Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08

by A Tapestry of Lions (v1. 0)

You are man. Cheysuli. Shapechanger. You have borrowed this shape. Give it back. Let the earth magic have it back. When you have learned the proper balance, you can borrow the shape again.

  He let his tail lash. Who am I, then?"

  Kellin. Not cat. Man.

  He considered it. I do not feel like a man. THISis man, this food here beneath me. Saliva dripped from his jowls. You want it for yourself.

  Come away, she said. You have wounds to be healed. So have I.

  The dogs hurt you?

  I have hurts. So do you. Come away, lir. We will have them healed.

  Nearby a door was opened. Someone looked out into the street. He heard a gabble of voices. He understood none of the words- Noise, no more; the noise of puny humans.

  He lowered his jaws. Blood, sweat, urine, fear, and death commingled in a powerful perfume. He would taste it—

  NO. The female was at his side. She leaned a shoulder into his. Her chin rubbed at his head. If you would feed here, there will be no choice but to kill you.

  Who would kill me? Who would dare?

  Men.

  Inner knowledge gloated. They could not accomplish it.

  She leaned harder, rubbing against his neck.

  They could. They would. Come away, lir. You are badly hurt.

  Another door opened. A slash of candlelight slanted into the street. In its illumination he saw the dead hounds, the slack hulk of a man. Voices cried out, full of terror.

  Away? he asked. But—the food—

  Leave it, she said. There is better elsewhere.

  The big cat hurt. His wounds were uncounted, and untended; he required tending. He went with her then because the urge to feed had left him. He felt disoriented and distant, unsure of himself. She led him away from the alley to another not far away and found a hidden comer.

  Here, she said, nudging at a shoulder.

  She was wounded, he saw. Blood spiked the fur on her spine. He turned to her. tending the bites, licking to wash the blood away. She had been hurt by the hounds, torn and tainted by the audacity of mere beasts who did not know what it was to be gods-blessed.

  Leave it, she said. Remember what you are.

  He paused. I am— He checked.

  Gold eyes were intent. What are you?

  I am—as you see me.

  No.

  I am—I am—

  Remember! she snapped. Recall your knowledge of self.

  He could not. He was what he was.

  She leaned against him. He smelled her fear, her blood. She was alien to him, who did not know what she was to him. Stay here. You are too badly wounded to walk. Wait here for me.

  It frightened him. Where are you going?

  For help. Stay here.

  She left him. He crouched against the wall, tail whipping a counterpoint to the pain in his foreleg, in his ribs, in his jaws. Licking intensified pain.

  He flattened his ears against his head and pulled back his lips from his teeth in a feral grimace of pain and fear.

  She had left him alone, and now he was helpless.

  Men came. And torches. The big cat shied back, huddling into a comer as he snarled and growled a warning. He slitted eyes against the flame and saw silhouettes, man-shapes holding sticks with fire blooming from them. He smelled them: they stank of anticipation, apprehension; the giddy tang of an excitement nearly sexual, as if they hoped to mate once the task was done. The odor was strong. It filled up his nostrils and entered his head, causing the reflex response that dropped open his jaws. Raspy in- and exhalations as he scented the men made him sound like a bellows.

  Lir. It was the female. Sima. Lir, do not fear.

  They have come to help, not harm.

  Fire.

  They will come no closer, save one. She slunk out of the blinding light into his slime-coated corner.

  Blood crusted across her shoulders; she had run, and bled again. Let the man come.

  He permitted it. He pressed himself against the wall and waited, one swollen paw dangling.

  Breathing hurt. He hissed and shook his head; a tooth in his jaw was broken.

  The man came away from the fire. Kellin could not judge him by any but a cat's standards: his hair was silver like frost in winter sunlight, and his eyes glowed like coals. Metal glinted on naked arms, bared by a shed cloak despite the winter's bite.

  "Kellin." The man knelt down on one knee, unmindful of the muck that would soil his leathers.

  "Kellin."

  The cat opened his mouth and panted. Pain caused him to drool.

  "Kellin, you must loose the cat-shape. There is no more need."

  The cat rumbled a growl; he could not understand.

  The man sighed and rose, turned back to the men with flames. He spoke quietly, and they melted away. Light followed them, so that though empty of men the corner still shone with a sickly, frenzied pallor.

  The men were gone. In their places was a void, a blurred nothingness that filled the alley. And then a tawny mountain cat stalked out of the fading flame-dazzle with another at his side: a magnificent black female well into her prime. Her grace denounced the gangliness of the young female with Kellin who was, after all, little more than a cub.

  Three mountain cats: two black, one tawny gold. In his mind formed the images that in humans would have been speech; to him, now, the images made promises that they would lend him required strength, and the healing he needed so badly.

  In their eyes he saw a man. Human, like the others. His hair was not winter-frost, but black as a night sky. His eyes were green coals in place of ruddy or yellow. He did not glint with gold; he wore no gold at all. He was smooth and sleek and strong, with the blood running hot in his veins.

  Pain blossomed anew. Broken bones protested.

  Three cats pressed close. The tawny male mouthed his neck; Kellin flattened his ears and lowered his head. He hurt too much to display dominance postures to one who was clearly much older and wiser than he.

  Come home, the cat said. Come home with me now.

  Kellin panted heavily. In the muck, his pads were damp with sweat. Weakness overrode caution. He let them guide his mind until he saw what "home" meant: the true-body that was his.

  Fingers and toes in place of claws. Hair in place of fur, and smooth, taut flesh too easily bruised by harsh treatment.

  Come home, the tawny cat said, and in its place was a man with eyes that understood his pain and the turmoil in his soul. "I have been there," he said. "My weakness is my fear of small dark places ... I will be with you in this. I understand what it is to fear a part of yourself over which you have no control." Then, very softly, "Come home, Kellin. Let the anger go."

  He let it go. Exhaustion engulfed, and a blurred disorientation. Spent, he slumped against the half-grown female. She licked at his face and scraped a layer of skin; human skin, not feline.

  Kellin recoiled. He pressed himself into the stone wall.

  "Kellin." Brennan still knelt. Behind him torches flared. "Shansu, Kellin—it is over."

  "I—I—" Kellin stopped. He swallowed hard against the sour taste of bile. He could frame no proper words, as if he had lost them in his transformation. "I."

  The Mujhar's expression was infinitely gentle. "I know. Come with me." Brennan paused. "Kellin, you are hurt. Come with me."

  He panted shallowly. He cradled his wrist against a chest that hurt as much. His legs were coiled under him so he could rise instantly in a single upward thrust.

  Brennan's hand was on his shoulder.

  Kellin tensed. And then it mattered no longer.

  He closed his eyes and sagged against the stone.

  Tears ran unchecked through grime, perspiration, and blood old as well as new. He was not ashamed.

  Brennan's hand touched his blood-stiffened hair softly, tenderly, as if to frame words he could not say- And then the hand was gone from Kellin's hair, closing instead on the arm that was whole.

  "Come up from there, my lord."

  His grandsir
e had offered him no honor in manner or words for a very long time, nor the deep and abiding affection that now lived in his tone.

  Kellin looked at him. "I am not . . . not . .." He was still too close to the cat. He wanted to wail instead of speak. "Am. Not. Deserving .. ." He tried again in desperation, needing to say it; to recover the human words. "—not of such care—"

  Tears shone in Brennan's eyes. "You are deserving of many things, not the least of which is care, Shansu, my young one—we will find a balance for you. Somehow, we will find a proper balance."

  Torchlight streamed closer. Kellin looked beyond his grandfather and saw the royal guard.

  One of the men was Teague.

  Their faces had been schooled to show no emotion. But he had seen it. He had seen them, and the fear in their eyes as they had looked upon the cat who had been to all of them before nothing more than a man.

  Kellin shuddered, "I was—I was ..." The wail was very near. He shut his mouth upon it, so as to give them no more reason to look upon him with fear and apprehension.

  They were the elite guard of a warrior who became a mountain cat at will. It was not new to them, who had seen it before. But Brennan was nothing if not a dignified man of immense self-control. Kellin was not and had never been a dignified man; self-control was nonexistent. In him, as a human, they saw an angry man desirous of shedding blood.

  In him now, as a cat, they saw the beast instead.

  They know what I have become. What I will always be to them. It spilled from Kellin's mouth, accompanied by blood. "Grandsire—help me—"

  Brennan did not shirk it. "We will mend the body first. Then we shall mend the mind."

  Fifteen

  He was but half conscious, drifting on fading awareness that told him very little save his wounds were healed at last, his broken bones made whole—yet the spirit remained flaccid. He wanted badly to sleep. Earth magic drained a man, regardless of which side he walked.

  His eyes were closed, sticky lashes resting against drawn cheeks. Earth magic reknit bones, but did not dissipate bruises or prevent scarring from a wound that would otherwise require stitching. It merely restored enough health and strength to vanquish immediate danger; a warrior remade by the earth magic was nonetheless well cognizant of what had occurred to require it.

  Kellin's face bore testimony to the violence done him. The flesh across the bridge of his nose had been torn by a thorn; welts distorted his cheeks; his bottom lip was swollen. He had drunk and rinsed out his mouth, but the tang of blood remained from the cuts in his lip and the inside of his cheek.

  A hand remained on Kellin's naked shoulder.

  Fingertips trembled against smooth, freshly sponged flesh; Aileen had seen to the washing.

  "Shansu," Brennan murmured hoarsely, lifting the hand. He, too, was drained, for he had undertaken the healing alone. It would have been better had there been another Cheysuli to aid him, but Brennan had not dared waste the time to send for a warrior. He had done the healing himself, and now suffered for it.

  Kellin was dimly aware of Aileen's murmuring-The Mujhar said something unintelligible, then the door thumped closed. Kellin believed himself alone until he heard the sibilance of skirt folds against one another, the faint slide of thin slipper sole on stone where the rug did not reach. He smelled the scent she favored. Her presence was a beacon as she sat down by his bed.

  "She is lovely," Aileen said quietly. "This must be very much what Sleeta looked like, before she and Brennan bonded."

  He lay slumped on one side with his back to her- A shoulder jutted skyward. Along his spine and the curve of his buttocks lay warmth, incredible warmth; the living bulk of a mountain cat.

  Kellin sighed. He wanted to sleep, not speak, but he owed Aileen something. Into the limp hand curled against his chin, he murmured, "I would sooner do without her, lovely or no."

  "D'ye blame her, then? For being what you are?"

  It jerked him out of lassitude into startled wakefulness. He turned over hastily, thrusting elbows beneath his spine to lever his sheet-draped torso upright. "Do you think I—"

  "You," Aileen said crisply; she was not and had never been a woman who deferred, nor did she now blunt her words because of his condition.

  "Are you forgetting, my braw boyo, that I've lived with a Cheysuli longer than you've been one?"

  It took him aback. He had expected sympathy, gentleness, her quiet, abiding support. What Aileen offered now was something other than that.

  "It is because of Sima that I—did that."

  "Did what? Killed a man? Two?" Aileen did not smile. "I'm born of the House of Eagles; d'ye think the knowledge of killing's new to me? My House has been to war more times than I can count ... my birthlines are as bloody as yours." She sat very straight upon the stool, russet-hued skirts puddled about slippered feet. "You've killed an Ihlini sorcerer, and a Homanan who meant to kill—or maim—you; as good as dead to the Cheysuli; I know about kin-wrecking.'' Aileen's tone was steady, as were her eyes. "The first killing won't be questioned; he was an Ihlini."

  His mouth flattened into a grim, contemptuous line. "But the other was Homanan."

  "Thief or no," she said, "some will call you a beast."

  Memory was merciless. "I was."

  "So now you're blaming your lovely lir."

  "She is not my lir. Not yet. We are not fully bonded."

  "Ah." Aileen's green eyes narrowed. She looked more catlike for it, with a fixed and unsettling stare. "And you're for ending it, are you?"

  She read him too easily. Kellin slumped back onto bolsters and bedclothes. She was due honor and courtesy, but he was very tired. Bones were healed, but the body was yet unaware of its improved condition, save the blazing pain was gone.

  Stiffness persisted; after all that had happened in the space of two days, his resiliency was weakened. Youth could not usurp reality though its teeth be blunted. "I have no choice. She made me become—"

  "I'm doubting that." Aileen's tone was level, unforgiving; she offered no platitudes designed to ease his soul, but harsher truths instead. "By the gods, I'm doubting that you're the blood of my blood, Kellin, and I'll not hear a word against you from others—but I will say what I choose. In this instance, I hide none of it behind kindness and love, but tell it to you plainly: you've only yourself to blame,"

  His protest was immediate, if incomplete. "Me?"

  "No Cheysuli warrior alive is without anger, Kellin. He merely controls it better. You control nothing at all, nor make any attempt."

  He had no time to think, merely the need to fill the toothed silence yawning between them; to fight back with words from a heart that was filled to bursting with despair and desperation: could she not understand? She was his own blood. "I did not want to kill them, granddame—at least, aye, perhaps the Ihlini—he threatened me, after all!—but not the Homanan, not like that—he was a thief, aye, and deserving of roughness, but to kill him like that?" He gestured impatiently, disliking his incoherency; it obscured the strength of intent. "Kill him, aye, because he meant to kill me, or maim me in such a way as to cut me off from my clan, but I never wanted to kill him—at least, not as a cat ... as a man, aye—"

  "Kellin." She cut him off sharply with voice and gesture; a quick motion of eloquent hand. It was a Cheysuli gesture. "If you would listen to what you just said—or tried to say!—you would understand why it is imperative that you fully accept your lir,"

  All his muscles stood up inside flesh in mute repudiation. "My lir—or the beast who would be my lir—has nothing to do with this."

  Aileen rose. She was in that moment less his granddame than the Queen of Homana. "You are a fool," she declared. "A spoiled, petulant boy trapped in a man's body, and dangerous because of it. A boy filled to bursting on anger and bitterness can do little harm; a man may do more. A man who is half a beast may do more yet."

  "I am not—"

  "You are what you are," she said flatly. "What are we to think? Aye, a man under attack wi
ll do as he must to survive—d'ye think I will excuse a man who means to kill my grandson?—but a man such as you, gifted so terribly, can never be a man."

  Gifted so terribly. He had not looked on it as such. "Grandsire also wears the shape of a cat."

  Her mouth was compressed. She permitted herself no latitude in the weight of her displeasure.

  "No man in all of Homana, not even a Midden thief, need fear that the Mujhar of Homana would ever lose himself to the point he sheds his humanity and feeds as a beast."

  It shook him. Her face was taut and pale; his own felt worse. He felt it would stretch until the bones of his skull broke through, shredding thinning flesh, thereby displaying the true architecture lying too near the surface.'

  Human? Or beast? Kellin swallowed heavily. "I want nothing to do with it. You are not Cheysuli—surely you can understand how I feel. Does it not frighten you that the man whose bed you share becomes a cat at will?"

  "I know the man," she said evenly. "I'm not knowing you at all."

  "But—I am!"

  "No. You are a bared blade hungry for blood, with no hand on its hilt to steady its course."

  “Granddame—"

  "He is old," Aileen said, and the cracks of desperation in her self-control began abruptly to show. "He is the Mujhar of Homana, in whose veins the Old Blood flows, and he serves the prophecy. There is no doubt in him; what he does, he does for the Lion, and for the gods who made the Cheysuli. What I think does not matter, though he honors me for it; he does what he must do."

  Her hands trembled slightly until she hid them in skin folds. "How do you think it felt to be given a tiny infant and told the future of a realm depended on that infant, because the infant's father was meant for the gods, not men?"

  Kellin did not answer. There were no words in his mouth.

  "How do you think it felt for him to realize the entire fate of Homana and his own race depended solely on that infant; that there would be no others to shore up the claim. If that infant died, the prophecy died with him. Aidan can sire no more."

  Beside him, Sima stirred.

  "How do you think it has been for him to watch what you became? To see you waste yourself on whores, when there is a cousin in Solinde ... to see you risk yourself in the Midden, when there are safer games nearby ... to hear you rant about fatherlessness when he has been a father in every way but seed, and even then he is your grandsire! How do you think it feels?"