Well of Shiuan

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Hail me lord,” said Hetharu softly, “lord in Ohtij-in and in all Shiuan.”

  Panic burst in him. “Guard!” he cried, as Hetharu lifted the bloody dagger and slashed his own arm, a second fountain of blood. The dagger flew, struck at Vanye’s feet, in the spreading dark pool from Bydarra’s body. Vanye stumbled back from the dagger as the door opened, and there were armed men there in force, pikes lowered toward him. Hetharu leaned against the fireplace in unfeigned shock, leaking blood through his fingers that clasped his wounded arm to his breast.

  “He-” Vanye cried, and staggered back under the blow of a pikeshaft that sent him sprawling and drove the wind from him. He scrambled for his feet and hurled himself for the door, barred from it by others-thrown aside, seized up the dagger that lay in the pool of blood, and drove for Hetharu’s throat.

  An armored body turned the blade, a face before him grimacing in pain and shock: more blood flooded his hands, hot, before the others dragged him back and crashed with him over a bench. The blows of pikestaves and boots overwhelmed him and he lay half-sensible in a pool of blood, his own or Bydarra’s, he no longer knew. They moved his battered arms and cords bit into his wrists.

  Shouts echoed. Throughout the halls there began a shriek of alarm, the sounds of women’s voices and the deeper mourning of men. He listened to this, on the edge of consciousness, the shrieks part of the torment of chaos that raged about him.

  He remained on the floor, untouched. Men came for Bydarra’s body, and they carried it forth on a litter in grim silence; and another corpse they carried out too, that of a man-at-arms, that Vanye dimly realized was to his charge. And thereafter, when the room was clear and more torches had been brought, men gathered him up by the hair and the arms, and bowed him at Hetharu’s feet.

  Hetharu sat, while a priest wound his arm about with clean linen soaked in oils; and there was in Hetharu’s shock-pale face a taut and wary look. Armed men were about him, and one, bare-faced, his coarse bleached hair gathered back in a knot, handed Hetharu a cup of which he drank deeply. In a moment Hetharu sighed, and returned the cup, and leaned back in the chair while the priest tied the bandage.

  A number of other lords came, elegant and jewelled, in delicate fabrics. There was silence in the room, and the constant flow of whispers in the corridor outside. As each lord came forward to meet Hetharu there was a slight bow, an obeisance, some only scant. It was the passing of power, there in that bloody cell-many an older lord whose obeisance was cold and hesitant, with looks about at the armed guards that stood grimly evident; and younger men, who did not restrain their smiles, wolf-smiles and no evidence of mourning.

  And lastly came Kithan, waxen-pale and languid, attended by a trio of guards. He bowed to kiss his brother’s hand, and suffered his brother’s kiss upon his cheek, his face cold and distant the while. He stumbled when he attempted to rise and turn, steadied by the guards, and blinked dazedly, and stared down at Vanye.

  Slowly the distance vanished in those dilated pale eyes, and something came into them of recognition, a mad hatred, distraught and violent.

  “I had no weapon,” Vanye said to him, fearing the youth’s grief as much as Hetharu’s calculation. “The only weapon-”

  An armored hand smashed across his mouth, dazing him; and no one was interested in listening not even Kithan, who simply stared at him, empty-eyed, unasking what he would have said. After a moment someone took Kithan by the arm and led him out, like a confused child.

  Women had come, pale-haired and cold, who bowed and kissed Hetharu’s hand and returned on silent feet to the corridor, a whisper of brocade and a lingering of perfume amid the oil and armor of the guards.

  Then, a stir among the departing mourners, brusque and sudden, came Roh, himself attended by guards, one on either side. Roh was armored, and cloaked, and bore his bow and his longsword slung on his back for travel.

  Vanye’s heart leaped up in an instant’s forlorn hope that died when he reminded himself of the illusion that was Roh, when Roh ignored him, and addressed himself to the patricide, Bydarra’s newly powerful son.

  “My lord,” Roh murmured, and bowed, but he did not kiss Hetharu’s hand or make any other courtesy, at which faces clouded, not least of them Hetharu’s. “The horses are saddled,” Roh said. “The tide is due at sunset, I am told; and we had best make some small haste.”

  “There will be no delay,” said Hetharu.

  Again Roh bowed, only as much as need be; and turned his head and for the first time looked down on Vanye, who knelt between his guards. “Cousin,” Roh said sorrowfully, as a man would reproach a too-innocent youth. Heat stung Vanye’s face; and something in him responded to the voice, all the same. He looked up into Roh’s brown eyes and lean, tanned face, seeking Liell, struggling to summon hate. It only came to him that they two had known Andur-Kursh, and that he would not see it again; and that when Roh had left, he would be alone among qujal.

  “I do not envy you,” Vanye said, “your company on the road.”

  Roh’s eyes slid warily to Hetharu, back again; and Roh bent then, and took Vanye’s arm, drawing him to his feet in spite of the guards. His hand lingered, kindly as a brother’s.

  “Swear to my service,” Roh said in a low voice, for him alone. “Leave hers, and I will take you with me, out of here.”

  Vanye jerked his head in refusal, setting his jaw lest he show how much he desired it.

  “They will not harm you,” Roh said, which he needed not have said.

  “What you will is not law for them,” Vanye said. “I did not kill Bydarra: on my oath, I did not. They have done this to spite you; I am nothing to them but a means of touching you.”

  Roh frowned. “I will see you at Abarais. With her, I will not compromise-I cannot-but with you-”

  ‘Take me with you now if you hope for that. Do not ask an oath of me; you know I cannot give it. But will you rather trust them at your back? You will be alone with them, and when they have what they want-”

  “No,” Roh said after a moment that trust and doubt had seemed closely balanced “No. That would not be wise of me.”

  “At least take Jhirun out of this place.”

  Again Roh hesitated, seeming almost to agree. “No,” he said. “Nothing to please you: I do not think you hope for my long life. She stays here.”

  “To be murdered. As I will be.”

  “No,” said Roh. “I have made an understanding for your welfare. And I will see it kept; we have bargained, they and I. I will see you at Abarais.”

  “No,” said Vanye. “I do not think you will.”

  “Cousin,” said Roh softly.

  Vanye swore and turned away, bile rising in his throat. He shouldered through his guards, who lacked orders and stood like cattle, confused. None checked him. He went to the window slit and looked out at the rain-glistening stones, ignoring all of them as they made their arrangements to leave, with much clattering of arms and shouting up and down the corridors.

  Group by group, to their various purposes, the gathering dispersed. Roh was among the first to leave. Vanye did not turn his head to see. He heard the room deserted, and the door heavily sealed, and distantly in the halls echoed the tramp of armed men.

  Out in the yard there began a tumult among the people, and the clatter of horses on the pavings. Voices of men and women pierced the commotion, for a moment clear and then subdued again.

  One lord was leaving Ohtij-in; the former could not possibly have been buried yet. Such was Hetharu’s haste, to ride with Roh, seeking power; and such Roh had doubtless promised him, with promises and threats and direct warnings to bring him quickly to Abarais, before flood should come, before the way should be closed. Perhaps Bydarra had opposed such a journey, inventing delays, but Bydarra would no more oppose anything-perhaps at Roh’s urging; it was Hetharu’s cruel humor that had placed the blame where Roh least wanted it,

  Vanye heard the number of horses in the yard and reckoned that most of the force of Oht
ij-in must be going.

  And if Morgaine lived, she would have to contend with that upon the road-if she had not already, more wary and more wise than her kin, skirted round Ohtij-in and passed toward Abarais.

  It was the only hope that remained to him. If Morgaine had done so, Roh was finished, powerless. This was surely the fear in Roh’s mind, that drove him to create chaos of Ohtij-in, that drove him to accept allies that would turn on him when first they could. If Roh came too late, if Morgaine had passed, and the Wells were dead and sealed against him, then those same allies would surely kill him; and then would be another bitter reckoning, at Ohtij-in, for the hostage for a dead enemy.

  But if Roh was not too late, if Morgaine was in truth lost, then there were other certainties: himself bidden to Abarais, to serve Roh-masterless ilin, to be Claimed to another service.

  There was nothing else, no other choice for him-but to seek Roh’s life; and the end of that, too, he knew.

  A door closed elsewhere, echoing in the depths; a scuff on stone sounded outside, steps in the corridor. He thought until the last that they were bound elsewhere: but the bolt of the door crashed back.

  He looked back, the blood chilling in his veins as he saw Kithan, with armed men about him.

  Kithan walked to the end of the table, steady in his bearing; his delicate features were composed and cold.

  “They are leaving,” Kithan said softly.

  “I did not,” Vanye protested, “kill your father. It was Hetharu.”

  There was no reaction, none. Kithan stood still and stared at him, and outside there was the sound of horses clattering out the gates. Then those gates closed, booming, inner and outer.

  Kithan drew a long, shuddering breath, expelled it slowly, as if savoring the air. He had shut his eyes, and opened them again with the same chill calm. “In a little time we shall have buried my father. We do not make overmuch ceremony of our interments. Then I will see to you.”

  “I did not kill him.”

  “Did you not?” Kithan’s cloud-gray eyes assumed that dreaming languor that formerly possessed them, but now it seemed ironical, a pose. “Hetharu would have more than Ohtij-in to rule. Do you think that Roh of the Chya will give it to him?”

  Vanye answered nothing, not knowing where this was tending, and liking it little. Kithan smiled.

  “Would this cousin of yours take vengeance for you?” asked Kithan.

  “It might be,” Vanye answered, and Kithan still smiled.

  “Hetharu was always tedious,” Kithan said.

  Vanye drew in a breath, finally reading him. “If you aim at your brother-free me. I am not Roh’s ally.”

  “No,” said Kithan softly. “Nor care I. It may be that you are guilty; or perhaps not. And that is nothing to me. I see no future for any of us, and I trust you no more than Hetharu should have trusted your kinsman.”

  “Hetharu.” Vanye said, “killed your father.”

  Kithan smiled and shrugged, turned his shoulder to him. He made a signal to one of the men with him, toward the door. That man summoned others, who held between them a small and tattered shadow.

  Jhirun.

  He could not help her. She recognized him as he moved a little into the torchlight. Her shadowed face assumed a look of anguish. But she said nothing, seeing him, nor cried out. Vanye lowered his eyes, apology for all things between them, lifted them again. There was nothing that he could say to ease her plight, and much that he could say to make it worse, making clear his regard for her.

  He turned from the sight of her and of them, and walked back to stare out the window.

  “Make a fire in the west tower hall,” Kithan bade one of the guards.

  And they withdrew, and the door closed.

  Chapter 10

  The thunder rumbled almost constantly, and in time the torches, whipped by the wind that had free play through the small cell, went out, one by one, leaving dark. Vanye sat by the window, leaning against the stones, letting the cold wind and spattering rain numb his face as his hands long since were numb. The cold eased the pain of bruises; he reckoned that if it also made him fevered, if they delayed long enough, then that was only gain. He blinked the water from his eyes and watched the pattern of lightning on the raindrops that crawled down the stones opposite the narrow window. So far as it was possible, he concentrated entirely on that slow progress, lost in it.

  Somewhere by the gate a bell began to ring, monotone and urgent. Voices shouted, lost in the thunder. The burial party had returned, he thought, and sharper fear began to gather in him; he fought it with, anger, but the taste of it was only the more bitter, for he was angry most of all that he was without purpose in his misery, that he was seized into others’ purposes, to die that way: child-innocent, child-ignorant-he had trusted, had expected, had assumed.

  Likewise Roh was being slowly ensnared, carefully maneuvered, having taken to himself allies without law, adept in treacheries of a breed unimagined in Andur-Kursh. Best that Roh perish-and yet he did not entirely wish it: rather that Hetharu would find himself surprised, that Roh would repay them-bitterly.

  There was nothing else.

  The bell still rang. And now there came the tread of many men in the corridors, echoing up and down the winding halls-a scrape of stone in the hall outside, the bolt crashing back.

  There were guards, rain still glistening on their demon-faced helms and the scale of their armor in the torchlight they brought with them. Vanye gathered himself to his feet on the second try, came with them of his own accord as far as the hail, where he might reckon their number.

  There were eight, ten, twelve of them. So many? he wondered bitterly, astonished that they could so fear him, reckoning how his hands were tied and his legs, numb with cold, unsteady under him.

  They seized him roughly and brought him down the corridor, and down and down the spirals, past the staring white faces of delicate qujalin ladies, the averted eyes of servants. Cold air struck him as the door at the bottom of the spiral opened, and there before them was the barred iron gate, the keeper running back the chain to let them out

  Outside was rain and torchlight, and a confused rabble, a mass of faces shouting, drowning the noise of the bell.

  Vanye set his feet, resisted desperately being brought out into that; but the guards formed about him with pikes levelled, and others forced him down the steps. Mad faces surrounded them, rocks flew: Vanye felt an impact on his shoulder and jerked back as fingers seized on his shirt and tried to pull him away from the guards. A man went down then with a pike through his belly, writhing and screaming, and the men-at-arms hurried, broke through the mass: Vanye no longer resisted the guards, fearing the mob’s violence more.

  And the bell at the gate still tolled, adding its own mad voice to the chaos. A door in the barbican tower opened, more guards ready to take them into that refuge, a serried line of weapons to defend it.

  A pikeman went down, stone-struck. The mob surged inward. Vanye recoiled into the hands of his guards as the rabble seized on him, almost succeeding this time in taking him. There was a skirmish, sharp and bloody, peasants against armored pikemen, and the guards moved forward over wounded and dying.

  The insanity of it was beyond comprehension, the attack, the hatred, whether they aimed it at him or at their own lords . . . knowing that Bydarra was slain, that the greater force of the hold had departed. The guards seemed suddenly fearfully few; the power that Kithan held was stretched thin in Ohtij-in amid this violence that surged within the court, outside its doors. The madness cared no longer what it attacked.

  There was a sound, deep and rumbling, that shook the walls, that wrung horrified screams from the surging mob- that stopped the guards in their tracks.

  And the gate vanished in a second rumbling of stones: the arch that had spanned it collapsed, the stones whirling away like leaves into darkness, so that little rubble remained. It was gone. The mob shrieked and scattered, abandoned improvised weapons, a scatter of staves and ston
es on the cobbles; and the guards levelled futile weapons at that incredible sight

  In that darkness where the gate had been was a shimmer, and a rider, white-cloaked, on a gray horse, a shining of white hair under the remaining torches; and the glimmering was a drawn sword.

  The blade stayed unsheathed. It held darkness entrapped at its tip, darkness that eclipsed the light of torches where it was lifted. The gray horse moved forward a pace; the crowd shrieked and fled back.

  Morgaine.

  She had come to this place, come after him. Vanye struggled to be free, feeling a wild urge to laughter, and in that moment his guards cast him sprawling and fled.

  He lay still, for a moment dazed by his impact on the wet paving. He saw Siptah’s muddy hooves not far from his head as she rode to cover him, and he did not fear the horse; but above him he saw Morgaine’s outstretched hand, and Changeling unsheathed, shimmering opal fires and carrying that lethal void at its tip: oblivion uncleaner than any the qujal could deal.

  He feared to move while that hovered over him. “Roh-” he tried to warn her; but his hoarse voice was lost in the storm and the shouting.

  “Dai-khal,” he heard cry from the distance. “Angharan . . . Angharan!” He heard the cry repeated, echoed off the walls, warning carried strangely by the wind; and thereafter quiet settled in the courtyard, among humans and qujal alike.

  Siptah swung aside; Vanye struggled to reach his knees, did so with a tearing pain in his side that for a moment took his breath away. When his sight cleared, he saw Kithan and the other lords in the unbarred doorway of the keep, abandoned by the guards. There was no sound, no movement from the qujal. Their faces, their white hair whipping on the wind, made a pale cluster in the torchlight.

  “This is my companion,” Morgaine said softly, above the rush of rain; and it was likely that there was no place in the courtyard that could not hear her. “Poor welcome have you given him.”

  There was for a moment only the steady beat of the rain into the puddles, the restless stamp of Siptah’s feet, and came the sound of hooves behind, another rider coming through the ruined gate: the black gelding, ridden by a stranger, who swung down from the saddle and waited.