The Song of Homana

by Jennifer Roberson

  I tried to thrust myself from the bed but my limbs would not obey me. And then Tynstar moved close, into the sphere of light, and put his hand upon me.

  “I am done playing with you,” he said. “It is time for me to rule.” He smiled. “Recall you what Bellam was, when you found him on the field?”

  I spasmed again and Tynstar laughed. Electra watched me as a hawk will watch a coney, delaying its stoop until the perfect moment.

  “Cheysuli i’halla shansu,” Tynstar said. “Give my greetings to the gods.”

  I felt the change within my body. Even as I fought them, my muscles tightened and drew up my limbs. Buttocks, feet and knees, cramping so that I nearly screamed, while my legs folded up to crush themselves against my chest. My hands curled into fists and a rictus set my mouth so that my teeth were bared in a feral snarl. I felt my flesh tightening on my bones, drying into hardness.

  What voice there was left to me lost itself in a garbled wail, and I knew myself a dead man. Tynstar had slain his quarry.

  Cheysuli i’halli shansu, he had said. May there be Cheysuli peace upon you. An odd farewell from an Ihlini to a Homanan. Neither of us claimed the magic the Cheysuli held, and yet Tynstar reminded me of it. Reminded me of the four days I had spent in the oubliette, believing myself Cheysuli.

  Well, why could I not again? Had I not felt the power of the race while I hung in utter darkness?

  My eyes were staring. I shut them. Even as I felt my muscles wrack themselves against my bones and flesh, I reached inward to my soul where I could touch what I touched before: the thing that had made me Cheysuli.

  For four days, once, I had known the gods. Could I not know them again?

  I heard the hiss of steel blade against a sheath. And then I heard nothing more.

  FIVE

  Silence. The darkness was gone and the daylight pierced my lids. It painted everything orange and yellow and crimson.

  I lay quite still. I did not breathe; did not dare to, until at last my lungs were so empty my heart banged against my chest protesting the lack. I took a shallow breath.

  I saw the shadow then. A dark blot moved across the sunrise of my vision. It whispered, soughing like a breeze through summer grass. Like spreading wings on a hawk.

  Afraid I would see nothing and yet needing to see, I opened my eyes. I saw. The hawk perched on the chair back, hooked beak gleaming in the sunlight and his bright eyes full of wisdom. And patience, endless patience. Cai was nothing if not a patient bird.

  I turned my head against the pillow. The draperies of my bed had been pulled back, looped up against the wooden tester posts and tied with ropes of scarlet and gold. Sunlight poured in the nearest casement and glittered off the brilliance. Everywhere gold. On my bed and on Duncan’s arms.

  I heard the rasp of my breath and the hoarseness of my voice. “Tynstar slew me.”

  “Tynstar tried.”

  I was aware of the bed beneath my body. It seemed to press in on me, oppressing me, yet cradling my flesh. Everything was emphasized. I heard the tiniest sounds, saw colors as I had never seen them and felt the texture of the bedclothes. But mostly I sensed the tension in Duncan’s body.

  He sat upright on a stool, very still as he waited. I saw how he watched me, as if he expected something more than what I had given him. I could not think what it was—we had already discussed Finn’s dismissal. And yet I knew he was afraid.

  Duncan afraid? No. There was nothing for him to fear.

  I summoned my voice again. “You know what happened—?”

  “I know what Rowan told me.”

  “Rowan.” I frowned. “Rowan was not there when Tynstar came to slay me.”

  “He was.” Duncan’s smile was brief. “You had best thank the gods he was, or you would not now be alive. It was Rowan’s timely arrival that kept Tynstar’s bid to slay you from succeeding.” He paused. “That…and what power you threw back at him.”

  I felt a tiny surge within my chest. “Then I did reach the magic!”

  He nodded. “Briefly, you tapped what we ourselves tap. It was not enough to keep Tynstar in check for long—he would have slain you in a moment—but Rowan’s arrival was enough to end the moment. The presence of a Cheysuli—though he lacks a lir—was enough to dilute Tynstar’s power even more. There was nothing he could do, save die himself when faced with Rowan’s steel. So—he left. But not before he touched you.” He paused. “You nearly died, Carillon. Do not think you are unscathed.”

  “He is gone?”

  “Tynstar.” Duncan nodded. “Electra was left behind.”

  I shut my eyes. I recalled how she had come out of the darkness to tell me the truth of the child. Gods—Tynstar’s child—

  I looked at Duncan again. My eyes felt gritty. My tongue was heavy in my mouth. “Where is she?”

  “In her chambers, with a Cheysuli guard at the doors.” Duncan did not smile. “She has a measure of her own power, Carillon; we do not take chances with her.”

  “No.” I pushed an elbow against the bed and tried to sit up. I discovered no part of my body would move. I was stiff and very sore, far worse than after a battle, as if all the dampness had got into my bones. I touched my shoulder then, recalling the healing wound. There were no bandages. Just a small patch of crinkled flesh. “You healed me…”

  “We tried.” Duncan was very grave. “The arrow wound was easily done. The—other—was not. Carillon—” For a moment he paused, and then I saw his frown. “Do not think Ihlini power is easily overcome. Even the earth magic cannot restore that which has been taken from a Soul. Tynstar has power in abundance. What was taken from you will never be regained. You are—as you are.”

  I stared at him. And then I looked down at myself and saw myself. There seemed to be no difference. I was very stiff and sore and slow, but a sojourn in bed will do that.

  Duncan merely waited. I moved again to sit up, found it every bit as difficult as before, but this time I prevailed. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, screwed up my face against the creaking of my joints, and sat there as all my muscles trembled.

  It was then I saw my fingers. The knuckles were enlarged hugely, the flesh stretched thin over brittle bones. I saw how the calluses had begun to soften, shedding the toughness I needed against the use of a sword. I saw how the fingers were vaguely twisted away from my thumb. And I ached. Even in the sunlight, I ached with a bone-deep pain.

  “How long?” I asked abruptly, knowing I had spent more than days in my bed.

  “Two months. We could not raise you from the stupor.”

  Naked, I wrenched myself from the bed and stumbled across the chamber, to the plate upon the wall. The polished silver gave back my face, and I saw what Tynstar had done.

  Carillon was still Carillon, certainly recognizable. But older, so much older, by twenty years at least.

  “It is my father,” I said in shock, recalling the time-worn face. The tawny-dark hair was frosted with gray with the beard showing equal amounts. Creases fanned out from my eyes and bracketed nose and mouth, though most were hidden by the beard. And set deeply into the still-blue eyes was the knowledge of constant pain.

  It was no wonder I ached. I had the same disease as my mother, with her twisted hands and brittle bones, the swollen, painful joints. And with each year, the pain and disability would worsen.

  Tynstar had put his hand on me, and my youth was spent at once.

  I turned slowly and sat down on the nearest chest. I began to shake with more than physical weakness. It was the realization.

  Duncan waited, saying nothing, and I saw the compassion in his eyes. “Can you not heal me of this?” I gestured emptily. “The age and gray I can live with, but the illness…you have only to see my lady mother—” I stopped. I saw the answer in his face.

  After a moment he spoke. “It will improve. You will not be as stiff when some time has passed. You have spent two months in bed and it takes its toll on anyone—you will find it not so bad as it seems now.
But as for the disease…” He shook his head. “Tynstar did not give you anything you would not have known anyway. He inflicted nothing upon you that time itself would not inflict. He merely stole that time from you, so that a month became ten years. You are older, aye, but not old. There are many years left to you.”

  I thought of Finn. I recalled the silver in his hair and the hard gauntness of his face. I recalled what he had said of Tynstar: “He put his hand on me.”

  The chest was hard and cold against my naked buttocks. “When my daughter is older, I will be old. She will have a grandsire for a father.”

  “I doubt she will love you the less for that.”

  I looked at him in surprise. A Cheysuli speaking of love? —aye, perhaps, when the moment calls for an honesty that can bring me back to myself.

  My body protested against the dampness of the chamber. I got up and walked—no, limped—stiffly back to my bed, reaching for the robe a servant had left. “I will have to deal with Electra.”

  “Aye. And she is still the Queen of Homana.”

  “As I made her.” I shook my head. “I should have listened to you. To Finn. I should have listened to someone.”

  Duncan smiled, still sitting on his stool. “You know more of kingcraft than I do, Carillon. The marriage brought peace to Homana—at least regarding Solinde—and I cannot fault you for that. But—”

  “—but I wed a woman who intended my death from the first moment she ever saw me.” The pain curled deeply within my loins. “Gods—I should have known by looking at her. She claims more than forty years—I should have known Tynstar could give those years as well as take them.” I rubbed at my age-lined face and felt the twinges in my fingers. “I should have known Tynstar’s arts would prevail when I had no Cheysuli by me. No liege man.”

  “They planned well, Tynstar and Electra,” Duncan agreed. “First the trap-link, which might have slain Finn and rid them of him sooner. Then, when that did not work, they used it to draw him into a second trap. Finn, I do not doubt, walked in on Tynstar and Electra when he meant only to confront her. He could not touch Tynstar, but Tynstar touched him, then took his leave and Finn had only Electra. And yet when he told you Tynstar had been present, you thought of the trap-link instead.” Duncan shook his head and the earring glittered in the sunlight. “They played with us all, Carillon…and nearly won the game.”

  “They have won.” I sat huddled in my robe. “I have only a daughter, and Homana has need of an heir.”

  Duncan rose. He moved to Cai and put out a hand to the hawk, as if he meant to caress him. But he did not touch him after all, and I saw how his fingers trembled. “You are still young, for all you feel old.” His back was to me. “Take yourself another cheysula and give Homana that heir.”

  I looked at his back, so rigid and unmoving. “You know Homanan custom. You were at the wedding ceremony; do you not recall the vows? Homanans do not set wives aside. It is a point of law, as well as being custom. Surely you, with all your adherence to Cheysuli custom, can understand the constraints that places on me. Even a Mujhar.”

  “Is the custom so important when the wife attempts to slay the husband?”

  I heard the irony in his tone. “No. But she did not succeed, and I know what Council will say. Set her aside, perhaps, but do not break the vows. It would be breaking Homanan law. The Council would never permit it.”

  Duncan swung around and faced me. “Electra is Tynstar’s meijha! She bears his child in her belly! Would the Homanan Council prefer to have you dead?”

  “Do you not see?” I threw back. “It has been taken from my hands. Had Tourmaline not gone with Finn, wedding with Lachlan instead, I could have sought my heir from her. Had she wed any prince, Homana would have an heir. But she did not. She went with Finn and took that chance from me.”

  “Set her aside,” he said urgently. “You are Mujhar—you can do anything you wish.”

  Slowly I shook my head. “If I begin to make my own rules, I become a despot. I become Shaine, who desired to destroy the Cheysuli race. No, Duncan. Electra remains my wife, though I doubt I will keep her here. I have no wish to see her or the bastard she carries.”

  He shut his eyes a moment, and then I understood. I knew what he feared at last.

  I was tired. The ache had settled deeply in my bones. I felt bruised from the knowledge of what I faced. And yet I could not avoid it. “There is no need to fear me,” I said quietly.

  “Is there not?” Duncan’s eyes were bleak. “I know what you will do.”

  “I have no other choice.”

  “He is my son—”

  “—and Alix’s, and Alix is my cousin.” I stopped, seeing the pain in the face Alix loved. “How long have you known it would come to this?”

  Duncan laughed, but it had a hollow, desperate sound. “All my life, it seems. When I came to know my tahlmorra.” He shook his head and sat down upon the stool. His shoulders slumped and he stared blankly at the floor. “I have always been afraid. Of you…of the past and future…of what I knew was held within the prophecy for any son of mine. Did you think I wanted Alix only out of desire?” Anguish leached his face of the solemnity I knew. “Alix was a part of my own tahlmorra. I knew, if I took her and got a son upon her, I would have to give up that son. I knew. And so I hoped, when she conceived again, there would at least be another for us…but the Ihlini took even that from us.” He sighed. “I had no choice. No choice at all.”

  “Duncan,” I said after a moment, “can a back not be turned upon tahlmorra?”

  He shook his head immediately. “The warrior who turns his back on his tahlmorra may twist the prophecy. In twisting it, he destroys the tahlmorra of his race. Homana would fall. Not in a year or ten or twenty—perhaps not even a hundred—but it would fall, and the realm would be given over to the Ihlini and their like.” He paused. “There is another thing: the warrior who turns his back on his tahlmorra gives up his afterlife. I think none of us would be willing to do that.”

  I thought of Tynstar, and others like him, ruling in Homana. No. It was no wonder Duncan would never consider trying to alter his tahlmorra.

  I frowned. “Do you say then that even a single warrior turning his back on his tahlmorra may change the balance of fate?”

  Duncan frowned also. For once, he seemed to grope for the proper words, as if he knew the Homanan tongue could never tell me what I asked. But the Old Tongue would not serve; I knew too little of it. And what I did know I had learned from Finn; he had never spoken of such personal Cheysuli things.

  Finally Duncan sighed. “A crofter goes to Mujhara today instead of tomorrow. His son falls down a well. The son dies.” He made the spread-fingered, palm-up gesture. “Tahlmorra. But had the crofter gone tomorrow instead of today, would the son yet live? I cannot say. Does the death serve a greater pattern? Perhaps. Had he lived, would it have destroyed the pattern completely? Perhaps—I cannot say.” He shrugged. “I cannot know what the gods intend.”

  “But you serve them all so blindly—”

  “No. My eyes are open.” He did not smile. “They have given us the prophecy, so we know what we work toward. We know what we can lose, if we do not continue serving it. My belief is such: that certain events, once changed, can alter other events. Are enough of them altered, no matter how minor, the major one is changed. Perhaps even the prophecy of the Firstborn.”

  “So you live your life in chains.” I could not comprehend the depth of his dedication.

  Duncan smiled a little. “You wear a crown, my lord Mujhar. Surely you know its weight.”

  “That is different—”

  “Is it? Even now you face the overwhelming need to find an heir. To put a prince on the throne of Homana you will even take my son.”

  I stared at him. The emptiness spread out to fill my aching body. “I have no other choice.”

  “Nor have I, my lord Mujhar.” Duncan looked suddenly weary. “But you give my son into hardship.”

  “He will be th
e Prince of Homana.” The rank seemed, to me, to outweigh the hardship.

  He did not smile. “It was your title, once. It nearly got you slain. Do not belittle its danger.”

  “Donal is Cheysuli.” For a moment I was incapable of saying anything more. I realized, in that moment, that even I had served the gods. Duncan had said more than once it was a Cheysuli throne, and that one day there would be a Cheysuli Mujhar in place of a Homanan. And now I, with only a few words, made that prediction come true.

  Are men always so blind to the gods, even when they serve them?

  “Cheysuli,” Duncan echoed, “and so the links are forged.”

  I looked at Cai. I thought of the falcon and wolf Donal claimed, two lir instead of one. Things changed. Time moved on, sometimes far too quickly. And events altered events.

  I sighed and rubbed at my knees. “The Homanans will not accept him. Not readily. He is Cheysuli to the bone, despite his Homanan blood.”

  “Aye,” Duncan agreed, “you begin to see the danger.”

  “I can lessen it. I can take away the choice. I can make certain the Homanans accept him.”

  Duncan shook his head. “It has been less than eight years since Shaine’s qu’mahlin ended because of you. It is too soon. Such things are not easily done.”

  “No. But I can make it easier.”

  “How?”

  “By wedding him to Aislinn.”

  Duncan stood up at once. “They are children!”

  “Now, aye, but children become adults.” I did not care to see the startled, angry expression on his face, but I had no choice. “A long betrothal, Duncan, such as royal Houses do. In fifteen years, Donal will be—twenty-three? Aislinn nearly sixteen: old enough to wed. And then I will name him my heir.”