Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (48 page)

           
He was frustrated and angry.
"Will I ever be well?"

           
"Dev—"

           
He stopped dead in his tracks,
capturing my shoulders in hands well recovered from his illness.

           
'"Will my memory return? Or am
I sentenced to spend the rest of my life but half a man, able only to form the
rune a child of two could make?"

           
It hurt me to see him so affected.
If I could provide help—

           
I could. It was up to me to risk it.

           
I sighed. "I think it is time .
, . come with me."

           
"Where?"

           
"To my father."

           
The black in his eyes expanded.
"You would shame me before Lochiel?"

           
"There is no shame in this. My
father understands."

           
He shut up the ring in his hand as
it turned on his finger. "Can Lochiel restore me? Or is that healing also,
and therefore anathema?"

           
"Come," I said firmly,
putting my hand on his arm. "Ask him instead of me."

           
The room was empty as we entered. It
was a small private chamber tucked up into one of the towers, draped with
rune-worked cloth to soften the walls, filled with a jumble of chairs and
tables, and candleracks sculpted to new forms by hardened streamers of creamy
wax. My father preferred the chamber when he desired to have private
discussions; he saw no need for opulence among his family.

           
Devin was nonetheless impressed. It
takes people that way, to witness power incarnate. It lived in the room. It was
woven into the very cloth that warded the stone walls.

           
None of the candles was lighted in
my father's absence. I blew a gentle breath that set them all ablaze, laughed
at Devin's expression, then threw myself down in a chair and hooked a leg over
the arm. An undecorous position, perhaps, but modesty was protected by
voluminous skirts; I had, of late, put off hunting trews to wear silks and
velvets. Even my hair was tamed; I contained it with a simple silver circlet,
so that it did not spring forth from my scalp quite so exuberantly. I knew
Devin liked it loose; he watched me most avidly from his sickbed when I combed
it out after a washing- It took two days to dry; if I wanted it uncrimped, I
had to leave it loose.

           
Devin heaved a sign and examined the
room.

           
His spine was very rigid.
Nervous—and for what?

           
He will be Lochiel's son. "Be
at ease," I suggested.

           
'"You be at ease." Then he
grinned at me. "I daresay you would feel as I do were you to face the
Cheysuli Mujhar."

           
"Never." I smiled
serenely. "But that is not the case—and you are Ihlini, not Cheysuli. What
have you to fear?" I slanted an arch glance at him. "Besides, you say
you have no memories. How are you to be nervous when you know nothing of the
man?"

           
Devin jeered, though not unkindly.
"You have a ready tongue. You put it to his name often enough .. .
'Lochiel' this—'Lochiel' that. What else am I to feel but unworthy of
him?"

           
"Oh, you are unworthy—" I
grinned, "—but he will lift that from you. When you face Asar-Suti,
Lochiel will no longer seem half so bad as now."

           
"Ah. I am comforted." He
folded his arms. "Are we to wait all day on the chance he might come? Or
will you send someone for him?" He paused. "Is he even in the
fortress?"

           
"He is here." I tilted my
head. "Very much here."

           
And he was, all of a sudden,
arriving as he does to impress whoever waits. I wanted to chide him for excess
display, but one does not chide Lochiel.

           
Violet smoke roiled in the center of
the chamber. Devin stepped back hastily, mouthing an oath he had learned from
me, and stared transfixed as the smoke transformed itself into the shape of a
man.

           
"Close your mouth," I
hissed.

           
Devin acquiesced. My father smiled.
"That," he said quietly, "is something you should be able to
do."

           
The sun had returned color to
Devin's flesh.

           
Now he burned darker. "Perhaps
I could, once."

           
Lochiel, in his youth, did not
appear much older than Devin. "Has nothing come back?"

           
"No memories." He glanced
at me. "Ginevra has told me what she could of myself, but the words mean
nothing. I must believe whatever she tells me; it is the only truth I
know."

           
My father's gaze was unrelenting,
"What are you able to do?"

           
Devin laughed, though it lacked
humor. He put out his hand. He drew li'ri'a. It was a child's trick, but he
could do no better. I did not wonder at the bitterness of his laughter.
"That," he said, and banished it.

           
My father's voice was gentle.
"Do you find it amusing?"

           
"In no way- I find it pitiful,
and myself,"

           
"Ah." Lochiel smiled.
"But I know who you are. I know what potential you hold. I would not have
chosen you otherwise to sire sons upon my daughter." Briefly he looked at
me, and I saw a light in his eyes. "That you have forgotten your power
means nothing to me. It will be restored. But first you must acknowledge it,
instead of relying on the belief that you have forgotten all."

           
"But I have—"

           
My father reached out and caught
Devin's right wrist. By the look in Devin's eyes I knew the grasp was firm.
"Call for it now," Lochiel commanded.

           
"Summon it to you. Let the
power fill you completely, and you will see what you must know."

           
Devin was tense. "I have
tried—"

           
"Try again." Lochiel's tone
was hard. "Do you forget I am with you?"

           
I saw the alteration in Devin's eyes.
He did indeed reach for it, but clumsily. I held my breath, knowing what my
father intended to do.

           
Devin cried out. Wonder filled his
face so that his eyes glowed with it, and then the light was extinguished. He
cried out again, this time as if in pain, and fell to his knees even as my
father released his wrist. His breathing was loud. "You would have—have me
be—that—?"

           
Lochiel looked down upon him.
"That is what you are. It is what I desire of you: power augmented by
service to the god, and a perfect obedience. Not powerlessness, Devin. Never
that; more."

           
My father put a hand upon Devin's
head. "Together, with that power, we can tear down the House of Homana and
destroy the prophecy. Do you think I want a fool? Do you think I desire a
child? I need a man, Devin, who can augment my own strength. A man to lie with
my daughter and sire children for the Seker."

           
Devin still knelt. His face was
drained by the knowledge of what he had felt, of the power in my father.
"How can I serve with such blankness within me?"

           
Lochiel smiled. "You are empty.
It will pass. We will see to it you are filled. The god himself will do
it." He looked at me and smiled, then stretched out his hand. "Take
my daughter. Get a son upon her. The wedding shall follow when I am certain she
has conceived." He put our hands together, flesh against flesh.

           
I could look at no one save Devin.
My father's voice became a part of the chamber, like a chair or a hanging; one
did not acknowledge such things when Devin was in the room.

           
His eyes burned brilliant green. His
spirit could not contain the avidity of his desire.

           
No more than I could mine.

           
"There is no need to
wait," Lochiel said. "Much is lost, in waiting. The Wheel of Life is
turning; if we do not stop it soon, our own lives will end."

           
We had blown out the candles and now
lay abed, delighting in discovery. Devin's breath warmed my neck. "What
did he mean?" His mouth shaped the words against my flesh. "Why do
our lives end if the Wheel of Life keeps turning?"

           
"A Cheysuli thing ..." I
turned my head to kiss his chin; to savor the taste of his flesh. "Must we
speak of this now?"

           
His laughter was soft, as were his
fingertips as they cherished my flesh. "Aye. You said you would teach me
everything—well, perhaps not this."

           
Indeed not this. It made me blush,
to know myself so wanton. "I am not the one to speak—" I caught my
breath short and bit into my lip as his hand grew more insistent, "—but—it
seems to me—gods, Devin, that with all the wits you have lost, you did not
forget this." I used his emphasis.

           
Devin laughed again: a rumble deep
in his chest.

           
His hand moved to my breasts,
tracing their contours. His flesh was darker than mine—I am Ihlini fair, and
his eyes were green in place of my ice-gray—but our bones were similar. We
Ihlini breed true.

           
His voice was vibrant. "A man
forgets little in the way a body works in congress with a woman."

           
"So it would seem." Our
hips were sealed together. I turned toward him again, glorying in the feel of
his flesh against my own. "The Wheel of Life is a Cheysuli thing. They
speak in images, often: the Wheel, the Loom, and so on. They are, if nothing
else, a colorful race." I traced the flesh of his chest, glad I could no
longer count his ribs.

           
The muscle was firm again. I avoided
the scar left over from the healed knife wound. "This prophecy of theirs
bids to end our people by making a new race. The Firstborn. If we keep them
from that, if we destroy the prophecy, their Wheel will stop turning, and the
world as we know it will continue as it is."

           
"As it is?"

           
"Well—as it should be. It will
take time to turn them away from their gods. They are ignorant people, all of
them."

           
"The Cheysuli?"

           
It was difficult to concentrate as I
explored his body. "And others- The Homanans. The Ellasians. The island
savages." I touched his lips with my fingers. "Even the Solindish
must suffer—it is a Cheysuli warrior who holds the throne in Lestra."

           
"Heresy," he whispered;
his tone was amused.

           
"So it is."

           
"And if we make a child, we can
stop this Wheel?"

           
"My father is convinced."

           
He turned then and put his hand on
my belly, spreading his fingers. The warmth of his palm was welcome. "Have
we made it, then?"

           
I laughed. "Would it please you
so much to be quit of your duty after a single night?"

           
"Duty? Duty is something you do
with no real desire for it." The hand tightened as he bent down to taste
my mouth, "This is no duty."

           
Breathlessly, I asked, "And if
I have not conceived?"

           
"Then we will continue with
this 'duty.' " His tongue traced my eyelids. "Do you think I wish to
stop?"

           
It was abrupt, the chill in my soul.
I could not answer.

           
He sensed my mood immediately and
ceased the slow seduction. "What is it?"

           
I was reluctant to say it but felt I
owed him truth. "There is a—strangeness—in you."

           
The words were too facile.
"When a man knows nothing of his past, strangeness is natural."

           
"Aye. But—" I broke it
off, sighing; this was not a topic I wished to pursue. Now.

           
He did. "But?"

           
"I wish—I wish you were whole.
I wish you knew yourself. I wish you were all of a piece, so I need not wonder
what bits and pieces may yet be missing."

           
Devin laughed. "I am whole
where it counts."

           
"I am serious."

           
In that moment, so was he. Seduction
and irony fled. He turned onto his back. Our hair mingled, black on black
against the pallor of pillows.

           
Strands of mine were wound around
his forearm.

           
"Aye, I wish I recalled my
past—every day, I wish it, and in the darkness of the nights ... but it is
gone. There is nothing, save a yawning emptiness."

           
It hurt to hear him so vulnerable.
"I want it to be vanquished."

           
There was no light, save from the
stars beyond the casement. I could see little of his face and nothing of his
expression. "I cannot spend my life wondering what I might be if it never
is recalled ... the present is what matters. What I am is what you are making
me. Ginevra—" But then he laughed softly, banishing solemnity, as if he
could not bear to think about his plight. He twisted his head to look at me.
"What woman would not desire such a man? You can meld me this way and
that, until you have what you want."

           
My vehemence stunned us both.
"I have what I want."

           
He caught his breath a moment;
released it slowly. He turned onto a hip, moving to face me, to wind his
fingers in my hair. He pulled my face to his even as he leaned to me.
"Then we shall have to give your father the grandson he desires for the
Seker, and then we shall make our own."

           
He was right. What counted was the
now, not the yesterday. If the child were not conceived soon, the Wheel might
turn far enough so that we were destroyed in place of the Cheysuli.

           
But I could not tell him what I most
feared.

           
That the emptiness in him, the
bleakness in his eyes that he would not acknowledge, might rob us of our
future.

           
My father gave us five days and
nights together, and then he summoned Devin. It piqued me that he would give us
so little time—did he think we could conjure a child with a rune?—but I did not
complain. Devin was nervous enough without my poor temper, and I dared make no
response to my father.

           
I told Devin to go, that it was
necessary he spend much time with my father, to better prepare him for the role
he would assume once he had received the god's blessing. I saw the look in his
eye, the tension in his body, and wished I knew a way to banish the concern.

           
But it, too, was necessary; a man
facing Lochiel must understand what he did, lest he forget his proper place in
the ordering of the world.

           
And so I sent him off with a kiss
upon his fingers and one upon his mouth, knowing very well my father would test
him in ways no one, not even Lochiel's daughter, could predict. If he were to
assume an aspect of power within the hierarchy of the Ihlini, he had to learn
the way.

           
It was late afternoon when I sent
Devin to my father; only the Seker and Lochiel knew when I might see him again.
I set myself the task of embroidering a runic design into the tunic I made for
him—green on black—and tried not to think bleak, empty thoughts about what
might happen if my father decided, all on his own, that Devin's missing memory
might render him weak in the ways of Ihlini power.

           
My mother came into our chambers.
She wore deep, rich red. Matching color painted her lips.

           
"So."

           
I gritted my teeth and did not look
up, concentrating fiercely on the design beneath my hands.

           
She would say what she had come to
say; I would not permit provocation.

           
The sound of her skirts was loud as
she came closer. "So, in all ways my daughter is a woman."

           
Do not be provoked— I nodded
absently, taking immense care with a particularly elaborate rune.

           
She waited. She expected a response.
When I made none, the air between us crackled. So close to the Gate, such anger
is personified.

           
I completed one rune, then began
another.

           
My mother's hand swooped down and
snatched the tunic from me. "And did the earth move for you? Did the stars
fall from the sky?"

           
Sparks snapped from my fingers. With
effort, I snuffed them out. A single drop of blood welled on a fingertip, where
the needle had wounded me as she snatched the tunic away. I looked up and saw
her smile; it satisfied her to know she had won the battle of wills.

           
Or had she?

           
I shook back my hair and rose from
my stool, folding hands primly in violet skirts. "Indeed," I said,
"it did move. And will again, I trust, when he returns to me." I
smiled inoffensively. "It should please you to know your daughter is well
serviced. I have no complaints of his manhood, or the frequency of our
coupling."

           
Breath hissed as she inhaled. The
color in her cheeks vied for preeminence over the paint on her mouth. "I
will have no such language from you!"

           
I laughed at her. "You began
it!"

           
"Ginevra—"

           
"By the Seker himself," I
said, "can you not let me have this? You would take everything else from
me, even my father's attention .. . what wrong have I done you? I am neither
enemy nor rival—I am your daughter'."

           
Her face was white. "He gives
you everything. I have to beg his attention,"

           
"Surely not. I know otherwise.
I see otherwise."

           
I kept my hands in skirt folds, so
as not to divulge the tension in them. "You are only angry that you
misjudged Devin. You looked upon his injuries and dismissed him at once,
pleased your daughter would wed an unhandsome man. And now that he is healed
and you see he is beautiful, you are angry with yourself. Now that we have
bedded and you see I am content, you desire very much to destroy what we
have." I lifted my head. "I will not permit it."

           
Melusine laughed, "He will
break," she said. "When he meets the god, or before . . . perhaps
now, with Lochiel. His head is empty of knowledge, his spirit empty of power.
He is no better than a Cheysuli hauled here before the Gate, lirless and
powerless. Pleasing in bed or no, he is wholly expendable."

           
I gritted my teeth. "The
lifestone knew him. If he had no power, it would have consumed him."

           
Crimson lips mocked a true smile.
"There is another test."

           
"My father tends to such things."

           
"You should tend to this one;
you share a bed with a stranger. What if Lochiel were to discover he is not
Devin at all?"

           
It was a refrain. "The
lifestone knew him."

           
"Test him," she said.
"Break it."

           
"It would kill him!"

           
"A chip," she said scornfully,
"The tiniest chip would divulge the truth."

           
The air crackled between us. This
time it was my doing. "I pity you," I told her. "That you must
stoop to this merely because he is a man who prefers the daughter to the
mother."

           
"What?"

           
"I know your ways better than
you think. I have seen you at meals, and other times. Do you think I am blind?
You court his favor assiduously ... but he gives it all to me."

           
Red lips writhed. "I challenge
you," she said. "Break a chip from the stone. Otherwise you will
always wonder if you sleep with Devin of High Crags, or a man of another
heritage."

           
Sparks
flew as I pointed at the door.
"Go!"

           
Melusine smiled. She built an
elaborate rune in the air between us; before I could build my own to ward away
the spell, she breathed upon the rune. It was blown to the bed, where it sank
into the coverlet and disappeared. "There." she said.