A Fall of Princes (14 page)

Idiots; they never considered a raid through the garden, for
what good that would do, with the Zhil’ari prowling there, armed to the teeth.

Hirel did not ask where the weapons had come from. Savages
had ways, and theft was not a sin they knew the name of.

The guards withdrew. Of the services Hirel had required,
only the wine came, and food later, when he demanded it again and peremptorily.

The Zhil’ari were sparing with the largesse. A game was no
pleasure if one were too far gone in meat and wine to play.

Hirel was no longer hungry. He drank a little, for the
taste, and played with a fruit. He wandered restlessly, returned to the pool,
prowled the room.

No word came from the corridor’s end. No sound, no scent of
wizardry.

The guards changed twice. Their faces were somber. They
never opened the door, that he could see, nor did anyone pass them. They might
have been warding an empty room.

o0o

Night loomed and fell. Hirel slept fitfully. A dream found
him. He fought it, but it was strong. It seized him and pulled him down.

He walked in a dim country, under cold stars. A shadow
walked beside him. They were comfortable, walking, two shadow princes in the
shadowlands. Even here, Sarevan’s mane was as bright as a beacon.

Something in Hirel was trying to brand it a nightmare: the
dim strange hills, the icy stars, the air that was like no air of living earth.
But Sarevan was there, and he was as he always was, striding lightly, wrapped
in one of his silences.

Once or twice he glanced at Hirel and smiled. It was a warm
smile, with a touch of wickedness.
We
belong together
, it said,
you and I: high
prince and high prince
.

Hirel bowed his head, accepting. In this place, one did not
deny truth.

The air was full of thunder. Hirel became aware of it by
slow degrees. It was strangely like voices calling in chorus. Naming a name.
Sarevadin. Sarevadin!

Sarevan barely paused in his striding. Hirel looked back.
Far away on the edge of sight, light glimmered.

He frowned. “They are calling you,” he said.

His voice fell soft in the dimness. Sarevan glanced aside,
shrugged minutely. It was no matter of his.

“But,” said Hirel, “it is. Come, listen. They are calling
you to the light.”

The darkness beckoned, sweet and deep.

Hirel caught at Sarevan’s body. It strained away from him;
he tightened the circle of his arms. Sarevan twisted about within them, tensed
for battle, but pausing, snared by surprise.

“Listen,” Hirel said. “For me.”

“And what,” asked Sarevan. “are you?”

“The other half of you,” Hirel answered him.

Sarevan’s brows met. Not, Hirel thought, in resistance. As
if Hirel had given him something to ponder.

“Listen,” Hirel bade him. “Listen.”

o0o

Hirel snapped erect. It was deep night, but not the night
of the shadowlands. The air of the empress’ garden was cool and sweet; only the
snoring of his companions broke the silence.

He lay down again in Ulan’s warmth and tried to still his
trembling. The dream was gone. Nor was there any doubt in him that it had been
a dream; but it haunted him.

Morning dawned cool despite the brilliance of the rising
sun; the water of the pool was cold. Hirel plunged into it, to wash the night
away, to force his mind into wakefulness.

He was there when the servants brought food and drink that
the Zhil’ari fell upon with delight. He was still there when the tall man came.

Another of these damnable giants, Hirel thought as he looked
up and up at the figure on the pool’s rim. Not a young one, this; his beard was
white, his hair iron grey. But he stood as a young man stands, light and alert,
and he fixed Hirel with a singularly disconcerting stare. As if he could see
through the other’s eyes into the thoughts behind, and what he saw made him
want to laugh and rage in equal measure.

Ulan sat by him. Leaning against him. Purring thunderously.

“So,” he said in Gileni with a lilt that spoke of Ianon,
“you’re the invader who’s setting the palace on its ear. I don’t suppose you’ve
thought to
ask
for what you want?”

Hirel was abashed, and despised himself for it; it made his
words rough and haughty. “I asked. I was not given. Therefore I took.”

“You demanded the impossible. You took what your temper
could encompass.” The northerner held out a hand. “Come out of the water,
princeling.”

Hirel came. He did not accept the hand. He did not blush
that he was naked, or that he must dry himself, shivering until his teeth
rattled, and dress under the bold stare. Ulan he would not acknowledge at all.
The cat was a traitor, precisely like the rest.

The Zhil’ari circled warily. The northerner flashed them a
blindingly brilliant smile and addressed them in their own tongue. They
listened; their eyes widened, their jaws fell; they flung themselves at his
feet, kissed them fervently, and bolted.

Hirel stood alone, abandoned, and blue with cold, too bitter
even to be angry. The tall man’s smile shone in vain on his despair; the warm
deep voice was but a grating in his ears. “I told them that they could look in
on their seneldi and claim their own weapons, and if they would be so kind, the
owners of those they carried would like them back again; and when they were
done with all of that, the captain of the high prince’s guard would speak with
them.”

“That is not all you told them.”

“Maybe not.” Since Hirel was not inclined to move, the
northerner sat cross-legged on the grass.

A kilt, Hirel reflected coldly, was a profoundly immodest
garment. The barbarian did not care. Although he was nothing royal, he could
not be, he was quite as supercilious as Sarevan.

He raised a knee and clasped it. He was much scarred and not
the least ashamed of it, and yet he was good to look on as all these
northerners were, with his carven features and his lean long-muscled body and
his own, peculiar, gangling grace.

“I thank you for that,” he said.

“You are a mage,” Hirel said flatly.

One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “After a fashion. I wasn’t
born to it; I’m no good at all with spells. I’ve grown into a trick or two, no
more.”

“You know who I am.”

“It’s obvious enough. I’ve met your father; and you’re his
image. I bring you my emperor’s apologies. At first he didn’t know you, and
then he had Sarevan to think of.”

Hirel snatched at what mattered. “Sarevan—is he—”

“He lives.”

“He lives,” Hirel repeated. He could not even name the force
that dimmed his eyes, that set his heart to beating in a swift painful rhythm.
“And his—his—”

“His father is recovering. And his mother. It was a hard battle.
For a while—for a very long while I thought we’d lost them all.”

Hirel regarded the face gone grim with memory, and knew what
the mage was not saying. “You were with them.”

“We all were, in power if not in body. Even Prince Orsan,
all the way from Han-Gilen, and that redheaded tribe of his, and every priest
in the city. That’s how dire it was, and how much we owe you for keeping the
young idiot alive for as long as you did.”

“I am sure that it delights you to owe such a debt to a
yellow barbarian.”

The northerner’s eyes glinted. “We can survive it. What’s
driving us wild is that you insist on camping here when there’s a suite of
honor waiting for you. Be kind; take it.”

“First I must see Sarevan.”

“Of course. He’s been asking for you.” The man rose, making
no attempt to suppress his mirth at Hirel’s expression, and beckoned. “Come.”

o0o

They had moved the prince, taken him to his own rooms in a
high tower of the palace. Hirel entered the topmost chamber slowly, telling
himself that he was only cautious. It was a pleasant place, all light and air,
with more in it of taste than of opulence.

The bed was almost demeaningly small, hardly more than a cot
set in an alcove. No hordes of attendants fluttered about it, only one quiet
person in a torque, who made herself one with the shadows as Hirel crossed the
tiled floor. Ulan reached the bed in a bound, all but overwhelming the figure
in it, who laughed breathlessly and clasped him close.

This was not Sarevan. This was a boy, gaunt to transparency,
with such a light shining out of him as the poets spoke of, that shone in
saints or in the dying. His braid lay on his white-clad shoulder and snaked
along his side, and the shaft of sunlight on it turned it to red-gold fire, but
he had no beard. Even bone-thin as he was, his face was very young and very
fine, and almost as pretty as a girl’s.

Then he saw Hirel, and his eyes were Sarevan’s, bright,
arrogant, and thoroughly insouciant. Likewise the voice he raised in greeting,
though it was as thin as his body. “Cubling! What took you so long?”

“Inefficiency,” Hirel’s guide answered for him. “Don’t
overdo it, children. I’ll come back when your time’s up.”

Sarevan watched him go, smiling with deep affection. “You
should be honored, cubling. The Lord of the Northern Realms doesn’t often stoop
to run errands.”

Hirel stared at the closing door. “The Lord of the Northern
Realms?”

“Vadin alVadin himself, Baron Geitan, sworn brother to the
Sunborn, whom men call the Reborn, and the Chosen of Avaryan, and the Regent of
Ianon and the kingdoms of the north.” Sarevan’s eyes danced. “What, cubling! Is
that awe I see in your face? Can there actually be a hero alive whom your
loftiness will condescend to worship?”

Hirel schooled his traitor face to stillness. “He is famous.
Notorious, in truth. When nurses need a name with which to subdue their
charges, and the Sunborn’s has lost it potency, they invoke the horror of Vadin
Uthanyas, Vadin who will not die.”

Sarevan grinned. “Vadin Uthanyas! What a ring that has. I’ll
have to call him that when I want to watch him lose his temper. He loses his
temper wonderfully. Thunder and lightning, and the sound of kingdoms falling.”
He raised himself, struggling, his grin turning to a glare when Hirel laid
hands on him.

He was frighteningly frail. Hirel propped him with cushions
and stood over him, hands on hips.

His glare wavered. “Damn it, infant—”

“Thunder and lightning, and kingdoms falling.” Hirel
frowned. “You look appalling. What did you do to your face?”

Sarevan’s hand went to it. His right hand, moving easily,
and under the robe no bulk of bandages. “I’ve lost flesh, that’s all. It will
come back.”

“Not that, idiot. Your beard.”

Sarevan laughed so hard that Hirel thought he would break.
When at last he had his breath back, he said, “I bade it a fond farewell. I’m
not entirely uncivilized, you know. Only when I’m Journeying, and hot water is
hard to come by, and time’s not for wasting with a razor and a scrap of mirror.
Besides,” he added, “it made you so happy; such highly visible evidence of my barbarity.”

Hirel’s teeth set; but he smiled, honey-sweet. “You look,”
he said, “somewhat younger than you claim to be. And very . . .
comely. I think we are a closer match than you would like.”

The bright brows met. Hirel laughed at them.

“Insolent whelp,” Sarevan muttered.

Hirel sat on the bed and refused to be insulted.

Sarevan sighed. “I suppose you expect me to be indulgent,
now that I owe you my life.”

“I did nothing but accept my captivity and see that you were
brought where you had promised to put an end to it. I do expect you to drop
this game of yours and call me by my name.”

“How cumbersome. Asuchirel inZiad Uverias, what an arrogant
creature you are. Is there truly a rod of steel in that spine of yours,
Asuchirel inZiad Uverias? Ah, Asuchirel inZiad Uverias, how prettily you glare
at me.”

“Priest,” Hirel said with icy precision, “you know full well
that I can be called Hirel.”

“But that’s merely Old Asanian for Son of the Lion. Lion’s
Cub. Cubling.”

“At least it is
Old
Asanian.” Hirel folded his arms. “Yield. Or I call you
mongrel
forever after.”

“How dare you—” Sarevan stopped. Scowled. Laughed suddenly.
“Cub— Hirel Uverias, you are growing into a formidable young man. How long has
your voice been breaking?”

Hirel flushed scarlet, and cursed the wit that could spin a
new victory out of a clear defeat. “It is not—”

It did, appallingly. His mouth snapped shut.

Sarevan lay back, highly amused. “Avaryan help me, I think
I’ve been growing you up. Small wonder I’ve got so feeble. It’s a task for
giants.”

“That, having seen the Zhil’ari, I would hardly call you.”
Hirel’s voice held its range, for a mercy. “I am tiring you. Can you rest, now
that you know your prisoner is secure?”

The lightness left the worn brilliant face. “Does it gall
you so much?”

Hirel considered the question with some care. At length he
answered it. “I am not an utter fool; I understand your reasons. But yes, it
galls me. How can it not?”

“Do you hate me?”

“No.” Hirel stood. “Rest. I will come back later. See that
your guardhounds are so instructed.”

No doubt Sarevan saw through it. That Hirel left because he
could not bear to know the truth: that Sarevan was not yet claimed fully for
the world of the living. He could still let go. He could still die.

o0o

The tall lord admitted it. He had died indeed with an
assassin’s spear in his heart, and he had come back at the Sunborn’s call, when
Mirain An-Sh’Endor was a youth barely set up his throne and Vadin his reluctant
squire.

Vadin’s wound had been one of the body, with nothing
sorcerous in it. This was different. Sarevan had come as far as Keruvarion’s
magic could bring him. The rest lay with time and the god.

Hirel lingered for a time in the chambers to which the lord
had led him. They were fully in keeping with his royalty. They closed in upon
him.