Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven

by Jennifer Roberson

  Ian did. Aidan's kivarna told him that.

  He turned away stiffly, shamed by his selfishness, yet feeling the painful uprush of anguish and helplessness as strongly as before.

  And then came the odd little snap in his head that dropped him to his knees. The knife fell from his hands.

  "Aidan!" Ian moved swiftly, kneeling to catch both rigid wrists in an attempt to shut off the spasms. "Aidan—fight it—"

  "I am the sword," Aidan whispered. "The sword and the bow and the knife—"

  "Aidan, fight it—"

  "I am no one; I am everyone—"

  "Aidan!"

  "I am Cynric, I am Cynric—"

  "Stop this, Aidan. Shut it away. Use the earth magic. Use compulsion. Shut it away—"

  "Eight into four and four into one. I am the Firstborn come again, and from me will come the others—"

  "Aidan—"

  "I am Cynric. I am Cynric. The sword and the bow and the knife—"

  "Stop this madness now!"

  The spasming passed. Fingers uncurled. Distantly, he asked, "How can I be mad? I am the voice of the gods."

  Ian released his wrists. He was ashen-faced, staring. "What have you become?"

  Aidan, hanging yet on his knees, knew. He had survived the first sacrifice. He had undertaken the task.

  "Their servant," he said softly. "Chosen among all others. Knowing no other master. Not even a tahlmorra."

  "Aidan!"

  "They want me," he told him simply. "They want all of me. There is no room for a wife. Or a child. Or a Lion—"

  Ian caught an arm, jerking Aidan to his feet. "Come with me. I will take you to your chambers."

  He went with his great-uncle willingly, too numb to do otherwise. As always after a fit, he had a headache, and yet his wits were exquisitely lucid. He knew what he had done, what he had said, and what he was meant to do.

  Ian pushed open Aidan's door. "Go to bed. I will send Aileen."

  Aidan winced. "No."

  "Then go to bed."

  Mutely, Aidan nodded. Ian put a hand on his shoulder and urged him through the door.

  It thumped closed behind him. Irresolute, Aidan stood in his bedchamber. And at last, recalling what Ian had suggested, he went to the polished silver plate hanging on the wall.

  His face was unchanged, save for an unusual pallor. But a wondering hand went to his left temple, fingering the thick new growth of hair that had come back at last after being cut away. At the corner of his eyebrow was a purplish line, a straight slash of a line that stretched across his temple. The end of it was hidden in his hair. Thick new hair. A wing of purest white.

  Aidan smiled. It was a cold, deadly smile. "Leijhana tu'sai, Ihlini. Now I can never forget."

  He shivered. He felt ill, weary, old. He went to bed, as advised.

  And dreamed of a chain that shattered beneath his touch.

  Chapter Eleven

  « ^ »

  The chamber lay mostly in shadow, save for a single fat candle in a stand near the bed. It cast a sickly light; the wick was half-drowned in wax, sputtering its death. But no one moved to tend it.

  Aileen stood in the doorway, staring in consternation at her son. "You can't mean to keep them here!"

  Aidan did not answer. He linked his hands behind his back and gazed steadfastly at his mother.

  "But—you can't," she insisted. "Not so many. Aidan, they are too big—there are too many…" Aileen's brow creased. "The kennels are kept very clean. They will do well enough there."

  Undoubtedly they would. But that was not where he wanted them.

  Quietly, he said, "Forgive me, jehana. I want to be alone."

  She started to gesture, to remonstrate gently, but with authority. "Aidan, those dogs…" But she let it trail off. The hand fell lax at her side. He was so still…

  She glanced around the chamber—Shona's chamber, Shona's bed, Shona's belongings—marking the chests as yet unpacked. Aidan and his new cheysula had gone too quickly to Clankeep for all of her things to have been arranged. Now they mocked her absence.

  Aileen looked back at her son: at the still, white face. "Very well," she murmured, and left him alone once more.

  He waited. For a moment longer he stood in the precise center of the chamber, staring fixedly at the now-empty doorway. Then, abruptly, he strode decisively through the throng of gathered wolfhounds and quickly shut the door, dropping the latch with a firm click.

  Behind him, dogs whined.

  He turned to face them. The big dark male. The bitches. The half-grown adolescents and the gangly, colt-legged puppies. Bright eyes stared back at him, tails poised to wave. But they sensed his tension and turmoil, the cessation of his breathing. Uncertainty dominated.

  Ears flattened slowly. Heads sank lower. One puppy soiled himself; another began to whimper.

  Breath rushed out of lungs. "Gods—" Aidan choked. Grief stole everything else.

  Trembling, he walked into the huddle of hounds and began to touch their heads. It hurt to breathe, but he managed; in gasps, and sobs, and spasms. Touching all the heads. Assuaging their confusion. Seeking his own release in contact with her hounds.

  Tentative tails waved, then quickened as he spoke. The voice he did not himself recognize, but they comprehended the tone. He was naming all their names: that they understood.

  One by one by one: Shona's litany. She believed each dog was born with a specific name, and it was a person's task to discover the proper one, not just tack on anything; they had spent days on the voyage from Erinn trying out names on the two litters, collecting and discarding, until each of the puppies was named. Aidan recalled them all clearly, and Shona's lilting, ritual recital each time she greeted the dogs.

  He sat down on the floor and let them gather around him. The puppies climbed over his legs, staging mock battles to claim his lap. The adolescents, too big for such play, snuffled his ears insistently, tending the human hound. The bitches came to his hand and bestowed a lick or two.

  Only the male held back, promising Aidan nothing.

  It hurt. It was unanticipated, and it hurt. Aidan understood the male's reticence well enough—the hound had bonded to Shona in puppyhood, offering no one else anything more than cursory courtesy—but Aidan had believed the dog would be starved for attention, eagerly coming forward to any familiar scent in response to Shona's now-permanent absence.

  But he did not. And would not, Aidan knew now, on any terms but his own.

  The puppies, growing cramped in his lap and weary of dominance struggles, deserted. The others settled quietly, finding places on the floor. Aidan got up slowly and climbed into the bed. It was not night. He was not tired. But it seemed the best place to be.

  He lay very still. He stared at the canopy. He remembered what Sean had said: "There are more ways to geld a man than with a knife."

  Shona.

  —striding along the headlands at the edge of chalky cliffs—

  —nocking and sighting a warbow with a small, towheaded brother—

  —gathering a storm of hounds—

  —climbing into his bed—

  —gripping locks of his hair—

  —winding her own around him—

  —tracing the line of hips—

  —taking him into her—

  The sound escaped his mouth. A throttled desperation.

  —other women—too many women—now none of them enough—

  "Stop," Aidan gasped.

  —none of them enough—none of them ever enough—

  The sound was repeated: "Stop!"

  —the first girl; the woman—

  "STOP!" Aidan cried.

  "There are more ways to geld a man than with a knife."

  Shona. Shona.

  Shona.

  —everything slipping away—

  —the sharpness, the brightness—

  —memories of discovery, the exultation of the flesh—

  All of it slipping away…

  Disso
lving as he reached, until nothing at all was left save a distant recollection of what he had been.

  "Shona," he whispered.

  Shona had come to his bed. Now he came to hers, seeking a rapport. A residue of her life in place of the memory of her death.

  He floated in nothingness, a cork caught in the millrace, until the millwheel—no, the Wheel—trapped him at last and cast him down into the pond.

  If I could drown myself… But the thought was driven away by the presence of a hound.

  The male. He stood at the bedside, pressing his chest into the mattress as he stretched out long neck and head. Nostrils expanded, then closed as he whuffed softly, inspection completed. Folded ears rose, then flattened. Chin resting on bedclothes, he gazed fixedly at Aidan.

  Waiting. Deep in his throat, he whined.

  Stiffly, Aidan reached out and touched the long muzzle with trembling, tentative fingers. Then traveled the stop between liquid dark eyes onto the dome of the skull itself. Hair was coarse and wiry, the bone beneath crested. A self-possessed, dignified dog of massive, powerful elegance and abiding loyalty.

  Deep inside, Aidan ached. For the hound as well as himself. He knew what had happened; the wolfhound understood nothing save the woman no longer came.

  The ache intensified. Aidan rolled closer and thrust a clutching hand into muscled shoulders, locking fingers into hair. "I know, my braw boyo… he has stolen her from us both." Grief narrowed his throat. "But 'tis for me to do alone, this buying back of my child. No matter what anyone says."

  He took his lir, a knife, and a horse, packed with saddle-pouches. He did not yet trust himself to lir-shape for any length of time. Eventually, he felt, the strength and control needed for sustained lir-shape would return—he had already tested it in several short flights—tout for now he could not rely on it. The journey was too important.

  If the child still lives. If Lochiel sees fit to let it—

  He shut off the thought at once.

  Much of the harshness of winter had passed, leaving only a residue of frost and wind. He rode wrapped in furs, feeling the cold more; would he ever feel well again? Or was he destined to be different on the outside as well as the inside?

  At long last he reached the Bluetooth and took the ferry across, clutching the wooden rails as the barge fought the current. The Bluetooth was the delineation between northern Homana and southern, although the division was not equal. The high north was not as large or as populated because of harsh winters, and was usually called the Wastes; somewhere there was a Keep, but Aidan was not disposed to seek it out. His path went to Solinde, not to northern Homana. Perhaps another time.

  The Wastes gave way to mountains. Aidan rode ever higher, resting at night in frigid passes cut out of wolf-toothed peaks, until at last he crossed over the Molon and exchanged Homana for Solinde.

  When finally they reached the narrow defile his father had described as the gateway to Valgaard, Aidan pulled up. Beyond lay the canyon housing Lochiel's fortress, and the wards set by him. He had heard the place described countless times: a field of glassy rock, pocked with smoking vents belching forth the breath of the Seker; huge, monstrous beasts shaped of stone by Ihlini testing their strength. All could be used against him.

  He glanced skyward, seeking Teel. You will have to remain here.

  The raven fluttered down to perch upon a wind-wracked tree. Is this your choice?

  I have no choice.

  Is this what you wish to do?

  This is what I must do.

  Teel's eye was bright. The Ihlini could kill you.

  Aidan smiled. He could. He might. He probably will—but not immediately. He will want to gloat, first. And that may buy me the time to do what I need to do.

  Teel made no answer for a very long moment. Then he fluffed black feathers. Well. I have lived a long time.

  And will longer still, if I succeed.

  The raven's echo was odd. If you succeed.

  Aidan knew better than to ask for explanation.

  He made his way through the defile, across the steaming field of beasts, around the rents in the earth that gave way to the netherworld. Never had he felt so vulnerable, so weak, and yet he knew it was required. It did not enter his mind to turn back, or even to think twice about what he intended to do.

  Gates. And guards, of course. Aidan walked up the steam-bathed pathway and paused, pushing the hood from his head. In winter light, his earring gleamed. "Take me to Lochiel," he said. "Tell him my name: Aidan. He will be most anxious to see me."

  They took him. Having stripped him of all save leathers and gold, they ushered him into a small tower chamber and left him there, alone, as he contemplated the comfort of a fire and other amenities. He sought none of them, neither chair nor warmth nor wine, and waited as they had left him, in the center of the chamber.

  Lochiel came. In amber-dyed velvets and soft-worked suede, he was the same man with the same lithe movements and handsome looks Aidan had marked before, gaming with him in Lestra. Pale, ale-brown eyes; short-cropped, thick dark hair; a clarity of feature that reminded Aidan of someone. Someone he should know.

  Aidan forced a smile. And then it required no force; a cold self-possession took control of expression and tone. "Surely you knew I survived. You did not intend it, I know; I have come to save you the trouble of seeking me out."

  Pale eyes weighed him. Aidan's kivarna told him his arrival had taken the Ihlini completely by surprise, who was not pleased by it. But Lochiel gave nothing away in expression, which remained austerely smooth, and nothing away in eyes, which marked in Aidan a certain pallor and gauntness of face in addition to the white wing in auburn hair.

  Lids lowered, shielding eyes. His lashes were long, like a woman's; the smoothly defined forehead and arched brows tugged at Aidan's memory.

  Lillith? No. Someone else…

  Lochiel moved. He did not walk: he prowled. Aidan stood very still, waiting mutely, as the Ihlini paced slowly around him. It was unsettling to be so raptly observed, like a mouse beneath an owl, but he made no indication. It was important to show Lochiel a serenity he would not anticipate.

  The Ihlini halted before Aidan at last, the heel of his left hand resting idly on his knife hilt. He wore, as always, a sapphire ring on his forefinger: Brennan's. On his right hand, a bloodstone, rimmed in rune-wrought gold.

  Aidan watched him closely. Something about the suppleness of the Ihlini's body merged with the line of his brow, the set of his mouth, to tickle Aidan's awareness. He was not an easy man to decipher, even with kivarna. He was, Aidan reflected, a wound wire ready to snap.

  The chiseled mouth moved. A muscle ticked high in the cheek. Ale-brown eyes, abruptly shielded again behind lowered lids, changed color in Aidan's mind.

  Something clicked into place.

  "Have you a son?" he asked.

  Lids lifted. Lochiel appraised him intently. And then he smiled. "No. I have no son." He paused. "I have yours."

  Aidan tensed all over. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to rip Lochiel to pieces. But the reaction was what Lochiel waited for, and so Aidan, with great effort, damped down the impulse.

  He smiled pleasantly. "Do you know a man called Cynric?"

  The smooth brow tightened. "No. And if you hope to confuse me with such babblings, save your effort. I have heard reports you are mad… do you think I care?"

  Aidan's certainty vanished. The brief likeness he had seen faded. He did not think again of the young man in his dreams, the young man so much like Lochiel, but of himself, of his child, and of the man before him.

  Ihlini, he knew, did not fully come into their power until they reached puberty, much as a Cheysuli warrior gained a lir. There was a time of learning, of refining, just as there was in Cheysuli custom. And a time of complete assumption, when power was understood and properly wielded.

  Lochiel was young, but well past puberty. He was, Aidan judged, of his own age. And in Valgaard, the very font of Ihlini power, Loc
hiel would have recourse to all the dark arts he needed.

  Aidan inhaled a careful breath. "What did you do with my son?"

  Lochiel smiled. Aidan, unsettled, was put in mind of the elegant young man who had so charmed Cluna and Jennet—and Blythe. "I intend him no harm. On the contrary: I took him for a purpose. I will raise him as my own. He will come to know his proper place in the prophecy, as all Cheysuli do, so that he can aid its destruction. I will turn him from his tahlmorra and make him work against it."

  Aidan bit back the retort he longed to make. Quietly, he denied it. "That is not possible."

  "Oh?" Dark brows arched. "There was a Cheysuli woman, a kinswoman of yours, named Gisella. She was turned, and used."

  Aidan shrugged indolently. "I will prevent you."

  "You?" Lochiel smiled. "With what? Power? You have none here… this is Valgaard, Aidan. The Gate is here, entry to the netherworld. Even if you could summon your lir, even if you could summon lir-shape, or compulsion—what could you do with either? This is Valgaard. I can snuff you out like a spark."

  Aidan's sudden smile was brilliant. "Ask Lillith what I can do."

  Lochiel recoiled.

  There. That touched him. There are weaknesses in him… Aidan nodded intently, driving home the promise of power. "Because of me," he whispered. "At my behest. Because the gods answered me."

  The challenging gaze was unrelenting. Lochiel sought something in Aidan's eyes, in expression, in his tone. And then turned away abruptly, striding to a table, where he poured a cup of wine. None was offered Aidan; he drank it down himself. When he was done, he smiled. "This is still Valgaard."

  Aidan smiled back. "Would you like to meet them now? Right now; here?"

  Lochiel slammed down the cup. The footed stem bent. "I have sovereignty over this place!"

  Aidan tilted his head. "Shall I test it for you?"

  The Ihlini's smile was malignant. "And I hold your son."

  He very nearly laughed. "My gods would never harm him."