Authors: Judith Tarr
Tides of Darkness (32 page)
L
ADY?”
ADY?”
Merian started awake. She had had no intention of falling asleep on this of all days, but the sun was warm and she was exhausted. The attacks had been growing stronger, the raids more numerous. The enemy had broken out of the bounds of Anshan and begun to raid again in random parts of the world.
Last night had been the worst of all: a dozen raids in a dozen places, towns and cities sacked, but for once no people killedâthose who were not taken were left to do as they would. Tonight, she feared, would be even worse. And she dozed in the sun in Ki-Oran, weighed down with the burden of the child. It would be born soon, if there was any world for it to be born to.
“Lady!”
She blinked at the young mage who ran errands for her. He was Asanian, and unusually fair-skinned even for one of those gold-andivory people. His face was deathly white now. “Lady,” he said, “there is a mage here from the northern coast. She will speak to no one but you.”
Merian sighed and heaved herself up. Izarel steadied her; she scowled, but stopped herself before she snapped at him. Gods knew, her condition was not
his
fault. As for whose fault it was â¦
his
fault. As for whose fault it was â¦
He was in the dark world. More than that she did not know.
She should have had the mage brought to her in the kitchen garden in which she had been sunning herself, but she was too stubborn and the sun too full of sleep that she needed badly but should not indulge in. In the cool of the tower, she roused a little more. She sent Izarel ahead to prepare her receiving-room. The word was rather too grand for that cupboard of a place, but it had a window to let in light and air, a small circle of chairs, and a couch on which she could rest her swollen body.
She turned her steps toward the least comfortable of the chairs. Izarel, ahead of her in mind as well as body, steered her deftly toward the couch. She was settled on it before she could raise an objection. He laid a light robe across her knees, set a cup and a jarâfull of clean water very lightly laced with wineâon the table beside her, and arranged a bowl of fruit and a platter of bread and cakes to his fastidious satisfaction. Only then would he yield to her will and go to fetch the mage.
It was a woman of Shurakan, somewhat to her surprise: a strong woman, not beautiful, but her face was difficult to forget. Even so, Merian groped for a name to set to the face. It was never one she would have expected to come to her from a fishing village in the north of Anshan.
“Lady,” she said. “My lady of Han-Gilen. Whatâ”
The Lady Varani sat where Izarel directed her. She ignored the wine that he poured and the cakes that he offered. She had the look of a woman at the edge of endurance, a bare hair's breadth from breaking. She was pale under the bronze of her skin; her hands shook, though she clasped them tightly as if to still them.
For a brief, wild moment Merian wondered if the lady had discovered
who had sired Merian's child. It was generally accepted that, like her mother before her, Merian had bred an heir for herself alone. Easier to let the world think that and be suitably scandalized, than to try to explain how the exiled heir of Han-Gilen had begotten a child from the far side of a Worldgate.
who had sired Merian's child. It was generally accepted that, like her mother before her, Merian had bred an heir for herself alone. Easier to let the world think that and be suitably scandalized, than to try to explain how the exiled heir of Han-Gilen had begotten a child from the far side of a Worldgate.
But Varani barely took notice of Merian's bloated body. Her eyes were fixed on another thing altogether. “Lady,” she said, “last night the dark ones raided us, stole our grain and fish, ran off our cattle; they took half a score of villagers, but left the rest.”
“Yes,” Merian said. “It has been reported to me. Your village suffered lightly in comparison with others.”
“Yes,” Varani said. Her eyes lowered. “And yes, lady, well you should wonder why that would require my presence here, away from the people I was assigned to guard.”
“I am wondering,” said Merian, “what the Lady of Han-Gilen is doing in a fishing village and not in one of the cities of the Hundred Realms.”
“I am a Gate-mage,” Varani said. “I go where I'm needed. And I asked ⦠I asked for a humble place. I felt that it was necessary.”
“Atonement?” asked Merian.
“All of us have sins for which we should do penance.”
“You did not raise your son badly.”
She flung up her head. The pain in her face, in her eyes, made Merian gasp. “Did I not?” she said.
“Tell me,” said Merian. Her heart was cold and still.
Varani seized her hands. It happened so fast, was so strong, that Merian could raise no shields. It flooded her power, overwhelmed and drowned it. Even shock, even fearâit swept them away. Only one thought remained, with a glimmer of despair:
I never told him about the child.
I never told him about the child.
The child who was close to being born; the child who, doubly mageborn, doubly a mage of Gates, lay wide open and defenseless to that flood of power and knowledge.
Merian opened her eyes on sunlight, a broad river, a ripple of reeds. He was there as he had been in dream before, in the semblance and fashion of the world in which for a while he had been trapped.
He smiled, but his eyes were somber. “Beloved,” he said, “I beg your forgiveness for what I've had to do. As I stand here in this place, the forces are gathering. The Gates are being prepared. The war is truly beginning. Here in this burst of power, I've given you all I know. I would come to you if I could, but I won't endanger you so. I'll find a mage to bear the message; I'll set it in him as best I can, and pray he takes no harm from it. This is not a thing I've tried beforeâI don't even know if it can be done. But if it can, it must.”
All the while he spoke, so clear and yet so remote, his message unfolded itself in all its enormity. She knew, indeed, what he knew. All of it. And yet â¦
“He is alive,” she said, a long breath of thanks to the gods. “He is well. The mages are in place, and doing as they had intended to do. Lady, he's done splendidly!”
“Has he?” Varani was still gripping her hands. “He would let us think that. How not?”
Merian's moment of incredulous joy slipped away before she could grasp it. She wondered when she would know it again, if she ever did. “Tell me,” she said.
“You never asked how the message came to me,” said Varani. “Because I'm his mother? He didn't even know me. See!”
Merian saw night; black darkness. Raiders broke down the walls of the little town by the sea. Varani fought as a mage could fight, with bolts of light. She had reckoned the number of attackers, and taken note that most of them were afoot; only four were riders, massive shapes in fantastical armor, as scaled and clawed and spined as the beasts they rode.
One of them took no apparent notice of the fight, but rode straight toward her, ignoring any who got in his way. She smote him with power, but the bolt flew wide. His beast reared up. He seized her and flung her with bruising force across the pommel of a high saddle.
As she lay winded, he struck her with a bolt of pure power. It pierced her brain; it ripped aside her shields, her protections, even her will to resist. It lodged deep and grew roots. Then at last it set her free.
She rose up in rage. She fought with her body, trusting no longer to her tainted power. She struck off the helm that shielded the gods knew what horrors.
She froze, as Merian froze within the memory. That faceâoh, gods, that face. His hair was cut close to the skull as it had been when first Merian saw him. He was leaner, almost gaunt. His eyes â¦
They had taken away his eyes and left darkness in their place. He looked on his mother as if he could see her, but there was no recognition in that lightless stare. The dark was in him, was part of him. The son that she had known was gone.
“No,” said Merianâquietly, she thought; calmly enough, all things considered. “No. He can't be. He can'tâ”
“I think there can be no doubt that he is,” said Varani. Her voice was flat, bleak. “It was a risk; we all knew that. We gave him no training, taught him no discipline. Our fault; our failing. Now it has destroyed him.”
“No,” said Merian again. She knew perfectly well that she might be the worst of fools, but she could not, would not, believe that Daros was lost. “He gave us what we need. We know now what we face. He would never have done that if he had turned traitor.”
“He well might,” said Varani, “if his masters had in mind to fill us with lies and so overwhelm us.”
They are not lies.
Merian did not speak the words. She called Izarel to wait on the lady, to see that she was given every comfort. Merian, for her part, called a council of the last resort: the most urgent of all. She summoned one who might have both the knowledge and the power to advise her.
Merian did not speak the words. She called Izarel to wait on the lady, to see that she was given every comfort. Merian, for her part, called a council of the last resort: the most urgent of all. She summoned one who might have both the knowledge and the power to advise her.
Â
The Prince of Han-Gilen resembled his son little except for the bright copper of his hair. He was a tall man and strongly built, but neither as
tall nor as broad as Daros; nor did he have his son's beauty. He had a proud and somber face, a face altogether of the plains, and an air of one whose forefathers had been princes since before there were kings in the world.
tall nor as broad as Daros; nor did he have his son's beauty. He had a proud and somber face, a face altogether of the plains, and an air of one whose forefathers had been princes since before there were kings in the world.
Merian did not know him well. His kin had been her kin's oldest allies, but this prince kept for the most part to himselfâas, before this war, had she. His lady she had known slightly better, since Varani was a Gate-mage, but they had crossed paths seldom. She had not even been certain that he would answer the summons. He was a very great prince, and more like his son than one might think: neither son nor father took orders well or obeyed them easily.
But he had come, nor had he kept her waiting for much longer than it would have taken him to free himself from his duties in his own city. He had paused to put aside court dress, to clothe himself sensibly in well-worn riding clothes; he came through a Gate of his own making, and presented himself at the gate of the fort.
The guards took him for one of the many messengers who came and went on Merian's business. They passed him easily enough, but without the pomp to which he must be accustomed. She thought he might be offended, but his dark eyes were glinting as Izarel admitted him to her receiving-room. He bowed low, and waved away her apologies for neither rising nor offering him proper respect.
“Lady,” he said in a much warmer voice than she had expected, “we need not stand on ceremony. Aren't we kin from long ago?”
Much more so than he knew, she thought. She smiled and held out her hand. He took it and kissed it with gallantry that made her laugh. “May I?” he asked, tilting his head toward the swell of her middle.
It was an uncommon request, but among mages, a considerable courtesy: to pay tribute to the child, and bless it. The child, as far as she could tell, had survived the flood of magic from Varani's mind, and taken no harm from it. She was aware of the prince's presence: Merian sensed curiosity, but no fear.
This was a mage of great power, of whom Merian had never heard an
ill word. He was also, and that decided it for her, the child's grandfather. He was kin; it was his right. She nodded.
ill word. He was also, and that decided it for her, the child's grandfather. He was kin; it was his right. She nodded.
He laid his hand where the child was, coiled with her thumb in her mouth, dreaming the long dream of the womb. She roused at his touch. Merian felt a thing both familiar and utterly strange: a tendril of magery uncoiling, reaching out, brushing her mother and her grandfather with a flicker of wonder, a gleam of delight.
Merian gasped. The prince's expression was astonished. “Butâthis isâ”
There was no lying to a mage. Merian looked him steadily in the face. “It is.”
“But how?”
“Dreamwalking,” Merian said.
His eyes widened slightly. “Indeed? There are ancient texts that speak of dreamwalking in the reality of the flesh, but no mage in this age of the world has succeeded.”
“He said,” she said somewhat delicately, “that you were a great scholar of magic from long ago. He intimated that we might have done well to consult you before we raced blindly ahead.”
“As he did?” the prince said. His voice was cold.
“My lord,” said Merian, “I need your wisdom badly. I need your understanding as well. Will you allow me to give you the message that he sent to us last night?”
The prince inclined his head. So, she thought: his lady had not told him. Had there been a quarrel, then, that sent the ruling lady of a great realm to be a village mage on the coast of Anshan? Had their son had something to do with it?
She must trust in her instinct, and the urging of her magery. She took his hands and gave him all that Varani had given.
For a long while after it was done, he sat beside the couch, very still, his eyes as blank as his son's had been. Merian slipped her hands free from his unresisting fingers and took the opportunity to rest a little.
When she opened her eyes again, he had just begun to stir. His face
had aged years. “I ⦠see why you summoned me,” he said. “This is far from mere fecklessness. This is treason, high and deadly.”
had aged years. “I ⦠see why you summoned me,” he said. “This is far from mere fecklessness. This is treason, high and deadly.”
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