The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  Even an arcane confrontation was not a certain victory, though here Camber would have the decided edge. Jebediah would not be expecting a psychic ambush. Alister had always been somewhat reticent about using his Deryni abilities except for inner exploration, whereas Camber had honed all his talents to a fine edge.

  But Jebediah knew Alister’s mental touch intimately. Part of the great attraction between the two men had always been their similar levels of potential and intuition, the groundpoint for frequent communion of minds in deep spiritual sharing—a sensitive side to the grand master which few other warriors even suspected.

  Yes, given the alternatives, a psychic approach was undoubtedly the best; but it would have to be on Camber’s terms from the beginning. If Camber were to succeed, he must overwhelm Jebediah’s defenses before he even realized that battle had been engaged—and that would depend upon how much control he could secure before Jebediah realized he was not dealing with Alister. Total success would enable him to take Jebediah into his confidence and win him as an ally; even partial failure would make of Jebediah a prisoner or, worse, a casualty. Camber did not even want to think about the latter possibility.

  Whatever the outcome, the task must be begun. Only a few seconds had elapsed while Camber weighed the possibilities, but now he must make his move or risk complicating an already delicate situation. Shifting his weight uncomfortably, he chanced a hesitant, sidelong glance at Jebediah, allowing the pale, sea-ice eyes to mirror some of the real pain which Alister would have felt at Jebediah’s jealous words.

  “I’m—sorry, Jeb. I hadn’t realized.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you did,” Jebediah whispered, head still bowed.

  Wetting his lips nervously, Camber continued, letting the part of him that was Alister come to the fore, there at the most surface level of his awareness.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked. “It’s a fault to become so wrapped up in one’s own affairs that one hasn’t time for comfort. It must have been terrible for you.”

  Jebediah dared to lift his head, though he still could not bear to meet the sea-ice eyes. “Aye, it was terrible. I doubt you can even imagine how it hurt to see you struggling alone, before Camber’s funeral. You wouldn’t share your burden. You totally shut me out. I never did understand why.”

  As he finally looked Camber full in the face, Camber realized that this was the opening he had been trying to build, to set Jebediah up for the psychic encounter which would decide both their futures.

  Swallowing, Camber returned Jebediah’s gaze, letting just a trace of Alister’s most surface levels, of concern and remorse, open to the other’s query. Instantly he saw a spark of hopefulness igniting in the other’s eyes, caught Jebediah’s quick intake of breath as he finally met something in his friend’s mind beyond rigid shields.

  “Dare I hope?” Jebediah murmured.

  “You know it cannot be as it was before,” Camber breathed, neither opening further nor shutting down what contact had been made. “I have promises to guard now which were not mine before.”

  Jebediah nodded, wide-eyed, accepting without question.

  “But if you are willing to yield control,” Camber continued, “to let me be the one who guides the depth of our exchange—then perhaps I can share some of what has occupied my mind these many months of separation. Later, when I am more certain of my own limitations, perhaps a more equal sharing will be possible.”

  A shy, hopeful smile twitched at Jebediah’s mouth, almost out of place on the rugged, handsome face. “Hardly the promise of our former communion, but I understand the reason. You will forgive me if I mourn that necessity just a little?”

  “I should always forgive you, Jeb,” Camber answered quietly, himself mourning the necessity as he acknowledged his own intentions. “Shall we sit here on the steps? It’s been a long day, and my bones ache from the cold.”

  As Camber drew his mantle closer and sat on the second step, easing his back against the next, Jebediah folded his lean body to a seat on the bottommost one without a word, the tooled scabbard of his sword stretched between them along the length of his outstretched, booted legs.

  “This will be rather different from the old days,” the grand master said, taking a deep breath as he raised his eyes to Camber. “I’m as nervous as before a battle.”

  “I know,” Camber replied.

  He dropped his hands to Jebediah’s shoulders and pulled him back to lean against his knee, at the same time gathering his own essence deep within him, so that only the Alister part of him might show at first. As he raised his right hand, the one which wore the bishop’s ring, he hesitated for just an instant to clench and unclench his fist as though warming his fingers—long enough for the purple gemstone to catch Jebediah’s eye and remind him, if only on some deep, inner level, of the reason for this unequal sharing.

  Then he brought that hand to the back of Jebediah’s neck, to cup the already tilting head in the fan of his fingers. Jebediah responded immediately to the familiar touch, breathing out with a sigh and letting his head loll against Camber’s hand, eyes fluttering dreamily as he began to open to the contact. Camber let a little more of Alister’s personality seep through the bond being forged and felt Jebediah’s consciousness stilling in further response, no hint of suspicion yet fogging the clarity of that well-ordered mind.

  “Let go now,” Camber said softly, as much a thought as a whisper, as he stretched to the furthest limits of revealment which he dared, using only Alister’s memories.

  And to his amazement, Jebediah did let go, taking the sparseness of the Alister contact for natural caution as his old friend explored the limits to which he might share and still retain the security of his office.

  Camber marveled at the naive trust, at the same time hating himself for having to betray it. Gathering all his resources for one massive onslaught, quick and without warning, he poised and then swooped, seizing so many avenues simultaneously that Jebediah never had a chance to realize what was happening until it was too late to resist effectively.

  Jebediah gasped and flinched under Camber’s hands at the force of the contact, mind staggering with the shock of an alien consciousness overwhelming his own. He could not do more. Physically and psychically blind now, he struggled helplessly against the bonds already formed, shrinking from the constant new incursions, fruitlessly trying to prevent the imposition of knowledge which he had not expected, had not wanted, would not have considered, had he retained control of his own mind.

  Only in sheer body reflex was he at all able to resist Camber’s bidding, warrior’s muscles responding to the threat even if the warrior’s mind could not. Almost independent of his mind’s frantic struggling, his right hand crawled to the dagger at his right side, closing half-paralyzed fingers around the ivory hilt, dragging the blade slowly from its sheath.

  Camber saw the movement, and shifted quickly to block the rising hand. Relenting not one iota from his task of education, he twisted around to straddle the now-sprawling Michaeline and redouble his assault, left hand locked around Jebediah’s powerful wrist in a separate war of strength as his will forced knowledge into Jebediah’s mind, giving all the necessary details, from Alister’s death to the present.

  Jebediah shook his head in denial and cried out, a despairing animal moan of grief, as he stared up at Camber with blank, unseeing eyes. His left hand lashed out to twist itself in the neck of Camber’s mantle, pulling Camber down closer as the dagger hand rose slowly against the grasp of Camber’s, nearer and nearer to Camber’s throat.

  But Camber would not be distracted. Relentlessly he drove home the final realizations: the benefits already accrued to Cinhil; the smallness of their numbers who knew the truth of Camber-Alister; the consequences if the play did not go on, in terms of anti-Deryni backlash already brewing in small ways among the restored human nobility; the trap of all of them who were now committed to play out the charade—and that Camber and his children were willing to make any necess
ary sacrifice for the sake of Gwynedd. Was Jebediah?

  With that, Camber disengaged from all controls save one: a touch which would bring swift unconsciousness and, if necessary, death. At the same time, he bade his long-borrowed shape melt away from him, his own Camber face gazing down at Jebediah in hope and compassion. The dagger was resting against his throat now, near to drawing blood, but he ignored its deadly pressure, praying that Jebediah’s good common sense would keep him from rejecting what had been revealed and forcing Camber to use his ultimate weapon.

  And Jebediah, sensing his release but not yet the full significance of what had happened, arched his body from under Camber’s in that first instant of freedom and rolled with him to the floor, to straddle his former captor and sit upon his chest, dagger pressed close against the quickened pulse, his other hand twisted in the mantle to choke out what life the dagger spared.

  Camber went totally limp, quicksilver eyes beseeching as they stared calmly up into Jebediah’s crazed ones, arms outflung to either side in an attitude of total physical surrender.

  And finally Jebediah saw, and knew, and realized what he was about to do. With a strangled gasp, his eyes once more reflected reason and his hand opened in reflex horror at what it held. Camber could almost see the succession of memories which flashed through Jebediah’s mind as he froze there, open-palmed hand still poised beside Camber’s neck, though the dagger now lay on the floor beside the silver-gilt head.

  Then the staring eyes closed, and the frantically working throat choked out a single sob, and Jebediah was collapsing to weep unashamedly in Camber’s arms.

  Slowly Camber eased from under Jebediah’s weight, struggling to a cramped sitting position, the while cradling the sobbing Jebediah in his arms as he would have soothed one of his own children, as Jebediah mourned the loss of his friend and brother. After a while, when the sobs had subsided somewhat, Camber stroked the trembling head lightly, calling Jebediah back to the present.

  “I’m sorry I had to do that,” he finally whispered, when he was sure that Jebediah’s reason was once more regaining control over sheer emotion. “I suppose I should have told you sooner. You, of all people, had a right to know.

  “But we were paranoid, all of us. We thought—and rightly, for most, but not for you—that the fewer people who knew, the safer we would be. I almost didn’t tell you, even tonight, but I was afraid you were about to guess and that I wouldn’t be able to control your anger if you did. I almost couldn’t, as it was. I know now that I should never have done what I did in that hall this afternoon in front of you. I was afraid you might see something not of Alister in me.”

  With a loud sniff, Jebediah drew away, to wipe a sleeve across eyes and nose and sit up against the bottom of the stair, knees drawn close against his chest. Camber, too, took advantage of the opportunity to ease to a less-cramped position, though he would not have moved before that and disturbed Jebediah’s settling for all his body’s ease.

  “I—didn’t, really,” Jebediah murmured, responding to Camber’s last statement. “I mean, I realized that something was different, and I—I was jealous of Joram—but I never dreamed that it wasn’t Alister—or that it was you.”

  As he looked up, he made a visible effort to regain control of at least his expression, swallowing with difficulty and taking a deep breath to steady himself.

  “What—” He gulped and began again. “What would you have done, if you hadn’t been able to make me accept—this?”

  As he gestured toward Camber’s face, Camber pursed his lips and glanced down for an instant, then reached out to his final control and exerted the slightest amount of pressure as he looked up again.

  “I’m afraid I was not as honest as you would like to believe,” he whispered, as Jebediah felt the effect and reeled on the edge of unconsciousness. He released the pressure and the final control and grasped Jebediah’s upper arm in a steadying hold. “As you can see, I held back one last, desperate weapon. If I’d really had to use it—I’m not sure what I would have done.”

  Jebediah winced, nodding slowly in acceptance of that revelation. “You would have killed me,” he said, quite dispassionately. “And you would have been right. You couldn’t let me leave here as anything less than an ally. The cause you’ve been working for is far too important to endanger by my angry betrayal.” He paused. “My God, what agonies you must have endured in these past months since his death! Why, my disappointment was nothing beside your—”

  “Hush.” Camber held up a hand and shook his head. “You had a right to feel the way you did. Your grief was no less real for being based on a lie unknown to you. I wish I could have been more bold, to give you truth before today. He would never have subjected you to the loneliness and rejection which I forced upon you.”

  “No, but he would have understood the things you did,” Jebediah whispered. “And—had he been you, I think he might have done the same.”

  “Perhaps.”

  A moment of thoughtful silence, mutually shared, and then Jebediah drew breath and spoke again.

  “A year and more ago, I made you an offer, Camber-Alister,” he breathed, hardly daring to speak aloud in the solemnity of the moment. “I did not know you fully then, though I thought I did, but I offered you my help, to ease the burden which you carried. You refused me. And now I find I know you even less than I did then. But please do not refuse me again. Let me help.”

  For an instant, Camber searched the sorrowing eyes—bloodshot now, with their former weeping—reading the trust and loyalty which he had always known was there for Alister, and which he had sensed he might find for himself but had never dared to verify, for fear of losing all. As he stretched out his arm, to lay his right hand on Jebediah’s open palm, he let first Alister and then Camber flow out and mingle with the timidly offered Jebediah, gasping with the sheer delight which the unexpected three-way interaction evoked.

  He had not realized the fullness of the Alister part of him before this very instant, feeling it interact with the mind of the man who had known and loved Alister Cullen perhaps better than any other living person. Jebediah, too, was astonished at the contact, his own memories and experiences of Alister merging and fusing with the pseudo-Alister almost as if a physical presence held that essence and urged its participation in this strange sharing which neither Jebediah nor Camber had dreamed possible.

  They sat there, wrists clasped across the space between them, for nearly an hour, delighting in their mutual discoveries, sorrowing at their disappointments, even laughing aloud from time to time as some new facet of sharing fell beneath their scrutiny. Then finally they stirred, Camber to resume the shape of the man he now understood far, far better than he had ever dreamed possible, and Jebediah to watch in awed fascination as a new friend took back the form of an older one who was not totally lost after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory.

  —I Thessalonians 2:5–6

  The tale of Camber’s sainting was not finished, much to Camber’s distaste. The Council of Bishops, when it reconvened early the next morning in the castle’s great hall, showed every sign of being as awful as Camber had feared. A festival atmosphere prevailed. He even overheard one monk remark to another that today’s testimony would probably be almost boring, the question no longer being whether sanctity should be accorded Camber of Culdi, but to what degree!

  That bothered him, as he and Joram wound their way among the milling clerics and tried to reach their seats, though he had forced himself to accept the probability that canonization was now a foregone conclusion. He had consoled himself by ensuring that, if it was inevitable, further testimony by those who knew the truth could not be turned in such a way as to reveal the secret they were preserving at such cost. His principals, now including Jebediah, had all been briefed as thoroughly as he dared the night before. Unless something total
ly unexpected happened, the hearing would progress to the logical conclusion which Queron and the Servants of Saint Camber had planned all along. Compared to the day before, he felt almost safe—at least from discovery by mortal agents involved in the situation. Immortal agents were quite another story; he still had not resolved where he might stand with his Creator as a consequence of what he was allowing to be done.

  As he took his seat, he saw Jebediah come onto the dais with Jaffray’s chamberlain, apparently arguing over the arrangement of additional stools for clarks who would take down the proceedings. He could not hear what they were saying, but after a few minutes Archbishop Oriss got up from his chair to the right of the dais—he having been relegated to a lower position to accommodate the king’s throne—and suddenly there was no argument. The chamberlain bowed, Jebediah bowed, and the stools were returned to the places they had occupied before the argument started. Jebediah, with a shrug and a quick glance in Camber’s direction, melted back into the crowd still milling in the center of the hall and disappeared through a side door, through which the king would shortly enter.

  Many seemed to take their cues from that, moving noisily into the three rows of chairs along each side of the hall and beginning to settle in their places. In the packed gallery above the far end of the hall, Camber thought he saw a flash of Rhys’s red hair, but he could not be certain.

  He was not given time to ponder further, though, for at that moment, Bishop Eustace slipped into place beside him with a hearty greeting. The jocular Eustace could not fail to notice his colleague’s subdued response, and, on pursuing the matter, learned that his distinguished fellow had spent much of the previous night in prayer for guidance—which was true, if not in precisely the sense that Eustace understood it—and had concluded that he should accede to the will of the majority of the Council of Bishops when it came to the vote, counting himself too personally involved, however indirectly, to pass objective judgment. Eustace, human that he was, could hardly be faulted for not catching all the shades of Camber’s meaning and thinking he was only tired.