At his side was Kiri. Behind him two Ihlini.
"I wanted my lir," he said, "and Strahan gave her to me,"
Brennan unwound his arm from Hart.
Corin lifted his right hand and displayed the ruby signet ring that once had hugged Brennan's forefinger. "I wanted Homana," he said, "and Strahan promised me it." His eyes were odd, more iris than pupil, with an eerie, unfocused cast. "I wanted your title, I wanted your throne, I said I wanted your woman. And Strahan will give her to me."
"This is for Aileen?"
"Aileen and all the rest."
Brennan's belly rolled. "By all the gods of Homana—"
But Corin shook his head. "By the god of the netherworld."
"No—" Hart cried, but missed as Brennan leaped.
Corin was slammed back against the wall. Brennan's lingers dug deeply into the flesh of his throat. "I swear, I will save the Seker the trouble of freeing your soul of its shell."
"Brennan, no." Hart grasped at Brennan's arm and caught only cloth. "Brennan—"
The two Ihlini plucked Brennan from Corin and threw him across the cell. He tripped, fell, stayed down, legs asprawl as he hitched himself'up on both elbows and stared unblinkingly at Corin, who gestured the two away.
They went as far as the corridor.
"Your treatment is up to you." Corin told his brothers. "Certainly this sort of accommodation is not required."
"Provided we do what Strahan wants," Hart said sourly.
"There is that." Corin looked at the cot, the slops pail, the two dim candles. Then he looked at Brennan. "You have never been a fool. Not in all the years I have known you. Why be one now?"
Brennan turned his head and spat deliberately.
"Corin—" Hart moved forward, saw the Ihlini tense, stopped and held his ground. "Corin, you know what he has done to you—what he made you do—"
"I did it of my own choosing." His eyes should have been dilated black in the shadows, but his pupils were nonexistent. "There are things in this world I have always wanted, and this is how I get them,"
"By stealing them." Brennan's tone was deadly as he slowly sat up. "My title, my throne, my bride—"
"Aye!" Conn hissed. "Why should you want her? You never even bothered to write."
Brennan stood and tried to pull his crusted jerkin into something resembling a proper fit. "Obviously you did more than that while in Erinn,"
A thin white line banded Conn's mouth. "I did not come to speak of Aileen. I came to speak to you, to suggest the course you should take."
"To tell us, no doubt, that we should do as Strahan suggests," Hart said in dry disgust.
"It is best," Corin told him quietly. "You have the right of it, both of you." He flicked a glance at the silent Ihlini. "He does require men willing to become minions. Without that willingness, the Seker exerts force ... the results are—unattractive." His strange eyes focused a moment, than resumed their eerie cast."Strahan prefers to rule through men with minds, as you have said. But he is willing to do it another way." He brushed back a lock of hair, frowned, then continued. "If it becomes necessary, he will force you to accede, and use what is left of you."
"He can hardly rule through idiots," Brennan said.
"The people will never accept us."
"For a while they would. You would not go mad right away." Corin shrugged. "It would take time, during which Strahan could firm his grasp on the thrones of Solinde and Homana. Eventually, of course, no wits would be left in your heads, and you would be locked away. But by then, the damage would be done." He looked from one to the other. "Why persist in refusal? It does no good, none at all ... he will break you, and eventually you will die. Lirless, friendless, alone." He stopped short, frowned again, then sighed. "Consider this: accept him and rule with dignity, with integrity, or deny him and lose anything even slightly resembling freedom of mind and soul."
Brennan drew in a deep, deep breath. "There was a time, Corin, and not so many years ago, that you swore an oath before kin and clan. Your Ceremony of Honors, where you named as shu'maii our jehan. Where you put on the lir-gold and accepted the responsibilities of a warrior, and all the loyalties it entails." His voice was very steady. "Do you stand here before me now and say you willingly break that oath?"
Corin did not blink. "I have sworn another."
Hart sat down awkwardly on the cot, as if his ham-strings had been cut. "No—no—no—"
"Oh, aye, he has," Brennan said coldly, "and I renounce him as my rujholli."
Nothing moved in Conn's eyes. "You may renounce yourself for all I care. Brennan ... it has been a long, long time that I have watched you play your part as Prince of Homana, coveting it myself. And now, in the end, it is mine—"
"How?" Brennan shouted. "If I do accept this service, Homana will still be mine!"
Corin smiled. "No," he said, "no. In the end, it will be mine. Your fitness to rule will be questioned. After all, is your jehana not known as mad Gisella?"
"She also bore you."
"But I am not afraid of small, dark places. There is no doubting my sanity." He turned toward the Ihlini waiting in the corridor. "Do not wait. They will agree to nothing in front of you. Go to Strahan. I will bring them immediately I have an answer."
The Ihlini turned and melted away into the shadows.
Brennan slowly shook his head. "If you think I will agree to anything you suggest, or step one foot outside this cell with you—'
"I think you will." Corin briefly massaged his throat.
"You give yourself away. You are so willing to believe the worst of me. If I were Hart, you would not be so quick." He sighed, bent to touch Kiri, then straightened again. He smiled a little, though it had an ironic hook.
"Aye, you did believe it ... well, so did Strahan. At least I know last night was worth it."
Hart sat slowly upright on the cot. All Brennan could do was stare.
Corin sighed. "I spent all of last night with fingers down my throat, trying to rid myself of that foul, malodorous bile Strahan calls the blood of the god. But if you tarry any longer, I will have to drink it again . . . two cups remain before I am truly his." He gestured toward the door. "I would suggest we go."
Speechlessly, they went.
Five
Corin led them down a twisting corridor illuminated by torches set in infrequent iron brackets. The flame was pure and yellow, not lurid Ihlini purple, but Hart, accustomed to little light, and Brennan, accustomed to none, found discomfort in the illumination. They squinted, avoiding the pools of light; Corin's nearly pupilless eyes remained wide and strangely unfocused.
Brennan's walk slowed. At last Corin turned. "If we tarry—"
"What if we do?" Curtly, Brennan overrode him. "I go nowhere without Sleeta,"
Corin smiled a little, glancing down at Kiri. "I know. I do not expect you to. Sleeta is in the cavern."
"The cavern?" Hart stopped short. "You are taking us there?"
"Would you suggest we depart through the front entrance?" Corin's tone was dryly disgusted. "Valgaard is a maze of tunnels and corridors, as well as secret exits. But I only know of one; I am newly come to the god, and Strahan does not tell me everything as yet." He looked at them more closely and saw doubt in grimy faces. "Oh, aye, I know—now you are uncertain. Well, the choice is yours. Come with me, or stay." Corin turned and went on as Kiri trotted beside him.
Hart swore. Brennan sighed and shook his head. And then he shrugged and pushed off the wall, muttering resigned imprecations.
"Kiri is with him," Hart pointed out. "If he meant to trick us, would she accompany him?"
"The lir-link is obliterated here," Brennan said over his shoulder. "She knows as much of his intentions as we do."
"But would he lead her astray?"
"He is not the Corin we knew. Who can say what he will do?"
They turned a corner and came up on him as he waited in the shadows. Lir-gold gleamed in tawny hair; armbands were hidden beneath sleeves of a dark g
ray doublet.
"What I will do," Corin said distinctly, "is take you out of here."
"Then do it," Brennan told him.
He led them into yet another corridor. It was short, too short, showing a dead end. But Corin halted, touched a stone, and a piece of the wall slid aside. Cool air rushed out of the tunnel. The nearest torch was snuffed out.
Brennan's breath rasped in his throat as darkness settled around them. Behind him. Hart stepped closer and touched his shoulder briefly in a gesture of support.
"Almost there," Corin told them, and went into the shadowed tunnel.
"The gods forgive me if I do our rujholli an injustice—"
But Brennan did not finish. He merely followed Corin.
The tunnel soon gave way into an alcove cut into polished basalt. And the alcove gave into the stairway leading down to the massive cavern. Godfire dripped from seams of rock, splattering on the stairs. Corin went on without pausing, steadily descending.
In the distance, harp strings thrummed. Something gibbered in the wall.
He took them out of the passageway into the archivolted cavern and led them to the Gate. He paused at the glowing rim and pointed into the glare.
"Down there?" Hart demanded,
"I am with you," Corin said. He gazed at them both with an eerie, unfocused stare. "I can show you the way."
As one, his brothers backed away from the lip of the Gate. Corin stepped closer. "It is your only chance."
"Ours—all of us?" Brennan's eyes narrowed. "Or only Hart and me?"
Corin frowned. "I am coming with you. Do you think I would dare remain?"
Hart chewed on a lip as he stared at the opening.
"Through the Gate itself?" His tone was dubious.
Brennan's was distrustful. "Into the lap of the god."
Corin bent down. One hand reached into the gate and scooped up livid godfire. "Cold," he said, "cold. You will shiver, but never burn."
"No," Brennan said. "I will forgo that exit."
"Then why not try this one?"
As one, they spun in place. Strahan stepped out of basalt.
Godfire edged his robe of deepest black. The silver on his brow glowed lilac-white in the glare of the Gate.
Behind him was only shadow; no exit could be seen.
He gestured, indicating stone. "In there, Sleeta awaits. Why not go and see her?"
"Trap," said Brennan succinctly, unimpressed by Strahan's avowal.
"Is it?" Strahan moved closer to them, between the Gate and the glass of the cavern wall. Corin, at the rim, dropped down to his knees instantly in perfect homage.
He bowed his head.
"Ku'reshtin," Brennan said bitterly, as Hart closed his eyes,
The Ihlini nodded slowly and put an approving hand on the tawny hair. "Well done, Corin. You have done as you said you would."
Corin turned his face up to Strahan. "And you have done as I hoped—" He lunged upward, off his knees, locking both arms around Strahan and pinning the sorcerer's arms. Even as Strahan twisted, Corin thrust out a foot to trip Strahan and tumble him into the Gate.
Flame gushed up. Strahan screamed something, and then the voice was silenced.
"Now!" Corin ran for the glassy wall.
"But nothing is there!" Brennan cried.
Corin and Kin disappeared.
"I am not waiting." Hart ran for the darkness as well.
Brennan took a step after him, then stopped. He recalled too clearly the power that had reduced him to obsolescence. He recalled too clearly the fear that had engulfed him.
He shivered. Sweat broke out on his flesh.
And then the Gate disgorged the Ihlini, blazing like a pyre, and Brennan did not look back.
There was a seam, he saw at once. A fault in the stone, or else something cut by god or man. The naked eye could not see it, but the hand felt its gap. He slipped through and departed the cavern even as Strahan shouted.
He ran. The passageway engulfed him, scraping against bare arms. He heard the chime of lir-gold basalt. It was a narrow, low conduit, alive with the stink of the netherworld. Godfire glimmered in crevices. For once, he was thankful; he would be blind without it.
He ran on, ignoring the knot in his belly. Small, dark place . . . and the only available exit.
"Hurry!" Hart called. The echo carried back, reverberating, and then Brennan saw them all. Hart. Kin. Corin. And Sleeta just beyond, eyes aglow in purple godfire.
"Lir—" He tripped and nearly fell.
"No time," Corin said breathlessly. "The bailey is just beyond."
Brennan caught his balance. "Strahan is alive."
Corin's face was stark. Fear turned blue eyes black.
"Then he can still gainsay me." He turned abruptly and thrust the hidden door open.
Cheysuli and lir spilled out of basalt into the bailey, footsteps echoing on cobbles. All around them was darkness and the breath of Asar-Suti. Stars were but a dim glow through the veil of malodorous smoke.
"I have forgotten what daylight is like." Hart remarked, half laughing. "Will we ever see the sun?"
"Not if we tarry here." At a run, Corin headed toward the gates with Kiri streaking behind. Hart caught Brennan's arm. With Sleeta, they followed their brother.
Stone shifted beneath their feet. It burst from under boots and threw them to the ground. Once, twice, thrice; each time they lost more distance. Some stone melted, clinging to their boots- Other cobbles exploded around them and rained down as smoking missiles.
Hart fell. Pain set his stump ablaze. The missing hand spasmed and tried to clutch at stone.
"Up—up—" Brennan dragged him from the ground.
Corin was at the gates. Frenziedly he threw the bar out of its brackets.
"No guards," Hart gasped. "Why does he post no guards?"
"Does an Ihlini require any?" Brennan dodged as a cobble exploded beneath his right boot, sending fragments of smoking stone slicing through the air. Splinters cut one cheek.
"Now—now—" Corin's shout was mostly swallowed by the shrieks and whistles of flying cobbles.
Massive gates tore loose of hinges and slowly began to topple. Corin scooped Kiri up and ran through as they crashed down. The sound of thunder filled the bailey; if Strahan did not already know precisely where they were, the noise would surely tell him.
Brennan gaped in astonishment as he and Hart ran on, pounding over the fallen wood. "By the gods—Strahan is using Valgaard itself to stop us!"
"Trying—" Hart rasped. "Oh—gods—I had forgotten this!”
They were through. The walls of Valgaard fell behind them; the field of fire lay before, stretching into the night. Fold upon fold of stone, all piled on one another; ripple here, curl there; a treacherous carpet of ensorcelled stone. The god had a sense of humor.
They ran. Staggered. Tripped. Got up and ran again, cursing the pockets of shadow that reached out to catch their boots. Cauldrons gurgled, fumaroles splattered, smoke issued forth from vents. It coated flesh, clogged throats, filled eyes with irritation. Coughing, wheezing, gagging, they stumbled through crumbling crusts and tripped over the spine of the earth itself, wrenched free of flesh and muscle. The viscera was foul.
Shadows loomed. Darkness incarnate, stretching across the ground. And then the rules were changed.
Unexpectedly, there was movement in addition to their own. They snatched hurried glances out of the comers of reddening eyes, and then the eyes abruptly widened. The field was a grotesque boardgame made by the god himself, and the pieces were alive.
"The stone—moving—" Brennan croaked.
Shadows altered. Darkness shifted. The pattern of fear mutated. Strahan's stone menagerie came to life in the sulfurous murk.
Hart recalled his father telling stories of how he had voluntarily come into Valgaard, alone, leaving behind even his lir, to make a bargain with Strahan. He recalled very clearly Niall's descriptions of the canyon of the god, cut so sharply from black basalt. As a child he had
smelled the sulfur and squinted against the fumes, imagining Strahan's lair. Now he was in it himself, experiencing the same doubts and fears that Niall himself had known.
"Watch out for the stones," Corin rasped. "Remember how jehan told us they can move—?"
Brennan fell over a coiled protruberance. He landed hard, jarring his senses; a vent cracked open beneath him. Cursing, he tried to rise before the Seker's spittle burst forth.
Hart snatched one arm, Corin the other as steam gushed out of the vent. Together they dragged him free, scraping boot toes against rock, and forced him back into a stumbling run. Dodging paws and teeth and slashing tails, all formed of sinuous stone, they fled toward the defile that would give them exit from Strahan's domain.
"Not so far—" Hart panted. "Almost there—" Stone parted beneath his boots even as he spoke. He leaped, stumbled, staggered on, ignoring the angry gurgle.
Through the shadows Sleeta flowed like watered silk on velvet. Brennan longed to go into the link, to reestablish the communication he wanted so desperately, but such an attempt was futile so close to the Gate. Here the Ihlini was paramount, so long as he worshiped the god.
Corin swore as a wave of steam coated face and hands.
He slowed, halted, rubbed hastily at stinging eyes. Tears rendered him incapable of seeing, and he dared not run blind.
Kiri yapped, then nipped at his ankles. And then he sensed the presence—'
"Corin—run!” Brennan cried.
He cleared his vision in time to see a monstrous gryphon bearing down on him, stone beak agape. Beneath the hiss of steam was the grate of stone on stone, and the yapping of his lir.
Corin twisted away, feeling the touch of ensorcelled stone as a wing cruelly caressed his scalp. He saw his brothers waiting, both poised to flee again. But their unwillingness to leave him renewed his fading strength.
"—coming—" he gasped, and ran.
And then, abruptly, could not.
He fell hard. Tried to rise. And then knew what Strahan had done.
"My legs!" he cried. "My legs—“
Jelly, Strahan had threatened. As Corin lay sprawled on hot stone, trying in vain to rise, he knew the healing had been recalled. There was no tremendous uprush of pain, no snapping of brittle bones, merely a return to what they had been before he had committed himself to the god. Nearly healed, but not completely; it left his bones fragile and his muscles weakened by confinement in splints and linens.
Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 Page 39