Camber’s head reeled, pain lancing behind his eyes and at the back of his head as he coughed and time settled back into place. Dimly he could hear the pounding on the door again, and a familiar but dreaded voice calling his adopted name.
“Father Cullen, may I come in?”
It was Cinhil.
With great difficulty, Camber forced himself to focus on Rhys, not needing to tell the Healer of his alarm. Any other man but Cinhil might be denied admission without explanation, but Cinhil would persist until his own need for comfort was satisfied.
And here sat Camber, in the guise of a man supposedly dead, about to be revealed to the very man for whose sake he had already risked so much. It must not all end now!
Gathering all his reserves in a massive effort of willpower, Camber gestured for Evaine and Joram to go to the oratory as they had originally planned, his hand aching like lead at even that slight movement. To Rhys he murmured, “I have been very fatigued, and you worry that I may be battling some residue of Ariella’s influence. I’m going to take back my other shape and try to hold it.”
As Rhys started to protest, Camber was already triggering the return to Alister’s shape, forcing the other’s memories into abeyance with all his might. He did not know how long he dared hold the two together, but he knew he had to try. When he let his eyes flicker open again, he could see Evaine through the open door of the oratory, lying prostrate before the tiny altar. Joram knelt beside her with his golden head bowed. Rhys was striding toward the door, his eyes hardly leaving the now-changed Camber as he laid his hands on the latch and loosed the wards. In all, the delay had not been more than half a minute.
Camber closed his eyes and hoped.
“Father Alister …?” Cinhil asked, his voice trailing off as he saw Rhys filling the doorway.
Dualta was standing at the king’s elbow, and gave Rhys an apologetic nod.
“Sorry to disturb you, m’lord. I explained to His Grace that the father general was engaged.”
“You said it was only a disciplinary matter,” Cinhil interjected, trying fruitlessly to peer past Rhys. “I need to talk to him, Rhys. Where is he?”
Rhys did not move his hand from the doorjamb at Cinhil’s eye level, and the king had to continue trying to look past it.
“It’s all right, Dualta,” Rhys murmured. “Your Highness, Alister is not really up to seeing any more visitors this evening. I shouldn’t even have let Joram in. He’s extremely tired. I’m trying to get him settled down for the night.”
Concern sparked the gray Haldane eyes, and then Cinhil pushed his way past Rhys and started toward the bowed gray head, just visible over the top of the high chair back. Rhys managed to keep up, half a pace behind, but even he could not move fast enough to stop the king.
Dualta, uncertain just what to do under the circumstances, stepped inside the room and waited uncomfortably. As Joram appeared in the doorway of the oratory and signaled with his hand, Dualta closed the door and stayed there at attention, intelligent brown eyes following king and Healer curiously.
“Sire, he’s drifting in and out of consciousness,” Rhys was saying. “He’ll probably be all right in the morning, if he gets a good night’s sleep, but the important thing now is rest.” He almost caught his breath as Cinhil leaned closer to stare at the still form.
Camber had managed to return completely to his Alister shape, but now he appeared to have lapsed into real unconsciousness. Quickly Rhys knelt to touch a hand to the older man’s wrist, not daring to look at Cinhil now.
“I don’t understand. What’s wrong?” Cinhil asked, in a very small, frightened voice. “Ever since we got back, he’s been so weak.”
“He paid a high price for your safety, Sire,” Joram said, appearing at Cinhil’s side almost without warning. “He would not have told you himself, since he did not wish to trouble you, but his defeat of Ariella cost him a great deal. I was there. I know.”
Cinhil, his attention momentarily diverted to Joram’s solemn face, swallowed awkwardly and glanced at his feet.
“I—sensed that something had changed, from that very first night. But I thought he was only exhausted, and that he would get better.”
“He dreams,” Rhys whispered. “In his mind, he fights her still. It was not a clean kill.”
Urgently he took Camber’s slack hand between his own and held it hard against his forehead, closed his eyes and tried to will energy through the connection.
“Hold strong, Father!” he murmured, so low that Cinhil could barely hear. “Fight it! God! Give him strength!”
As Camber’s eyelids trembled, Joram, too, knelt, crossing himself with a heavy hand. As though a bond had been forged between him and Rhys as well, he laid his hands on Camber’s other arm and bowed his head.
And Cinhil, opening spontaneously to the emotional currents now flowing in the room, staggered and caught himself against another chair, so shaky that Dualta came rushing to his side to catch him under one elbow and lend support. The king was not picking up the specifics of what was occurring, but the sheer surge of power was coming through. Neither he nor Dualta noticed a small, seemingly frail monk come to stand apprehensively in the doorway of the oratory.
Camber stirred sluggishly to awareness within his borrowed form, becoming conscious once more of the forces at odds within him. He had secured control of his shape again, but only at the cost of temporarily damming up the flood of memories. He did not know whether he could slow the process and control it once he let it start again—not and still retain his physical façade. And the pressure was building again.
Try one—one at a time, he told himself, not knowing whether that was even possible, yet certain that he had to relieve the pressure soon or lose everything.
Try one—just one … easy … easy …
He was in the classics school at Saint Neot’s. He was fifteen, and he was the most promising of his class. As he stood to recite, he could feel Dom Eleric’s proud eyes upon him, knew that he had mastered everything the good Gabrilite brethren were permitted to teach him. He had been here for nearly two years, the maximum time allowed for young men not intending to enter the Gabrilite Order. In the summer he would go to Cheltham for further training under Michaeline masters. And in a few more years, if God willed it, he would be knighted and ordained …
There. That hadn’t been so bad. Try another one. Let it—
He was wounded, though he felt no pain. He knew the wounds were bad, that they would probably kill him, but he knew he would not fall until he had succeeded. The Evil One could not stand against him in this fight, for he fought with the strength of the Light.
My God, he was reliving Alister’s final battle with Ariella!
He felt a sword slash into his thigh as he was unhorsed, cleaving leather and mail, but still he fought on. Another part of him struggled to pull away, to avoid this last confrontation at any cost, but the exultation of battle against Her minions was tonic to his tortured body, rendering him invincible, invulnerable to pain. One of Ariella’s men went down beneath his blade, and then another.
And what he felt now, in the extremity of his striving, both as Alister and as Camber, was echoed in the chamber, there for the psychic listening of anyone with the wit to ken it.
Rhys felt it, and tightened his grip on the master’s hand, pouring out all the strength he could to aid the struggle.
And Joram, apparently in prayer against more usual devils, laid both hands on his father’s knees and willed him power, his head drooping low between his outstretched arms as he reached to the bottom of his being to call forth strength.
Cinhil was reeling under the onslaught, senses completely overloaded, trying in vain to cope with emotions of an intensity he had never had to deal with before. He sank limply to his knees as his staring eyes watched Alister Cullen’s trembling body.
Neither he nor the petrified Dualta was aware of the final contribution: of the slender monk standing in the doorway of the oratory, hands
now raised in benediction, lips moving silently but with the force of mind behind, in the renewed words of a litany she and Camber had shared before.
I am the key …
I, the lock … Camber managed to respond.
A candle in the dark … Evaine sent.
A twig, for feeding flame …
I am the Light, Evaine willed. Let it be!
The vessel, came Camber’s faint response. Key … twig … I—fill …
The floodgates opened again, more sluggish this time, since a part of him must struggle to maintain his shape; and then he was barraged with a new set of memories in rapid succession—shorthand, telegraphed images, each with its wealth of information which did not have to be consciously examined but which slipped into his own memory and to greater depths with a force which could no longer be withstood.
Poring over a brightly painted map board with a handful of newly dedicated Michaeline knights, listening approvingly as one of the most promising, a blond young priest named Joram, explained the strategy for a hypothetical attack on …
Dhassa, the holy city, seat of the Prince-Bishop Raymond, his maternal uncle, who laid consecrated hands on his head in ordination, while his parents proudly watched …
He was a child again, running and shouting at games with the other boys his age at Saint Liam’s Abbey school, tanned legs flashing beneath the blue uniform robe which all of them wore, whether or not destined for the Church …
A massive leap forward in time, and he was once more the Michaeline vicar general, rising to give guarded greeting to a tall, gilt-haired Deryni Lord who was an older, more mature version of the beloved young priest at his side, who would serve as intermediary in this first face-to-face meeting.
And later, much later, standing guard in full armor before a secret chapel door, as a woman and a Healer and that same High Deryni Lord approached, guiding a glaze-eyed man no longer priest and not yet king. He could feel the quillons of the greatsword cold beneath his gloved hands, and bowed his helmed head in homage as he passed them through the door. He knew and did not know what else occurred that night, for he was, in fact, two men now, seeing that door through two minds intertwined.
A gasp of pain, a searing crunch of bone within his mailed side, and he was back in the clearing at Iomaire. The great warhorse reared and plunged beneath him, striking out with steel-shod hooves to maim and kill Ariella’s men, and this time Camber knew he would have to let the memory run its course. The horse screamed and died beneath him as he took another wound in the thigh, but he managed to throw himself clear and gut another of Ariella’s men as he rolled and scrambled to his feet. His Michaelines were dying all around him, as well as Ariella’s men, and at last he alone still stood, to face the deceptively innocent-looking Enemy across what seemed an infinity of blood-soaked clearing.
He hurt now. No blessed numbness of battle fever any longer. Yet he knew that the worst was surely yet to come. Standing shakily in the only path which Ariella might take to freedom, sword gripped, tightly in his two gloved hands, he saw her spur her stallion toward him as though in a dream. A tangle of hurting hooves and saddle and steaming horse entrails as his sword ripped upward, and then he was struggling from beneath the dying animal to search desperately for Ariella, who raised her hands in killing spell.
He knew the awesome certainty that death was near. He could feel his physical strength ebbing as his body pumped blood from half a dozen wounds. Pulling from his deepest reservoirs of strength, he reversed his sword and brought the gilded cross-hilt tremblingly to his lips, with that kiss imparting all his will and resolution to the sacred blade.
As he hurled it toward her heart, he felt himself falling, sinking psychically as well as physically into a darkness which could no longer be denied.
Another part of him realized, at least vaguely, what was happening, however, and that part was not ready to succumb. Even though he could not seem to make his body respond, Camber knew still, through the fog of alien memory, that he must keep hold of the last shreds of the identity his body wore.
But he was not breathing any more, and could not seem to make himself resume! And if he diverted energy to that, he would not be able to hold his shape!
He felt Rhys’s presence strongly, then, and Joram’s, and knew that they would not let him die—but there was a reason why he must not lose his shape, though he could no longer remember what it was. A few more seconds, and someone would have to do something, or he would be in control of nothing—and the memory assimilation was not yet complete, though the pressure of the remaining recall was not nearly as insistent now, after the reliving of Alister’s death.
Suddenly there was motion around him, and he knew that the decision had been taken out of his hands. He felt his body being pulled to the floor amid the soft fur rugs, felt firm hands tilting back his head as Rhys once more blew life into his lungs. His heart was pounding now, trying to get oxygen to his starved brain, but it could not hold that pace for long. Rhys must also have realized that, for abruptly Joram replaced him on the breathing so that Rhys could concentrate on slowing the racing heartbeat, pressing healing hands against the barely moving chest and willing the heart to slow.
He thought he could feel someone staring at him, but the effort to open his eyes and see was far too great.
Then Evaine’s presence was strong within him, though she had not moved from her place in the doorway of the oratory, hands resting above shoulder level on the edges of the doorjamb. He could feel her reaching out to someone else’s mind in the room, though he did not know how he knew that. And then he heard a young voice which should have been familiar but was not, gasping in desperate supplication:
“O God, if only Camber were here!” the man cried. “O God, Camber could save the vicar general!”
Camber was too weary to worry about the implications. Indeed, he would never really quite remember what actually happened next. At Evaine’s word of reassurance, he gathered a mammoth surge of strength and willed himself to settle back into the proper functions of his body, forced himself to inhale on his own—once, twice, a third time—letting other controls waver, if they must. Joram drew back to watch, pleased at first—then tried to hide his panic as he realized what Camber was doing.
For Camber’s face was changing, misting over, shifting subtly from the gaunt, drawn features of Alister Cullen to Camber’s own, as though the one were superimposed on the other.
Rhys saw it coming almost as soon as Joram did, but he dared not allow its recognition to hinder his healing function. Now was the only chance he would have to mend the damage already done and to get Camber back into balance. He closed his eyes to shut out the distraction, and prayed as he set things right.
But Cinhil went even whiter as the change became apparent, hardly feeling the iron grip of Dualta, who stared in awe at what he believed he had called up.
The entire illusion did not last more than a few seconds, but it was long enough. Long enough for Rhys to work his healing, and for Camber to regain control; long enough for the stunned Dualta to be certain, for the rest of his days, that he had just witnessed a miracle; and for Cinhil to doubt his sanity for just a moment.
Quickly the face Camber wore solidified into the familiar visage of Alister Cullen and resumed a slow, steady breathing, seemingly at peace now; and behind them all, a slender monk let fall her arms and sank to her knees in exhaustion.
Camber, as he let the last of Alister Cullen’s memories slip into place among his own, had a final fleeting image of Alister standing in the window of his study at the Michaeline Commanderie, arms crossed casually on his chest as he stared out at the dying day. There was someone else standing at his back who had almost always been there, and whose arm was laid across his shoulder now in simple, mindless companionship.
It was Jebediah; and Camber knew, as he slipped into healing sleep, his identity now secure, that he could never hope to duplicate the bond the two had shared.
As Camber rela
xed in sleep, Rhys drew a long, shuddering breath and lifted his head, catching himself on hands and knees as his own fatigue washed over him. Joram, who had been kneeling by Camber’s head, rocked back on his heels and then collapsed with his face in his hands, bowed over his trembling knees, shoulders shaking with silent weeping.
Cinhil swallowed noisily, the only sound in the hushed room, and glanced from Healer to priest and then, almost as an afterthought, at the sheet-white Dualta kneeling beside him.
“Did—” He had to swallow again. “Did the rest of you see what I think I saw?”
“The Lord’s Name be praised!” Dualta whispered. He crossed himself and clasped his hands reverently. “He sent the Blessed Camber to help us! The Lord sent Camber to save His servant Alister!”
Rhys saw Joram’s shoulders stiffen a little at the obvious conclusion Dualta had reached, but he was far more concerned with Cinhil’s reaction. As he glanced groggily at the king, he could see that Cinhil’s face had gone set and stony, that the previous man of faith, who could easily have accepted a miracle in the course of a day’s experience, was warring with the present man of more cynical persuasion.
As much to distract Cinhil from too much thinking as anything else, Rhys reached out to touch Camber’s forehead. The inference of divine intervention was unfortunate, but it was certainly more desirable than the truth. If necessary, he must foster the lie to guard the greater lie. Cinhil must never suspect that it was a mortal Camber who had made an appearance a few minutes ago.
“He appears to be out of danger now,” he managed to croak. “I—can’t explain what happened. All of you are far more knowledgeable about these things than I. But I do know that he was fighting a terrible battle within himself, and that from somewhere he found the strength to persevere.”
“From Camber?” Cinhil whispered.
The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy Page 58
