There was a table of black ebony. On it was a mirror of black obsidian which rested in a frame of red gold. The sorcerer who studied it was robed in scarlet cloth. Kalarr drummed his fingers irritably on the table-top and then dispelled the images drifting deep within the volcanic glass. "We underestimated him," he said bleakly. "That must not happen again. It irritates me."
"It doesn't fill me with delight either," snapped Duergar. Since the destruction of Esel he had been sulk-ing, a condition not improved by the fact that Kalarr found it amusing. "Were those soldiers yours?"
"None of mine in Erdhaven," said cu Ruruc. He pushed himself back from the table and stood up. "The only reason your bronze traugur was there was your own suspicious nature. I wonder…"
"We don't have time to wonder." Duergar started leafing through a thick book. "He wasn't killed on the spot, so I'm assuming he'll be released."
"And what else are you doing there… ?"
The necromancer looked up, then tapped his volume. "I'm going to deal with that whelp once and for all."
Kalarr rolled his eyes upward and clenched both fists and teeth. Then he breathed out slowly. "You had your chance to do so and you failed. This is my turn." He smiled, both at the childishness of it all and at the thought which had just struck him. "You couldn't send a spell after him anyway."
"Why not?"
"Not unless the old limit on the range of spells has been overcome—and I don't think it has. At best you'd raise a storm over Erdhaven; at worst the magic would be overextended and would snap back here. You know what that would do, don't you?" Duergar did. "All you can do is form a plague-sending and that's too slow for this game."
"Game?" shrilled Duergar. "It's a game, is it?"
"Of course—and a most stimulating one. You Imperials treat everything too seriously. What's the boy likely to do now, eh?"
"I have no idea," Duergar retorted pettishly.
"After going to a sea-port; after risking his neck to earn money; and you have no idea… Then I suggest you try to find out. Now I, I intend to do something about it—and I intend to watch that something happen."
"At sea?" scoffed the Drusalan necromancer. "And you just after mocking me for forgetting about distance. Do you ever listen to yourself, cu Ruruc?"
"At sea," repeated Kalarr calmly. "With a flying eye." Duergar stopped in mid-laugh and stared at his colleague. What, he mouthed, but no sound came out. Kalarr dipped one hand into his belt-pouch and threw something at Duergar, who dodged. The missile did not fall, but fluttered round and round his head on silent wings. When he got a close look he gasped in disgust and regretted ever raising the subject. It was, literally, a flying eye: an eyeball the size of a cat's head, bloodshot across the white with tendrils of muscle from its mothlike wings. It circled him like some repellent insect, then returned to Kalarr's pouch with the same movement as a swallow entering its nest. "I'll send this to Erdhaven at first light tomorrow."
"Why not now, tonight?" Duergar wanted to know.
Kalarr glowered at him, then diluted the look with a sardonic grin. "Owls," he said.
King Rynert was not in Erdhaven simply to enjoy the festival; no monarch would let an event which gathered scores of kailinin in one place go unobserved. Scattered through the town in disguise and camped plainly outside it after a "training march" was almost a full legion of soldiers. Just in case. And there was a ship to be despatched, its cargo of sufficient importance to require Rynert's personal sendoff. That would have been of great interest to the Empire, had its presence not been concealed better than even the best-disguised soldiers.
The king had not forgotten that young Talvalin had mentioned Kalarr cu Ruruc and though he was courtly, sophisticated and cynical, Rynert had never adopted the disbelief so fashionable among his lords. He had been a sickly child, afflicted with a wasting disease which left him lame and crippled, in a body too frail for & warrior. Instead he had strengthened his mind, reading, absorbing knowledge wherever he could find it, learning both military and political strategy—in short, becoming the kind of king who needed no strong arm to rule well. He knew as much about the theory of magic as any lesser wizard and was aware of the power which practical sorcery brought. Rynert had no desire for that power; it soiled the soul like black pitch and made the thought of cu Ruruc a frightening one.
Dewan had called the place his house, even though the king was living there. It was somewhere restful away from court, where private councils could be held and where at present the champion's wife was living. Ar Kor-entin had deserted from his regiment when the Empire annexed his home province some ten years before, and though a storm of protest in the Senate had revoked the annexation only a short while later, by that time Dewan had neither the need nor the desire to return.
"A ship will be leaving port in two or three days time," said Rynert as he rose to go. The others rose as well, bowing politely. "You two will be on board; the cargo is not so urgent that the shipmaster can't make a small diversion on your behalf. Have your adjutant take over, Dewan—you'll be going with them. Convey my apologies to your wife. Good night." The door clicked shut behind him.
"Well now…" Ar Korentin released a held-in breath through his teeth. "Lyseun won't like this—or you, eijo-an." Aldric did not trouble to ask why; he guessed that he would find out anyway. "By the way," the Vreijek continued, "how long do you practise taiken daily?"
"Two hours—one in the morning, one at—"
"I thought so. To the exclusion of all else. Then I've got two or three days in which to sharpen up your archery. That exhibition today, kailin Talvalin, wasn't worth a damn in combat. Now, follow me."
Another bloody expert, Aldric thought bitterly— something I could certainly do without. The champion's wife could equally well have done without Aldric; she did not say so, but her disapproval was plain despite the presence of King Rynert's wife Ewise, just across the gaming-board at which they sat. To Lyseun this young eijo in the sinister black harness was just another in the series of armoured young men who came with various reasons to take her husband from her side. Lyseun hated them all, for she could see the day when only the young man would return, making some insincere noise of grief about her husband, and then she would be left all alone. She had begged Dewan to stop taking risks and settle down, so he had eventually learned the practice of Alban law. And now here he was with another ice-eyed warrior at his heels, excuses on his lips and that old, familiar inability to look her in the face.
Neither Aldric nor Kyrin liked that room, even though Lady Ewise was a kind and gentle woman who did her best to make them feel at ease. The air was as taut and tingling as an overstretched harpstring, and just as likely to snap with painful consequences. They were both grateful when a servant offered to show them to their rooms.
Charcoal-burners stood at apparent random intervals across the peak of Dunrath-hold's great donjon tower, while Kalarr cu Ruruc joined them together with lines of chalk drawn with the aid of a diagram. When he had finished he stood back with a grunt of satisfaction and surveyed his handiwork. The chalk-marks writhed with such complexity that in places they seemed to sink into the stone floor or vanish up into the night sky. Incense-laden censers fumed above certain angles, bowls of clear water rested on others.
"Now," muttered Kalarr, dusting his hands. He laid a heavy book on a lectern and thumbed through the pages until he found the one he had marked with a strip of ribbon, then read the spell through once in silence, his lips moving as they worked out words more outlandish than usual. At last he cleared his throat and pronounced the Summoning aloud.
The charcoal-burners ignited by themselves with small flurries of sparks, and the water started to steam and bubble. A breeze came whining out of the still, silent night and whipped the incense smoke into grey threads whirling across the floor. They spun together, crossing and recrossing until they had woven a great inverted cone which seemed almost solid in the faint starlight. The air throbbed, fluctuating between cold and sticky hea
t. A glow sprang into being within the shroud of smoke and the charcoal-burners roared as all their fuel was consumed in a single burst of heat that Duergar felt at the far side of the tower. From within the cone he could hear a sound like something huge, shifting and breathing. Then it split from base to apex, spilling out an amber light which made the stars grow dim.
Kalarr stepped forward with his shadow stretching out long and black behind him and raised both hands in a gesture of invitation. He voiced a soft, ululating call and the being in the cloud emerged.
It hung above the magical symbols on motionless wings, black scimitars like those of a swift but thirty yards from tip to tip. The thing's breath moaned through great vents where the wing-roots joined its bulging triangular body, vents guarded by sweeping arcs which resembled horns and yet, growing from its shoulders, were no such thing. The head was vaguely like a wasp's both in shape and in the positioning of two bulbous yellow eyes; but no wasp ever possessed eyelids, even lids which closed horizontally. The nightmare was completed by twenty feet of whiplash tail writhing with boneless flexibility behind it.
"An isghun," breathed Duergar in horror. Kalarr nodded, then spoke to the creature in a rapid monotone of inhuman syllables. "An isghun," the Drusalan repeated. "You're insane! You don't know what you're doing…"
"I do—and I also know the Masterword which controls these things." Otherwise no man in his right mind would have gone anywhere near the being, and Duergar had no intention of approaching it even now.
He shrank back against the cold stones as the isghun drifted lower. Though he could not hear what reply it made to Kalarr's words, he felt the air vibrating with the cadences of its speech and wondered what it might be saying. The baleful eyes closed to vertical phosphorescent slits and then winked out as their owner slept. Even then its body did not settle on the floor but remained suspended, immobile on those rigidly outstretched wings.
"You call this a game?" Duergar demanded after an apprehensive glance towards the vast, hovering bulk. "Then, my friend and sworn ally, you'll not face me across a board. Your play is far too rough."
"Rough? An isghun, rough?" Kalarr spat the words contemptuously. "If the boy had stayed landbound I'd have given you cause to think my play was rough—I'd have summoned up a shri."
"A… shri?" Duergar whispered, his face turning the colour of meal. The necromancer's voice trembled. "You dare to even think… You are mad!" .
Kalarr smiled: a slow, infinitely cruel smile. "Perhaps I am, Drusalan. Perhaps I am."
Kyrin had watched Aldric's first archery lesson under ar Korentin's tuition for only a few minutes before walking away. She felt genuinely sorry for him as the echoes of Dewan's parade-ground bellow followed her from the butts. When next she saw the young eijo, late that evening, he was sour-tempered, sore-fingered and very poor company, although he brightened considerably when she caught his eye with a sympathetic smile—until Dewan's voice cut across the general dinner-table chatter. "You're getting better, Aldric-an," he said kindly enough. "Another full day of shooting and you'll be almost quite good." Though Aldric laughed dutifully, Kyrin could see his heart was not really in it.
The following night he was not at table and Kyrin retired earlier than was usual for her. When she reached her room the windows had been shuttered, the lamps lit and the thick down quilt on her bed turned back. The Valhollan girl smiled: if this was how high-clan Albans lived, she approved wholeheartedly. Kicking off her boots, she dropped them with a muffled double thud onto the thick rug, then poked at the scuffed doeskin with her foot.
"Hardly ladylike," she mused, then lifted the estoc from its harness across her back. The sword rattled faintly and she stared at the giltwork on its hilt before tossing the weapon into a corner. "Not ladylike at all," she decided; then her eyes strayed to the wardrobes set into the bedroom walls and speculation gleamed in their blue depths. Five Kyrins blinked at her from under five fringes of tousled pale-blonde hair and wiggled their bare toes in five rugs, all reflected in the mirror-faced doors. She had already looked inside them, of course, but the garments within had been so fine and delicate that she had not dared to touch them.
"And why not?" she said aloud. Sliding one wardrobe open, Kyrin gazed longingly at the peacock fabrics. Silk, satin and velvet rustled seductively as she ran her fingers through them and then pulled one gown free, with a guilty glance at the bedroom door as she did so. It stayed shut, and she slithered hastily out of her everyday clothes before draping herself in the sendal over-robe. It was clinging, soft and heavy, pure snowfall white shot through with rainbow lustres which shimmered as she moved. Kyrin neither knew nor cared that it was meant to be worn over a contrasting mantle, but luxuriated in the sensuous feel of the stuff against her skin, twisting and turning before the mirrors in what was almost a graceful dance.
"You look very well," said Aldric softly. Kyrin spun, one hand flying to cover her mouth. The eijo smiled, but remained where he lounged elegantly in the doorway. She recoverd quickly and nodded at his compliment.
"I'd almost forgotten I was a woman," she explained shyly.
"I never have," he replied with the beginnings of gallantry, then shook his head as if to clear it of a momentary dizziness. "Kyrin, what I…what I came to tell you was that the ship sails tomorrow. It's one of Rynert's fleet and he says—asked me to tell you—that he'll put another vessel at your disposal if you wish to go home."
"And you want me to go… ?"
"Light of Heaven, no! That is… it's your choice now. You don't have to keep following me to find your passage back. Unless you want to…"
"What do you want?" she responded. Aldric blinked rapidly, swallowed down a dry throat and avoided Kyr-in's steady gaze. "Tell me, Alban."
He was unprotected; out of armour and not even wearing the sinister black which had been his unfailing custom until now. Instead he was dressed simply in a white shirt nipped at the waist by a belt to hold his tsepan, and blue boots and breeches worked with silver along the seams. There was a clean-scrubbed look about his face which, when the scar was not visible and his haunted eyes were shadowed, made him seem almost innocent. The pinkness of his skin did not come from washing, however—more from embarrassment.
"I… want you to stay. Not just stay here, but stay close to me. Please…" He drew in a deep breath and in that instant Kyrin realised just how very scared he was. Her half-formed smile evaporated in case he thought it mocked him, to be replaced by a solemn expression more in keeping with the moment.
"You aren't real, Aldric. Not enough for this harsh world. Keep it that way if you can," she said, then leaned over and kissed him gently on the mouth.
"Kyrin, I—" he began to say. Then he dismissed the words and put his arms around her. Kyrin's lips parted under his and he felt the intimate touch of her tongue entering his mouth, exploring. Her breath, her hair, her body all smelt bright and sweet, like apples in sunlight, warm and firm and curved. As his head bent forward, mouth opening over the soft hollows of her throat, Aldric closed his arms gently, drawing her tight against his chest and the pounding heart within.
They lay silent for a long time, arms entwined, still, peaceful and content merely to be together. Then Aldric rolled slightly and raised his head to look at her, fingertips delicately caressing the curve of one breast. She opened sleepy eyes and watched the silver at his throat glinting in the lamplight. "Did I hurt you?" he whispered hesitantly. Kyrin smiled at his concern, stroking the dark hair on his chest as she might have stroked a cat.
"No. Don't worry. I… I wasn't a virgin." She felt his silent laughter against her cheek. "What's so funny?"
"Because I was!"
"You were… ?"
"Yes. Thank you." He kissed the palm of her hand; but there was something in his voice she did not care for and she sat up in order to see his eyes. They were hooded, languorous and as she leaned closer something flickered in the jade-green depths. An instant later it was masked by his long lashes, but Kyrin breathed out
very slowly through her nose.
"Aldric… don't get involved. It won't work." She cupped his face in both hands and kissed him lightly on the forehead, smiling at her own restraint. "You can stop pretending to sleep."
His eyes snapped open. "What won't work?" She could feel the words growling low in his throat.
"Anything between us. Behind that cynical mask you're a romantic, Aldric-ain. I'm a realist—and a foreigner."
Kyrin felt a spasm of something—anger perhaps, or awareness of what she meant—tense the eijo's muscles. "You can't fight tradition with a sword."
"Oh no… ?"
"No. Because you're an Alban kailin-eir, ilauem-arluth Talvalin, heir to lands and ranks and titles."
"What the hell difference does that make?" His voice was quiet, but it thrummed with controlled rage for all its softness.
Kyrin laid one finger across his lips to still whatever outburst was building up behind them. "Enough," she said.
"But your father Harek—you called him ur'lim. That means 'lord.'"
"It means 'chieftain,'"Kyrin corrected flatly. "He can reckon his lineage back for six generations. Two hundred years. He's very proud of that. How far does your clan go back, Aldric?" The question seemed artless.
His mouth opened and then closed again over clenched teeth as he realised the true significance of what she had asked him. Six generations—two centuries perhaps. But there had been yrloethen Taelvallyn, the brothers Shar and Hachen, with the Horse Lords almost two thousand years ago. More than fifty generations past. His Elthanek ancestors went beyond even that into an age almost impossible to comprehend, where written records mingled with stories and legends until they were no longer told apart. Aldric turned his head away, mind reeling under the weight of uncounted years.
"It goes back… far too long," he answered thickly.
The Horse Lord Page 14