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Authors: Judith Tarr

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BOOK: Tides of Darkness
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He knelt with the blade of the Sun in him and a weird high singing in his ears. He had done many things that were irrevocable; trespassing in Gates was not the least of them. Yet this was something more. For once he did a thing for a purpose other than his own pleasure.
He wanted suddenly to run far and fast, and hide where no one could ever find him. He had hidden for so long, pretended to be of so little worth, that it was as if he had been stripped naked in front of the High Court.
Well, he thought, as to that, he was not at all ill to look on. Might not his mind and his magic be the same?
He let her raise him. She did not at once let go. Her eyes seemed caught in his face, as if something there enthralled her.
Daros the libertine would have slain her with a smile. Daros the royal servant lowered his eyes before she could see the smile in them. He was sure now of several things, but he did not think that she wanted to know any of them.
 
This was her house, that she shared with her stepbrother; he kept it up, oversaw the servants, looked after her with quiet competence. He had a wife and children, but they lived on the other side of the world, in the country in which both he and his father had been born. Here he seemed to have neither wife nor mistress; ladies of the court pursued him, but he was adept at evading them.
Daros did not go to court. Merian went as seldom as she could; she
much preferred the company of priests and mages. Of late, with the great loss among the Gates, the mages needed her more than ever. If she had no time to tame a reckless boy, she had even less to trouble with courtiers.
Of Daros she expected little, but he decided the first day that he would keep himself at her disposal. She rapidly grew accustomed to his presence in her shadow.
The shadow on the stars was growing stronger and coming closer. In his darker moments he was almost tempted to give way to it, but he was far still from despair. He wanted to live, for however long his world might have. He did not believe as too many of the mages did, that now the Heart of the World was gone, this world was safe; the darkness was sated, and would not come closer. It would come—later rather than sooner, maybe, but there was no escaping it.
He was remarkably light of heart. “Better dead than bored,” he said to Hani a Brightmoon-cycle after he swore himself into Merian's service.
Hani was a man of middle years and impeccable reputation, but behind the stern mask of his face he was still a wild boy. They were sharing a jar of wine that evening, while wind and rain lashed the walls. A fire burned on the hearth; there were cakes and fruit and roast fowl to go with the wine; and Merian had gone to bed, freeing them to be frivolous. Hani knew even more scurrilous songs than Daros did; he had taught Daros the most reprehensible of them.
In the silence after the song, Daros sensed as he often had of late, that the tide was rising beyond the sphere of the moons. He said nothing of it, but Hani was a mage. “Will it be soon?” he asked.
Daros shrugged. “Who knows? Nothing's stopping it—but maybe there's a mage somewhere, or a Power, or a god, who can stand against it.”
“You don't sound troubled,” Hani said.
“Should I panic? We won't live any longer if I do.”
Hani peered at him through the haze of the wine. “Ah. I keep forgetting. You're the living image of youth and ennui.”
“I was,” Daros said. “I set every fashion, and my whims were all the rage. I'm sadly fallen now. It seems I have a purpose apart from the cultivation of extreme taste. My old circle would be appalled.”
“Are you?”
Daros laughed. “Terribly! But there's no help for it. I've become that most dreadful of creatures: a dutiful servant.”
“May the gods avert,” said Hani piously. He filled Daros' cup again, and then his own. They drank to duty—and to the horrors of courtiers. And with that, for a whim, to the tides of the dark, that came on inexorably, for all that anyone could do.
F
ATHER,” SAID HANI, “WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE FORBIDDEN Secrets?”
The regent's consort was an older, somewhat smaller image of his son. He had never had Hani's lightness of spirit, or else years of ruling at his lady's side had cured him of it, yet Daros did not find him either dull or excessively stern. He had been visibly glad to receive Hani, that bright morning a handful of days after the first storm of the winter; he greeted his son's companion with grave politeness, as if Daros' reputation did not precede him wherever he happened to go.
When the courtesies had been observed, Hani came direct to the point. His father's brows drew sharply together; the air chilled perceptibly. “Why do you wish to know of this?”
“My lord,” Daros said, “we've all been looking for something, anything,
that might tell us of what we face. These books or whatever they may be—do you know where they are?”
“Only in legend and rumor,” the prince consort said. “The secrets and their keepers have an ill name in my country.”
“Are they in Shurakan?” asked Daros.
“No,” the prince consort said. “Such things would not be allowed there, even after the ban was lifted on mages and their workings. Rumor places them in the mountains that claw the face of heaven, far to the north of Shurakan.”
Daros had been a poor scholar, but he had a tenacious memory. His mind saw the globe of the world, with the empire of Sun and Lion gleaming golden on half of it, and to the east of it the blue ocean, and the other side of that, the land over sea, a broad plain rising up into mountains as lofty as stars. Deep in the midst of them, set like a jewel amid the snows, he saw the hidden kingdom of Shurakan beneath the mountain that was called the Spear of Heaven. North of Shurakan was a waste of ice and crag and stone. It was bleaker by far than Death's Fells, and even more remote.
He did not know precisely when he passed from memory to living vision. He was aware of the small audience chamber in the palace, and of the men in it; he knew when a servant brought food and wine, and when a messenger came from the regent with a matter that was of too little importance to call the prince consort away from his guests. All that, Daros was aware of, but in the same moment he was flying on wings of air above the jagged teeth of mountains.
The others had fallen silent, watching him. They did not, as Merian might have done, attempt to interfere. He felt Hani's presence like a warm handclasp, following him where he flew.
“Fascinating.” That was the prince consort's voice, that deep burr with its accent of Shurakan. “She told us what he could do, but the reality is … fascinating.”
“One can see why they bind mages with oaths and orders,” Hani said.
“I don't think most of them are as strong as this.”
“Not nearly,” Hani conceded.
And all the while, Hani followed Daros over the mountains. Daros was hunting; he took little notice of the two who watched and judged. There was a nest of shadow among these peaks. It was not precisely the same as the dark thing that had swallowed so many worlds, and yet Daros would have reckoned that they were kin.
Hani's satisfaction warmed him. He did not give way to hope, not quite yet, but this was the closest to it that any of them had had.
His flight slowed. He hovered above a range of mountains. They were not as high as some about them, but still they rose halfway to heaven. On the side of a crag, built sheer into a cliff, he found what he had been seeking: a line of walls and the jut of a tower.
He might have descended to peer closer, but Hani held him back. “Not till we have reinforcements,” he said.
He was only being wise. Daros sighed and withdrew, leaving the mountains behind, returning to the clear pale light of late autumn in Starios.
Father and son regarded him with expressions that struck him as altogether strange. Respect; a little awe. No one had ever been in awe of him before.
Mercifully, they did not speak of it. Hani said, “Merian has to know of this. Mother—”
“I'll see to that,” his father said.
Hani clasped his father's hands and pressed them to his forehead. Daros bowed. The prince consort was already on his way out of the room.
 
Merian had been instructing young mages in the lesser arts. They, thank the gods, seemed barely shaken by the upheavals among their elders. As Daros paused by the door, he was nearly flattened by a swooping mageling, with a second in hot pursuit. He caught the first with his
hands and the second with his magic, depositing the latter firmly on the nearest stool. He set the former beside her, smiled sunnily at both, and made his way through the swirl of airborne magelings.
Merian was in the midst of them, sitting at ease a man-height above the floor. She lifted a brow as Daros rose to join her, but did not pause in the flow of her instruction. He exercised himself to be patient, to listen; it was interesting, what she told them, and who knew? It might be useful.
It spoke well for the magelings that they barely blinked at the presence of a stranger. From the progression of whispers round the room, he would wager that any who had not known him when he came in would know him when the lesson ended.
Merian finished in leisurely fashion, admonished them to practice their lessons, and sent them out. Not all went willingly. Somewhat after the door had shut behind the last of them, Daros heard a squawk. One of the eavesdroppers had met the bite of Merian's wards.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Surely you already know,” said Daros.
“Only what Hani knows,” she said. “He was with you, not in you. You think you've found some knowledge of the shadow?”
“Or something like it,” Daros said. “I wasn't close enough to discover more.”
“Can you go there?”
“Yes,” he said with as much patience as he could muster.
She slanted a glance at him, but did not upbraid him for impudence. “Of course you can. Some of my masters of mages are tugging at the leash—they're clamoring to examine you, to discover everything that you can do. They'll wait till this is over, if there's a world left for any of us.”
“I'm nothing remarkable,” he said. “I'm an untrained, undisciplined mage; it's nothing more than that.”
“We think it is,” she said. “But there, we'll have that quarrel later. You'll lead an expedition of mages through your Gate. They will find what is to be found. You will guard the Gate.”
He bit his tongue. He was sworn to her service; it was not his place to protest what orders she might give. But he had not surrendered his spirit. He spoke carefully, with, he hoped, a suitable degree of submission. “Will we leave soon?”
“Tonight,” she said. “My mages are preparing themselves. If there is anything you would do—eat, rest—you should do it now. Your Gate will open at sunset.”
“It will be dawn in those mountains,” he said. “Do they want to invade the castle by day?”
“If the night's children are within,” she said, “day is best.”
He had to grant the wisdom of that. “May I have your leave to go?”
Her glance was suspicious, but she did not tax him with it. “Go,” she said.
 
He ate; that was well thought of. He would rest when all was done. He found the mages in one of their halls, a room like the one in which Merian had instructed her pupils: wide, high, bright with light from its tall windows. There were six mages; they were all young, with the look of warriors rather than scholars. One, a woman of the Isles, was dancing in a shaft of sunlight, in a whirl of blades. No living hand wielded them; they hummed like a swarm of bees.
Daros walked carefully wide of those. The others prepared themselves in less dangerous ways, either sitting apart with eyes closed and mind focused inward, or conversing quietly by a window.
Those three looked up as he came toward them. No awe there, only a long, slow, measuring stare, and a slight curl of the lip from the yellowhaired Asanian with the well-worn weapons. He was not wearing either the robes or the veils, but his cheek bore the thin parallel scars of an Olenyas, a bred warrior. There were five scars: he ranked high, though not as high as the master of his order.
Daros had training in the arts of war; no one of royal or noble lineage could escape it. But he was not the prince of fighters that this man must
be. He bowed slightly and smiled, a salute of sorts, and said, “Good day to you all.”
They nodded or bowed in return, civil but no more. Even that was better than he had expected. “My name is Daros,” he said. “If we're to fight and die together, should I know yours?”
They thought about it. At length the tall woman from the north named herself and each of her fellows. She was Irien; the Olenyas was Perel. The others were Kalyi of the Isles and Adin from the Hundred Realms and the twins Sharai and Lirai who had been born in Shurakan. They had the same face and accent as Hani and his father, or for that matter Daros' own mother.
“It is said,” said Perel, “that you have no weight or substance whatsoever; that your spirit is a leaf blown on the wind.”
Daros smiled. “It's also said that I've never left a woman unsatisfied or a tavernkeeper unpaid. Surely that counts for something?”
“We're trusting our lives to you,” Kalyi said. “Tell us why we shouldn't be afraid.”
“Of course you should,” he said. “Fear will keep you honest. We know nothing of this place to which we go—only that dark powers built it and live in it still. I'll find what they keep, and learn what I may. May I trust you to protect me?”
“But you were not—” Irien began.
“Let him tell us,” said Perel. “What is this plan of yours? Is it better than ours?”
“I have one use in the world,” Daros said. “I'm a fine hunting hound. Whatever I seek, I find. Does any of you share that gift?”
They glanced at one another. All six were about him now, drawn together in a circle. It might be protection; it might be a threat. He chose not to be afraid.
“None of us is a hunter,” Perel said. “We are all warrior-mages.”
“Warriors to hunt a secret.” Daros sighed, shrugged, smiled. “Ah well. I'll hunt, you'll guard. Who leads you?”
Their eyes slid toward Kalyi. He bowed to her. “Madam general. I
will find the book or whatever it is that holds the knowledge we need. The rest is yours. Only be sure that when my hunt is over, all your troops are within reach. When we go, we'll go as fast as we can.”
Again they exchanged glances. “Better,” said Perel.
Irien lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Certainly not worse. Though if he's our Gate, the last thing we want is to risk him in the fight.”
“I'm not going to fight,” Daros said. “I'm going to hunt.
You
will fight. Keep me safe, and bring us all out alive. That's all I ask of you.”
“A simple thing,” said Perel. “Indeed.” Suddenly he grinned. “I like this plan.”
“She
won't,” Kalyi said.
“She told us to trust the Gate,” said Perel.
“So she did,” Irien said. “Though I don't think she meant—”
“She meant that we should trust him,” Perel said. “I'll risk it. After all, if he endangers us, it's a simple matter to kill him.”
Daros laughed and applauded him. “A man after my own heart! Shall we two go, and leave the rest safe here?”
“You trust me as far as that?” Perel asked him with an arch of the brow.
Daros' flick of the hand took in the scars on Perel's cheek, and the number and quality of his weapons, both open and hidden. “I think I can trust you to keep me both safe and honest.”
“We will all do that,” Kalyi said grimly. “If you can rest, do it now. There's not much time left.”
“Madam,” said Daros with a bow and a flourish. Her glance was sour, but he thought there might be a hint, a merest glimmer, of softening about the mouth.
He would rest, for a while. They would not go without him: they could not. He was their Gate.
 
He went back to his room in Merian's house. It had been cleaned; the bed was fresh and scented with herbs. A bag waited by the door. He did
not doubt that it was filled with whatever the servants had decided he would need.
He had been asleep on his feet, but once he lay down, he remained stubbornly awake. He was not afraid, not enough to trouble him. The Gate within had fixed on the place where he must go, but he was aware also, deep down, of the emperor's presence, nearly lost in shadow. Part of him wanted to go, to find Estarion, to bring him back. The rest knew that he could not do both at once.
BOOK: Tides of Darkness
3.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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