Wings of Flame (26 page)

Kyrem had long since forgotten Sula, long since let go of her soft hand. He was shaking his head, glad of the darkness that hid tears, and he was whispering to himself. “No,” he breathed, “no, it is all wrong, from beginning to end. No!” he shouted suddenly aloud. He leapt forward to seize the upraised knife and the hand that wielded it. Nasr Yamut twisted in his grasp, venomous. “Suth, stop him!” Kyrem cried to the night.

And all the priests fell back with a shout of fear as light blazed up, piercing light, for a great pattern had been broken.

The statue was moving. Flanges of red flame shot up from its shoulders, and the hard stone of its body had become supple flesh, and its forehead was shining, resplendent, and it was rearing where it stood, enormous. And from beneath its lifted forelegs another, smaller figure shot. Hunched, four-legged and lithe, it leapt to Omber's back, clinging like a shadow-tail between the damasin wings. “Demon!” someone screamed. On the instant it sent the horse forward with a leap into a headlong gallop, sweeping through the startled priests. The thing was a horror, every crooked bone of its body showing, but the thin, luminous face was unmistakable to Kyrem in that blazing jewel light. It was she, the only person in the world who could ride Omber save himself.

“Seda,” Kyrem whispered, and he stood as though rooted, holding the golden knife and watching her ride, watching Omber run, watching the crowd scatter before them. Run far, Omber, run free—

“Great Suth be thanked,” a voice said; it was Auron, come to stand beside him.

And in a roar like thunder, the mighty stone Suth left its pedestal—stone no longer but the most splendid of steeds; he leapt away and soared over the throng on wings of flame, screaming a stallion's scream, and all the people beneath him screamed, and many fell to earth in terror of the horse-god, but Suth wanted only to light the way for his earthly son. Wings ablaze, he swept over Omber, circling to match the speed of the slower mortal horse, the gem ruby-bright and flaring on his forehead. Then, with a swanlike dip of his head, he dropped to the ground to canter at Omber's side, and Omber galloped snorting.

Auron was jumping up and down by the empty pedestal. “Look at them go, both of them!” he shouted with unkingly abandon. “There will never by another night like this as long as Vashti endures.”

Indeed it was awesome, the running of those steeds beneath a storm-lit sky, sheen of golden caparison and sheen of godly fire and that eerie apparition riding.… All stood watching soundlessly until Suthlight had faded into distance, until lightning and sacral fire had faded into darkness and only torchlight remained. Finally Kyrem stirred. He lifted his arm and flung away the golden knife he held, hurled away the blade of ceremonial sacrifice so that it disappeared into the hoofprint font of the Ril Acaltha. Then he turned to the empty pedestal, took the royal buskins and hurled them away in like wise; everyone heard the splash as they vanished into the dark water.

Nasr Yamut stood tamely watching him, pallid. Seeing his god come to life had shaken the priest badly; he had not expected such vitality from the stone thing he served.

Kyrem raised his hand in silent gesture of command, and the onlookers assembled near him, most of them as shaken as the fire-master. Sula stood with her mother, and Auron went and placed the shelter of his arms around both of them. Kyrem drew his long, curved sword halfway out of its sheath. “Is it peace?” he demanded of the priests.

“Ay,” they muttered.

He sheathed his sword. “Am I your king?” he asked the people.

“Yes liege!” The response was quick and fervent. Another time he would have smiled, but his mind was taut with distress, and his lips tightened into a white line.

“Then I will take command,” he said, “and honor whom I will honor, and appoint whom I will appoint. Nasr Yamut, come here before me. You priests, strike up that extraordinary music of yours once again.”

They brought out their snakelike pipes at once and began to play. Nasr Yamut did as Kyrem had said, standing puzzled and wary. Kyrem had pledged never to demote him or defrock him, and though Nasr Yamut had no way of holding him to that pledge, he knew well enough that the prince, now king, would keep it. What, then, could Kyrem be plotting? The black Devan—

Kyrem began to speak in a carefully modulated, formal voice. “Nasr Yamut, fire-master, you have shown your power this night in such a display of mastery as we who have witnessed are never likely to see again in our lifetime. Storm arose at your command, and the spirits of the dark, and the very soul and genius and being of the stone effigy that we worship—”

“But it was our liege who called upon Suth!” someone in the crowd protested.

“Hush,” Auron told the man. His eyes were sparkling with comprehension. Nasr Yamut's were wide open in uneasy surprise, but he was not one to turn aside praise, however unearned. He stood silent.

“—the very fleshly manifestation of Suth himself condescended to visit us tonight incarnate during this ceremony under your aegis.” Kyrem wondered if he were making any sense. He was speaking the words just as they came to him. But the tone was right, and tone was all-important, irony veiled to all but the knowing few.… He straightened and held Nasr Yamut with his gaze.

“You have shown yourself in every way to be utterly beyond this mere mortal world,” he said to the priest as the music burbled and shrilled all around them. “You are a man beyond the humble tasks of your calling, beyond human needfulness in any way, beyond the daily cycles of duty and care. Surely it is time and past time that you put on the white robe of the beyond. I hereby, with my express word, exalt you to the highest post of your priesthood. Be fire-master no longer, Nasr Yamut. I appoint you atarashet, he who goes beyond the fire.”

Too late Nasr Yamut saw the trap and opened his mouth to demur. “I—my humble origins—surely—not deserving—”

“No one is ever fully deserving,” Kyrem intoned. “A new fire-master will of course be appointed from among the ranks of your associates.”

“I—my fellow priests, I do not deserve this honor—” Nasr Yamut turned to his followers, flinging out his hands in desperation. “Surely you do not want me to go from you!”

They continued playing their instruments, their faces expressionless except that all three epopts smiled. The whistling of the pipes sounded like mockery.

“Your humility becomes you, Nasr Yamut,” Kyrem no longer attempted to veil the grim delight in his voice. “But protest no more. Tomorrow, as the first official act of my reign, I will see you escorted to the bourne of the Untrodden Lands.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The atarashet rode northward at dawn. Outside the city gates he awaited the dayspring, in vigil with all his priests, and at the first light they chanted the liturgy that would send him on his way. Then, white-robed, seated on a white onager, he left them. Kyrem watched him ride off in the pale light, an unimpressive figure amidst an escort of Devans on horseback. At the marches of the magical realm they would take his mount and leave him.

Kyrem rode forth at dawn also, eastward and at random, to seek Seda. His steed was a crop-eared stallion out of the sacred stables; he controlled it by sheer grim force of will and, to his disgust, by a strap around its nose. Behind him, sideways and still in her queenly robes, rode Sula.

It had been a short and sleepless and confusing night. First there had been the custody of Nasr Yamut to attend to, so that he would not attempt to elude the honor that awaited him. After that matter was taken care of, with the full cooperation of the epopts and flamens, there had been an impromptu council. Sula and Auron and Kyrillos had seen that Kyrem was more distraught than exultant, and the three of them had questioned him until he had been forced to tell them what ailed him. Or rather, Auron guessed, or came close.

“That creature that rode Omber,” he said.

“Seda,” Kyrem replied.

“But—it looked more like a demon.” Sula could not take this in, and the others sat gasping.

“It was Seda. She is alive.”

“Of course it was Seda,” Auron murmured to the Devan king. “Who else? Kyrem spoke of a power in the night.… By the Mare Mother, Kyrillos, we are stupid.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kyrillos retorted.

Kyrem did not hear them, nor did Sula. King and bride, chooser and chosen, they were gazing at each other, Kyrem trying to think what this might mean to Sula, and she trying to comprehend what it might mean to him and to them, the union of the two of them, the bond, and he wondering the same, and neither of them could speak for fear and pity.

“I don't know what he did to her,” Kyrem said heavily at last, “but from the looks of her, she might have been better off dead in fact.”

“Suspend that judgment a while,” Auron suggested in his quiet way. Hope hid in his eyes. Power in the night.…

“I must go after her at first light,” Kyrem said.

“Do you not think she will come to us?” asked Auron. “That she will want to bring Omber back to you?”

“I think, I thought, I sensed—that she wanted nothing to do with us any more, that she wanted only to be left to herself, like an animal that crawls off to lick its wounds. Sula, do not tell your mother until we know more.”

“My mother is sleeping,” said Sula, “and I am going with you.”

Half distracted, Kyrem scarcely looked at her, only shook his head. “Stay here, be safe, sheltered. I will bring her back to you and your mother.”

“I am going!” Sula said more forcefully. “She is my sister; I will not be left behind.”

Kyrem looked at her then, somewhat surprised by her tone. “Your sister she may be,” he said sharply, “but she has meant little enough to you until now, whereas to me she has been a comrade and a friend. This matter is between her and me—”

“And me. I was there with you two, though I did not understand it at the time. I traveled with you through the mountains, rode before you when you were weak and sick, behind you when you were well, lay by your camp fire, roamed the night to steal food for you—”

“Sula,” Kyrem whispered. All three men were staring at her, but she went on, undaunted.

“—saw you safely to Avedon, watched over you here in this palace as well, I recognize it. And when you gave her your horse as a gift of love, it was a gift to me as well. I felt her love of the horse and of you.”

“So she loved me,” Kyrem said tightly. “I thought as much. But the bond between thee and me is greater and lasts a lifetime, Sula, though I have known you only a day.”

“I have known you longer, you and her. I felt her suffering when the Old One took her.” Sula looked away then. “Terrible suffering. But she is not suffering now; I would know it if she were.”

Kyrem came to her side, took her hand and looked at her.

“It is for our own sakes that we go to find her,” Sula told him. “Not hers.”

“I suppose that is true. But you can tell me where she is, what she is seeing, feeling—”

“If I went to sleep, perhaps I could.” Sula settled herself deeper in her chair with a decided air. “But I will not go to sleep. You might forget to awaken me, and go off without me.”

“No, you have to come along, I can see that now.” He spoke softly, gazing off into the distance. “What can it mean?” he asked Auron at last.

“That Sula will make you a true queen,” Auron replied.

“The lass is candid and courageous, for all that she seems half a child.” Kyrillos bestirred himself and arose. “Well, lad, my felicitations. I know it will seem odd, but I have seen you are a man now. You will surmount this matter of Seda somehow, and I have a country to attend to. I had better be getting on my way.” He embraced his son awkwardly and went out.

“On your own, Ky,” Auron remarked, and Kyrem nearly smiled.

“And what of you?” he asked the quiet androgyne who had once been Vashtin king. “Auron, this dwelling has always been your home. I hope you know you are welcome to stay here as long as you live.”

“Why, Ky, I have been here too long already!” Auron smiled and flexed his feet as if still luxuriating in freedom from buskins. “I am going to go a-roving and see this grand land of mine in fact, not only in dream. In the morning, betimes.” He stood up, yawning, and also bid them good night.

“I cannot sleep,” Kyrem told Sula. “You rest; I will not fail to awaken you. I gave you my word.”

“But I will stay with you,” she said, and they spent the few hours until dawn sitting with hands entwined and heads together, very closely side by side.

“How will you find her?” Sula asked as they rode out in the dim morning. “Where can she possibly have gone?”

“Suth knows. Maybe back toward the mountains. I am searching. Can you sense anything, Sula?”

“Only that she lives.”

Kyrem was a black river-falcon first, circling above Vashti, looking and looking with his eyes that could see a grasshopper at half a mile. The visionary process was not wholly controllable; sometimes he was the grasshopper instead and could see nothing but weed stems. But at long last, soaring, he caught sight of them far to the northward, glint of golden trappings and the blue-black horse with a dun-colored something clinging to its back. He turned his sluggish mount. Then he could sense the distant presence of Omber without seeing afar; he was an old saluki hound snuffling at a stale scent.

“I see them, I feel them,” he said to Sula, and they were both content.

At nightfall, when the dusky melantha spread in the sky, they stopped in a secluded place between pasturelands and lay on the ground, and Kyrem made love to her again. And as they lay there, a warm rain fell down, moistening the dry red soil of Vashti. In the morning, dew lay heavy on the sere grasses. Kyrem stared at it, never having seen such a thing in Vashti before. Then he turned to his crop-eared steed without speaking.