Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (43 page)

           
The guardsman dropped his halberd
across the door.

           
"No, my lord, I beg you—let
them prepare him first."

           
"Or let them hide the signs of
Lillith's touch." Corin put a hand on the halberd. "Guardsman, move
aside."

           
"My lord—" But the door
was opened, and Gisella came out of Alaric's chamber.

           
Corin fell back a step. "Jehana—"
And cursed himself instantly.

           
She stared at him blankly. There was
nothing in her eyes save grief, and an odd opacity. Corin recalled what Lillith
had said about Gisella's borrowed wits. Now that Alaric was dead, his mother
would revert to madness, to the woman who had so willingly agreed to give up
her children.

           
"Dead," Gisella said.
"Dead—dead—dead—" But she broke off the refrain. She looked at Corin
expectantly.

           
And then she began to smile.
"Have you come to take me home? Has he sent you to take me home?"

           
Corin suppressed a shudder.
"Jehana—no. Not to Homana. Your place is here—"

           
She stopped him. She put out a hand
and touched the tawny hair that reached his shoulders. "My beautiful
boy," she said. "My strong, beautiful boy . . ."

           
He wanted to move away, to avoid her
entirely, disliking the look of her eyes, but she had backed him against the
wall. And even as he tried to pull away her hand, she locked fingers in his
hair.

           
"Jehana--"

           
"Stay here," she said,
"stay with me. No Homana. Atvia. Atvia is my home. Stay. Stay. Niall has
all the others . . . you will stay with me—"

           
He nearly gagged as he jerked her
fingers from his hair. "Jehana—let me be—"

           
"Corin will stay with me—"

           
He caught her wrists and thrust her
away, sacrificing some hair. But he was free of her at last. And before she
could reach out again, before she could trap him again, he turned and lurched
away. He could not bear to face her.

           
"My lord." Sidra caught
him halfway down the corridor. "Corin, wait—"

           
He pulled free of her hand as well,
wanting no one at all to touch him. "Gods," he said.
"Gods—" And he fell against the wall, turning his face from her.

           
"I know," she said, and he
saw the tearstains on her face. "I know. Come with me, Corin."

           
She took him away. She took him out
of the castle.

           
She took him to the tower, and gave
him bitter ale. She herself took two sips, then pushed her cup away. There was
grief in her eyes, and weariness; a stark, bleak look.

           
But after a time it faded, and it
was his turn to deal with it.

           
He sat on the floor and gathered
Kiri into his arms.

           
"He was nothing to me," he
said blankly. "Less to me than to you."

           
"I know," she said gently.
"To me he was always kind, but I know what he has done."

           
He cradled the vixen against his
chest, needing Kin's strength. "I never wanted Atvia. I have known for as
long as I can remember that one day it would be mine, but I never wanted it. I
wanted Homana instead."

           
"It is your home," Sidra
said.

           
"More." He stroked Kiri
gently, lost in reverie. "More. It was not just that I longed to stay in a
familiar place ... it was that I wanted it for mine. To hold. To rule. To love.
I wanted to be Prince of Homana instead of Prince of Atvia." He tilted his
head and rubbed his cheek against Kiri's fur. "I wanted Brennan's title. I
wanted Brennan's birthright. And now I want his woman."

           
Sidra sat very still.

           
"I went to Erinn to tell her it
was time she wed my rujholli, and fell in love with her myself. Knowing she was
Brennan's. Wishing she might be mine." He stared blindly into the gloom of
Sidra's tower. "But she must wed the Prince of Homana."

           
"Oh, my lord ... I am so sorry
for you."

           
Corin sighed and shut his eyes.
"He will have Aileen. He will have the Lion. He will have Homana."

           
Night had come down fully. It had
begun to rain. Sidra rose and lit a second candle, shielding it with her hand.

           
She turned and looked at him over
the flame. "We needed to know," she said. "We needed to have the
key." And then she opened the door to Lillith.

           
The storm was in the room.
"Strahan wants you,” she told him. Behind her were Atvian soldiers.

           
Corin looked at Sidra.

           
"Strahan's child," she
said.

           
He did not waste time thinking.
Almost at once he was up and running, with Kiri darting ahead. Together they
scrambled up the stairs to the second story, then higher still, heading for the
roof. He unlocked and threw back the trap-door at the top of the ladder, boosted
Kiri through, lurched through himself. Slammed the door down, knowing they
would break through.

           
Slashing wind and rain stripped his
eyes of vision. He was soaked through in an instant. Cursing, Corin made his
way to the low wall and peered out into the storm.

           
Everything was blackness. No stars,
no moon, no torches. He could not see the edge of the cliffs. He could see
nothing at all.

           
Behind him, the door was thrown
open.

           
"Kiri—" he said aloud.
"Let me go first, lir—let me break your fall."

           
He caught the edge of the wall.
Climbed over, clinging to the rocks. Boot toes grabbed for footholds. The stone
was wet, slick, unforgiving. In a moment he would fall.

           
He heard the shouting of the
soldiers. And let go.

           
He fell, scraping bare arms. And
then he landed, toppled, fell—pushed himself up again, wet, muddy, aching.

           
He stared up at the wall, fighting
the rain, trying to see the vixen. Now she could jump. Now he could catch her.

           
Without him, the fall would kill
her.

           
"The fox is taken." Cutting
the darkness he saw a lurid glare of purple light and Lillith's silhouette.

           
"Kiri—"

           
"Give yourself up," she
called. "He has no plans to kill you any more than to kill your brothers.
Strahan has need of you."

           
He knew better than to surrender. If
Strahan wanted him whole, the Ihlini would never harm Kiri. Corin knew it would
be difficult, but there was a chance he might free his lir.

           
Provided I free myself.

           
Accordingly, Corin turned and ran.

           
Through the rain and the wind and
the darkness—

           
—and fell off the edge of the world.

           
There was no time for even a scream.

           
The glare from the Gate backlighted
Strahan, making him little more than a shape before her eyes- She could not see
his face. She could not see his expression. But she heard the satisfaction in
his tone.

           
"One, two, three." He
paused. "Though I might have wished the youngest was less damaged."

           
"He will heal," Lillith
told him. "It was—unexpected. There was no one who could stop him. I think
he was as surprised as any of us when he fell from the top of the cliff."

           
Strahan considered it. "I think
it will have its uses . . . if, for nothing else, to help me sway the
others." Light was a nimbus around him. "I think it is time to
begin."

           
Lillith smiled. "Who will be
the first?"

           
Flame licked out of the Gate, fell
back in a shower of sparks. It illuminated Strahan's face. "First I must
test them, one by one, to learn who is the weakest link. None of them will be
easy. It will be a task of discovery ... I must be very gentle. Nothing will be
done in haste." He knelt. His back was to her. She saw him bend over the
rim of the Gate, extend a hand, then he rose to face her again. In his hands
was a silver cup. It was filled with viscid liquid and a pungent purple smoke.
"I think the first-born shall be the first."

           
Lillith drew in a breath. "He
will be the hardest of all."

           
The cup glowed silver-purple.
"What I have to offer Brennan may not be enough ... it is possible he has overcome
his fear. But I can use his brothers ... I can use his twin. The bond between
them is nearly as strong as that between warrior and lir."

           
"And do you think Hart will
break?"

           
"He may be the easiest. What I
offer him is continuity as a Cheysuli. They are an immensely proud race, as we
have reason to know, and more intractable than they should be," Strahan
smiled and rubbed thoughtfully at his bottom lip. "But now he lacks a
hand. Now he is warned. Lacking a hand, he lacks a race ... I think it should
be enough."

           
"And if Hart does not break?"

           
Over the cup he looked at her. Smoke
wreathed his face, but the eyes were still paramount. "Then all will be
left to Corin. With one, I can break them all." Strahan slowly nodded.
"He is an ambitious man, and jealous of the eldest. It is a formidable weapon.
It should not be difficult."

           
Lillith frowned. "Do not
misjudge them, Strahan. None of them is weak."

           
"But all of them have
weaknesses. And I intend to exploit them."

           
It did not erase her frown. She was
older than her brother by nearly two hundred years. She knew the Cheysuli
better. She knew them very well.

           
Lillith looked at her brother.
Strahan drank from the cup.

           
The door was opened. Light spilled
into the cell. Brennan, hunched against the wall, shut his eyes at once.

           
"Come out," the voice
said.

           
The syllables were strange. Brennan
did not at first know them, hearing only sound. And then he pieced them
together, understood them, stared through the crack he made in the shield of
his fingers.

           
"Come out," the voice repeated.

           
He pressed himself against the wall
and tried to climb inside it.

           
"Bring him out," the voice
said, and hands were laid upon him.

           
They got him as far as the door.
Light fell full upon him. To a man who had lived too long in darkness, the
flame was intolerable.

           
But no more so than the fear.

           
He was poised on the threshold,
blinded by the light.

           
He turned his head aside, shutting
his eyes, trying to avoid it; a torch was held nearer yet.

           
"Behold the Prince of
Homana."

           
The voice was Rhiannon's voice.
Brennan opened his eyes.

           
Alone in the darkness, he had lost
track of time. He knew it had been weeks; he had not expected months.

           
But she was big with the weight of
his child.

           
"Behold the Prince of
Homana." Her tone mocked him. Then she gestured to those who held him.
"Take him at once to Strahan."

           
Slowly it penetrated. He was out of
the cell—free of the cell—they had taken him out of the cell. The stink of it
clung to him, but the scent of hope replaced it.

           
They took him up endless spirals of
winding stairs. He was weak from inactivity, cramped from the tiny cell, bound
up by the burden of fear. He knew he was not mad; he knew also he was not quite
sane.

           
More stairs. And then at last a
door. They opened it, thrust him through, shut the door behind him.

           
Brennan spun, staggering, and tried
to claw open the door. They had shut him up again.

           
His nails broke on the wood. The
latch did not give beneath his desperate fingers. The door was securely locked.
It was no less than he should have expected. He closed his eyes and pressed his
face against the wood, trying to calm himself, but the fear was ever-present.

           
It was all he had known for months.

           
Finally he turned. Expecting
anything, he set his back against the door. But the room was empty of men or
women. No one inhabited it. Brennan drew in an unsteady breath.

           
The chamber was small, but large to
him, after captivity in his cell. The walls were black—Valgaard's dominant
color—but soft rugs carpeted the floors even as tapestries brightened the
walls. Fire blazed in the fireplace. There were chairs and tables and
candleracks, all ablaze with light. It made him squint; he was yet unaccustomed
to light.

           
And then he smelled the food.

           
His belly cramped instantly. They
had not starved him, preferring instead to keep him alive, but the food had
been much less than he was accustomed to, and the diet very plain. His body
cried out for better, and now it was offered to him.

           
Brennan stared at the silver
platters. Hot meat: beef, venison, pork and poultry. Fresh bread: brown, white,
hard and soft, redolent of fresh baking. Wheels of cheese: creamy ivory, pale
yellow, ocher-gold. Baskets of fruit: apples, grapes, pears, peaches, plums and
countless others. Beakers of wine and ale and usca.

           
Quickly he crossed to the table,
reaching out to scoop up the food. He grabbed a goblet of wine. Tore off a
chunk of beef. And then, even as his belly cried out, he ate and drank none of
it.

           
His hands trembled. Wine slopped
over the rim of his goblet, dripping on his boots. The aromas were
overwhelming.

           
He dropped the beef onto the
platter. Set the goblet down. It overturned in the unsteadiness of his hand,
ringing against the wood of the tabletop. All the wine spilled out in a river
of blood-colored liquid.

           
Brennan backed away. And then, still
shaking, he sought a chair and fell into it, leaning forward to press his face
against his hands.

           
The flesh was slack and lifeless.
His nails were rimmed in black. He smelled the stink of himself. He was awash in
the filth of his cell. The Brennan he knew was gone.

           
And his belly cried out for food.

           
"You insult me," Strahan
said.

           
Brennan started. He had heard
nothing, nothing at all, and yet the door was open. And then Strahan closed it
and came to greet his guest.

           
"I offer you food." He
indicated the table. "I offer you wine, ale, bread. Yet you touch none of
it."

           
Brennan had spoken to no man for
weeks, for no one had spoken to him. All he could do was stare.

           
Strahan's eyes narrowed slightly.
And then he smiled, and sat down across fr6m his kinsman.

           
Brennan had not, until now, ever
seen the Ihlini. He had been raised on stories of the man, on tales of his
sorcery, but never had he seen him. And now that he did, now that he sat but
four paces from him, he realized the stories paled beside the man. Strahan was
power incarnate.

           
The eyes, Brennan thought. Gods,
what evil eyes.

           
One blue, one brown, set slightly
oblique in a face built of flawless bones. His beauty did not in any way make
him effeminate, but the features were as arresting as those of a beautiful woman.
Straight, narrow nose, winged blade brows; the fall of raven hair, held bade by
a silver circlet.

           
He was a man who ruled through
beguilement, and Brennan felt its touch.

           
Strahan looked at him. Looked at him
and smiled.

           
"You should see yourself.”

           
Brennan did not need to. He knew
what Strahan saw; what he had ordered shaped to precise specifications.

           
The Ihlini's skin was fairer than
Brennan's. Slender white hands were ablaze with brilliant gemstones: ruby,
sapphire, emerald. A diamond and a bloodstone. His nails were clean and buffed.
Idly, he leaned his chin into one hand and tapped at his upper lip.

           
Brennan did not know at which eye to
look, and so he looked at neither.

           
Strahan sighed a little. His
leathers, soft and gray, were far cleaner than Brennan's soiled brown ones. He
smelled of scented unguents more fragrant than Brennan's stink.

           
"It is unfortunate,"
Strahan said quietly, "that you have come to this state. A prince should
never be brought so low, nor a Cheysuli warrior."

           
Brennan locked himself up in
silence.

           
Strahan gazed at curiously.
"Was it the Womb of the Earth that did it? I have been there, you know. I
have seen the marble tomb, the bottomless oubliette, the rune-carved walls of
the narrow passageway.” He nodded. "I myself have never been afraid of
small places, but it must be a difficult thing to bear. Particularly for a
Cheysuli." He paused. "Particularly for you."

           
Brennan was no longer in the room.
He was back in the Womb, seeing the marble lir. Seeing the oubliette.

           
Learning the meaning of fear.

           
"It must be terrifying to know
yourself locked in, unable to leave ... to know yourself trapped and helpless,
alone in a tiny place. Knowing no one can hear your screams. No one can soothe
your fear. No one can bear it for you."

           
Brennan's breathing quickened. Rigid
fingers made knots of his bands.

           
"And so filthy, too,"
Strahan said sympathetically. "Such humilation, on top of all the fear.
Having to relieve yourself in a corner like an animal instead of like a man . .
. contending with dungeon vermin . . . smelling the stink of one's own
body." He shifted in his chair; gemstones glittered on his fingers.
Glittered to mirror his eyes. "Hearing things . . . seeing things . . .
and too afraid to sleep."

           
Brennan shut his eyes.

           
"And knowing all the time such
a simple thing will free you."

           
Brennan opened his eyes.

           
Strahan leaned forward and took up a
cup of wine.

           
"Will you serve me,
Brennan?"

           
Brennan's scalp itched. Lice
infested him. All he could do was stare.

           
Strahan drank wine.

           
Brennan drew an unsteady breath. The
room was warm, dry, brightly lighted, filled with the beguiling aromas of food
and drink. His body cried out for kindness again.

           
His battered spirit demanded it.

           
Strahan put down the wine. "I
have a smaller cell."

           
Brennan flinched, and hated himself.

           
"More suitable to your
condition."

           
Brennan wet cracked lips.
"No," he croaked, prepared to argue it.

           
Strahan rose. "You will excuse
me, I am sure; there are things I must attend to. My servants will escort you
back."

           
He turned away. A casual flick of
one finger caused the door to swing open. Men waited there.

           
"The prince prefers his
cell." Strahan's tone was one of complete indifference.

           
Men surrounded him. They lifted him
out of the chair and put him on his feet. Before he could speak a word, before
he could begin to struggle, they had taken him from the chamber. Back down the
winding stairways into the depths of Valgaard's bowels.

           
At the cell door, he rebelled. But
they were too strong for him. The door was opened. They flung him through.

           
They locked it on his outcry.

           
Brennan stared blindly into the
darkness and knew Strahan was not finished. And then he began to shake.

           
A second door was unlocked. A second
man brought out. Him also, they took to Strahan.

           
The sorcerer turned from the
casement as Brennan's brother was ushered in. He looked at Hart's gaunt face,
looked at the leather-wrapped stump, looked back at the haunted eyes. "I
apologize," he said kindly. "Dar was overly enthusiastic."

           
Hart was plunged back instantly into
the room at Lisa's dwelling. To when they had pinned his hand to the table.

           
To when the blade had fallen. To the
moment he realized be no longer had a left hand. And the memory of the pain.

           
Rage boiled up inside. But he said
nothing at all; he would not give Strahan the satisfaction.

           
"It makes you angry,” Strahan
said. "Do you think I cannot see it?"

           
As was becoming habitual. Hart
cradled the stump in bis remaining hand, pressing it gently against his chest
in an unconsciously vulnerable gesture of retreat and self-protection.

           
Strahan indicated food and wine.
"Will you eat? Will you drink? I should hate to see it go to waste."
And then he paused, as if arrested in mid-motion. "But of course, I had
forgotten . .. someone will have to cut it for you.

           
Humiliation tied Hart's belly into
knots and briefly, too briefly, colored his face a deeper bronze. It took all
his strength to keep the anguish from his tone. "What do you want me
for?"