Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (20 page)

           
"Did you?"

           
"Aye." She raised her chin
slightly. "Whatever you may think of yourself in the aftermath of what
Jarek did, you remain a brave man. A man of pride and strength and
determination, not one to let a thing like fear cripple his tahlmorra."
She smiled. "Deirdre is a remarkable woman, my lord. She answered my
questions before I asked them, and told me what it was to love a man so bound
by a prophecy. She told me how to share a Cheysuli with his tahlmorra."

           
He would not spare her the truth.
"And did she also tell you that within a matter of months there will be a Princess
of Homana who will share those things with me?”

           
"Aye," Rhiannon said.

           
He had expected tears,
disappointment, resentment.

           
She gave him none of those things.
What she gave him was pride to match his own, and integrity, and an honesty he
so rarely saw in Homana-Mujhar, except when he spoke with Cheysuli.

           
He smiled a trifle sadly.
"Where is the innocence?"

           
A tinge of color entered her face.
"Do not mistake me, Brennan. I want nothing more than what I had last
night. You wanted it—needed it—then . . . and I think you want it now."

           
He did. For different reasons,
perhaps, but he would not lie to himself any more than to her.

           
"Her name is Aileen." His
words were brutal by design; he offered a final chance for withdrawal.

           
But it was not accepted. "I
know," she said evenly. "And name is Rhiannon."

           
He took her hand. He led her out of
the Womb of the Earth. He brought her to his chambers. To his bed.

           
To something he did not, could not
regret.

           
Teirnan threw himself down in the
Lion Throne. He grinned, caressing the ancient wood, then laughed aloud in
joyous exultation. "Do you know how long I have wanted to do this? Can you
guess?"

           
Brennan, who did not particularly
care, merely shook his head.

           
"For as long as I can
remember." Still Teirnan stroked the clawed armrests, glorying in the
texture of age-polished oak. "Since my jehan first told me I was kin to
the House of Homana."

           
Brennan's mouth twisted in irony.
"And how carefully did he tend you, Teir? How subtle was he in impressing
upon you his belief that you should rule in my place?"

           
Teirnan luxuriated in the throne,
sitting back so that his head was shadowed by the gaping lion's mouth.
"There was no subtlety at all, cousin. I am the son of dead Isolde,
rujholla to the Mujhar ... my blood cries out for the Lion."

           
Brennan, arms folded, paced slowly
to the dais and climbed it, posting himself directly before the throne.

           
"There are no a'saii, are
there? Only you. And Ceinn, of course—but I think Ceinn's teeth were pulled
many years ago, when my jehan named him shu'maii in his Ceremony of
Honors."

           
Teirnan's hands clenched the claws
of the Lion. "I have as much right to it as you."

           
"Do you?"

           
"My blood hearkens back to the
days of the Old Mujhars, the Cheysuli Mujhars, who had no need to marry
unblessed foreigners in order to secure Homana. It was ours already, given us
by the gods themselves."

           
"And the Ihlini?" Brennan
shrugged as Teirnan broke off to stare at him in shock. "I do not deny
that through Ceinn your blood is purer than mine . . . that because of Ceinn,
you count some of the oldest and cleanest blood in your heritage." He
tipped his head to one side in a brief gesture of idle acknowledgment.
"After all, even your jehana—kin to the Mujhar himself—had decidedly mixed
blood, while yours is admittedly less so.” Brennan was motionless, holding him
with the understated gentleness of his tone. "But if you wish to sit here
and prate about it how you are improved by such purity, recall that it was
precisely because certain clans refused to marry out that this dynastic
manipulation became necessary. This realm to that realm, this warrior to that
woman . . ." He shook his head. "Perhaps you should also consider
that it becomes more and more likely we are bloodkin to the Ihlini."

           
"No." Teirnan was deadly
serious as he pulled himself out of the throne. "You speak heresy,
Brennan."

           
Brennan shook his head. "I
speak of probabilities."

           
"How can you say that?"

           
"Look at the lir,” Brennan
said. "Will they attack the Ihlini? No—even though they will do their best
to destroy anyone else who means us harm. Will they tell us why? No—all they
ever say is that they follow the law of the gods." He drew in a breath,
understanding things more clearly himself even as he spoke. "It does seem
entirely possible, cousin, that the reason that law exists is to keep children
from slaying children—"

           
"Children—?"

           
"The children of the
gods." Brennan exhaled slowly, "I find it hard to believe the gods
would give their children the weapons with which they might kill one another
when what their parents desire is for them to live in accord."

           
"But Ihlini kill
Cheysuli!"

           
"And Cheysuli kill
Ihlini." Brennan drew in a breath of dull acknowledgment, understanding it
at last. "But without benefit of the lir. Without benefit of a full
complement of powers ... so that the battles are battles of men, and not the
get of the gods, who have more power than perhaps they should to live in a
world of men."

           
Teirnan's breath rasped loudly in
the hall. "It cannot be," he said.

           
"How can it not be?"
Brennan asked. "You know the prophecy, Teir. Its aim is to merge
bloodlines and unite deadly enemies. We know the four realms; Homana, Solinde,
Erinn and Atvia. Even now we are closer to fulfilling that portion of the
prophecy. I will hold Homana. Hart will have Solinde, Corin Atvia, and Keely
will wed into Erinn. As for the two magical races, who else can they be but
Cheysuli and Ihlini?"

           
Teirnan's face was gray. "May
the gods strike you down!"

           
"Why?" Brennan asked.
"It was the gods who gave us the prophecy."

           
Teirnan backed up a step and ran
into the throne. He stopped abruptly, rigidly, and stared blindly at his
cousin. His face was a death-mask.

           
"Teir," Brennan said with
abiding patience, "I do not advocate we go to Strahan with words of peace
in our mouths. But I think perhaps my jehan has the right of it: the time is
come for the Cheysuli to begin acknowledging all Ihlini are not dedicated to
Asar-Suti. There are those who serve themselves because they believe in
peaceful unification as much as our prophecy demands it."

           
"Unification," Teiman
echoed.

           
"Blood merged with blood,"
Brennan told him. "And a chance for lasting peace."

           
Teirnan looked at the Lion. He
touched it again, exploring it with his fingers. His face was immobile in its
intensity, the angles hard as stone. "What will happen when the prophecy
is fulfilled?"

           
Brennan frowned; Teirnan was leading
up to something. "Peace. Cohabitation. The Firstborn will live
again."

           
"Aye." Teirnan overrode
his words. "Aye, they will—and do you know what will happen?"

           
Brennan raised his brows. "Who
can say? Their power will be complete . . . there will be no weaknesses."

           
"And what of us?" His
cousin asked intently. "What of the Cheysuli, who do have
weaknesses?"

           
"Teir—"

           
"Blood merged with blood, until
the new overtakes the old. Do you see what will happen? There will be no more
need for us!"

           
Brennan started to put out a
restraining hand, thought better of it. He could not predict what Teirnan might
do.

           
"The gods would hardly guide us
to fulfillment only to discard us when we have reached it," he said dryly.
"We have been such faithful children."

           
"Faithful, aye . . . perhaps
too faithful." Teirnan frowned and fingered the hilt of his Cheysuli
long-knife. "Aye, I have heard some of this heresy you spout. Niall has
made it no secret for the last twenty years. Peace, he says, as you have said,
with the coming of the Firstborn. But what else? What else, Brennan? Have you
not heard that we are also to lose our lir?"

           
"I think that is
exaggeration."

           
"Oh? It was the Mujhar who said
it, and his loyal liege man, our su'fali." Teirnan shook his head. "I
think perhaps the heresy may hold a kernel of truth. For all I and others have
continually denied it, including the shar tahls, I think perhaps we are to lose
our lir. And for that—for that alone—I think we should reconsider what the
prophecy really means."

           
Brennan sighed. "Is this
nonsense compensation for your pride because you know you will never hold the
Lion? Teir—"

           
But Teirnan shook his head and
stepped abruptly away from the throne. "I renounce it."

           
After momentary astonishment,
Brennan opened his mouth to compliment his cousin on recovering his senses, but
said nothing as Teirnan spoke again.

           
"I renounce it. I renounce you.
I renounce anything to do with the House of Homana, even Maeve."

           
The latter had already been settled;
Maeve had admitted to making a vow to become Teiman's meijha, but in ignorance
of his ambition. Discovery of it had driven a wedge between them, and she had
not returned to Clankeep. Neither did she have, she said, any intention of
honoring her vow; Teirnan's declaration was therefore an empty one.

           
Brennan sighed. "Teir—"

           
"Do you see?" Teiroan
demanded. "We will be diminished. We will be used up. There will be no
more need for flawed children when the Firstborn live again."

           
"You fool." Brennan's
disgust was manifest.

           
"Am I? No. I think I am the
only one who understands fully what will happen." Teirnan moved away from
the throne again. "You have the right of it, Brennan; there were no
a'saii. Only an overly ambitious cousin. But now—now I think the need is come
again. . . ."

           
Teirnan rubbed his face with both
hands, as if to make certain he fully understood the consequences of what he
intended to say. "I renounce the prophecy."

           
Shock turned Brennan icy. He shivered
violently. "You cannot!”

           
"Why? I am bound by nothing
more than my willingness to serve it. Now I choose not to do so."

           
"If you renounce the prophecy
you turn your back on the clans, your race, your tahlmorra—"

           
"Then I will do so."

           
"Teirnan!" Emphatically,
Brennan shook his head. "You deny the afterworld."

           
"I begin to think this world is
more than enough."

           
Teirnan moved past him and descended
the dais steps to the stone floor. Before the firepit, he turned to face his
cousin. "I thank you for your frankness, Brennan. For explaining how
necessary it is for us to breed Firstborn on Ihlini, and how the results will
change the world. Because if you had not, I would still be blindly serving a
prophecy that will undoubtedly insure the destruction of our race."

           
"I could gainsay you,"
Brennan told him angrily. "Here, in this hall, we could settle this
idiocy."

           
Teirnan swung to face him squarely,
beckoning him on with empty, eloquent hands. "Then come, cousin. But if
you do, be certain the fight will be to the death." Teirnan's eyes blazed
with a feral light. "If you truly mean to gainsay me, then you will have
to kill me."

           
They stared hard at one another.
Teirnan's face was alight with some inner exultation, a kindling of new and
abiding commitment. Brennan looked at him in disgust coupled with frustration,
and considered calling his bluff.

           
But there is every chance Teirnan
does not bluff. And if he does not, and I should kill him in some stupid,
pointless battle, I become kinslayer yet again. He shook his head. Teirnan is
not worth it.

           
"Go," Brennan said
harshly. "But remember that you are now a clanless man. Your rune will be
painted out of the birthlines. Your name will be struck from the histories.
“Your jehan will have no son."

           
It was a powerful inducement to make
a warrior recant his renunciation. But Teirnan was not induced. "Unless he
should come with me."

           
"Ceinn would not—" But
Brennan broke off. It was possible Ceinn would; he had raised this rebel. It
was also possible others would; Brennan was realistic enough to know there were
warriors who might prefer the old order to the new.

           
Teirnan smiled a little. "Aye.
I see you understand."

           
Brennan's mouth was dry. "You
would willingly divide the clans?"

           
Teirnan shrugged. "I offer an
alternative. It will be their choice."

           
"It will be no choice!"
Brennan cried. "What kind of warrior are you?"

           
"A'saii," Teirnan said
evenly. "Clanless, runeless, and free—free to serve myself."

           
It was all Brennan could do not to
shout at him. "You profane this place," he said in a deadly tone.
"You dishonor your jehana."

           
"Isolde is dead," Teirnan
said curtly. "As for profaning this place, I will take myself out of
it."