Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08

by A Tapestry of Lions (v1. 0)

  His mood was foul. He detested the duality that ravaged his spirit. He had no use for softness, for compassion; he wanted nothing at all to do with the kind of relationship he saw binding his grandsire and his granddame. That kind of honor and respect simply begged for an ending, and therefore begged for pain.

  And what was there for him in a relationship such as that shared by the Mujhar and his queen?

  Had they not made it clear, all of them, that it was not Kellin whom they cared about, but the seed he would provide?

  Bitterness engulfed. Let the whores have it. It will serve them better; expelling it serves ME.

  But the conscience he had believed eradicated was not entirely vanquished. Despite his wishes, he did regret his harshness with the woman; did regret he could not see her again, for she had been good to him. There had been a quiet dignity about her despite her life, and a simple acceptance that the gods had seen fit to give her this fate.

  Self-contempt made it easy to transfer resentment to the woman. She would make a good Cheysuli. Better than I do; I, after all, am at war with the gods.

  It was time to leave, lest he give in to the temptation to go back inside the hovel and offer comfort. He could not afford that. It was too easy to succumb, too easy to give in to the weakness that would lead in time to pain. Far better to keep pain at bay by permitting it no toehold in the ordering of his spirit.

  Kellin glanced over and saw the familiar guardsmen waiting in the shadows between two ramshackle dwellings. Four shapes. Four watchdogs, set upon his scent by the Mujhar. Even now, even in adulthood, no matter where Kellin went or what he chose to do, they accompanied him.

  Discreetly, usually, for he was after all the Prince of Homana, but their loyalty was the Mujhar's.

  As a boy, he had accepted it as perfectly natural and never thought to question the policy and protection. As a man, however, it chafed his spirit because such supervision, in his eyes, relegated his own abilities, his own opinions, to insignificance.

  Initially his protests were polite, but the Mujhar's intransigence soon triggered an angrier opposition. Yet the Mujhar remained obdurate. His heir could not—would not, by his order—be permitted to walk unaccompanied in Mujhara. Ever.

  Kellin had tried losing his dogs, but they tracked him down. He tried tricking them, but they had proved too smart. He tried ordering them, but they were the Mujhar's men. And at last, terribly angry, he tried to fight them. To a man, despite his insults, they refused to honor him so.

  He was accustomed to them now. He had trained them to stay out of his tavern brawls. It had taken time; they did not care to see their prince risk himself, but they had learned it was his only escape, and so they left him to it.

  Kellin shivered, wrapping the heavy cloak more tightly around his shoulders. It was cold and very clear. The cloud cover had blown away, which meant the nights would be bitter cold until the next snowstorm came. Already he felt the chill in his bones; mouthing a curse, he moved on.

  He did not know his destination. He had thought to spend the night with the woman, but that was over now. She had committed the unpardonable; the only punishment he knew was to deny her the comfort of his body, so that he, too, was denied the contentment he so desperately desired despite his vow.

  He splashed through crusted puddles. It did not matter to him how it damaged his boots. He had many more at home. This sort of revenge offered little comfort, but it was something. Let the servants gossip as they would. It gave him some small pleasure to know he was entirely unpredictable in mood as well as actions.

  Better to keep them off guard. Better to make them wonder.

  As he wondered himself; it was a twisted form of punishment Kellin meted out to bind himself to his vow. If he relaxed his vigilance, he might be tempted to renounce his oath. He would not permit himself that, lest the gods win at last and turn him into a Cheysuli who thought only of his tahlmorra, instead of such things as a son badly in need of a father.

  Behind him, the watchdogs also splashed. Kellin wondered what they thought of their honorable duty: to spend the night out of doors while their prince poured his royal seed into a whore's body-They will get no Firstborn of her, or of any other whore.

  Ahead in wan moonlight, a placard dangled before a door. A tavern. Good. I am of a mind to start a game not entirely like any other.

  Kellin shouldered open the cracked door and went in, knowing the dogs would follow along in a moment. He paused just inside, accustoming his eyes to greasy candlelight, and found himself in a dingy common room. The tables were empty save one, where five men gathered to toss dice and rune-sticks.

  For a moment only. Kellin considered joining them. But instead he went to another table and hooked over a stool, motioning with a jerk of his head to the man in the stained cloth apron.

  The watchdogs came in, marked where he was, and went to another table. He saw the tavern-keeper waver, for they wore tunics of the Mujharan Guard and doubtless meant more coin than a lone stranger.

  Smiling faintly, Kellin drew his knife and stuck the point into wood, so that the heavy hilt stood upright. The rampant lion curled around the hilt, single ruby eye glinting in greasy light.

  As expected, the tavern-keeper arrived almost at once. "My lord?"

  "Usca," Kellin ordered. "A jug of it."

  The man nodded, but his gaze flicked to the guardsmen. "And for them?"

  Kellin favored him with a humorless smile.

  "They drink what they like. Ask them."

  The man was clearly puzzled. "My lord, they wear the Mujhar's crest. And you have it here, on your knife. Doesn't that mean—"

  Kellin overrode him curtly. "It means we have something in common, but it does not mean we sleep together." He yanked the broochless cloak from his shoulders and slapped it across the table.

  He waited. The man bowed and hastened away.

  When the usca was brought, Kellin poured the crude cup full. He downed it all rapidly, waiting for the fire. It came, burning his belly and clear down into his toes. All at once there was life in his body, filling up flesh and blood, and the pain that accompanied it.

  He had fought it so very long. Because of his oath, because of his need, he had shut himself off to emotions, severing his spirit from the Kellin he had been, because he could not bear the pain- He had seen the bewildered hurt in his grandmother's eyes and learned to ignore it, as he learned to withstand even the scorn in his grandfather's voice; eventually, in fact, he learned to cultivate that scorn, because it was a goad that drove him to maintain his vow even when, in moments of despair and self-hatred, he desired to unswear it.

  One day intent became habit, despite the occasional defiance of a conscience battered for ten years into compliance. He was what he was; what he had made himself to be. No one could hurt him now.

  Kellin drank usca. He wanted to fight very badly. When the fire filled head and belly, he rose and prepared to make his way to the table full of Homanans who laughed and wagered and joked.

  A man stepped into his path, blocking his way.

  "Well met, my lord. Shall we share a cup of wine?"

  Kellin's tongue was thick, but the words succinct enough. "I am drinking usca."

  "Ah, of course; forgive me." The stranger smiled faintly. A lifted hand and a slight gesture beckoned usca from the tavern-keeper, Kellin stared hard at the stranger, struggling to make out the face. The room shifted and ran together so that the colors all seemed one. Too much usca for conversation. When the new jug came, the stranger poured two cups full and offered one to Kellin. "Shall we sit, my lord?"

  Kellin did not sit. He set his hand around the hilt of his knife, still standing upright in the table, and snapped it from the wood.

  The stranger inclined his head. "I am unarmed, my lord, and offer no threat to you."

  Kellin stared into the face. It was bland, beguiling; all mask and no substance. Perhaps he will give me my fight. He wanted the fight badly; needed it desperately, to assuage the
guilt he felt despite his desire not to. Physical pain is easier to bear than emotional pain.

  For years he had sought it, finding it in taverns among men who held back nothing. It was a release from self-captivity more wholly satisfying than any other he knew.

  This man, perhaps? Or another. Kellin gestured and sat down, laying the knife atop the table as he took the brimming cup.

  "A fortune-game?" the other man suggested.

  It suited. Kellin nodded and the man took from beneath his cloak a wooden casket, all carved about its satiny sides with strange runic devices.

  Kellin frowned. Wait—

  But the man turned the casket over and spilled out sticks and cubes. The sticks were blank and black. The cubes turned lurid purple and began a dervish-dance.

  "Aye," the man said softly, "you do remember me."

  Kellin was abruptly sober. He marked the familiar blue eyes, the russet hair, the maddeningly serene expression. How could I have forgotten?

  "Aye," Corwyth said. "Would you care to play out the game?"

  Kellin looked for his watchdogs and saw them spilled slackly across their table. Their attitudes bespoke drunkenness to a man who knew no better; Kellin knew better.

  He looked then at the other men who wagered near his own table, and saw they seemed not to know anyone else was in the room.

  Breath ran shallowly. Kellin tensed on his stool and quietly took up the knife. "You have come for me."

  Corwyth watched the bright cubes spin, seemingly undismayed by the presence of a weapon.

  "Oh," he said lightly, "presently. I am in no hurry." He gestured briefly, and the knife fell out of Kellin's hand. "There is no need for that here."

  Kellin swore and grabbed at it, only to find the metal searingly hot. "Kureshtin—" He dropped the knife at once, desiring to blow on burned fingers but holding himself in check. He would not give the Ihlini any measure of satisfaction.

  Corwyth's eyes narrowed assessively. "No more the boy," he observed, "but a man well-grown, and dangerous. Someone who must be dealt with."

  Kellin did not much care for the implication.

  "You tried before to 'deal' with me and failed."

  "Aye. I misjudged you. A failing I shall not be moved to repeat."

  The rune-sticks joined the cubes in an obscene coupling upon the table. Neither man watched.

  They looked at each other instead.

  A vicious joy welled up in Kellin's soul. Here was the fight he had wanted. "I will not accompany you."

  "One day," Corwyth said. "Be certain of it, Kellin." He gestured, and the cubes and rune-sticks fell into a pattern: one arrow pointed at Kellin, the other directly north. "You see? Even the game agrees."

  As he had done so many years before, Kellin made a fist and banged it down upon the table.

  The arrows broke up and fell in disarray to the floor. Sticks and cubes scattered.

  Corwyth showed good teeth. "This is a game," he said, "mere prelude to what will follow. If you think you have the power to prevent it, you are indeed a fool." Slender fingers were unmoving on scarred wood. "I do not threaten, Kellin; I come to warn instead. Lochiel is too powerful. You cannot hope to refuse him."

  "I can. I do." Kellin displayed equally good teeth, but his grin was more feral. "He has tried before and failed, just as you did. I begin to think Lochiel is not so powerful as he would have us believe,"

  Corwyth's tone was mild. "He need only put out his hand, and you will be in it. He need only close that hand and crush the life from you."

  Kellin laughed. "Then tell him to do it."

  Corwyth's gaze was steady. "Before, you were a boy. They kept you close, and safe. But you are no longer a boy, and such chains as you have known will bind more than body, but the spirit as well. Do you not fight those chains? Do you not come often into the Midden, fighting a battle within your soul as well as the war with the constraints of your station?"

  Kellin's laughter died. Corwyth knew too much.

  He was overly conversant with what was in Kellin's mind. "I do what I desire to do. That has nothing to do with Lochiel."

  "Ah, but it has everything to do with Lochiel. You have a choice, my lord: keep yourself to Homana-Mujhar and away from sorcery, yet know there will always be the threat of a traitorous Homanan." His smile was slight as he purposely evoked the memory of-Rogan. "Or come out as you will, as you desire to, and know that each step you take is watched by Lochiel."

  Kellin controlled the anger. Such a display was what Corwyth wanted to provoke; he would not satisfy him. "Then I challenge Lochiel to try me here and now."

  Corwyth shook his head. "A game requires time, my lord, or the satisfaction is tainted . . . much like a man who spends himself too quickly between a woman's thighs. There are the rules to be learned first, before the game commences," The smile was banished. Corwyth leaned forward. "This night, you shall go free. This night you may go home to Homana-Mujhar—or to whatever whore you are keeping—and may sleep without fear for your soul. But you are to know this: you are not free. Your soul is not unclaimed. Lochiel waits in Valgaard. When he touches you, when he deigns to gather you up, be certain you shall know it."

  The Ihlini sat back, but his gaze did not waver from Kellin's. He smiled again, if faintly, and took something else from beneath his cloak. He set it flat on the table between them.

  Sorcerer's Tooth.

  The years fell away. Kellin was a frightened boy again lost in Homanan forests, with a tutor slain and a best friend dying, and the Lion on his trail.

  "Keep it," Corwyth said, "as a token of my promise."

  Kellin leapt to his feet, groping for the knife, but a sheet of purple flame drove him away from the table. When the smoke of it shredded away, the Ihlini was gone.

  Two

  Coughing, Kellin went at once to his watchdogs and found them dead. There were no wounds, no marks, no blood to prove what had befallen them, the four men were simply dead. They slumped across the table with blank eyes bulging and their flesh a pallid white.

  He looked then for the Homanans, expecting some manner of comment, and discovered they no longer existed. The tavernkeeper had vanished as well. Kellin was quite alone in the common room save for the bodies Corwyth had left behind.

  Kellin stood perfectly still. Silence was loud, so loud it filled his head and slid down to stuff his belly, until he wanted to choke on it, to spew it forth and deny everything; to somehow put back to rights the horror that had occurred.

  The way I wanted Rogan to be alive again— Kellin shut his teeth. Rogan was a traitor.

  His grip tightened on the knife. Its heat had dissipated. No longer tainted by Corwyth's wishes, it was merely a knife again, if a royal one. The lion hilt mocked him.

  He looked around again. All was as before: four dead watchdogs sprawled across the table in a stinking common room of a Midden tavern Kellin was no longer certain truly existed.

  Did Corwyth conjure the Homanans? Is this tavern no more than illusion? If so, he was trapped in it.

  Kellin shivered, then swore at the response he interpreted as weakness. He went hastily back to his table, caught up his cloak and threw it around his shoulders. With the knife still clutched in one hand, hilt slick with sweat, he went out into the darkness where the air smelled like air, redolent of winter, but without the stink of Corwyth's sorcery.

  The walk to Homana-Mujhar was the longest of Kellin's life. His back was spectacularly naked of watchdogs; he had hated them before but had never wished them dead.

  He avoided puddles now. His mouth was filled with the sour aftertaste of usca. Drunkenness had passed, as had hostility and the desire to fight.

  What he wanted most now was to reach Homana-Mujhar and deliver unpleasant news to Brennan, so the burden of the knowledge was no longer his alone.

  There were few cobblestones in the Midden.

  Boots sank into muck, denying easy egress from winding, narrow alleys shut in by top-heavy dwellings. Between his should
er blades Kellin felt a tingling; the hairs on the nape of his neck rose. He was lirless by choice, which left him vulnerable. A bonded warrior would know if an Ihlini was near.

  He had only his instincts to trust, and they told him it would be a simple thing for Corwyth to take him now, with a Tooth flung into his back.

  But the Tooth was back in the tavern. Nothing could have induced him to touch it, let alone to keep it.

  Kellin shivered despite the fur-lined cloak. His lips were excessively dry no matter how often he licked them. Corwyth had promised him his freedom tonight; that he might spend the time as he wished. Lochiel was patient.

  Muck oozed up, capturing a boot. Kellin paused to free himself, then froze into stillness. A new noise had begun in place of his audible breathing and heartbeat.

  The sound was one he knew: a raspy, throaty grunting; the chesty cough of a huge lion.

  Gods— He turned convulsively, shoulders slamming against the wall. He heard the scrape of his cloak against brick. Moonlight sparked on the ruby as he lifted the knife.

  For one insane moment Kellin saw his shadow on the wall across the narrow alley: the image of a small boy desperate to flee. And then the illusion was banished, replaced with the truth, and he saw himself clearly. No longer the boy. Nightmares were long behind him.

  This is how Lochiel intends to take me. This is some trick—

  Or perhaps not. After what had happened in the tavern, Kellin was not so certain.

  Still, he would not prove such easy prey, to be terrorized by childhood nightmares.

  He raised the knife higher. He saw the length of supple fingers, the sinewy back of his hand, the muscle sheathing wrist. He was a man now, and a very different kind of prey.

  "Come, then," he said. "If that is you, Corwyth, be certain I am ready. Lochiel will find me no easier to defeat despite opportunity. I am, after all, Cheysuli."

  The Lion paused. Noise ceased.

  "Come," Kellin goaded. "Did you think to find me so frightened I soiled my leggings? Did you believe it would be easy?" He forced a laugh, relying on bravado that was genuine only in part.