Free Spear of Heaven by Judith Tarr

somewhere in his own empire?”
    “I should hope not,” Vanyi said tartly. “He can find his own
war. His own places to meddle in, too.”
    “And a new heir?”
    The girl was trying to goad her into an indiscretion. Vanyi
gave her smile a little more rein. “I suppose, if he had to, he could see to
that for himself. With as many females as he has, flinging themselves at his
feet—”
    “He does not!”
    Vanyi laughed aloud. “Oh, there’s nothing like a sinner for
outraged virtue! Of course he does, silly child. I suppose he looks horribly
old and decrepit to you, but to any woman who’s not his granddaughter, he’s a
big beautiful panther of a man—and he brings with him a promise of empire. Many’s
the woman who’d leap at the chance to bear a Sunlord’s heir. She’d have to wait
to share the throne, but share it she certainly would, with the empress growing
so frail.”
    For a moment Vanyi wondered if Daruya would spring. But she
had more control than that, if not much more—not enough to find words that
would suffice. Vanyi hoped that she had made the child think. It would do her
good.
    In the barbed silence, Chakan said, “So. We’re to have
guides through these mountains?”
    Talian answered him with evident relief. “Certainly. Pack
animals, too—some of their hairy oxen.”
    Chakan raised a brow. “You found men here who would endure
the company of demons and dark gods?”
    “Some men,” said Talian stiffly, “are less superstitious
than others. Even here. And greed is as potent an encouragement here as
anywhere.”
    “Greed for gold?”
    “Gold isn’t what they crave,” said Talian.
    If Chakan found the Guardian’s coyness annoying, he showed
no sign. His face of course was never to be seen by anybody but his brothers
and, Vanyi was reasonably certain, Daruya, but his eyes were limpidly clear,
betraying nothing but calm curiosity. “Oh? What do they value above gold?”
    “Silk,” said Talian. “Silk of Asanion, in the most gaudy
colors imaginable. One bolt of it can buy a princedom here. Or a troop of
guides through the mountains, with oxen and provisions.”
    “Remarkable,” said Chakan. “Silk, so precious? I wish I’d
known that. I’d have brought a bolt or three to do my own trading with.”
    “Warriors will stoop to trade?” Talian asked, shocked out of
discretion.
    Chakan’s eyes laughed. “Warriors do whatever they must do to
win their wars. If the weapon of choice is silk—why, so be it.”
    Talian clearly did not know what to say to that. Vanyi found
the silence blessed, but doubted that it could endure for long. She broke it
herself before anyone else could be minded to try. “We leave as soon as we can
be ready. The guards are waiting, I hope?”
    “They have been sent for,” said Talian.
    Poor child. She had not found any of them comfortable
guests. Vanyi had a brief, wicked thought of commanding the girl to accompany
her. But although she could be ruthless, she was not needlessly cruel. Talian
was only a child, just past her making as a mage, when she gained no twinned
power, became neither darkmage nor light, but showed herself for a Guardian of
Gates.
    It was a false belief among the young mages that Guardians
were weaker than twinned mages, lesser powers, mere servants of the Gates; but
from the look of this one, she believed it. The Olenyai alarmed her. The
Guildmaster rendered her near witless with terror.
    Vanyi took pity on her, after a fashion. “Fetch the guides
here. If they’re to lead us where we want to go, it’s best they know now what
we are—all of us at once.”
    “Demons, dark gods, and all,” said Chakan, impervious to her
withering stare.
    oOo
    He, with his Olenyai, had eaten before they came in, when
they could do it without the hindrance of veils. They had no breakfast to
abandon. None of them was obvious about it, but now that Vanyi took the time to
notice, they were standing idly, comfortably, casually, in a circle