by Janet Morris
These problems he was having with men unable to consider themselves less than "co-commanders," his sister Cime proclaimed, were of his own making: he just wasn't capable of being any less than completely and autocratically in control.
If this were true, he would have ridden both his sister and Jinan out of town tarred and feathered on matching rails, or lashed them to rafts and let Peace River wash them out of his hair, he retorted one night. He wasn't used to being henpecked, and those hens he had were dauntingly powerful, the pecking order itself their main concern.
He reminded himself that women were divisive, spent as much time as he could steal with his sable Aškelonian mare, and fended off his sister's advances as best he might. In all these years, he'd never succumbed to her. But riding alone out behind the Outbridge station, he admitted that he wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer. The night before, at dinner in his quarters, they had been alone, and Cime had spoken bitterly of the years she'd scoured a world quite like this one, but subtly different (a world a plane away), of sorcerers, until Aškelon alone had remained:
"And you know how I botched that up, brother." She'd sighed and shifted so that she lay fiat on her cushions with her head on his lap. "If I'd know that being cured of my curse would mean I'd have to subject myself to interminable happiness and unending boredom in the dream lord's realm, I'd have finished him on the beach that day. Then there would be no Froth Daughter to trouble you, or dreams of mortality at the sour price of humbling yourself to Aškelon. Believe, brother, no afterlife is sweet enough to be worth bending your knee and bowing this," she reached up and ran a finger through his hair, then down across his lips, "glorious head to the entelechy of banality. Hug your strife close, dear one, and battle on. It suits you. Life on the golden streets and the crystal quays of that archipelago would drive you mad, if life it is. Now, come here and let's take the sport we've earned; you've paid me, here I am…"
He'd pulled away only when his hand in hers lay on her breast, thinking there must be a trick here somewhere; perhaps she though incest would keep Aškelon at bay. He used the thought of it to keep her from seducing him: though their mothers were different, the chance remained, despite the legend that a god of war had sired him, that their fathers were the same.
He'd said: "You think to use me as a shield against the dream lord? Think again, Cime. I'll keep you owing until I decide it's time."
And she'd gone off looking for a Stepson or some other to console her and make him jealous. Watching her, whose flesh called him like no other woman's, but whose soul—in spite of Aškelon's promise of salvation to come—seemed more damned even than his own, he'd felt despair. They'd never solve it. That was the page and line of their shared and equal curse.
He'd found solace with the Froth Daughter, who was livid with jealousy and rage: "Bad enough she stole my destined husband, now she'll have you too, and I, who am innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, will be left all alone with only soldiers! Riddler, tend me well, or my father will hear this whole sordid tale!"
Between the two of them, he was miserable, and his sable mare, who'd fallen in love with Abarsis' Trôs horse and pranced around the paddock with her tail straight up for him in immodest display of heat, but ignored Niko's sable stallion as if he were a gelding or a mule, was making matters worse.
He had just decided to send Jihan with Shamshi, over what would doubtless be Grillo's most vehement objections, up to Mygdon, and was reining her around to find the Froth Daughter and make final his decree, when a wind whipped up and the day (which had been mild and gently fading) went dark in his vicinity.
His horse stopped still, shivering. He slid down and, feet firmly on the ground, fist upon his swordhilt, looked all around: "All right. What now? Who or what wants a word with me?" Somewhere there must be a land where Nature ruled completely, where things like day and night and life and death could be counted upon to proceed in an orderly, not arbitrary, fashion. But in this world his curse had consigned him to, beyond the truism that all things were happening by strife and necessity, nothing could be said for certain—not that day would come or night would follow, or that sleep would ever be his, though lately war had tired him more than once it had.
There were bushes scattered about, their edges obfuscated, and trees off farther in the murky dark, not night or day but dusky like a natural setting or rising of the sun. It was his favorite time when it came naturally. Right now, out of sequence, it brought back all the disgust and revulsion he felt toward manipulations of the natural order he'd studied so diligently in his youth. But this time, not even his despite was pure, for he'd consorted willingly with mages, broken a rule he'd obeyed for centuries. A part of his mind told him he deserved this, whatever it should turn out to be.
What it turned out to be was Aškelon, the very lord of dreams, who came riding over gently swelling ground, much more vital and substantially supernal than he'd been when last they met.
The entelechy wore a simple cloak of no color as if his mantle had been woven from the peculiar light which swathed them both. The horse he rode was like the sable Tempus held; the two beasts exchanged familiar greetings, and the lord of dream and shadow raised a hand to Tempus as if it were perfectly natural that Aškelon would manifest, his thick black and silver hair waving in a soft breeze, his cloudspun eyes fierce and too near at hand for the distance yet between them.
"Greetings, Ash," he said when the entelechy dismounted.
"Riddler. Blessings on thee and thine." The dream lord extended a hand and Tempus had to shake it; when he let it go he felt more peaceful, as if even the mad cosmos he lived in had shed disorder and all his troubles bled away.
It was a spell, he thought, and shook it from him, saying carefully: "You look well."
"And you look tired. Have you thought about my offer?"
"My answer is still the same."
"In that case, immortal sufferer, let us lessen at least one of your burdens. Your sister's here yet, I must assume."
Leading their horses, they walked toward the barracks. "Still here, yes. She's not anxious to go back there."
"Are you telling me you'll interfere with a pact solemnly undertaken? She has a year to spend with me. It was for your sake, and not hers, I gave her leave to visit and lend her particular sort of aid."
"For me? I didn't know you cared so much. Or was it for young Nikodemos? That soul, I'll fight to keep unfettered. He's told me he wants no part of dispensations from any higher plane or sphere or what-have-you. Is that clear?"
"Sufficiently, for now. And yes, I covet Niko's fealty. But you yourself know that a man cannot be brought to high estate against his will."
"He wills it not."
"You said that."
"That's right. I did. I'm saying it again."
"I could grant you sleep, one night's rest in thousands of sleepless nights. I'd just like to talk to him."
"Absolutely not."
The dream lord sighed. "Whatever you wish. But Cime conies back with me."
"She's taken coin from my hand and not yet given service."
The dream lord smiled. "She would try that. We'll have her give it back. Release her from her bond. Unless, that is, you want the two of them—Cime and Jinan—to try to deal with. I wouldn't, but the choice is up to you."
"She's my sister. I can't consign her to—"
Aškelon eyed him sidelong: "Consider it medicine for her ills. Without my help, she'll languish with that curse forever. She's never quite grown up. Children often resist medicine."
Tempus thought that over. "I'll get back my coin and leave the two of you alone. The rest is up to you."
"Good." He smiled and a break came in the dusky sky; sunrays burst on through. Then the dimness blew away and they walked in bright, pure sunshine. "A word of warning: that boy you have, Ajami's so-called son, is half a wizard. Remember Abarsis, and be careful with him. What he becomes is partly up to you, Riddler."
"Up to his father, or th
e man who claims to be so. You're telling me that Adrastus doesn't know?"
"Suspects, sleepless one. Suspects. By Mygdonian law, he'd have to slay his wife as an adulteress and put the boy to death… So you see, as human matters are, it's delicate. It needs a hand like yours to—"
"I have no patience with children. He goes to Mygdon; that is that."
"As you wish, again. Now, take me to your sister. And let's try to avoid meeting Jihan, if we can."
Tempus grinned: at least they had something more than overlong existence in common; even Aškelon feared the Froth Daughter's righteous wrath.
They found Cime cuddled up with Straton in his quarters; Critias was pacing back and forth outside.
"She's in there with him, says she'll heal his eyesight, but Strat's not up to fending off…" Crit paused, looked up for the first time, saw Aškelon and made a warding sign. His hand dug in his belt pouch, and Tempus, who knew his first officer quite well, knew Crit was fingering his good luck charms. "Well," he finished lamely, "she's… more a woman than any of us quite know how to handle, my lords…" He raked his hair with spread fingers: "Going in? You'd better knock first."
Tempus did that.
Straton came to the door, flushed and disheveled: "Your sister. Yes, commander… right this way. I've got to go find Crit at any rate. She was seeing if she might alleviate this blurriness I see close-up or very far away—"
"It's fine, Straton. Thank you. Crit's right outside."
Then Strat had hurried past them, and Tempus stepped in first.
She was lacing up the Ilsig doeskins she yet affected, breathing heavily, smiling just a bit. "Now, brother, let's not argue. A woman spurned takes comfort where and when… she…" Seeing Aškelon, she scrambled up, her hands before her.
"I'll take that gold Imperial I gave you," Tempus said quite low.
"You beast! You wouldn't! Oh please…" Then she seemed to quiver and to blink away the extra brightness in her eyes. "Here." She fumbled in her belt and slapped the coin into his outstretched palm. "Satisfied? Stay with your storm-sprung slut. And may you soon have need of me again. Now, go! Get out of here, traitor! Leave, and leave me to my fate, as you always do and ever have done. It's a lucky thing, after all, that you don't sleep, for all the wrongs you've done would surely make your dreams a horror—"
"Silence best becomes you," Aškelon interrupted and, amazingly, Cime shut her mouth.
"Good fortune, Riddler," Aškelon wished him. "As you said so long ago: 'War is common and right is strife." War rightly, and may your Stepsons flourish, and your might prevail."
Then, in an eyeblink, both the dream lord and Tempus' sister were no more.
Alone, he sat down on Straton's unmade bunk to reconsider matters in the light of what had just transpired. With Cime gone, Jihan was not a major problem—his Stepsons weren't thrilled to have her bunking in among them, but whatever he did was accepted without question by Sacred Banders, and the others took their cue from how the pairs behaved. Perhaps Grille was right in wanting to keep Shamshi as collateral until Adrastus came through with all the aid he'd promised. He'd keep Jihan close at hand (the boy was fond of her and she of him), and they'd confer on what to do about the child.
When he came out of there, a real dusk was just beginning, and Crit was loitering by the threshold: "Everything all right, Commander?"
"Perfect, Critias. And with you?"
"Strat's vision—he says it's better." Grit's cynical grin flashed. "I didn't think that was really what she meant to do with him…"
"I know." Tempus, as well as Crit, felt uncomfortable.
"Cime?" Crit asked, peering beyond Tempus, into the shadowed, empty room. "The dream lord?"
"Gone where dreams go and waking men can never follow, let's hope."
"Let's," Critias agreed.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
Book One : WIZARD WEATHER
Book Two : HIGH MOON
Book Three: MAGEBLOOD
Book Four : PEACE FALLS
Book Five :
