Танит Ли - Anackire

The high slender towers flashing crystal at the sun, the high walls with their parapets, crenellations, bastions, the combination of refined delicacy and obdurate strength—here was Vis, Visian supremacy and beauty, still upright in an altered world.

They entered through the Gate of Gourds. Above it, the banner was flying, Xarabiss’ dragon woman. There was a tale of the Lowland War, that the tyrant Amrek had accused Xarabiss of using Anackire as a device. And indeed, there was some resemblance.

With the political unsettlement of the seas, Zakorian spies were apparently suspected. Papers must be produced at the gate. Not everyone had papers. The ecstasy of the first-seen Vis city began to pall in a long wait. Then, when Lur Raldnor’s own impressive credentials were produced—Yannul’s letter, marked with the council seal of post-war Koramvis he still had the right to use—an escort of soldiery was brought round to conduct them to the palace of the King.

They had reckoned they would get this treatment (the servant had banked on it), and Lur Raldnor had facetiously postulated a plan of false names.

People on the wide streets turned to look after them. Chariots whipped past, drawn by the fire-swift leaping chariot-animals of the Middle Lands.

But it was as they crossed a corner of Lin Abissa’s Red Market that the initial scene of the alteration was impressed on them.

Members of the pale race, as well as mixes, came and went in Amlan. But they were Vardians or Shansars, in Xarabiss they had so far set eyes on one Tarabine merchant, riding in a litter through the port, the curtains well-back, so all could see him laughing and sharing sweetmeats with his Vis hetaera.

Until now, neither of the Lans, nor Rem himself, had got sight of a born-blood Lowlander, save gentle Medaci.

The Red Market was lazily energetic in the hot afternoon. Under the fringed awnings every kind of ware imaginable was up for sale, even to a row of sequined slaves hung in a flower-strung cage. The ten guard of the escort were good-naturedly prodding and cursing the turgidly moving crowd aside, when suddenly all activity seemed to terminate. Only a drove of cattle was abruptly hurried, lowing and stamping, into an aisle between the booths.

The captain of the escort had raised his mailed hand to halt them, and now held it upright as if congealed in the air.

Clearly, someone of utmost importance was about to enter the Market.

“Who’s coming?” Lur Raldnor asked the captain.

The man lowered his hand. He said, “A Lowlander.”

Lur Raldnor raised his eyebrows. “But who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the captain. There was no clue in his voice.

“You mean you stop all traffic, clear all paths like this, for any—”

“For any of the pure blood of the goddess. Yes.”

Lur Raldnor looked at Rem, shrugged, grinned, and said: “Proud?”

Rem laughed.

There was hardly any other sound.

Rem had looked for an entourage; litter, outriders, bearers of fans and parasols, something Karmian.

Then the Lowlander came, walking quite slowly along the human avenue. There was only one. A woman. She had no attendants, no accessories.

She was simply dressed, but the robe was silk. Her hair was the whitest blond Rem had ever seen, snow hair, and her skin looked as white. On her arms, almost the only ornament, were bracelets of amber, row on row of them. Round her neck was a serpent tore he took for polished white enamel—then it moved, and he beheld it was a live snake.

The Amanackire woman barely seemed to notice the crowd. She did not glance at them. Only once her eyes swept outward, to the place where the mounted guard sat their animals, waiting with the rest. Her eyes were not gold, but as with her hair, nearly colorless, eyes that were almost white—like the eyes of the albino snake. The pores of Rem’s skin stiffened along shoulders and neck. The captain bowed.

A moment later the woman herself halted. She beckoned to a seller of fruit. At once he and his assistant ran forward, and laid panniers of citruses and grapes before her. She selected, by pointing at it, one fruit. It was taken up and given her. Offering neither thanks nor payment, the woman moved on.

As they rode toward the twisted metal pillars that marked the gateway of the palace, Lur Raldnor said to Rem, “I begin to understand why my father left Dorthar.”

Thann Xa’ath was King in Xarabiss now, the oldest of Thann Rashek’s eleven sons.

They were assured an audience, then left kicking their heels for two hours in a nicely appointed room with a fountain. Plainly, this was not Olm. At last a servant came to conduct them to a larger room with a larger fountain. The King was sitting at ease, flanked by a couple of guards, a couple of minstrel girls, a scatter of courtiers. There were two Lowlanders. They were not as ice-pale as the woman in the Market, but they sat apart under an ornamental indoor tree, watching, seemingly unresponsive.

The King welcomed the son of Yannul the Lan and his traveling companion.

The portion of court clapped.

Rising, the King took Lur Raldnor over to the Lowland men. After sufficient pause to demonstrate amply they had no need, they got to their feet and greeted Lur Raldnor. One spoke. “We remember keenly all our allies, those who fought beside us. Your father’s name is unforgotten.” Thann Xa’ath bore this without a murmur. The implication was not veiled. Xarabiss, who called herself the ally of the Plains, had in fact stayed neutral.

“You’ve arrived at an opportune season,” Thann Xa’ath said to Yannul’s son. “The son of Raldnor Am Anackire’s second most famous captain—our own Xaros—is at court.”

Nor was this veiled. The King saw fit to remind the Lowlanders not all Xarabiss had skulked at home.

Thann Xa’ath began to walk about the room, his hand on Lur Raldnor’s shoulder. One guard moved smoothly, almost negligently, behind them.

A woman said to Rem, “Do you go to Dorthar, too?”

He told her that he did. She smiled, and said, “I also. In the Princess’ train. A tiresome long journey. Didn’t you know? Where have you been? In Lan? Oh, naturally, there’s never any news in Lan. The King’s daughter is just now to be sent to the Storm Lord. Etiquette generally dictates even a High King should come to claim his bride from her father’s house. But Raldanash must remain in Anackyra, with all this talk of war—” Her patronizing smile grew more intent; she widened her charcoaled eyes at him. “They’ll have missed Zastis for their consummation. But I think that may not matter. Raldanash is cold, they say. The hero Raldnor’s son! Do you think it possible?”

“As you mentioned,” Rem said, “we get no news of any sort in Lan.”

He excused himself and went to remind a wine-server of his existence.

But it turned out to be the truth they were now expected to join the cumbersome bridal caravan that would be wending to Dorthar in five days’ time.

Xa’ath’s daughter had been betrothed to the Storm Lord of six years. It was form. Raldanash, entering Dorthar at the age of thirteen, accepting his first three queens a year later, already had a bevy of wives from almost every country of Vis, and out of Shansar and Vardath also. Xarabiss, lacking daughters old enough for bedding, young enough for wedding, had lagged behind till now.

But it seemed Ulis Anet Am Xarabiss was worth awaiting. She had Karmian blood on her mother’s side, that fabled part-Xarabian part-Karmian mixture which had produced the legendary Astaris.

“Well, she’s red-haired at least,” said Lur Raldnor, leaning on a parapet two evenings later. “And with very light skin. That much I got from her lady. You know, the young one I—”