The Song of Homana

by Jennifer Roberson

  We made a meal out of what we carried in our packs: dried meat, flat journey-bread loaves, a measure of sweet, dark sugar. And wine. We all had wine. The horses we fed on the grain we carried with us, since grazing was so light. We melted snow for water. But once our bellies were full, we had time to think of what we did.

  I sat huddled in my heaviest cloak for too long a time. I could not rid myself of the ache in my bones or the knowledge that we all might die. And so, when I could do it inconspicuously, I got up and went away from the small encampment. I left the men to their stilted conversations and gambling; I went to find Duncan.

  I saw him at last when I was ready to give up. He stood near the canyon wall staring into the dark distances. His very stillness made him invisible, it was only the shine of the moon against his earring that gave his presence away. And so I went near, waited for acknowledgment, and saw how rigid his body was.

  He had pulled on a cloak at last. It was dark, like my own, blending with the night. The earring glinted in his hair. “What does he do with her?” he asked. “What does he do to her?”

  I had wondered the same myself. But I forced reassurance from my mouth. “She is strong, Duncan. Stronger than many men. I think Tynstar will meet his match in her.”

  “This is Valgaard.” His voice was raw.

  I swallowed. “She has the Old Blood.”

  He turned abruptly. His face was shadowed as he leaned back against the stone canyon wall, setting his spine against it. “Here, the Old Blood may be as nothing.”

  “You do not know that. Did Donal not get free? They were Ihlini, yet he took lir-shape before them. It may be that Alix will overcome them yet.”

  “Ru’shalla-tu.” He said it without much hope: May it be so. He looked at me then, black-eyed in the moonlight, and I saw the fear in his eyes. But he said nothing more of Alix. Instead he squatted down, still leaning against the canyon wall, and pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders. “Do you wonder what has become of Tourmaline?” he asked. “What has become of Finn?”

  “Every day,” I answered readily “And each day I regret what has happened.”

  “Would you change it, if Finn came to you and asked to take your rujholla as his cheysula?”

  I found the nearest tree stump and perched upon it. Duncan waited for my answer, and at last I gave it. “I needed the alliance Rhodri would have offered, did I wed my sister to his son.”

  “He gave it to you anyway.”

  “Lachlan gave me aid. I got no alliance from Rhodri.” I shrugged. “I do not doubt we will make one when all this is done, but for now the thing is not formal. What Lachlan did was between a mercenary and a harper, not a Mujhar and High Prince of Ellas. There are distinct differences between the two.”

  “Differences.” His tone was very flat. “Aye. Like the differences between Cheysuli and Homanan.”

  I kicked away a piece of stone. “Do you regret that Donal must wed Aislinn? Cheysuli wed to Homanan?”

  “I regret that Donal will know a life other than what I wish for him.” Duncan was little more than a dark blot against the rock wall. “In the clan, he would be merely a warrior—unless they made him a clan-leader. It is—a simpler life than that which faces a prince. I would wish that for him. Not what you will give him.”

  “I have no choice. The gods—your gods—have given me none.”

  He was silent a moment. “Then we must assume there is a reason for what he will become.”

  I smiled, though it had only a little humor in it. “But you have an advantage, Duncan. You may see your son become a king. But I must die in order to give him the throne.”

  Duncan was silent a long moment. He merged into the blackness of the wall as the moon was lost to passing clouds. I could no longer see him, but I knew where he was by the sound of a hand scraping against the earth.

  “You have changed,” Duncan said at last. “I thought, at first, you had not—or very little. I see now I was wrong. Finn wrought well when he tempered the steel…but it is kingship that has honed the edge.”

  I huddled within my cloak. “As you say, kingship changes a man. I seem to have no choice.”

  “Necessity also changes,” Duncan said quietly. “It has changed me. I am nearly forty now, old enough to know my place and recognize my tahlmorra without chafing, but each day, of late, I wonder what might have happened had it been otherwise.” He shook his head. “We wonder. We ever wonder. The freedom to be without a tahlmorra.” The moon was free again and I saw another headshake. “What would happen did I keep my son? The prophecy would be twisted. The Firstborn, who gave the words to us, would never live again. We would be the Cheysuli no longer.” I saw the rueful smile. “Cheysuli: children of the gods. But we can be fractious children.”

  “Duncan—” I paused. “We will find her. And we will take her back from him.”

  Moonlight slanted full across his face. “Women are lost often enough,” he said quietly. “In childbirth…accident…illness. A warrior may grieve in the privacy of his pavilion, but he does not show his feelings to the clan. It is not done. Such things are kept—private.” His hand was filled with pebbles. “But were Alix taken from me by this demon, I would not care who knew of my grief.” The pebbles poured from his hand in a steady, dwindling stream. “I would be without her…and empty.…”

  Near midday we came to the canyon that housed Valgaard. We rode out of a narrow defile into the canyon proper and found ourselves hemmed in by the sheer stone walls that stretched high over our heads. We rode single-file, unable to go abreast, but as we went deeper into the canyon the walls fell away until we were human pebbles in a deep, rock-hard pocket.

  “There,” Duncan said, “do you see?”

  I saw, Valgaard lay before us: an eagle on its aerie. The fortress itself formed the third wall of the canyon, a pendant to the torque. But I thought the fit too snug. I thought the jewel too hard. No, not an eagle. A carrion bird, hovering over its corpse.

  We were neatly boxed. Escape lay behind us, Valgaard before. I did not like the feeling.

  “Lodhi!” Gryffth gasped. “I have never seen such a thing!”

  Nor had I. Valgaard rose up out of the glassy black basalt like a wave of solid ice, black and sharp, faceted like a gemstone. There were towers and turrets, barbicans and ramparts. It glittered, bright as glass, and smoke rose up around it. I could smell the stink from where we stood.

  “The Gate,” Duncan said. “It lies within the fortress. Valgaard is its sentinel.”

  “That is what causes the smoke?”

  “The breath of the god,” Duncan said. “Like fire, it burns. I have heard the stories. There is blood within the stone: hot, white blood. If it should touch you, you will die.”

  The canyon was clean of snow. Nothing marred its surface. It was smooth, shining basalt, lacking trees and grass. We had come out of winter into summer, and I found I preferred the cold.

  “Asar-Suti,” Duncan said. “The Seker himself.” Very deliberately, he spat onto the ground.

  “What are all those shapes?” Rowan asked. He meant the large chunks of stone that lay about like so many dice tossed down. Black dice, uncarved, and scattered across the ground. Each was large enough for a man to hide behind.

  Or die under, if it landed cocked.

  “An Ihlini bestiary,” Duncan explained. “Their answer to the lir.”

  We rode closer and I saw what he meant. Each deposit of stone had a form, if a man could call it that. The shapes were monstrous travesties of animals. Faces and limbs bore no resemblance to animals I had seen. It was a mockery of the gods, the lir defiled; an echo, perhaps, of their deity. Asar-Suti in stone. A god of many shapes. A god of grotesquerie.

  I suppressed a shiver of intense distaste. This place was foulness incarnate. “We should beware an obvious approach.”

  Duncan, falling back to ride abreast, merely nodded. “It would be unexpected did we simply ride in like so many martyrs, but also foolish. I do no
t choose to die a fool. So we will find cover and wait, until we have a plan for getting in.”

  “Getting in there?” Rowan shook his head. “I do not see how.”

  “There is a way,” Duncan told him. “There is always a way to get in. It is getting out that is difficult.”

  Uneasily, I agreed.

  It was, at last, Gryffth who found the way in. I was astonished when he offered himself, for he might well be boiled alive in the blood of the god, but it seemed the only way. And so I agreed, but only after I heard his explanation.

  We knelt, all of us, behind the black-frozen shapes, too distant for watchers to see us from the ramparts. The white, stinking smoke veiled us even more, so that we felt secure in our place of hiding. The stones were large enough to offer shade in sunlight as well. In the shadows it was cool.

  Gryffth, kneeling beside me, pulled a ring from his belt-pouch. “My lord, this should do it. It marks me a royal courier. It will give me safe entrance.”

  “Should,” I said sharply. “It may not.”

  Gryffth grinned a little. His red hair was bright in the sunlight. “I think I will have no trouble. The High Prince has said, often enough, that I have the gift of a supple tongue. I will wind Tynstar around this finger.” He made a rude gesture with his hand, and all the Homanans laughed. In the months since the Ellasian had joined my service, he had made many friends. He had wit and purpose, and a charming way as well.

  Rowan’s face was pensive. “When you face Tynstar, what will you say? The ring cannot speak for you.”

  “No, but it gets me inside. Once there, I will tell Tynstar the High King of Ellas has sent me. That he wishes to make an alliance.”

  “Rhodri would never do it!” Rowan exclaimed. “Do you think Tynstar will believe you?”

  “He may, he may not. It does not matter.” Gryffth’s freckled face was solemn, echoing Duncan’s gravity. “I will tell him High Prince Cuinn, in sending men to the Mujhar, has badly angered his father. That Rhodri wishes no alliance with Homana, but desires Ihlini aid. If nothing else, it will gain Tynstar’s attention. He will likely host me the night, at least. And it is at night I will open the gate to let you in.” His smile came, quick and warm. “Once in, you will either live or die. By then, it will not matter what Tynstar thinks of my tale.”

  “You may die.” Rowan sounded angry.

  Gryffth shrugged. “A man lives, a man dies. He does not choose his life. Lodhi will protect me.”

  Duncan smiled. “You could almost be Cheysuli.”

  I saw Gryffth thinking it over. Ellasian-bred, he hardly knew the Cheysuli. But he did not think them demons. And so I saw him decide the comment was a compliment. “My thanks, Duncan…though Lodhi might see it differently.”

  “You call him the All-Wise,” Duncan returned. “He must be wise enough to know when I mean you well.”

  Gryffth, grinning, reached out and touched his arm. “For that, clan-leader, I will gladly do what I can to help you get her back.”

  Duncan clasped his arm. “Ellasian—Cheysuli i’halla shansu.” He smiled at Gryffth’s frown of incomprehension. “May there be Cheysuli peace upon you.”

  Gryffth nodded. “Aye, my friend. And may you know the wisdom of Lodhi.” He turned to me. “Does it please you, my lord, I will go in. And tonight, when I can, I will find a gate to open.”

  “How will we know?” Rowan asked. “We cannot go up so close…and you can hardly light a fire.”

  “I will send Cai to him,” Duncan said. “My lir can see when Gryffth comes out and tell me which gate he unlocks.”

  Rowan sighed, rubbing wearily at his brow. “It all seems such a risk…”

  “Risk, aye,” I agreed, “but more than worth the trying.”

  Gryffth stood up. “I will go in, my lord. I will do what I can do.”

  I rose as he did and clasped his arm. “Good fortune, Gryffth. May Lodhi guard you well.”

  He untethered his horse and mounted, reining it around. He glanced down at Rowan, who had become a boon companion, and grinned. “Do not fret, alvi. This is what I choose.”

  I watched Gryffth ride away, heading toward the fortress. The smoke hung over it like a miasma, cloaking the stone in haze. The breath of the god was foul.

  EIGHT

  The moon, hanging over our heads against the blackness of the sky, lent an eerie ambience to the canyon. The smoke clogged our noses. It rose up in stinking clouds, warming our flesh against our will. Shadows crept out from the huge stone shapes and swallowed us all, clutching with mouths and claws. My Homanans muttered of demons and Ihlini sorcerers; I thought they were one and the same.

  Duncan, seated near me, shed his cloak and rose. “Cai says Gryffth has come out of the hall. He is in the inner bailey. We should go.”

  We left the horses tethered and went on by foot. Cloaks hid our swords and knives from the moonlight. Our boots scraped against the glossy basalt, scattering ash and powdered stone. As we drew nearer, using the shapechanged stones to hide us, the ground warmed beneath our feet. The smoke hissed and whistled as it came out of the earth, rising toward the moon.

  We worked our way up to the walls that glistened in the moonlight. They were higher even than the walls of Homana-Mujhar, as if Tynstar meant to mock me. At each of the corners and midway along the walls stood a tower, a huge round tower bulging out of the dense basalt, spiked with crenellations and crockets and manned, no doubt, by Ihlini minions. The place stank of sorcery.

  The nearest gate was small. I thought it likely it opened into a smaller bailey. We had slipped around the front of the fortress walls and came in from the side, eschewing the main barbican gate that would swallow us up like so many helpless children. But the side gate opened, only a crack, and I saw Gryffth’s face in the slit between wall and dark wood.

  One hand gestured us forward. We moved silently, saying nothing, holding scabbards to keep them quiet. Gryffth, as I reached him in the gate, pushed it open wider. “Tynstar is not here,” he whispered, knowing what it would mean to me. “Come you in now, and you may avoid the worst of it.”

  One by one we crept in through the gate. I saw the shadows of winged lir pass overhead. We had also wolves and foxes and mountain cats slipping through the gate, but I wondered if they would fight. Finn had said the gods’ own law kept the lir from attacking Ihlini.

  Gryffth shut the gate behind us, and I saw the two bodies lying against the wall. I looked at him; he said nothing. But I was thankful nonetheless. Like Lachlan, he served me as if born to it, willing, even to slay others.

  We were in a smaller bailey, away from the main one, and Valgaard lay before us. The halls and side rooms bulged out from a central mass of stone. But we seemed to be through the worst of it.

  We started across the bailey, across the open spaces, though we tried to stay to the shadows. Swords were drawn now, glinting in the moonlight, and I heard the soughing of feet against stone. Out of the bailey toward an inner ward while the walls reared up around us; how long would our safety last?

  Not long. Even as Gryffth led us through to the inner ward I heard the hissing and saw a streamer of flame as it shot up into the air from one of the towers. It broke over our heads, showering us with a violet glare, and I knew it would blast the shadows into the white-hot glare of the sun. No more hiding in the darkness.

  “Scatter!” I shouted, heading for the hall.

  My sword was in my hand. I heard the step beside me and swung around, seeing foe, not friend, with his hand raised to draw a rune. Quickly I leveled my blade and took him in the throat. He fell in a geyser of blood.

  Rowan was at my back, Gryffth at his. We went into the hall in a triangular formation, swords raised and ready. The Cheysuli had gone, slipping into the myriad corridors, but I could hear the Homanans fighting. Without Tynstar’s presence we stood our greatest chance, but the battle would still be difficult. I had no more time left to lose.

  “Hold them!” I shouted as four men advanced with swords
and knives. I expected sorcery and they came at us with steel.

  Even as I brought up my sword I felt the twinge shoot through both hands. In all my practice with Cormac I had not been able to shed the pain of my swollen fingers. As yet they could still hold a hilt, but the strength I had taken for granted was gone. I had to rely more on quickness of body than my skill in elaborate parries. I was little more than a man of average skill now, because of Tynstar.

  Gryffth caught a knife from a hidden sheath and sent it flying across the hall. It took one Ihlini flush in the chest and removed him from the fight. Three to three now, but even as I marked their places I saw Rowan take another with his sword. Myself, for the moment, they ignored. And so, knowing my sword skill was diminished, I decided to go on without it. Did the Ihlini want me, they could come for me. Otherwise I would avoid them altogether.

  “Hold them,” I said briefly, and ran into the nearest corridor. The stone floor was irregular, all of a slant, this way and that, as if to make it difficult for anyone to run through it. There were few torches in brackets along the walls; I sensed this portion of the fortress was only rarely used. Or else the Ihlini took the light with them when they walked.

  The sounds of fighting fell away behind me, echoing dimly in the tunnel-like corridor. I went on, hearing the scrape of sole against stone, and waited for the attack that would surely come.

  I went deeper into the fortress, surrounded by black basalt that glistened in the torchlight. The walls seemed to swallow the light, so that my sword blade turned black to match the ruby, and I felt my eyes strain to see where I was going. The few torches guttered and hissed in the shadows, offering little illumination; all it wanted was Tynstar to come drifting out of the darkness, and my courage would be undone.