A Fall of Princes

by Judith Tarr

  She shivered a little. The wind was rising as the sun sank, and her robe was less warm than it was splendid.

  Mirain spread his cloak over her. She thought of resistance, sighed, submitted. It was warmer within than without, and she had nothing in truth to hate her father for. He was only doing what he must.

  She closed her eyes. He was doing it to her. Again. Being the Sunborn. Luring her mind into acceptance of his madnesses. It was he who had begun this war; it was his intransigence that had brought her here, and that was all too likely to be his death.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this?”

  He was slow to answer. “Because,” he said “I am my father’s son. I was born for this: to subdue the Golden Empire. To turn the world to the worship of Avaryan. To bring light where none has ever been.”

  “By invading a country in the face of its ruler’s pleas for peace?”

  “I gave him peace. I gave him a decade of it. And watched him strengthen his armies and rouse my outland tribes to revolt and free his slavetakers to raid within my borders. He lured the Mageguild into Kundri’j; he sent his sorcerers as far as Endros, to whisper in the ears of my people, to rouse them to their old dark rites, to slay as many as they might in the name of gods long and well forgotten.”

  “While you did almost exactly the same in Avaryan’s name.”

  He sighed at her back, folding his arms a little more tightly around her. “There were no slaves taken and no children sacrificed at my command.”

  “No. Only cities leveled with sword and power, and their children slaughtered to sate your armies.”

  “War is ugly, Sarevadin. I bring justice where none but princes have ever had it, and one god where a thousand had stripped bare the land and its people.”

  She twisted to face him, hands knotted on his chest, trembling with the effort of keeping them still. “It would have come without your war. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? We did it, Father. While you great emperors glowered and threatened and called up your armies, Hirel and I forged our own peace.”

  “I see,” he said levelly. “I understand that the Mageguild seized upon a potent and mutual infatuation, and wielded that infatuation entirely for its own ends.” She would have cried a protest; he silenced her. “I have no objection to a love match. I made one myself; I swore long ago that if the god granted you the same, I would not stand against it. Nor do I object to the one you have chosen. Under other circumstances I would have urged you to take him. But we have gone well past either logic or simplicity. We were past it before you submitted yourself to the mages.”

  Her throat had swelled shut. She forced words through it. “You don’t want a bloodless end. You want to set your foot on Ziad-Ilarios’ neck; you want to see his people die. Because they pray to the wrong gods. Because they dare to call your father a he.”

  He touched her torque. “Your god also, Sarevadin.”

  She struck his hand, flinging it from her, breaking his grip and his spell. “My god is not your god. My vision is not your vision. You call my hope simplicity, as if I were a child who would put an end to death with a garland and a song. It is you who are the child. You strive to shape the world in an image as false as the desolation of the black sorcerers. You blind yourself to any enemy but the one who would choose to be your ally.”

  “Asanian friendship is the friendship of the serpent. Jeweled beauty without, poison within.”

  She breathed deep, willing herself to be calm, to think. To remember that men had died for words less bitter than these that she had cast in his face. Which he was suffering with almost frightening forbearance.

  “Father,” she said. “Suppose that you let us try our way. It can’t harm you. If it succeeds, you become the begetter of the great peace. If it fails, we children forced it on you with magery and with sheer youthful heedlessness; and you can go back to war again. You know you’ll win. You have a god to fight for you.”

  “So do I now,” he said.

  “But you have no son.”

  He stepped back. His face was still in the dying light; his eyes were like the eyes of one of his images, obsidian in ivory in ebony.

  “I can’t go back, Father. Not only because the trying would kill me. I have too much pride.”

  “You always did.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Mine,” he said, “for begetting you.” He did not smile. “If my death is ordained, Sarevadin, what right have you to hinder it?”

  “Every right in the world.” She raised the white agony of her hand. It cast its own light, sparks of gold in his shadowed face. “This is how I endured the change. I had a pain to match it, and years to learn how to bear it. It is not the same with my dream of your death. Yours and my mother’s, Father. I saw her die before you. And though the years stretch long and the pain never falters, it never numbs me. It only grows more terrible. Therefore I chose this path. It offered a grain of hope: a chance that you would live.”

  “And yet,” he said, “if I die, I assure your peace. Living, I can only stand against you.”

  “Not if I can persuade you to stand with me.”

  “Why? Why prolong the agony, when I can be lord of the world by tomorrow’s sunset?”

  “Lord of the world, perhaps. But Elian Kalirien will be dead.”

  He tossed his haughty stubborn head. “You are no prophet, Sun-child.”

  “In this,” she said, “I am.”

  There was a silence. She fixed her stinging eyes on Bregalan, who had raised his head, drinking the night wind. Her father was a shadow on the edge of her perception.

  After a long while she said, “Tomorrow you may renew your war. I shall not be here to see it.”

  “Indeed you will not. A bearing woman has no place on the battlefield.”

  “Not in armor, no. There’s none that would fit me and no time to forge it. I have another battle to fight. I shall go back to the Heart of the World and stand against the mages who have plotted to take you.”

  She heard his swift intake of breath, but his voice was quiet. “You know you cannot do it.”

  “With power enough I can. The Asanian mages may be willing to ally with me to preserve their emperor. Some of your own may choose the same. You give them little enough to do while you wield your armies.”

  “On the contrary. They hold back the Asanian sorcerers; they ward my army against attacks from behind.”

  “No need for that if there is truce; if all of us are joined to break the conspiracy.”

  “Light and dark together?”

  “Why not?”

  “You cannot do it.”

  “I can try.”

  “You must not. Your child—”

  She laughed, but not in mirth. “How you all do fret! And yet I don’t think any of you knows what power can do to an unborn child.”

  “We know all too well. It destroys the waxing soul. If the body is fortunate, it too dies.”

  “Human soul. Human body. What of the mageborn? What of a bearer of the Kasar?”

  “You would be more than mad if you sought an answer.”

  “What choice do I have? They will kill you otherwise, and Mother with you. I would free you at least to find your own deaths in battle.”

  He seized her. “You will not!”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “No?”

  She met his glittering eyes. “I will do it, Father. You can’t bend all your power on me and keep your army in hand and wage your war against Ziad-Ilarios. He has a message from me: if I fail to appear here by sunrise tomorrow, he is to disregard any word you speak, even of peace, and fall on you with his conjoined forces. He has more than you think, Father. His sorcerers aren’t holding back out of weakness, still less out of fear of your mages’ shields. They’re grateful for the favor: it frees them from the need to maintain protections while they set about opening gates. Worldgates, Father. The dragons of hell will be the least of what comes for
th to face you.”

  His hands were iron, his face lost in night. She had no fear left. She had given her second accounting. Now she would see the face which he turned toward treason.

  His fingers tightened. She set her teeth against the pain.

  Abruptly his grip was gone. The pain lingered, throbbing.

  “What,” he demanded roughly, “if you are here and I am not?”

  She hardly dared breathe. She could not have won. Mirain did not lose battles.

  He could, on occasion, retreat. To muster his forces. To mount a new attack.

  He could indeed. “I will face these traitorous mages. I will end their plotting.”

  “Alone?”

  “My enchanters will follow me.”

  “Not without me. Alone of anyone outside of the guild or the conspiracy, I know the way.”

  He was silent for so long that she wondered if he had heard; or if she had at last gone too far. Then, startlingly, he laughed. “Oh, you are mine indeed! You have me dancing to your music; now will you command that I dance with the Asanians?”

  “Can you bear to do that?”

  He pondered it. “For this cause . . . perhaps. But it can only be a truce, Sarevadin. I will not end this war until Asanion bows to me as its overlord.”

  “But now you need Asanion’s strength. Without it you can’t face the full power of the Heart of the World. With it, you may be able not only to face that power but to overcome it.”

  “No certainty, princess?”

  “What is certain?” She wanted to hit him. He was yielding, but in his own way. Meaning to rule even where he was vanquished. “I’ll lead you to the Heart of the World. I’ll stand with you there against our enemies.”

  “With half of our enemies fighting at our side.” He took her hands and held her gaze. “You will guide us. You will not join in the battle.”

  She freed her eyes from their bondage and cast them down. “If I can.”

  “You must.”

  “I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll fight if I have to. I’ll fight you as hard as any of the mages, if you try to stop me. That is my solemn oath, by the god who begot you.”

  His anger seared her within and without. She stood firm against it. Not fighting unless he forced her to it. Simply refusing to yield.

  He drew back. She held, lest it be a trap. He said, “On your head be it, O child of my body. May this mere and humble emperor request, at the least, that you take thought for the child of your own?”

  “Always,” she promised him.

  It was hardly enough. But he let it suffice.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Sevayin drowsed, alone and lonely in a tent set wall to wall with her father’s.

  Through the tanned hide she could hear the voices of mages and captains. She had banished herself from their colloquy: they could accomplish little while she was there to cloud their wits.

  And she was deathly tired. Alone, she could admit it. She was too tired to play the royal heir; too tired to think, too tired even to sleep.

  Shatri had mounted guard outside her door. He had been appalled to see her, until he decided to worship her.

  It was bearable, that worship; it demanded nothing but her presence and, on occasion, her smile. Later she would teach him that she was neither saint nor goddess. Tonight she had no strength for it.

  She lay on her side, shivering under the heaped furs, and tried to shut out the murmur of voices. The child was restless; young though he was, he kicked like a senel. Her hand calmed him a little, the power of the Kasar over the spark that was his presence.

  A familiar weight poured itself over her feet. Familiar warmth fitted itself to her body, hand slipping to cup her breast, kisses circling her nape to the point of her jaw. The child leaped no higher than her heart.

  She turned carefully. Hirel scowled at her. She scowled back. “Couldn’t you live without me for a night?”

  “No.” His hand was gentler by far than his voice, tracing the line of her cheek, smoothing back her tumbled hair. “Have they been cruel to you?”

  “My people,” she said, “are still my people. And yours?”

  “I remain High Prince of Asanion.”

  “In spite of your unspeakable consort.”

  “By edict of my father, you are a princess of the first rank. Who dares speak ill of you, dies.”

  “How absolute.” She looked at him in the lamplight. He wore Olenyai black, the headcloth looped under his chin, stark against the ivory of his skin.

  His eyelids were gilded. She brushed them with a fingertip. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I cannot be elsewhere.” He was angry, but suddenly he laughed. “One fool berated me for falling prey to a succubus. Ah, said I, but there is no sweeter enslavement.”

  “I hope he lived to hear you.”

  “My father had not yet spoken.” Hirel kissed her, drew back. “Vayin,” he said, “I must speak with your father.”

  “That’s dangerous.”

  “What is not?” He rose, drawing her with him.

  She drew breath, considered, swallowed the words. In silence she took up the robe of fur and velvet that her mother had given her, and wrapped it about her.

  Hirel’s impatience mounted, dancing in his eyes. She took his hand and led him out of the tent.

  o0o

  They had ample escort: Ulan leaving his warm nest at the foot of her bed, and Zha’dan with a great black cloak and a wide white smile, and Shatri. The boy bowed to Hirel with deep and revealing respect. Sevayin loved him for it.

  Mirain’s council had shouted itself into stillness. The princes took refuge in their winecups, the priest-mages in lowered eyes and folded hands and carefully expressionless faces.

  Sevayin’s coming brought them all about, staring. It had always been so, she told herself. Gileni mane atop a Ianyn face, and the sheer awe of what she was: heir of the Sunborn.

  She showed them her most outrageous semblance, white teeth flashing, black eyes dancing, red mane tumbling over the somber robe. “How goes it, my lords? Trippingly?”

  Mirain met her with a bright ironic eye and a grin as fierce as a direwolf’s. He bowed his head to Hirel who had come from behind to stand at Sevayin’s shoulder.

  The rest, mages or no, were slow to know him. They marked the Asanian face and bristled at it, but even Prince Halenan at first did not see more than the barbarian warrior.

  Hirel played for them; he braced his feet and set his face and gripped the hilts of the twin swords belted crosswise over his robes. Sevayin tasted the wickedness of his pleasure. “I bear a message from my emperor,” he said, speaking Gileni, which was courtesy bordering on insult. “Will the Lord of Keruvarion deign to hear it?”

  “The Lord of Keruvarion,” said Mirain, “would gladly hear new counsel.”

  It was dawning on the rest of them. Vadin was amused. One or two of the priests were appalled: the more for that they could see how the power ran between Sevayin and her prince.

  A simple man could have seen it, strong as it was, growing stronger in the face of all their magecraft. Hirel’s eye were molten gold. She could not resist and did not wish to; she poured herself into them and then out again, effortless as water.

  “This is an abomination!”

  No matter who said it. It burst from a Sun-priest’s torque, child of a mind grown narrow, blinded by the light.

  Sevayin remembered the fire’s heart and the darkness that dwelt there. She spread her hands, black and burning gold, and spoke as sweetly as she had ever spoken. “We are your peace. We who were born for undying hatred; we who without power could never have been. The god has willed it. He is in us. See, my lords. Open your eyes and see.”

  “I see it,” Mirain said, and he did not say it easily. “Speak, high prince. What brings you here?”

  “Your daughter.” Some of them grinned at that. Hirel grinned back. “And of course, Lord An-Sh’Endor, my father. He proposes a two days’ truce, a pause w
hile his mages settle a certain matter. He bids me assure you that the matter is nothing of your making, and that your people will not be harmed in the resolving of it.”

  “There is truce until morning,” Mirain pointed out.

  “And a pair of cold beds.” Vadin said it lightly, but his eyes were level upon Hirel. “Why, prince? What do they need to do that will take the night and two days after?”

  “It may not take so long.” Hirel met a captain’s eyes until the man slid out of his seat. Coolly he set Sevayin in it. She let him, mainly out of curiosity, to see what he would do next.

  Little enough, for a breath or ten. He sat at her feet, considering those whom he faced, letting them wait upon his pleasure. At last he said, “While I spoke with my father’s princes, my eldest brother appeared with little escort and no fanfare. He was not astonished to see me. In part indeed he had come for my sake, with news of great and urgent import. The mages know not only of my escape with my lady but our coming to this field and of our actions thereon. They are far from pleased. Peace they profess to seek, but it must be peace as they alone would have it.”

  “Aranos told you this?” asked Sevayin. She could easily believe it; she wanted to be sure of it.

  “None other,” Hirel answered her. “He has, he said, grown weary of that particular conspiracy. It serves Asanion no longer; it threatens to destroy us all. The time and the place are set, the mages prepared. Both emperors are to be slain at their meeting; you are to be taken, I to be held in sorcerous confinement lest you seek again to win free.”

  A snarl rose, wordless and deadly. Sevayin spoke above it. “I don’t trust that little snake,” she said.

  “Who does?” said Zha’dan, coming into the light. “But its truth he’s telling.”

  “How much of it, I wonder?”

  “Enough.” Mirain met all their stares. The rumble of anger quieted. “So then, prince. You would seek out the mages, end their plotting, leave us free to choose our own peace.” He leaned forward. “Why is it only truce for which you ask?”