She wore bright layered skirts of green and red and gold, and a snug black leather jerkin that displayed full breasts and narrow, curving waist. She knotted slender hands in tangled ringlets and lifted them until they cascaded down her shoulders and back. She tipped back her head, baring an exquisite throat, and Tye's song abruptly turned from the grace of illusion to the driving notes of seduction. When Ashra danced, the Wheel of Life stopped turning.
Aidan found he could not breathe. A brief, warning tickle touched the back of his consciousness, reminding him Ashra was Tye's woman, but he was vividly aware of a new and perverse side of his nature promising him he could brush Tye aside like a gnat. He had been intrigued by Ashra from the first, from the very first; he had respected the bond between singer and dancer, but that respect was coming undone as he watched her now. He could not help himself: he wanted Ashra badly.
She came to him. Hair hung to her waist, tumbling as she moved, clinging to breasts and hips. She bent, touched him, took his hands into hers. Her touch set him afire.
Black eyes promised him all he wanted and more. Ashra's smile was for him, for him alone; Tye no longer mattered. And when she drew him up, first to his knees, then to his feet, he allowed it; he wanted it; needed it.
"Come," Ashra whispered.
She led him from his pallet of skins to the bare earth before the old magician. Dully, Aidan stared down at him; he wanted, at this moment, nothing to do with Siglyn or his dream speaking. He wanted only Ashra.
"Come," she said again, and took him to the ground. He knelt there willingly, because she requested it.
The old man's eyes were very bright. "Sit you there," he said. "Do nothing, save what I tell you."
Aidan, still lost in lute-song and lust, merely nodded.
Ashra withdrew. The old man put his hands on Aidan's head, cradling his jaw as one might a child's, or a woman's. The palms were rough-textured from age, but the wiry fingers were strong. Aidan stared into rheumy blue eyes, because he had no other choice.
"Son of the forests, son of the cities, son of the sunlight and darkness," Siglyn said softly. "Warrior and prince, skeptic and adept. You are more than many, and less than what you must be. And you dream…"
Aidan sucked in a sudden breath, because he had forgotten. He was aware the music had died, and Ashra no longer danced. She stood behind him, while Tye sat silent as stone upon his blanket, holding the moon-bleached lute.
"You dream of chains," Siglyn said. "Chains that bind a man; chains that set him free. Bound, the life continues; broken, it is freed. Which do you seek?"
"It breaks," Aidan blurted. "Always. I have only to touch it—"
"Do you wish it to break?"
"Wishing makes no difference. It simply breaks—"
Siglyn's hands tightened. "Chained warrior; chained prince; chained raven. That is what I see."
Aidan swallowed painfully. "If I broke it… if I broke the chain, would I be free?"
"That is not for me to say."
"But you said the life is freed if the chain is broken."
Siglyn removed his hands. "Did I say such a thing? Or did you perceive it?"
Aidan's blurted laugh was hollow. "I could not even begin to tell you."
"But I can begin to show you. And if you wish it, I will."
Aidan's head came up. "What is the cost?" he demanded. "There always must be a price."
"Of course there is," Siglyn agreed. "Nothing is gained without risk; nothing is learned without cost; nothing is given without a price. The gods exact a heavy toll."
"And you, old man? What do you expect?"
The old man laughed. "Paying the price without knowing the cost is a part of learning. The choice—and the risk—is yours."
Aidan knelt in dirt with the fire—and Ashra—at his back, conscious of an almost overpowering sense of futility. He could not deal with this; could not comprehend the riddles he was expected to anticipate and answer. He could only sit helplessly before an old Ihlini magician and shake his head.
"Tell me," he rasped. "Show me. I will accept the cost."
Blue eyes narrowed. "Willingly?"
He drew in a deep breath and blew it out as quickly. "It is a part of my tahlmorra. I am required to do it willingly."
"Tye," Siglyn said, but his eyes never left Aidan's face.
Tye rose, set down his lute, and crossed the fire's shadow. He knelt at Aidan's side. Briefly he worked at his belt, a snake of hammered links lying flat against his hips, gilded by firelight. He gave it into Siglyn's hands.
The belt was of poor workmanship. Aidan, looking at it, saw where the hammer had crushed a link too flat, beveled another too crooked, crimped the gilt entirely. Even its gilding was false, shedding itself in Siglyn's hands.
But the old man smiled. He lifted the belt and threw it into the fire. "Fetch it out," he said.
Aidan blinked. "Out of there?"
"You agreed to do as I said, no matter what the cost."
"And this is the price? I am to burn the flesh from my bones?"
"Do as I say."
The vestiges of distrust rekindled. "How do I know this is not an Ihlini trick?"
Siglyn's teeth showed. "You do not."
Aidan glanced at Tye, who knelt next to him. The smooth dark face was expressionless, the green eyes averted. Tye merely waited.
Ashra moved from behind Aidan and walked to Siglyn's side. Like Tye's, her face was curiously blank, but her eyes were not averted. They bored into Aidan's. They did not beseech, but he knew himself seduced.
Briefly, he considered lir-shape. A raven might slip into the flames quickly and retrieve an object without risking much of himself, but Aidan knew the belt was too heavy. The only way he could fetch it out, as Siglyn required, was to reach into the flames and lift it.
He turned, and knelt on one knee by the fire. It was not so large a fire that it might threaten his life, but nonetheless it would hurt. If he were quick enough, he might singe only the hair on his hand and arm, but the hot metal would surely sear his hand. And he had only recently gotten back the use of both.
I was told there was a task. Perhaps this is it.
Aidan set his jaw so hard his teeth ached. Then he reached into the fire.
He plunged his left hand down through the flames into coals, grabbing for the belt. His fingers found the heated links and caught them up, dragging the belt from the fire. He spun around and dropped it in the dirt in front of Siglyn, nursing his hand against his chest.
"Are you burned?" the old man asked.
Aidan opened his mouth to shout of course he was burned—and then realized there was no pain. He held out his hand and saw unblemished flesh. He had not singed a single hair.
Siglyn nodded. "You put your hand into the flames, fully expecting it to be burned. It matters little the flames were not real… only that you believed them real—and still performed the task." He nodded again. "There is some hope for you yet."
Aidan stared at Tye's belt in the dirt. The cheap gilt paint had burned away, leaving base metal bared. It was, he thought bitterly, analagous to himself.
Siglyn reached down and lifted the belt. He took an end into either hand, stretching it, then snapped the links flat. Metal cracked, then flaked away. In silence, the old man tied knots in the cheap metal belt. Four of them. And as he snapped the knotted belt a second time, the knots became joined links of purest, flawless gold.
Aidan nodded. Of course.
"Chained warrior; chained prince; chained raven." Siglyn smiled. "Your choice. To break it, or make it whole."
Aidan unbuckled his leather belt and slid the three matching links into his hands. A brief examination told him they were of the same making as the joined links in Siglyn's hands.
"How?" he asked. "How do I make it whole?"
"That is your choice?" Siglyn asked.
"Aye: to have it whole."
"Be certain of it."
He smiled. "I am. I would have it whole."
Aidan did so.
"Name them."
Aidan looked at the link in Tye's hand. "Shaine," he said quietly. "Shaine the Mujhar."
"And?"
"Carillon." He looked into Ashra's emotionless face. "Carillon of Homana."
The link glittered in Siglyn's hand. "The last?"
"Donal, who was Cheysuli."
Siglyn nodded once. "The links are distributed. The chain is for you. The joining is for you."
Slowly Aidan knelt in front of the old man. From him he took the chain of four joined links. He touched the one he had named Donal to the single link Siglyn held, and in the snapping flash he squinted, knowing the joining complete.
He repeated the ritual with Ashra, then Tye. Four links were joined to three: the chain at last was whole.
Aidan waited, staring fixedly at the fifth link. Waiting. When it remained unbroken, he smiled joyously at Siglyn. "Whole," he exulted. "Not shattered. Not broken. Its name is not Aidan!"
Relief was overwhelming. Aidan cast a glance at Tye, at Ashra, looking for some sign of acknowledgment, but they gave him nothing more than silence. It did not matter. Aidan laughed at them all, then yawned a tremendous yawn into Siglyn's face.
"Forgive me" he said, when he could. "I did not mean to do that."
"Magic does tire a man," the old Ihlini said gravely. "But not so much as dealing with gods." His hand was on Aidan's head. "Sleep, child of the Firstborn… and dream your dreams in peace."
He slept dreamlessly, knowing peace for the first time in too long. When he awoke he fully expected to be alone. But the wagon still stood by the tree, and Ashra sat by the fire.
Memory rushed back. Aidan sat up, pushing a hand through tangled hair. "I thought—" But he broke it off raggedly, no longer certain what he thought.
Ashra smiled. "You thought you would be deserted. No. Not yet."
He looked beyond her and saw Tye with the horses, hitching them to the wagon. Siglyn was absent; probably in in the wagon. Teel, perched on the canopy, croaked a morning greeting.
Aidan looked back at the girl. "Why?" he asked roughly. "What was all of it for?"
"You should know, by now." Ashra tossed her head and sent ringlets flying. Copper hoops in her ears flashed. "It is because of you we are here."
Certainty increased. "But you are not gods."
"No." Her smile was sweet. "We are what you see: Singer, Dancer, Magician. But we are servants of the gods, as you witnessed last night. We do their bidding."
Aidan recalled too well what had occurred the night before. "Are you real?"
"As real as can be, as the gods made us." Ashra's bold eyes were bright, full of unself-conscious awareness of what her body had promised. "We are as you wish us to be. It remains for you to decide."
The image of her dancing rose before his eyes. He recalled her supple, seductive movements; the bright promise of her eyes. And the burning of his flesh as she put her hands upon him. "Real," he said hoarsely. "I want you to be real."
Her smile enveloped him. "Then I am."
His traitor's body betrayed him. "And if I said I no longer wanted you to share Tye's bed?"
Ashra laughed aloud. "I have shared Tye's bed since before you were born. Since before your father was born, and his. I think it very likely I will go on sharing his bed."
It hurt. "Then there is no hope for us—"
"No," she agreed solemnly. "That is what dreams are: wishes, and the illusion of reality. And truth. If you lay with me, you would never know if it were real or false. And that would not satisfy you."
A dry irony shaped his tone. "For a while, it might."
She laughed again and rose with the supple motion of a born dancer. The chaplet in her hair gleamed against black ringlets.
"Wait." He put out a hand to delay her. "If none of this is real, why did you let it go so far? Last night…" Shrugging, he let it go. "I am not a celibate man, nor a boy misinterpreting a woman's intent. I have seduced women myself, and I have been seduced. You lured me last night with promises of coupling. Why, if you meant nothing of it?"
A graceful hand swept across breasts, then down to touch curving hips. So easily she seduced him, though her eyes were serious. "Because you are a man," she said, "and a man must recognize his own mortality, his own weaknesses and flaws, before he can set them all aside. Desire is one of the strongest of all emotions. A man cannot always control it. He cannot always set it aside when it must be."
He thought of countless times he had allowed himself to lose control. Much of it had been genuine desire. But as much had been the need to lose himself in something to forget what drove him so.
"I have slept with many women…"It was a statement of truth, not a boast. He had never been that kind. Women to him were special, because of the kivarna. He knew what they felt in his bed. It deepened his own pleasure, to know what it was for the woman. But he had used the women…
though very considerate, he had not looked for anything more.
Ashra's exotic face softened. "I did not tease you out of cruel perversity. I did it so you would see how easily it is done, so it would not lead you into misfortune. You are a man, not a god, and you must know it always. Even when you might believe yourself more gods-blessed than most."
He grunted skepticism. "Am I?"
Her smile was slow, serene. "You are many things, Aidan. But you must be only one, before you understand."
Tye came up beside her, slipping an arm around her waist. "How fares the lesson?"
She smiled and squeezed him briefly. "He does not yet understand."
Tye nodded. "The learning will come of its own time and place. We have done as much as we dare… it is time we moved on."
"Siglyn?" she asked.
"In the wagon." Tye kissed her on top of her head. "Go and see to his comfort, while I bid our prince farewell."
Ashra moved away. Aidan looked at Tye, bitterness lacing his tone. "Have I amused you?"
Tye's face was solemn and inexpressibly lovely. It was not womanish after all, Aidan decided, merely the work of a master's hand. "The struggles of a man never amuse me," Tye said quietly. "I have seen too much to laugh at anything. Ashra, Siglyn and I have been about this for a very long time… you are not the first, and certainly not the last. But for now, as you travel toward your tahlmorra, you will feel yourself quite alone. Quite apart from the rest. But never think yourself better." His green eyes were level. "Do you understand?"
"I think I understand nothing," Aidan admitted truthfully.
Tye laughed. "It will come." He briefly inclined his head. "Nothing is done without purpose. Remember that, Aidan."
Aidan watched the singer walk toward the wagon. Tye climbed up onto the wide seat and took up the reins. Beside him sat Ashra, chaplet glinting in the dawn. The wagon jolted into motion as Teel lifted from the canopy. As it trundled away, the mists closed around, muting the canopy's brilliant colors. In a moment the wagon was gone.
Aidan looked down at his pallet of skins and wool. The chain lay there. A whole, unbroken chain, as he had made it the night before.
He knelt down and touched it. Took it into his hands. And knew, for the first time, the journey he undertook would lead him to different roads, and to choices rarely offered.
It was up to him to make them.
Chapter Five
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The first thing Aidan noticed about Kilore was the scalloped line of chalk cliffs thrusting upward out of the seashore like a mailed, white-gloved fist. Atop the fist, he knew, perched the Aerie of Erinn, where all the proud eagles were hatched. His own mother had been. It seemed odd to think of it, so far from Homana. But this was Aileen's home. Homana was his.
The second thing Aidan noticed about Kilore was the pungent smell of fish. Its pervasiveness was oppressive; he grimaced quiet distaste as the ship was carefully docked. He deserted it at once, walki
ng hastily onto the dock, and promptly tripped over a tangle of net and kelp as he twisted his head from side to side in a bid to see everything.
He made an effort to recover his balance with some show of aplomb; nevertheless, he was embarrassed. He was half Erinnish himself, with sea-blood in his veins. Surely it meant something.
But no one seemed to have noticed; if they had, no one cared. The day was nearly done. Fishing boats were coming in brimming with the day's catch. No one had time for him.
Aidan left the docks and went into the city proper, a tumbled collection of buildings clustered between ocean and cliffs, meticulously avoiding dray-carts and baskets full of fish and effluvia. He soon found himself in the markets where the catch was fully displayed. Here the stench was worse.
"I come from this stock," he muttered. "I had best get used to it."
Why? Teel asked. Are you planning to live here?
Aidan laughed. Not if I can help it. He paused, looking around. How do I find the road to the castle?
Easier done from up here.
Aidan glanced up. Teel, in a flock of seabirds, was black against cream and white. Where do I go? he asked. Your view is better than mine.
Teel agreed benignly. You might try going up.
Aye, but I meant which road—Aidan grinned, comprehending. Aye, lir "up."
He went up, and up again, reveling in lir-shape and the ability to fly. He might have stayed an hour or two longer, drifting about the fortress, but it made no sense to do so when his business was within. Regretfully, Aidan took back his human shape at the head of the cliff path, and walked the rest of the way across dampened ruts to the massive gates of Kilore.
Unlike Hart's castle, Sean's was properly guarded. Aidan was required to show his signet as proof of identity, then was taken at once through the baileys into the fortress itself. Dark stone was wind-scoured smooth, even on the corners, giving the blocky fortress a soft, rounded appearance Aidan knew was deceptive. No one had ever taken Kilore. The fortress was unbreechable, perched on its clifftop aerie all warded about with stone. The walls were spiked with iron.
Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven Page 23