Sword of Jashan (Book 2) (8 page)

“Don’t know.” Callo sat down and let Chiss pull off his boots. “Chiss, please get more of that remedy from the Healer. Go now—my head is splitting.”

Chiss was gone for what felt like a year. Callo lay motionless on his bed, eyes closed. It was as if a blacksmith worked inside his head, pounding on his skull. After a while he realized some vision was playing itself out in his brain; he heard his own voice echo in the room, and came to full awareness to see Chiss bending over him.

“Did you call, my lord?”

Callo stared at Chiss, still caught in the vision, and did not reply for a moment. Finally Callo said, “The remedy?”

“The man isn’t here. Went to one of the villages on a call. Hon Kirian was filling in for him. I have asked her to come instead, my lord.”

“No.”

“Too late.” Kirian’s round face appeared in Callo’s painful vision. He turned his face away from her, but there was little he could do to object in this condition. Kirian’s cool hands were on his forehead, testing for fever, then turning his face back to hers to look into his eyes. He did not want her to see him like this. Gathering every ounce of will, he pushed her hands away and sat up. The room spun around as if he were drunk.

“I don’t need you,” he said.

“You certainly do,” she said. “So it’s you that’s been having the headaches, not Chiss.”

Callo did not reply. The vision was trying to come back again, partially blotting out Kirian’s face in a whorl of color and light. He felt hands push him gently back onto the bed. He heard Chiss murmuring to Kirian, and heard the clink of pottery as she mixed something in a cup. Then Chiss’ hands were behind his shoulders, lifting him as someone presented a cup to his lips. The aromas of rueberry, mellweed and wine assaulted his senses. He groaned and turned away.

“Drink it, my lord,” Chiss said. “It will help.”

The white light grew behind his eyelids, and he thought he heard Som’ur’s voice, the brutal ku’an god who had accepted him at the temple in Las’ash. He opened his mouth to ask if the others heard the voice, and the remedy tipped into his mouth. He swallowed and coughed, then swallowed again. He was lowered back down on the pillow.

“How long . . .?” Kirian’s voice, talking to Chiss, trailed off into vision. He felt his internal barrier grow thin, as if it were under some assault; he struggled to keep the barrier whole, to keep inside the ku’an magery he could use to influence others against their will. At the same time, the white light turned into color magery and fought him. It boiled up like the liquid fire of a volcano. He felt the color magery begin to spill out of him. He struck out with his sword arm, fighting it back.

“My lord,” came Chiss’ voice near him. “Calm down, my lord, there is nothing here to fight.”

Chiss could not see the energies ready to pour out of him. “Out of the way,” Callo gasped to the manservant. “I can’t control it—too much pain.”

Chiss said, “It’s all right, my lord.” He stayed close, too close, keeping a firm grip on Callo’s upper arms, holding him down. Surely Chiss knew what he was dealing with. He had helped him fight the ku’an magery all these years, and he had seen Callo’s battle against the color magery on board ship from Ha’las.

Kirian’s voice said, “Callo, take it easy. The herbs will take effect in a few minutes. You will be all right.” Her voice struck his internal battle like calming oil poured on troubled waters. He stilled, listening.

“Keep talking to me,” he asked.

“If you wish. First you will feel the mellweed, calming a little. I did not give you enough to put you to sleep. I know how you dislike that, so I used only as much as I needed. You might feel sleepy as the pain goes, though. As for the rueberry . . .” Her voice went on, soothing. He did not listen to her words, just her voice, as the rebellious energies receded and his internal wall was reestablished, protecting him and everyone else. Eventually he said: “Thank you.”

“You are feeling better?”

“Yes. Just a little pain now, and no . . .” He stopped himself before he said voices, or vision, or any other thing that might lead them to question his sanity.

“No, what?” Kirian asked.

“Nothing.” He opened his eyes and saw them leaning over him, faces pale and worried. Chiss removed his restraining hands from Callo’s arms. Callo felt as if someone had wrung him out, as if his body were a piece of limp clothing on the washerwoman’s board. “Thank you. Both of you.”

Kirian began feeling his forehead, taking his pulse, looking into his eyes, and doing all the things a Healer does. She was cool and professional, and did not speak. By the time she was done he was feeling sleepy with the mellweed and the relief from pain. He yawned.

“You’ll do,” she said. “Sleep, if you want. But I insist on seeing you as soon as you awaken. Chiss says this is your fourth headache since we have arrived. I want to know what’s going on.”

“I doubt there is anything you can do about it, other than be there with a dose when needed.”

“Why is that, my lord?” Chiss asked.

Callo grimaced and sat up. The pain was gone, and his stomach was growling. “It’s the color magery. It’s almost too much for me—holding back the psychic magery while fighting to control the color magery. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You need a color mage to advise you,” Kirian said. Her eyes shifted away from his gaze. Now that he seemed to be recovering, she stepped back, away from him.

“Young Ander has been telling me what he has been taught.”

Kirian pursed her lips. “I am doubtful that a fourteen-year-old can understand what you are going through. And remember, you have more than just color magery to deal with.”

“Thanks to Sharpeyes and his damned breeding experiment.”

She smiled, but the expression was fleeting. “Callo, I think you need another mage. Someone who is capable of dealing with all this complexity before . . .”

“What?”

“Well, before it is too late, if you want to know,” she said. Her voice was unexpectedly cool; Callo frowned, puzzled at her demeanor.

“There is Mage Oron, in Sugetre,” Chiss suggested.

Callo shook his head at that, and then was sorry as the pain reminded him it had been only recently overcome. “Mage Oron is the King’s man.”

“He is an estimable man,” Chiss said. “Lord Arias valued him.”

“He still belongs to the King.”

Kirian spoke with a controlled tension that alerted him before he even comprehended the words. “There is a mage healer who usually lives away from Sugetre, a legend at the Healer’s College—a charity case like me, who turned out to be an abandoned half-
righ
color mage. This mage is the only Healer who can work with troubled mages. Have you heard of him?”

“Hell, yes,” Callo said. “I refuse to see Yhallin Magegard.”

“Magegard?”

“Popular name,” Chiss explained to her. “Sort of a joke on the Collared Lords. Yhallin treats and restrains color mages who are insane.”

Kirian looked at Callo again, flushing a little. “I meant no offense. But you don’t even realize how this is overtaking you, Callo. You show signs that you will lose control of it all. There is danger to you and to others around you.”

Callo shoved the drug-induced sleepiness away and got up. “It will be under control. The color magery—I am working on. The psychic magery is locked down as tight as ever it was before all this started.”

Kirian flushed. “Perhaps you are wrong about that,” she said.

“Look, I am not yet insane,” Callo argued.

She relaxed from her unexpected wariness a little and smiled. “All the
righ
are crazy, my lord.”

“Indeed,” Chiss said with a wealth of meaning in the single word.

“I am shocked to hear you say so,” Callo said. It was easy to slip back into the banter, letting the pain and the terrifying assault on his senses be pushed into the background. He began to put his arm around Kirian, but she stepped away from him and began to gather up her Healer’s bag, not looking at him.

His stomach growled again, and Chiss said: “I think you are feeling better, my lord.”

“Thank you both,” Callo said. “I don’t know what I would have done without your aid.”

Chiss smiled, but Kirian said nothing. After they left the room Callo went down to breakfast feeling almost as if nothing had happened—except for the troubling memory of how Kirian had shied away from his embrace.

That afternoon Callo joined Lord Ander in the boy’s workroom and watched him finish a portrait of his tutor while waiting for the boy to be free. Sugetre was a center for the arts, Queen Efalla encouraging them with her patronage, so Callo had seen examples of the finest drawing, painting and sculpture. Ander’s work was not as dainty and highly-finished as the work now popular in the capital, but it had a vibrant life that made it appealing.

The painting Ander was finishing of the tutor Shan-il was very good. He had caught the awareness in the man’s eyes, and even the texture of his black hair. Callo looked at the tutor with an eye accustomed to sizing up an opponent, saw the lean muscles and graceful movements, and thought
swordsman
. He wondered what such a man was doing in this position, teaching the boy about mathematics and astronomy and politics, and the history of the Collared Lords.

Perhaps Dria Mar understood Ander’s weakness, and had tried to get a tutor to hone his leadership abilities. Manipulative as Sharpeyes was, at least the King was strong. He kept his unruly lords and mages from breaking out into rebellion, thus protecting the ordinary people of Righar. Ander was likeable and intelligent, and apparently a skilled color mage. In spite of the ability he would have to magically bind the
righ
, he would need more than those attributes to rule over Righar’s demanding nobility and bind its powerful mages to his will.

Ander turned his head as he heard a knock at the door. “Yes, who is it?”

Lord Zelan’s personal guard walked in. “My lord Ander. Lord Zelan awaits you at the stables, for the Hunt.”

“I’m not going on the stupid Hunt!”

“Lord Zelan said I was to bring you now, my lord, even if I had to carry you over my shoulder.”

Ander’s thin face flamed. “How dare you!” He cut himself off, waving the guard away. “I’d like to see you try, Obin. You don’t dare handle me like that. You tell my lord father he and the Hunt can . . .”

“My lord!” the guard said.

“Lord Ander,” Callo interrupted. “Surely this man will be disciplined if he returns without you.”

Ander’s jaw was still outthrust, his eyes glittering. “There aren’t any gods-cursed icetigers left. I won’t go!”

“Then tell your father that yourself, Lord Ander. Don’t put this guardsman between you and Lord Zelan’s anger. A king should not do such.”

Ander’s arrested gaze flew to Callo’s face. The guardsman’s worried eyes did, too. Then the boy said, “I don’t think King Martan would worry about such a thing.”

Callo shrugged. “That is probably true.”

Ander threw the book he was holding to the floor. Callo thought Ander went from the shrewd intelligence of a much-older boy back to childhood, in the blink of an eye. Perhaps this was usual for a boy in his teens; yet, these tantrums were not suitable for a King. The memory of King Ar’ok in Las’ash fled across his mind like the shadow of a hawk, bringing doubt with it.

“Oh, all right,” Ander said. “Obin, I will get my leathers and join Lord Zelan. If I am killed by ambush on this cursed Hunt you can thank yourself, Lord Callo!”

Callo bowed. Obin’s gaze was grateful. Callo wondered what Zelan would have done to punish him had he not succeeded in bringing the heir back with him. He had never heard ill of Zelan, but the Collared Lords in general were well known for their brutality when their wishes were crossed.

Callo rode out alone the next morning, refusing any company. He took Miri away from the manse, away from the little villages and their surrounding farmland, and headed up the slopes to the edge of the mountains where the icetigers had come from many years ago. It was deep summer now, so the snow had retreated to the very peaks of the mountains. Thornbushes and weeds blanketed the lower slopes. A hunter’s trail cut through the brush, just wide enough for Miri. It was rarely used now, he thought; Lord Zelan still hunted the big predators as his Collar commanded, but the big hunt parties were a thing of the past. Now it was only Zelan and a couple of aging Hunters, patrolling the area in a fruitless search for the ancient danger.

Miri was in a fine mood, almost prancing as she took the slope. They were traveling out of the worst of the heat, up into the foothills. After a while the work took the edge off Miri’s restlessness, and the slope grew steeper. Callo continued on, stopping for lunch and to water Miri at a clear stream, then rode another candlemark or so before finding a place that suited him. He dropped Miri’s rein over a tangle of branches and went on a little way, to where a rocky area created a small clearing.

There he drew his sword. He raised it, saluting Jashan and closing his eyes in a wordless prayer before sheathing it again and settling onto one of the rocks. Then he braced himself and began to relax the internal barrier he had come to depend upon so much.

Using great care, he allowed the barrier to lower slightly. The twin mage powers rose up, almost eager for release as if they had will of their own. Callo tried to allow just a little of the energy out. He had done something like this once before, after he had defeated the Black Tide—but then Kirian had helped him, and the energies had overcome him anyway as he sought release in sex. Now the strain was worse, much worse. He dared not have anyone around him while he tried this experiment; he was afraid they would not live through it.

The ku’an magery could be kept back, he thought; after all, he had done so for most of his life. It was the new power, the color magery, that fought his authority. He tried to ease the endless pressure and felt the magery flow out of him into the sunlight. He struggled to release only a little, just enough to save his sanity.

White light rose behind his eyelids. A river of power flowed, exultant, through his veins and out to his fingertips. He threw back his head in sheer pleasure at the beauty of it as well as the indescribable relief. Just as he began to laugh with the joy of it, the energy shifted, changing from pleasure to fire, and burned an arc of pain through every nerve.