Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (19 page)

           
Corwyth watched the bright cubes spin,
seemingly undismayed by the presence of a weapon.

           
"Oh," he said lightly,
"presently. I am in no hurry." He gestured briefly, and the knife
fell out of Kellin's hand. "There is no need for that here."

           
Kellin swore and grabbed at it, only
to find the metal searingly hot. "Kureshtin—" He dropped the knife at
once, desiring to blow on burned fingers but holding himself in check. He would
not give the Ihlini any measure of satisfaction.

           
Corwyth's eyes narrowed assessively.
"No more the boy," he observed, "but a man well-grown, and
dangerous. Someone who must be dealt with."

           
Kellin did not much care for the
implication.

           
"You tried before to 'deal'
with me and failed."

           
"Aye. I misjudged you. A
failing I shall not be moved to repeat."

           
The rune-sticks joined the cubes in
an obscene coupling upon the table. Neither man watched.

           
They looked at each other instead.

           
A vicious joy welled up in Kellin's
soul. Here was the fight he had wanted. "I will not accompany you."

           
"One day," Corwyth said.
"Be certain of it, Kellin." He gestured, and the cubes and
rune-sticks fell into a pattern: one arrow pointed at Kellin, the other
directly north. "You see? Even the game agrees."

           
As he had done so many years before,
Kellin made a fist and banged it down upon the table.

           
The arrows broke up and fell in
disarray to the floor. Sticks and cubes scattered.

           
Corwyth showed good teeth.
"This is a game," he said, "mere prelude to what will follow. If
you think you have the power to prevent it, you are indeed a fool."
Slender fingers were unmoving on scarred wood. "I do not threaten, Kellin;
I come to warn instead. Lochiel is too powerful. You cannot hope to refuse
him."

           
"I can. I do." Kellin
displayed equally good teeth, but his grin was more feral. "He has tried before
and failed, just as you did. I begin to think Lochiel is not so powerful as he
would have us believe,"

           
Corwyth's tone was mild. "He
need only put out his hand, and you will be in it. He need only close that hand
and crush the life from you."

           
Kellin laughed. "Then tell him
to do it."

           
Corwyth's gaze was steady.
"Before, you were a boy. They kept you close, and safe. But you are no
longer a boy, and such chains as you have known will bind more than body, but
the spirit as well. Do you not fight those chains? Do you not come often into
the Midden, fighting a battle within your soul as well as the war with the
constraints of your station?"

           
Kellin's laughter died. Corwyth knew
too much.

           
He was overly conversant with what
was in Kellin's mind. "I do what I desire to do. That has nothing to do
with Lochiel."

           
"Ah, but it has everything to
do with Lochiel. You have a choice, my lord: keep yourself to Homana-Mujhar and
away from sorcery, yet know there will always be the threat of a traitorous
Homanan." His smile was slight as he purposely evoked the memory of-Rogan.
"Or come out as you will, as you desire to, and know that each step you
take is watched by Lochiel."

           
Kellin controlled the anger. Such a
display was what Corwyth wanted to provoke; he would not satisfy him.
"Then I challenge Lochiel to try me here and now."

           
Corwyth shook his head. "A game
requires time, my lord, or the satisfaction is tainted . . . much like a man
who spends himself too quickly between a woman's thighs. There are the rules to
be learned first, before the game commences," The smile was banished.
Corwyth leaned forward. "This night, you shall go free. This night you may
go home to Homana-Mujhar—or to whatever whore you are keeping—and may sleep
without fear for your soul. But you are to know this: you are not free. Your
soul is not unclaimed. Lochiel waits in Valgaard. When he touches you, when he
deigns to gather you up, be certain you shall know it."

           
The Ihlini sat back, but his gaze
did not waver from Kellin's. He smiled again, if faintly, and took something
else from beneath his cloak. He set it flat on the table between them.

           
Sorcerer's Tooth.

           
The years fell away. Kellin was a
frightened boy again lost in Homanan forests, with a tutor slain and a best
friend dying, and the Lion on his trail.

           
"Keep it," Corwyth said,
"as a token of my promise."

           
Kellin leapt to his feet, groping
for the knife, but a sheet of purple flame drove him away from the table. When
the smoke of it shredded away, the Ihlini was gone.

           
Coughing, Kellin went at once to his
watchdogs and found them dead. There were no wounds, no marks, no blood to
prove what had befallen them, the four men were simply dead. They slumped
across the table with blank eyes bulging and their flesh a pallid white.

           
He looked then for the Homanans,
expecting some manner of comment, and discovered they no longer existed. The
tavernkeeper had vanished as well. Kellin was quite alone in the common room
save for the bodies Corwyth had left behind.

           
Kellin stood perfectly still.
Silence was loud, so loud it filled his head and slid down to stuff his belly,
until he wanted to choke on it, to spew it forth and deny everything; to
somehow put back to rights the horror that had occurred.

           
The way I wanted Rogan to be alive
again— Kellin shut his teeth. Rogan was a traitor.

           
His grip tightened on the knife. Its
heat had dissipated. No longer tainted by Corwyth's wishes, it was merely a
knife again, if a royal one. The lion hilt mocked him.

           
He looked around again. All was as
before: four dead watchdogs sprawled across the table in a stinking common room
of a Midden tavern Kellin was no longer certain truly existed.

           
Did Corwyth conjure the Homanans? Is
this tavern no more than illusion? If so, he was trapped in it.

           
Kellin shivered, then swore at the
response he interpreted as weakness. He went hastily back to his table, caught
up his cloak and threw it around his shoulders. With the knife still clutched
in one hand, hilt slick with sweat, he went out into the darkness where the air
smelled like air, redolent of winter, but without the stink of Corwyth's
sorcery.

           
The walk to Homana-Mujhar was the
longest of Kellin's life. His back was spectacularly naked of watchdogs; he had
hated them before but had never wished them dead.

           
He avoided puddles now. His mouth
was filled with the sour aftertaste of usca. Drunkenness had passed, as had
hostility and the desire to fight.

           
What he wanted most now was to reach
Homana-Mujhar and deliver unpleasant news to Brennan, so the burden of the
knowledge was no longer his alone.

           
There were few cobblestones in the
Midden.

           
Boots sank into muck, denying easy
egress from winding, narrow alleys shut in by top-heavy dwellings. Between his
shoulder blades Kellin felt a tingling; the hairs on the nape of his neck rose.
He was lirless by choice, which left him vulnerable. A bonded warrior would
know if an Ihlini was near.

           
He had only his instincts to trust,
and they told him it would be a simple thing for Corwyth to take him now, with a
Tooth flung into his back.

           
But the Tooth was back in the
tavern. Nothing could have induced him to touch it, let alone to keep it.

           
Kellin shivered despite the
fur-lined cloak. His lips were excessively dry no matter how often he licked
them. Corwyth had promised him his freedom tonight; that he might spend the
time as he wished. Lochiel was patient.

           
Muck oozed up, capturing a boot.
Kellin paused to free himself, then froze into stillness. A new noise had begun
in place of his audible breathing and heartbeat.

           
The sound was one he knew: a raspy,
throaty grunting; the chesty cough of a huge lion.

           
Gods— He turned convulsively,
shoulders slamming against the wall. He heard the scrape of his cloak against
brick. Moonlight sparked on the ruby as he lifted the knife.

           
For one insane moment Kellin saw his
shadow on the wall across the narrow alley: the image of a small boy desperate
to flee. And then the illusion was banished, replaced with the truth, and he
saw himself clearly. No longer the boy. Nightmares were long behind him.

           
This is how Lochiel intends to take
me. This is some trick—

           
Or perhaps not. After what had
happened in the tavern, Kellin was not so certain.

           
Still, he would not prove such easy
prey, to be terrorized by childhood nightmares.

           
He raised the knife higher. He saw
the length of supple fingers, the sinewy back of his hand, the muscle sheathing
wrist. He was a man now, and a very different kind of prey.

           
"Come, then," he said.
"If that is you, Corwyth, be certain I am ready. Lochiel will find me no
easier to defeat despite opportunity. I am, after all, Cheysuli."

           
The Lion paused. Noise ceased.

           
"Come," Kellin goaded.
"Did you think to find me so frightened I soiled my leggings? Did you
believe it would be easy?" He forced a laugh, relying on bravado that was
genuine only in part.

           
"Why not banish the Lion's
aspect and face me as a man? Or do you fear me after all?"

           
Grunting and panting faded. The
night was silent again.

           
Kellin laughed as tension fled,
leaving him atremble despite his bravado. "So, you prefer to test a boy
instead of a man. Well, now you know the truth of it. To take me now, you will
have to try harder."

           
He waited. He thought perhaps
Corwyth would resort to ordinary means to attack. But the night was silent, and
empty; threat was dispersed.

           
Kellin drew in a deep breath. Surely
they told stories of my fears when f was a child. It would be a. simple matter
to shape a lion out of magic now merely to remind me of childhood fears.

           
It was a simple explanation, and
perhaps a valid one. But a nagging thought remained.

           
What of Tanni? She was truly gutted.

           
But men had been bought before: a
cook, and Rogan. What if the beast who had slain Blais' lir was nothing but a
man meant to make it look like a beast?

           
Kellin gripped the knife more
tightly. Corwyth is right. I am no safer now than I was as a child.

           
But I will not order my life around
fear; it would be a victory for Lochiel. I will be what I am. If the Ihlini is
to take me, he will find it difficult.

           
When Kellin reached Homana-MuJhar,
he went at once to the watch commander and gave him the news. "Have them
brought home," he said.

           
"But also tell those sent to
fetch them to touch nothing else. There was an Ihlini abroad tonight."

           
The captain, a hardened veteran, did
not scoff.

           
But Kellin saw the lowered lids, the
shuttered thoughts, and knew very well his words were not wholly accepted. Men
might be dead, but no Ihlini had come into Mujhara for years. More likely it
was his fault, from trouble he had started.

           
It infuriated him. Kellin grabbed a
handful of crimson tunic. "Do you doubt me?"

           
The captain did not hesitate.
"Who speaks of doubt, my lord? I will of course do your bidding when the
Mujhar confirms it,"

           
"The Mujhar—" Kellin cut
it off, gritting teeth against the anger he wanted to spew into the man's face.
"Aye, tell the Mujhar; it will save me the trouble." He let go of the
crumpled tunic and turned on his heel, striding across to a side entrance so as
not to disturb the palace with his late return- Let the captain tell his
beloved Mujhar. I will spend my time on other things.

           
He climbed the stairs two at a time,
shedding cloak with a shrug of shoulders. He hooked it over an arm, heedless of
the dragging hem. When he entered his chamber, he flung the cloak across a
stool and hastily stripped out of soiled clothing.

           
Naked, he paced to one of the
unshuttered casements and scowled blackly into darkness.

           
He felt stifled. He felt young and
old, exquisitely indifferent to life, and yet so filled with it he could not
ignore its clamor. Something surged through his veins, charging his body with a
vigor so intense he thought he was on fire. His hands trembled as if palsied;
Kellin suppressed it with a curse.

           
A surfeit of energy. It set his bones
ablaze. He was burning, burning.

           
"Too bright—" Kellin dug
fingers into the sill until at last the burning faded. Emptiness replaced it;
he was desolate now, with a spirit wholly diminished. Weakness replaced the
hideous strength that had knotted all his muscles.

           
It is only reaction to what occurred
earlier. No more than that.

           
But Kellin was not certain. Panting,
he pressed his head into the wall, letting the stone pit flesh.

           
Fingertips were sore, scraped raw by
his grip upon the sill. Everything in him shook.

           
"Tired." It was much more
than that. Kellin staggered to his bed and climbed between the curtains,
blessing the servant who had left the warming pan.

           
But he could not stay there. A
restlessness consumed his body and mind and made him accede to its wishes: that
he forsake his bed for a physical release that had nothing to do with sex and
everything to do with his spirit.

           
Breeches, no boots. Bare-chested,
gripping the knife, Kellin left his chambers and went into the shadowed
corridors. He felt as if he were a knife, honed sharp and clean and true,
balanced in the hand as his own knife was balanced, but the hand which held him
was none that he knew.

           
The gods? Kellin wanted to laugh.
The old Cheysuli saying about a man's fate resting in the hands of the gods was
imagery, no more, and yet he felt as if he fit. As if the hand merely waited.

           
This is madness. He went to the
Great Hall. It had been a long time since he had entered it; it was his
grandsire's place. Until Kellin could make it his, he was content to wait: a
lean and hungry wolf intently watching its promised meal.

           
Guilt nickered; was suppressed. I
was bred for it. All the blood that flows in me cries out to rule Homana ... I
was not made of patient clay, and the firing is done.

           
He halted before the dais, before
the throne, and looked upon the Lion. An old beast, he thought, guarding its
pride with aging eyes and older heart, its body tough and stringy, its mouth
nearly empty of teeth.

           
Time runs out for the Lion. Time ran
out for them all.

           
Kellin laughed softly. Slowly he
mounted the steps to the throne and sat himself upon it, moving back into the
shadows until his spine touched wood. He placed his arms on the armrests,
curled his fingers over the paws and felt the extended claws.

           
"This is Homana," he said.
"This is Homana—and one day it will be mine."

           
His fear of the throne was gone. As
a child it had frightened him, but he was no longer a child.

           
Kellin stared out into the hall.
"The lion must swallow the lands. The lion must swallow us all."

           
He roused at the scrape of a boot
upon stone floor.

           
"Not a comfortable bed,"
the Mujhar remarked.

           
Kellin jerked upright, blinking
blearily, stiff and sore and intensely uncomfortable. He had spent what little
remained of the night in the bosom of the Lion. The knife was still in his
fist. He was warrior enough for that.

           
Brennan's expression was masked.
"Was there any point to it?"

           
Kellin challenged him immediately.
"I do nothing without a point."

           
His grandfather's mouth twisted
scornfully.

           
"What you do is your concern,
as you have made it. I gave up years ago asking myself what could be in your
mind, to explain your behavior." He gestured sharply. "Get up from
there, Kellin. You do not suit it yet."