Танит Ли - The Storm Lord

“Anici,” he moaned, “Anici, Anici—”

He saw a tall portico of twisted white gold, and shapes of men, and he shouted at them to let go of her. He blundered down the alley, through a yard, calling out, so that faces appeared at windows.

The metal pillars were twisted like strange sweets, and torchlight flared from the iron gates. Beyond, a dark avenue, lines of bare trees white with snow blossom.

The chariot wheels sizzled.

One of the dragon men reached out to fondle her right breast.

“And how do you like Thann Rashek’s palace, eh, little Lowlander?”

The other man laughed, turning the chariot now toward the temporary Dortharian barracks. A spear with a red drying tip leaned on the rail. It could be an amusing night. But abruptly there were new torches on the road and an imperious order to halt. The soldier pulled his chariot to a standstill; the other muttered an oath under his breath. Dragon Guard. On their black cloaks he could pick out Amrek’s personal symbol, the white lightning.

A Guard captain detached himself and came up to the chariot. He looked first at the two uneasy soldiers, next at the pale, ash-faced girl.

“You’ve got a Lowlander there, soldier.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How d’you come by her? The truth.”

The soldier scowled.

“There was Lowland scum on the procession route today, sir. Caused me some trouble, but the crowd—these damned Xarabian sheep—milled about and made things awkward. I went looking for him to teach him some manners. Easy enough to find him, sir. There’s only a few places dare to take the yellow rats in, with King Amrek here.”

“Did you find him, soldier?”

“No, sir. No such luck. But I found his wench, as you see.”

The captain smiled without mirth.

“Well, soldier, I have good news for you. All this time you’ve been on a mission for the Storm Lord and never knew it. Someone overheard your plans, man, kept an eye on you and told the High Lord. He wants to see this girl himself.”

The soldier’s face collapsed in a mixture of alarm and vindictive frustration.

“Right, soldier. Hand her over. Don’t weep, man, he’ll let you have her back when he’s finished with her.”

Argument would be fruitless and dangerous. The two soldiers thrust the girl out, and the Guard captain caught her and set her on her feet.

“Lucky lass that you are,” he sneered, “destined after all for such a high table.”

She hung her head and walked in the company of black, iron-faced men into the palace halls. They left her in a glare of torches, swaggering past her. She was briefly alone, except for the two giants who guarded the entrance with crossed spears. Then a tall woman in a diaphanous robe came. She gripped Anici’s shoulder in a ravening grasp like eagles’ claws, and escorted her along corridors and through anterooms. At a carved cibba-wood door, she halted. Her Dortharian face was a mask—black caves of eyes where unmined diamonds glinted, the blood-red mouth of a vampire.

“You go to the Storm Lord. Please him.”

Her claws rapped on the wood and it flew open. She pushed Anici through.

Anici stood like a statue, almost blind, almost deaf and dumb with fear, while the walls reeled and the floor tottered, but it was the earthquake of her fear.

A huge shadow evolved from the light. She felt herself choking on the poisonous vapors of terror. She spread out her hands to save herself from falling into the dragon’s pit, but clutched only empty air.

“So this is a Lowland girl,” a voice said. She could not calculate the whereabouts of the voice; it seemed everywhere. “Take off your pathetic rags and show me the rest of you.”

But she only stood clutching at the air and gasping. She saw him now; at least, she saw the gauntleted left hand come reaching for her, and already she invested it with the marks of damnation. The curse of Anackire. The moment it touched her she would die. So she had always believed in her nightmares.

“Oh, gods, is this what killed my father? Don’t you comprehend, girl, the honor extended to you? You, the fruit of the mating of some obscure Lowland filth. What are you afraid of? This? Well, well, there’s justice in that. The blasting of the women of your yellow hell now brought home to roost on your innocent, no-doubt virgin flesh.”

He pulled her toward him, and the hand of her death settled over her heart. A knife of fire impaled her like the water creature in Yr Dakan’s house.

Amrek lifted his mouth from her skin. He looked at her. When he let her go, she fell at once. Under the dull bleeding of the incense braziers, she lay like a white inverted shadow, stretching out from his blackness on the floor. He bent over her and found that she was dead.

Raldnor opened his eyes and knew neither where he was nor how he had got there.

After a little he moved slightly, fearing some injury had immobilized him. Yet he was unhurt and soon sat up. There was faint, cool fire in the lower sky. All around were twisting dirty alleys, littered with refuse. He thought: “Have I lost my mind in Xarabiss?” And it seemed he had lain all night in the shelter of a rotting hovel.

His head ached dully, and he remembered suddenly an unprecedented terrific blow bringing darkness. Someone had clubbed him then—some thief. Yet his knife was still in his belt, and what was left of Xaros’s loan after he had paid the girl. He got up and began to walk along the nearest alley. An old woman emptying slops cursed him for no apparent reason.

At the turning of the alley lay a broken doll on its back with its arms flung wide. The moment he saw it he remembered, and a pain like death surged up into his throat. He leaned on the wall, trembling, muttering her name. What had become of her and the frantic unconscious signalings of her mind? And what, what had brought the dark down on his skull?

A man came shuffling up the alley. Raldnor caught his arm, and before he could struggle free, asked: “Do you know the way to Pebble Street?”

The man grumbled sullenly. Raldnor thrust a coin under his nose. The man responded with vague directions, grabbed the coin and hurried off. Raldnor began to run.

The sun rose, a dim red bubble, as he negotiated the tortuous byways of Lin Abissa, asking again and again for directions. Finally he came to familiar streets and at last stumbled into the courtyard of the hostel.

Catastrophe was at once apparent.

Great wheel ruts—the marks of a chariot—gouged across the snow, and near these were other marks, as of something dragged, and a brown stain.

Raldnor moved like a somnambulist across the yard and into the hall. The fires were out and no one there. He propelled himself through the hall and up the stairs, and stopped outside the door of the tiny cramped room which had been hers. There was no sound in that room, yet there was a presence. He pushed at the door, which swung noiselessly open.

It was very dark, for the shutters were still closed on the windows. But he made out a girl lying on the narrow bed and a man sitting by her. The man looked up and straight into his face. It was Ras.

“She’s dead.”

“No,” Raldnor said.

“She is dead. If you’d gone with us to the Xarabian’s dinner, she would have come. If you’d asked her, she’d have gone with you. But you went to the brothel and left her here alone, and they came for her while you were with your harlot.” His voice was quite expressionless and very even. “Orhvan and I came too late. His soldiers brought her back after. He told them to. Amrek. She was to have pleasured Amrek, but she died before he had any pleasure from her. As a little girl, she was always afraid of him, I remember. You took her, I let you take her. I couldn’t stop you. But why did you take her, Raldnor, when you didn’t want her? She was a child, Raldnor. Why didn’t you leave her as she was?”