaps. The jade statue of Qem lay cold, silent, hard, disdaining the tiny flame that flickered before it. Shurzad knelt, her hands upraised in worship, but there was no sign.
“I thought her small magicks would keep her amused,” said Patros, his voice tight almost to breaking. “I did not realize her hate was so deep that it would turn on her like this.”
Something stirred, some dark shadow fleeing through the open door. Andrion spun, the sword lancing out. His arm tangled in his cloak.
A hiss, and a supple shape flowed over the suddenly glinting blade. Shurzad’s gray cat vanished into the night. Andrion’s knees went weak. Demons! I can no longer trust my perceptions; this day has sucked them dry.
Dana sniffed again. “The scent of grass,” she stated, “like the great southern plain . . .” Her voice failed. She shook her head. “I sense nothing but the faded, broken threads of power. Patros?”
“Yes?” he said distantly, frowning at Shurzad’s bowed head. And then, catching himself, he turned to Dana with courteous attention. “Yes?”
“Shurzad and Valeria are in great danger, eaten by sorcery. You must bring them on the campaign, to Sabazel and beyond, to Iksandarun . . .” She sighed. “I am sorry I can offer so little.”
Patros allowed himself a light touch on her hair, gold muted by shadow. “Thank you.”
Valeria stirred and turned, still safe in the circle of her father’s arm, to Andrion. “I woke from nightmare to see you with me, and was startled; it was not you that frightened me.”
She was as generous as her father. But her eyes were still vague, distracted, not quite in this room. Andrion bowed deeply over her damp hand. “Harus knows, Valeria, I should be begging your forgiveness.”
“No, someone else should ask forgiveness,” said Patros, and his voice broke. He turned again to Shurzad, raising his hand toward her, letting it fall. “Why, my wife, why?”
As if his gaze, his words, were an unbearable weight, she crumpled, prostrated herself before the statue and began to weep with small inconsolable whimperings. “I do not know, truly I do not.”
May I never again, Andrion prayed, see Patros’s face bearing such pain. Bearing it uncomplainingly, with dignity, as Bellasteros had borne the knowledge of his own weakness. He caught Dana’s eye; as one they left the room and hurried down the haunted corridors of the palace.
“It is not some evil from the tomb?” he asked, quelling an impulse to glance over his shoulder.
“No more than it is domestic drama. It is something other, something else. Our enemies are the Khazyari, but how could they touch us here?” She snorted. “Devils take them all, Khazyari and Sardian and . . .”
“Me?” asked Andrion.
One corner of Dana’s mouth indented itself with weary amusement. “Surely the gods protect you, Andrion.”
“Indeed,” Andrion responded dryly. “Forgive me, Dana, for excluding you from that favor.”
“Forgive me for trying to rip it from you.” They permitted their fingertips to touch awkwardly, and parted.
Andrion found his lamps guttering, the oil burned out. Like his body. He sheathed Solifrax, set it carefully aside, stripped off his clothing and fell across the wrinkled bed.
The moon rode high above Sardis, a cool shining pearl searching the fleece of clouds surrounding it. A wind puffed the curtains and caressed his body like the purifying touch of the goddess.
* * * * *
Raksula sat unmoving, staring through slitted eyes at the dancing flames of her small fire, her hand grasping the amulet of the Eye. After a time she swore and threw the charm down. “Weakling!” she snarled. “Shurzad, you are useless.” She stamped at the fire and sparks licked at her skirts. Deep lines grooved her brow and lips, as if she had worked hard and long to no purpose.
“The sword,” she said musingly. “Is the power in it, or is it in the bearer? Ah, I must have both sword and prince. I must have that necklace.”
She bolted from the yurt and stalked through the camp, spitting venom at everyone she met. Spitting venom at the moon, a day past the full, that rode serenely high above the plain.
A squat shape outside the great yurt scrabbled to its feet. “Obedei took Hilkar and Sita away at midday,” Odo reported.
“Hm,” snarled Raksula. “And you, fool, have you saved anything from the ruins of your yurt? “
Odo indicated a pitiful pile of singed bags and boxes. “Enough, my lady.” He reached familiarly out to her. She snapped at his hand, shoved him aside, and burst through the door hangings. He followed, his soft, round chin trembling with hurt.
The torches guttered. Several nuryans scrambled aside. A minstrel stilled his pipes, and the wailing music died away. Baakhun, a sunken pile of flesh on his dais, did not look up. Neither did Vlad, pinching and poking at a slave girl, the plaque of the lion’s son hanging greasily awry on his chest.
Raksula made a jerky if gracious gesture at the musician. Tentatively, the keening began again. The nobles turned back to their food and drink. Their voices were oddly muted, as if damped by the ghost of Tembujin.
Raksula pulled Vlad away from his toy and wiped at the kviss staining his chin and tunic. He flailed at her. “I am the first odlok,” he squealed, heavy-lidded and insolent. “I no longer need you.”
Raksula bared her teeth in a grin. She saluted mocking acquiescence, but under her breath she hissed, “Do not test me, my son!”
Vlad’s plump cheeks paled. His lower lip thrust itself out. She grasped the scruff of his neck and deposited him at Baakhun’s side.
Still the great khan did not look up. Trays of meat and sweets lay untouched before him, his skin of kviss was drained dry, a blond slave lolled beside him as safe as though she were a hundred leagues away.
“My lord,” Raksula called. “My lord!”
Baakhun looked up, but he saw nothing. His eyes were red, his shaved forehead wrinkled in futile inquiry. “Tembujin?” he mumbled.
Raksula turned away in disgust. She almost fell over Odo, who hovered just behind her. “Find that gold necklace,” Raksula ordered him. “Find it!” And she stood quivering with frustration in the center of the yurt, the torchlight casting her face in tarnished brass.
Chapter Sixteen
The great statue of Harus loomed like an avenging god, silent and yet alert. It seemed to shrug off Bonifacio’s droning voice and look beyond the dim, wing-stirred sanctuary to the lightening eastern horizon.
But I am going west, Andrion thought. Toward the sunset, toward the ending. The last ten days had been tedious, forged into a heavy coat of mail by details of food, arms, men. The nights had been anxious. Andrion had kept looking over his shoulder, waiting for some new illusion to strike him. But Sardis remained rooted in reality. Do you weary of testing me? Andrion mutely asked the image of the god. Or are you saving the greatest tests for the end?
He shifted. The greaves on his shins creaked. His cuirass chafed his neck, and the skin beneath the vambraces on his forearms prickled with sweat. His new armor was only the outer layer of the shell he now wore. But Solifrax hung at his waist, as alert as the god, humming. Am I a vessel for your strength? Andrion asked it. Or are you for mine?
Patros stood beside him, holding the small bronze falcon again affixed to a tall pole. The governor wore a similar shell, decision and courtesy tempered by an undercurrent of difficult thought. Shurzad and Valeria stood cloaked and veiled just beyond him, cold wax candles waiting only for a spark to melt into nothingness.
And Dana? Andrion glanced at her. She shrugged her bow higher on her shoulder, uneasy. It was no longer shameful for a Sabazian to bow to Harus, just as a Sardian bowing to Ashtar might suffer ridicule but no longer death. But she had refused Patros’s offer of armor, taking only a few arrows to replenish her stock. If Andrion were anxious to be gone, then she was no doubt doubly so; Sabazel beckoned with its own tangled skein of illusion and reality.
He caught her eye. She let a corner of her mouth shiver at him. At least the barrier between them was no higher. Bonifacio waited politely for recognition. Andrion cleared his throat.
“My lord,” said the priest with a flourish, “I offer you this, to bring success in the coming campaign.” He held up the helmet with the red plume that Bellasteros had worn to win the Empire. The bronze was carefully polished but the horsehair plume hung lank and dispirited.
Shall I wear his skull for all to see, using his image to usurp his army? Andrion stifled a shudder. But I must be polite. “
Thank you,” he said with a bow. “I . . . cannot take this relic from you.”
Bonifacio’s face fell. Gods, did he think such cannibalism would please me? Andrion wondered. Hurriedly, he said, “But you may bring it to Bellasteros himself. He will be pleased to see it.” I hope. I plead. I pray.
Bonifacio, mollified, smiled. Patros’s lips thinned, perhaps with amusement, perhaps with pain. A sudden shaft of sunlight struck deep into the sanctuary. The statue of Harus seemed to stretch, wings flexing and feathers rippling in the warmth, beak and talons lifting and eyes glinting. The small bronze falcon gleamed, cleansed of its misadventures.
Andrion led the group onto the long flight of steps that scaled the side of the temple mound. The sun lay like a crouching lion on the horizon, red and hungry; a cool wind purred down the flanks of the ziggurat and into the city, searching for prey. In the temple square, in the streets, beyond the city gates, gathered an army twenty thousand strong. The soldiers saw their prince emerge into the sunlight, and as one they cheered.
Ah, thought Andrion under the onslaught of so many eyes, we who are to die for you salute you. He drew Solifrax—a remarkably natural gesture already—and thrust it upward to catch the light of the sun. It cracked like lightning, flashing gold and crimson. You will follow my father’s sword, will you not, even if you might not yet follow me? Again the soldiers cheered.
“Here are the cloak and helmet you requested,” Patros said. “You are certain you do not want crimson like your father?”
A retainer stepped forward, holding a black cloak over his arm, holding a shining helmet with a floating black plume. “No,” said Andrion, sheathing the sword, “I do not want crimson like my father.” He draped the cloak about his shoulders and pinned it with his brooch; he set the helmet on his auburn hair and looked out across the world from its shadow, dark brown eyes reflecting the glow of bronze. The black plume lifted in the wind and fluttered like a banner.
Winter King Page 20
