A Fall of Princes (34 page)

Asanian cant. It sickened him. “What makes you think that I
could want you?”

“In your condition,” she said with sweet malice, “any female
would suffice.” She looked him up and down. “You will prosper in Kundri’j. The
High Court will find even your rudeness delightful.”

“I’m going to be allowed to get so far?”

“We have labored long to see that you do.”

“Why?”

“Rude,” she mused to herself, “or perhaps simply unsubtle.
And young; and ill taught; and I think, though you are no coward, afraid. It is
not easy to learn that all one believed in is a lie.”

“Not all,” he whispered.

“Most.” She laced her fingers in her lap. “I am not what you
expected, am I? I am almost human.”

“Your power stands against all that I am.”

“Does it? Have you ever encountered a true darkmage?”

“I have taken the power of one. I slew his ally; she took my
power with her. She was,” said Sarevan tightly, “very like you.”

“They were a testing. You failed it.”

He shut his eyes. His fists were clenched. He should turn
and walk away, for his soul’s sake. He could not. “I have faced an Eye of
Power. It was evil beyond conceiving. No sane mind could endure it, still less
hope to wield it.”

“Not all power is either easy or pleasant. Some of it must
be neither, just as the summer requires winter’s cold for its fulfillment.”

That was the truth of his dream. She mocked it. For if she
did not, then all that he had done had been to serve the dark, and he was worse
than a traitor: he had betrayed his god.

“We of the Mageguild know what is,” she said, “and what must
be. I tell you a secret, Sun-prince. Every mage is one of two. Every initiate
is chosen by a facet of the power, dark or light; and every one finds his match
in another who is his opposite.”

His eyes snapped open.

“So,” she said, “are we complete. No dark without light. No
light without dark. Balance, always.”

“Then the other priest—is—”

“My brother. My other self.”

He tossed his head. His voice shook; he could not steady it.
“You should not have told me that.”

“You will not betray us.”

He laughed. It was half a sob. “I am the blackest traitor
who has ever been.”

“I trust you,” she said. She stood and bowed in Asanian
fashion, hands to breast. “Good night, high prince. May the darkness give you
rest.”

Sarevan gasped, shuddered. When he had his voice again, she
was gone.

They called her queen of cities, heart of the Golden Empire,
most ancient of the dwellings of mankind, sacred whore, bride of emperors,
throne of the gods: Kundri’j Asan. She sprawled across the plain of Greatflood,
Shahriz’uan the mighty that bore the heart’s blood of Asanion, flowing from the
wastes of ice to the Burning Sea.

There was no greater city, none older and none more
beautiful. Its walls were ninefold, sheathed each in precious stone: white
marble, black marble, lapis, carnelian, jasper, malachite and ice-blue agate;
and the eighth was silver, and the ninth was gold.

Within the circles of the city were a thousand temples,
domes and spires crusted with jewels and with gold, and among them the mansions
of princes, the hovels of paupers, the dwellings and the shops, the forges and
the markets, tanneries, perfumeries, silkweavers and netweavers, stables and
mews and shambles, side by side and interwoven in the ordered disorder of a
living thing.

Sarevan saw little enough of it, his first day in it. Aranos
entered it like a storm off the plains, cleaving its crowds, thundering up the
Processional Way on which none might ride but princes or the followings of
princes.

They were not acclaimed as a high lord would be in
Keruvarion. Silence was Asanian reverence. It was eerie to Varyani senses to
ride in that wave of stillness; to be the only clamor within their ears’ reach.
And as far as their eyes could stretch, only a sea of bent backs, bowed heads,
bodies prostrate on the stones.

The Golden Palace opened to embrace them. Its arms were
splendid and cold. Its secrets were impenetrable.

o0o

Not for long, Sarevan promised himself. He had to leave
Bregalan, who was not pleased; he had Aranos’ word of honor that the stallion
would be accorded the reverence due a king. Ulan and Zha’dan clung close to
him, pressing against him, darting wary glances from under lowered brows.

They were led in haste to Aranos’ chambers and there
secluded, with picked guards at the door. Aranos left them with a warning. “Be
free of these rooms,” he said. “But do not wander abroad, nor eat nor drink
aught but what these my slaves shall bring you.”

None of them answered him. Hirel stood very still and
watched him go. Then, slowly, he turned about.

Sarevan nearly forgot all his wisdom. Came perilously close
to pulling the boy into his arms: stroking him, shaking him, shouting at
him—anything to warm that slowly chilling face.

A great anger rose to fill Sarevan’s soul. It was not his
wonted, fiery temper, as swiftly calmed as provoked. It was cold; it was
bitter. It found its echo and its spur in Hirel’s eyes.

No man should live the life these chambers spoke of.
Splendid, remote, and chill. Forbidden human warmth, forbidden even the touch
of a hand, because he was royal, because he was sacred, because he would be
emperor, and the emperor must be more than a man.

And less. As the image of a god is more, because it stands
high and apart in its perfection. As that same image is less, because it has no
heart. It is only gilded stone. Lifeless and soulless, mere empty beauty, cold
to the touch and comfortless.

Flesh yielded under Sarevan’s fingers; blood pulsed, muscle
tautened in resistance. But the eyes were jet and amber. “Let me go,” said
Hirel.

“I will not,” said Sarevan.

The eyes measured him. He knew to the last degree what their
judgment would be. Outlander; barbarian. Blatant and improbable mongrel. Mage
who had been, cripple who was. And against all of that: Prince. Emperor’s son.
Son of the son of a god.

He was, perhaps, worthy to kiss one of those slender and
surpassingly comely feet.

Sarevan laughed suddenly, opened his hands, dealt the boy a
cuff that was half a caress. “Cubling, stop trying to glare down your nose at
me.”

Hirel’s nostrils flared. “You—”

“Bastard?” Sarevan suggested helpfully. “Son of a hound?
Slave’s whelp? Sensible man?”

“
Sensible
man!”
Hirel spat the words. Caught himself. Struggled for composure. Failed dismally.
“
You
?”

“Are you? You let Aranos bring us to this place, after all.
What were you hoping for? That the rest of your brothers would be here to
arrange your convenient disposal?”

“Aranos may have gone to do just that.” But Hirel was
calming, and not into that cold and terrible stillness. He turned about again,
more quickly than before. “I have never been here,” he said.

“What, never?”

Sarevan won a burning glance. It comforted him. “Are yours
different?” he asked.

Hirel shrugged. “Mine are white and gold. And larger, a
little. He is Second Prince before the Golden Throne. I am high prince. Will
be. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Sarevan agreed, setting all his confidence in
it.

o0o

They wandered through the rooms. They were somber in their
splendor, black and silver and midnight blue. There were very many of them.

Zha’dan was round-eyed. “Ostentatious,” Sarevan said to him,
deprecating room on room of nothing but clothing.

One whole chamber held only gloves. Gloves for dancing.
Gloves for riding in one’s chariot. Gloves that were all a crust of jewels, for
dazzling the High Court. Gloves that were finer than gossamer, for receiving
one’s concubines.

“For receiving one’s concubines?” Sarevan repeated, holding
one up to the lamp’s light. It was like a doll’s glove, tiny and perfect and
utterly absurd.

Hirel snatched it out of his hand and flung it against the
wall. “Do not mock what you cannot understand!”

They stared at him. He seemed to have forgotten them.

He confronted a mirror. It reflected a young man in plain
armor with the dust of travel thick upon him, and his face white beneath it,
and his eyes wild. “Look at me,” he said.

They were mute, staring. Hirel raised a clenched fist, bit
down hard.

Blood sprang, sudden and frightening. He did not heed it. He
drew breath, shuddering. “I shall be a disgrace. They will mock me, all of
them. My head shorn, my body grown lank and awkward, my voice less sweet than a
raven’s. I have dwelt among the lowborn; I have broken bread with them. I have
walked in the sun, all bare, and the sun has stained me. And I have touched—I have
touched—”

Sarevan did not stop to think. He pulled him in. Stroked
him, shook him, murmured words forgotten before they were spoken.

Hirel suffered it. For a very little while he clung,
trembling.

He stiffened. Sarevan let him go.

His hand was still bleeding. He sucked on it; saw what he
was doing; thrust it down. “You see,” he said, faint and bitter. “I am not
worthy.”

“You’re more worthy of princehood now than you ever were.”
Sarevan took the wounded hand between his own. “Listen to me, Hirel Uverias.
You’ve changed, yes. Inevitably. You’ve grown. The child I found in a fernbrake
was a soft thing, plump and pretty like a lady’s lapcat. Even after his few
days’ suffering, he knew surely that the world belonged to him; he was the
center of it, and all the rest existed to serve him. He was an insufferable
little creature. I had all I could do not to throw him across my knee and spank
him soundly.”

Hirel flung up his head in outrage. But he did not say what
once he would have said.

Sarevan saluted him, not all in mockery. “You see? You’re
not a man yet, not by a long road, but you’re well started on it. You’ll
certainly make a prince.”

Hirel’s lips thinned. He raised his chin minutely. He began
to speak; stopped. He spun on his heel and stalked toward the outer rooms and
Aranos’ slaves and a bath and food and a bed for his weary body.

o0o

The slaves had no little to endure. Hirel they seemed
delighted to serve, but the outlanders and the great cat both shocked and
terrified them.

Sarevan began it in the bath, by stripping and plunging into
the enormous basin and swimming from end to end of it. Hirel, being scoured
clean on the grate beside the pool, allowed himself the shadow of a grin.

Sarevan folded his arms on the basin’s rim and floated, and
grinned back. Zha’dan was watching the scrubbing and the pumicing with real
dismay.

One or two of the slaves eyed him; one had a razor in hand.
Zha’dan took refuge with Sarevan in the pool.

“He hardly has any fleece yet,” the Zhil’ari said of Hirel,
“and look: they’re taking it. How can he let them?”

“It’s the custom here,” said Sarevan.

“Not for us!”

“Certainly not,” Sarevan said, baring his teeth at the slave
with the razor. The eunuch blanched and backed away. “We’re outland princes. We
keep our own customs.”

“If that’s so,” said Zha’dan, “I want a kilt. And paint. And
gauds. I want to look like a man again.”

Aranos’ slaves were ingenious: they found all three. Sarevan
did his braids for him. It was not a thing a slave could do; it were best done
by a lover.

A Sun-prince sufficed. Zha’dan was almost purring, at ease
with himself for the first time since he came to Endros Avaryan.

His contentment coaxed a smile out of Hirel, which passed
too quickly. The boy would not eat, though he would drink: too much, to
Sarevan’s mind. He would not hear of stopping. When Sarevan pressed, Hirel
drove them all out, cursing them with acid softness.

Sarevan let himself be driven. Hirel was in no mood to
accept any comfort that he could give. Perhaps wine and solitude would calm
him; steel him to face what on the morrow he must face.

o0o

The bed to which Sarevan was led was a very comfortable
one, a proper eastern bed hung on a frame of sweetwood and covered with scarlet
silk. Sarevan buried himself in it. Ulan poured himself across the foot of it.
Zha’dan set himself, as was his wont, across the door.

Sarevan worked his toes into Ulan’s thick fur and sighed.
Tonight, he thought, he could sleep. It made him smile, though with a touch of
bitterness. They said it of his father: he always slept in perfect peace before
a battle.

He did not want to think of his father, whom tomorrow he
would betray before the High Court of Asanion.

He rubbed the healing skin beneath his beard, lazily,
yawning. His eyelids fell of their own weight.

A supple body lay beside him. Wise fingers found the knots
of tension in his back. Warm lips followed, and a nip of teeth.

Sarevan thrust himself up on his hands. “Damn it, who told
them I wanted—”

Hirel slid beneath him, all gold in the nightlamp’s glow.
Sarevan pulled away with tight-leashed violence. “What are you doing here?
Zha’dan’s not here; he’s over yonder. Get out of my bed!”

“Prince,” said Hirel, and he sounded not at all like the boy
whom Sarevan had thought he knew. This was a man, weary to exhaustion, with no
strength left for temper. “Prince, forbear. Or I swear to you, I will weep, and
if I weep you will see me do it, and if you see me I will hate you for it.”

The tears had already begun. Sarevan wanted to groan aloud,
thrust the young demon away from him, shout for Zha’dan. Who could give Hirel
what he wanted; what he needed on this night of all nights. Who could dry those
damnable tears.

Hirel buried his face in Sarevan’s shoulder and clung.
Sarevan’s arms went around him. He was fever-warm; his skin was silken. He
smelled of wine and musk and clean young body.