The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Why did you come?" Caith asked in a thin, hoarse voice. "Why did you follow me, Raghallach?"

  "Revenge," said Raghallach, and gave another heave in the hands of those that held him. Tears ran down his face and mingled with the sweat and the streaks of blood and dirt. "For my sister, man—"

  Caith's heart turned over in him. Well played, O gods, man—brave and well played.

  Caith turned his shoulder as a man accused of villainy might do, walked a space frowning as the phooka let him go. He looked back at wider vantage, Dubhain in the tail of his eye as he glared at Raghallach mac Cinnfhail.

  "He's mad."

  "He calls you thief as well," Sliabhin said. "He says you stole a horse."

  "So, well." Caith turned away, disdaining all accusation.

  "Caith he calls you."

  Caith drew his sword, flinging back his cloak; and all about him men moved—but Sliabhin stopped everything with a move of his hand.

  "You never learned that from him," Caith said. "You've known me from the moment I walked in here."

  "I've waited for you." Sliabhin's voice was soft. "I was sure you would come . Someday, somehow."

  "I came to kill you—for Gaelan's sake. But I heard another tale, there in Dun Gorm. And which is true— father? Who sent me to that whoreson Hagan? Was it Gaelan—or yourself?"

  "Who is your companion?" Sliabhin asked, turning his shoulder from the menace of his sword. There were guards; they never moved. "Some other of Gleatharan's fine young lads?"

  "Oh, that." Caith kept the blade point between them at their distance, but he took a lighter tone, an easier stance. "Dubhain is his name. One of Hagan's whores' sons. I've gotten used to such comrades—I get on well with them, father. Any sort of cutthroat. That's a skill they taught me well—your cousin Hagan and his crew. Why not? We breed such merry sorts— father." He gained a step on Sliabhin, but sideways, as a man moved to block him; it all stopped again. "Pirates. Brigands. Are these my brothers? How many did you beget—and on what, when you tired of my mother?"

  "Enough!" Sliabhin's face congested. He lifted a shaking hand, empty. "It was Gaelan—Gaelan tormented her. She and I loved, boy—loved—you'd not know that. Oh, yes, whelp, I saved your life. I rode—myself—and bestowed you where I could or Gaelan'd have given you up for wolfbait that night. He gave out you were stillborn. He beat her—hear me?"

  Caith faltered. More of truths and half-truths shuttled back and forth in this tapestry of lies. His mind chased after them, sorting one and the other, and he darted a glance from Sliabhin to Raghallach, to Sliabhin again. Raghallach lied for him, risked his own sister's name in his defense and tried nothing for himself. But Sliabhin's voice had the ring of true outrage. And the Sidhe was there beside him, doubtless laughing at his plight.

  The sword sank in Caith's hand, extended again to Raghallach. "What of him?"

  "What of him?"

  "I don't know. Someone's lied. I don't know who. Where's Brian? Where's my brother?"

  "You'll not be taking your brother anywhere tonight, my lad," Sliabhin said.

  "I want to see him."

  "What's he to you?"

  "A whim. Father. Like you."

  "Put up the sword. Put it up."

  Caith laughed, a faint, strained laugh, and his own fey mind surprised him. The look in Sliabhin's eyes surprised him, that they were lost together in this sea and clinging desperately one to the other still un-murdered.

  "Put it up."

  Caith thought on it a long moment, with another look at Raghallach, at Dubhain; then there were only Sliabhin's eyes, bewitching as the Sidhe's, to cast a glamor on things. There was Sliabhin's voice, promising nothing at all. There was death here; the room was full of it.

  I am the curse, Caith thought. The Sidhe send their curse back to Dun Mhor—in me. And I cannot be rid of it. He slid the sword back into its sheath, a neat quick move, never quite taking his eyes from the guards, who kept their swords drawn. But if it is in me I can delay it, I can take it away again—if I will. If Sliabhin wills it.

  And what if I am wrong?

  "You'll rest here," said Sliabhin, "as my guest."

  "And this one?" He meant Raghallach. He gestured that way, where Raghallach hung in the guard's cruel grip. O gods, he accused me—how can I defend him, how save him, what can I do to save his life but win my father and turn his mind from killing him—

  "He'll tell us tales. By morning—he'll have a many of them. You'll hear them all."

  "My brother—where is he?"

  "Oh, the boy's well. Quite well enough. Go. They'll take you to chambers, these men of mine. Leave this other to me."

  Shame burned Caith's face, betraying shame; he looked at Raghallach, and for a moment then his heart stopped, for Raghallach smiled unexpectedly in a way only he could see, a cat's smile, that chilled him through.

  Dubhain tugged at him. "Come, lord, come—do what he says."

  Caith cast a wild glance at Dubhain and covered it. The phooka took his arm in a grip fit to break it as Sliabhin's men closed in about them.

  "Trust," said Sliabhin, "or have no safety here." Caith looked back at him. Not yet had Sliabhin's men tried to disarm him—and this omission and their likeness, their crying likeness to each other, together with that which hung in the hands of the guards— robbed him of volition, of any last hope of understanding what happened around him.

  It was not Raghallach they had taken, but the Sidhe Nuallan—Nuallan they dragged struggling away in the other direction, past the door with its wards, its diminishments of Sidhe power.

  They passed the door with Nuallan-Raghallach. Directly a shout rang out, a blow, a cry of pain that jarred his nerves as it echoed in the hall.

  Then one man took Caith by the arm and drew him aside to another door. A guard opened it on more stairs, a dark and musty ascent higher into the hold.

  "Sliabhin!" Caith jerked about to turn back again, halfway, but no one was prepared to listen. Dubhain came perforce, at sword-point. Caith tried to break from them; and there in the doorway they held a sword to his throat and disarmed him of sword and dagger both.

  "Sliabhin! Damn you!" He fought once they took the sword away from his throat, and he hoped for the phooka's help, but three men got Caith's arms behind him and began to force him up the stairs. He braced his feet against the steps and struggled. "Sliabhin!" His voice echoed in the halls, in the heights and depths of the place. "Sliabhin!" And despairing: "Brian!"

  One struck him, bringing him stunned to his knees on the stone steps.

  And no one listened.

  8

  There was a hall beyond the stairs, a room at the side of it; a dank darkness, masonry built into Dun Mhor's very hill, dirt floored in stone. Rough hands hurled them both in, and quickly slammed the door.

  The phooka's eyes glowed, company in the dark, and a light grew about them both, until Caith could see Dubhain plainly. The phooka sat on the floor of this stonewalled chamber—he was the country lad again, all dusty. And Dubhain brushed himself off as if he had taken some easy spill, as merry as before, and got to his feet.

  Caith sat, bruised and sullen, winded. He bowed his aching head against his hands.

  "Welcome home," the phooka said.

  Caith looked up and glowered. For a long time there was silence.

  A scream shuddered through the thick door, a man's voice and not yet a man's—Caith flinched at hearing it and then he hardened his heart to it, thinking on the Sidhe Nuallan. "You knew," he said to Dubhain, shuddering when it came again, more horrid than before. "It's all a sham. Isn't it?"

  "Of course it is." Yet another cry rang through the halls at some distance, a man in deepest agony. Dubhain looked that way, uncommon sobriety on his face.

  "Dubhain. Dubhain—for the gods' sake, what's in Nuallan's mind, to come here like this?"

  Silence.

  "He's in trouble, isn't he? Dubhain?"

  "Oh, never." Dubhain dusted his hands and, blithe a
s he had begun, his voice quavered as the cry rang out again.

  "Can you do something?" It was not love that made Caith ask. It was humanity, all unwise and simple-minded; he knew it, and yet the sound— It came again, and they both winced. "For the gods's ake, phooka, can you do something?"

  "The wards—" The phooka fretted and paced back and forth, dark within the light he himself cast. He was naked now, dusky-skinned, his hair falling black and thick about his shoulders, his eyes glowing murky red. "Oh, Nuallan loves a joke, he does, and this one is quite rich, is it not? He's come to see the revenge. To keep his word to you."

  "Get us out of this."

  Dubhain stopped his pacing. Another scream shuddered through the air and Dubhain wrung his hands. "The wards—the wards—they—muddle things."

  "You mean they work? Nuallan can't get out?"

  The phooka said nothing.

  "He's testing me, Sliabhin is." Caith got to his feet, staggering as he did. "Using Raghallach—Nuallan. It's for my benefit, all this—O gods." There was another scream. Caith tried the door again and again, at last turned his shoulders against the rough wood and stared at the twin red gleams that glared at him. Still another cry echoed beyond their dark. "Maybe he's laughing at them all the while. But I don't care for your jokes, phooka. Do something. I've got a brother in this place, remember? Where is he? Listening to that?' He laughed, a brief, strained laughter. "O gods, you do love a joke. But this is enough, phooka, enough!"

  "Be still, man," Dubhain hissed, sinking down on his haunches and hugging his arms about himself. The red eyes gleamed, feral and terrible, glowing alternately brighter and dimmer as scream after scream echoed up the dark. "Be still. He'll give up soon, Nuallan will. Even his humor doesn't carry to this."

  It went on, all the same, and on, and on.

  "The wards—" Caith said.

  "Fair Folk," said Dubhain.

  "What does that mean?"

  "Nuallan's of the Fair Folk. He says wards aren't that much against him."

  Caith crouched down in like position, facing the boy-shape in the dark. "He says."

  The phooka said nothing. Dubhain's face was not good to look on, nor his eyes good to look into.

  "My brother, phooka. You bargained. Do something. Find him. Where is he?"

  "Patience," the phooka whispered at last, a voice so still it seemed to chill the air. "Patience, mac Sliabhin."

  It was long that Caith waited, crouched there with his arms clasped about his knees and shivering. The wailing died and began again. "Phooka," Caith said.

  "Hssst." The look that fixed on him was dire and distraught. "What will you pay for it?"

  "Pay for it? It's your friend down there!"

  "There's the boy," the whisper came back; the red eyes looked into his with sudden keenness as if Dubhain had been somewhere and now came back to him. "I know where your brother is. What will you pay?"

  "Curse you, you've already bargained for that answer, for all I've got!"

  "Your scruples, man. I told you you had that left to trade."

  "What do you want?"

  "I'll tell you. If we survive this. When I go, hold to me." Dubhain shut his eyes till only the merest slits gleamed fire.

  Suddenly it was the black horse rising to its feet, a scrape of hooves on the stone, the surge of a large equine body. Caith scrambled to his feet and in the scattering and gathering of his wits seized it by the mane and swung up to mount it in that low-ceilinged room.

  The door was like mist about them as they passed, like nothing at all; and abruptly it was not the horse-shape, but the boy, and himself tumbling to land on his feet with his hand on Dubhain's naked shoulder, fingers still tangled in Dubhain's hair. "Let go," the phooka said. "Follow me."

  They padded along the hall, down the dark stairs, quiet and quick. Quietly and quickly they pushed open the door on the hall and the guards there turned suddenly to see what had broken among them, a desperate man and an improbable black horse that swept to the far door scattering men like leaves before its rush of wind and storm-sound.

  A sword fell loose. Caith seized it up and hewed his way in Dubhain's wake, turned with his back to the doorway and the phooka and at once found himself beset by five of Sliabhin's guards.

  He swept a furious stroke in the doorway, taking one in return, beating blades aside—ducked under one and thrust for a belly. A sword came down at him while his was bound and he sprawled aside against the door frame, in worse and worse trouble, but he got that man's knees as he fell in the doorway and stabbed up at the next guard as the rest of him fell in reach, expecting a blade down on him in the next moment.

  A black sudden shape swept him over, as the phooka sent the surviving pair screaming in retreat up the inside stairs.

  Then the horse-shape turned and changed as it twisted like black smoke into the boy-shape, into Dubhain who reached for him and drew him to his feet.

  Caith caught his balance against the wall and turned for the door and the second, downward stairs. There was no time for thought, no time for anything. He ran the stairs down into the hold as a black shape drifted past him straight down the drop off the landing, a dire thing with burning eyes and the rush of wind and cold about it. Down and down it went, showing him the way as it coursed the hall below.

  Other guards came at them in the lower hall. Thunder cracked outside, shaking the stones. The phooka laughed like a damned soul and flickered out of man-shape and in again about one luckless guard; and that man wailed and gibbered and fell down, eyes open and staring. Caith battered down the guard in his own path, not troubling to know whether that one or the other lived or no. He broke clear. Dubhain was by him, running now, having settled on human shape after all.

  "Take us there," Caith breathed, seizing Dubhain by the hair.

  "You're heavy," Dubhain complained. "Heavy—" The phooka was panting now, even running on bare human feet. "This way—" It was Dubhain that faltered, the red light in his eyes dimmed as he caught his balance against the wall. "The wards, man—I cannot—much farther, much oftener. Haste—be quick."

  Stairs gaped ahead of them, going downward yet again. Caith turned then, with a wild suspicion of betrayal. "My brother" he said. "Not Nuallan—hang Nuallan: he can save himself."

  "Go on," said Dubhain. "We keep our bargains."

  Caith spun about and went, trusting the phooka to guard his back. Light showed below as he made a second turning of the narrow stone stairs, and yet no one barred his way. He descended in haste, turned suddenly, feeling his back naked.

  Dubhain was gone. Caith cursed and wiped his face, shaking; then taking a fresh grip on the bloody sword, drew a whole breath and kept going the only way he knew now to go.

  The tumult above had died. There were no more screams from below. He heard thunder rumble, distant from these cellars, above him. A torch at a landing was the only light, and that was scant and guttering in a sough of wind down the stairwell.

  But beyond that lighted corner the stairs took another bend, onto a wider scene, onto a hell of torchlight and torment in the cellars of Dun Mhor.

  9

  They saw him as he saw them—a dozen men, Sliabhin. . . Swords were out, waiting for what should come on them from the commotion above.

  Motion stopped then—all frozen. There was a wooden cage, and in that a smallish, half-starved dark-haired boy; there were chains, and in those chains Nuallan hung in Raghallach's red-haired likeness, next a reeking brazier and its irons. Nuallan had burns on his naked body, burns and bleeding wounds and no sense within his eyes.

  "Sliabhin," Caith said ever so quietly, with everything in ruins—his last and furtive hope of home, of wholeness for himself. He felt sick and fouled, forever fouled, from his origins to this hour, this bloody, dreadful truth beneath the floors of Dun Mhor. "Father mine. . . You know I'd have believed you? You should have spoken me fair, you know. Is this my brother? Brian—is it you?"

  There was silence from the boy in the cage. Whet
her the waif heard at all he could not tell from the tail of his eye. Swords were poised all about the room, his, theirs, every sword but Sliabhin's own, that stayed within its sheath. An oil pot bubbled softly and sent up its acrid, stinging reek. An ember snapped. The air stank of burned flesh and dust and sweat.

  "I've killed your men upstairs," Caith said, baiting them all. Such a crime as he had come to do wanted anger, not horror, not blood as cold as his ran now. "I've killed every one I could reach and I've driven off the rest. There are no women here. None I've seen. No small ones. Nothing. It's a fortress of bandits, father, this house of ours. . . How did my mother die? A suicide, I've heard."

  Sliabhin's face twisted. "Shut your mouth."

  "After she found out what she let in. After she saw what you did. She had some scruples left. Even I had scruples left. But you have none, and I've given mine away. Why didn't you call me home long ago—to your loving care? Hagan—was nothing to what you've done here. Nothing."

  "Listen to me, Caith." Sliabhin took on a tone of reason. He moved closer, among the swords. "This whelp's no son of mine—not this one. Hers and his—not mine. I'd still have taken him in, for her sake. But young Brian-lad wouldn't have it. Gaelan taught him to hate me—his son. Hers. He hates like Gaelan. He has Gaelan's look about him—"

  "Take your sword. I'm no murderer by choice. Not like you. But I'll kill you one way or the other. I swear I will."

  "He's not my son." You are."

  "Are you sure? Could we ever be sure?"

  That touched home in Sliabhin. Caith saw it, the long, long hate, the madness. "Boy," said Sliabhin, "I kept you up there—safe in Dun na nGall. Safe, all these years. Gaelan would have killed you, do you know that?"