Madbond

by Nancy Springer

  I looked at him warily. “You have sensed this in them?”

  “Yes. In Tyee most of all. He feels it plainly, but he will not face it.”

  “Well,” I said mostly to myself, “as one who cannot even remember—something, I can hardly scorn him for that.”

  Kor nodded but did not answer.

  I decided to try Tyee yet one more time as we rode. I noticed he seemed to be in no hurry, but set a comfortable clopping pace, and by afternoon, as we nodded along, the sun had lulled us so that we were almost asleep.

  Tyee rode by my one side, Kor by the other. “Tyee,” I asked him drowsily, “what are you doing out here, really?”

  “We came out to get away from Father for a while,” he answered, just as drowsy, and then his head snapped up as if his own words had startled him awake.

  “What?” I could not believe that, I who remembered a straight man with strong hands and quiet ways. “Why? If all is not well, you should be with him.”

  “And what of you?” he retorted sharply, as if my words had stung more than I had meant them to.

  What of me, indeed. I looked down at Talu’s scrawny mane and smoothed it with my hand. “Was he—was he much stricken after I went?”

  “No,” said Tyee, the one short word.

  I glanced over at him in surprise. Perhaps he was jealous. “What was said? Was there a search for me?”

  “Nothing was said. There was no search. You were just gone. As if you were dead.” Four curt statements, torn out of him. And before I could ask him more he kicked his pony and turned it, trotting back to where Leotie rode.

  Kor spoke softly from his place by my side. “Your father has changed from the way you remember him, Dan.”

  “The more reason I should go to him,” I said fiercely. He was crazed with grief, perhaps.

  “Since your mother’s death,” Kor murmured as if to himself. But the words called up such a storm of reasonless anger in me that my whole body tightened with it, and Talu reared and jumped forward between my knees. I checked her. Kor was staring at me.

  “You still cannot remember.”

  “No!” The anger, whatever had caused it, was not at him. I had nowhere to go with it except homeward, and I did not want that. I puffed my cheeks and blew through my lips, sending it away.

  “Tyee is your younger brother?” Kor asked after a while.

  “No. Elder.”

  Kor glanced round at me in surprise. “But then—his would have been the leadership of the tribe, had there been need of a new leader?”

  I did not wish to think what he meant. Also, he was wrong. “In the event, it would have been up to the tribe, which of us to choose. Tyee, Ytan, or me.”

  “Do you think the tribe would have chosen you?”

  “How should I know?” I shrugged. “Leotie chose Tyee.”

  “You were too much for her,” Kor said in a low voice. “She wanted a man she could mother and scold. So she chose next best.”

  I had never thought of it in that way, and I grinned at him in thanks. But he was somber, not looking at me, and he rode the rest of the day mostly in silence, very grave, his mouth sober and straight, his hands still, sitting lance-straight on his mount, as if he were centering himself for the most difficult of vigils.

  I remembered it afterward, his silence, his haunted eyes. But at the time I thought only of my father. Soon I would see him again.… If there was a trouble, I knew the way to blot it out, and I bathed my mind with the warm memories. Tyonoc, who had made the half-sized arrows for me when I was young and showed me the ways of a hunter. Tyonoc, who had fashioned me bow after bow as I grew, and finally had showed me through weeks of patience how to make my own, strong, recurved, a man’s bow, out of deerhorn backed with sinew. Tyonoc, the king who himself had braided my hair for my name vigil … When he saw me, home again at last, his proud face would light with joy and he would embrace me. My throat tightened and my heart beat hard, thinking of him.

  A little before sundown we found the place where the deerskin tents were pitched, along the banks of the river that ran down from the place of many springs. The largest tent, the one with the Red Hart emblem painted on its walls in bright ocher, was my father’s. But he was not there, for with leaping heart I had already seen him. He and all my people stood assembled on the river plain, and there was a great fire, and mounds of food for a feast.

  He was standing at the fore of the tribe, a still, tall figure in the garb of a king, the quilled and beaded headband over his yellowbright hair that shone like the setting sun, the cloak of white deerskin fringed with ferret tails, the scars of hunting and battle gleaming whitely on his bare chest, and in his braids the peregrine feathers of a king, and on his arms the armbands. He was tall and massive, as tall as I, and glorious in the sunset, and he stood with great dignity with his twelve of retainers, six men, six women, at his back. This was all fitting. With him also stood my brother Ytan. And many were the smiles on the faces of his people behind him, and some of them shouted their welcome to me. And on the face of my father also there was a smile as I came before him.

  I had expected something more—tears, perhaps. Such was his stature in the eyes of my people, my father was not afraid of tears—they could not lessen him. But his smile was enough for me. There was no dignity in me, seeing him, and I did not care. I was off of Talu and standing before him in a single stride, and with ardor I embraced him.

  His body, hard, did not answer my embrace.

  Puzzled, I stepped back to look at him. Yet he smiled, but there was something I did not recognize in that smile, not on his beloved face.… “Dannoc,” he said, and there was something odd in his voice, too. “You truly do not remember.”

  Kor had come up and stood silently at my side.

  “No,” I said, “I do not remember. Have I displeased you in some way, Father?”

  He did not answer me. His smile grew, but it was as hard as his body. “Who is that with you?” he asked.

  He knew well enough, for Tyee’s runner had told him. But I spoke for the sake of ceremony. “This is Rad Korridun of the Seal Kindred, their king and the best of comrades.”

  My father’s eyes glinted and he turned to his retainers. “Seize them,” he ordered.

  I stood stunned, unable to believe that I had heard him truly. A murmur of surprise and horror went up from my people. Most of the twelve stood still, their faces showing the horror I felt, unable either to obey him or go against him. But three of them strode forward, and Ytan came forward with them. On his face rode the same smile that had been on my father’s, and on him I knew the name of it: gloating.

  He went to Kor and cuffed him, and that shocked me out of my frozen stance. With a shout of anger I started toward Ytan. But two of my father’s twelve had grasped me by my arms, restraining me. Two more took hold of Kor.

  “Listen, my people!” My father lifted his voice in the king’s call, and everyone fell silent to hear. “This is the foreign sorcerer who has taken my son away and bewitched him.”

  “Father, no!” It was Tyee, stepping forward, as stunned and distraught as I. “Korridun and Dannoc have come here with good intent to honor you. They have braved danger—” But he was trembling, his voice faltering so that half the tribe could not hear him. My father silenced him with a single harsh glance.

  “By his own saying Dannoc is not in his right mind! And you will see how he is enthralled and under the power of the sorcerer who dwells by the sea.”

  My father turned toward Kor and spat at him. Kor had not spoken a word or struggled. Nor had I—not yet. I merely looked at Kor, a look that must have been as wild as the swirling of my thoughts, and he met my eyes in a quiet way. And with a pang like a spear thrust I saw that he was not surprised. He had expected all that was happening.

  “So shameless is this one, he has come here openly to flaunt my son’s captivity before us,” my father ranted.

  I spoke, standing very still and tall. “My father, I have loved
you since I was born.” My words were firm enough to be heard by all and yet meant for him alone. “I have never wanted to go against you or defy you. I have fought Pajlat himself to come back to you. But this day I must say to you: You are wrong. Korridun of the Seal Kindred is all goodness and all honor. You do wrong to speak ill of him.”

  I met my father’s eyes as I spoke, letting him see all that was in me, all hurt, all love: Anger I had left behind, for the time.… But in his stare nothing answered me, not even anger. Nothing. Tyonoc of the Red Hart might as well have been a stranger to me. And at my final words he smiled his hateful smile.

  “Thus speaks a man bewitched,” he told my people.

  None of them believed him, I could see that. They all stood white and silent, cowed and shamed. But my father did not look to them. He strode over to stand before me.

  “Sire,” I tried again, “it does you dishonor to lay hands on one who has come in peace. And you dishonor your son Tyee who brought us here.”

  He reached out and pulled the great knife of strange substance from its scabbard at my side, lifted it in his hand. His people shrank back from the sight of him as he held it, blade flickering like lightning, jewel stone in the hilt gleaming like a yellow, benighted eye.… The sword glinted both dark and brilliant as he raised it. The sun was setting in a blood-red glow that shadowed the deep lines of his face.

  Face I had loved, face I had dreamed of …

  “Bind him,” he said to Ytan. Kor already stood bound to a yew tree some ten paces away from me. My brother, still leering, came to me and passed the leather lashings around my wrists tightly enough to hurt, to cut, then kicked my feet out from under me and pushed me to the ground, binding my legs as well.

  “I think I will see what this sorcerer Seal king is made of inside,” my father remarked, hefting the sword whose name I did not know.

  “Father,” I whispered to him, a plea for his ears alone. Still the thought was in me, if only he would hear me truly, all might yet be well. If only he would hear … But there was no such hearing left in him.

  He went to Kor and slit his clothing with the tip of the sword, flicked it off in like wise, leaving shallow gashes in Kor’s skin. Blood trickled down, and Kor stood without a sound, his sea-dark eyes gazing. All was blood light fading to wounded dusk, my people watching as stricken as I, bound up in horror and helpless. Somewhere near me someone was sobbing, dry sobs. No, it was I, myself, making that hurtful sound, Dannoc with his heart breaking. I knew my heart was breaking because the agony was familiar. It had done so sometime before.

  “Let me, Father.” It was Ytan, and he had my own arrows and bow, brought back from where they had been lashed in their leather cases to Talu’s gear.

  Tyonoc turned on him with force enough to make him step back. “No.” My father’s voice was harsh, ugly. “This kingling is mine.”

  Korridun king. “Kor,” I breathed, and though he could not in any way have heard me at the ten paces of distance, his eyes turned to mine. There was a rapt look about him, as if he faced a devourer.

  “I am sorry,” I whispered to him, still knowing he could not hear me. Knowing by then that I had been a fool, accursed fool and a wantwit fool to have believed in my father’s goodness. I had let us be seized and bound when we could have escaped. Even as they held my arms I could have broken away easily enough had I let myself be roused, and with my uncouth weapon in hand I could have freed us both. But supposing my father had come in the way of the sword—

  Black, black horror, terror drowning deep …

  Tyonoc twirled the tip of the sword and gouged out Kor’s left eye.

  I think I went mad, then, truly mad. Months past, Istas had threatened me with similar torments, and Kor had sworn he would far rather have taken them on his own body than stand by helpless.… He took them. His sea-dark eyes, gone, his beloved face slashed into a mask of blood, mutilated. And hands, heart, manhood … The many torments, he suffered all of them, in slow and brutal succession, and though I saw him cry out from time to time I could not hear him, for I was sobbing and roaring and tearing myself to the bone against the thongs that bound me helpless. Love of my father had bound me helpless, and he was a monster, he—he had—killed—

  I remembered. Everything.

  I grew suddenly still, still enough to hear Kor scream in mortal agony as Tyonoc hacked open his chest. And like a storm breaking in thunder, flame, and flood, all happened at once. I was free of my bonds, someone or something had freed me, and I was on my feet, moving, and I was myself but also—something more, larger, like someone out of legend, self I knew yet did not know by name—but I knew the name of my sword.

  “Alar!” I called her.

  Lightning, the name meant. Sky fire. And I ran to meet her as she tore from my father’s hand and lightly flew to mine. The hilt met my palm like a friend’s warm grasp. My father’s face floated before me, pale, mouth parted, my father’s face, it was he who had betrayed me, made a mockery of my love, and I was in frenzy, I knew what I wanted to do to him—

  With a roar of grief I slashed him open from throat to vent.

  I wanted his guts to spill out at my feet so that I could spit on them, and trample them, and curse his soul—I was so anguished, so enraged. But no innards were there. Tyonoc looked perplexed and fell, and out of the gaping wound I had made in him there flowed something as gray as guts, fish-gray, unfurling and rippling and flying away—

  A devourer!

  I heard my people sob, scream, gasp, but I did not even look after it as it flew off westward. I turned to Ytan—I had wanted to behead him, but now I knew I must deal with him as I had with Tyonoc. Heart told me there was a devourer in him as well. But already he was fleeing through the crowd of my frightened people, and as I looked he threw himself on Talu and galloped away.

  All became for a moment very quiet.

  My father lay dead at my feet, his body empty and collapsed in on itself, like a broken shell. My father. I dropped Alar where I stood. I had killed my own father.…

  He would never hurt me again. He would never hurt Kor again.

  Kor!

  Kor …

  Leotie and Tyee were already there at the yew tree, cutting the thongs that bound Kor to it, tears streaming down their faces. And Kor sagged against their gentle hands, lifeless. No, it could not be—

  In a single stride I was by his side, and I took him into my arms, feeling, listening, breathless, silently begging to Sakeema, let there be life, any life.…

  It was too late. He was dead. Bloody, mutilated, and dead.

  Too late, far too late even before I had lifted my sword, I had struck too late, ass, dolt, fool, murderer that I was, world-accursed wantwit madman and murderer, I had let them kill him.

  I sank down where I was and cradled his body against me, the poor violated thing, held his eyeless, disfigured head against my shoulder. More than half demented, I rocked him as a mother rocks her child at the breast, as if by rocking him I could somehow comfort him or myself, and as I rocked I crooned—or moaned.… His blood clotted on my fingers. All around me I heard my tribefellows raising the keen for a fallen leader, not for their dead king but for Korridun who had been king by the sea, and my grief could no longer be contained in moaning. I put up my head and howled and wailed as a wolf might howl to a midwinter’s moon and bellowed as a mother bison would, mourning her slain calf. And then I wept.

  May I never have to weep so again—the water ran down my face like torrents off the mountains during a springtime storm. I wept for my father, who had left me years before. I wept for my friend. Ai, my grief—I felt as if I would forever weep, there could be no end to my grieving. My people had gathered all around me, I knew they wanted only to comfort me, but they had no comfort to offer me, and they were grieving as well.… Ai, Kor, Kor, if I had known before I lost you how I loved you, more than any father.… Pain was in me like a knife that could not be withdrawn, and I ached and shook with sobbing.

  Ti
me is an unkind thing, a relentless thing; it will not be swayed for the sake of any peril. Tarry but a little, mired in heartache, and it is too late, the king is dead.… Time flies away with joy or a friend’s life, but it cruelly crawls for agony. And that night when I wept over Kor, time seemed to stand torturously still, so that I who yet lived grieved through a lifetime that would never end.

  Tears blinded me.… Time was just. Merciful, even. Forever was too short a time for me to mourn Kor.

  Sometime in the midst of forever I blinked and saw someone kneeling before me, tears on her face, hands faltering out toward the lifeless body that lay cradled in my arms. Someone with dark eyes and a face of startling beauty. I looked on that beauty with indifference. Even Tass could not comfort me.

  “Too—late,” I told her, my voice choked between sobs.

  “No,” she said numbly.

  “Dead.”

  “No,” she said again, and her hands came out and fumbled at his chest, feeling for a heartbeat.

  “Killed …”

  “No,” she said, “you are wrong. He breathes. Look.”

  It was not possible. His whole chest was laid open. But I looked, my tears falling down on him—and I saw his chest rise and fall, the terrible wounds closing before my eyes.

  “Your tears—” Tass edged away, her hands bloodied.

  My tears had fallen on Kor’s face. And as I watched, trembling, the raw sockets where his eyes had been filled out, the lids closed smoothly as if in sleep. And his face, his mouth, were whole again, comely. And with my arms, with all my body, I felt his heart beating, faintly at first but more strongly with every moment. And I was weeping still, more than ever, but the tears were tears of joy.

  “I am frightened of you,” Tass breathed, backing away from me, still on her knees. “There is a fate in you. I am terrified of both of you.” She got up and bolted.

  I scarcely saw her go, scarcely comprehended any of what was happening, myself afraid, terrified of the hope and the joy, knowing that if it were somehow madness or an illusion, if Kor were taken away in the night, I could not bear it, I could not endure such weeping again, I would die. Or if his eyes under the smoothly closed lids were not his own … I could not bear it.