A Fall of Princes

by Judith Tarr

  “There may be,” she said.

  She spoke quietly, yet she shook him from his despair. He tasted blood. He had bitten his fist. The pain was only beginning.

  She was calm, eyes narrowed, thinking deep within the walls of her mind. Hirel eyed her with growing wariness.

  “Plots within plots,” she said. “Magics within magics. Our jailers have not told us all that they know or intend. But of this we can be certain. They will do all they may to set themselves at the center of their balance.”

  “Whoever falls in the doing of it.”

  Their hands met and clasped. Hirel contemplated them, hers long and slender, his own shorter, broader, with the blood drying on it.

  “It would serve them well were we dead and our heir newborn, raw clay to be shaped as they would have it. It would be logical. We are all set firm in our gods and our enmities, and none of us has ever yielded to any will but his own.”

  “What makes you think our offspring will be any different?”

  Hirel’s free hand rested again on her belly. Her own covered it. Her smile echoed his, slow to bloom, edged with wickedness. “The guildmaster,” said Hirel, “has little knowledge of princes.”

  “You could never have been the hellion I was.”

  “I was worse. I was civilized.”

  Her mirth deepened and brightened. “He’s mageborn, Hirel. Mageborn and twice imperial.”

  “He?” Hirel asked.

  “Can’t you tell?”

  He could. He had called the little one he, because an Asanian did not consider the possibility of daughters, and because it irked Sevayin. But it was he, that body stirring beneath his hand. Mageborn and twice imperial. “He will be a terror to his nurses.”

  “He will,” she said, and she said it as a vow.

  “And it shall be we who raise him.” Which was his own vow, sworn to any gods who were.

  o0o

  Sevayin had found it. Their own world, surely, incontestably. Twin moons looked down upon it. The winter stars filled the sky. And on the broad bare plain, replete with the flesh of plainsbuck, drowsed a green-eyed shadow.

  “Ulan,” whispered Sevayin.

  The slitted eyes opened wide. The great head came up, ears pricked. Ulan growled softly.

  “Brother,” she said. “Heart’s brother.”

  He flowed to his feet. The tip of his tail twitched. His eyes burned.

  He shattered. Sevayin cried out in pain.

  Hirel was all but blind with it. She stumbled against him; he sank down beneath her.

  o0o

  “That was unwise,” said the mage who was the Sun-priest’s shadow.

  He stood over them in a dark sheen of power. Sevayin bristled at it, her own power rallying, rising, sparking red-golden.

  He damped it with a single soft word. She shrank in Hirel’s arms.

  The mage regarded her coolly. “It was clever to think to forge a gate through your brother-in-fur. But it was blindest folly. Has no one ever taught you what the wielding of the greater powers can do to an unborn child?”

  “No doubt it would please you to teach me.” Her voice was faint but far from subdued.

  “I do not take pleasure in the destruction of a soul.”

  “But you would do it, if it served your purposes.”

  “At the moment, it does not. We need you, and we need your heir. We will not let harm come to either of you.” She bared her teeth. He blinked once, slowly. “You may look upon the worlds to your heart’s content. You will not attempt to meddle in them.”

  “Or?”

  “Need I say it?”

  “I hope,” she said, shaping each word precisely, “that your manhood dies of the rotting disease.”

  He said nothing, with great care. When he had said it, he walked away.

  Sevayin began to laugh. Softly at first. Sanely. But she did not stop. Nor would she, even for the mages, even for the Red Prince’s coming.

  Her laughter turned to a torrent of curses in every language Hirel knew and several he did not. It was Orozia who dosed her at last with wine and dreamflower and saw her laid in her bed.

  Even under the drug she tossed, muttering, clinging desperately to Hirel’s hand. One of the mages had tried to separate them; he did not try twice.

  What price the darkmage paid for his mischief, Hirel did not ask. It was enough that he saw no more of the man.

  He had done Sevayin no lasting harm; when she woke from her drugged sleep she was as close to sane as she ever was. But she was slow to return to her hunting of worlds.

  o0o

  “I still have it,” she said.

  Hirel’s mind was empty of aught but pleasure. Her skill had begun to approach art; and that art was all her own, at once wild and gentle, shot through with sudden fire.

  She traced her words in kisses round his center; they sank through his skin, trickling slowly to his brain.

  She followed them, nibbling, stroking, teasing. Her eyes dawned on his horizon. They were wide and wickedly bright.

  His breath shuddered as he loosed it. “What do you have? My heart? My hand? My—”

  She tugged it; he gasped and snatched, rising, rolling. She lay under him and laughed. “O perfect! There is no world but you.”

  He glared. “You rob me of my wits, and then you ask me to use them?”

  “Ah,” she said. “I had forgotten. You strong wise men have to choose: the brain or the body. Whereas we who are women, however that came about—”

  He silenced her with a kiss and a long, lingering caress. “Now,” he said sternly, “what have you done?”

  “Hoodwinked the mages.”

  He widened his eyes.

  “You believed it, didn’t you? That one black sorcerer could threaten my sanity.”

  “You gave me no reason to doubt it.”

  “It was my grandfather. The others don’t know me; they see the body and forget what is in it. But I had to make the Red Prince forget. I had to convince even you.”

  “He has been gone for a hand of days.”

  She pulled Hirel’s head down. “Don’t sulk, child. Do you want to escape from here?”

  “There is no escape.”

  “There is,” she said. “And it’s not insanity. I’ve held the link with Ulan. It’s still there; it’s been growing stronger. I think it’s strong enough to ride on, if you give me your strength.”

  “You are mad.”

  She grinned. He shook her. “You cannot do it. I am not the idiot you take me for—I know how great a magic is the building of gates from world to world. Your power is still remembering its old mastery; the child saps it as he grows within you. This that you contemplate will slay you both.”

  “How wise a mage his father is.”

  She kissed Hirel long and deep. Her mind flowed burning into his own. They’re going to kill us, Hirel. I saw it in the necromancer’s mind when he thought I was too well conquered to see. But first our fathers will die. It’s all prepared. They only needed my grandfather’s consent.

  Hirel’s body was rousing to her touch. It had no interest in words. He made it shape them. “Why do they need—”

  Because he has the power to stop them. She turned, drawing him with her until they lay side by side. Her lips withdrew; her power plunged deeper. He won’t help, but he’s been persuaded not to hinder. They’ll kill him with all of this, and regret it sincerely enough, and sigh that a man so old should have been caught in a war so bitter. But we are far from old, and we have power, and no one has persuaded us with logic or with threats. We will stop them.

  “We will die,” Hirel said.

  They’ve overcome you without a blow struck. They had only to hint at harm to your son.

  Her scorn was like a lash of sleet. He hardened himself against it. “Very well. Work the magic. But I will pass the gate alone.”

  You can’t. It’s I whom they need to see, and I who can make my father see the danger in time to stop it.

 
; “But—”

  Would you rather die now or later? Me they’ll keep alive; I’m valuable. Until I whelp their royal puppet.

  Hirel let the silence swell. She played with his hair, unraveling its many tangles.

  He glared at the ceiling. “Power,” he said. “It is all power. My brothers began this dance with their lusting after the name of high prince. Our fathers contest the rule of the world. Our jailers conspire to rule the world’s ruler. And we play at magecraft and dream of thrones, and fancy that we have a right to either.”

  She was in his mind, mute, listening within and without.

  “I would curse the day I met you, Sarevadin. If I were the child I was. If you were even a shade less purely yourself.” He raised himself on his elbow. She lay all bare, tousled, swollen, glorious. “We will die together. Lead me; I follow.”

  o0o

  He was a reed in the wind of the gods. He was a leaf in the tossing of the sea. He was the sword and she the swordsman; he was power, she power and mastery.

  Through him and in him she raised the shields. She laid bare the bond like a thread of fire. She sang it into a road, fire and silver, with a glitter of emerald.

  They stood upon it hand in hand. He felt most solid. His heart beat; his palms were cold, his mouth dry. If he was not careful, his stomach would forget that it belonged to a man grown. A very young one. A youth. A boy.

  A bark of laughter escaped him. Sevayin tugged him forward. He followed. He had begun naked; somewhere in the working of witchery he had gained boots and breeches, coat and cap, even a scrip: all his old traveling gear. But she was clad as any free Asanian woman must be who presumed to walk abroad, in the grey tent of the dinaz that veiled even the eyes. She passed as a shadow, laden with power.

  The worlds passed them by. The mages had wrought a new number in the reckoning of them: a thousand thousand; a million worlds. The road pierced them, or they swept over it, or perhaps somewhat of both.

  She did not vary her pace. Faceless, voiceless, all but shapeless, she might have been a dream, save for her hand in his. It was burning hot.

  They walked, not swiftly, not slowly. They did not pause. Not even for the strangest of the worlds: for creatures of fire swirling heatless about them; for creatures of ice with no power to chill them; for a battle of dragons in a sky of brass, and a dance of birds about a singing jewel, and once even a single human figure.

  He could almost have been Asanian, fair as he was, reddened by the sun of his world which could almost have been Hirel’s own; but his eyes were as blue as the sea that lapped his feet.

  They lifted, narrowed against the glare. They met Hirel’s.

  The man drew breath as if to speak, stretched out his hand. Before he could touch, Sevayin had drawn Hirel away.

  Hirel looked back. The stranger was gone with the rest of his world.

  The road stretched into bright obscurity. Uneasiness knotted Hirel’s shoulders.

  The bright way quivered, rippling like water. It fascinated him.

  He stumbled and almost fell. Sevayin held him up by main force, flinging him forward. Her strides stretched. Her hand had gone cold.

  He resisted. She was too strong, and ruthless with it. She cursed, low and steady. He twisted out of her grip.

  The road was mist and water. The world was dust and ashes. The air caught at his throat.

  Iron hands gripped him. He gasped, coughing, eyes streaming.

  “Fool!” she gritted. “Idiot child. Let go again and you die.”

  They were on the road again. They breathed clean air, neither hot nor cold, characterless, safe. Before and beside them lay a desert of black sand, black glass, black sky with stars like shards of glass. Behind them was mist. Shapes coiled in it.

  “The mages,” said Sevayin. “Damn them. Damn them to all the hells.”

  She began again to walk, swift now, dragging him until he found his stride. He had neither time nor breath for anger.

  The road was narrowing, weakening. It yielded underfoot, like grass, like sand, like mire. It dragged at his feet.

  The mist had drawn closer. The worlds had dimmed about them.

  Sevayin faltered. Her shape blurred beneath the robe. She was a shadow edged with fire, and fire in the center of her.

  For an instant she was not she at all, and the fire struggled, dimming, dying. Hirel clutched it in a surge of terror.

  The mist billowed forward. Sarevan shrank into Sevayin, doubled in Hirel’s arms, arms wrapped about her burden.

  She flung defiance into the dimness. “Will you kill, then? Will you shatter all your machinations at a stroke?”

  Hirel did not pause to think. He gathered her up. He staggered: she was a solid weight, she and their son. He pressed on.

  A voice boomed behind them, mighty with power. “It is you who slay him. Who already may have slain him in your madness.”

  Hirel could not listen. The road was a twisting track, treacherous, now solid underfoot, now falling away into a seething void.

  A wind had risen. It plucked at him. He tightened his grip, set his head down, and persevered.

  The worlds went mad.

  There were dragons. There were eagles. There were ul-cats and direwolves and seneldi stallions. And every one a mage; every one in grim pursuit.

  Some were hideously close. Some had begun to circle, to cut off the advance.

  Capture. The word rang in Hirel’s mind. Capture, not kill.

  Even the boy? A whisper, the hint of a serpent’s hiss.

  We may need him, the strong voice said: a master’s voice, calm in the immensity of its power. If the child is damaged or dead. To beget another.

  Hirel laughed in the midst of his struggle. There was the simple truth. A prince served but one purpose: to engender his successor. Perhaps the empires should dispense with the charade of ruling dynasties: put all their lords out to stud and let the lesser folk fend for themselves.

  “Yes,” breathed Sevayin. “Go on.”

  He faltered. Was the road a shade broader?

  The wolves were closing in. But they had slowed. They cast as hounds will who have lost the scent. Yet Hirel could see them with perfect clarity.

  Sevayin had won her feet again. “Don’t stop. Nonsense distracts them. Do you know any bawdy songs?”

  Hirel stopped short, mortally and preposterously affronted.

  She laughed. Their pursuers tangled in confusion.

  “Levity,” she said. “It’s a shield. It scatters their power. Did you ever hear the tale of the Sun-priest and the whoremaster’s wife?”

  It was outrageous. It was scurrilous. It widened and firmed the road and quickened their pace.

  Dragonwings boomed. Dragonfire seared their shrinking flesh. Dragons’ claws snatched at them.

  “Run!” cried Sevayin.

  Hirel took wing and flew.

  Worlds whirled away. Sevayin, linked hand to hand, was singing. Even in wind-whipped snatches, the song set Hirel’s ears afire.

  A blow rocked him. The pain came after, runnels of white agony tracing his back.

  His will found a minute, impossible fraction of strength. The next stroke fell a hair too short. The third wrapped claws around his trailing foot.

  His training was a tatter. He had forsaken sacred modesty, and he had learned to believe in magecraft, and his careful princely manners had gone barbarian. But he could still meet agony with royal silence, and royal rage. He turned on his tormentor.

  He flung Sevayin off.

  She gripped his wrist. She was as strong as the dragonmage. Stronger. He was the link and the center, and they were rending him asunder. He twisted, desperate.

  His desperation had substance. It was dark, round, heavy. It lay cold in his lone free hand. Without thought, he flung it.

  The dragon howled and fell away. Hirel whirled through madness.

  The road was lost. He was lost. He was not afraid; he was intrigued.

  So this was damnation. Now he had pr
oof beyond doubting: the logicians were ignorant fools.

  A few moments more and he would be worshipping Uvarra.

  Something tore. Sevayin cried out, sharp and high. Hirel fell headlong into darkness.

  o0o

  He did not know why this dream should be pleasant. It had all the trappings of a nightmare. His back and his foot were afire; his wrist throbbed. His every bone cried for mercy.

  He lay on that tortured back and saw the blue vault of the sky with the sun pitiless in it, and knew without seeing that the solidity under him was earth, a barren fell, bitterly cold. The wind keened over him.

  It was the sweetest song he had ever heard. And the shadows that rose above him, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Sevayin’s faceless, shapeless shape; Ulan’s dagger-fanged grin. He flung arms around them both.

  Together they drew him up. He could stand, with cat and Sunchild to hold him. He glanced once at his foot. Only once. The boot was a charred remnant. The flesh . . .

  He did not want to know what the mage had done to his back.

  “I was beautiful once,” he heard himself say.

  Sevayin tugged. He swayed.

  Ulan crouched. He understood. He was inordinately proud of that. He bestrode the supple back; the cat rose.

  His legs dangled. His foot screamed in a voice of fire.

  “Vayin,” he said quite calmly. “Vayin, I do not think I can—”

  “Be quiet,” she said, and she was not calm at all. Ulan began to move, and she with him, swift and smooth. But never smooth enough for his pain.

  The sun shifted. The fell had grown a wall. Hirel heard water falling; and, sudden and sweet and improbable, a trill of birdsong.

  He did not wonder at it. Worlds changed. That was his new wisdom.

  The wall spawned a gate. It swallowed them.

  o0o

  There were always voices when one dreamed. These were fascinating. One was Sevayin’s, cold and quiet. “I did not escape one prison simply to cast myself into another.”

  “I could not let you die as you intended.”

  Hirel knew this deep voice with its whisper of roughness. The name would not come. Merely a memory of power, a vision of fire dying to ash.

  “I have no intention of dying,” Sevayin said. “How can I? You made me a woman; and I have two children to think of.”