The Lady of Han-Gilen by Judith Tarr

Author:Judith Tarr [Tarr, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MOBI, epic fantasy, ebook, Nook, Judith Tarr, fantasy, Book View Cafe, Kindle, avaryan, EPUB
ISBN: 9781611382686
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2013-06-25T07:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

“Here,” said Mirain, “I shall build my city.”

The wind was loud on the plain of the river, and knife-edged with cold, but Mirain’s words came soft and clear beneath it. He stood with feet set well apart, head up and eyes alight, with his cloak whipping about him; his own fire warmed him, the fire of prophecy.

He spread his arms wide, taking in the broad hilltop. Steep slopes bastioned it in the north and east; in the west rushed the deep flood of Suvien; southward it dipped gently into the levels of Han-Gilen, looking across the windswept land to the prince’s white city.

“Easy to defend,” said Cuthan. “With a good rampart all around and a good road up to your gate, you’ll be as well served as any king alive.”

“Better than most.” Adjan paced off the edge of the hilltop. “There’ll be water in any wells you sink; and there’s space here for whole farmsteads.”

“And the river to ride on and trade on,” Cuthan said.

Mirain laughed as sometimes he did, for simple joy. “It will be the richest city in the world, and the greatest, and the most splendid. See: white walls, white towers; Sun-gold on the gates, and Sun’s fire in its people, under the rule of the god.”

Elian moved apart from the company about the king, through a city of shadows shaped out of power and sunlight for his servants to marvel at. She needed no such mummeries, who could see in truth as well as he. With a flicker of will she banished the image, leaving only the winter-dulled grass and the empty air and the fitful dazzle of sunlight.

Her feet had brought her to the bank of Suvien. The water ran black and cold, swirling about deep-rooted stones, eating away at the hillside.

The far bank rose sheer and implacable. There stood no wide welcoming hill, no seat of empire, but a jut of naked stone, black as the river, shunned even by the birds.

“Endros Avaryan,” she said to herself. Avaryan’s Throne. A curse lay on it. Curse, or fate, or prophecy. No man might walk there unless he be born of a god; and even he could not tarry lest he go mad and die.

No man but Mirain, who had been little more than a child when he ventured it: young and wild and armored in his lineage, and mad enough to dare even that great curse.

And Elian. He had not known that she was following him until he stood breathless on the summit. She, climbing to within a man-length of him, set her foot on a stone that gave way beneath it, and fell with a sharp despairing cry.

She had not fallen far: another length down the sheer cliff to a sliver of ledge. But he, in rage that was half deadly fear, plunged down to catch her.

Between her own fear and her own young, erratic magery, she shot out of his hands, up the last of the crag onto the bare cold stone. There she lay gasping until he dragged her up.

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