A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  He repudiated it. I will not permit it.

  Then die. Allow the Ihlini to win. Remove from the line of succession the prince known as Kellin, and destroy the prophecy.

  He gritted his teeth. I will not pay your price.

  There is no other escape.

  It infuriated him. Kellin brought his flesh-bound hands into the moonlight. A test, then, he challenged.

  The lir sighed. You believe too easily what the Ihlini tells you to. His art is in illusion. Banish this one as you banished the lion.

  Kellin stared hard at his wrists. The skin altered, flowing away, and his wrists were free of themselves.

  Corwyth marked the movement. He turned sharply, saw the truth, and jerked the knife from his belt.

  “The wards are down,” Kellin said, “and your minions bide elsewhere. Now it is you and I.”

  You will have to kill him, lir. He will never let you go.

  “Go away,” Kellin said. “I want nothing to do with you.”

  Corwyth laughed. “Is this your attempt at escape? To bait me with babbled nonsense?”

  You must kill him.

  He wanted to shout at the lir. He is armed, Kellin said acidly. He is also Ihlini.

  And has recourse to no arts now that I am here.

  We have not bonded. I will not permit it.

  The tone was implacable. Then die.

  “Come out!” Kellin shouted. “By the gods, I will fight you both!”

  Corwyth’s laughter grated. “Have you gone mad? Or do you use this to bait me?”

  Distracted by a battle fought on two fronts, Kellin glared. “I need no lir for you. I will take you as a man.”

  “Do try,” Corwyth invited. “Or shall I stop your heart again?”

  He cannot, the lir declared. While I am here, such power is blunted.

  Then why do I hear you? Near an Ihlini, the link is obscured.

  You forget who you are. There is that within you that breaks certain rules.

  “My blood?” Kellin jeered. “Aye, always the blood!”

  Old Blood is powerful. You have it in abundance. The voice paused. Have you not read the birthlines lately?

  “Do you want your blood spilled?” Corwyth asked. “I can do that for you…Lochiel will not punish me for that.”

  Kill him, the lir said. You are weary and injured. He will defeat you even without sorcery.

  Kellin laughed. With what? My teeth?

  Those are your weapons, among others. The tone was dryly amused. But mostly there is your blood. If a man’s form does not serve, take on another.

  Yours? But I do not even know what animal you are!

  You have heard me. Now hear me again. The scream of a mountain cat filled the darkness but a handful of paces away.

  Corwyth’s face blanched. “I am Ihlini!” he cried. “You have no power here!”

  Show him, it said. Let him see what you are.

  Kellin was desperate. “How?”

  Forget you are a man. Become a cat instead.

  Kellin looked at Corwyth. The knife in the Ihlini’s hand had belonged to Blais. Kellin wanted it back.

  Corwyth laughed. “You and I, then.”

  Kellin was angry, so angry he could hardly hold himself still. His bones buzzed with newfound energy and flesh hardened itself over tensing muscle and tendon. He shook with the urge to shred the Ihlini into a pile of cracked bone and bloodied flesh.

  A beginning, the lir said.

  And then he understood—to accomplish what was required he must shed all knowledge of human form, all human instincts. Anger could help that. Anger could assist him.

  I want Corwyth dead. I want the knife back.

  There is only one way to gain what you desire. I have given you the key. Now you must open the door.

  To what future?

  To the one you make.

  “Come, then,” Corwyth said. “I will shatter all your bones, then knit them together again. Lochiel need never know.”

  Kellin smiled. He forgot about his ribs and all the other nagging pains. He thought about lir-shape instead. He thought about mountain cats, and the instincts that served them.

  “You cannot,” Corwyth declared. “This is a trick.”

  Kellin laughed. “Do you forget who I am? You know so much about me and the others of my House—surely you recall that we claim the Old Blood.” He paused. “With all of its special gifts.”

  Corwyth lunged. He was quick, very quick, and exceedingly supple. Kellin dodged the outthrust knife with no little effort or pain, then ducked a second thrust.

  Concentrate, the lir commanded. Fingers and toes are claws. Flesh is thickly furred. The body is lean and fit. Jaws are heavy and powerful, filled with tongue and teeth. All you desire is the taste of his flesh in your mouth—his blood spilling from his throat into yours—and the hot sweet scent of his death.

  The knife nearly caught his side. Kellin twisted, grimacing as ribs protested.

  Mountain cat, it said. Far superior to any beast bred by god or demon.

  Kellin rolled as Corwyth struck a third time. He panted audibly, trying to divorce his mind from his body, to let his instincts dictate motion.

  Now.

  Anger fed his strength. Kellin saw the glint of the knife in Corwyth’s hand—Blais’ knife!—and then, briefly, everything faded. The world was turned inside out, and when it came right again it was a very different place.

  His mouth dropped open to curse the Ihlini, but what issued forth was a rising, angry wail. He felt the coiling of haunches to gather himself; the whip of a sinuous tail; the tightness in his empty—too empty!—belly. Kellin bunched, and sprang.

  The knife glinted again. Kellin reached out in midair with a hind leg and slashed the weapon from Corwyth’s hand. He heard the Ihlini’s cry, and then Kellin was on him.

  Corwyth went down easily. Lost in the killing frenzy, Kellin did not think about what he did. He simply closed powerful jaws on the fragile throat of a man and tore it away.

  There was no sense of jubilation, vindication, or relief. Merely satiation as the cat fed on the prey’s body.

  Ten

  What am I—? Comprehension was immediate. Kellin hurled himself away from the body on the ground. No more the cat but a man, appalled by what had occurred. Gods—I did THAT?

  Corwyth was messily dead. He lay sprawled on the ground with blood-soaked cloak bunched up around him, gaping throat bared to the moon.

  I did.

  He was shaking. All over. He was bloodied to the elbows. Blood soaked his doublet. Blood was in his mouth. Everywhere, blood—and the taste of Corwyth’s flesh.

  Kellin thrust himself from the ground to his knees, then bent and hugged sore ribs as his belly purged itself. He wanted very much to purge his mind as well, to forget what he had seen, to forget what he had done, but the memory was livid. It excoriated him.

  He scrubbed again and again at his face, trying to rid it of blood, but his hands, too, were bloody. Frantically Kellin scooped up double handfuls of dirt and damp leaves and scoured hands, then face, pausing twice to spit.

  Lir.

  Kellin jumped. He spun on his knees, panting, bracing himself on one stiff arm, and searched avidly for the mountain cat who had driven him beyond self. There was no sound. No cat. He saw nothing but star-weighted darkness and the scalloped outline of dense foliage.

  Gone. Breathing steadied. He scraped the back of a hand across his chin. Fingers shook.

  Lir. The tone was gentle. The death was required. Just as the deaths of the minions were required.

  “You killed them?”

  They are dead.

  He barked a hoarse laugh. “Then you have broken one of the most binding rules of the lir-bond. You are not supposed to kill Ihlini.”

  The tone was peculiar. We are reflections of one another.

  “What does that mean?”

  You do that which you are commanded not to do. And now I as well.

  It astounded h
im. “Because of me you broke the rule?”

  We are very alike.

  He contemplated that. He knew himself to be a rebel; could a lir be so also? If so, they were indeed well matched.

  He cut it off at once. “I want nothing to do with you.”

  It is done. The men are dead.

  Kellin stiffened. He refused to look at Corwyth’s body. “There was no warning—you said nothing of what I would feel!”

  You felt as a cat feels.

  “But I am a man.”

  More, it said. Cheysuli.

  Kellin spat again, wishing he had the strength of will to scour his mouth as well as his flesh. A quick glance across the tiny campsite offered relief: Ihlini supplies laid out in a neat pile.

  “Water.” He pressed himself from the ground and walked unsteadily to the supplies. He found a leather flask and unstoppered it, then methodically rinsed his mouth and spat until the taste of blood and flesh was gone. As carefully, he poured the contents of a second flask into one hand and then the other, scraping flesh free of sticky blood with cold, damp leaves.

  “I’toshaa-ni,” he murmured, and then realized that the ritual merely emphasized the heritage that had led him to this.

  Dripping, Kellin rose again. He made himself look. The view was no better: a sprawled, stilled body with only the pallor of vertebrae glistening in the ruin of a throat.

  He shuddered. “I renounced you,” he declared. “I made it very plain. Now more than ever it is imperative that I do not bond with a lir. If that is what it means—”

  “That” was necessary. “That” was required.

  “No.” He would not now speak inside his head but say it as a man, so there existed no doubt as to who—and what—he was. “It was butchery, no more.”

  It was to save your life. The tone was terse, as if the lir suppressed a great emotion. What the Ihlini do, they do to preserve their power. Lochiel would have killed you. Or gelded you.

  “Gelded—”

  Do you think he would permit you to breed? You are his ending. The moment your son is born, the world begins anew.

  Kellin wiped damp hands across his face, warping it out of shape as if self-inflicted violence would banish acknowledgment. “I want nothing to do with this.”

  It is too late.

  “No. Not if I renounce you, as I have. Not if I refuse to bond with you.”

  Too late, the lir repeated. The tone now was muted.

  Suspicion flared. He had been taught to honor all lir, but at this moment, conversing with this lir, he was afraid to assume it beneficent. “Why?” Alarm replaced suspicion. “What have you done?”

  It was necessary.

  It filled him with apprehension. “What have you done?”

  Lent you a piece of myself.

  “You!”

  Required, it insisted. Without that part of me, you would never have accomplished the shapechange.

  A shudder wracked Kellin from head to foot. The flesh on his scalp itched as if all his hairs stood up. “Tell me,” he said intently. “Tell me what I have become.”

  Silence answered him.

  “Tell me!” Kellin shouted. “By the gods, you beast, what have you done to me?”

  The tone was odd. Why does a man swear by gods he cannot honor?

  The inanity amazed him. “If I could see you—”

  Then see me. A shadow moved at the edge of the trees. See me as I am. Know who Sima is.

  A soft rustle, then nothing more. In the reflection of dying flames, gold eyes gleamed.

  Kellin nearly gaped. “You are little more than a cub!”

  Young, Sima conceded. But old enough for a lir.

  “But—” Kellin blurted a choked laugh, then cut it off. “I want nothing to do with you. With you, or with any of it. No lir, no bonding, no shapechange. I want a full life…not a travesty always threatened by an arcane ritual that needlessly wastes a warrior.”

  Sima blinked. I would die if you died. The cost is equally shared.

  “I do not want to share it! I want not to risk it at all.”

  A tail twitched. She was black, black as Sleeta, the Mujhar’s magnificent lir. But she was small, as yet immature, gangly as a half-grown kitten. Incongruity, Kellin thought, in view of her intransigence.

  I am empty, Sima said. I am but a shadow. Do you sentence me to that?

  “Can I? I thought you said it was too late.”

  Gold eyes winked out, then opened again. If you wish to renounce me, you may. But then the Ihlini will be victorious, because both of us will die.

  She did not sound young. She sounded ineffably old. “Sima.” Kellin wet his lips. “What have you done to me?”

  The sleek black head lowered. Tufted ears flattened. The tail whipped a branch to shreds.

  “Sima!”

  Caused you to change before the balance was learned.

  Kellin’s mouth felt dry. “And that is a bad thing?”

  If balance is lost and not regained, if it is not maintained, a warrior in lir-shape risks his humanity.

  His voice sounded rusty. “He would be locked in beast-shape?”

  If he lost his balance and spent too long in lir-shape, he could lose knowledge of what he was. Self-knowledge is essential. Forgotten, the man becomes a monster caught between two selfs.

  After a long moment, Kellin nodded. “Leijhana tu’sai,” he said grimly, “for giving me the chance to become a child’s nightmare.”

  I gave you the chance to survive. Corwyth would not have killed you, but he would have brought you pain. And Lochiel would have done worse.

  Kellin did not argue. He would not speak to her. He would give her no opportunity to drag him deeper into the mess she had made of his life.

  Because he could not stay in the clearing with the mutilated body, Kellin took Corwyth’s horse for his own. He turned the other mounts loose; he had no time for ponying.

  Sima did not honor his moratorium on speech. They would have killed me.

  He knew immediately what she referred to. For the first time, he contemplated what it was to a lir to experience guilt. He understood there was no choice in killing the minions; they would have skinned her and taken the pelt to Valgaard for presentation to Lochiel.

  Even as they presented me. Grimly Kellin said, “I would wish that on no one, beast or no.”

  Leijhana tu’sai. Sima twitched her tail.

  Kellin slanted her a hard glance as he snugged the girth tight. “You know the Old Tongue?”

  Better than you do.

  He grunted. “Privy to the gods, are you? More favored than most?”

  Of course. All lir are. The cat paused. You are an angry man.

  “After what you have made of me, do you expect gratitude?”

  No. You are angry all the time.

  He slipped fingers between girth and belly to check for a horse’s favorite trick: intentional bloating to keep the girth loose. “How would you know what I am?”

  I know.

  “Obscurity does not commend you.”

  Sima thumped her tail. A difficult bonding, I see.

  “No bonding at all.” As the horse released its breath in response to an elbow jab, Kellin snugged the girth tighter. “Go back to wherever it is lir come from.”

  I cannot.

  “I will not have you with me.”

  You cannot NOT have me.

  “Oh?” Kellin cast her an arch glance. “Will you stop me with violence?”

  Of course not. I am sworn to protect you, not injure you.

  “That is something.” He looped reins over the bay gelding’s neck. “Go back to the gods, cat. I will have none of you.”

  You have no choice.

  “Have I not?” Kellin gritted his teeth and put a boot toe into the left stirrup. Swearing inventively, he swung up into the saddle and settled himself slowly. “—I think I have every choice, cat.”

  None. Not if you wish to survive.

  “There have been lirless Ch
eysuli before.”

  None who survived.

  Kellin gathered in reins. “General Rowan,” he said briefly. “Rowan was meticulous in teaching my history. Rowan was one of Carillon’s most trusted men. He was a lirless Cheysuli.”

  He did not lose a lir. He never had one. He was kept from the bonding by the Ellasians who did not know what he was.

  “I know what I am. I know what you are.” He swung the horse southwesterly. “Go back to the gods who sent you. I will have none of them, or you.”

  Lir—

  “No.” Kellin spared a final glance at the body beside the fire. In time the beasts would eat it. He would not be one of them; he had done his part already. “Tu’halla dei,” he said. “Or whatever the terminology from warrior to renounced lir.”

  The sleek black cat rose. I am Sima. I am for you.

  Kellin kicked the horse into a walk. “Find another lir.”

  There IS none! she cried.

  For the first time he heard the fear in her tone. Kellin jerked the horse to a halt. He turned in the saddle to stare angrily at the mountain cat. “I saw what became of Tanni. I know what became of Blais. I am meant to hold the Lion and sire a Firstborn son—do you think I dare risk it all for you? To know that if you die, the prophecy dies also?”

  Without me, you die. Without you, I do. With both of us dead, there is no need for the prophecy.

  Kellin laughed. “Surely the gods must see the folly in this! A lir is a warrior’s weakness, not his strength. I begin to think the lir-bond is nothing more than divine jest.”

  I am for you, she said. Without you, I am empty.

  It infuriated him. “Tell it to someone who cares!”

  But as he rode from the campsite, the mountain cat followed.

  Eleven

  Kellin was exhausted by the time he reached Clankeep. He had briefly considered riding directly to Homana-Mujhar—no doubt Brennan and Aileen wondered what had become of him—but decided against it. Clankeep was the answer. His problem had nothing at all to do with the Homanan portion of his blood, but was wholly a Cheysuli concern.

  I will tell them what has happened. I will explain what I was forced to become, and the result—surely they cannot countenance a warrior who in lir-shape compromises every bit of his humanity. He steadfastly ignored the shadow slinking behind him with gold eyes fixed on his back. They will understand that this kind of bonding cannot be allowed to stand.