The Second God

by Pauline M. Ross

  Ly’s mother nodded curtly, which was rather rude, I thought. “I greet you, my son.” Her voice was loud and harsh. “What is your business with us? And why have you brought her?” A nod in my direction. “And him?” She indicated Arran. He was wearing both sword and shield, and looked very out of place amongst the Clanfolk, with their simple attire. But I knew that was just a disguise adopted for the benefit of Bennamorians. They wore richer fabrics and more elaborate styles further into their own territory, well away from the border.

  “Drina is my wife,” Ly answered, his soft tones contrasting with his mother’s sharp voice. “Arran is my brother of the heart. I bring them to my Clan to be acknowledged, as is traditional.”

  “We’ve already acknowledged the whore. And we don’t want either of them here. Or you, traitor! You’re a disgrace!”

  She glared at him, but Ly held her eyes for five, ten heartbeats, until her gaze dropped. I wondered what he was saying in her mind to force her compliance, because she seemed very reluctant.

  “I am byan shar,” Ly said in a louder voice. “You will respect me if you have any respect for the ancestors and the gods. And you will respect my wife and my brother of the heart, too. I bring my clavaia’an byanna’vyor to my Clan to be acknowledged.”

  There was a buzz amongst the onlookers, and I saw expressions of shock, and even horror.

  Ly’s mother’s head shot up, her eyes blazing. “You shared your blood? With them? You imbecile, you should never have done—”

  “You are insolent. I am byan shar, and I decide what to do. I am in the age of strength, and I have a wife to advise me now. You will never talk to me like this again, do you understand, my mother?”

  She gasped, but she nodded briefly, and dropped her eyes again. I was so intent on her that her mind abruptly popped into focus, washing me with a strange mixture of emotions – fear, mainly, but also pride and anger and revulsion, all mixed together, and somewhere behind all that, a deep, gnawing sorrow.

  Two men materialised out of the crowd, one a middle-aged man, short and as round as an apple, the other a little older than Ly, with a striking resemblance to him, except that he had vivid blue eyes.

  Ly’s face lit up, all his haughty manner lost. “Brey? I’m glad to see you again. And you’re an elder now? Well done!”

  The younger man made the gesture of respect. “I greet you, my brother.” He indicated the older man. “Will you come to the elders’ clava so we may talk? And your clavaia.”

  The two men threaded their way through the gaping crowds, and as we followed, my mind was filled with their hostility, and anger, too. Although why they were angry was beyond me. And how had Ly identified that his brother was an elder? There was no obvious marker about him. I was beginning to realise just how little I knew about the Blood Clans, despite five years of marriage to Ly.

  The clava we were taken to was set a little aside from any of the others, and was a little larger, but inside it looked just like the ones I’d seen before. A central fire with a smokehole above, rugs covering the ground, a brazier with some kind of pot bubbling and around the perimeter, alcoves divided by skin curtains.

  “You can sleep here,” Brey said, gesturing to one of the alcoves, fitted out with a low pallet bed.

  “And perhaps your brother of the heart would like to leave his weapons there?” the older man said. “He doesn’t need them around here, and it makes people nervous.”

  “I be happy to,” Arran said, and even though my mind interpreted his words, I knew he’d got it slightly wrong.

  Ly’s mother scuttled in unobtrusively behind us, and sat on the floor in one of the alcoves, as far from us as possible. A couple of other women emerged from different alcoves to tend the brazier and hand round drinks. One was carrying a baby, the other was middle-aged. The two men’s wives, I guessed.

  We settled on cushions on the floor, Arran and I rather awkwardly, the Clanfolk with graceful agility. I noticed now that the older man had the same bright blue eyes as Brey, similar enough to be his father, although the ages seemed wrong for that.

  The older man said, “I am Gan-wheen. Your clavaia’an byanna’vyor is acknowledged. You may stay the customary three nights allowed to guests.”

  “I’ll stay as long as I wish,” Ly said, his chin lifting.

  “Yes,” the man said. “You are Clan. But they are not.”

  “We are blood-bonded,” Ly said. “They have my blood. That means they are as much Clan as I am.”

  “So you say. Yet I see no sign of it. They’re certainly not connecting with me. When you share your blood with the unblooded, the results are unpredictable. Perhaps it didn’t work?”

  “We still learning,” Arran said. “Is very new.”

  But I could see the disbelief in their eyes. Gods, but these people were arrogant! They needed to be taught a little humility. I had already connected with Ly’s mother, and now I focused on the man glaring defiantly at Ly. And as soon as I reached out in my mind, I was there in his head. It was full of anger, but also fear. Why were they so afraid?

  His eyes widened as he registered my presence.

  “You are insolent,” I said to him. “Apologise to the byan shar.” I had no idea whether he would understand me, for I couldn’t speak his language and maybe he didn’t know mine, either. But he nodded imperceptibly to me. Then his eyes turned back to Ly, and I guess some communication passed between them, for Ly raised a hand to acknowledge it.

  “Speak aloud!”

  His eyes flicked in my direction, then back to Ly. He held his hands out, palm up, in submission. “I apologise, byan shar. I was wrong about your wife.” A quick glance at Arran. “And I’m sure your brother of the heart is blood-bonded too, even if it’s not obvious to us yet.”

  “You not see my eagle?” Arran said, leaning forward so that he towered over the older man. “I fly big eagle. Kalmander, he called. He eat you in one bite, little man.”

  I laughed, but no one else did. Ly rested a hand on Arran’s arm, and I was aware of a bolt of fear from Gan-wheen. He didn’t see any humour in the situation at all.

  “Tell him you’re joking,” I thought to Arran.

  He nodded. “I not serious.” Then he turned to Ly and said in Bennamorian, “What is the word for ‘joke’?”

  “He’s teasing you, elder,” Ly said. “He wouldn’t let his eagle hurt anyone.”

  “You want see my eagle?” Arran said.

  “Yes, please!” Brey said, jumping up. “I’m sure lots of us will want to meet him. I’ve never seen such a beauty. Where did you find him?”

  The two of them left the clava but no one else moved. Ly and Gan-wheen made what sounded to my ears rather strained conversation, Ly enquiring after this or that person, the elder responding. Since none of the names meant anything to me, my attention began to wander, straying to Arran walking briskly through the village towards the eagles. His mind was cheerful, although struggling a bit with the language. It was one thing to practise with Ly in a comfortable room in our apartment, and quite another to hold a real conversation.

  To amuse myself, I looked through Arran’s eyes, seeing Brey smiling beside him, a number of Clanfolk watching sullenly, and a group of children racing about, as children do everywhere. Regret washed over me, and I wished I were at home with my own children. It was strange how I so often found excuses not to spend time with them, yet I missed them when they weren’t around.

  A raised voice distracted me. Brey, shouting at the children. They shrieked and ran out of sight. And then… something happened, I don’t know what, but Arran threw his arms up, his mind filled with sudden annoyance. Something shot past him, he yelled and then everything went dark.

  I leapt to my feet in horror. “Arran! What happened?”

  A long, long silence. I could still sense him, his mind filled with confusion. Then, “Drina! Help me, Drina!”

  “What is the matter?”

  “I… I cannot see. Or hear or feel… I think
I may be dead.”

  18: The Clan Village

  I raced out of the clava and sped through the village to Arran. I knew exactly where he was, for his consciousness was like a beacon in my head. And all the time, I talked to him. “You’re not dead. I’m coming, I’ll be there soon. You’re not dead, darling. I’m on my way.”

  He lay as still as a toppled tree, face down where he must have fallen, for his limbs were awkwardly positioned but he’d made no attempt to move them. All he said was, “Help me, Drina. Help me.”

  It broke my heart to hear the helplessness in him, and to see him unmoving. He did indeed look dead, yet I knew he wasn’t.

  Brey was bending over him. “I can’t feel his pulse.” There was panic in his voice.

  “What happened?” I said, but he looked at me blankly. A quick shift and I was in his mind. “What happened?”

  “Some of the children threw pebbles at him. It was nothing, I swear by the ancestors. Look, just like this.” He picked up a handful of gravel from the path. “But he dropped like a stone and now he won’t move and I think he’s dead and I don’t know why.” His voice rose to a wail.

  “He’s not dead. Move aside.”

  I knelt down and lifted Arran’s face from the dirt. “Help me turn him over.” Silently Brey complied, and I lifted Arran’s head into my lap. Shockingly his eyes were wide open, darting from side to side as if he was searching for something.

  Ly came running up. “What happened to him?”

  “Ask your brother.” I had no time to talk to Ly. “Arran, my love, I’m here, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

  “Where? Where are you?”

  “Right here. I’m holding your head. There, I’m stroking your hair. Can you feel that?”

  “No! Drina, I am dying, I am sure of it. I do not want to die, not here. I want to see your face.”

  Ly crouched down beside me. “Drina, we must get him to the clava. Brey has gone for a litter.”

  I nodded. “Talk to him, Ly. We must keep talking to him. He can’t feel anything. He needs to know we’re here.”

  “Of course.” For a while he fell silent, and I knew from the relief in Arran’s mind that the two were communicating. “He is calmer now,” Ly said. “Look, here is Brey. Let them carry him back to the clava and the healers will look at him.”

  As several sturdy men gently lifted Arran away from me, Ly brushed the tears from my cheeks. I hadn’t even realised I was crying. “What’s the matter with him?” I whispered. “Why is he like this? The pebbles the children threw were not big enough to hurt him, or no more than a few cuts, anyway. What’s wrong with him?”

  “The healers will find out,” Ly said.

  But he was wrong about that. Two women and a man came bustling into the clava, and poked and prodded Arran as he lay still on the low bed. They asked many questions, which Ly or I passed to Arran, but he had no answers. He remembered the children throwing something at him, then – nothing. “I was in emptiness,” he said. “There was nothing there except my mind.” The healers shook their heads. They had never seen anything like it, they declared. It was a mystery.

  “Have you ever seen such a thing?” Ly said to the elder, hovering anxiously.

  “No, never.”

  “Brey? How about you?”

  “No, nothing of the kind. But – forgive me, my brother, but I must say this – if you share your blood with the unblooded, there’s no telling what may happen.”

  “He was fine until people started throwing stones at him,” I muttered, in Bennamorian.

  “That will not help, Drina,” Ly said. “Things happen.”

  “Look, it’s getting late,” Brey said. “We all need to eat, but you won’t want to leave him, I daresay.”

  “We can still connect to him from the supper clava,” Ly began, but I touched his arm and shook my head. I understood the nuances of Brey’s words well enough.

  “No, they don’t want us with them,” I said. “We’ll stay here. I daresay they’ll bring us a few scraps to eat.”

  They brought more than a few scraps. An endless procession of women conveyed one dish after another to the clava, although neither of us was hungry and most of the food went away untouched.

  And then we lay down miserably on the bed, one either side of Arran, talking to him mentally until, exhausted, he fell asleep.

  ~~~~~

  I dozed a little, then lay restlessly in the half-light of the clava, listening to the soft comings and goings, the snoring, the occasional whispers. With so many people under one roof, it was never silent. Then I dozed again, with strange dreams of rodents and cooking fires and healers who covered Arran with an orange paste which set hard as rock, and then went away again. And in my dreams, the black eagle spoke to me. “He is awake.”

  I opened my eyes, and Arran was on his side, gazing at me. Then he smiled. “My little flower. How I missed your sweet face.”

  “You can see?” I whispered.

  “And hear, and feel.” To prove it, he reached out and stroked my cheek. Then his hand curled round behind my head to pull me towards him, and he kissed me with fierce passion. After that, we didn’t speak at all, but lay entwined, not kissing but utterly contented.

  Ly stirred almost at once, perhaps woken by our voices. “Arran? You are well again?”

  “Perfectly fine. As normal. Whatever it was… has gone.”

  “I am glad,” Ly said, shifting to rest against Arran’s back, one arm around his waist.

  We lay in silence, savouring the moment. The joy of united minds was that our feelings were fully exposed. I knew that the depth of Ly’s happiness at Arran’s recovery matched my own. I knew that Arran was joyful, but with an underlying anxiety mingled with confusion. And they saw the same in me.

  After a while, Arran’s voice popped into my head. “Drina? I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, darling.”

  “When I could not see you… I was so afraid.”

  “You, afraid? I thought you feared nothing.”

  “Everyone fears something, sweetheart.”

  “When the Icthari tried to kill me, you weren’t afraid then. You were so brave, fighting him like that.”

  “Not afraid? I was terrified! But I had trained for such moments. I would hardly make a very good bodyguard if I turned and ran at the first cloaked assailant, would I? And I had to protect you, my sweet. But when I could feel nothing… that was terrifying.”

  We ate morning board with everyone else. The Clanfolk eyed Arran with the same sullen disrespect they accorded all of us. Politeness had to be dragged out of these people, it seemed.

  Then the healers prodded and poked Arran again. If they had been puzzled by his initial problem, now they were mystified. And behind the bewilderment, a hint of disbelief. I could see their point. If I hadn’t known Arran so well, and been privy to his inner feelings, I’d have wondered about it myself – a man who claims an invisible illness, and then is miraculously cured? Maybe he just made it up. Except that he hadn’t.

  “We must hope this was a single event,” Ly said, after the healers had left. “It is worrying, but I do not see what we can do.”

  “There’s one thing we can do right now,” I said. “We can go and see my mother.”

  Ly twisted his lips. “It might be misunderstood if we go to Lakeside while we are guests here. The healers might be insulted.”

  “Who cares if they are?” I said impatiently. “This is Arran’s well-being we are talking about. I would do anything for him. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “There you are, then. Mother has skills that no one else has. If she can’t find out what is going on, no one can.”

  We summoned our eagles, who were enjoying the morning air, Kalmander circling majestically over the lake and the others tailing him at a respectful distance. When we mounted, again Kalmander led the way for the short distance to the town.

  Mother and Cal, we learned, were at t
he scribery on the island in the lake. We could have walked across the wooden bridge, but we chose to fly across, landing in a dusty flurry on the grass in front of the scribery, the site of the Challenge. No trace remained of that time. Now the grass was unkempt, the scribery a forbidding building of dark stone. Ly slid from Diamond’s back in one smooth movement. Arran and I dismounted more circumspectly, then followed Ly to the scribery entrance. With one sweep of his arm, Ly touched the spot on the door, the symbol glowed and he pushed open the door. We followed him inside.

  I remembered this place when we’d brought Ly out after the ill-fated war between our peoples. Then it had been an empty shell, long abandoned, its rooms silent. Now it echoed to the voices of mages and scribes and guards and a dozen different kinds of helpers. There were smiling faces to greet us, and within moments we were settled in Cal’s office, while junior scribes scuttled off to find Mother and Cal.

  “Thank all the gods! Wine!” I poured myself a generous glass, and sipped gratefully. “Arran? Ly? You want some? It’s good.”

  “It is barely mid-morning, Drina,” Ly said in reproving tones. Arran just laughed and shook his head.

  When Cal and Mother arrived, they listened in shocked silence to our story. Mother examined Arran in her way, by holding his hand. That was all she needed to do to look inside his body to see the slightest weakness or malfunctioning organ. If there was anything wrong with Arran, she would find it.

  But just like the Clan healers, she shook her head. “I can find nothing wrong with you, Arran. Everything looks perfectly healthy, nothing out of alignment at all. Your blood has changed since the last time I looked at you, but that is to be expected. I can’t see anything wrong.”

  “It’s a very strange thing to happen,” Cal said thoughtfully. “Ly, are there commonly side effects from this blood-sharing?”

  Ly chewed his lip. “There are always changes. With normal blood-sharing, both sides acquire the connections of the other. If a lion rider shares blood with an eagle rider, then afterwards both would be able to bond with both kinds of beast. And connections are amplified by blood sharing. At the Blood Ceremony…” He paused, twisting his hands. “I should not tell you such things, but for Arran’s sake it is better that you know. At the Blood Ceremony many elders contribute their blood, mixing it on the ceremonial stone so that those participating have the chance to acquire different connections. But when the byan shar shares blood, the results are different – stronger, less predictable.”