Танит Ли: Anackire

“Jort may be—”

“Wise, too? Hmm. So you’re some god’s golem,” said Tuab Ey. “Priest-king. Hero. Come and be human with me.”

The man with the black hair and yellow Lowlander eyes looked at him, until Tuab Ey dropped his gaze, entertained to be bashful.

“Fare well and prosper in Thaddra,” said Rarnammon eventually.

“And you in Dorthar, you bastard of a king’s bastard.”

Outside the sun seared on an old marketplace. Slaves were being sold under an awning. For a moment Rarnammon, in the shadow of the shop door, saw a red-haired woman in with the lot. But Astaris’ hair had been dyed black, they said, when Bandar put her up for sale here.

Galud glared at him as he brought over the zeeba. Rarnammon rode away through the town and up into the foothills, his mind crowded by different things. Somewhere Yannul’s son was riding too, and somewhere that woman he had met in Olm sat on a rock. Safca, Amrek’s daughter—the revelatory visions had failed him there, or else been masked by some stronger will.

The city of Rarnammon dwindled behind Rarnammon son of Raldnor, a drumbeat fading over the miles.

The drumbeat of Dorthar lay ahead.

Sometimes, he wished he did not hear it. At others it alerted him. The time of the miracle had gone by; one could not remain at such a pitch. And had he not once brooded in Lan that there was nothing for him, that he was not enough in himself to ask anything of existence. The visions, which had revealed so many things, had left him oddly nearsighted in other ways. It was foolish now to balk or to step aside. There had always been witchcraft in Dorthar.

Raldnor had fled his own legend. But that was Raldnor.

The blueness of the mountains poured down and the forests curled away. There was no trace of Free Zakoris, only a broken machinery of siege abandoned on a slope.

They were raising a mighty stonework seven days along the Pass, to mark the visitation of the dragon the Dortharian soldiery had seen. The sculpture was homegrown, crudely if earnestly done. That might account for its curious shape. It was not like a dragon, more an enormous turtle, jaws and fins extruded from the discoid carapace.

He did not question the soldiers about it. They in turn did not recognize him—he did not allow them to. When he was gone, only then, rumor moved among them. But they pointed out to each other that the man they took him for in retrospect had betrayed Dorthar to the Leopard, and would not dare to be coming back.

Rarnammon was still on the Pass when Zastis began. The Star slunk up behind the moon, and dippered the mountains with its soft red flame. He was alone, and trying to sleep out the dreams that came, tinged like the mountains by the Star; he recalled a story that Zastis had been a palace the gods made for themselves in the clouds, a love-palace, which caught fire. Being a thing of the immortals, it burned on, unquenchable. And rising at certain seasons, inspired men, now, with lust.

The dreams themselves were uncharactered. Awake, he dredged up memories. But these also seemed to have no true relevance. He had been through a greater whirlpool now than pain or pleasure or sex.

The sentry posts on the Pass, as it cut into Dorthar, were Zastis-lax. The miracle had disorganized them, too. Some had grown authoritarian, or they had turned religious.

Finally, he came down from the mountains, through the huge boulders that had collapsed into fresh attitudes after the great earthquake, and settled there to seeming permanence.

He was on the path above that lake they called Ibron, no company, he thought, but the floating birds, when a glowing whiteness was suddenly against the curve of the hillside before him.

A man had fallen here, from a racing chariot, to the lake. Rarnammon beheld a spinning shape, and looked through it to the Amanackire who stood beyond.

There was an interim, then. They did not move or communicate. He did not try the mind speech with them, nor let them probe him, he was strong enough to prevent it now. Such things remained an intrusion to Rarnammon. At length he lost patience. He said aloud: “I’m not my father, as you understand. Tell me what you want, or get out of the way.”

He disliked them, so cold, so pale. Unearthly impure purity. Not Lowlanders anymore, but something novel and quite alien. The white eyes met his and were lowered unwillingly. They did not care for him, either, or that he, not they, had wedded the psychic storm. They jealously wanted to be gods, gods in the ancient manner: Men who were paranormally superior to, and held sway therefore over, other men.

“Son of Raldnor,” one of them said, “are you on the road to Anackyra?”

“Where else?” he said.

“Raldanash is ours,” they said, for all of them seemed to speak as one now, some mental overlay not to be avoided. “Raldanash we accepted, though his skin is the dark man’s skin.”

“This is a warning of some sort?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Explain it.”

“You are not ours. Nor will we be yours.”

“Then, I’ve heard you out. Where’s Ashni?”

“She went away over the hills. Some are with her.”

“But not you,” he said. “That must rankle.”

As he spurred the zeeba, they seemed to smoke into the flank of the hill. It might be a trick, but he did not think so. Maybe they had learned that art of projecting the image from elsewhere.

Riding on, he made sure no other recognized him en route to the city. He met no more Amanackire.

He used the random “Merchant’s Road” through the ruins to the river. Some thief was operating a ferry and poled him across.

When he got in at one of Anackyra’s white gateways, entering the heat and rush of the metropolis, it seemed as if a pane of clear glass enclosed him. It was not only the cloaking anonymity he kept about himself. He was removed.

The city, which had been reprieved from devastation, was everywhere discussing the wonders of gods and sorcery, and everywhere ignoring them. Trade and commerce flourished. Men argued and hassled in the dust. Two girls fought shrieking by a wine-shop. Incense and the rasp of gongs rose from the temples. Five of the sacred prostitutes, the Daughters of Anackire, crossed an avenue, guarded by temple soldiers. These women were bare-breasted, their nipples capped and rimmed by gilt, gold in the yellow veils of their skirts, their hair bleached, topaz in their ears and navels.

Rarnammon turned to look after them, dully amazed. Not only at the absurdity of the world.

Vencrek, Warden of Anackyra, said, “You’re here, as he mentioned you would be. Your disguise must have been a nice one to get you through the streets.”

“And Raldanash?” Rarnammon asked.

“He lies at Moiyah, with the fleet. There are Vathcrian ships there now, from the Homeland.”

The Storm Palace was cool, and perfumed with shrubs and trees and the unguents of costly women. The languid gestures of Zastis, the scents of Zastis, breathed about them, everywhere.

“The council will be convened in the hour, my lord,” said Vencrek. “You have that much time. The royal apartments were opened and made ready. As he ordered it.”

“What is the council to be told?” Rarnammon said.

“What the city’s to be told. That you were ordered to Zakoris-In-Thaddra on a secret mission, at the wish of the Storm Lord. That this mission was accomplished with honor, and should the war have proceeded to its logical ends, your valor would have placed you at Raldanash’s side, his chief commander.”

“Did you agree to this?”

“He’s written to me,” said Vencrek. “I have the letters and the proclamation here, the latter still under his unbroken seal. He reposes utter trust in you. I can’t do otherwise.”