Corwyth lifted a minatory hand. "There was choice," he reproved. "There is always choice. I may be, to you, an enemy, but I suggest you tell the truth to this boy, who is not: it was neither I nor my master who forced you to this."
Kellin's conviction was undiminished. Rogan will deny it—he will tell me the truth. After all, how many times had Kellin been told of the perfidiousness of Ihlini? This is some kind of trick. "He hurt you," Kellin declared. "He broke your wrist; what else can you say?"
"There was no threat," Corwyth countered quietly. "The wrist was merely to prove the need for care. I have no need of threats with Rogan. All I was required to do was promise him his dearest desire."
"Ihlini lie," Kellin declared, even as Urchin stirred in surprise beside him. "Ihlini lie all the time. You are the enemy."
"To assure our survival, aye." Corwyth's young face looked older, less serene. "To Ihlini, you are the enemy."
It was an entirely new thought. Kelhn rejected it. He looked instead at Rogan. "He's lying."
"No." Rogan's mouth warped briefly. "There was no threat, as he says. Only a promise."
It was utter betrayal. "What promise?" Kellin cried. "What could he promise you that the Mujhar could not offer?"
Rogan shut his eyes. His face was shiny with sweat.
"Tell him," Corwyth said.
"You would have me strip away all his innocence?"
The Ihlini shrugged, "He will lose it soon enough in Valgaard."
Urchin's face was a sickly white in fireglow. He breathed audibly. "Valgaard?"
"Rogan?" Kellin swallowed back the fear that formed a hard knot in his throat. "Rogan—this isn't true?"
The tutor broke. He spoke rapidly, disjointedly.
"It was him ... a year ago, he came—came and asked that I betray you to the Ihlini."
"Lochiel." Rogan shuddered. "Lochiel wants you." His entire body convulsed. "He could not reach you. He could get you no other way. Corwyth promised me you would be unharmed."
Kellin could not breathe- "You agreed?"
"My lord—if he had intended harm—"
"You agreed.”
"Kellin—"
It was the worst of all. "He is Ihlini.”
"Kellin—"
"How could you do this?" It was a refrain in Kellin's mind, in Kellin’s mouth. "How could you do this?"
Rogan's face was wet with tears. "It was not—not of my devising . . . that I promise you. But he promised. Promised me ... and I was weak, so weak...."
Kellin shouted it. "What did he promise you?"
Rogan fell to his knees. "Forgive me—forgive—"
The stone in Kellin's belly grew. He felt it come to life. It pushed his heart aside, then squeezed up into his throat. His body was filled with it.
And the stone had a name: rage.
Kellin heard his voice—mine?—come from a vast distance. It was an ordinary voice, shaped by normal inflections, with no hint at all of shock, or terror, or rage. "What did he promise you?"
"My wife!" Rogan cried.
It was incomprehensible. "You said she was dead." And then Kellin understood.
"My wife," the tutor whispered, hands slack upon his knees. "You are too young to understand ... but I loved her so much I thought I would die of it, and then she died—she died - .. because of the child I gave her—" He broke off. His gaze was fixed on Kellin. He gathered himself visibly, attempting to master his, anguish. "I refused," Rogan said quietly. "Of course I refused. Nothing could make me betray you. I would have accepted death before that."
"Why didn't you?" Kellin shouted.
"But then this man, this Ihlini, promised me my wife."
Kellin shivered. He looked at Corwyth. "You can raise the dead?"
The Ihlini smiled. "I am capable of many things."
He extended his right hand, palm up, as if to mock the Cheysuli gesture of tahlmorra; then a flaring column of white light filled his hand.
"Magic," Urchin murmured,
"Tricks," Kellin declared; he could not admit the Ihlini might offer a true threat, or fear would overwhelm him.
"Is it?" The light in Corwyth's hand coalesced, then began to move, to dance, and the column resolved itself into a human shape-A tiny, naked woman.
"Gods," Rogan blurted. Then, brokenly, "Tassia."
Kellin stared at the burning woman. She was a perfect embodiment of the Ihlini's power.
Corwyth smiled. The woman danced within his palm, twisting and writhing. She burned bright white and searing, spinning and spinning, so that flaming hair spun out from her body and shed brilliant sparks. Tiny breasts and slim hips were exposed, and the promise of her body.
Kellin, whose body was as yet too young to respond, looked at Rogan. The Homanan still knelt on the ground, eyes fixed in avid hunger on the tiny dancing woman.
"Do you want her?" Corwyth asked. "I did promise her to you. And I keep my promises."
"She isn't real!" Kellin cried.
"Not precisely," Corwyth agreed, "She is a summoning from my power; a conjured promise, nothing more. But I can make her real—real enough for Rogan." He smiled. "Look upon her, Kellin. Look at her perfection! It is such a simple thing to make Tassia from this."
The tiny, burning features were eloquent in their pleading. She was fully aware, Kellin saw; Tassia knew.
Rogan cried out. "I bargained my soul for this. Give me my payment for it!"
The light from the burning woman blanched Corwyth's face. "Your soul was mine the moment I asked for it. The promise of this woman was merely a kindness." He looked at Kellin though his words were meant for Rogan. "Speak it, prince's man. Aloud, where Kellin can hear. Renounce your service to the House of Homana. Deny your prince as he stands here before you. Do only these two things, and you will have your payment."
Rogan shuddered.
"Speak it," Corwyth said.
"Leave him alone!" Kellin cried.
"Kellin—" Rogan's expression was wracked. "Forgive—"
"Don't say it!" Kellin shouted. "Do not give in to him!"
"Speak," Corwyth said.
Tears ran down Rogan's face. "I renounce the House of Homana."
"Rogan!"
"I renounce my prince."
"No!"
"I submit to you, Ihlini . .. and now ask payment for my service!"
Corwyth smiled gently. He lifted his other hand as if in benevolent blessing. Rogan's head bowed as the hand came down, and then he was bathed in the same lurid light that shaped the tiny woman.
"Wait!" Kellin cried. "Rogan—no—"
Rogan's eyes stretched wide. "This is not what you promised—" But his body was engulfed.
Kellin fell back, coughing, even as Urchin did.
The clearing was tilled with smoke. Corwyth pursed his lips and blew a gentle exhalation, and the smoke dispersed completely.
"What did you do?" Kellin asked. "What did you do to Rogan?"
"I gave him what he desired, though of a decidedly different nature. He believed I intended to remake his dead wife. But even I cannot do that, so this will have to suffice." Corwyth's right hand supported the dancing woman, now rigidly still. In his other hand, outstretched, burned a second tiny figure.
Urchin cried out. Kellin stared, transfixed, as he saw the formless features resolve themselves into those he knew so well. "Rogan."
Corwyth brought his hands together. The man and woman met, embraced, then merged into a single livid flame. "I do assure you, this was what he wanted."
Kellin was horrified. "Not like that.”
"Perhaps not." Corwyth grinned. "A conceit, I confess; he did not have the wit to specify how he wanted payment made."
Kellin shuddered. And then the stone in chest and throat broke free at last. He vomited violently.
"No!" Urchin cried, then screamed Rogan's name.
Corwyth knelt down beside the creek.
"Wait!" Kellin shouted.
Corwyth dipped his hands into the water. "But let it
never be said I am a man who knows no mercy. Death, you might argue, is better than this."
"Rogan!"
But the names were extinguished as water snuffed them out.
Seven
Kellin found himself on hands and knees in clammy vegetation, hunched before the creek in bizarre obeisance to the sorcerer who knelt on the bank.
His belly cramped painfully. His mouth formed a single word, though the lips were warped out of shape. Rogan.
And then the horrible thought: Not Rogan any more.
A hand was on his arm, fingers digging into flesh. "Kellin—Kellin—" Urchin, of course; Kellin twisted his head upward and saw the pale glint of Urchin's eyes, the sweaty sheen of shock-blanched face. Ashamed of his weakness, Kellin swabbed a trembling hand across his dry mouth and climbed to his feet. Show the Ihlini no fear.
But he thought it was too late; surely Corwyth had seen. Surely Corwyth knew.
The russet-haired Ihlini rose, shaking droplets from elegant hands with negligent flicks of his fingers. "Shall you come without protest, my lord?"
Kellin whirled and stiff-armed Urchin, shoving him back a full step before the Homanan boy could speak. "Run!"
He darted to the left even as Urchin spun, running away from Corwyth, away from the creek, away from the horror of what he had witnessed, the terrible quenching of a man—
He tore headlong through limbs and leaves, shredding underbrush and vines. In huge leaps Kellin spent himself, panting through a dry throat as he ran. He fastened on one thought—Urchin—but the Homanan boy was making his own way, making his own future, crashing through brush only paces away. Kellin longed to call out but dared not risk it. Besides, Urchin was better suited to flight than he, growing up a boy of the streets; best Kellin tend himself.
Corwyth's voice cut through the trees like a clarion. "I require only you, Kellin. Not him. Come back, and I will spare him."
"Don't listen!" Urchin hissed as he broke through tangled foliage near Kellin. "What can he—"
The Homanan boy stopped short, fully visible in a patch of moonlight. His chest rose and fell unevenly as his breath rattled in his throat.
Kellin staggered to a stiff-limbed halt, arms outflung. His breathing was as loud. "Urchin?"
The boy's blue eyes were fixed and dilated.
"Urchin—run—"
Urchin's eyes bulged in their sockets.
Even as Kellin reached for him, the boy's limbs jerked. Urchin's mouth dropped open, blurting inarticulate protest. Then something pushed out against the fabric of his tunic, as if it quested for exit from the confines of his chest.
"Ur—" Kellin saw the blood break from Urchin's breastbone. "No!" But Urchin was down, all asprawl, face buried in leaf mold and turf. Kellin grabbed handfuls of tunic and dragged him over onto his back. "Urchin—"
Kellin recoiled. A bloodied silver wafer extruded from Urchin's breastbone, shining wetly in the moonlight.
He mouthed it: Sorcerer's Tooth. Kellin had heard of them. The Ihlini weapons were often poisoned, though this one had done its work simply by slicing cleanly through the boy's chest from spine to breastbone.
Corwyth's voice sounded very close, too close, though Kellin could not see him. "A waste of life," the Ihlini said. "You threw it away, Kellin."
"No!"
"You had only to come to me."
"No!"
"And so now you are alone in the dark with an Ihlini." Corwyth's laughter was quiet. "Surely a nightmare all Cheysuli dread."
Urchin was dead. Muttering a prayer to the gods—and an apology to Urchin for the pain he could not feel—Kellin stripped hastily out of his jerkin, tucked it over the exposed spikes, then yanked the wafer from Urchin's chest.
He twisted his head. Where is—?
Just behind. "Kellin. Surrender. I promise you no harm."
Kellin lurched upward and spun. "I promise you harm!"
He heard Corwyth cry out as the glinting weapon, loosed, spun toward the Ihlini. Kellin did not tarry to see if the Tooth had bitten deeply enough to kill. He fled into darkness again.
Kellin ran until he could run no more, then dropped into a steady jogging trot. Though his breath fogged the air, the first terror had faded, replaced by a simple conviction that if he did not halt, not even to catch that breath, he could remain ahead of Corwyth .
He assumed the Ihlini lived. To believe otherwise was to court the kind of carelessness that might prove fatal. If he had learned one thing from his beloved Ian, it was never to assume one was safe when one could not know.
Deadfall snapped beneath booted feet, then died out gradually as Kellin learned to seek out the thicker shadows of softer, muffled ground. In six strides he learned stealth, reverting to simple instincts and the training of his race,
If I had a lir— But he did not, and wishing for one would gain him nothing save a tense uncertainty of his ability to survive.
At last even his trot collapsed into disarray. Kellin staggered, favoring his right side. Exhaustion robbed him of strength, of endurance; apprehension robbed him of grace. He stumbled once, twice, again. The final tumble sent him headfirst into a tangle of tall bracken, which spilled him into shadow. Kellin lay there, winded, sucking cold air scented heavily with mud, and resin, and fear.
Go on, his conscience told him. But the body did not respond. Remember what happened to Rogan.
Remember what happened to Urchin.
Kellin squeezed shut his eyes. He had, until the moment of Urchin's death, believed himself inviolable. Ian had died, aye, because the Lion had bitten him, and the fortune-teller had died by the same violent means, but never had Kellin believed death could happen to him.
Rogan and Urchin, dead.
I could die, too.
Could the Ihlini's sorcery lead Corwyth directly to Kellin?
Run—
He stumbled to his feet yet again, hunching forward as a cramp bit into his side. He banished the pain, banished the memories of the deaths he had witnessed, and went on again.
—am a Cheysuli warrior ... the forest is my home—and every creature in it—
He meant to go home, of course. All the way to Mujhara herself, and into Homana-Mujhar. There he would tell them all. There he would explain.
There he would describe in bloody detail what Corwyth had accomplished.
The sound was a heavy cough. Not human.
Clearly animal. A heavy, deep-throated cough.
Kellin froze. He sucked in a breath and held it, listening for the sound.
A cough. And then a growl.
—am Cheysuli—
So he was. But he was also a boy.
The growl rose in pitch, then altered into a roar.
He knew the sounds of the forest. This was not one of them. This was a sound Kellin recognized because it filled his dreams-He did not cry out, but only because he could not. Lion?
"No," Kellin blurted. He denied it vigorously, as he had denied nothing before in his life. Urchin had come, and the Lion had been driven away.
The daytime was safe. And only rarely did the Lion trouble his dreams now, since Urchin had come.
But Urchin was dead. And night replaced the day.
"No!" Kellin cried. There can be no Lion. Everyone says.
But it was dark, so dark. It was too easy to believe in such things as Lions when there was no light.
He fastened himself onto a single thought. "I am not a child anymore. I defeated the Steppesman and knocked down his knife. Lions do not exist."
But the Lion roared again. Kellin's defiance was swamped.
He ran without thought for silence or subterfuge. Outflung hands crushed aside foliage, but some of it sprang back and cut into the flesh of his naked torso, jerkinless in flight. It snagged hair, at eyes, at mouth; it dug deeply into his neck even as he ducked.
Lion!
He saw nothing but shadow and moonlight. If I stop—
From behind came the roar of a hungry, hunting lion, crashing throu
gh broken brush on the trail of Cheysuli prey.
Huge and tawny and golden, like the throne in Homana-Mujhar.
How can they say there isn't a Lion?
Blood ran into Kellin's mouth, then spilled over open lips; he had somehow bitten his tongue. He spat, swiped aside a snagging limb, then caught his breath painfully on a choked blurt of shock as the footing beneath crumbled.
Wait— He teetered. Then fell. The ground gave way and tumbled him into a narrow ravine.
Down and down and down, crashing through bracken and creepers, banging arms and legs into saplings, smacking skull against rocks and roots.
And then at last the bottom, all of a sudden, too sudden, and he sprawled awkwardly onto his back, fetching up against a stump. Kellin heard whooping and gulping, and realized the noise was his own.
Lion?
He lurched upward, then scrambled to his feet.
He ached from head to foot, as if all his bones were bruised.
Lion?
And the lion, abruptly, was there.
Kellin ran. He heard the panting grunts, smelled the meat-laden breath. And then the jaws snapped closed around his left ankle.
“Wo.”
The pain shot from ankle to skull. Jaws dug through leather boot into flesh, threatening the bone.
Kellin clawed at the iron teeth of the iron, bodiless beast that had caught boy instead of bear.
Fingers scrabbled at the trap, trying to locate and trigger the mechanism that would spring the jaws open.
No lion— It was relief, but also terror; the beast could not be far behind.
Keltin had heard of bear traps. The Cheysuli disdained such tools, preferring to fight a beast on its own level rather than resorting to mechanical means. But some of the Homanans used the heavy iron traps to catch bear and other prey.
Now it's caught ME— Pain radiated from the ankle until it encompassed Kellin's entire body.
He twitched and writhed against it, biting into his bloodied lip, then scrabbled for the chain that bound trap to tree. It was securely locked. Designed to withstand the running charge of a full-grown bear, it would surely defeat a boy.
Frenziedly, Kellin yanked until his palms shredded and bled. "Let go—let go—LET GO—"
The deep-chested cough sounded again. Through deadfall the lion came, slinking out of shadow, tearing its way through vines and bracken.
Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 Page 8