A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Aye. I misjudged you. A failing I shall not be moved to repeat.”

  The rune-sticks joined the cubes in an obscene coupling upon the table. Neither man watched. They looked at each other instead.

  A vicious joy welled up in Kellin’s soul. Here was the fight he had wanted. “I will not accompany you.”

  “One day,” Corwyth said. “Be certain of it, Kellin.” He gestured, and the cubes and rune-sticks fell into a pattern: one arrow pointed at Kellin, the other directly north. “You see? Even the game agrees.”

  As he had done so many years before, Kellin made a fist and banged it down upon the table. The arrows broke up and fell in disarray to the floor. Sticks and cubes scattered.

  Corwyth showed good teeth. “This is a game,” he said, “mere prelude to what will follow. If you think you have the power to prevent it, you are indeed a fool.” Slender fingers were unmoving on scarred wood. “I do not threaten, Kellin; I come to warn instead. Lochiel is too powerful. You cannot hope to refuse him.”

  “I can. I do.” Kellin displayed equally good teeth, but his grin was more feral. “He has tried before and failed, just as you did. I begin to think Lochiel is not so powerful as he would have us believe.”

  Corwyth’s tone was mild. “He need only put out his hand, and you will be in it. He need only close that hand and crush the life from you.”

  Kellin laughed. “Then tell him to do it.”

  Corwyth’s gaze was steady. “Before, you were a boy. They kept you close, and safe. But you are no longer a boy, and such chains as you have known will bind more than body, but the spirit as well. Do you not fight those chains? Do you not come often into the Midden, fighting a battle within your soul as well as the war with the constraints of your station?”

  Kellin’s laughter died. Corwyth knew too much. He was overly conversant with what was in Kellin’s mind. “I do what I desire to do. That has nothing to do with Lochiel.”

  “Ah, but it has everything to do with Lochiel. You have a choice, my lord: keep yourself to Homana-Mujhar and away from sorcery, yet know there will always be the threat of a traitorous Homanan.” His smile was slight as he purposely evoked the memory of Rogan. “Or come out as you will, as you desire to, and know that each step you take is watched by Lochiel.”

  Kellin controlled the anger. Such a display was what Corwyth wanted to provoke; he would not satisfy him. “Then I challenge Lochiel to try me here and now.”

  Corwyth shook his head. “A game requires time, my lord, or the satisfaction is tainted…much like a man who spends himself too quickly between a woman’s thighs. There are the rules to be learned first, before the game commences.” The smile was banished. Corwyth leaned forward. “This night, you shall go free. This night you may go home to Homana-Mujhar—or to whatever whore you are keeping—and may sleep without fear for your soul. But you are to know this: you are not free. Your soul is not unclaimed. Lochiel waits in Valgaard. When he touches you, when he deigns to gather you up, be certain you shall know it.”

  The Ihlini sat back, but his gaze did not waver from Kellin’s. He smiled again, if faintly, and took something else from beneath his cloak. He set it flat on the table between them.

  Sorcerer’s Tooth.

  The years fell away. Kellin was a frightened boy again lost in Homanan forests, with a tutor slain and a best friend dying, and the Lion on his trail.

  “Keep it,” Corwyth said, “as a token of my promise.”

  Kellin leapt to his feet, groping for the knife, but a sheet of purple flame drove him away from the table. When the smoke of it shredded away, the Ihlini was gone.

  Two

  Coughing, Kellin went at once to his watchdogs and found them dead. There were no wounds, no marks, no blood to prove what had befallen them, the four men were simply dead. They slumped across the table with blank eyes bulging and their flesh a pallid white.

  He looked then for the Homanans, expecting some manner of comment, and discovered they no longer existed. The tavernkeeper had vanished as well. Kellin was quite alone in the common room save for the bodies Corwyth had left behind.

  Kellin stood perfectly still. Silence was loud, so loud it filled his head and slid down to stuff his belly, until he wanted to choke on it, to spew it forth and deny everything; to somehow put back to rights the horror that had occurred.

  The way I wanted Rogan to be alive again— Kellin shut his teeth. Rogan was a traitor.

  His grip tightened on the knife. Its heat had dissipated. No longer tainted by Corwyth’s wishes, it was merely a knife again, if a royal one. The lion hilt mocked him.

  He looked around again. All was as before: four dead watchdogs sprawled across the table in a stinking common room of a Midden tavern Kellin was no longer certain truly existed.

  Did Corwyth conjure the Homanans? Is this tavern no more than illusion? If so, he was trapped in it.

  Kellin shivered, then swore at the response he interpreted as weakness. He went hastily back to his table, caught up his cloak and threw it around his shoulders. With the knife still clutched in one hand, hilt slick with sweat, he went out into the darkness where the air smelled like air, redolent of winter, but without the stink of Corwyth’s sorcery.

  The walk to Homana-Mujhar was the longest of Kellin’s life. His back was spectacularly naked of watchdogs; he had hated them before but had never wished them dead.

  He avoided puddles now. His mouth was filled with the sour aftertaste of usca. Drunkenness had passed, as had hostility and the desire to fight. What he wanted most now was to reach Homana-Mujhar and deliver unpleasant news to Brennan, so the burden of the knowledge was no longer his alone.

  There were few cobblestones in the Midden. Boots sank into muck, denying easy egress from winding, narrow alleys shut in by top-heavy dwellings. Between his shoulder blades Kellin felt a tingling; the hairs on the nape of his neck rose. He was lirless by choice, which left him vulnerable. A bonded warrior would know if an Ihlini was near. He had only his instincts to trust, and they told him it would be a simple thing for Corwyth to take him now, with a Tooth flung into his back.

  But the Tooth was back in the tavern. Nothing could have induced him to touch it, let alone to keep it.

  Kellin shivered despite the fur-lined cloak. His lips were excessively dry no matter how often he licked them. Corwyth had promised him his freedom tonight; that he might spend the time as he wished. Lochiel was patient.

  Muck oozed up, capturing a boot. Kellin paused to free himself, then froze into stillness. A new noise had begun in place of his audible breathing and heartbeat.

  The sound was one he knew: a raspy, throaty grunting; the chesty cough of a huge lion.

  Gods— He turned convulsively, shoulders slamming against the wall. He heard the scrape of his cloak against brick. Moonlight sparked on the ruby as he lifted the knife.

  For one insane moment Kellin saw his shadow on the wall across the narrow alley: the image of a small boy desperate to flee. And then the illusion was banished, replaced with the truth, and he saw himself clearly. No longer the boy. Nightmares were long behind him.

  This is how Lochiel intends to take me. This is some trick—

  Or perhaps not. After what had happened in the tavern, Kellin was not so certain.

  Still, he would not prove such easy prey, to be terrorized by childhood nightmares.

  He raised the knife higher. He saw the length of supple fingers, the sinewy back of his hand, the muscle sheathing wrist. He was a man now, and a very different kind of prey.

  “Come, then,” he said. “If that is you, Corwyth, be certain I am ready. Lochiel will find me no easier to defeat despite opportunity. I am, after all, Cheysuli.”

  The Lion paused. Noise ceased.

  “Come,” Kellin goaded. “Did you think to find me so frightened I soiled my leggings? Did you believe it would be easy?” He forced a laugh, relying on bravado that was genuine only in part. “Why not banish the Lion’s aspect and face me as a man? Or d
o you fear me after all?”

  Grunting and panting faded. The night was silent again.

  Kellin laughed as tension fled, leaving him atremble despite his bravado. “So, you prefer to test a boy instead of a man. Well, now you know the truth of it. To take me now, you will have to try harder.”

  He waited. He thought perhaps Corwyth would resort to ordinary means to attack. But the night was silent, and empty; threat was dispersed.

  Kellin drew in a deep breath. Surely they told stories of my fears when I was a child. It would be a simple matter to shape a lion out of magic now merely to remind me of childhood fears.

  It was a simple explanation, and perhaps a valid one. But a nagging thought remained.

  What of Tanni? She was truly gutted.

  But men had been bought before: a cook, and Rogan. What if the beast who had slain Blais’ lir was nothing but a man meant to make it look like a beast?

  Kellin gripped the knife more tightly. Corwyth is right. I am no safer now than I was as a child. But I will not order my life around fear; it would be a victory for Lochiel. I will be what I am. If the Ihlini is to take me, he will find it difficult.

  * * *

  When Kellin reached Homana-Mujhar, he went at once to the watch commander and gave him the news. “Have them brought home,” he said. “But also tell those sent to fetch them to touch nothing else. There was an Ihlini abroad tonight.”

  The captain, a hardened veteran, did not scoff. But Kellin saw the lowered lids, the shuttered thoughts, and knew very well his words were not wholly accepted. Men might be dead, but no Ihlini had come into Mujhara for years. More likely it was his fault, from trouble he had started.

  It infuriated him. Kellin grabbed a handful of crimson tunic. “Do you doubt me?”

  The captain did not hesitate. “Who speaks of doubt, my lord? I will of course do your bidding when the Mujhar confirms it.”

  “The Mujhar—” Kellin cut it off, gritting teeth against the anger he wanted to spew into the man’s face. “Aye, tell the Mujhar; it will save me the trouble.” He let go of the crumpled tunic and turned on his heel, striding across to a side entrance so as not to disturb the palace with his late return. Let the captain tell his beloved Mujhar. I will spend my time on other things.

  He climbed the stairs two at a time, shedding cloak with a shrug of shoulders. He hooked it over an arm, heedless of the dragging hem. When he entered his chamber, he flung the cloak across a stool and hastily stripped out of soiled clothing. Naked, he paced to one of the unshuttered casements and scowled blackly into darkness.

  He felt stifled. He felt young and old, exquisitely indifferent to life, and yet so filled with it he could not ignore its clamor. Something surged through his veins, charging his body with a vigor so intense he thought he was on fire. His hands trembled as if palsied; Kellin suppressed it with a curse.

  A surfeit of energy. It set his bones ablaze. He was burning, burning.

  “Too bright—” Kellin dug fingers into the sill until at last the burning faded. Emptiness replaced it; he was desolate now, with a spirit wholly diminished. Weakness replaced the hideous strength that had knotted all his muscles.

  It is only reaction to what occurred earlier. No more than that.

  But Kellin was not certain. Panting, he pressed his head into the wall, letting the stone pit flesh. Fingertips were sore, scraped raw by his grip upon the sill. Everything in him shook.

  “Tired.” It was much more than that. Kellin staggered to his bed and climbed between the curtains, blessing the servant who had left the warming pan.

  But he could not stay there. A restlessness consumed his body and mind and made him accede to its wishes: that he forsake his bed for a physical release that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with his spirit.

  Breeches, no boots. Bare-chested, gripping the knife, Kellin left his chambers and went into the shadowed corridors. He felt as if he were a knife, honed sharp and clean and true, balanced in the hand as his own knife was balanced, but the hand which held him was none that he knew.

  The gods? Kellin wanted to laugh. The old Cheysuli saying about a man’s fate resting in the hands of the gods was imagery, no more, and yet he felt as if he fit. As if the hand merely waited.

  This is madness. He went to the Great Hall. It had been a long time since he had entered it; it was his grandsire’s place. Until Kellin could make it his, he was content to wait: a lean and hungry wolf intently watching its promised meal.

  Guilt flickered; was suppressed. I was bred for it. All the blood that flows in me cries out to rule Homana…I was not made of patient clay, and the firing is done.

  He halted before the dais, before the throne, and looked upon the Lion. An old beast, he thought, guarding its pride with aging eyes and older heart, its body tough and stringy, its mouth nearly empty of teeth.

  Time runs out for the Lion. Time ran out for them all.

  Kellin laughed softly. Slowly he mounted the steps to the throne and sat himself upon it, moving back into the shadows until his spine touched wood. He placed his arms on the armrests, curled his fingers over the paws and felt the extended claws.

  “This is Homana,” he said. “This is Homana—and one day it will be mine.”

  His fear of the throne was gone. As a child it had frightened him, but he was no longer a child.

  Kellin stared out into the hall. “The lion must swallow the lands. The lion must swallow us all.”

  * * *

  He roused at the scrape of a boot upon stone floor. “Not a comfortable bed,” the Mujhar remarked.

  Kellin jerked upright, blinking blearily, stiff and sore and intensely uncomfortable. He had spent what little remained of the night in the bosom of the Lion. The knife was still in his fist. He was warrior enough for that.

  Brennan’s expression was masked. “Was there any point to it?”

  Kellin challenged him immediately. “I do nothing without a point.”

  His grandfather’s mouth twisted scornfully. “What you do is your concern, as you have made it. I gave up years ago asking myself what could be in your mind, to explain your behavior.” He gestured sharply. “Get up from there, Kellin. You do not suit it yet.”

  The insult was deliberate, and he felt it strike true. He wanted to shout back, but knew it would gain him nothing but additional scorn. Of late he and his grandfather had played a game with the stakes residing in dominance. Brennan was the old wolf, Kellin the new; one day the old would die.

  Kellin tapped the blade against wooden claws. “Perhaps better suited than you believe.”

  “Get up from there,” Brennan repeated, “or I shall pull you up myself.”

  Kellin considered it. At a few years beyond sixty the Mujhar was an aging man, but he was not infirm. His hair was completely silver with white frost around his face, but the fierce eyes were steady, the limbs did not tremble, and the arms with their weight of lir-gold did not shrivel and sag. He is taller and heavier than I, and he might be able to do it.

  Kellin rose with practiced elegance. He made an elaborate bow to his grandfather and turned to walk away, but Brennan reached out and caught one arm.

  “How much longer?” he rasped. “This comedy we play? Or is it a tragedy?”

  Kellin knew the answer. “Tragedy, my lord. What else could these walls house?”

  Brennan’s mouth flattened into a thin, compressed line of displeasure. “What these walls will house, I cannot say. But what they have housed in the past I can and do say: greater men than you, though they were merely servants.”

  Kellin wrenched his arm away. “You offer insult, my lord.”

  “I offer whatever I choose. By the gods, Kellin—will you never grow up?”

  Kellin spread his hands in mock display. “Am I not a man?”

  “No.” Brennan’s tone was cold. “You are but a boy grown larger in size than in sense.”

  “Insult yet again.” Kellin was unoffended; it was all part of the game though
the Mujhar did not view it as such.

  “What is your excuse?” Brennan demanded. “That you lost people close to you? Well, do you think I have not? Do you think none of us has suffered as you do?”

  Stung, Kellin glared. “What I suffer is my own concern!”

  “And mine.” Brennan faced him down squarely. “You lack a jehan. You know why. You lost a tutor to sorcery, a friend to treachery, and a liege man to Cheysuli custom. You know how. And yet you choose to wallow in grief and make all of Mujhara suffer.”

  “Mujhara has nothing to do with this!”

  “It does.” Brennan’s tone did not waver. “How many fights have you sought out—or caused, or joined—because of childish vindictiveness? How many men have you fought—and injured—because they were easy prey for your anger? How many bastards have you sired, duly packed off to Clankeep where you need not concern yourself with them?” More quietly, he said, “And how many guardsmen have died because of you?”

  “None because of me!”

  “Oh? Then what of the four men who died last night?”

  “But that was not my fault.”

  “Whose was it, then? I thought you led them there on one of your Midden tours.”

  Anger boiled up. “Only because you put them on my trail like hounds upon a fox!” Kellin glared. “Call them off, grandsire. Then no more will die.”

  Brennan’s expression was implacable. “Did you do it?”

  “Did I—?” Kellin was aghast. “You believe I would kill them?”

  “Aye,” Brennan answered evenly. “I believe you might.”

  “How?” Kellin swallowed the painful lump in his throat. “I am your own grandson. And you accuse me of murder?”

  “You have labored assiduously to make me believe you are capable of anything.”

  “But…” Kellin laughed once, expelling air rather than amusement. “I never thought you would hate me so.”

  “Do you think a man must hate another to believe him capable of things another would not do?” Brennan shook his head. “I do not hate you. I know you better than you think, and why you have twisted yourself into this travesty of the Kellin you once were. I cannot understand it, but I am cognizant of why.”