Hounds of God (30 page)

Ah no; she had misjudged. He was too far gone to soften into
laughter. Or was it that he persisted in seeing in her what—perhaps—she
was adamantly refusing to see?

He smote his hands together, and she heard it as thunder.
Lightning leaped from his lifted palms. It coiled about him, hissing, spawning snakelets
of fire, while he stood whole and fearless in its center.

Surely it was only a seeming; just as surely, illusion or
not, it raised every hair on her body.

It’s not,
Stefania,
he said, and the voice was his but it was not, soft and inward,
distant yet intimately close. He tucked his legs beneath him; he sat in
comfort, cushioned on air.

The lightning faded. Or perhaps it had entered him. He
glowed softly like a lamp sheathed in parchment, light that shone through his
heavy robe, leaving little to be imagined.

“What happens when you get angry?” she asked
him.

I’m trained not
to lose control.
Even now he seemed proud of that.
We’re not like the sorcerers in the stories. In many ways we’re
stronger. We’re also more restrained. More ethical, you would say.
He
tossed back his unruly hair; his brows met in a single black line.
You’re not supposed to be so cool
about this!

“Very well, I’m not. Shall I have hysterics?
Would it do any good?”

It would save you from
me.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that if you
really wanted to do anything of the sort, you’d have left me on my
doorstep that very first day. Or told me the truth then and there, before I
formed an unshakable opinion of you.”

What—

“I think you’re a perfectly ethical witch, who
also happens to be a very young and rather foolish boy. It doesn’t
matter, Nikephoros. Won’t you accept that?”

He moved swifter than sight. Caught her. Held her prisoner.

She shrank; she shuddered, soul-deep. He felt no different.
And yet—

As swiftly as he had come, he was gone. His eyes tore at her
soul. Wide, clear, unspeakably bitter.
It
doesn’t matter,
he said in his voice that was no voice at all.
Of course not. You can force yourself to
touch me, for proof. But if I touch you...

“You startled me,” she said sharply.

He could laugh. Only the sound of it was illusion, the
roughness that was pain.

She hit him hard. As he rocked with the blow, she seized
him, but gently, running her hands along his knotted shoulders.

Her mind was a roil. She wanted him; she hated him for his long
deception. She hated him for his strangeness; she wanted him fiercely enough to
weaken her knees.

He was warm under her hands, solid, human, no lingering
crackle of lightning. But it was there. She saw it in his eyes. Quiescent
though he was, he was not harmless, no more than a young wolf trained to hand.

That in itself was fascination. To know that power dwelt in
him, power tamed to an arcane law; to know it would not wound her.

Yes. She
knew
. “Are
you telling me,” she asked him slowly, “that I can trust you?”

The flash of his eyes made her breath catch. Perilous,
beautiful. Ineffably tender.

She could trust him. Implicitly. But always with that spice,
the knowledge of what he could do.

Well; that was true of any man. It was true of her own body.
Which, if she did not soon call it to order, would be taking matters into its
own hands. She was naked under her gown, and she knew what lay under his, and
they were all alone. His witchery could make sure they stayed so.

He moved before she did, standing away from her, although he
spoiled it by taking her hands.
Stefania.
His lips followed the syllables, not too badly.
What do we do now?

“I can’t take it in all at once. I have to
think. It’s all changed. What I thought you were; what I thought the
world was. I only know... I think... I still love you.” She looked at
him, drinking him in. “But for now, we should sleep. I in my bed, you in
yours.”

Yes. Yes, I should go.
But he stood still.
Stefania…

She waited. He shook his head, all words lost to him; he
bent and kissed her, gently, but with fire in it.

She wanted to cling; she wanted to hurl herself away in a
madness of revulsion. She moved not at all, but stood like a woman of stone,
marble veined with ice and fire.

With infinite reluctance he let her go, turned, began to
draw away. Her hand rose then, but whether to beckon or repel, even she did not
know.

oOo

Alf knew when Nikki rose, dressed, and slipped away. The boy’s
trouble was as distinct as a bruise. There was little Alf could do for it, and
Nikki would not have welcomed that little. The Akestas were most damnably
independent.

Alf stopped trying either to force or to feign sleep. He
felt strange to himself, his new power shifting within him, begging to be freed
again. Just for a moment; just for its pleasure.

He almost smiled. That was the first danger any of his kind
learned to face, the first bright wonder of a new art, when any small pretext
seemed enough for its use.

Late as he had come to his people, strong as he had been
even then, and wise as the long years had made him, he was no more immune than
any child to this elation of newborn magic. But a child had inborn defenses
lost to the man grown: he tired swiftly, and he slept as now Cynan slept, all
his fires banked and guarded.

Alf raised himself on one elbow. Jehan was snoring gently.
Cynan curled like the pup he had been, back to the warmth. His thumb had worked
its way into his mouth.

Love indeed could pierce like a sword, and its other edge
was loss. The winning of his son only made the keener the absence of his lady
and his daughter. It shore away the armor he had forged so carefully of hope
and patience; it thrust deep into the soft heart beneath.

Hope and patience had gained him something. He had Anna; he
had Cynan. The madman’s caprice had cast them out as easily as it
snatched them away. And Simon Magus did not know that his strongest enemy lived.
He thought he had no opponent now, no one who could thwart him, only toys to be
tormented as a cat torments a mouse.

But Thea had been able to hold him off. She had failed to
trick him into discarding both her children. What now would he do to her? More:
What would he do to Liahan?

Alf was on his feet. Four feet. The power, in the moment of
its master’s preoccupation, had had its way.

The leopard’s muscles drove him around the room in a
restless prowl; the leopard’s instincts cried to him to begin the hunt in
earnest.

But where? demanded the enchanter’s brain. Neither
Anna nor Cynan knew where they had been held prisoner. There could be no scent
to follow, no spoor to lead him to his prey.

Or could there? He returned to the bed, setting his chin on
its edge, measuring its occupants with his eyes. Cynan greeted the touch of his
power with the faintest quiver of gladness, welcoming him into a dream of
warmth and peace; his fetch filled it already, a towering shape armed and
armored with light.

Very gently he freed himself from the dream and advanced
beyond it. The path he had taken before was blazed for him, but only for him.

Once he sensed an intruder, a stab of something alien,
repulsed too quickly for recognition. It might have been Simon Magus. It might
have been merely a fugitive human thought loosed unwittingly in sleep.

Deeper and deeper. There waited the young alaunt, shifting
as he approached, blurring into a multitude of forms. Carefully he skirted it.

It tried to follow, but could not keep pace with his smooth
leopard’s stalk. With visible regret it turned back.

He had not far to go now. Deeper than this and he would be
trapped, bound forever within Cynan’s brain, or else repulsed with force
enough to destroy them both. He must hold to the line, narrow as a sword’s
edge, tracing it with utmost care.

Somewhere, if knowledge and instinct guided him truly, was a
thread. A link like a birth-cord, tenuous as woven moonlight but strong as
steel.

Alun had had it. Gwydion, Aidan—they had it although
time had thinned and faded it, the bond of a child borne in the body of an elf-woman,
conceived and carried in power. Thea would have made it stronger in defending
her children against the enemy, and perhaps Simon would not have known of it.
It lay too deep and stretched too thin for easy finding.

There.
Moonlight
and steel, yes; a glint of bronze. An essence that was Thea, maddeningly faint.

He wavered on the sword’s edge, rocked with longing
for her. Grimly he willed himself to be still.

One foot slipped. He clawed for safety. Caught the thread
itself; clung. It began to bend.

With all his inner strength, he flung himself back and out,
but never letting go the bond. It was finer than thread, finer than hair, finer
than spider silk. One slip and it was lost, irrecoverable.

He had it. The alaunt’s form flashed past. The levels
of Cynan’s mind flickered, higher and higher, growing brighter and
shallower as he ascended.

On the edge of Cynan’s dream he forced a halt.
Carefully, delicately, he wound the strand about his body. Then at last he
flowed from spirit into altered flesh.

Exhaustion bowed him down. Urgency raised him, drove him
toward the door. It was not latched; he nosed it open.

Man-scent filled his nostrils. His hackles rose; his lips
wrinkled. Dimly he knew he should retreat, take his own shape. But the leopard’s
body had already borne him into the courtyard, oozing from shadow to shadow.

His will sufficed only to drive it into a deeper shadow, the
postern of the chapel. Someone had left the door propped ajar, whether for
laziness or for some tryst. Warily he peered round the panel.

The whole world stank of man and of incense. He saw no one,
heard nothing. Inch by inch he insinuated himself into a niche, an angle of
wall between the foremost stall and the first step of the altar dais. Instinct
as deep as the beast’s caution bade him stop here, pray, seek Heaven’s
sanction for his hunt. None but God need ever know in what form he did it.

He moved into the light of the vigil lamp. The beast’s
mind screamed danger; the monk that was grew all the stronger for it, all the
more determined to sanctify the hunt with holy words. He bowed as best he
could, crouching with his head between his forepaws, lifting his eyes to the
crucifix. It glimmered like the thread he must follow.
Let me find her
, he beseeched it.
Help me.

oOo

Oddone woke too early for the Night Office, but with no
desire to lie abed. He rose and put on his habit and went to the chapel to
meditate until the rest of the Brothers should come.

One, it seemed, was there already, a pale blur in front of
the altar. But the Jeromite habit was brown. And this was not quite— He
narrowed his weak eyes; he drew closer to it. No, it did not look like a man.
Not at all. It looked like—

His breath hissed loud in the silence. The creature whipped
about all of a piece, as a cat would. A cat as big as a mastiff, dappled white
and silver like the moon.

Oddone was much too astounded to be afraid. One heard of
saints who found creatures of the wood worshipping at their altars, particularly
on Christmas night. But not in Lent and not in Rome, and certainly not any
creature as uncanny as this. It must have been a leopard, if any leopard could
be so huge and so very pale.

He crossed himself slowly, in large part to see what would
happen. The beast did not burst in a shower of sparks. Not that he had honestly
expected it to. He was sure it had been praying.

It did not attack. It watched him, in fact, if not with
benevolence—those eyes were far too fierce for that—at least
without hostility. He knelt with considerable care, as close as he dared, and
crossed himself again. Bowing his head, he gathered his wits. He had come after
all to pray, not to stare at a prodigy.

His wits, gathered, kept scattering. The leopard bulked huge
in the middle of them. His throat knew exactly where its fangs would close, if
it decided rather to be a good leopard than a good Christian. He was not the
stuff of which saints were made, secure in the knowledge of God’s protection:
his reason knew it, to be sure, but his instincts could not so easily be
persuaded. His eyes opened of themselves and shot a glance sidewise.

No leopard. No—

A man. He sat on his heels as if exhausted, head and
shoulders bowed, long pale hair hiding his face. Not that Oddone needed to see
it, or knew surprise when it lifted to reveal itself. “Signor’
Alfred,” he said quite calmly.

“Brother,” was the calm response. Alf crossed
himself, bowed low to the altar, flowed and melted. His eyes, Oddone noticed,
were the same in the beast as in the man. They lidded; the great strange
creature turned and lost itself in darkness. Oddone sent a prayer after it, for
charity.

The earth quaked. Towers fell; mountains split and belched
forth fire. “Jehan!” they roared. “Father Jehan, for God’s
sake!”

He tumbled into wakefulness, heart thudding with urgency,
body half erect. The world was quite solidly still; the bed had stopped its
rocking. Anna looked ready to begin again, with ample help from a wild-eyed
Nikki; he saw someone else behind them, a girl he did not know, who looked a
little weary and more than a little troubled, but considerably saner than the
rest. He addressed her with all the politeness he could muster this close to
sleep. “Your pardon, demoiselle, but what exactly is the trouble?”

She understood his
langue
d’oeil
, but she answered in Latin. “I’m not sure I know,
Father. We were in my house talking, and Nikephoros went all wild; he pulled
Anna out of bed and ran here.”