Kellin's belly clenched. "My grandsire was seduced."
"But you are above such things?" Corwyth shook his head. "A single birth, Kellin ... a single seed of yours sowed in fertile Ihlini soil, and the thing is done." His eyes were black and pitiless in the frosted darkness. "We are not all of us sworn to Asar-Suti. There are those Ihlini who would, to throw us down, try very hard to insure the child was conceived. The prophecy is not dependent upon whose blood mingles with yours, merely that it be Ihlini."
Kellin summoned the last of waning strength.
In addition to battered chest, a hip and shoulder ached. Welts and scratches stung- Bravado was difficult. "So, will you kill me here?"
Corwyth smiled. "You are meant for Lochiel's disposition."
Kellin dredged up scorn. "If you mean to take me to Valgaard, you will do it against my will. That much you cannot take from me, lirless or no."
"That may be true," Corwyth conceded, "but there are other methods. And all of them equally efficient."
He gestured. From the shadows walked two cloaked men and a saddled horse. Kellin looked at them, looked at the mount, and knew what they meant to do.
"A long ride," Corwyth said, "and as painful as I can make it." He glanced to the horse, then looked back at Kellin. "How long do you think you can last?"
Eight
Kellin awoke with his mouth full of blood. He gagged, spat it out, felt more flow in sluggishly from the cut on the inside of his cheek. Pressure pounded in his head. It roused him fully, so that he could at last acknowledge the seriousness of his situation.
Corwyth's companions had flung him belly-down across the saddle, little more than a battered carcass shaped in the form of a man. Ankles were tied to the right stirrup, wrists to the left.
The position was exceedingly uncomfortable; the binding around his ribs had loosened with abuse and provided no support.
He recalled his defiant challenge: Cheysuli to Ihlini. He recalled losing that challenge, though little of anything afterward; the pain had robbed him of consciousness. Now consciousness was back. He wished it were otherwise.
Kellin gagged and coughed again, suppressing the grunt of pain that exited his throat and was trapped with deliberate effort behind locked teeth.
Regardless of the discomfort, despite the incipient rebellion of his discontented belly, he would not disgrace himself by losing that belly's contents in front of an Ihlini.
A thought intruded: Had I listened to my grandsire— But Kellin cut it off. Self-recrimination merely added to misery.
The horse moved on steadily with its Cheysuli burden. Every stride of the animal renewed Kellin's discomfort. He wanted very much to sit upright, to climb down from the horse, to lie down quietly and let his headache subside. But he could do none of those things.
A crackling of underbrush forwarned him of company as a horse fell in beside him. Kellin's limited head-down view provided nothing more of the world than stirrup leather and horsehair.
Then Corwyth spoke, divulging identity. "Awake at last, my lord? You have slept most of the night."
Slept? I have been in more comfortable beds. Kellin lifted his head. His skull felt heavy, too heavy; it took effort to hold it up. The light now was better; he could see the Ihlini plainly. Dawn waited impatiently just outside the doorflap.
Corwyth smiled. There was no derision in his tone, no contempt in his expression. "One would hardly recognize you. A bath would undoubtedly benefit. Would you care to visit a river?"
The thought of being dumped into an ice-cold river bunched the flesh of Kellin's bones. He suppressed a shiver with effort and made no answer.
The Ihlini's smile widened. "No, that would hardly do. You might sicken from it, and die . . . and then my lord would be very wroth with me."
Blue eyes glinted. "I pity you, Kellin. I have seen Lochiel's anger before, and the consequences of it."
Kellin's mouth hurt. "Lochiel has tried to throw down my House before." It was mostly a croak; he firmed his voice so as not to sound so diminished. "Why do you believe he will succeed this time?"
"He has you," Corwyth said simply.
"You have me," Kellin corrected. "And I would not count a Cheysuli helpless while his heart still beats."
Russet brows arched. "Shall I stop it, then? To be certain of my safety? To convince you, perhaps, that you are indeed helpless despite your Cheysuli bravado?"
Kellin opened his mouth to retort but found no words would come. Corwyth's gloved hand was extended, fingers slack. They curled slowly inward.
There was no pain. Just a vague breathlessness that increased as the fingers closed, and a constriction in his chest that banished the ache of his ribs because this was much worse. Bruised ribs, even cracked ones, offered little danger when a man's heart was threatened.
Kellin stirred in protest, but his bonds held firm. The horse walked on, led by Corwyth's minions. The Ihlini's fingers closed.
He felt each of them: four fingers and a thumb, distinct and individual. Each was inside his chest.
They touched him intimately, caressing the very muscle that kept him alive.
It was, he thought, rape, if of a very different nature.
Kellin desired very much to protest, to cry out, to shout, to swear, to scream imprecations. But his mouth would not function. Hands and feet were numb. He thought the pressure in his head might cause his eyes and ears to burst.
He could not breathe.
Corwyth's hand squeezed.
Kellin thrashed once, expelling breath and blood in a final futile effort to escape the hand in his chest.
"Your lips are blue," Corwyth said. "It is not a flattering color."
Nothing more was left. Piece of meat—
It was, Kellin felt, a supremely inelegant way to die.
Then the hand stilled his heart, and he was dead.
Kellin roused as Corwyth grabbed a handful of hair and jerked his head up. "Do you see?" the Ihlini asked. "Do you understand now?"
He understood only that he had been dead, or very close to it. He sucked in a choking breath, trying to fill flaccid lungs. The effort was awkward, spasmodic, so that he recognized only the muted breathy roaring of a frightened man trying desperately to breathe.
I am frightened— And equally desperate; he felt intensely helpless, and angry because of it. Lochiel's ambassador had humiliated him in the most elemental of ways: by stripping a Cheysuli of freedom, strength, and. pride.
"Say it again," Corwyth suggested. "Say again Lochiel cannot throw down your House."
Kellin said nothing. He could not manage it.
The hand was cruel in his hair. Neck tendons protested. "You have seen nothing. Nothing, Kellin. I am proud, but practical; I admit my lesser place without hesitation or compunction. The power I command is paltry compared to his."
Paltry enough to kill him with little more than a gesture.
Corwyth released his hair. Kellin's neck was too weak to support his skull. It flopped down again, pressing face against winter horsehair. He breathed in its scent, grateful that he could.
"Think on it," Corwyth said. "Consider your circumstances, and recall that your life depends entirely upon the sufferance of Lochiel."
Kellin rather thought his life depended entirely on his ability to breathe, regardless of Lochiel's intentions. As he lay flopped across the saddle, he concentrated merely on in- and exhalations. Lochiel could wait.
When they cut him from the horse and dragged him down, Kellin wondered seriously if death might be less painful. He bit into his tongue to keep from disgracing himself further by verbal protestation, but the sudden sheen of perspiration gave his weakness away. Corwyth saw it, weighed it, then nodded to himself.
"Against the tree," the Ihlini ordered his companions,
The two hauled Kellin bodily to the indicated tree and left him at its foot to contemplate exposed roots as he fought to maintain consciousness. Sweat ran freely, dampening his hair. He lay mostly on one side.
His wrists, though now cut free of the stirrup, were still tied together. He no longer was packed by horseback like so much fresh-killed meat, but the circumstances seemed no better.
Kellin blew grit from his lips. The taste in his mouth was foul, but he had been offered no water.
The sun was full up. They had been riding for hours without a single stop. In addition to the residual aches of the Midden battle and the discomfort of the ride, Kellin's bladder protested. It was a small but signal irritant that compounded his misery.
Kellin eased himself into a sitting position against the tree trunk. He sagged minutely, testing the fit of his ribs inside their loosened wrappings and bruised Hesh, then let wood provide false strength; his own was negligible.
I am young, strong, and fit ... this is a minor inconvenience. Meanwhile, he hurt.
Corwyth strode from his own mount to Kellin, who could not suppress a recoil as the Ihlini touched the binding around his wrists. "There, my lord: freedom." The wrappings fell away. Corwyth smiled. "Test us as you like."
Kellin wanted to spit into the arrogant face.
Corwyth knew he knew there was no reason to test. No man, Cheysuli or not, would risk his heart a second time to Ihlini magic.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" Corwyth gestured, and one of his companions answered with a wrapped packet and leather flask delivered to Kellin at once. "Bread, and wine. Eat. Drink." Corwyth paused. "And if you refuse, be certain I shall make you."
Immediately Kellin conjured a vision of his own hands made by sorcery to stuff his mouth full of bread until he choked on it. His heart had been stopped once; better to eat and drink as bidden than risk further atrocity.
With hands made stiff and clumsy by the weight of too much blood, he unwrapped the parcel. It was a lumpy, tough-crusted loaf of Homanan journey-bread. He set it aside carefully, ignoring Corwyth's interest, and unstoppered the flask. Without hesitation—he would give nothing to the Ihlini, not even distrust—he put the flask to his cut lips and poured wine down his throat.
It stung the inside of his mouth. Kellin drank steadily, then restoppered the flask. "A poor vintage," he commented. "Powerful you may be, but you have no knowledge of wine."
Corwyth grinned. "Bait me, my lord. and you do so at your peril."
Kellin stared steadily back. "Unless you heal me, Lochiel may well wonder what you have done to render his valuable kinsman so bruised."
Corwyth rose. "Lochiel knows you better than that. Everyone in Homana—and Valgaard—has heard of the Midden exploits undertaken by the Prince of Homana."
Midden exploits. He detested the words. He detested even more Lochiel's knowledge of them. To forestall his own comment, he put bread into his mouth.
"Eat quickly," Corwyth said. "We ride again almost immediately."
Kellin glared at him. "Then why stop at all?"
"Why, to keep you and anyone else from claiming me inhumane!" With a glint in blue eyes, the young-seeming Ihlini turned away to his mount, then paused and turned back. "Would you like me to help you rise so you may relieve yourself?"
Kellin's face caught fire. Every foul word he knew crowded into his mouth, which prevented him from managing to expell even one.
"Come now," Corwyth said, "it is an entirely natural thing. And, as you are injured—"
"No," Kellin declared.
Blue eyes glinted again. "Hold onto the tree, my lord. It might help you to stand up."
Kellin desired nothing more than to ignore the suggestion entirely. But to do so was foolish in the face of his need. Pride stung, but so did his bladder.
"I will turn my back," Corwyth offered. "Your condition presupposes an inability to escape,"
The comment naturally triggered an urge to prove Corwyth wrong, but Kellin knew better than to try. If the Ihlini could play with his heart, Kellin had no desire to risk a threat to anything else.
"Hurry," Corwth suggested. He turned away in an elaborate swirl of heavy cloak.
"Ku'reshtin," Kellin muttered.
Silence answered him.
Corwyth's companions escorted Kellin to his horse when it was time to ride on. Corwyth met him there. "You may ride upright, if you like.
Surely it will prove more comfortable than being tied onto a saddle."
Kellin gritted teeth. "What will it cost me?"
"Nothing at all, I think—save perhaps respect for my magic." Corwyth caught Kellin's wrists before he could protest. The Ihlini gripped tightly, crossed one wrist over the other, and pressed until the bones ached in protest. "Flesh into flesh, Kellin, Nothing so common as rope, nor so heavy as iron, but equally binding." He took his hands away, and Kellin saw the flesh of his wrists had been seamlessly fused together.
Gods— Immediately he tried to wrench his wrists apart but could no more do that than rip an arm from his body. His wrists had grown together at the bidding of the Ihlini.
He could not help himself: he gaped. Like a child betrayed, he stared at his wrists in disbelief so utterly overwhelming he could think of nothing else.
My own flesh— It sent a shudder of repulsion through his body. My heart, now this . .. what will Lochiel do?
"A simple thing," Corwyth said easily. Then he signaled to his companions. "Help him to mount his horse. I doubt he will resist." Corwyth moved away, then hesitated as if in sudden thought, and swung back. "If he does, I shall seal his eyelids together."
They rode north, toward the Bluetooth River, where they would cross into the Northern Wastes and then climb over the Molon Pass down into Solinde, the birthplace of the Ihlini, and on to Valgaard itself. Kellin had heard tales of the Ihlini fortress and knew it housed the Gate of Asar-Suti.
It was, Brennan had said, the Ihlini version of the Womb of the Earth deep in the foundations of Homana-Mujhar.
Kellin rode upright with precise, careful posture, trying to keep his torso very still. His legs conformed to the shape of saddle and horse, but his hands did not control the horse. The reins had been split so that each of Corwyth's companions—minions?—led the prisoner's mount. Corwyth rode ahead.
They kept to the forest tracks, avoiding main roads that would bring them into contact with those who might know the Prince of Homana. Kellin doubted anyone would recognize him. His face was welted and bruised, his lower lip split and swollen. He stank of dried sweat mixed with a film of grit and soil, and leaves littered his hair. Little about him now recommended his rank.
Snow crackled in deep shadows, breaking up beneath shod hooves. As afternoon altered to evening, the temperature dropped. Kellin shrugged more deeply into his cloak as his breath fogged the air.
When at last they halted, it was nearly full dark.
Kellin was so sore and weary he thought he might topple off the horse if he so much as turned his head. Let them see none of it. Slowly he kicked free of stirrups, slung a leg across the saddle, and slid from his mount before the Ihlini could signal him down; a small rebellion, but successful.
He made no attempt to escape because to try was sheerest folly. Better to bide his time until his strength returned, then wait for the best moment.
Just now all he could do was stand.
Kellin leaned against the horse a moment to steady himself, flesh cold beneath a film of newborn perspiration. He shivered. Disorientation broke up the edge of consciousness. Weariness, perhaps—
Or—? He stilled. Sorcery? Corwyth's attempt to tease me?
One of the minions put his hand on Kellin's shoulder; he shrugged it off at once. The rebuke came easily in view of who received it. "No one is permitted to touch the Prince of Homana without his leave."
Corwyth, dropping off his own mount, laughed in high good humor. "Feeling better, are we?"
Kellin felt soiled by the minion's touch. An urge to bare his teeth in a feral snarl was suppressed with effort. He swung from the black-eyed man, displaying a taut line of shoulder.
Corwyth pointed. "There."
Kellin lingered a moment beside his horse. His hea
d felt oddly packed and tight, so that the Ihlini's order seemed muted. A second shiver wracked his body, jostling aching bones. Not just cold-more—
"Sit him down," Corwyth said, but before the minion could force the issue, Kellin sat down by himself. "Better." Corwyth tended his own mount as his companions tended Kellin's.
Kellin itched. It had nothing to do with bruises and scrapes, because the itching wasn't in his skin but in his blood. Flesh-bound hands flexed, curling fingers into palms, then snapping out straight again.
He could not eat, though they gave him bread, nor could he drink, because his throat refused to swallow. Once again he leaned against a tree, but this time he needed its support even more than before. He felt as if all his bones were soft, stripped of rigidity. His spirit was as flaccid.
He shifted against wood, grimaced in discomfort, then shifted again. He could not be still.
Just like in Homana-Mujhar. He fixed his eyes on Corwyth, who sat quietly by a small fire. "Was it you who drove me from the palace?"
"Drove you?"
"With sorcery. Was it you?"
Corwyth shrugged. "That required neither magic nor skill. I know your habits. You gamble, you drink, you whore. All it required was the proper time."
Kellin shifted again, hiding flesh-bound wrists beneath a fold of his cloak because to look on them was too unsettling. "You set the trap. I put myself into it."
The Ihlini smiled. "A happy accident. It did save time."
"Accident? Or my tahlmorra?"
That provoked a response. "You believe the gods might have planned this? This?" Corwyth's surprise was unfeigned. "Would the Cheysuh gods risk the final link in the prophecy so willingly?"
Kellin scowled. "Who can say what the gods would do? I despise them ... they have done me little good."
Corwyth laughed and fed a stick to the flames.
"Then perhaps this is their doing, if you and the gods are on such bad terms."
Kellin shivered again. "If Lochiel knows so much about me, surely he knows I have already sired children. Why kill me now? Before, certainly—to prevent the precious seed from being sown—but now it is too late. The seed is well sowed."
Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 Page 19