A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  Ginevra laughed. “You wanted to kill it! Now you change your mind?”

  “As I must,” he said. “The Seker’s aspect is of godfire. I think he would like to be human once again, that he may walk the land freely as he sunders it.”

  She clung more tightly to Kellin’s hand. “If you would give him a body, give him your own!”

  “GINEVRA!”

  “Your own!” she cried. And then, “Now, Kellin!”

  With their power they burned out his eyes, leaving blackened, melted sockets, and exploded the runes in his hands. His clothing caught fire. The flesh of his face peeled away so the bone exposed itself. A rictus replaced his lips, displaying perfect teeth. Lochiel staggered forward, waving impotent stubs on the ends of blazing arms, then tumbled into the Gate.

  The godfire within dimmed as if measuring its addition. And then it burst upward in a geyser of naked flame, licking at the jagged remains of shattered crystal arches. The Gate bled godfire in Lochiel’s immolation.

  A shudder wracked Ginevra. She fell to her knees. Silver hair streamed around her, tangling on the floor with steaming godfire and melting glass. In the rumbling of the Gate, her sobs went unheard.

  “Come.” Kellin urged her up. “If Asar-Suti desires a second helping…”

  She caught great handfuls of god-bleached hair in rigid, trembling hands. Tears shone on her face. “What manner of man sires a child such as I, who murders her own father?”

  A ripple moved through the floor. It fractured the massive columns that spiraled to the roof. Black glass rained down. With it came more arches, the fretwork of the ceiling, and then the roof itself.

  “Ginevra!” Kellin dragged her to her feet one-handed as he tucked the two pieces of chain into his belt.

  Cracks appeared in the rim of the Gate. Fissures ran toward them. As the roof fell down, part of it splashed into the Gate, so that godfire gouted forth. In its depths, something screamed.

  The floor beneath them rolled. From high over their heads, from the bulwark of the fortress, came a keening howl of fury.

  “They know,” Ginevra said. “The bonds are all broken. Lochiel is dead and so they die—and Valgaard is falling.” She caught his hand tightly. “I have to find my mother.”

  * * *

  As they burst from out of the passageway into the corridor, Melusine was waiting. In her hands was a sword made of livid godfire. “What have you done?” she cried. “What have you wrought?”

  Ginevra laughed crazily to hear her own words repeated. “Lochiel is dead.”

  “The walls fall,” Melusine said; in her eyes shone the light of madness, yellow as a Cheysuli’s. “Valgaard is sundered…” She looked at Kellin. “Kinsman,” she said, then raised the sword high.

  “No!” Ginevra struck before he could, transfixing her mother’s breast with a single blazing rune. The sword was snuffed out. “No,” Ginevra repeated. Her eyes were anguished. “Go away,” she said. “Get out of Valgaard now.”

  Melusine laughed. “Without Lochiel? You must be mad!”

  “Mother—” But the floor between them fissured. A jagged hole appeared. Kellin staggered, righted himself, then caught Ginevra and yanked her back as Melusine, screaming, tumbled in. “Mother!”

  He did not remonstrate, nor try to explain there was no hope as godfire gushed forth and drove them back. Ginevra knew. “Shansu,” he whispered, though she would not understand.

  She pressed a hand across her face so he would not see her tears.

  * * *

  Kellin did not permit them to stop until they were through the defile on their Valgaard horses and safe within the canyon, where the floor did not split, the walls did not fall down, and the roof above their heads did not collapse upon them. There Sima waited.

  He expected the link to be sundered by Ginevra’s presence, but Sima’s pattern was clear. You did well, his lir said, to release my kin.

  He thought of the undercroft, where he had, with his power, torn the doors off their hinges and permitted the cats to escape. They deserved a better tahlmorra than to die with Lochiel.

  Sima’s eyes gleamed golden. Tufted ears slicked. Do you understand?

  No. I was taught we could not link when an Ihlini was near.

  There is some of the god in you. Not only in your magic, but in your tolerance. You are both children of the gods; the time for schism is ending. She glanced at Ginevra. Tend her first. There will be time for us later.

  He climbed off his horse, hooked its reins over a branch, then went to Ginevra’s. “Come down,” he said, and reached out a hand.

  Ginevra looked down at him from atop her mount. Ash marred her cheek. Silver hair was a tangled tapestry on either side of her face. In her eyes was an anguish of such immensity he feared it might break her.

  He could not help herself. “Meijhana—”

  At the sound of the enemy tongue, spoken so close to sundered Valgaard, Ginevra flinched. Then, with careful deliberation, she unhooked a foot from a stirrup and got off on the other side. It put the horse between them.

  She could not have taken a blade and stabbed any deeper. He was eviscerated.

  Gods, he prayed, let this woman never hate me. I could not bear it.

  Ginevra took the horse away to the far side of the canyon. She sat down there upon a broken stump clad in the stormwrack of her soul and stared blindly into shadows with ice-gray eyes glazed black.

  With effort, Kellin turned back to his horse. He unbuckled girths, pulled off saddle and blankets, scrubbed down the damp back with a handful of leaves. When he was done, he went to her horse and did the same service. Ginevra said nothing.

  Smoke crept into the canyon. It was laden now with odors: burned flesh, the stink of the netherworld, the smell of a world come undone.

  “It is gone,” Ginevra said.

  Kellin turned from her horse.

  “Gone.” She sketched a rune in the air; he recognized bal’sha’a by the movement of her fingers. But nothing came of it. Her fingers moved deftly, yet nothing flared into brilliance in answer to her shaping. “The Gate is closed,” she said. The hand, bereft of power, slapped down slackly and lay curled in her lap. “And so now there is no godfire.” Her eyes were oddly empty. “Everyone I knew is dead. Everything I knew is gone.”

  His voice shook. “Ginevra—”

  Her face was a wasteland. “Lochiel was right. We are truly destroyed.”

  “No.” He drew a slow breath, treading carefully; he desired in no way to be misconstrued, or what they had built between them—that now was in jeopardy—would collapse into ruins. “No, not destroyed.” He would not lie to her; would never lie to her. “This aspect of it, perhaps, but your race survives. Asar-Suti is defeated, but there are Ihlini in the world.”

  “Good Ihlini?” She smiled, but without amusement; it was a ghastly mockery of the smiles he had won before. “Those who repudiate the Seker will surely survive and be looked upon with favor, but what of—us? Those like my father, and Strahan before him, and Tynstar before him.” The line of her jaw was blade-sharp as she set her teeth. “What of Ihlini like me?”

  “You said it yourself: the Gate is closed.”

  She did not flinch. “Aye.”

  “I would like to think that as we end this war, such Ihlini as they were will turn from the dark arts to fashion a new world.”

  “‘Such Ihlini,’” she echoed. “Like me?”

  He said it deliberately: “You are not your father.”

  “No.” Moonlight glinted in hair. “No, so I am not. Or surely I would have killed you there at the Gate.” Her mouth warped briefly. “Perhaps I should have.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “Or left the cat loose so the hunt could commence.”

  It shook her. It shook her so badly he knew she as much as he comprehended the precipice.

  He gave her the truth. “I do not believe Cynric’s task is to have the Ihlini killed.”

  Her tone was harsh. “As we killed my mother and my
father?”

  My poor meijhana. He went to her, and squatted down before her. “No matter how hard you strike at me, it will not bring them back.”

  Ginevra laughed harshly. “How can I strike at you? You only did as I asked, there in the cavern. What does it matter to me how it was done, or that we used an unborn child for his power?”

  He caught her hand. “Do not punish yourself for choosing to live. You did—we did—what had to be done.”

  “All of it? All of it?” Her hand shook in his. “My father. My mother. My—home.” Tears glazed her eyes as she put a hand against her belly. “So falls the Ihlini race. As according to prophecy—but before he is even born!” Her voice was raw. “Are you pleased by it?”

  He put his hand on her hand and let it rest against her belly. “He is Ihlini, also.”

  She wrenched her hand away and pressed both against her mouth. Fingers trembled minutely. Through them, she said, “How can you love me? I am everything you hate.”

  “When I was Cheysuli—” He smiled to see her start. “When I was Cheysuli, and knew it, I hated Ihlini. There was no choice. They meant to destroy my House. They had killed people I loved. They would kill me, if I gave them the chance to do so.” He pulled her hands away and held them in his. “When I was Cheysuli but no longer knew it, I was free to understand that life is much more complex. That the gods, when they act, when they wish to humble a man, wield a weapon of irony.”

  “Your gods!”

  “Mine. Yours also.” He lifted a strand of her hair. In the sunset, the silver was gilt. “You knew what would happen.”

  Ginevra stiffened.

  “You knew very well. It was what you implied when you came to me here, to fetch me to the Gate so you could win me back my human form.” He looked into her eyes. “You grieve for more than their deaths. You grieve because of your guilt. That Lochiel’s daughter, bred to serve her people, preserved in the name of love the life of the only man who could destroy her race.”

  “You shame me,” she said.

  It shook him. “In what way?”

  “The truth. The truth shames me. I have betrayed my race.” She put trembling fingers against his mouth. “And I would do it again.”

  He wanted in that moment, recognizing her truth as an absolute, to give her a truth in return. To admit to her—and to himself as well—what demon had lived in his soul all his adult life.

  Before, he had not known. And if someone had told him, if someone had dared, he would have taken solace in ridicule. I have used weapons in my life, but none so sharp as the blade of honesty. It is time, I think, to use it on myself and lance the canker I have cherished.

  Kellin took her hand away, caught up the other one, then tucked both against his chest so she could feel his heartbeat. “I have been afraid of many things in my life, but none so much as the intimacy of loving a woman. I lay with many, aye, to assuage a physical need in vain attempts to dull the emotional pain, but nothing sufficed. I was always empty, always in despair, despite what I believed. Despite what I yearned for.” His fingers warmed hers. He pressed her palms against his heart. “In fear of losing others, I distorted my soul on purpose. I cherished bitterness. I drove people away, even those whom I loved, because I wanted no one to care for me so I would not be required to care for them…to care was to lose them, and I could not bear it. Not after so many deaths.” He carried her hands to his mouth and kissed them. “The river gave me the chance to become another man, perhaps the one I was meant to be all along. What you see before you now is not Kellin of Homana, but Kellin the man, of whom Ginevra had the shaping.” He set his mouth against her palm. “I am your construct. If you would destroy me now, you need only withdraw your love.”

  She looked away from him. She gazed over his shoulder. Beyond the defile, beyond the Beasts, Valgaard yet burned. The air was laden with smoke.

  He would not release her hands. “What we have shared could transfigure a world. Even this one.”

  The scent of smoke was thick. Ginevra’s mouth warped briefly. “I have no roof,” she said. “It has all fallen down.”

  Kellin cradled her face in his hands, threading fingers into the shining wealth of her hair. Softly he said, “Homana-Mujhar’s still stands.”

  She flinched visibly; he saw she regretted it at once. “I am Lochiel’s daughter.”

  He pressed his lips against her brow. He kissed it twice, thrice, then moved the great distance between forehead and mouth. Cynric or no, prophecy or no, how could I even consider giving up this woman?

  He never had. Not once.

  The truth seared his soul even as his lips shaped words on hers with careful tenderness. “I need you,” he whispered, “as I have needed no one. You are my balance.”

  He knew it was not enough. But it was all he had to give her.

  * * *

  When her hand touched his shoulder, Kellin opened his eyes. It was full night. He had not slept. Neither had she.

  He waited. He held his silence, his position. The tension in her fingers, as she touched his shoulder, was a reflection of his own.

  The canyon stank of smoke. Valgaard burned. The full moon above them was dyed violet and black.

  Her hand withdrew. When she touched him again, her fingers were cool on his face. They touched his mouth and clung.

  Kellin sat up. He sat upon his heels even as she sat upon hers; their knees touched, and hands.

  Ginevra stared into his face. Her own was shadowed in the shroud of her hair. He saw the angle of a cheekbone, the curve of her brow. Her eyes were pockets of darkness. “If I am your balance, you are my lifestone.”

  In silence, Kellin waited.

  She took one of his hands and carried it to her breast. She cupped his fingers around it. “Make me feel again.”

  Two

  Ginevra stopped Kellin at the top of the steps leading into Homana-Mujhar. Rigid hands bit into his forearm as he turned immediately. “Meijhana—what is it?”

  Her face was a sculpted mask with burning ice for eyes. “How will you say it?” she asked. “How will you tell them who I am?”

  Kellin smiled, moving down a single step so he did not tower so much; she was shorter than he, and delicate, but her stature belied the dominance of her spirit. “Easily. I will say to all of them: ‘This lady is Ginevra. This lady is my cheysula. You all of you should be pleased the beast is tamed at last.’”

  Color bloomed in her cheeks. Fingernails dug through fabric into flesh that was lighter than the norm for a Cheysuli, but darker than hers. “And will they want me tamed? The wicked Ihlini?” She had left tears in Solinde; what she gave him now was pride fierce as a Cheysuli’s. “At least you came to my home without excess display!”

  It took effort for him to keep his hands and mouth from her here and now, out of doors, before the palace entrance and all the bailey, and the soldiers from the guardhouse. “I was unconscious,” he reminded her. “I have not the slightest idea if there was display, or no. For all I know, you might have hung me from my ankles and dried me over a fire.”

  Ginevra let go of his arm. “It never would have worked. Your brain was much too soggy!”

  “Meijhana.” He captured her hand and tucked it into his arm, warming it with his own hand. “I know you too well; you are not the one to hide from a truth, harsh or no. You will tell them yourself.”

  “Aye,” she said, “I will. Just give me the chance!”

  Kellin laughed. “Then come into my house.”

  “Gods—” she blurted, “—wait—”

  He turned around promptly and sat down upon the steps, hooking arms around upraised knees as Sima sat down beside him. The cat’s purr rumbled against his thigh. When Ginevra did not move, he eventually glanced up. “Well?”

  Sunlight glinted on silver; he had loved her mass of black hair, but found this as much to his liking. She could be hairless, and I would love her. And then he grinned; who would have predicted Kellin of Homana would lose his heart at
all, and to an Ihlini?

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Waiting. You wanted me to.” He paused, elated by her presence and the knowledge of what life with her would be; never dull, never quiet. The Prince and Princess of Homana did not harbor timid souls. “Should I have food sent out? If we are to be here so long…”

  Ginevra’s sharp inhalation hissed. New color stained her cheeks. She turned on her heel and marched directly into the palace.

  He leaned his weight into Sima, who threatened to collapse his leg. Contradictory.

  Then you are well-suited.

  How could we not be? Was it not prophesied? Sima’s eyes slitted. Not specifically. The prophecy merely said the Lion would lie down with the witch. Even the gods could not predict that you would be so much alike.

  He smiled. By now she may well be in the Great Hall confronting the Mujhar himself.

  Or in your chamber confronting the knowledge of other women.

  Kellin sat bolt upright, then got up at once.

  Sima relented. She is in the solar speaking with the Queen. Leave the women to one another—your place is with the Mujhar.

  And you?

  Sima’s tufted ears flicked. She stared past him into the sunlight, transfixed on a thought he could not decipher. The ears flattened once, then lifted again.

  Kellin prodded. Lir?

  She looked at him. Her stare was level. He felt in that instant she looked beyond the exterior to the soul within, and wondered how she found it. It is for you to do, she told him.

  Kellin smiled. “He will understand. Once I have explained it. All of them will.” He laughed aloud for joy. “Most assuredly my jehan, who undoubtedly knew very well what was to become of me!”

  The cat’s glance was oblique as she shouldered by his knee into the palace. The Great Hall, she said, where the Lion lives.

  * * *

  He went there at once, pushing open the hammered doors, and saw, as expected, the Mujhar sitting quietly in the belly of the Lion, contemplating his hall.

  Kellin paused just inside the doors. It had been half a year since he had been sent away by a man clearly desperate to salvage his only heir. Well, the heir is salvaged. Homana is preserved. Kellin’s smile was slow, shaped by anticipation. There was much he longed to say, much he meant to share, but especially Ginevra. I will make him understand. And how could he not? Lochiel is dead. The Wheel of Life still turns.