Танит Ли - Anackire

“I know.”

“I heard something more.”

“You’re getting to gossip just like a Xarabian,” said Rem, tickled.

“What else is there to do here, apart from the other thing? This Iros son of Xaros we’ve not yet met. He’s been given the command of Ulis’ personal guard. To attend her to and in Dorthar. Which may be unwise.”

“Because.”

“Because Iros is her lover.”

“I thought custom decreed the bride of a king went to him with her seals intact.”

“He needn’t have deflowered her to have shared her bed.”

“If he’s so restrained,” said Rem, “he’ll be able to control his jealous rage in Dorthar, presumably.”

“Or Iros may have had her. She’s only a subsidiary wife, not chosen to be High Queen. So long as she’s not with child, she’s acceptable.”

Iros was on view that evening. He sat at the King’s side through dinner, and afterwards was noted dicing familiarly with two of Thann Xa’ath’s sons.

Dressed in the casual wear of a high-ranking officer, Iros was exceptionally handsome, as his father had been in his youth and still was, reportedly. The son’s personality, however, was his own. Xaros’ reputation was that of a mercurial opportunist, who had won a decisive stroke of the Lowland War with one fortuitous trick. Iros, though he laughed and jested and gave evidence of wit, had the peacock’s other side of arrogance and anger. Introduced to Lur Raldnor, Iros’ junior by several years, the Xarabian flashed a smile and said, “And are we supposed to hang on each other’s necks all night for our fathers’ sakes? Or can I simply go back to the dice with a clear conscience?”

“Please,” said Lur Raldnor quietly, “return to the dice. I wouldn’t dream of detaining you.”

Iros flushed under his Xarabian skin. His mouth curled and he said, “I’m glad you understand a soldier’s pleasures. But you’re not a soldier, are you? You anticipate something in Dorthar?”

Lur Raldnor looked at him out of advantageous Lowland eyes, then said, “Courtesy?”

Iros scowled. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying your dice game is pining for you.”

Iros sneered, but could do nothing else but go. He went, and lost the next three throws, as they heard all across the chamber and even over the dancing girls’ music.

So, they had seen Iros. Rem did not see Ulis Anet until the night before the bridal caravan set out.

“What’s the matter?” said Yannul’s son, coming out on the balcony.

“I thought you were with your Princess’ lady,” said Rem.

“I was, earlier. It’s nearly morning now, not worth taking to bed here. We’ll be leaving in a few hours.”

Rem spoke of the perfidy of timing involved in royal progresses.

“You still didn’t say what the matter was. Is it—”

“No,” said Rem. “Zastis is finished, and besides, half the palace carries on like an Ommos Quarter. Go to bed.”

Lur Raldnor nodded, waited, vanished.

The air was fresh and cool in the last spaces of the night. The unlit darkness made an all too perfect slate on which to draw again the pictures, and the thoughts.

To try to recall the first time it ever happened. The lancing pain through the skull, and then the image within the skull, shutting out all else.

Late adolescence. He recollected exactly the hour and the place—Istris, behind the wine-sellers on Jar Street—he had been drunk. He had put the vision away as a thing of the drunkenness, could not now remember what it had been. Nor the others, the two, three, that had fastened on him. . . . Had they borne any relation to his life or to anything? They must have done. For in the end, prescient, empathic, whatever they were, they had all had meaning. Even the mirage which shut his eyes outside Kesarh’s door and earned him a lashing.

He could evoke that one easily. The red-haired woman standing like a stone. And in her womb, the beginning of another life.

And then Kesarh going by on his way to bid stormy farewell to his sister—the sister he loved carnally, Val Nardia, that he would make his mistress at Ankabek. Mistress, and mother of his child.

And at Ankabek itself, in the blind circling corridor of the temple which was now a burned-out husk, the second mirage. Three women, white hair, blood hair, ebony. And the three embryos like wisps of silver steam—

There had been other details. Perhaps, as with the more recent seeings, they had to do with his connection to Raldnor Am Anackire. His—father.

But the vision at Ankabek had told him already who he was. He had been shown the three women who had carried Raldnor’s seed. White-haired Sulvian of Vathcri, mother of Raldanash the Storm Lord. Ebony-haired Lyki—Rem’s own mother—had she not surely identified herself with a blow! And thirdly, the red-haired woman of his former sighting: Astaris.

How many knew that she had lodged in her womb the third child of Raldnor? In all the mythos, there had never been a word of it.

Even Yannul had not known.

The child had been lost, so much was sure. Raldnor and Astaris were gone. Their progeny, if it had survived, had had long years to reveal itself. And had not. And yet somehow the worshippers of Anackire at Ankabek had guessed at its being, its loss of being, looking for the balance to be set right. They had searched for some resembling conjunction of flesh and race. Maybe grotesquely, predictably, they had perceived it in Val Nardia and Kesarh. Blood of the blood peoples mixed with Vis, the sorcerous affiliation of twins, and one other thing, omen of omens—

No wonder Ankabek had held Val Nardia’s corpse in stasis, brought the child to term—

Do I give credence to any of this? Do I even acknowledge the engineering of a holy mystery? No. It’s lust gone sour, insomnia. How could they breed her for that, and their magic let her end a wolf child?

Since the night he had seen the attack on Ankabek through the body of the Xarabian ship. Rem had kept the amber ring among his slight baggage, carefully not easy of access. To take out the ring now, hold it, wear it, might clarify these things. He did not want them clarified.

After all, he had been given a sign, if he must rest this craziness on proofs.

She had come to the banquet, her last night in her father’s palace. Beforehand, the whole place had been murmuring about how beautiful she was, this late daughter of the royal line. How nearly like Astaris, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Rem had not looked to be impressed in any way. As a rule he did not like women. If they were beautiful, he saw it with a grim detachment, or missed it altogether.

Ulis Anet entered the hall with her maidens.

She was lustrously red-haired, as foretold, and her gown was the exact red of her hair with a girdle of red-gold. At her throat shimmered a necklace of polished amethysts, a Xarabian jewelry pun, for the amethyst was the jewel closest in looks to a Serpent’s Eye.

She was slim and graceful. Then he realized her figure and her walk reminded him of another’s.

And then, she was near enough he saw her face.

Ulis Anet, said to resemble Astaris, was also a replica of Val Nardia, the mistress-sister of Kesarh.

Yeiza, her skin fragrant from the grasses she had lain among with Lur Raldnor, knew better than to make a sound beside the doors to the Princess’ bedchamber. She did, however, pause a moment to listen.

Two voices, but not vocal in love.

Shaking her head, as one party to affairs of great importance, Yeiza, unable to make out a syllable, crept away.

Beyond the doors, Iros stood, fully clothed in his elegant attire. A single lamp was burning and Ulis Anet was seated beneath it, robed for the bed she had not sought.