The King of Forever (Scarlet and the White Wolf, #4) (16 page)

“
You
believe in the goddess, now?” Scarlet couldn’t hide the doubt in his voice.

Liall’s smile was wry. “Belief has always been a fraught word for me. It’s not in
my
nature to believe in what I can’t see or touch. I believe in fire, for example. If I should ever doubt it, sticking my hand in a pile of coals would neatly reaffirm my faith. A god is more difficult. Where is my measure for taking stock of a god? Strangely, it’s you.”

“Me?”
Scarlet didn’t like the sound of that. “Talk about plowing the wrong field. I’m no priest!”

“No, you’re not,” Liall agreed. “You’re closer to being a holy man than any priest I’ve ever known.”

Scarlet gaped. “Oh, for Deva’s sake!” He pushed Liall’s leg with his foot and clambered out of the bed. The damn thing was so deep and wide that he could never manage getting out of it gracefully. It was a sea of a bed.
And Liall the titan of the waters.
The thought made him laugh aloud. “I’ve fought, cursed, blasphemed, gambled, drank, disobeyed my parents, and taken a man for a lover. I don’t know how the goddess feels about the last but I’m positive she disapproves of everything else. Hell’s teeth, where can you find anything
holy
in all that?”

Liall propped himself up on an elbow and smiled from the ocean of sheets and furs; a long, lean god carved from golden oak. Scarlet’s throat went tight just looking.
Holy? He must be mad. There are better behaved bhoros houses than the way we carry on sometimes.

“You have your magic.” Liall smiled. “The goddess didn’t take it from you, so she must not be too displeased by all your grievous
transgressions.”
He rolled the word off his tongue and patted the pillow next to him. “Come back,
iaresh
, and let’s see how far we can presume celestial forbearance.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Scarlet said, aware that they were only bantering now, and also fully aware that Liall was teasing and trying to entice him to more lovemaking.
And making me rise like a stallion scenting a mare in season.

“Iaresh means beauty. For the rest... no matter. You love me,” Liall went on, smiling confidently. “A man who—as I’ve informed you many, many times—is quite unworthy of your love on a godlike scale. Thus, there are two miracles for you. We’re due a third.”

“Stark mad, that’s what you are,” Scarlet pronounced, his hands on his naked hips. “Moonstruck, madcap, and village fool, all in one gigantic lump of a want-wit who needs to shut up!” He grabbed a pillow and hurled it at Liall’s head.

Liall declined to duck. The pillow smacked him full on the nose.

“Oops.”

Scarlet yelped and darted across the room when he discovered just how fast the king could move when motivated. “Accident! Accident!” he protested, laughing and taking cover behind a couch.

“Striking your king is no accident.” Liall grinned.

“It was only a pillow!”

“A crime is a crime.” Liall caught him and held him close to his chest. “And penalty is still required,” he breathed, his mouth on Scarlet’s cheek, his hands sliding low to cup and fondle.

Scarlet felt his knees go weak. “Oh? Best get to it, then. You know how we criminals hate waiting to be tortured.”

Liall lifted him in his arms and hauled him back to the bed.

By the time the coals of the fire had died out completely, Scarlet was flopped across Liall’s body like a rag doll. Liall toyed lazily with Scarlet’s hair, curling it around his fingers.

“You know,” Scarlet murmured thoughtfully, “if I’m to have a life here in Rshan, I’ll need to have some manner of work.”

Liall grunted, his eyes half-closed to slits of pale blue that watched intently. The room was dark, every shape outlined in silver and gray to keen Hilurin sight.

“Are you not content to be employed merely as the king’s bed-toy?”

Scarlet tried to swat him and missed, then gave up the effort. It was too hard to move anyway. “Well, it’s fine for the nights,” he answered. “Not that there are any right now. But I’ve always worked for my bread. It’s strange to be given everything and have to
do
nothing. That’s not what Scaja raised me to be.”

“And here I am thinking I’ve been giving you plenty to do. I’ve been remiss. Wake me in an hour and I’ll see to it.”

“Ha. I won’t be sitting down for dinner as it is, thank you,” Scarlet retorted, and grinned when Liall’s chest and belly shook with silent laughter under him. “I’m serious,
stop
laughing, you fool.” He nipped one of Liall’s nipples with gentle teeth. “I’m not kidding. I need work to keep my hands and head busy. I’m used to an active life, you know. Traveling. Fighting. Killing soldiers. That sort of thing. All this bed-work will make me soft.”

Liall’s fingers trailed up his spine. Scarlet wriggled in ticklish protest. “You’re already quite soft. Always were.”

Scarlet had not known that. He’d never thought of it, really: how he would compare to the lovers Liall had known before. “Is it so?”

Liall nodded. “Soft as the new leaf of a snowy rose.”

“Oh, and poetry, too. I think you’re the one who’s gone soft, but in the head.”

“Rather more south, I think.” Liall took Scarlet’s hand and pushed it down. “You could remedy that for me.”

“Again? Gods below, you’re insane. I’m going to sleep.”

Liall chuckled again and tugged Scarlet until he was on the pillows beside him. “All right then, let’s talk about it. What kind of work did you have in mind?”

Scarlet hesitated, afraid Liall would think him silly. He reached up and pushed Liall’s hair back from his face. Since they had come to Rshan, Liall had begun to let his hair grow longer, as was the custom. Jochi had fine, silken hair to the small of his back, and Alexyin’s mane of white hair, unbraided, fell nearly to his knees. Liall’s hung to his shoulders and was merely shaggy now, and though he had begun to complain of the nuisance of it, he had not cut it.

“I’ve always wanted to try smithing,” Scarlet said, tracing his finger down the bridge of Liall’s fine nose.

“You mean with a forge?”

“No, with a shank of mutton, want-wit. Of course with a forge. And tongs and hammers and all sorts of things that turn a piece of iron into a blade.”

Liall frowned. “You want to learn to make swords?”

“I can already make them. Well, a little anyway. I used to hang around the forge in Lysia where my father bought horseshoes. The smith used to give me metal to play with, and I had a little hammer. The handle was broken off but it was just right for my hand. I used to pretend I was hammering armor to ride off to battle, maybe to fight for the Flower Prince.”

An odd note touched Liall’s voice. “You wanted to be a soldier?”

“Don’t all little boys want to be soldiers? I grew out of it. Anyway, there was a forge in Ankar, too, across the souk from Masdren’s shop. The smith was named Jao, which is a funny name for a Morturii. It means ‘ouch’.”

Liall chuckled. “I like this story. Go on.”

“I worked at Jao’s forge betimes, picking up some extra coppers. He taught me some, but I always wanted to learn more. He said learning the science of metal was difficult, but all the rest was just long practice and hard work, which I’d have to apprentice with him to really master. And then,” he sighed, “well, you know what then.” Lysia was burned and everyone driven out or dead. He was silent for a moment, thinking. “My sister’s husband is a blacksmith, too.”

Liall nodded. “Shansi. I remember. It’s a good trade in Byzantur, especially for Hilurin, who are so clever with their hands.”

“Scaja had a way with carving wood and painting, and Linhona could embroider better than the queen’s maids in Morturii.”

“Clever hands, all of you,” Liall repeated. He raised Scarlet’s hand—the narrow left one with the missing finger—to his mouth and kissed it. “But I don’t know if I want these hands near molten iron. Many accidents happen with forges, love, and this hand in particular could be a liability to you.”

“My hand is fine,” Scarlet said steadily. “I’ve plowed with it and ridden and traveled from Ankar to Omara and even killed a man with this hand. There’s nothing wrong with my hands.”

“Save that they are very small. I shudder to think of them near a forge fire.”

“You could find someone to teach me. Rshani smiths are the some of the best I’ve seen in the world,” Scarlet coaxed, knowing he had no chance of it without Liall’s help. There wasn’t a tradesman in the kingdom who would take him on as apprentice without the king’s approval, even if it wasn’t dangerous.

Liall’s frown darkened. “You’d have to promise to be very careful,” he warned. “And—”

“Thank you,” Scarlet said quickly, kissing his cheek.

“And
if it becomes no longer safe, you have to stop,” Liall finished.

“Fire burns, steel melts. How could blacksmithing become any more unsafe than it already is?”

“I don’t know. A thousand reasons, and not all of them having to do with smithing. All I can promise is to find a man from whom you can learn. Do you think I like to see you mired up or bored? There are only so many rabbits to hunt, and you haven’t taken to reading like I thought you might.”

“Too slow,” Scarlet muttered resentfully. “Every word in those books is a boulder, and I’m like a tortoise bumbling over those rocks one by one. I’d rather be out
doing
rather than sitting down and reading what someone else has done.”

“You could always read standing up.”

Scarlet pinched him and watched the grin spread over Liall’s face in the darkness. “What’s writ about riding a horse isn’t the same as riding one. Life isn’t for watching. If I can’t travel where I will, then I want to be a
part
of the life around me, not just hear about it. I’ve never been much of a layabout, but if I sit on my arse much longer it will be too big even for you.”

Liall choked on laughter.

“You know what I mean,” Scarlet said crossly. “I’m not ready to be idle like an old grandfather. Not yet.”

“You will not be. I swear it,” Liall vowed, laughing as he drew the covers and furs up over them. “I will begin the search tomorrow. But now, we really do have to sleep. My life just became immeasurably more complicated.”

Scarlet was silent for a moment as they settled into the bed comfortably. “Because of me,” he added softly.

Liall’s arm was tight around his waist and their bodies were warm where they pressed together.

“Only in part,” he said. “When the alternative is not having brought you to Rshan at all, I count my blessings. We knew life would not be easy for us here, redbird.”

“In my wildest daydreaming, I never thought I’d end up here, with you. Scaja used to say my head was in the clouds, and that I had too many grand notions about myself, but I only ever wanted a simple life.”

Scarlet drifted off to sleep, listening to the steady thump of Liall’s heart.
A simple life,
was his last thought before mist closed around his mind and he dreamed of a land so cold it froze the lungs, and of a wall of fog that rose up around an immense tower shaped like a wheel.

––––––––

U
lan was an eerie copy of Melev. Liall could tell one Ancient’s features from another only with long familiarity of their race, and he did not know Ulan very well. For a short time in his childhood, Ulan had been his teacher and protector, but the memory was foggy within him.

Girded about Ulan’s lanky, towering frame was a simple linen tunic knotted with a leather cord, leaving his flat, broad feet and ropy arms bare. His eyes were as large as apricots and as colorless as moonstones, and his skin was like a wind-blasted oak, reddish-amber and rough. His nose was hooked, his jaw like a block of wood, and each knotty finger of his plate-sized hands had an extra joint that the Rshani lacked. An Ancient standing very still in a forest could be mistaken for a bare tree in winter.

Liall knew that some trees in the deep forests beyond the Greatrift actually
were
dormant Ancients, but it took a deliberate effort of will for them to shift to such a latent state, and once it was done they must remain so for many years. Whenever he witnessed an Ancient in motion, he could sense the burning life within them, and how very alien they were.

Ulan stood waiting in Liall’s solar, his body a broad, rough scrawl against the elegant folds of a tapestry. He bowed his head slightly: as close to homage as any Ancient would ever render to a Rshani, royal or no. “King Nazheradei, the wolf.”

Liall returned the bow with a wry smile. There were two kinds of power in the room. One stemmed from the realm where a king ruled the lives of other men with simplicity and directness. The other ruled from a place of ice and legend that no mortal Rshani could ever fully understand.

“Not a very complimentary address, is it?” Liall said. “Perhaps they should have called me the Bear when I was in Byzantur. It would have translated so much better.” Wolves were considered scavengers and pests in Rshan, not the romantic mountain beasts of the Southern Continent; the land that Rshani crudely called
Kalaslyn.
In more polite moments, they referred to it as the Brown Lands or just Outland, if they spoke of it at all.

“Wolves have their place. Bears have their place,” Ulan said.

The deep rumble that his vocal chords produced seemed to sink into the timber beneath Liall’s boots and vibrate.

“Ah, but it’s finding that place that matters, yes?” Liall answered. “Here, a wolf is scorned and the snow bear is honored. I might as well have been named for the bat or dragonfly for all the respect
wolf
lends me here.” He motioned to the banner of Camira-Druz on the wall: scrolling lines of silver across a field of blue. Nearby was the shield of Camira-Druz with its lumbering white snow bear and golden star shining above. The eyes of the bear created two more golden stars below; a symbol of the Longwalker constellation that winked pale and lonely over the horizon of Rshan na Ostre during the dark winter.

The great lamps of Ulan’s eyes followed the direction Liall indicated. “We have heard that your t’aishka was blooded by the bear.”