A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  Blobs swam before his eyes, robbed of distinctness by the brilliance of the sun. They coalesced along the horizon, where the sea lapped in. He saw the blobs take shape, forming legs, tails, heads. He whistled. The blobs paused, then came flying, transmuting sundazzled formlessness into spray-dampened bodies recognizable as canine.

  Tongues lolled. Tails whipped. They lashed their own bodies in a frenzy to reach him, to display a devotion so complete as to render words obsolete.

  They were his now. The big male had died nearly twenty years before—of grief, he believed—but the others had survived despite the death of the woman who had caused them to be born. Most of those were dead, now, also—giant dogs died sooner—but they had bred as well, so that the island never lacked for companionship of a sort no Cheysuli had known before; they did not keep pets.

  Nor were these pets; they were, by their existence, in the beating of great hearts, living memorials to Shona.

  To him, they were sanity.

  He paused as they joined him. The exuberance of their greeting endangered those parts most revered by a man; grinning, he turned a hip each time a tail threatened, then grabbed two or three until the dogs, all astonished, spun to whip tails free. Then it began again, until he told them with false sternness that the game was over; that they were to be still.

  He sat down there in the sand, warding off inquisitive noses, until the dogs, too, settled with grunts and great rumbling sighs. Wise eyes watched him, waiting for the sign that he meant to rise and find a stick to toss for their pleasure; but he did not, and after a time they slept, or lay quietly: an ocean of storm-hued wolfhounds sprawled upon the beach of an island, in its begetting, very alien to their souls. They were Erinnish, though none of these had been there.

  They were all he had of her. The son she had borne in the midst of her dying, in the flames of a burning keep, was not and never had been his to tend. Another man might have grieved, then done what he could to raise up the living soul whose heart was partly hers, but he was denied that comfort. All he had of her, in the days and the darkness, were memories and dogs.

  He honored the gods with his service. He did not question its needs, or the path he had taken; it was his tahlmorra. A great security resided in the knowledge that what he did served a greater purpose; that sacrifices made in the name of that greater purpose, no matter how difficult, would in the end bear out his seeming madness. Let them attach scorn to his name now, but one day, long after his bones had rotted, they would call him something else.

  “But my spark is nothing compared to the flame of his.” Aidan smiled. “My name is a spark, and Kellin’s a bonfire—but Cynric’s will blaze with all the terrible splendor of a wildfire as it devours the land around it.”

  He knew they would curse him. Men were often blind when it came to needed change. When they acknowledged what had happened—and what still would come—they would claim him an emissary of a demon not to their liking, when all he did was serve the gods who had decided to mend what had broken.

  “Revolution,” he said; the dogs twitched ears. “If they knew what was to come, they would none of them agree; they would all become a’saii.”

  But he would not permit it. That was his purpose, to guide his people closer to a true understanding that out of devouring flames would rise a new world.

  It would be difficult. But the gods would see to it he had a means to persevere. If it required a weapon, a weapon would be given.

  Aidan was content. He knew his path very well. All he had to do was wait for the weapon, then set it on its path.

  PART III

  One

  The chapel was built of standing stones set into a tight circle. Most of them still leaned a little, like teeth settling badly in a diseased jaw, but someone had taken the time—probably years—to see that many of the stones had been pushed back into proper alignment. The circle was whole again, with a carved lintel stone set over the darkened entrance, and a heel stone put up in front. Kellin went slowly to it, drawn by its singular splendor.

  The side facing him was unnaturally flat, chipped and rubbed smooth. Across the dark gray face ran runic symbols he had seen but once before, in his Ceremony of Honors. He recognized most of them, but he was not perhaps as conversant in the Old Tongue as he should be. I have lived too long among Homanans.

  Kellin was transfixed by the shapes carved into the stone. The runes were incised deeply; he thought the carvings no more than fifteen or twenty years old. The heel stone was older yet, but not so ancient as the circle itself. An infant standing within the shade of his fathers.

  Standing, the heel stone reached Kellin’s chest. As he knelt, the runes became clearer. He put a finger upon their shapes to trace them out. “One day…blood…magic.”

  “One day a man of all blood shall unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magical races,” said the voice. “And if those few words you mouthed are all you know of the Old Tongue, it is well you come to me for instruction.”

  Kellin did not move. His fingers remained extended to touch the runes. Only the tips trembled. Not what I expected a jehan to say to his son as he sees him for the first time. It served to fuel his anger.

  Aidan stood in the chapel doorway. The sunlight was full on his face, glinting off the gold freighting arms and ear. It struck Kellin as incongruity; oddly, he had expected a simple man, not a warrior. But Aidan was that, and more; best Kellin remember it.

  He wanted very badly to say all manner of things, but he desired more to find just the right challenge. Let Aidan lead him, then; he would await the proper moment.

  “Get up from there,” Aidan said. “I am not the sort of man to require homage.”

  He does not know me. It shook him; he had expected Aidan to know. It altered his intent. “You gave that up,” Kellin said, forgoing patience. “Homage.”

  Aidan smiled. “That, as well as other unnecessary things.” He hesitated. “Well, will you rise? Or have you come with broken legs to have them made whole again?”

  Kellin wanted to laugh but suppressed the sound. He was not certain he could control it. “No,” he said only.

  “Good. I am not a god; I do not perform miracles.”

  Delicate contempt. “Surely you can heal. You are Cheysuli.”

  “Oh, aye—I have recourse to the earth magic. But you are too healthy to require it.” Aidan gestured. “Rise.”

  Kellin rose. He found no words in his mouth, only an awkward, wary patience inhabiting his spirit.

  Aidan’s ruddy brows arched. “Taller than I believed…are you certain the clan desires to lose you?”

  It was perplexing. “Why should you believe the clan might lose me?”

  “Have you not come for the teaching?” It was Aidan’s turn to frown. “The clans send to me those men—and women—who wish to learn what it is a shar tahl must do. I serve the gods by interpreting and teaching divine intentions…” He shrugged. “I make no differentiation between a man who is physically more suited to war than to study, but the clans often do. I am persuaded they would labor most assiduously to talk you out of coming here.” The glint in his eyes was fleeting. “Surely the women would.”

  It was disarming, but Kellin would not permit it to vanquish his irritation. He used the reminder that his appearance was considered by most, especially women, as pleasing to look for himself in Aidan. He saw little. Aidan’s hair was a rich, deep auburn, almost black in dim light, save for the vivid white wing over his left ear. His eyes were what a Cheysuli would describe as ordinary, though their uncompromising yellowness Homanans yet found unsettling. His flesh was not so dark as a clan-bred warrior, but then neither was Kellin’s.

  There we match; in the color of our flesh. But not, I am moved to say, in the color of our hearts.

  Aidan’s tone was polite. “Have you come to learn?”

  It nearly moved him to a wild, keening laughter; what he wanted to learn had nothing to do with gods. In subtle derision, he said, “If you can te
ach me.”

  Aidan smiled. “I will do what I can, certainly. It is up to the gods to make you a shar tahl.”

  “Is that—?” Kellin blurted a sharp sound of disbelief. “Is that what you think I want?”

  “What else? It is what I do here: prepare those who desire to serve the gods more closely than others do.”

  Kellin moved around the heel stone. He marked that the sun had been in Aidan’s eyes; that what his father saw of him was little but silhouette, or the pale shadow of three dimensions.

  He sees a warrior, somewhat taller than expected, but nonetheless kneeling in communion with the gods. Well, I will have to see to it he knows me for what I am, not what he presupposes. He moved to the front of the stone, permitting Aidan to see him clearly. Now what do you say?

  Aidan’s skin turned a peculiar grayish-white. His flesh was a chalk cliff in the sun, showing the damage done by rain and damp and age. Even the lips, carved of granite, were pale as alabaster.

  “Echoes—” Aidan blurted, “—but Shona. The kivarna—” He was trembling visibly.

  Kellin had not believed he much resembled his dead mother; they said she was fair, and her eyes brown. But obviously there was something; Aidan had seen it too quickly. Or perhaps only feels it because of his kivarna.

  Contempt welled up. He wanted badly to hurt the man. “She did bear me,” he said. “There should be something of her in me.”

  Aidan’s face was peeled to the bone so the shape of his skull was visible. The eyes, so calm before, had acquired a brittle intensity that mocked his former self-possession. His mouth was unmoving, as if something had sealed it closed.

  Is this what I wanted, all those years? Or do I want more yet?

  Aidan drew in a breath, then released it slowly. He smiled a sad, weary smile. The chalk cliff of his face had lost another layer to the onslaught of exposure; in this case, to knowledge. “I knew you would hate me. But it was a risk I had to take.”

  Kellin wanted to shout. “Was it?” he managed tightly. “And was it worth it?” He paused, then framed the single word upon years of bitterness. “Jehan.”

  In Aidan’s eyes was reflected as many years of conviction. “Come inside,” he said. “What I have to say is best said there.”

  He did not want to—he felt to do as asked would weaken his position—but Kellin followed. The chapel was not large inside, nor did it boast substantial illumination; a tight latticework roof closed out the sun. Kellin allowed his eyes to adjust, then glanced briefly around the interior. A rune-carved alter stood in the center. Set against the tilted walls were stone benches. Torch brackets pegged into seams in the stonework were empty.

  “Where is your lir?” Aidan asked.

  “She led me here, then disappeared.”

  “Ah.” Aidan nodded. “Teel disappeared this morning as well, so that all I had were the dogs; it was a conspiracy, then, that we should meet without benefit of lir.”

  Kellin did not care overmuch about what the lir conspired to do. He was wholly fixed on the acknowledgment that the man who stood before him had planted the seed which had grown in Shona’s belly, only to be torn free on a night filled with flames. He loved her, they say. Could he not have loved her son as well?

  Aidan sat down on one of the benches. Kellin, pointedly, remained standing. Bitterly he said, “Surely with your kivarna—aye, I know about it—you must have known I was coming.”

  Color had returned to Aidan’s face. It was no longer stretched so taut, no longer empty of a tranquillity that annoyed one who lacked it. “I do not question your right to bitterness and hatred, but this is not the place for it.”

  Kellin barked a harsh laugh. “Is that why you brought me in here? To tame my tongue and render me less than a man?” He wanted to jeer. “You forget, jehan—I have none of your reverence, nor your humility. If I choose to honor the gods, I do it in my own fashion. And, I might add, with less elaboration.” He cast a scornful glance over the chapel. “I did not know a man would exchange the flesh of his own son for the confines of stone.”

  Aidan waited him out. “I would not expect you to offer reverence or humility. You are not the man for it.”

  It was veiled insult, if Kellin chose to take it so. Another might acknowledge it as simple statement of fact. “Do you believe me too weak to be as you are? No, jehan: too strong. I am not a coward. I do not turn my face from its proper place to hide upon an island with a mouth full of prophecies.”

  “Indeed, you are not weak. Nor are you a coward.” Aidan shrugged. “Nor am I, but I give you the freedom to believe as you will—just now, there is more. What you are is a confused, angry young man who only now confronts his heritage—and knows his ultimate fate lies in other hands.” He overrode the beginnings of Kellin’s protest. “You mentioned my kivarna first—shall we let the gift guide me in the examination of your soul?” He smiled without intending offense, reminding quietly that what he could do was what few others could. “You will do as I did when the time has come: acknowledge and fully accept what the gods have designed for you in the ordering of your life.”

  “If you know it, then tell me!” Kellin cried. “You claim communion with the gods. Tell me now and save me time wasted in discovering it for myself!”

  “And deny you the chance to grow into the man the gods intend you to be?” Aidan smiled. “A warrior cannot circumvent a tahlmorra so easily…he is charged to become what he is meant to become in the husbandry of his soul. Were I to tell you what becomes of you, I might well alter what is meant to happen.”

  “Obscurity,” Kellin charged. “That is what you teach here: how to speak in riddles so no man can understand.”

  “A man learns,” Aidan countered, “and then he understands.”

  Kellin laughed. “Tell me,” he challenged. “If indeed you can. Prophesy for me. For your only son.”

  Aidan did not move upon the bench. His hands lay in his lap. “Do you forget who I am?”

  “Who you are? How could I? You are the man I have sought all my life—even when I denied it—and now that I have found you I am at last able to tell you precisely what I think of you and your foolish claims!”

  “I am the mouthpiece of the gods.”

  Kellin laughed at him.

  And then his laughter died, for Aidan began to speak. “The Lion shall lie with the witch. Out of darkness shall come light; out of death: life; out of the old: the new.”

  “Words,” Kellin began, meaning to defame the man who said them, to leech them of their power, but his challenge died away.

  “The Lion shall lie with the witch, and the witch-child born of it shall join with the Lion to swallow the House of Homana and all of her children.”

  “Jehan!”

  Yellow eyes had turned black. Aidan stared fixedly at Kellin, one hand raised to indicate his son. “The Lion,” he said, “shall devour the House of Homana.”

  “Stop—”

  His voice rose. “Do you think to escape the Lion? Do you think to escape your fate?” Lips peeled back. “Small, foolish boy—you are nothing to the gods. It is the Lion’s cub they desire, not the Lion himself…you are the means to an end. The Lion shall lie down with the witch.”

  Kellin was instantly taken out of himself, swept back ten years. To the time of Summerfair, when he had put on his second-best tunic to go among the crowds and see what he would see, to taste suhoqla again and challenge a Steppes warrior. To enter the tent filled with a sickly, sweetish odor; to see again the old man who sat upon his cushion and told who he was, and what would be his fate.

  “Lion—” Kellin whispered, staring at his father. “There is a lion—after all—”

  Aidan smiled an odd, inhumane smile. “Kellin,” he said plainly, “you are the Lion.”

  Two

  “I am sorry.” Aidan’s tone was quiet, lacking its former power. “But I warned you. It is never a simple thing—and rarely pleasant—to learn your tahlmorra.”

  Kellin clung to the he
el stone for support. He did not precisely recall how he had reached it. He remembered, if dimly, stumbling out of the shadow-clad chapel into clean sunlight—and then he had fallen to his knees, keeping himself upright only by virtue of clinging to the heel stone as a child to its mother’s neck.

  He continued to clutch it. He twisted his head to ask over a shoulder. “Do you know what you said?”

  Aidan, squinting against sunlight, sighed and nodded. “Most of it. I can never recall clearly what I say when I prophesy, but the intent remains in my mind.” His eyes were steady, if darkened by the acknowledgment of what had occurred. “Despite what you led me to believe with regard to your ignorance of your tahlmorra, it is not the first time you have heard such words.”

  “I was ten.” Kellin stood up and relinquished his grip on the stone, aware of a cold clamminess in his palms. “But I did not know—”

  “No,” Aidan agreed, “a child could not. Nor many men. You were not ready. Even now you are not.”

  Resentment congealed. “So you did it to prove something.”

  Mildly, Aidan said, “You did ask. In plain and impolite words.”

  Another time he would have fought back. Just now something else struck him as more important. “You said—” He looked warily at the chapel, as if it were responsible for putting the thoughts inside his head. “You said I am the Lion.”

  “You are.”

  “But how? I am a man. Not even in lir-shape am I a lion!”

  Aidan nodded. “Where words will not serve, symbols often do.” He traced the runes inscribed in the heel stone. “These are symbols. And so is the Lion.”

  “The Lion is a throne.”

  “That, too, is a symbol.” Aidan smiled. “You are a man in all the ways in which a man is measured; fear nothing there. But you are also the next link in the prophecy of the Firstborn. It may somewhat devalue my dedication to say this so baldly, but prophecies are sometimes little more than colorful pictures, like the lir we paint on pavilions.”

  It gave Kellin something, a tiny bit of strength with which to reassert his challenge. “Then there is no truth to it.”