A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  Corwyth’s smile was undiminished; if anything, it increased to one of immense satisfaction. “Perceptive, my lord. My master has indeed done well to send me for you now, while you are yet lirless and therefore without power. But I think for all your perception you fail to recognize the extent of his power, or mine—” his tone altered from conversational, “—and that the game we initiated has already been played through.” Smoothly he caught Rogan’s arm in one hand, and the wristbones snapped.

  Rogan cried out. Sweat ran from his face. His shattered wrist remained trapped in Corwyth’s hand, who appeared to exert no pressure whatsoever with anything but his will.

  Kellin leapt to his feet, thinking only that somehow he must get Rogan free; he must stop Rogan’s pain. But the instinct was abruptly blunted, the attempt aborted, as Corwyth shook his head. He will injure Rogan worse. Kellin knew it at once. Slowly he resumed his seat, aware of a minute trembling seizing all his bones. “Who?” he asked. “Who is your master?”

  “Lochiel, of course.” Corwyth smiled. His cordial attitude was undiminished by the threat he exuded without effort, which made the moment worse. “Do you know of another man who would presume to steal a prince?”

  “Steal—” Kellin stiffened. Me? He wants—me?

  Urchin stirred on his stool. His thin face was white. “Are you—Ihlini?”

  The dead cubes and sticks scattered on the floor came abruptly to life again, flying from the dirtpack to land again upon the table and commence a spinning dervish-dance across the scarred surface. Purple godfire streamed from the cubes; the black sticks glistened blood-red.

  Urchin sucked in an audible breath. Kellin, infuriated by Corwyth’s audacity, smashed a small fist against the table top. “No!”

  The cubes and sticks fell at once into disarray, rattling into silence as the dance abruptly collapsed.

  “Too late,” Corwyth chided. “Much too late, my lord.” He looked at Rogan and smiled.

  The awful tension in the Homanan’s body was plain to see. “No,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh, gods, I cannot—I cannot—”

  “Too late,” Corwyth repeated.

  Rogan looked at Kellin. “Run!” he cried. “Run!”

  Six

  Kellin lunged to his feet, grasping for and catching a fistful of Urchin’s tunic. He saw the blue blaze in Corwyth’s eyes, sensed the pain radiating from Rogan’s shattered wrist. I must do something.

  “Urchin—” He tugged on the boy’s tunic, who needed no urging, then together they scrabbled their way across the room, jerked open the door, and fell out into the darkness.

  “Did you see—” Urchin choked.

  “We have to run. Rogan said run.” Kellin yanked at Urchin’s tunic.

  Urchin was clearly terrified. “H-horses—”

  “They will lie in wait for us there—we must run, Urchin!”

  They ran away from the roadhouse, away from the road itself, making for the trees. They shared no more physical contact; Urchin had at last mastered himself. The Homanan boy, accustomed to fleeing, darted through the wood without hesitation. City-reared Kellin now was less certain of his course and followed Urchin’s lead.

  A branch slapped Kellin across the eyes, blurring his vision. He tasted the sourness of resin in his mouth, spat once, then forgot about it in his flight. He could see little of the ground underfoot, trusting instinctively to the balance and reflexes of youth as well as the training begun in Homana-Mujhar.

  “Urchin—?”

  “Here—” Ahead still, and still running, crashing through deadfall and undergrowth.

  Kellin winced as another branch clawed at his tunic, digging into the flesh of bare arms. And then he saw the glint of silver in the trees and slipped down into the creek before he could halt his flight. Kellin fell forward, flailing impotently as cold water closed over his head.

  He kicked, found purchase, if treacherous, not far under his feet, and thrust himself upward to the surface. Kellin choked and spat, coughing, shivering from fright and cold.

  “Kellin—” It was Urchin, bankside, reaching down. Kellin caught the hand, clung, and scrabbled out onto the creek bank. Urchin’s face was seamed with branch-born welts. “We can’t run all night!”

  Kellin tried to catch his breath. “We—have to get as far—far from them as we can—”

  “There was only that one. Corwyth.”

  “More.” Kellin sucked air, filling his chest. “Kick over one rock and find a single Ihlini…kick over another and find a nest.” He scraped a forearm across his face, shoving soaked hair from his eyes. “That’s what everyone says.”

  Dry, Urchin nonetheless shivered. “But if they’re sorcerers—”

  “We have to try—” Kellin began.

  The forest around them exploded into a spectral purple glow. Out of the blinding light came two dark shadows, silhouetted against livid godfire.

  Kellin grabbed at Urchin and swung him back the way they had come. “Run!”

  But Corwyth himself stood on the other side of the creek. With him was Rogan.

  Urchin blurted his shock even as Kellin stopped short. Breathing hard, Kellin nonetheless heard the soft susurration of men moving behind them. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred. “I taste it,” he murmured blankly. “I can taste the magic.”

  Corwyth smiled. Rogan did not. The godfire painted them all an eerie lavender, but Kellin could see the pallor of his tutor’s face. Rogan’s eyes glistened with tears.

  Pain—? Kellin wondered.

  “My lord,” Rogan said. “Oh, my lord…forgive me—”

  Comprehension brought sickness. Sickness formed a stone in Kellin’s belly. “Not you!” No, of course not; Rogan would deny it. Rogan would explain.

  “My lord…there was nothing left for me. I had no choice.”

  Corwyth lifted a minatory hand. “There was choice,” he reproved. “There is always choice. I may be, to you, an enemy, but I suggest you tell the truth to this boy, who is not: it was neither I nor my master who forced you to this.”

  Kellin’s conviction was undiminished. Rogan will deny it—he will tell me the truth. After all, how many times had Kellin been told of the perfidiousness of Ihlini? This is some kind of trick. “He hurt you,” Kellin declared. “He broke your wrist; what else can you say?”

  “There was no threat,” Corwyth countered quietly. “The wrist was merely to prove the need for care. I have no need of threats with Rogan. All I was required to do was promise him his dearest desire.”

  “Ihlini lie,” Kellin declared, even as Urchin stirred in surprise beside him. “Ihlini lie all the time. You are the enemy.”

  “To assure our survival, aye.” Corwyth’s young face looked older, less serene. “To Ihlini, you are the enemy.”

  It was an entirely new thought. Kellin rejected it. He looked instead at Rogan. “He’s lying.”

  “No.” Rogan’s mouth warped briefly. “There was no threat, as he says. Only a promise.”

  It was utter betrayal. “What promise?” Kellin cried. “What could he promise you that the Mujhar could not offer?”

  Rogan shut his eyes. His face was shiny with sweat.

  “Tell him,” Corwyth said.

  “You would have me strip away all his innocence?”

  The Ihlini shrugged. “He will lose it soon enough in Valgaard.”

  Urchin’s face was a sickly white in fireglow. He breathed audibly. “Valgaard?”

  “Rogan?” Kellin swallowed back the fear that formed a hard knot in his throat. “Rogan—this isn’t true?”

  The tutor broke. He spoke rapidly, disjointedly. “It was him…a year ago, he came—came and asked that I betray you to the Ihlini.”

  “Me!”

  “Lochiel.” Rogan shuddered. “Lochiel wants you.” His entire body convulsed. “He could not reach you. He could get you no other way. Corwyth promised me you would be unharmed.”

  Kellin could not breathe. “You agreed?”

  “My l
ord—if he had intended harm—”

  “You agreed!”

  “Kellin—”

  It was the worst of all. “He is Ihlini!”

  “Kellin—”

  “How could you do this?” It was a refrain in Kellin’s mind, in Kellin’s mouth. “How could you do this?”

  Rogan’s face was wet with tears. “It was not—not of my devising…that I promise you. But he promised. Promised me…and I was weak, so weak….”

  Kellin shouted it. “What did he promise you?”

  Rogan fell to his knees. “Forgive me—forgive—”

  The stone in Kellin’s belly grew. He felt it come to life. It pushed his heart aside, then squeezed up into his throat. His body was filled with it.

  And the stone had a name: rage.

  Kellin heard his voice—mine?—come from a vast distance. It was an ordinary voice, shaped by normal inflections, with no hint at all of shock, or terror, or rage. “What did he promise you?”

  “My wife!” Rogan cried.

  It was incomprehensible. “You said she was dead.” And then Kellin understood.

  “My wife,” the tutor whispered, hands slack upon his knees. “You are too young to understand…but I loved her so much I thought I would die of it, and then she died—she died…because of the child I gave her—” He broke off. His gaze was fixed on Kellin. He gathered himself visibly, attempting to master his anguish. “I refused,” Rogan said quietly. “Of course I refused. Nothing could make me betray you. I would have accepted death before that.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Kellin shouted.

  “But then this man, this Ihlini, promised me my wife.”

  Kellin shivered. He looked at Corwyth. “You can raise the dead?”

  The Ihlini smiled. “I am capable of many things.” He extended his right hand, palm up, as if to mock the Cheysuli gesture of tahlmorra; then a flaring column of white light filled his hand.

  “Magic,” Urchin murmured.

  “Tricks,” Kellin declared; he could not admit the Ihlini might offer a true threat, or fear would overwhelm him.

  “Is it?” The light in Corwyth’s hand coalesced, then began to move, to dance, and the column resolved itself into a human shape.

  A tiny, naked woman.

  “Gods,” Rogan blurted. Then, brokenly, “Tassia.”

  Kellin stared at the burning woman. She was a perfect embodiment of the Ihlini’s power.

  Corwyth smiled. The woman danced within his palm, twisting and writhing. She burned bright white and searing, spinning and spinning, so that flaming hair spun out from her body and shed brilliant sparks. Tiny breasts and slim hips were exposed, and the promise of her body.

  Kellin, whose body was as yet too young to respond, looked at Rogan. The Homanan still knelt on the ground, eyes fixed in avid hunger on the tiny dancing woman.

  “Do you want her?” Corwyth asked. “I did promise her to you. And I keep my promises.”

  “She isn’t real!” Kellin cried.

  “Not precisely,” Corwyth agreed. “She is a summoning from my power; a conjured promise, nothing more. But I can make her real—real enough for Rogan.” He smiled. “Look upon her, Kellin. Look at her perfection! It is such a simple thing to make Tassia from this.”

  The tiny, burning features were eloquent in their pleading. She was fully aware, Kellin saw; Tassia knew.

  Rogan cried out. “I bargained my soul for this. Give me my payment for it!”

  The light from the burning woman blanched Corwyth’s face. “Your soul was mine the moment I asked for it. The promise of this woman was merely a kindness.” He looked at Kellin though his words were meant for Rogan. “Speak it, prince’s man. Aloud, where Kellin can hear. Renounce your service to the House of Homana. Deny your prince as he stands here before you. Do only these two things, and you will have your payment.”

  Rogan shuddered.

  “Speak it,” Corwyth said.

  “Leave him alone!” Kellin cried.

  “Kellin—” Rogan’s expression was wracked.

  “Forgive—”

  “Don’t say it!” Kellin shouted. “Do not give in to him!”

  “Speak,” Corwyth said.

  Tears ran down Rogan’s face. “I renounce the House of Homana.”

  “Rogan!”

  “I renounce my prince.”

  “No!”

  “I submit to you, Ihlini…and now ask payment for my service!”

  Corwyth smiled gently. He lifted his other hand as if in benevolent blessing. Rogan’s head bowed as the hand came down, and then he was bathed in the same lurid light that shaped the tiny woman.

  “Wait!” Kellin cried. “Rogan—no—”

  Rogan’s eyes stretched wide. “This is not what you promised—” But his body was engulfed.

  Kellin fell back, coughing, even as Urchin did. The clearing was filled with smoke. Corwyth pursed his lips and blew a gentle exhalation, and the smoke dispersed completely.

  “What did you do?” Kellin asked. “What did you do to Rogan?”

  “I gave him what he desired, though of a decidedly different nature. He believed I intended to remake his dead wife. But even I cannot do that, so this will have to suffice.” Corwyth’s right hand supported the dancing woman, now rigidly still. In his other hand, outstretched, burned a second tiny figure.

  Urchin cried out. Kellin stared, transfixed, as he saw the formless features resolve themselves into those he knew so well. “Rogan.”

  Corwyth brought his hands together. The man and woman met, embraced, then merged into a single livid flame. “I do assure you, this was what he wanted.”

  Kellin was horrified. “Not like that!”

  “Perhaps not.” Corwyth grinned. “A conceit, I confess; he did not have the wit to specify how he wanted payment made.”

  Kellin shuddered. And then the stone in chest and throat broke free at last. He vomited violently.

  “No!” Urchin cried, then screamed Rogan’s name.

  Corwyth knelt down beside the creek.

  “Wait!” Kellin shouted.

  Corwyth dipped his hands into the water. “But let it never be said I am a man who knows no mercy. Death, you might argue, is better than this.”

  “Rogan!”

  But the flames were extinguished as water snuffed them out.

  Seven

  Kellin found himself on hands and knees in clammy vegetation, hunched before the creek in bizarre obeisance to the sorcerer who knelt on the bank. His belly cramped painfully. His mouth formed a single word, though the lips were warped out of shape. Rogan.

  And then the horrible thought: Not Rogan any more.

  A hand was on his arm, fingers digging into flesh. “Kellin—Kellin—” Urchin, of course; Kellin twisted his head upward and saw the pale glint of Urchin’s eyes, the sweaty sheen of shock-blanched face. Ashamed of his weakness, Kellin swabbed a trembling hand across his dry mouth and climbed to his feet. Show the Ihlini no fear.

  But he thought it was too late; surely Corwyth had seen. Surely Corwyth knew.

  The russet-haired Ihlini rose, shaking droplets from elegant hands with negligent flicks of his fingers. “Shall you come without protest, my lord?”

  Kellin whirled and stiff-armed Urchin, shoving him back a full step before the Homanan boy could speak. “Run!”

  He darted to the left even as Urchin spun, running away from Corwyth, away from the creek, away from the horror of what he had witnessed, the terrible quenching of a man—

  He tore headlong through limbs and leaves, shredding underbrush and vines. In huge leaps Kellin spent himself, panting through a dry throat as he ran. He fastened on one thought—Urchin—but the Homanan boy was making his own way, making his own future, crashing through brush only paces away. Kellin longed to call out but dared not risk it. Besides, Urchin was better suited to flight than he, growing up a boy of the streets; best Kellin tend himself.

  Corwyth’s voice cut through the trees like a clarion.
“I require only you, Kellin. Not him. Come back, and I will spare him.”

  “Don’t listen!” Urchin hissed as he broke through tangled foliage near Kellin. “What can he—”

  The Homanan boy stopped short, fully visible in a patch of moonlight. His chest rose and fell unevenly as his breath rattled in his throat.

  Kellin staggered to a stiff-limbed halt, arms outflung. His breathing was as loud. “Urchin?”

  The boy’s blue eyes were fixed and dilated.

  “Urchin—run—”

  Urchin’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

  Even as Kellin reached for him, the boy’s limbs jerked. Urchin’s mouth dropped open, blurting inarticulate protest. Then something pushed out against the fabric of his tunic, as if it quested for exit from the confines of his chest.

  “Ur—” Kellin saw the blood break from Urchin’s breastbone. “No!” But Urchin was down, all asprawl, face buried in leaf mold and turf. Kellin grabbed handfuls of tunic and dragged him over onto his back. “Urchin—”

  Kellin recoiled. A bloodied silver wafer extruded from Urchin’s breastbone, shining wetly in the moonlight.

  He mouthed it: Sorcerer’s Tooth. Kellin had heard of them. The Ihlini weapons were often poisoned, though this one had done its work simply by slicing cleanly through the boy’s chest from spine to breastbone.

  Corwyth’s voice sounded very close, too close, though Kellin could not see him. “A waste of life,” the Ihlini said. “You threw it away, Kellin.”

  “No!”

  “You had only to come to me.”

  “No!”

  “And so now you are alone in the dark with an Ihlini.” Corwyth’s laughter was quiet. “Surely a nightmare all Cheysuli dread.”

  Urchin was dead. Muttering a prayer to the gods—and an apology to Urchin for the pain he could not feel—Kellin stripped hastily out of his jerkin, tucked it over the exposed spikes, then yanked the wafer from Urchin’s chest.

  He twisted his head. Where is—?

  Just behind. “Kellin. Surrender. I promise you no harm.”

  Kellin lurched upward and spun. “I promise you harm!”

  He heard Corwyth cry out as the glinting weapon, loosed, spun toward the Ihlini. Kellin did not tarry to see if the Tooth had bitten deeply enough to kill. He fled into darkness again.