Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (28 page)

           
Kellin rolled as Corwyth struck a
third time. He panted audibly, trying to divorce his mind from his body, to let
his instincts dictate motion-Now.

           
Anger fed his strength. Kellin saw
the glint of the knife in Corwyth's hand—Blais' knife!—and then, briefly,
everything faded. The world was turned inside out, and when it came right again
it was a very different place.

           
His mouth dropped open to curse the
Ihlini, but what issued forth was a rising, angry wail. He felt the coiling of
haunches to gather himself; the whip of a sinuous tail; the tightness in his
empty—too empty!—belly. Kellin bunched, and sprang.

           
The knife glinted again. Kellin
reached out in midair with a hind leg and slashed the weapon from Corwyth's
hand. He heard the Ihlini's cry, and then Kellin was on him.

           
Corwyth went down easily. Lost in
the killing frenzy, Kellin did not think about what he did. He simply closed
powerful jaws on the fragile throat of a man and tore it away.

           
There was no sense of jubilation,
vindication, or relief. Merely satiation as the cat fed on the prey's body.

           
What am I—? Comprehension was
immediate.

           
Kellin hurled himself away from the
body on the ground. No more the cat but a man, appalled by what had occurred.
Gods—I did THAT?

           
Corwyth was messily dead. He lay
sprawled on the ground with blood-soaked cloak bunched up around him, gaping
throat bared to the moon.

           
I did.

           
He was shaking. All over. He was
bloodied to the elbows. Blood soaked his doublet. Blood was in his mouth.
Everywhere, blood—and the taste of Corwyth's flesh.

           
Kellin thrust himself from the
ground to his knees, then bent and hugged sore ribs as his belly purged itself.
He wanted very much to purge his mind as well, to forget what he had seen, to
forget what he had done, but the memory was livid. It excoriated him.

           
He scrubbed again and again at his
face, trying to rid it of blood, but his hands, too, were bloody.

           
Frantically Kellin scooped up double
handfuls of dirt and damp leaves and scoured hands, then face, pausing twice to
spit.

           
Lir.

           
Kellin jumped. He spun on his knees,
panting, bracing himself on one stiff arm, and searched avidly for the mountain
cat who had driven him beyond self. There was no sound. No cat. He saw nothing
but star-weighted darkness and the scalloped outline of dense foliage.

           
Gone. Breathing steadied. He scraped
the back of a hand across his chin. Fingers shook.

           
Lir. The tone was gentle. The death
was required. Just as the deaths of the minions were required.

           
"You killed them?"

           
They are dead.

           
He barked a hoarse laugh. "Then
you have broken one of the most binding rules of the lir-bond. You are not
supposed to kill Ihlini."

           
The tone was peculiar. We are
reflections of one another.

           
"What does that mean?"

           
You do that which you are commanded
not to do. And now I as well.

           
It astounded him. "Because of
me you broke the rule?"

           
We are very alike.

           
He contemplated that. He knew
himself to be a rebel; could a lir be so also? If so, they were indeed well
matched. He cut it off at once. "I want nothing to do with you."

           
It is done. The men are dead.

           
Kellin stiffened. He refused to look
at Corwyth's body. "There was no warning—you said nothing of what I would
feel!"

           
You felt as a cat feels.

           
"But I am a man."

           
More, it said. Cheysuli.

           
Kellin spat again, wishing he had
the strength of will to scour his mouth as well as his flesh. A quick glance
across the tiny campsite offered relief: Ihlini supplies laid out in a neat
pile.

           
"Water." He pressed
himself from the ground and walked unsteadily to the supplies. He found a
leather flask and unstoppered it, then methodically rinsed his mouth and spat
until the taste of blood and flesh was gone. As carefully, he poured the
contents of a second flask into one hand and then the other, scraping flesh
free of sticky blood with cold, damp leaves.

           
"I'toshaa-ni," he
murmured, and then realized that the ritual merely emphasized the heritage that
had led him to this.

           
Dripping, Kellin rose again. He made
himself look. The view was no better: a sprawled, stilled body with only the
pallor of vertebrae glistening in the ruin of a throat.

           
He shuddered. "I renounced
you," he declared. "I made it very plain. Now more than ever it is
imperative that I do not bond with a lir. If that is what it means—"

           
"That" was necessary.
"That" was required.

           
"No." He would not now
speak inside his head but say it as a man, so there existed no doubt as to
who—and what—he was. "It was butchery, no more."

           
It was to save your life. The tone
was terse, as if the lir suppressed a great emotion. What the Ihlini do, they
do to preserve their power. Lochiel would have killed you. Or gelded you.

           
"Gelded—"

           
Do you think he would permit you to
breed? You are his ending. The moment your son is born, the world begins anew.

           
Kellin wiped damp hands across his
face, warping it out of shape as if self-inflicted violence would banish
acknowledgment. "I want nothing to do with this."

           
It is too late.

           
"No. Not if I renounce you, as
I have. Not if I refuse to bond with you."

           
Too late, the lir repeated. The tone
now was muted.

           
Suspicion flared. He had been taught
to honor all lir, but at this moment, conversing with this lir, he was afraid
to assume it beneficent. "Why?"

           
Alarm replaced suspicion. "What
have you done?"

           
It was necessary.

           
It filled him with apprehension.
"What have you done?"

           
Lent you a piece of myself.

           
"You!"

           
Required, it insisted. Without that
part of me, you would never have accomplished the shapechange.

           
A shudder wracked Kellin from head
to foot.

           
The flesh on his scalp itched as if
all his hairs stood up. "Tell me," he said intently. "Tell me
what I have become."

           
Silence answered him.

           
"Tell me!" Kellin shouted.
"By the gods, you beast, what have you done to me?"

           
The tone was odd. Why does a man
swear by gods he cannot honor?

           
The inanity amazed him. "If I
could see you—"

           
Then see me. A shadow moved at the
edge of the trees. See me as I am. Know who Sima is.

           
A soft rustle, then nothing more. In
the reflection of dying flames, gold eyes gleamed.

           
Kellin nearly gaped. "You are
little more than a cub

           
Young, Sima conceded. But old enough
for a lir.

           
"But—" Kellin blurted a
choked laugh, then cut it off. "I want nothing to do with you. With you,
or with any of it. No lir, no bonding, no shapechange. I want a full life ...
not a travesty always threatened by an arcane ritual that needlessly wastes a
warrior."

           
Sima blinked. I would die if you
died. The cost is equally shared.

           
"I do not want to share it! I
want not to risk it at all."

           
A tail twitched. She was black,
black as Sleeta, the Mujhar's magnificent lir. But she was small, as yet
immature, gangly as a half-grown kitten.

           
Incongruity, Kellin thought, in view
of her intransigence.

           
I am empty, Sima said. I am but a
shadow. Do you sentence me to that?

           
"Can I? I thought you said it
was too late."

           
Gold eyes winked out, then opened
again. If you wish to renounce me, you may. But then the Ihlini will be
victorious, because both of us will die.

           
She did not sound young. She sounded
ineffably old. "Sima." Kellin wet his lips. "What have you done
to me?"

           
The sleek black head lowered. Tufted
ears flattened. The tail whipped a branch to shreds.

           
"Sima!"

           
Caused you to change before the balance
was learned.

           
Kellin's mouth felt dry. "And
that is a bad thing?"

           
If balance is lost and not regained,
if it is not maintained, a warrior in lir-shape risks his humanity.

           
His voice sounded rusty. "He
would be locked in beast-shape?"

           
If he lost his balance and spent too
long in lir-shape, he could lose knowledge of what he was. Self-knowledge is
essential. Forgotten, the man becomes a monster caught between two selfs.

           
After a long moment, Kellin nodded.
"Leijhana tu'sai," he said grimly, "for giving me the chance to
become a child's nightmare."

           
I gave you the chance to survive.
Corwyth would not have killed you, but he would have brought you pain. And
Lochiel would have done worse.

           
Kellin did not argue. He would not
speak to her.

           
He would give her no opportunity to
drag him deeper into the mess she had made of his life.

           
Because he could not stay in the
clearing with the mutilated body, Kellin took Corwyth's horse for his own. He
turned the other mounts loose; he had no time for ponying.

           
Sima did not honor his moratorium on
speech.

           
They would have killed me.

           
He knew immediately what she
referred to. For the first time, he contemplated what it was to a lir to
experience guilt. He understood there was no choice in killing the minions;
they would have skinned her and taken the pelt to Valgaard for presentation to
Lochiel.

           
Even as they presented me. Grimly
Kellin said. "I would wish that on no one, beast or no."

           
Leijhana tu'sai. Sima twitched her
tail.

           
Kellin slanted her a hard glance as
he snugged the girth tight. "You know the Old Tongue?"

           
Better than you do.

           
He grunted. "Privy to the gods,
are you? More favored than most?"

           
Of course. All lir are. The cat
paused. You are an angry man.

           
"After what you have made of
me, do you expect gratitude?"

           
No. You are angry all the time.

           
He slipped fingers between girth and
belly to check for a horse's favorite trick: intentional bloating to keep the
girth loose. "How would you know what I am?"

           
I know.

           
"Obscurity does not commend
you."

           
Sima thumped her tail. A difficult
bonding, I see.

           
"No bonding at all." As
the horse released its breath in response to an elbow jab, Kellin snugged the
girth tighter. "Go back to wherever it is lir come from."

           
I cannot.

           
"I will not have you with
me."

           
You cannot NOT have me.

           
"Oh?" Kellin cast her an
arch glance. "Will you stop me with violence?"

           
Of course not. I am sworn to protect
you, not injure you.

           
"That is something." He
looped reins over the bay gelding's neck. "Go back to the gods, cat. I
will have none of you."

           
You have no choice.

           
"Have I not?" Kellin
gritted his teeth and put a boot toe into the left stirrup. Swearing inventively,
he swung up into the saddle and settled himself slowly. "—I think I have
every choice, cat."

           
None. Not if you wish to survive.

           
"There have been lirless
Cheysuli before."