The Song of Homana (42 page)

“I admit it. There are many things I do not know.”

Duncan prowled the room with a stiff, angry stride. He reminded me of a mountain cat, suddenly, stalking down its prey. “The Gate,” he repeated. “Asar-Suti’s Gate. The Gate to the Seker’s world.”

The words were strange. Not the Old Tongue; something
far older, something that spoke of foulness. “Demons,” I said, before I could stop.

“Asar-Suti is more than a demon. He is the god of the netherworld. The Seker himself—who made and dwells in darkness. He is the font of Ihlini power.” He stopped pacing. He stood quite still. “In Valgaard—Tynstar shares that power.”

I recalled how easily he had trapped me in my bed, seeking to take my life. I recalled how he had changed the ruby from red to black. I remembered how it was he had stolen Homana from my uncle. I remembered Bellam’s body. If he could do all of that while he was
out
of Valgaard, what could he do within?

Duncan was at the door. He turned back, his face set in stark lines of grief and determination. “I would ask no man to risk himself in such a thing as this.”

“Alix risked herself for me when I lay shackled in Atvian iron.”

“Alix was not the Mujhar of Homana.”

“No.” I did not smile. “She carried the seed of the prophecy in her belly, and events can change events.”

I saw the shock of realization in his face. The risk he spoke of was real, but no greater than what Alix had faced. Had she died in my rescue, or somehow lost the child, the prophecy might have ended before it was begun.

“I will go,” I said quietly. “There is nothing left but to do it.”

He stood in the doorway. For a long moment he said nothing at all, seemingly incapable of it, and then he nodded a little. “If you meet up with Tynstar, Carillon, you will have a powerful weapon.”

I waited.

“Electra miscarried the child.”

As one, my Homanan troop pulled horses to a ragged halt. I heard low-voiced comments, oaths made and broken, prayers to the gods. I did not blame them. No one had expected this.

No one, perhaps, except the Cheysuli. They did not seem troubled by the place. They merely waited, mounted and uncloaked, while the sun flashed off their gold.

A chill ran down my spine. I suppressed it and reined in my fidgeting horse. Duncan, some distance away, rode over to ask about the delay.

“Look about you,” I said solemnly. “Have you seen its like before?”

He shrugged. “We have come over the Molon Pass. This is Solinde. We encroach upon Tynstar’s realm. Did you think it would resemble your own?”

I could not say what I thought it might resemble. Surely not this. I only dreamed of places like this.

We had crossed the Bluetooth River twelve days out of Mujhara: nine Homanans, nine Cheysuli, Rowan and Gryffth, myself and Duncan. Twenty-two men to rescue Alix, to take her back from Tynstar. Now, as I looked around, I doubted we could do it.

The Northern Wastes of Homana lay behind us. Now we faced Solinde, having come down from the Molon Pass, with Valgaard still before us. And yet it was obvious we drew closer. The land reflected the lair.

Icy winds blew down from the pass. Winter was done with in Homana, but across the Bluetooth the chill never quite left the land. It amazed me the Cheysuli could go bare-armed, though I knew they withstood hardship better than Homanans.

Snow still patched the ground beneath the trees, mantling the rocky mountains. Great defiles fell away into canyons, sheer and dark and wet from melting snow. All around us the world was a great, dark, slick wound, bleeding slowly in the sunlight. Someone had riven the earth.

Even the trees reflected the pain of the land. They were wracked and twisted, as if some huge cold hand had swept across them in a monstrous fit of temper. Rocks were split open in perfect halves and quarters; some were no more than powder where once a boulder had stood. But most of them had shapes. Horrible, hideous shapes, as if nightmares had been shaped into stone so all could share the horror.

“We draw close to Valgaard,” Duncan said. “This has been the tourney-field of the Ihlini.”

I looked at him sharply. “What do you say?”

“Ihlini power is inbred,” he explained, “but the control must be taught. An Ihlini child has no more knowledge of his abilities than a Cheysuli child; they know they have magic at their beck, but no knowledge of how to use it. It must be—practiced.”

I glanced around incredulously. “You say these—shapes—are what the Ihlini have made?”

Duncan’s horse stomped, scraping iron-shod hoof against cold black stone. The sudden sound echoed in the canyon. “You know the three gifts of the Cheysuli,” he said quietly. “I thought you knew what the Ihlini claimed.”

“I know they can make life out of death,” I said sharply. “One Ihlini fashioned a lion out of a knife.”

“There is that,” Duncan agreed. “They have the power to alter the shapes of things that do not live.” His hand swept out to indicate the rocks. “You have felt another of their gifts: the power to quicken age. With the touch of a hand, an Ihlini can make a man old, quickening the infirmities that come with years.” I knew it too well, but said nothing. “There is the possession I have spoken of, when
they take the mind and soul and keep it. And they can take the healing from a wound. There is also the art of illusion. What is, is not; what is not, seems to be. Those gifts, Carillon, and all shadings in between. That is a facet of Asar-Suti. The Seker, who lends his magic to those who will ask.”

“But—all Ihlini have magic. Do they not?”

“All Ihlini have magic. But not all of them are Tynstar.” He looked around at the twisted trees and shapechanged rocks. “You see what is Tynstar’s power, and how he passes it on. We near the gate of Asar-Suti.”

I looked at my men. The Homanans were white-faced and solemn, saying nothing. I did not doubt they were afraid—
I
was afraid—but neither would they give up. As for the Cheysuli, I had no need to ask. Their lives belonged to the gods whose power, I hoped, outweighed that of Tynstar or Asar-Suti, the Seker of the netherworld.

Duncan nudged his horse forward. “We must make camp for the night. The sun begins to set.”

We rode on in loud silence, necks prickling against the raw sensation of power. It oozed out of the earth like so much seepage from a mudspring.

We camped at last behind the shoulder of a canyon wall that fell down from the darkening sky to shield us against the night wind. The earth’s flesh was quite thin. Here and there the skeleton broke through, stone bones that glistened in the sunset with a damp, sweaty sheen. Tree roots coiled against the shallow soil like serpents seeking warmth. One of my Homanans, seeking wood for a fire, meant to hack off a few spindly, wind-wracked limbs with his heavy knife and pulled the whole tree out of the canyon wall. It was a small tree, but it underlined the transience of life near Valgaard.

We made a meal out of what we carried in our packs: dried meat, flat journey-bread loaves, a measure of sweet, dark sugar. And wine. We all had wine. The horses we fed on the grain we carried with us, since grazing was so light. We melted snow for water. But once our bellies were full, we had time to think of what we did.

I sat huddled in my heaviest cloak for too long a time. I could not rid myself of the ache in my bones or the
knowledge that we all might die. And so, when I could do it inconspicuously, I got up and went away from the small encampment. I left the men to their stilted conversations and gambling; I went to find Duncan.

I saw him at last when I was ready to give up. He stood near the canyon wall staring into the dark distances. His very stillness made him invisible, it was only the shine of the moon against his earring that gave his presence away. And so I went near, waited for acknowledgment, and saw how rigid his body was.

He had pulled on a cloak at last. It was dark, like my own, blending with the night. The earring glinted in his hair. “What does he do with her?” he asked. “What does he do
to
her?”

I had wondered the same myself. But I forced reassurance from my mouth. “She is strong, Duncan. Stronger than many men. I think Tynstar will meet his match in her.”

“This is Valgaard.” His voice was
raw
.

I swallowed. “She has the Old Blood.”

He turned abruptly. His face was shadowed as he leaned back against the stone canyon wall, setting his spine against it. “Here, the Old Blood may be as nothing.”

“You do not know that. Did Donal not get free? They were Ihlini, yet he took
lir
-shape before them. It may be that Alix will overcome them yet.”

“Ru’shalla-tu.”
He said it without much hope:
May it be so
. He looked at me then, black-eyed in the moonlight, and I saw the fear in his eyes. But he said nothing more of Alix. Instead he squatted down, still leaning against the canyon wall, and pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders. “Do you wonder what has become of Tourmaline?” he asked. “What has become of Finn?”

“Every day,” I answered readily “And each day I regret what has happened.”

“Would you change it, if Finn came to you and asked to take your
rujholla
as his
cheysula
?”

I found the nearest tree stump and perched upon it. Duncan waited for my answer, and at last I gave it. “I needed the alliance Rhodri would have offered, did I wed my sister to his son.”

“He gave it to you anyway.”

“
Lachlan
gave me aid. I got no alliance from Rhodri.” I shrugged. “I do not doubt we will make one when all this is done, but for now the thing is not formal. What Lachlan did was between a mercenary and a harper, not a Mujhar and High Prince of Ellas. There are distinct differences between the two.”

“Differences.” His tone was very flat. “Aye. Like the differences between Cheysuli and Homanan.”

I kicked away a piece of stone. “Do you regret that Donal must wed Aislinn? Cheysuli wed to Homanan?”

“I regret that Donal will know a life other than what I wish for him.” Duncan was little more than a dark blot against the rock wall. “In the clan, he would be merely a warrior—unless they made him a clan-leader. It is—a simpler life than that which faces a prince. I would wish that for him. Not what you will give him.”

“I have no choice. The gods—
your
gods—have given me none.”

He was silent a moment. “Then we must assume there is a reason for what he will become.”

I smiled, though it had only a little humor in it. “But you have an advantage, Duncan. You may see your son become a king. But
I
must die in order to give him the throne.”

Duncan was silent a long moment. He merged into the blackness of the wall as the moon was lost to passing clouds. I could no longer see him, but I knew where he was by the sound of a hand scraping against the earth.

“You have changed,” Duncan said at last. “I thought, at first, you had not—or very little. I see now I was wrong. Finn wrought well when he tempered the steel…but it is kingship that has honed the edge.”

I huddled within my cloak. “As you say, kingship changes a man. I seem to have no choice.”

“Necessity also changes,” Duncan said quietly. “It has changed me. I am nearly forty now, old enough to know my place and recognize my
tahlmorra
without chafing, but each day, of late, I wonder what might have happened had it been otherwise.” He shook his head. “We wonder. We ever wonder. The freedom to be without a
tahlmorra
.”
The moon was free again and I saw another headshake. “What would happen did I
keep
my son? The prophecy would be twisted. The Firstborn, who gave the words to us, would never live again. We would be the Cheysuli no longer.” I saw the rueful smile. “Cheysuli: children of the gods. But we can be fractious children.”

“Duncan—” I paused. “We will find her. And we will take her back from him.”

Moonlight slanted full across his face. “Women are lost often enough,” he said quietly. “In childbirth…accident…illness. A warrior may grieve in the privacy of his pavilion, but he does not show his feelings to the clan. It is not done. Such things are kept—private.” His hand was filled with pebbles. “But were Alix taken from me by this demon, I would not care who knew of my grief.” The pebbles poured from his hand in a steady, dwindling stream. “I would be without her…and empty.…”

Near midday we came to the canyon that housed Valgaard. We rode out of a narrow defile into the canyon proper and found ourselves hemmed in by the sheer stone walls that stretched high over our heads. We rode single-file, unable to go abreast, but as we went deeper into the canyon the walls fell away until we were human pebbles in a deep, rock-hard pocket.

“There,” Duncan said, “do you see?”

I saw, Valgaard lay before us: an eagle on its aerie. The fortress itself formed the third wall of the canyon, a pendant to the torque. But I thought the fit too snug. I thought the jewel too hard. No, not an eagle. A carrion bird, hovering over its corpse.

We were neatly boxed. Escape lay behind us, Valgaard before. I did not like the feeling.

“Lodhi!”
Gryffth gasped. “I have never seen such a thing!”

Nor had I. Valgaard rose up out of the glassy black basalt like a wave of solid ice, black and sharp, faceted like a gemstone. There were towers and turrets, barbicans and ramparts. It glittered, bright as glass, and smoke rose up around it. I could smell the stink from where we stood.

“The Gate,” Duncan said. “It lies within the fortress. Valgaard is its sentinel.”

“That is what causes the smoke?”

“The breath of the god,” Duncan said. “Like fire, it burns. I have heard the stories. There is blood within the stone: hot, white blood. If it should touch you, you will die.”

The canyon was clean of snow. Nothing marred its surface. It was smooth, shining basalt, lacking trees and grass. We had come out of winter into summer, and I found I preferred the cold.

“Asar-Suti,” Duncan said. “The Seker himself.” Very deliberately, he spat onto the ground.

“What are all those shapes?” Rowan asked. He meant the large chunks of stone that lay about like so many dice tossed down. Black dice, uncarved, and scattered across the ground. Each was large enough for a man to hide behind.