Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven

by Jennifer Roberson

  "Ah, but mine would." Lochiel attempted to right the tipped cup; when he could not do it, he glanced down in distracted annoyance. When he saw the stem was bent, he cast the cup away with a negligent flick of dismissive fingers. He stared at Aidan again. "Do you wish me to summon my gods? They can duel, yours and mine: the gods of light and air against those of death and darkness."

  Aidan made no reply.

  Pale eyes widened. Lochiel's lips parted minutely. Even his posture was arrested, alert as a hound on a scent. His expression now was intensely compelling. "Is this why you came here? Hoping to set your gods on mine—or on me!—and win back your son that way?"

  Aidan set his teeth. There was still a chance, he believed, no matter what Lochiel said.

  A blurt of disbelief distorted Lochiel's mouth. "I understand, now… you thought you could come before me and threaten me—no, frighten me—into acquiescence—"

  Aidan allowed a delicate tone of contempt to underscore his words. "How could a man do that? How could he dare? Are you not the Ihlini, and heir to all the arts?"

  Lochiel still stared. "But you did…" A faint bemused frown tightened brows briefly as he reassessed his conclusion, then faded as he laughed aloud in discovery. "I understand, now—your weapon is faith! You believe your gods can win even here in Valgaard!"

  Aidan began to wonder if perhaps he had misjudged. If perhaps he had made a mistake. He had been so certain. So determined. His conviction was absolute.

  I trust them. I HAVE to. They answered me before. When I faced Lillith.

  Lochiel's tone was a whiplash. "Do you think this is a game? Did you come expecting to play Bezat with me?" Pale eyes narrowed. "We are all at the mercy of our gods, Aidan. Certainly you and I. I am not so complacent as you. I know better. In the moment of their confrontation, they could well destroy us both. And that is not how I want to die."

  Nor Aidan. He had come to threaten Lochiel with a weapon no one else had: divine retribution. He had tapped it once, facing Lillith—but he had been complacent. He had believed utterly in his gods, who would face only a single man. A man of great power, but still merely a man; now Lochiel threatened a gruesome retribution of his own conjuring, with a god that frightened Aidan much more than anticipated. Asar-Suti, the Seker, had always been an undefined threat, hosted only in vague references.

  Now, in the heart of Valgaard, smelling the god's noxious breath, the threat became all too real. He took it more seriously.

  As seriously, perhaps, as Lochiel takes MY gods.

  Lochiel, face taut, snatched up the silver cup and displayed the ruined stem. "Do you see? This was nothing. I did it unaware. It required no power, no magic. Nothing more than anger." His gaze was unrelenting. "Do you understand? They are gods, Aidan! Your gods, my gods—do you think it matters? We are men, and flesh is weak… weaker by far than silver…" He shut both hands on the rim and crashed together the slender lips. Then displayed the result to Aidan. "I can think of more comfortable ways."

  Inwardly, Aidan rejoiced. He had found a weakness in Lochiel. He was himself as afraid of a confrontation between the Ihlini's gods and his own, but he had the advantage. He knew Lochiel was afraid. And that fear could serve him.

  With a serenity he did not entirely feel—Lochiel would call it complacency—Aidan merely shrugged. "I can think of no better way of settling what lies between us. Summon your gods, Ihlini. I will summon mine. We will let them decide this issue."

  Lochiel threw down the ruined goblet. His smooth face was white and taut. And then, with infinite tenderness, he asked a single question: "Do you recall how easily I killed Hart's son from afar?"

  Aidan was very still. Complacency dissolved. Conviction wavered profoundly.

  Lochiel's gaze was unrelenting. "I could do the same now, with your son."

  It burst free before he could stop it. "No—" And cursed himself desperately as he surrendered his advantage.

  Lochiel smiled thinly, gracious in victory. "But I am remiss. Come with me, my lord. Come and see your precious son."

  In an adjoining chamber, Aidan saw the wide, high-standing cradle carved out of satiny wood. For a single insane moment he could not comprehend such a normal and mundane thing being within an Ihlini household.

  Lochiel gestured. "There. Alive, as promised. For now."

  Aidan stepped closer, then stopped abruptly. The cradle held two babies, not one; in infancy, identical.

  Lochiel laughed. "You asked if I had a son. No. A daughter. But I invite you to tell me which seed is mine, and which yours."

  Aidan stared at the babies. They were swaddled against the cold, hands, head and feet hidden, with only small faces showing. Both slept, oblivious, depriving him of eye color, although even that was no proof. Shona's eyes had been brown; so were Lochiel's. And his kivarna, strangely, was silent.

  Lochiel moved to the cradle. "Even as I cut the child from the belly of your dead Erinnish princess, my own woman bore me a daughter. Melusine has given suck to your son, so he would know the taste of mother's milk." He saw the spasm of shock in Aidan's face, and smiled. "They share the same breast, the same cradle, the same roof. Tell me again, Aidan, how it is impossible for a Cheysuli to be turned against his tahlmorra."

  "No," Aidan said hoarsely.

  Lochiel put both hands down and touched two heads, caressing each in an obscene parody of affection. "What do you say to knowing your son will think I am his father?" He paused. "Perhaps I should say: jehan."

  "No." Yet again. Knowing it was futile.

  Lochiel bent and whispered tenderly to the sleeping babies, though his gaze remained on Aidan. When he straightened it was with the fluid grace that once more called the dream-being, Cynric, to Aidan's mind.

  The Ihlini's voice was hushed, mocking solicitude. "What shall I do with them? Kill one, and let you wonder if it was your son—or my daughter? Or kill them both, so you know?"

  Aidan nearly laughed. "Do you expect me to believe you would kill your own daughter?"

  "I can make more. And if it gives you pain…"

  The off-handedness hurt most. Desperation boiled up. "You ku'reshtin!"

  Lochiel cut him off with a silencing slice of his hand. "Choose one, Aidan. Assume the role of a god and determine a child's fate."

  It was a cruel twist on a conversation Aidan had had with the Weaver. "And if I say let both live? Would you honor that decision?"

  Lochiel spread eloquent hands. "Both are mine regardless."

  Aidan twitched. His head throbbed dully. He tried to set aside the discomfort, but failed. Weakness worked its way from head to neck to shoulders, then down to encompass the rest of his body. He knew what would happen if he did not control the weakness. He fought to suppress the trembling before it showed itself.

  Lochiel saw it regardless. Dark brows arched slightly, the chiseled mouth pursed. He considered the white wing of hair. "The sword blow," he said softly.

  Aidan suppressed the first spasm. "What of our bargain?"

  Clearly Lochiel was distracted. "Our bargain?"

  "You said I could choose."

  But the Ihlini was beyond that. He smiled slowly, replete with comprehension as he watched the tremors in Aidan's hands. "You are pale, my lord. Have you a headache? Have you an illness?"

  "Let me choose," Aidan grated. It was something on which he could focus.

  Lochiel laughed. "In addition to your manhood, I have deprived you of your health." He saw Aidan's jerk of shock. "Oh, aye—I knew all about the bonding of mutual kivarna. I take pains to know such things." He studied Aidan more closely. "Why else do you think I killed her? And where I killed her: there, before your eyes. She was hardly a worthy opponent, and of no danger to me that night… but her loss would devastate you. Even in the moments before I killed you." His mouth twisted in a mocking moue of pity. "But you survived after all, and now the poor Prince of Homana is unmanned. Castrate… gelding… no more bedsport for you!" He paused, lingered a moment. "And no more heirs for Homan
a. I have the only one."

  Aidan's head was pounding. Waves of pain poured down, distorting his vision so that Lochiel became a man of two heads and eight limbs. Teeth clenched convulsively. He had no time at all.

  "What use are you?" Lochiel mused. "With empty head—and empty loins—what use are you to the Lion?"

  The Ihlini blurred before him. Sweat broke from Aidan's flesh, followed by the first onset of spasms that would suck the strength from his limbs and drop him to the floor, a twisted wreck of a man. Humiliation bathed him.

  Not before Lochiel—

  Lochiel gazed at him intently. And then a smile began. "No," he said in discovery. "No, I will not kill you. What need? You can do more to harm the prophecy by living… gods, who would want this for a king?"

  Please, do not let me fall… do not let me lose everything, not here, not now… not before this man—

  Lochiel nodded. "Better to leave you alive."

  Aidan stumbled forward, catching himself against the heavy cradle. Swaddled babies slept on; he wanted to touch them, to wake them, to learn which was his son, but his body failed him. His legs gave way beneath him and he knelt against his will, before Lochiel the Ihlini, whose smile was oddly triumphant.

  "Choose," Lochiel commanded.

  Trembling, Aidan clung to the cradle.

  "Choose," he repeated intently. "This time it is not a game."

  "W-why? Why not?"

  "Because this time I will abide by it. Choose a child, Aidan. Then walk free of Valgaard."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want you to go back. I want you on the Lion. I want you where all can see you, so they can see what you are. A man who succumbs to fits… or a man who succumbs to demons?" Lochiel made a fluent gesture of multiple possibilities. "I want you there, not here. As you are, you will do much more damage to the power of the Lion. To the power of the Cheysuli. Do you think the Homanans will keep you? Do you think they will trust you?" Lochiel shook his head. "I want you on the throne, so they can throw you off. Turmoil eases my task…" He shrugged. "But you will not go without a child. You would sooner remain here and die of a fit—or my displeasure—than go back without a child." He paused. "So choose."

  Aidan still clung to the cradle. "I could choose your daughter—"

  Lochiel lost his temper. "Do you think I care? If it is my daughter, you will still have to take her with you to Homana-Mujhar… an Ihlini witch raised in the bosom of the Lion." Pale eyes glittered. "To destroy the prophecy, I will risk a daughter. I will risk ten daughters. But will you risk a son in order to save it?"

  Aidan pressed his forehead against the cradle, letting the rim bite in. He shut his teeth on his tongue, trying to deflect the pain gnawing at his limbs. With great effort he pulled himself to his feet, standing rigidly. "Is that all?" he rasped. "Or is there something more?"

  "The chain," Lochiel declared.

  The trembling died on the instant. Aidan clutched a link depending from his belt. "You want—this—?"

  "Aye. Is it not worth the price of a child who could well be your son?"

  "Why? What is this to you?"

  "The embodiment of a man, and all the men before him." Lochiel's smile was wintry. "Give me the chain, Aidan. And you are free to go."

  The Ihlini knew. He knew. "Will you break it?" Aidan asked.

  "Only one link," Lochiel answered. "Only one is required. And the pattern will likewise be broken." He shrugged off-handedly. "This alone will not destroy the prophecy, but it is a beginning. If I remove that link from the pattern, small changes shall become large."

  Aidan knew the answer. If he refused, Lochiel might well kill him anyway, thereby removing him from the pattern in flesh as well as link. If he stayed alive, there was always a chance he could undo things later. And there was the child; if he walked out of Valgaard with his son, he kept the seed of the prophecy alive. And the human link, he thought, was stronger than the other.

  And if I choose the girl—? But Aidan knew that answer, also: choice was a risk everyone took. Choice, and risk, was required.

  Aidan unbuckled his belt. Slowly he unthreaded the leather from the links, sliding them free until the chain lay in his hands. He gazed at it, head bowed, realizing in some distant portion of his mind that the weakness in his body had gone. He stood perfectly still before the Ihlini and pondered the ending of his tahlmorra.

  There will be no afterworld… but without Shona, do I want one?

  Shona. The Lion. The chain. So many broken links. So many turbulent dreams, harbingers of his fate. So very many questions, asked so many times.

  But Aidan at last understood.

  He pulled the chain taut in his hands. He recalled the binding before Siglyn and Tye and Ashra; how he had drawn the chain from the fire and made it whole again, merely because he believed it. Because it had been required.

  Smiling contentedly, Aidan took a final grasp on either end of the chain and looked directly at Lochiel as he jerked the chain apart.

  The weak link shattered. Remnants of it rang against stone as they fell, glittering, to scatter apart like dust. He held the dangling end of a sundered chain in either hand, knowing the name of the broken link was Aidan after all.

  Lochiel's tone was dry. "Impressive," he remarked. "Now choose a child, and go."

  He moved to the cradle. Under his feet crunched bits of broken link. He ignored it.

  Two bundled babies. Aidan put down in the cradle the two halves of linked chain. He picked up one of the babies without bothering to rely on kivarna; it was as dead as the rest of him. He would take his plight to chance.

  "Go," Lochiel said. "You have my leave to go."

  Aidan turned and walked from the room, cradling against his chest the son who might rule Homana.

  Or the daughter who might destroy it.

  Epilogue

  « ^»

  Wind whistled through the defile as Aidan walked out of the canyon. Beyond, the wailing stilled. Winter wastes were summer. Trees, once wracked by Ihlini malignancy, now displayed the dignity of smooth young limbs. Buds sprouted leaves.

  Smiling, Aidan nodded. With Teel and the horse waited the brown man called the Hunter.

  The god matched his smile. "You looked at the child."

  "Aye."

  "What did you discover?"

  "My son."

  The brown eyes were wise and calm and very kind. "Do you think the milk he took from an Ihlini woman's breast will curdle his spirit?"

  Aidan, turning a shoulder to the sun to protect the child tucked beneath his cloak, sighed. "I think not."

  "Good." The Hunter gestured to a boulder near his own. "Sit you down, Aidan, and tell me what you have learned."

  Aidan eyed the rock. "It will be too cold. I have a child to care for."

  The Hunter said nothing. Lichen and grass crept up the rock, nestling into hollows, until the boulder was covered. A handful of violet clover blossoms bloomed. The throne was offered in silence.

  After a moment Aidan sat down. He looked at the Hunter. "I have learned it is sheer folly for a man to try and discern what the gods intend for him," he began quietly. "I have spent my entire life trying to know what you wanted of me, attempting to interpret troubling dreams that denied me a throne and gave me a chain I could not keep whole, no matter how hard I tried." He smiled briefly. "And I have learned how helpless is a man when the gods choose to meddle in his life."

  Brown brows arched. "Meddle? Do we meddle?"

  "Aye." Aidan grinned at him. "It is your way, I suppose… so I will not take you to task for it."

  The brown eyes were assessive, the calm face devoid of familiar expression. After a moment the mouth moved into a faint smile. "You have also learned to hold us in some disregard, it seems—to judge from your tone."

  Aidan laughed at him, pulling his son more closely against his chest and resettling the shielding cloak. "Not in disregard. I have simply surrendered, that is all. You will do with me as you will, regardless of wha
t I want, so I will no longer cause you—or myself—any difficulties with my waywardness."

  "We cannot tell you what to do. We never have."

  Aidan's tone was abruptly cold. "No. But you remove impediments from my life. Like Shona."

  The Hunter's expression was briefly sorrowful, and then it passed. "There is another way of looking at it."

  Grief blazed up momentarily, overpowering in its strength. Then died away to ash, much as desire had. Aidan let it go. He could not, just now, lose control. "What way?" he asked. "Is she not dead?"

  "She is dead. But do not in any way believe we considered her an 'impediment' to be removed from your life. She was not, nor did we remove her. Shona existed because of her singularly great worth. She was the catalyst. What we did was put her into your life… and give you such joy in her arms and bed you would not want to share it with another, ever." The eyes were steady. "Was she not worth it, Aidan? The submission of the heart… the sacrifice of the body. Even for so short a time?"

  He had lost what men most treasured, though they perverted it to common lust too many times in the quest for mere gratification. He himself had done it, regardless of the reasons. But with Shona, he had not. Even knowing, Aidan had not believed the sacrifice of so much would be required of him. Now he understood why.

  And did not hesitate. "She was worth everything."

  After a moment, the Hunter nodded. "It remains, Aidan: we cannot tell you what to do."

  "There is no need for that. I know what to do. Now."

  "Do you? And what is that?"

  Aidan stared beyond the god a long moment, lost in thought, in memory. Then he stirred. Smiling, he stripped the glove from his right hand. The ruby ring glowed bloody in the whiteness of winter wastes only recently touched by summer.

  He pulled it from his finger. "First," he murmured, "I rid myself of this, and the title that goes with it."

  The Hunter was unmoving upon his rock. His eyes were very dark, and infinitely compelling. "By that, you renounce your rank."

  "I do."

  "It is a rank many men would kill for, craving the power for themselves, and the promise of more. It is an ancient and honorable title. Your jehan held it, and his jehan, and his before that… many men, Aidan. Very many men. I ask you: do you know what you do?"