“Not trapped. Pierced through the eye. The pelt’s unmarked.”
The merchant hastily examined the hide, then, shaking his head, he murmured: “Of course, it would be difficult to sell so large an article, the times being what they are. I could offer you fifteen ankars in gold.”
“Offer me thirty,” Raldnor said, well instructed by Xaros and inflamed by loathing to boot.
“He deserves more for his impertinence alone,” a new voice said.
Raldnor turned and saw a man had come out of the hole in the wall. He was a Dortharian, there was no mistaking it, yet he did not wear the dragon mail. He leaned on the counter, looking at Raldnor.
“You should have called me sooner, merchant.” The merchant began to speak, but the newcomer overrode him. “Tell me, where did you kill your wolf?”
Cautiously Raldnor assessed his own words.
“In the Plains.”
“The Plains? A long way surely from home? You’re from the cities of Dorthar, are you not?”
This ghastly irony brought the blood singing to Raldnor’s ears.
“I’m no Dortharian.”
“How quickly you disclaim the High Race of Vis. Where then?”
“I come from Sar,” Raldnor said, “near the Dragon Gate.”
It was where his mother had been making for, so his foster village had thought, thus it carried a kind of truth.
“Sar, eh? And the wolf, where did he come from?”
“Out of the dark, on to my knife.”
The man laughed.
“Fifty gold ankars for that pelt, merchant.” The merchant gobbled. “But you’re too late. My master will buy it. It’s better than anything you showed me. Come aside.” And he drew Raldnor into the dusky twilight of the shop—the merchant, for some reason intimidated, not following. “Well, hunter, so you can kill wolves. Ever killed a man?”
Raldnor stared at him in silence.
“Oh, it’s a good trade, the trade of soldiering. Your mother was Xarabian, was she? Know your father, do you?”
“You insult me,” Raldnor said coldly, a burning nausea in his throat before he knew the reason.
“Not I. Your father was a Dortharian for my money. And that, lad, is a compliment. Well, would you like to soldier for an exceptionally generous lord who holds a high place in Koramvis?”
“Why should I want such a thing?”
“Why indeed? Why not scratch out a life in Sar?”
“Who is this lord?”
“You go too fast. Take this and spend it, and think about spending such a sum more regularly in Dorthar. Return here tomorrow at noon. We’ll talk then.”
Raldnor took the bulging money bag, opened it and saw the gold pieces shining up at him. He felt once more a shifting in the planes of his life.
“You’re very sure of me, Dortharian.”
“That’s how I earn my gold. By my unerring sense of a willing quarry.”
Raldnor turned and walked between the heaps of furs, leaving the pelt for the stranger who had bought it. At the door he heard the Dortharian call after him: “Noon, hunter. I’ll be waiting.”
Outside the rain still ran in the gutters, but a dark shadow of change covered the landscape. Raldnor considered: “I’ll go back. Why? A soldier in their corrupt armies. I, the impostor, Lowland scum. And Dorthar—that reeking tomb of dead kings. What’s that dragon place to me?”
8
She rode into Lin Abissa, her grandfather’s capital, on the back of a rust red monster.
She and it were a dual thing of fire in the white afternoon, the apex of a procession made up of gaudy acrobats, fantastic dancers and incredible creatures dressed to resemble Xarabian legend. Amrek’s betrothed was piped, sung and magicked through the streets like a goddess from an era before time.
The beast that carried her was a giant palutorvus from the steamy swamps of Zakoris. She sat in a golden contraption with a roof of plumes. She wore a dull red gown, trimmed with chestnut fur and cut low in the neck, an orange jewel clenched between her breasts. From a tower of golden flowers at her skull fell a smoky drift of scarlet veil. Her hair was the precise color of blood.
The crowds murmured and craned up to see her. And, as with all things flawless, she seemed unreal. Instinctively they searched her person for humanity, some hint of dross, but this was a salamander beauty, burning, mythological, unbounded by any laws or levelings.
She rode without a glance to either side. She was an image of herself.
The procession halted on the avenue before the palace portico, and the red beast knelt.
A man took Astaris’s hand as she stepped from her gilded ladder of steps and bowed low.
“Madam, I welcome your grace to the Storm Lord’s court at Lin Abissa. I am the Lord Amrek’s Councilor, Kathaos. Account me your slave.” His voice was slightly slurred with the accent denoting Ommos or Zakorian, yet the triple-tailed dragon of Alisaar was the emblem on his robe.
She said nothing to his courtesy, and, meeting her eyes, he had the impression of endless depths of beautiful opacity.
Amrek waited for her on the palace steps in order that the crowds at the gates should get some oblique glimpses of their meeting. Kathaos led her to the King and stepped aside. The woman was confronted by the man who was to be, from this moment, her lord.
He was dark and cruel in his exterior, like an emblem of himself and his reputation. He leaned toward her and placed on her lips the traditional kiss of greeting that marked his approval.
Her mouth was very cool, and she seemed to wear no perfume, despite her finery, as if she were merely a doll that had allowed itself to be dressed. Something about her angered him. He was subject to such angers. Ostentatiously ignoring his Councilor, whom he hated for many various reasons, he took her hand roughly and pulled her into the palace with him. She made no complaint.
“Madam, I am unaccustomed to dangling women on my arm. I walk too fast for you, I think.”
“If you think so, you should walk more slowly,” she said. Her remark had a combination of insolence and wit, yet he sensed that both were somehow accidental. She had simply made a statement.
“So you have a tongue. I thought the swamp beast had bitten it out.”
They came into a huge room, the retinue left behind. He moved her to look about at things.
“Do you know what happened in this room, Astaris Am Karmiss? A woman died here because of her fear of me.”
“Did it pain you that she died?”
“Pain? No, she was a Lowland whore. Nothing. Don’t you want to know why she feared me? It was this—this gauntlet. But you, Astaris, have no need to fear it. I wear the glove to hide a knife scar—not a beautiful thing.”
“What is beauty?” she said.
Her curious responses disturbed him, and she also, this impossible jewel cast into his gloomy life to blaze there like a comet.
“You, Astaris, are beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, but I’m not a measure.”
He let go her hand.
“Were you afraid on the monster’s back? You must blame Kathaos if you were. His ideas become a village circus-master.”
“What should I fear?”
“Perhaps, despite what I said to you, you should fear me a little.”
“Why?”
“Why? I am the High King, more, I am her son—the bitch queen of Koramvis. I inherit all her foulness and her cruelty. And now I am to be your lord. While you please me, you’ll be safe enough. But not when I lose interest—unsurpassable loveliness might evoke boredom after a time, even yours. Especially yours. Your perfect symmetry will grate, madam.”
She only smiled. It was an enigmatic smile. Was it her hubris, her self-assurance, or was she perhaps unable to grasp his meaning? Either she was obscure or she was slightly insane. Perhaps this was the flaw—an imbecilic queen to rule Dorthar by his side.