by Judith Tarr
Sevayin trembled under Hirel’s hands, remembering, living again the terror of great magic chosen and not yet begun. Seeing once more that stern dark face bent above her, pitiless as the face of a god. Hirel tried to think calm into her; to give her strength.
Prince Orsan laid a hand on Mirain’s brow and a hand on his breast. Mirain drew a shuddering breath. “Now,” he said, low and rough. “Do it now.”
The prince bowed his head. “Sleep, my son,” he said. “Sleep until the god calls you to your waking.”
Mirain smiled. The air was full of power. Throbbing, singing. It filled Hirel, poured through him, reft him of will and wit and waking.
He caught at solidity: dark, fire-crowned. She brought back the world.
They bent over the man upon the stone. He woke still, though dimly; he saw them. He smiled.
“Children,” he murmured. “Children who loved beyond hope and beyond help. I see—I am glad—after all—”
His voice faded. “Love one another. Be joyful. Joyful . . . joy . . .”
Sevayin broke down and wept. He never knew. He was kingly in his sleep, and young, and at peace; and on his face lay the shadow of a smile.
Even as she wept she straightened his kilt so that it was seemly, folded his hands on his breast, laid his braid with care on his shoulder. She shook off the hands that would have helped her.
Slowly she straightened. Her eyes burned, emptied of their tears. “There has never been anyone like him. There shall never be his like again.”
“He was a strong king,” Hirel said, “and a true king, and an emperor.”
“He was Mirain An-Sh’Endor,” the Red Prince said.
Sevayin kissed him. One last tear fell to glitter on his cheek. “Sleep well,” she said softly. “Dream long. And when you wake, may you have learned to be wise. To face the dark. To know it; to transcend it.”
“Or may you never wake.” Prince Orsan signed the still brow. Where his hand passed, light glimmered, shaping words of blessing and of binding. “Remember, O my soul’s son. Remember that I loved you.”
He turned slowly. He wept like a king, strongly, out of a face of stone. “He has gone beyond us now. His end I cannot see. Perhaps for him there shall be none.
“But for us,” he said, “the world is waiting.” He bowed low and low. “Empress. My soul is yours, my body, my power, my heart. Do with me as you will.”
Sevayin shuddered at the title. At his oath, she raised her clenched fists.
He waited, mute. His life was hers for the taking: his title, his power, all that he had been. She could slay him, she could exile him, she could leave him here to go mad and die. For this was the crag of Endros Avaryan, and he was a mortal man, and the curse was strong about them all.
Her hands fell; she breathed deep, trembling. She stepped toward him. He did not move.
“I chose you,” she said, “in the end. It will be a long while before I can forgive you. I may never trust you fully. But love . . . love has no logic in it.” Her voice cleared, sharpened. “Get up, Grandfather. Since when have you ever bowed to me?”
“Since you became my empress.”
“You never bowed to Mother. Or to Father, either. Stop your nonsense now and help me. I don’t have the strength for a magegate, and there is no other way out of this place.”
“There is one,” he said, rising. He took her hand. It stiffened against him, eased slowly, opened. He turned the palm up. The Kasar flared and flamed. “Here is that which opens all doors.”
“But there are no doors,” she said.
“Save this.” He met her eyes. “The way is simple. Inward through the Kasar. Outward through the Heart of the World.”
She frowned. She was very close to the end of her strength.
Hirel lent her what he had, hardly caring how he did it. Little by little her mind cleared.
“Inward,” she said, fitting her will about the word. “In.” Gathering their threefold awareness. “Ward.” The Kasar swelled and bloomed and closed about them, a torrent of fiery gold. The worlds whirled away.
PART SIX
Sevayin Is’kirien
TWENTY-SIX
There were no endings. That was the truth which ruled the gods. Sevayin would have been a great sage, if she had cared a jot for wisdom.
Inward through the Kasar. Outward through the Heart of the World. Simple; inevitable.
When she came out of the darkness, it was all changed. The mages laid themselves at her feet and called her empress.
She looked down at them and saw no sweetness in revenge. She glanced at her consort. “Hirel?”
He eyed his Olenyai blades, measured the bowed and humble necks. Remembered the hatred he had borne them.
He raised his empty hands to her, angry, yet bitterly amused. “It is gone,” he said. “All of it, I cannot even despise them.”
“Nor I. But,” she said, “this we can do. We can rule them.”
“That has always been our intent,” said the guildmaster.
She did not believe him; she did not trust him. But he was hers, he and his mages, while she had strength to bind him. She made them swear fealty to Hirel as to herself; she won from them an oath, that they would do no harm to herself or to her consort, or to the child she bore.
They made her sleep, all of them together, there outside of the world’s time. She wanted to fight them. Her body refused.
It was fordone, and it had a child to think of. A living child, dreaming in his warm dark womb, his flame of power burning diamond-bright.
The mages had been afraid of him; they would learn to be afraid of him. If he had ever been a simple mortal infant, this night’s working had put an end to it.
He would be something new, this heir of Sun and Lion. Something wonderful.
“But of course,” said Hirel with his inimitable certainty. “He is our child.”
She was not ready to laugh again, not quite yet. But she smiled: she kissed him and said, “I do think I love you, Hirel Uverias.”
o0o
She slept in her old chamber, cradling her son as Hirel cradled her; if she dreamed, she remembered nothing of it. When she woke, she ate because she must, but her mind had leaped far ahead. She hardly saw who followed her from the chamber to the hall of fire.
Her worldgate had fallen. She had felled it herself. Vadin, Starion, her poor mages—
Inward through the Kasar. Outward through the Heart of the World.
Avaryan was rising. His light lay gentle on the dead. Vadin Uthanyas who had died at last, fearlessly and joyfully so that the rest might live. His body lay in royal company: Asanian emperor, Varyani empress.
Sevayin would mourn. Later. She would reckon up her guilt when there was time for reckoning.
Two armies waited, hating one another. Two herds of princes hot for war. Two empires, two royal cities, two palaces with their flutter of courtiers. Two lifetimes’ worth of battles to make them one.
She laughed, standing over her dead, because she wanted most to howl.
They were all staring. All her mages now, those who would have slain the emperors and those who would have defended them.
Each had half succeeded. One alive as wicked fate had promised her, one dead as he had wished to be, both gone where no harm could reach them; where they themselves could do no harm.
So much to do. She opened her arms. “See,” she said. “The morning has come. The war is won. We have a throne to claim, my prince and I. Who dares to gainsay me?”
“I.”
She spun on Hirel in shock and sudden rage.
He stood in front of her, gold-maned in the morning, his robes in tatters and his eyes black-shadowed and his will indomitable. The mask of his father was in his hand. He raised it, and held it before his face.
His voice came forth from it, a stranger’s voice, cold and quiet. “I,” he repeated. “I am the Emperor of Asanion. I yield my power to no man.”
She stalked him, cat-soft. “No ma
n,” she said, “certainly. But a woman, Hirel Uverias? A woman of the bright god’s line. Mage and queen and bearer of your son.”
The golden face was still, inhuman, imperial. It granted nothing. It yielded nothing.
It lowered slowly. She saw his eyes over it, and then his living face, more beautiful than any mask. “And my lover? Are you that, madam?”
“That,” she said, “always and ever. But before all else, I am Empress of Keruvarion.”
“So.” He looked her up and down. His brows met. He bent his eyes upon the mask, turning it in his hands, pondering long and deep within the walls of his mind.
She held herself still. Not even for love of him would she surrender her half of the throne.
“Only half?” he asked her.
“No more,” she answered, “and no less.”
He raised his hand. She raised her own. His eyes narrowed against the flame of it.
He set palm to burning palm. His face was still, but his eyes were all gold. “So be it,” said the Emperor of Asanion.
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Copyright & Credits
A FALL OF PRINCES
Avaryan Rising, Book Three
Judith Tarr
Book View Café Edition
July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-269-3
Copyright © 1988 Judith Tarr
First published: Tor, 1988
Production team: Proofreader: Julianne Lee; Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.
v20130628vnm
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About the Author
Judith Tarr holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from Yale. She is the author of over three dozen novels and many works of short fiction. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and has won the Crawford Award for The Isle of Glass and its sequels. She lives near Tucson, Arizona, where she raises and trains Lipizzan horses.
Other BVC Ebooks by Judith Tarr
Novels
Ars Magica
Alamut
The Dagger and the Cross
Living in Threes
Lord of the Two Lands
A Wind in Cairo
His Majesty’s Elephant
Series
Avaryan Rising
The Hall of the Mountain King
The Lady of Han-Gilen
A Fall of Princes
The Hound and the Falcon
The Isle of Glass
The Golden Horn
The Hounds of God
Nonfiction
Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting it Right
BVC Anthologies
Beyond Grimm
Breaking Waves
Brewing Fine Fiction
Ways to Trash Your Writing Career
Dragon Lords and Warrior Women
Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls
The Shadow Conspiracy
The Shadow Conspiracy
The Shadow Conspiracy II
About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
Book View Café is good for readers because you can enjoy high-quality DRM-free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.
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Book View Café authors include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.
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The Lady of Han-Gilen
Avaryan Rising Volume II
Sample Chapter
Judith Tarr
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Edition
June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-268-6
Copyright © 1987 Judith Tarr
To my agent, Jane Butler
For performance above and beyond the call of duty
ONE
“Elian! Oh, Lady! Elian!”
The Hawkmaster paused in mending a hood and raised an inquiring brow. Elian laid a finger on her lips.
The voice drew nearer, a high sweet voice like a bird’s. “Lady? Lady, where have you got to? Your lady mother—”
Elian sighed deeply. It was always her lady mother. She bound off her last stitch and smoothed the crest of feathers thus attached to the hood: feathers the color of fire or of new copper, rising above soft leather dyed a deep and luminous green. Flame and green for the ruling house of Han-Gilen: green to match her much-patched coat, flame no brighter than her hair.
She laid the hood in the box with the others she had made and rose. The Hawkmaster watched her. Although he was not mute, he seldom spoke save to address his falcons in their own wild tongue.
He did not speak now, nor did she. But his eyes held a smile for her.
oOo
In the mews beyond the workroom, the hooded falcons rested on their perches. The small russet hunters for the ladies and the servants; the knights’ grey beauties, each with its heraldic hood; her brother’s red hawk shifting restlessly in its bonds, for it was young and but newly proven; and in solitary splendor, the white eagle that came to no hand but that of the prince her father.
Her own falcon drowsed near her brother’s. Though smaller, it was swifter, and rarer even than the eagle: a golden falcon from the north.
Her father’s gift for her birth-feast, a season past. It had been new-caught then; soon it would be ready for proving, that first, free hunt, when the bird must choose: to come back to its tamer’s hand or to escape into freedom.
She paused to stroke the shimmering back with a feather. The falcon roused slightly from its dream, a tightening of talons on the perch, an infinitesimal turning of the blinded head.
“Lady!"
The mews erupted in a flurry of wings and fierce hawk-screams. Only the eagle held still. The eagle, and Elian’s falcon, that opened its beak in a contemptuous hiss and was silent.
The Hawkmaster emerged from his workroom, followed by his two lads. Wordlessly they set about soothing their charges.
The cause of the uproar paid it no heed at all. She fit her voice admirably well, plump and pretty, wrinkling her delicate nose at the scents of the mews and holding her skirts well away from the floor. “Lady, look at you! What her highness will say—”
Elian had already thrust past her, nearly oversetting her into the mud of the yard.
oOo
The Princess of Han-Gilen sat among her ladies in a bower of living green, her gown all green and gold, and a circlet of gold binding her brows. A delicate embroidery lay half finished in her lap; one of her ladies plucked a soft melody upon a lute.
She contemplated her daughter for a long while in silence. Elian kept her back straight and her chin up, but she was all too painfully aware of the figure she cut. Her coat had been her brother’s; it was ancient, threadbare, and much too large. Her shirt and breeches and boots fit well enough, but they stood in sore need of cleaning. She bore with her a faint but distinct odor of the stables, overlaid with the pungency of the mews.
She was, in short, a disgrace.
The princess released Elian from her gaze to stitch a perfect blossom. Once the most beautiful woman in her father’s princedom of Sarios, she remained the fairest lady in Han-Gilen. Her smooth skin was the color of honey; her eyes were long and dark and enchantingly tilted, with fine arching brows; her hair beneath its drift of veil was deep bronze with golden lights.
Her one flaw, the chin that
was a shade too pronounced, a shade too obstinate, only strengthened her beauty. Without it she would have been lovely; with it, she was breathtaking.
At last she spoke. “We have been searching for you since the morning.”
“I was riding.” In spite of all her efforts, Elian knew she sounded sullen. “Then I had an hour with the Hawkmaster. Will you be keeping me long, Mother? The embassy from Asanion will be arriving today, and Father has a council just before. He bade me—”
“At your insistence.” The princess’ voice was soft but unyielding. “He is the most indulgent of fathers. Yet even he would not be pleased to see you as you are now.”
Elian battled an impulse to straighten her coat. “I would not attend council in this state, my lady.”
“Let us hope that you would not,” said the princess. “I have heard that you have done so in garb but little more proper. Breeched and booted, and at your side a dagger.”
The princess continued her embroidery, each word she spoke as careful and as minutely calculated as the movements of her needle. “When you were still a child, I suffered it, since your father seemed inclined to encourage it. There were some who even found it charming: Han-Gilen’s willful Lady trailing after her brothers, insisting that she be taught as they were taught. You learned fighting and hawking and wild riding; you can read, you can write, you can speak half a dozen tongues. You have all the arts of a Gileni prince.”
“And those of a princess as well!” Elian burst out. “I can sew a fine stitch. I can dance a pretty dance. I can play the small harp and the greater harp and the lute. I have a full repertoire of songs, all charming, all suitable for a lady’s bower.”
“And some scarcely fit for a guardroom.” The princess set down her work and folded her hands over it. “My daughter, you have been a woman for three full years. When I was as old as you, I had been two years a wife and nigh three seasons a mother.”
“And always,” muttered Elian, “a perfect lady.”
