Танит Ли - The Storm Lord

“This is absurd,” Jarred said. “We’ll let go this match for Vathcri. Let him have one of Sorm’s daughters.”

“A child of eight years? No. He must leave his seed here in this land when he leaves it. I think that he will never come back. No, Jarred. I want to bear his child. It’s something, if not very much. Oh, this land,” she said. “She made us the last part of his journey—only a fragment, a means.”

The moon emerged, rising out of the foliage of a tree and opened the garden to its light.

“There’s something harsh in moonlight,” Sulvian said. “It scours every shadow. Jarred, when this is over, will we still remain, or will the harsh light scour us away?”

A night bird began to sing somewhere among the overgrowth and ruined terraces. After this, silence hung on Pellea. And on the beaches of the wide lands, south and north, only the sea was moving.

As he came near the city he saw smokes rising from it, up into the red drought of the early winter sunset. Despite the smoke, it was a ruin, a desolation; already the shadows had it. Yannul noted the strip of banner over the gate—the black dragon of Dorthar. So, she was occupied, as the vague rumors had suggested out in the wilds of the Plains. The ruin had been invested with malignant, alien life. Yannul was reminded of certain sorcerers, mountain charlatans no less evil for being frauds, who claimed to be able to animate the corpses of the dead with demons, and make them eat, drink, copulate and dance.

He cursed softly, but his companion kept silent.

They had had a zeeba apiece till the last village, some twenty miles back. Since then, Raldnor had gone on foot while Yannul rode. It was a logical expression of their supposed relationship—Vis master and Lowland serf. Yet the “serf” seemed composed enough with whatever thoughts he had, whereas Yannul was uneasy, his whole body tense. The situation fitted him imperfectly, or perhaps it had simply been the long journey with this man, inland from the dark sickle bay where the Shansarian ship had left them. They had come by another route from the far land of the yellow-haired men—a route marked on their ancient maps, free of fire mountains and fiery water, and dotted with small islands. Yannul had diced and wrestled with the pirates, cracked jokes, drunk and exchanged histories. At the primeval bay, the edge of the Lowlands—unfrequented because it was too near the mouth of Aarl Sea—he had found himself alone with a man who was no longer a man in any human sense. He felt great loyalty to this being. Also compassion, admiration and even a desire to serve him—that ancient tribute inspired by true kings, so legend had it. Yet the old liking and the old companionship were dead. It had been hard on Yannul to travel in this silence and awe across the cold and lonely Plains toward a city of despair.

There were soldiers in the gate.

He swore again. The menacing incongruity worked on him like acid. Amrek’s jackals. Yannul spat to clear his mouth of a taste of sick anger.

They reached the ruined walls. Two sentries stepped out and peered at them through the dim vermilion dusk.

“Rein in, traveler. What’s your business here?”

“Not mine, my master’s. With the Ommos Yr Dakan.”

“Oh, yes? Your hard luck then. Who’s your master?”

“Kios of Xarabiss,” Yannul said. He drew out and showed the nearest soldier a forged letter and seal.

“Hasn’t your master heard the Storm Lord’s forbidden all trade with the Lowlands?”

“I told you, sir dragon. He’s dealing with the Ommos pig.”

The soldier laughed.

“And who’s this ape trundling along with you?”

“My slave,” Yannul said. He spat again, in Raldnor’s direction. “It saves an extra pack animal.”

The soldier, still grinning, drew aside.

“Pass through. And watch out for your needle in the pig’s house.”

The gateway was black. A weight of years and abysmal solitude pressed on the Lan, yet he, too, grinned, pleased at his acting.

The terrace and the wagon way beyond the gate were slippery and stinking with decayed fruit. Traders, venturing to ignore Amrek’s new trade laws, had had their merchandise tipped out at the gate. The dragons took what they wanted, left the rest to rot. Under this stench came a cold, dull, tomblike odor, the perfume of the doomed city.

There was no sound but the zeeba’s hoofs in the long, unlit streets, over which the sunset had suddenly gone out. Yannul saw no lights. The smokes rose in the distance, all in one place. This place, he deduced, was the Dortharian Garrison.

A bell began to toll onerously.

“We will separate here, Yannul,” Raldnor said. “You recall how to reach the Ommos?”

“I remember. And you? What if they catch you on the streets when the bell’s finished?”

“This spot is close to Orhvan’s house,” Raldnor said.

He turned and moved off up the street, becoming a shadow among other shadows. Yannul rode left, along the stony, empty roads. The bell rang itself out. No moon rose to alleviate the dark.

Orhvan’s house.

No lamps burned. A ceramic vessel lay broken on the steps.

The tall man struck the door with his fist. And on the silence of the place was overlaid a second silence—listening, with fear in its mouth. The man did not knock again; he sent his mind, instead, into the dark house.

Presently a hand drew back bolts. A figure opened the door a little way and beckoned him in. Then the door was closed and rebolted. Not a bar was left out of its socket.

The figure, guiding by mental signals, led across the round hall in the blackness, up stairs into an upper room. Two or three candles flickered here in a candlebranch, giving off the palest, most insubstantial glow. By it, the guest made out his host’s face, which had become the face of an old man.

The old man spoke now aloud.

“You’re welcome, sir. We’ve little to offer you. You see we hide like rats up here, afraid even to light a fire. But you were wise to knock on our door once the curfew sounded—lucky, too. This may be the only inhabited house left in the street.”

The guest looked about him. An old woman sat in the shadows. On her brocaded flesh was suddenly imposed the memory of a young, pale, beautiful mask.

“Orhvan,” the guest said. He pushed back the hood of his cloak and looked full into the faces of the old man and the old woman. “Do you know me now?”

“Why—why—” the old man stammered. Tears, either of emotion or shock, welled in his eyes.

“You are Anici’s death,” the old woman hissed. She tensed, fluttering like a fragile insect; the venomous pain of her thoughts pulsed in the room. “The death of my daughter’s daughter. I only saw you once. That is how I remember you.” But she could not meet his gaze with her own. Her hatred guttered before him.

“Now you can speak with your mind,” Orhvan said, as if he had not heard her. “Ah, Raldnor, how did it come to you?”

“I was well taught, though in a distant place.”

“Oh, what joy to see you.” Orhvan took his hand, struggling with the moisture in his eyes. “And yet—why come back at such a time?”

“At such a time, where else, for one of our race?”

“Raldnor, Raldnor—where else indeed. Where else. Have you seen the dragon men?” Orhvan let go his hand and stared into the black corners of the room. “Every night, when the bell finishes, they split themselves into parties, draw lots for which house to visit. They fling in live brands at the windows. If there are women, they use them in the street. Men are flogged to death every day. They invent reasons. Once they caught a man after the curfew. They cut off his hands and feet and nailed them up where he could see them as he bled to death.”