Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (24 page)

           
Brennan's severity softened.
"Because I have felt it also- Every Cheysuli does when it is time to bond
with his lir."

           
"Lir!"

           
"Did you really believe you
would never have one?" Brennan's smile was faint. "Did you believe
you would not need one?"

           
"I renounced it!" Kellin
cried. "When Blais left—I swore—"

           
"Some oaths are as
nothing."

           
"I renounced a lir, and the
gods." It was incomprehensible that now, after so long without one, he
might require a lir; or that he should have to battle the interference of gods
he did not honor.

           
"Clearly the gods did not
renounce you," Brennan said dryly. "Now the time is come."

           
Kellin summoned all his strength; it
was a pa-thetic amount. "I refuse."

           
The Mujhar smiled. "You are
welcome to try."

           
Aileen was shocked. "You are
overharsh!"

           
"No. There is nothing he can
do. It is his time, Aileen. He will drive himself mad if he continues this
foolishness. He must go. He is Cheysuli."

           
"And—Erinnish ... and
Homanan—and all the other lines—" Kellin shivered. " 'Tis all I count
for, is it not? My seed. My blood. Not Kellin at all.” His spirit felt as cold
and hard as the floor.

           
Desperately, he said, "I
renounce my lir."

           
"Renounce as you will,"
Brennan said, "but for now, get up on the stool."

           
Kellin gritted his teeth. "You
are the Mujhar, blessed by the gods. I charge you to take it away."

           
"What—the pain? You earned it.
The emptiness? I cannot. It can only be filled with a lir."

           
"Take it away!" Kellin
shouted. "I cannot live like this!"

           
Brennan rose. His eyes, so intensely
yellow, did not waver. "You have the right of that," he agreed.
"You cannot live like this."

           
"Grandsire—"

           
"Get up, Kellin. There is
nothing to be done."

           
He got up. He ached. He swore, even
before Aileen. He was profoundly empty, bereft of all save futility and a
terrifying apartness. "I renounced it," he said, "just as I
renounced the gods. They have no power over me."

           
Brennan turned to Aileen. "I
will have usca sent up. Best he dulls his pain with that which caused it; in
the morning he will be better—" he slanted a glance at his grandson,
"—or he will be worse."

           
She was clearly displeased.
"Brennan."

           
The Mujhar of Homana extended a hand
to his queen. "There is nothing to be done, Aileen. Whether or not he
likes it, Kellin is Cheysuh. The price is always high, but no warrior refuses
to pay it."

           
"I do," Kellin declared.
"I refuse. I will not accept a lir."

           
Brennan nodded sagely. "Then
perhaps you should spend the next few hours explaining that to the gods."

           
"Leijhana tu'sai," Kellin
murmured as his grandparents shut the door behind them. He was sick to death of
Brennan's dire predictions and Aileen's contentiousness; could they not simply
let him alone? They try to shape me to fit their own idea of how a prince
should be.

           
Or perhaps they attempted to shape
him into something other than his father who had renounced his rank and title
as Kellin renounced his lir.

           
He drew in a hissing breath and let
it out again, trying to banish pain as he banished the previous thought. Kellin
had no desire to consider how his behavior might affect his grandparents, or
that the cause of his own rebellion was incentive for the very expectations he
detested. Such maunderings profited no one, save perhaps the occasional flicker
of guilt searching for brighter light. He had no time for such thoughts; his
ribs ached, and his manhood as yet reminded him of its abuse- Best he simply
took to his bed; perhaps he would fall asleep, and by morning be much improved
in health and spirit.

           
But restlessness forbade it even as
he approached the bed. He was dispirited, disgruntled, highly unsettled. Even
his bones itched. His body would not be still, but clamored at him for something—

           
"What?" Kellin gritted.
"What is it I'm to do?"

           
He could not be still. Frustrated,
Kellin began to pace, hoping to burn out the buzz in blood and bones.

           
But he managed to stop only when he
reached the polished plate hanging cockeyed on the wall.

           
He stared gloomily at his
reflection: a tall man, fair of skin—for a Cheysuli, he thought, though dark
enough for a Homanan, with green eyes dilated dark and new bruises on his face.

           
Aileen's applications of wine had
stiffened his hair. Kellin impatiently scrubbed a hand through it, taking care
to avoid the crusting cut. The raven curls of youth were gone, banished by
adulthood, but his hair still maintained a springy vigor. He scratched idly at
his chest, disliking the tautness of the wrappings. The linen bandages stood
out in stark relief against the nakedness of his torso.

           
Kellin stared at his reflection,
then grinned as he recalled the cause of sore ribs. "And what of the
thumbless thief?"

           
But the brief jolt of pleasure and
vindication dissipated instantly. Luce was not important. Luce did not matter.
Nothing at all mattered except the despair that welled up so keenly to squash
his spirit flat.

           
Kellin turned from the plate
abruptly. Better he not look; better he not see—

           
Emptiness overwhelmed, and the
savage desire to tear down all the walls, brick by brick, so he could be free
of them.

           
He burned with it. Cursing weakly,
Kellin lurched to the narrow casement. Beyond lay Homana of the endless skies
and meadows, the freedom of the air. He was confined by walls, oppressed by
brickwork; every nerve in his body screamed its demand for freedom.

           
"Get out—" he blurted.

           
He needed desperately to get out,
get free, get loose—

           
"Shadow," he murmured.
"Half-man, hollow-man—" And then he squeezed shut his eyes as he dug
fingers into stone. "I will not ... will not be what they expect me to
be—"

           
Cold stone bit into his brow,
hurting his bruised face; he had pressed himself against the wall beside the
window. Flame washed his flesh and set afire every nick, scratch, and cut.
Rising bruises ached as blood throbbed in them, threatening to break through
the fragile warding of his skin.

           
He paced because he could not help
himself; he could not be still. A singing was in his blood, echoing
clamorously. He paced and paced and paced, trying to suppress the singing, the
overriding urge to squeeze himself through the narrow casement and fling
himself into the air.

           
"—fall—" he muttered.
"Fall and break all my bones—"

           
Hands fisted repeatedly: a cat
flexing its claws, testing the power in his body, the urge to slash into flesh.

           
He sweated. Panted. Swore at
capricious gods.

           
He wanted to open the door, to tear
it from its hinges, to shatter the wood completely and throw aside iron studs.

           
Kellin sat down on the stool and
hugged bare arms against wrapped chest, ignoring the pain. He rocked and rocked
and rocked: a child in need of succor; a spirit in need of release.

           
Tears ran down his face. "Too
many—" he said.

           
"Too many ... I will not risk
losing a lir—" Only to lose himself to an arcane Cheysuli ritual that
robbed the world of another warrior despite his perfect health.

           
Liriess warriors went mad, he had
been taught, as all Cheysuli were taught. Mad with the pain and the grief, the
desperate emptiness.

           
"—mad now—" he panted.
"Is this different?"

           
Perhaps not. Perhaps what he did now
was invite the very madness he did not desire to risk in bonding with a lir.

           
Brickwork oppressed him. The walls
and roof crushed his spirit.

           
"Out—" he blurted. But to
go out was to surrender.

           
He rocked and rocked and rocked
until he could rock no more; until he could not countenance sitting on the
stool another moment and rose to pace again, to move from wall to wall, to
stand briefly at the casement so as to test his will, to dare the desperate
need that drove him to pace again, until he reached the door.

           
Unlocked. Merely latched. He need
only lift the latch—

           
"No." A tremor wracked
Kellin's body. He suppressed it. He turned away, jubilant in his victory, in
the belief he had overcome it—and then felt his will crumble beneath the
simplicity of sheer physical need-It took but a moment: boots, doublet, russet
wool cloak, long-knife. Emeralds winked in candlelight.

           
Kellin stared at the knife. Vision
blurred: tears.

           
Tears for the warrior who had once
sworn by the blade, by his blood, by the lir whose death had killed him.

           
He thought of the words Blair had
offered him a decade before.

           
It hurt. It squeezed, until no room
was left for his heart; no room remained for his spirit.

           
"Y'ja'hai," Kellin
breathed, then unlatched and jerked open the door.

           
He did not awaken the horse-boy
sleeping in straw.

           
He simply took a bridle, a
horse—without benefit of blankets or saddle—and swung up bareback.

           
Pain thundered in Kellin's chest. He
sat rigidly straight, daring himself to give in as sweat trickled down his
temples. Scrapes stung from the taste of salt, but he ignored them. A smaller
pain, intrusive but less pronounced, reminded him of his offended netherparts,
but that pain, too, he relegated to nothing in the face of his compulsion.

           
Winter hair afforded him a better
purchase bareback than the summer season, when mounts were slick-haired and the
subsequent ride occasionally precarious. It was precarious now, but not because
of horsehair; a rider was required to adapt to his mount's movements by
adjustments in body both large and small, maintaining flexibility above all
else, but the skill was stripped from Kellin. With ribs bruised and tightly
strapped, he was forced to sit bolt upright without bending his spine, or risk
significant pain.

           
He knew the way so well: a side-gate
in the shadows, tucked away in the wall; he had used it before. He used it now,
leaving behind the outer bailey, then Mujhara herself as he rode straight
through the city to the meadowlands beyond. The narrow track was hard footing
in the cold, glinting with frost rime in the pallor of the moon.

           
No more walls— Kellin gritted his
teeth. No more stone and brick, no more streets and buildings—

           
Indeed, no more. He had traded city
for country, replacing cobbles with dirt and turf, and captivity for freedom.

           
But the emptiness remained.

           
If I give myself over to the
lir-bond, I will be no different from any warrior whose promise to cheysula and
children to care for them always is threatened by that very bond.

           
It seemed an odd logic to Kellin.
How could one promise supersede the other, yet still maintain its worth? How
could any warrior swear himself so profoundly to lir and family knowing very
well one of the oaths might be as nothing?

           
For that matter, how could cheysula
or child believe anything the warrior promised when it was made very clear in
the sight of gods and clan that a lir came first always?

           
Kellin shook his head. A selfish
oath demanded from selfish gods—

           
The horse stumbled. Jarred, sore
ribs protested; fresh sweat broke on Kellin's brow and ran down his face. Cold
air against dampness made him shiver convulsively, which set up fresh
complaint.

           
He cast a glance at the star-freighted
sky. Revenge for my slight? That I dare to question such overweening dedication
to you?

           
The horse did not stumble again. If
the gods heard, they chose not to answer.

           
Kellin, for his part, laughed—until
the despair and emptiness shattered into pieces the dark humor of his doubts,
reminding him once again that he was, if nothing else, subject to such whims as
the gods saw fit to send him.

           
Merely because I am Cheysuli— He
gripped the horse with both knees, clutching at reins. He recalled all too well
what his grandsire had said regarding madness. He recalled even more clearly
the wild grief in Blais' eyes as the warrior acknowledged a far greater thing
than that he must give up his life; Tanni's death and the severing of the lir-bond
had been, in that moment, the only thing upon which Blais could focus himself,
though it promised his death as well.

           
Irony blossomed. Certainly he
focused nothing upon me, who had from him a blood-oath of service.

           
One sworn to the gods, at that.

           
Kellin and his mount exchanged
meadowlands for the outermost fringes of the forest. His passage stirred the
woods into renewed life, startling birds from branches and field warren from
burrows. Here the moon shone more fitfully, fragmented by branches. Kellin
heard the sound of his horse and his own breath expelled in pale smoke.

           
He pulled the russet cloak more
closely around his shoulders.

           
The horse stopped. It stood
completely still, ears erect. Its nostrils expanded hugely, fluttered, then
whuffed closed as he expelled a noisy snort of alarm.

           
"Shansu—" Even as Kellin
gathered rein to forestall him, the horse quivered from head to toe.

           
From the shadows just ahead came the
heavy, throaty coughing of a lion.

           
"Wait—" But even as Kellin
clamped his legs, the horse lunged sideways and bolted.