Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (46 page)

           
"Becaused a maimed warrior has
no place in the clans." Strahan shrugged. "Through great
misfortune—he lost an important wager—Hart now lacks a hand. The Cheysuli will
no longer honor him as a warrior. He is, as he himself says, clan-wrecked."

           
"Maimed—" Corin mouthed
it. The ring bit into the flesh of his palm. "Oh—no . . . no—"

           
"Aye," Strahan said,
"and none of my doing. So—you see?—Homana is in dire need of a prince. A
healthy, whole prince, willing to hold the Lion—"

           
Bitterly, Corin finished it,"—in
the name of Asar-Suti."

           
The Ihlini lifted a single eloquent
shoulder. "A minor price to pay. Look what you will get—Homana, the Lion .
. . Aileen."

           
Corin's head snapped up; he stared
at the sorcerer.

           
Strahan smiled warmly. "Need I
remind you? She is to wed the Prince of Homana."

           
Gilded candles guttered. Flame
danced and smoked.

           
Corin clutched the ring. "Show
me," he said hollowly. "Show me my rujholli."

           
Strahan bowed his assent.

           
The Gate emitted a deep gurgling
belch, like a man suppressing laughter, as Strahan left the cavern. Godfire
continued to play around the rim. Tendrils of it licked out of the hole, probed
the air, withdrew in a splash of smoke. Caught in tiers of glassy arches, the
echoed hiss was amplified.

           
Brennan rose, pressing himself to
his feet with one thrust of a splayed hand. He went immediately to his brother.

           
Hart still knelt on the uneven
floor, left arm hugged against his chest. The rocking had ceased, but not the
rigidity of his body or the emptiness of his eyes. His face showed the strain
of his captivity: pronounced hollows beneath high cheekbones, dark circles
beneath blue eyes; a stark bleakness of expression that had nothing to do with
captivity and everything to do with the choice Strahan had given him.

           
Gently, Brennan touched the crown of
Hart's bowed head. “Rujho, I am sorry."

           
The sound of Harts swallow was loud
in the circle of flame. "The worst," he said, "the worst is
knowing I can never fly again."

           
Brennan drew in a very deep breath,
knowing there was nothing he could say to assuage his brother's anguish.

           
Hart turned his face up to stare at
Brennan. "All of those other things I think I could learn to live with,
given time—even being kin-wrecked . . . but to know I am earthbound
forever—"

           
"I know." Brennan's
fingers touched Hart's head. "I know."

           
"You do not know."
Awkwardly, Hart got to his feet.

           
"No warrior whose lir lacks
wings can understand the freedom there is in the air, the manifest miracle of
flight—"

           
He broke off a moment, realizing he
walked too close to the edge of control. "I do not discount Sleeta or your
own lir-shape, Brennan, but it is not the same as mine."

           
"No," Brennan said. His
eyes were on the leather-wrapped stump. "Hart, what happened?"

           
"Foolishness," Hart said
bitterly. "Idiocy, and worse. I put myself in the hands of the enemy for
the price of a stupid game."

           
"You wagered your hand?"

           
"No. Worse. I wagered
Solinde." Hart drew in a deep breath, than blew it out. "It is
complicated, rujho, and I am not proud of it. You can see the result
plainly."

           
Frowning, he looked more closely at
his brother. "What has he done to you?"

           
"To me? To me? Nothing."
Brennan turned away, paced a few steps, swung back. "Nothing that shows,
rujho ... he is too clever for that."

           
"Sleeta?"

           
"He has her. Somewhere here.
Somewhere hidden."

           
He shook his head. "Close
enough to keep me from the edge of lirlessness and madness."

           
"But only just," Hart said
flatly. "Do you think I cannot see it? I can see it in your eyes—"

           
Brennan waved it off. "Aye,
aye," he said shortly, "but what of Strahan? I know why he wants
us—to use as puppet-kings—but why this protracted mummery? Why not simply force
us to do his will? He can. Easily. This is Valgaard, the Gate of the
netherworld—his power is manifest. It should be a simple task—"

           
"Should be," Hart echoed,
"but is it? Could there be a limit to his power? Does he require willing
victims?"

           
Brennan's expression was a scowl of
consideration.

           
"He has other minions, but none
of them are Cheysuli . . . none of them have the Old Blood—"

           
"But this is Valgaard. Why
should it matter here?"

           
"Supposedly, it should
not." Brennan shrugged. "Wishful thinking, rujho—but could it be that
he needs more power to make a Cheysuli his? That one who fights his influence
could drain him of his strength?"

           
"Strahan's strength seems
boundless."

           
Brennan rubbed a hand through dirty
hair. "Aye. But what other explanation? Why does he try to induce us when
force should be enough?"

           
Hart stared toward the Gate.
"Perhaps it is nothing more than a facet of his perversity. Which would
please him more, rujho—a Cheysuli who was forced, or one who accepted service
willingly?

           
"Even Gisella was not
forced."

           
Hart shivered once. "No. What
need? Lillith twisted her so badly—"

           
"—at least, what was left from
the unfortunate circumstance of her birth." Brennan's expression was
unsettled; only rarely did he give over any time to thinking of his mother.
"But this is different, rujho—"

           
"Aye," Hart said harshly.
"He knows what inducements to use."

           
Brennan looked at him sharply,
suddenly afraid. The note in Hart's voice, the expression in his eyes . . . foreboding
was iron in Brennan's belly. "Hart, I can hardly begin to comprehend what
you have lost—"

           
"Aye," Hart said curtly.
"Look to yourself, rujho. My choice is my own to make."

           
And abruptly, the fence of fire died
away.

           
Smoke boiled up from the Gate and
carpeted the floor.

           
It touched their knees, no higher;
spread out to engulf cavern and corridor, wreathing glassy columns. Through the
smoke came Strahan, holding the rune-worked box.

           
Hart's breath was harsh in his
throat. Brennan looked away.

           
"Tahlmorra lujhala mei wiccan,
cheysu," Strahan said as he walked. Echoes thrummed in the Seker's harp.

           
"Such an all-encompassing
statement, this thing of gods and fate. Have you never thought to question it?
To free yourselves of such blind and binding service?"

           
Slowly, Brennan shook his head.
"No more than you have questioned your own service to the Seker."

           
"Ah, but I have my
reasons." Strahan paused between them, near the lip of the Gate. And then
circled it calmly to stand on the other side. He smiled and made a gesture.
"A full complement of Niall's sons."

           
As he meant them to. Hart and
Brennan turned to look. And stared, rigidly, as Corin was brought into the
cavern. That he could not walk was plain; both legs were tightly bound in
wooden splints and linen wrappings.

           
Ihlini carried him on a litter. He
reclined against piled bolsters, but gripped the litter with both hands.

           
"You may blame me as you
like," Strahan said, as Hart and Brennan turned back to him with anger in
their faces, "but it is not my doing." He shrugged. "Broken legs
mend. He will be whole soon."

           
"Provided he accepts the
bargain you offer him," Brennan turned his head and spat. "You are
abomination—"

           
"Am I?" Strahan smiled. He
watched as his servitors brought the litter to a halt near the Gate and set it
down. "I was thinking I might prefer to be known as deliverance."

           
Hart went to Corin. "Rujho—“

           
"I am well enough," Corin
said. "For all I hate to admit it, Strahan does not lie. I am nearly
healed." His eyes were on Hart's left wrist. "He told me—he told
me—"

           
Hart's mouth twisted. "Strahan
does not lie." He sighed.

           
"You know what he wants from
us."

           
Corin averted his gaze. "Aye.
He has made it very plain."

           
Brennan came to the litter and
knelt. "Corin—"

           
"Enough," Strahan said.
"The reunion may come later. I want you to listen to me."

           
After a moment, Brennan rose. Hart
turned to face the Ihlini squarely. On his litter, Corin watched.

           
"I am no more abomination than you,"
Strahan told Brennan. "What I do, I do for my god, my race, myself. I
believe in what I do, because what I do is just."

           
"The destruction of the
Cheysuli? The fall of Homana?"

           
Brennan shook his head. "I
think—“

           
"You do not think!"
Strahan shocked them all with the abruptness and intensity of his passion. The
sound reverberated in the cavern, threading its way among the columns of the
Seker's monstrous harp. “If you thought, you would realize that what I do is no
different from what you do, if for a different reason." Now his tone was
cold as he looked at each of them individually. "When I was a boy, and
very young, I learned what hatred was, and I learned that it had no place in what
I was meant to do. And so I do not Hate you." He drew in a breath, strung
so tightly the others thought—prayed—he might snap. "I learned what it was
to prepare myself to serve my father's god with absolute loyalty, knowing the
way of the Seker was the only way for me. And when Carillon slew Tynstar and
Electra, stripping me of my parents, I learned what it was to know of the
desire for revenge—and how to detach myself from it so it did not affect my
judgment, my needs, my loyalty to my God and to his needs."

           
"No doubt." Brennan said
coolly. "We see the design quite clearly."

           
"Do you? I think not. I think
you see only yourself caught within a trap, when the trap involves much more
than a single man." Strahan shook his head. "You give yourself too
much value, too much weight in the fabric of life ... you are but a slub within
the cloth, subject to rejection."

           
Brennan's brows rose. "If that
were true—"

           
"—I would not want you?"
Again, Strahan shook his head. "You are an ingredient, but hardly the dish
itself."

           
"What is this nonsense?"
Hart asked harshly. "What is this senseless talk of hatred, revenge,
cloth—?"

           
Strahan's odd eyes were incredibly
compelling. "I am no different from any of you. I serve my god as you
serve the pantheon of your own, as dedicated to destroying the prophecy as you
are to fulfilling it. Why? Because fulfillment destroys the Ihlini." He
spread one hand; the other held the rune-scribed box. "You see? A simple
answer for you: I believe in what I do every bit as strongly as you do in your
prophecy. Does it make me a monster? Does it make me abomination? Does it make
me different from you?"

           
"We do not kill people
arbitrarily," Corin said curtly.

           
"We—"

           
But Strahan's laughter overrode his
retort. "Oh, no?" the Ihlini asked. "Then what of the thirty-two
innocent souls who burned to death in the Midden? Was that done with
purpose?"

           
For a long moment all any of them
could do was stare, stricken. And then Hart stirred, knowing himself most
guilty.

           
"But we do not set about
destroying an entire race," he answered flatly. "What of the plague,
Strahan? Twenty years ago it nearly killed us all. What of the wars, Strahan? How
many hundreds of years has Homana fought Solinde merely to stave off the
Ihlini? What of all the trap-links and other sorcerous things designed to bring
us down?"

           
"War requires harsh
measures," Strahan said, "and this is war. A battle for survival that
you would fight as hard, if you were not so blind."

           
"What are we blind to?"
Corin demanded in frustration.

           
"Yourselves," Strahan told
him, looking from Corin to Hart to Brennan. "Once the Firstborn have come,
we will be redundant. Ihlini and Cheysuli; the need for us is gone."

           
Brennan's disgust was plain. "I
have heard that before." He thought of Tiernan and other similar
sentiments. "It is idiocy, Strahan—why would the gods sentence us to death
on the birth of other children?"