Arrows of the Sun Read Free Page B

strong, but never so strong that you betray yourself. Be swift, but never as
swift as your death. And take the oath as your kinsmen have taught you.”
    Korusan knelt and laid his hands in the Master’s, looking up
into that face which now he was entitled to see. He was aware of other faces,
strange and yet familiar, and eyes that he had known when all the rest was
wrapped in darkness. But for the moment he saw only the one, and the two that
came up behind it, lightmage, darkmage, filling the Master’s shadow.
    He shuddered a little inside himself. Magic he knew, because
he must know it. Magic he had, because it was bred in him, like his eyes, like
the death that would take him while lesser men were still no more than boys.
But he had no love for it.
    “It is our custom,” the Master said, “to give the oath and
the protection, and to seal them in bronze, and bind them about your neck.”
    “But for you,” said the lightmage, “bronze is too little a
thing, and a binding of chain too feeble. You, we seal and bind with the Word,
and with the Power that is behind the Word.”
    Korusan felt it in his bones like the fire that had filled
him in the wood. He fought instinct that would have risen and swelled and
thrust the magic away. He let it crawl through him, though he shuddered at its
touch. He hoped devoutly that his stomach would keep its proper place. It was
never his most obedient servant; and he had not fed it since this rite began.
    Preoccupied with keeping his belly quiet, he barely noticed
the wrench and twist as the magic pulled free. He did see the lightmage sway,
and the darkmage steady him. He heard the woman mutter, “Goddess! He is
strong.” And the man: “Hush! He hears us.”
    Then he knew that they had not spoken aloud, but as mages
spoke, in the silence behind the words.
    The lightmage met his gaze directly. “You are strong,” he
said, “but unschooled. Beware of arrogance. It will destroy you.”
    Korusan’s lips stretched. It was not a smile. He spoke the
words then as the Master bade him, words that meant everything and nothing
after the touch of magic. The magic had sealed him to this rite; the magic, and
the blood that ran down his scored cheek. The words were for his brothers, his
Olenyai. To serve where he must serve, to command where he must command; to do
battle for lord and land and kin; to show his face never but to his brothers,
and to protect the secrets of his caste— His caste, he thought, half wry and
half in pain. Only while it served him, and until his vengeance was won.
    To protect, then, while he lived, and to defend to the
death.
    He was warrior born, warrior bred if not to the blood. Their
enemies were his enemies. He was all of their kin, as they were all of his. He
took the robes and the veil, the knife and the swords. He sealed them with his
blood.
    Robed, veiled, armed, he danced. The circle opened itself
for him and to him. He danced to the drums, and their beat now was swift, but
that swiftness was joy. He drew his swords. They were steel, and they gleamed
in lamplight and firelight. He spun. He leaped. He sang. “Ohé! Ohé Olenyai!”
    Others sprang into the dance. Steel rang on steel. It was
like a battle, it was like a willing woman. He whirled in its center. He was
all of them, and all of himself. Korusan. Olenyas. Lion’s cub. Warrior born,
warrior raised, born to die young. Lord and weapon of his people. Arrow shot
from the bow: an arrow in the Sun.

3
    Kingship. Majesty.
    It was stronger than wine. Stronger than dreamsmoke. More
dizzying even than the scent of Vanyi’s hair, wonderful sea-sweet masses of it,
and she wound in it, gleaming in moonlight and starlight and the nightlamp’s
flicker.
    Estarion reined himself in. That was the throne, making him
its own. The fire he carried in his right hand was shrunk to a sunlit warmth:
painlessness after pain so long and so relentless that it shaped the world
about it.
    He turned his hand palm up in his lap.