Tigana

From the plain below there came a roar, even above the steady noise of battle. Cheering and wild shouts from the Barbadians. Dianora could see their white-clad messengers sprinting forward from the rear where Alberico was. She saw that the men of the Western Palm had been stopped in their advance. They were still outnumbered, terribly so. If Brandin could not help them now then all was done, all over. She looked south towards that hill where the wizards were, where Rhama.n.u.s had been cut down. She wanted to curse them all, but she could not.

They were men of the Palm. They were her own people. But her own people were dying in the valley as well, under the heavy blades of the Empire. The sun was a brand overhead. The sky a blank, pitiless dome.

She looked at d"Eymon. Neither of them spoke. They heard quick footsteps on the slope. Scelto stumbled up, fighting for breath.

"My lord," he gasped, dropping to his knees beside Brandin"s chair, "we are hard-pressed ... in the centre and on the right. The left is holding ... but barely. I am ordered ... to ask if you want us to fall back."

And so it had come.

I hate that man, he had said to her last night, before falling asleep in utter weariness. he had said to her last night, before falling asleep in utter weariness. I hate everything he stands for I hate everything he stands for.

There was a silence on the hill. It seemed to Dianora as if she could hear her own heartbeat with some curious faculty of the ear, discerning it even above the sounds from below. The noises in the valley seemed, oddly, to have receded now. To be growing fainter every second.

Brandin stood up.

"No," he said quietly. "We do not fall back. There is nowhere to retreat, and not before the Barbadian. Not ever." He was gazing bleakly out over Scelto"s kneeling form, as if he would penetrate the distance with his eyes to strike at Alberico"s heart.

But there was something else in him now: something new, beyond rage, beyond the grimness of resolution and the everlasting pride. Dianora sensed it, but she could not understand. Then he turned to her and she saw in the depths of that grey gaze a bottomless well of pain opening up such as she had never seen in him. Never seen in anyone, in all her days. Pity and grief and love, Pity and grief and love, he had said last night. Something was happening; her heart was racing wildly. She felt her hands beginning to shake. he had said last night. Something was happening; her heart was racing wildly. She felt her hands beginning to shake.

"My love," Brandin said. Mumbled, slurred it. She saw death in his eyes, an abscess of loss that seemed to be leaving him almost blind, stripping his soul. "Oh, my love," he said again. "What have they done? See what they will make me do. Oh, see what they make me do!"

"Brandin!" she cried, terrified, not understanding at all. Beginning again to weep, frantically. Grasping only the open sore of hurt he had become. She reached out towards him, but he was blind, and already turning away, east, towards the rim of the hill and the valley below. she cried, terrified, not understanding at all. Beginning again to weep, frantically. Grasping only the open sore of hurt he had become. She reached out towards him, but he was blind, and already turning away, east, towards the rim of the hill and the valley below.

"All right," said Rinaldo the Healer, and lifted his hands away. Devin opened his eyes and looked down. His wound had closed; the bleeding had stopped. The sight of it made him feel queasy; the unnatural speed of the healing, as if his senses still expected to find a fresh wound there. "You are going to have an easy scar for women to know you by in the dark," Rinaldo added drily. Ducas gave a bark of laughter.

Devin winced and carefully avoided meeting Alais"s eye. She was right beside him, wrapping a roll of linen around his torso to bind the wound. He looked at Ducas instead, whose own cut above his eye had been closed by Rinaldo in the same way. Arkin, who had also survived the skirmish down below, was bandaging it. Ducas, his red beard matted and sticky with blood, looked like some fearful creature out of childhood night terrors.

"Is that too tight?" Alais asked softly.

Devin drew a testing breath and shook his head. The wound hurt, but he seemed to be all right.

"You saved my life," he murmured to her. She was behind him now, tying up the ends of his bandage. Her hands stopped for a moment and then resumed.

"No I didn"t," she said in a m.u.f.fled voice. "He was down. He couldn"t have hurt you. All I did was kill a man." Catriana, standing near them, glanced over. "I ... I wish I hadn"t," Alais said. And began to cry.

Devin swallowed and tried to turn, to offer comfort, but Catriana was quicker than he, and had already gathered Alais in her arms. He looked at them, wondering bitterly what real comfort there could be to offer on this bare ridge in the midst of war.

"Erlein! Now! Brandin is standing!" Alessan"s cry knifed through all other sounds. His heart suddenly thumping again, Devin went quickly towards the Prince and the wizards. Alessan"s cry knifed through all other sounds. His heart suddenly thumping again, Devin went quickly towards the Prince and the wizards.

"It is upon us then," said Erlein, in a hard, flat voice to the other two. "I will have to pull out now, to track him. Wait for my signal, but move move when I give it!" when I give it!"

"We will," Sertino gasped. "Triad save us all." Sweat was pouring down the pudgy wizard"s face. His hands were shaking with strain.

"Erlein," Alessan began urgently. "He must use it all. You know what you-"

"Hush! I know exactly what I must do. Alessan, you have set this in motion, you brought us all here to Senzio, every single person, the living and the dead. Now it is up to us. Be still, unless you want to pray."

Devin looked north to Brandin"s hill. He saw the King step forward from under his canopy.

"Oh, Triad," he heard Alessan whisper then in a queerly high voice. "Adaon, remember us. Remember your children now!" The Prince sank to his knees. "Please," he whispered again. "Please, let me have been right!"

On his hill to the north of them Brandin of Ygrath stretched forth one hand and then the other under the burning sun.

Dianora saw him move forward to the very edge of the hill, out from the canopy into the white blaze of the light. Scelto scrambled away. Beneath them the armies of the Western Palm were being hammered back now, centre and left and right. The cries of the Barbadians had taken on a quality of triumphant malice that fell like blows upon the heart.

Brandin lifted his right hand and levelled it ahead. Then he brought up his left beside it so that the palms were touching each other, the ten fingers pointing together. Pointing straight to where Alberico of Barbadior was, at the rear of his army.

And Brandin of the Western Palm, who had been the King of Ygrath when he first came to this peninsula, cried aloud then, in a voice that seemed to flay and shred the very air: "Oh, my son! Stevan, forgive me what I do!"

Dianora stopped breathing. She thought she was going to fall. She reached out a hand for support and didn"t even realize it was d"Eymon who braced her.

Then Brandin spoke again, in a voice colder than she had ever heard him use, words none of them could understand. Only the sorcerer down in the valley would know, only he could grasp the enormity of what was happening.

She saw Brandin spread his legs, as if to brace himself. Then she saw what followed.

"Now!" Erlein di Senzio screamed. "Both of you! Get the others out! Cut free Erlein di Senzio screamed. "Both of you! Get the others out! Cut free now! now!"

"They"re loose!" Sertino cried. "I"m out!" He collapsed in a heap to the ground as if he might never rise again.

Something was happening on the other hill. In the middle of day, under the brilliant sun, the sky seemed to be changing, to be darkening where Brandin stood. Something-not smoke, not light, some kind of change in the very nature of the air-seemed to be pouring from his hands, boiling east and down, disorienting to the eye, blurred, unnatural, like a rushing doom.

Erlein suddenly turned his head, his eyes widening with horror.

"Sandre, what are you doing?" he shrieked, grabbing wildly at the Duke. "Get out, you fool! In Eanna"s name, he shrieked, grabbing wildly at the Duke. "Get out, you fool! In Eanna"s name, get out! get out!"

"Not ... yet," said Sandre d"Astibar, in a voice that carried its own full measure of doom.

There had been more more of them. Four more coming to his aid. Not wizards now, a different kind of magic of the Palm, one he hadn"t even known about, didn"t understand. But it didn"t matter. They were here and on his side, if screened from his mind, and with them, with all of them bending their power to his defence, he had even been able to reach out, and forward, to a.s.sert his own strength of them. Four more coming to his aid. Not wizards now, a different kind of magic of the Palm, one he hadn"t even known about, didn"t understand. But it didn"t matter. They were here and on his side, if screened from his mind, and with them, with all of them bending their power to his defence, he had even been able to reach out, and forward, to a.s.sert his own strength against against the enemy. the enemy.

Who were falling back! There was glory after all under the sun, and hope, more than hope, a glittering vista of triumph spreading in the valley before him, a pathway made smooth with the blood of his foes, leading straight from here back across the sea and home to the Tiara.

He would bless these wizards, honour them! Make them lords of unimagined power, here in this colony or in Barbadior. Wherever they wanted, whatever they chose. And thinking so, Alberico had felt his own magic flow like intoxicating wine in his veins and had sent it pouring forth against the Ygrathens and the men of the Western Palm, and his armies had laughed aloud in triumph and felt their swords to be suddenly as light as summer gra.s.s.

He heard them beginning to sing, the old battle-song of the Empire"s legions, conquering in far lands centuries ago. And they were! It was happening again. They weren"t just mercenaries; they were were the Empire"s legions, for he was, or would be, the Empire. He could see it. It was here, it was shining before him in the blazing day. the Empire"s legions, for he was, or would be, the Empire. He could see it. It was here, it was shining before him in the blazing day.

Then Brandin of Ygrath rose and stepped to the rim of his hill. A distant figure alone under the sun in that high place. And a moment later, Alberico, who was a sorcerer himself, felt, for he could not have actually heard, the dark, absolute words of invocation that Brandin spoke, and his blood froze in his veins like ice in the dead of a winter night.

"He cannot," he gasped aloud. "Not after so long! He cannot do this!"

But the Ygrathen was. He was reaching for all, summoning everything, every last scintilla of his magic, holding nothing back. Nothing, not even the power that had sustained the vengeance that had kept him here all these years. He was emptying himself to shape a sorcery such as had never been wielded before.

Desperately, still half disbelieving, Alberico reached out for the wizards. To tell them to brace, to be ready. Crying that there were eight of them, nine, that they could hold against this. That all they had to do was survive this moment and Brandin would be nothing, a sh.e.l.l. Waste, for weeks, months, years! A hollow man with no magic in him any more.

Their minds were closed, barred against him. They were still there there though, and defending, braced. Oh, if the horned G.o.d and the Night Queen were with him! If they were with him yet, he might still ... though, and defending, braced. Oh, if the horned G.o.d and the Night Queen were with him! If they were with him yet, he might still ...

They were not. They were not with him.

For in that instant Alberico felt the wizards of the Palm cut loose, melting away without warning, with terrifying suddenness, to leave him naked and alone. On the hill Brandin had now levelled his hands and from them came blue-grey death, an occluding, obliterating presence in the air, foaming and boiling down across the valley towards him.

And the wizards were gone! He was alone.

Or almost gone, almost alone. One man was still linked, one of them had held with him! And then that one mind opened up to Alberico like the locked door of a dungeon springing back, letting light flood in.

The light of truth. And in that moment Alberico of Barbadior screamed aloud in terror and helpless rage, for illumination came at last and he understood, too late, how he had been undone, and by whom destroyed.

In the name of my sons I curse you forever, said Sandre, Duke of Astibar, his remorseless image rising in Alberico"s mind like an apparition of horror from the afterworld. But he was alive. Impossibly alive, and here in Senzio on that ridge, with eyes implacable and utterly merciless. He bared his teeth in a smile that summoned the night. said Sandre, Duke of Astibar, his remorseless image rising in Alberico"s mind like an apparition of horror from the afterworld. But he was alive. Impossibly alive, and here in Senzio on that ridge, with eyes implacable and utterly merciless. He bared his teeth in a smile that summoned the night. In the name of my children and of Astibar, die now, forever cursed In the name of my children and of Astibar, die now, forever cursed.

Then he cut free, he too was gone, as that blue-grey death came boiling down the valley from Brandin"s hill, from his outstretched hands, with blurred, annihilating speed, and Alberico, still reeling with shock, clawing frantically upwards from his chair, was struck and enveloped and consumed by that death, as a tidal wave of the raging, engorged sea will take a sapling in low-lying fields.

It swept him away with it and sundered his body, still screaming, from his soul, and he died. Died in that far Peninsula of the Palm two days before his Emperor pa.s.sed to the G.o.ds in Barbadior, failing at last one morning to wake from a dreamless sleep.

Alberico"s army heard his last scream, and their own cries of exultation turned to panic-stricken horror; in the face of that magic from the hill the Barbadians felt a fear such as men should never have had to endure sweep over them. They could scarcely grip their swords, or flee, or even stand upright before their foes who advanced untouched, unharmed, exalted, under that dread, sun-blighting sorcery, and began to carve and hew them with hard and deadly wrath.

Everything, thought Brandin of Ygrath, of the Western Palm, weeping helplessly on his hill as he looked down over the valley. He had been driven to this and had answered, had summoned all he had ever had to this final purpose, and it was enough. It was sufficient and nothing less would have been. There had been too much magic opposed to him, and death had been waiting for his people here. thought Brandin of Ygrath, of the Western Palm, weeping helplessly on his hill as he looked down over the valley. He had been driven to this and had answered, had summoned all he had ever had to this final purpose, and it was enough. It was sufficient and nothing less would have been. There had been too much magic opposed to him, and death had been waiting for his people here.

He knew what he had been made to do, knew the price of holding nothing back. He had paid that price and was paying it now, would go on doing so with every breath he drew until he died. He had screamed Stevan"s name, aloud and in the echoing chambers of his soul, before the summoning of that power. Had known that twenty years of vengeance for that too-soon shattered life were now undone under this bronze sun. Nothing held back Nothing held back. It was over.

There had been men dying below him though, fighting under his banner, in his name, and there had been no retreat for them from that plain. Nor for him. He could not retreat. He had been driven to this moment, like a bear to a rocky cliff by a pack of wolves, and the price was being paid now. Everywhere the price was being paid. There was butchery in the valley; a slaughter of Barbadians. His heart was crying. He was a grieving, torn thing, all the memories of love, of a father"s loss, flooding over him, another kind of tidal wave. Stevan Stevan.

He wept, adrift in an ocean of loss, far from any sh.o.r.e. He was aware, dimly, of Dianora beside him, clutching his hands between her own, but he was lost inside his pain, power gone now, the core of his being shattered into fragments, shards, a man no longer young, trying, without any hope at all, to conceive of how to shape a life that could possibly go forward from this hill.

Then the next thing happened. For he had, in fact, forgotten something. Something he alone could possibly have known.

And so time, which truly would not stop, for grief or pity or love, carried them all forward to the moment no sorcerer or wizard or piper on his ridge had foreseen.

The weight had been the weight of mountains crushing his mind. Carefully, exquisitely judged to leave him that faintest spark of self-awareness, which was where the purest torture lay. That he might always know exactly who he was and had been, and what he was being made to do, utterly unable to control himself. Pressed flat under the burden of mountains.

Which now were gone. He straightened his back, of his own will. He turned east. Of his own will. He tried to lift his head higher but could not. He understood: too many years in the same skewed, sunken position. They had broken the bones of his shoulder several times, carefully. He knew what he looked like, what they had turned him into in that darkness long ago. He had seen himself in mirrors through the years, and in the mirrors of others" eyes. He knew exactly what had been done to his body before they started on his mind.

That didn"t matter now. The mountains were gone. He looked out with his own sight, reached back with his own memories, could speak, if he wished to speak, with his own thoughts, his own voice, however much it had changed.

What Rhun did was draw his sword.

Of course he had a sword. He carried whatever weapon Brandin did, was given each day the clothing the King had chosen; he was the vent, the conduit, the double, the Fool.

He was more than that. He knew exactly how much more. Brandin had left him that delicately measured sc.r.a.p of awareness at the very bottom of his mind, under the burying, piled-up mountains. That had been the whole point, the essence of everything; that and the secrecy, the fact that only they two knew and only they would ever know.

The men who had maimed and disfigured him had been blind, working on him in their darkness, knowing him only by the insistent probing of their hands upon his flesh, reaching through to bone. They had never learned who he was. Only Brandin knew, only Brandin and he himself, with that dim flickering of his ident.i.ty so carefully left behind after everything else was gone. It had been so elegantly contrived, this answer to what he had done, this response to grief and rage. This vengeance.

No one living other than Brandin of Ygrath knew his true name and under the weight of mountains he had had no tongue to speak it himself, only a heart to cry for what was being done to him. The exquisite perfection of it, of that revenge.

But the mountains that had buried him were gone.

And on that thought, Valentin, Prince of Tigana, lifted his sword on a hill in Senzio.

His mind was his own, his memories: of a room without light, black as pitch, the voice of the Ygrathen King, weeping, telling what was being done to Tigana even as they spoke, and what would be done to him in the months and the years to come.

A mutilated body, his own features sorcerously imposed upon it, was death-wheeled in Chiara later that week then burned to ash and scattered to the winds.

In the black room the blind men began their work. He remembered trying not to scream at first. He remembered screaming. Much later Brandin came and began and ended his own part of that careful patient work. A torture of a different kind; much worse. The weight of mountains in his mind.

Late in that same year the King"s Fool from Ygrath died of a misadventure in the newly occupied Palace of Chiara. And shortly afterwards, Rhun, with his weak, blinking eyes, his deformed shoulder and slack mouth, his nearly crippled walk, was brought shambling up from his darkness into twenty years of night.

It was very bright here now, almost blindingly so in the sunlight. Brandin was just ahead of him. The girl was holding his hand.

The girl. The girl was Saevar"s daughter. The girl was Saevar"s daughter.

He had known her the moment she was first brought to be presented to the King. She had changed in five years, greatly changed, and she would change much more as the years spun past, but her eyes were her father"s, exactly, and Valentin had watched Dianora grow up. When he had heard her named, that first day, as a woman from Certando, the dim, allowed spark of his mind had flickered and burned, for he knew, he knew knew what she had come to do. what she had come to do.

Then, as the months pa.s.sed and the years, he watched helplessly with his rheumy eyes from under the crush of his mountains, as the terrible interwovenness of things added love to everything else. He was bound to Brandin unimaginably and he saw what happened. More, he was made to be a part of it, by the very nature of the relationship between the Kings and the Fools of Ygrath.

It was he who first gave expression-beyond his control, he had had no control-to what was growing in the heart of the King. Back in a time when Brandin still refused to admit even the idea of love into a soul and a life shaped by vengeance and loss it was Rhun-Valentin-who would find himself staring at Dianora, at Saevar"s dark-haired daughter, with another man"s soul in his eyes. no control-to what was growing in the heart of the King. Back in a time when Brandin still refused to admit even the idea of love into a soul and a life shaped by vengeance and loss it was Rhun-Valentin-who would find himself staring at Dianora, at Saevar"s dark-haired daughter, with another man"s soul in his eyes.

No more, not ever again. The long night had been rolled back. The sorcery that had bound him was gone. It was over; he stood in sunlight and could speak his true name if he chose. He took an awkward step forward and then, more carefully, another. No one noticed him though. They never noticed him. He was the Fool. Rhun. Even that name, chosen by the King. Only the two of them ever to know. Not for the world, this. The privacy of pride. He had even understood. Perhaps the most terrible thing of all: he had understood.

He stepped under the canopy. Brandin was ahead of him near the edge of the hill. He had never struck a man from behind in all his days. He moved to one side, stumbling a little, and came up on the King"s right hand. No one looked at him. He was Rhun.

He was not.

"You should have killed me by the river," he said, very clearly. Slowly, Brandin turned his head, as if just now remembering something. Valentin waited until their eyes met and held before he drove his sword into the Ygrathen"s heart, the way a Prince killed his enemies, however many years it might take, however much might have to be endured before such an ending was allowed. he said, very clearly. Slowly, Brandin turned his head, as if just now remembering something. Valentin waited until their eyes met and held before he drove his sword into the Ygrathen"s heart, the way a Prince killed his enemies, however many years it might take, however much might have to be endured before such an ending was allowed.

Dianora could not even scream she was so stunned, so unprepared. She saw Brandin stagger backwards, a blade in his chest. Then Rhun-Rhun!-jerked it clumsily free and so much blood followed. Brandin"s eyes were wide with astonishment and pain, but they were clear, so luminously clear. And so was his voice as she heard him say: "Both of us?" He swayed, still on his feet. "Father and son, both? What a harvest, Prince of Tigana What a harvest, Prince of Tigana."

Dianora heard the name as a white burst of sound in her brain. Time seemed to change, to slow unbearably. She saw Brandin sinking to his knees; it seemed to take forever for him to fall. She tried to move towards him; her body would not respond. She heard an elongated, weirdly distorted sound of anguish, and saw stark agony in d"Eymon"s face as the Chancellor"s blade ripped into and through Rhun"s side.

Not Rhun. Not Rhun Not Rhun. Valentin the Prince.

Brandin"s Fool. All those years. The thing that had been done to him! And she beside him, beside that suffering. All those years All those years. She wanted to scream. She could not make a sound, could scarcely breathe.

She saw him falling too, the maimed, broken form crumpling to the ground beside Brandin. Who was still on his knees, a red wound in his chest. And who was looking at her now, only at her. A sound finally escaped her lips as she sank down beside him. He reached out, so slowly, with such a colossal effort of will, with all the control he had, and he took her hand.

"Oh, love," she heard him say. "It is as I told you. We should have met in Finavir."

She tried again to speak, to answer him, but tears were streaming down her face and closing her throat. She gripped his hand as tightly as she could, trying to will life from herself over into him. He slumped sideways against her shoulder, and so she lowered him to her lap and wrapped her arms around him, the way she had last night, only last night when he slept. She saw the brilliantly clear grey eyes slowly grow cloudy, and then dark. She was holding him like that when he died.

She lifted her head. The Prince of Tigana, on the ground beside them, was looking at her with so much compa.s.sion in his newly clear eyes. Which was a thing she could not possibly endure. Not from him: not with what he had suffered and what she was, what she herself had done. If he only knew, knew, what words would he have for her, what look would there be in those eyes? She could not bear it. She saw him open his mouth as if to speak, then his eyes flicked quickly to one side. what words would he have for her, what look would there be in those eyes? She could not bear it. She saw him open his mouth as if to speak, then his eyes flicked quickly to one side.

A shadow crossed the sun. She looked up and saw d"Eymon"s sword lifted high. Valentin raised a hand, pleading, to ward it.

"Wait!" she gasped, forcing the one word out. she gasped, forcing the one word out.

And d"Eymon, almost mad with his own grief yet stayed for her voice. Held back his sword. Valentin lowered his hand. She saw him draw breath against the ma.s.sive final reality of his own wound, and then, closing his eyes to the pain and the fierce light, she heard him speak. Not a cry, only the one word spoken in a clear voice. The one word which was-oh, what else could it have ever been?-the name of his home, offered as a shining thing for the world again to know.

And Dianora saw then that d"Eymon of Ygrath did did know it. That he did hear the name. Which meant that all men now could, that the spell was broken. Valentin opened his eyes and looked up at the Chancellor, reading the truth of that knowledge in d"Eymon"s face, and Dianora saw that the Prince of Tigana was smiling as the Chancellor"s sword came down from its great height and drove into his heart. know it. That he did hear the name. Which meant that all men now could, that the spell was broken. Valentin opened his eyes and looked up at the Chancellor, reading the truth of that knowledge in d"Eymon"s face, and Dianora saw that the Prince of Tigana was smiling as the Chancellor"s sword came down from its great height and drove into his heart.

Even in death the smile remained on the terribly afflicted face. And the echo of his last word, the single name, seemed to Dianora to be hanging yet and spreading outward in ripples through the air around the hill, above the valley where the Barbadians were all dying now.

She looked down at the dead man in her arms, cradling his head and the greying hair, and she could not stop her tears. In Finavir, In Finavir, he had said. Last words. Another named place, farther away than dream. And had been right, as so many many times he had been right. They ought to have met, if the G.o.ds had any kindness, any pity at all for them, in another world than this. Not here. For love was what it was, but it was not enough. Not here. he had said. Last words. Another named place, farther away than dream. And had been right, as so many many times he had been right. They ought to have met, if the G.o.ds had any kindness, any pity at all for them, in another world than this. Not here. For love was what it was, but it was not enough. Not here.