The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  “He’s right,” Camber had to admit. “Which definitely brings us back to the original reason for our meeting. Gregory, you and Jesse have been patrolling the roads the longest of any of us. Any suggestions?”

  As Gregory glanced at his son, Jesse gave a shrug. Though he was the youngest present, and had said little thus far, it was he who had led most of the patrolling action in Ebor, since his father was frequently too busy with other duties to do so. The experience had given him a maturity far beyond his sixteen years.

  “It’s hard to be specific, Your Grace. Usually those who are attacked don’t recognize their attackers. I don’t suppose you’d seen any of yours before?”

  “No, but I would know them if I saw them again. For that matter, I could link with you and let you have a look, and Joram could do the same with Davin and Ansel. Would that help?”

  “I’ll say it would,” Ansel chimed in. “The main part of our problem has always been one of identification. But Deryni evidence against Deryni culprits carries rather better weight than human word against Deryni, don’t you agree, Jesse?”

  Jesse nodded eagerly. “Absolutely. I don’t know much about all those other things you were discussing earlier, Your Grace, except to be scared, but I do know many of the local lords who ride the Dolban and Ebor roads. If you and Joram can identify particular offenders, the MacRories and I can find some pretense to round them up. At least it would get them out of circulation for a while.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable plan to me,” Camber agreed. “Unless anyone else has something to add, why don’t we adjourn, and Joram and I will brief our young associates here. Jeb, will that satisfy your objections for now? I see nothing further to be gained tonight, and it’s been a very long day for all of us.”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement to that, followed by a general exodus of all but the five in question, though Camber knew that Gregory, at least, would be waiting outside, and probably Jebediah. As soon as the room had cleared, Joram settled down with his nephews to either side and quickly went into rapport with both of them at once, for they were well accustomed to such interaction. Camber turned his attention to Jesse.

  “Well, Jesse, do you have any particular approach you prefer to use for establishing rapport with someone new? I don’t believe we’ve worked together before, have we?”

  “No, sir, to both questions,” Jesse murmured, looking across at Camber trustingly. “My father trained me, though, if that’s any help. I know you’ve worked with him.”

  Camber smiled and stood slowly, signing for the boy to remain seated. “Well, this should be easy, then,” he said, resting one hand on Jesse’s near shoulder and moving quietly around to stand behind him. “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired, so let’s just make this a nice, easy, passive link, and I’ll feed you the information as soon as you’re ready.” He slid his hands to rest on both the boy’s shoulders, kneading the tight neck muscles briefly with his thumbs.

  “Center down and relax,” he breathed, feeling the boy draw breath deeply and let it out in response, already accommodating to his instruction and first tenuous contact. “Excellent. This is going to be a pleasure, I can tell. Breathe again now, and let it out.…”

  With that, he dropped down two levels at once and found the boy’s consciousness sinking in perfect unison with his, approaching a linkage and touching and merging as smoothly as he could have wished for. He closed his eyes in response to the growing rapport, knowing that Jesse no longer saw through sight either, then simply let his hands rest easily on the boy’s shoulders, the need for physical contact no longer necessary except that it would have been more bother to move than simply to remain standing where he was.

  Jesse’s shields receded with a practiced ease which Camber should have expected, knowing Gregory, and the link was forged and the memory of the encounter near Dolban exchanged with no more effort than the wink of an eye. A moment he lingered in quiet balance and communion, then withdrew easily before the returning shields and opened his eyes to see Jesse turning his head to look at him. The boy wore a pleased and fascinated smile, as if he, too, had been surprised at the ease with which they had adjusted to one another.

  “Well done, lad,” Camber murmured, giving the boy’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze before he sat down again. “There’s no doubt whose son you are. Do you recognize any of our young toughs?”

  “I surely do, Your Grace. I’ll get our men started rounding them up the first thing in the morning, and check with Earl Davin and Lord Ansel, as well. And thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Jesse.”

  He watched appreciatively as the boy went out to join his father, then turned to see Joram watching him. Davin and Ansel were already gone, and Joram was smiling slightly.

  “Just offhand, I’d say young Jesse gave you a pleasant surprise,” Joram said.

  “Just offhand, I’d say you were correct.” Camber indulged in an enormous stretch and yawn, then stood. “Either I’m getting better in my old age, or else the younger generation is better trained. That Jesse is as smooth as silk, even better than Gregory. I shiver to think what he might be like with some Michaeline or Gabrilite training.”

  “My, how we have spoiled you,” Joram replied. “I don’t remember your saying that sort of thing before you turned Michaeline.”

  Camber grinned and threw his arm around his son’s shoulders as they moved toward the double doors, quickly casting out with his mind to be certain the other side was clear of all but Jebediah before he replied.

  “You’re absolutely right. I was an insensitive, unappreciative sod. Now, let’s get back to Valoret and get some sleep. Lord knows what those bloody regents will have in store for us tomorrow!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  But at present it is expedient for thee, and for thy house, to be grieved.

  —III Hennas 7:12

  Camber invited Rhys and Evaine and Jebediah to join him and Joram in his quarters the following evening, ostensibly to dine, though Rhys had brought his medical kit. The Court was in deep mourning until after Cinhil’s funeral, now less than a week away, so no formal meals were being served in the great hall. Most of the staff were taking simple fare in their own quarters.

  Cinhil’s body continued to lie in state in the castle’s chapel, guarded by selected members of the Company of Royal Foot and a succession of mostly human nobles chosen by the regents as honorary sentinels. The princes were brought daily to pray beside their father’s bier, and were even permitted to stand short watches with the regular honor guards, so long as at least one regent was present, but other than that, and Alroy’s brief appearance with the heralds and regents at his acclamation as king, the boys remained in seclusion. Suspension of regular court activities for the week lent an extra air of heaviness and gloom to the already bleak winter days.

  That air was scarcely alleviated by the tone of the meeting which Camber now convened with his children and Jebediah, for after a meager supper, the five must settle in to further explore the limits of Rhys’s rogue talent. They decided that Jebediah should be Rhys’s first subject of the evening, since he had not been involved in the incident with Gregory. The Michaeline grand master seemed resigned but curious as he settled into the chair provided for him before the fireplace and Rhys perched on the arm beside him. Evaine took a place slightly behind and on Rhys’s side, while Camber and Joram drew up stools opposite to observe. Rhys rubbed cold hands together and glanced at Jebediah wistfully.

  “All right, I’m not going to tell you any more about this than you already know,” he said softly. “I’ve worked with you only a little more than I had with Gregory, so we should be starting from about the same place. Just relax now, as if I were about to work a normal Healing function. Are you ready?”

  “Ready as ever,” Jebediah replied, leaning his head against the back of the chair and closing his eyes.

  With a glance at Camber, Rhys raised his hands to either side of Jebediah’s head and slid h
is fingers into the dark, greying hair, letting his thumbs rest against the temples. Jebediah did not flinch at the contact, though a flutter of his eyelids did betray his tension. Without giving him time to worry about it further, Rhys sent his mind questing outward, slipping past Jebediah’s well-disciplined shields along the familiar healing pathways and halting unerringly before the triggerpoint.

  For just an instant he paused, confirming what a deep-rooted part of him already knew, then extended just a hair’s breadth and felt the function snap into place. Jebediah’s shields and abilities all vanished in a heartbeat, there one second and gone in the same. He twitched at the awareness of what had happened, and opened his eyes as Rhys, with a muffled little cry, glanced at Camber.

  “Sweet Jesu, it worked!” he whispered, drawing away from Jebediah far enough to peer anxiously at his face. “I was sure it would, but a part of me still doubted. Are you all right, Jeb?”

  Jebediah, his eyes as wide as they would go, raised one hesitant hand to a temple and then let it slip down his cheek and fall weakly to his lap.

  “God damn, that’s the oddest thing I’ve ever felt!”

  “Shall I make it right?” Rhys asked. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Jebediah nodded tentatively. “No, don’t put it back right away. If you’re going to study this, somebody’s got to put up with it for a while.” He shook his head. “It’s as if I’m trapped inside my own mind.” He glanced at the door and shook his head again. “I can’t project as far as the door. I can’t even sense the four of you, except by what I see with my eyes. Mother of God, is this what it is to be human?”

  “I—suppose it is,” Rhys said uneasily. “Do the rest of you want to read him? The effect feels the same as Gregory to me, but I could be mistaken.”

  In succession, they read Jebediah, who endured their touches and their probes in typically stoic fashion. Other than his awareness that he once had had power, there was nothing to indicate what he was or had been. And when Rhys went softly back into his mind and blocked his memory, even that was gone. Camber, reading as deeply as he could, could detect no telltale sign. Had he not known Jebediah, he would not have believed that such a thing was possible.

  Rhys restored Jebediah’s awareness of what had been done, for they needed his on-going assessment of what was happening, at least from a non-Deryni viewpoint; but he did not restore the triggerpoint yet. There was no doubt in his mind that he could do that. Instead, he opened his medical kit and began assembling a succession of small cups of wine, dumping in powders from various packets and stirring them carefully.

  Merasha was the substance which gave them the most concern, for it was merasha which was best known to humans as a drug specific to Deryni in its action. A high enough dosage could act as a sedative in a human, but even a minute amount was sufficient to disrupt Deryni function for hours, incapacitating a Deryni’s physical coordination as well as extending the insidious mind-muddling effect for which merasha was so famous. They had decided to try a moderate dose on Jebediah first, of about the strength any Deryni might expect if detained by nervous human warders.

  Jebediah’s expression, as Rhys put the cup into his hand, was one of resigned distaste. Like all formally trained Deryni, he had experienced various such drugs and was well aware of the effect of this one, had he been in his normal state. None of them knew how he would react in his present condition.

  “Do you want me to drink the whole thing?” Jebediah asked, peering into the cup suspiciously. “It certainly looks like a lot.”

  “I used a lot of wine. It should diminish the aftertaste. Go ahead and drink it down.”

  “You’re the Healer,” Jebediah replied, tossing off the dose and automatically making a face, then raising one eyebrow in surprise. “Hey, that did reduce the aftertaste.” He gave the cup back to Rhys. “Are you sure there was merasha in it?”

  Rhys raised an eyebrow at Jebediah, though his thought to Camber belied his next words.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your tongue, at least,” he said, leaning out to take another cup from the table. “Try this one. The first was a blind, just in case you’d talked yourself into an expected reaction.”

  As Jebediah shrugged and took the second cup, Camber watched even more closely, knowing that this was the blind and not the first cup. Jebediah drained the second cup as efficiently as he had drained the first, again shaking his head as he handed it back to Rhys.

  “No aftertaste to that one, either. And none of the classic drug-signs. My hands are steady, my vision is clear, no nausea.…” He grinned. “Looks like your talent is good for preventing a merasha reaction, all right—though the cure may be worse than the disease. I’m putting on a brave facade for you, but if you tell me you can’t put things back aright, I’m likely to go to pieces on you.”

  “I can put things back,” Rhys said confidently, raising an eyebrow in thoughtful deliberation. “Can you feel that, other than physically?” he asked, laying a hand on Jebediah’s forehead and extending his mental touch to probe the areas usually affected by the drug. Even with perceptions stretched to their uttermost limits, he could detect no sign that merasha was in his subject’s system.

  After a few seconds, Jebediah shook his head.

  “All I can feel is your hand.”

  “That’s what I thought. Evaine? Anybody else?”

  In turn, the others confirmed what Rhys had already tried. With a sigh, the Healer laid his hands on either side of Jebediah’s head again and reached out toward the triggerpoint.

  “Brace yourself, if you can. The drug has had enough time to enter your system completely. I think it’s going to hit you like a catapult.”

  The Michaeline doubled up with pain as the return was triggered, and Rhys caught him to his chest and tried to ease some of the effect. As the other three entered rapport with him, Rhys confirmed full restoration—and merasha disruption—of all Jebediah’s Deryni senses. Wordlessly he signalled for Evaine to hand him yet another cup from the table, holding it to the stricken knight’s pale lips and encouraging him to drink. The medication would not neutralize all the effects of the merasha—nothing could do that except time and sleep—but at least it would help the nausea and splitting headache.

  Rhys triggered the block again, this time without asking Jebediah first, and that enabled the grand master to get the contents of the third cup swallowed and to lie back in the chair again, exhausted, color gradually beginning to return to his face as the new drug took effect. After a few minutes, Rhys restored him again, keeping a firm hold on his pain centers, and this time the backlash was bearable. Jebediah winced and closed his eyes, moaning a little as he brought both hands to his forehead and rubbed it gingerly, but at least he did not double up. After a few minutes more, he was able to open his eyes and look at them again.

  “It was really bad, wasn’t it?” Rhys asked softly.

  Jebediah managed a weak smile. “It still is, my friend—but it’s bearable. Jesu, do they really use that high a dosage in the prisons?” His speech was labored and required all his discipline.

  “That’s my information,” Rhys replied. “When I blocked you that second time, did it help at all?”

  Jebediah thought about it for a moment. “I think it did. It’s hard to tell for certain, though. I was so woozy already, I can’t be sure. God, I’d rather take a dozen battle wounds than go through that again!”

  “Well, I hope neither will be necessary,” Rhys said. “I want you to know that your ordeal is appreciated, though. Do you want to rest for a while?”

  “I’m not good for anything else,” Jebediah said wistfully, shaking his head, but gently. “Just put me to sleep and let me go away for a while. Maybe when I come back, it will all be like a bad dream.”

  “Your physician agrees with the diagnosis and the prescription,” Rhys grinned, putting one hand under Jebediah’s arm as the knight shifted forward to stand, and signalling Joram to support him on the other side. “L
et’s just get you over to Joram’s bed and tuck you in for the night. You’ll feel a lot better in the morning.”

  “Have to,” Jebediah murmured thickly, as he staggered off between the two. “Felt any worse, and I’d be dead.”

  As the two helped Jebediah into the bed and got him settled, Camber glanced across at Evaine. He was more shaken than he would have admitted to Rhys over what he had just seen and witnessed, and he knew with a certainty born of working many years with the Healer that his daughter would be the next to taste what Jebediah had experienced. She knew it, too—he could see it in her eyes—and he went to her and held her close in his arms for just a moment, surrendering her only when Rhys and Joram returned.

  With a bright, feigned smile, Evaine arranged herself in the chair which Jebediah had lately vacated. Rhys picked up another cup from the table and glanced at it thoughtfully; then, almost as an afterthought, he handed it to Joram and sat on the chair arm beside his wife.

  “Before I have you drink that, let’s just make certain that the effect works in you the way it did with Jeb.” He laid his hands gently on either side of her head. “If you can, give me a little resistance with your shields—a lot of resistance,” he amended. “Sweet Jesu, the triggerpoint isn’t protected by normal shields at all! I can’t get past your shields to any other part of you, but the triggerpoint is there, totally exposed. Can you feel me next to it?”

  She whispered, “No,” and Rhys glanced at Camber and Joram.

  “Do the two of you want to link with me and watch me do it, the way you did with Gregory? I don’t think it’s going to make a bloody bit of difference, but you’re welcome to try.”

  Apprehensively, Camber laid his hand on Rhys’s arm, slipping into familiar rapport and feeling Joram do the same. With Rhys’s guidance, they could sense the area to which he was referring, intertwined among the partially-exposed Healing pathways, but Camber knew that he could never have located that point on his own. Joram knew it, too. That aspect was almost certainly a Healing function—the ability to sense levels that other Deryni not so gifted could not. He wondered whether the triggering of that point was also a Healing function, and not for the first time wished that the Healing talent had been among his gifts.