He took a deep breath and ran his hands lightly above her body, not touching it as he extended his senses, but then he breathed a sigh. Here was no arcane binding of life to ruined body. The life-suspending spell on which she had spent her dying energy had not worked. Power and life were gone. Ariella, unlike Cullen, was truly dead.
With steely resolution, he drew a fold of the blood-soaked mantle over her face, then wrapped several turns of his own cloak around his hand and withdrew Cullen’s sword. The weapon throbbed as he touched it, even through the layers of wool between his hand and the hilt, and it sang with a deep, thrumming note as he pulled it free.
A low-voiced phrase, a stilling of all fear, and then he touched the sacred blade to his lips in salute. At once it was only a ruined sword.
He thrust it through his belt, then gathered up Ariella’s body and wrapped it in the bloody mantle as best he could. Joram’s horse was cropping grass contentedly nearby, and Camber laid the body across the saddle. As he secured the body in place, he watched his son kneeling across the clearing in the circle of silver light and thought about his dead friend. Cullen’s death meant a rethinking of a number of factors.
Most immediately significant, of course, was Ariella’s death, which Cullen had wrought—though that by no means ended the struggles which lay ahead for the newly restored Haldane line. Ariella had left a son somewhere in safety, someday to return and grasp for the throne his parents had lost. Ariella’s son would come of age at a time when Gwynedd was least able to resist him—for though Cinhil was in good health, and like to live a score of years, barring accident, his elder son was sickly, and the younger clubfooted and almost unsuitable to rule. Either would have to be extraordinary indeed, to stand against a son of Festil and his Torenthi allies.
Added to the continuing Festillic menace was Cinhil’s own bitterness. Camber counted himself partially to blame for that. In an effort to keep at least some line of communication open with Cinhil, who daily grew more bitter at what life had dealt him, Camber had allowed himself to become a focal point for Cinhil’s resentment—a resentment which was slowly but inexorably being directed toward Deryni in general.
This last was not yet an overt thing, though Cullen had hinted at it this morning, and might never really mature during Cinhil’s lifetime. But Camber was Deryni, and Ariella’s son and allies were Deryni, as were a host of others who had put Cinhil where he was instead of in his beloved monastery. If Cinhil should die before his sons were mature enough to reject by reason what their father had felt by instinct, then there could be hard times indeed for all the Deryni race.
But what could be done? Could anyone stop the backlash which seemed to loom so certainly in the future? Or, if the storm was meant to be, if the Deryni heritage must be tempered in the fire of vengeance, was there a way to soften the blow, to keep the proud heritage and talents of the Deryni somewhat intact, even through the indignity of suppression and perhaps outright persecution? Great God, might it really come to that?
It might, Camber acknowledged, as he tightened the last of the thongs binding the body of the dead princess in place. But there might be ways to stop it, or at least lessen it. Such ways would require much, though: his full-time attention, and additional help, and most of all, Cinhil’s cooperation, whether he knew it or not.
And now, with Alister Cullen dead …
Camber cocked his head at that, the flash of a long-ago memory lighting his gloom for just a moment, as an idea began to form. It was dangerous, it was daring, he did not know if even he had the courage to go through with it—but it just might work. The first question was, would Joram consent?
Mentally steeling himself for resistance, Camber ran his hand along the horse’s neck a final time, then moved to kneel opposite Joram again, the body of Cullen between them. After a few heartbeats, Joram crossed himself and looked up.
“What did she do to him, Father?” the priest whispered. “There’s something drastically wrong.”
“I know. I’ll take care of it in a moment. First, I want to ask you something very important.”
“More important than Alister’s immortal soul?”
“In the greater scheme of things, perhaps so—though your grief may not allow you to see that clearly just now.”
Joram looked at him sharply, then brushed the back of a mailed hand across his eyes and tried to suppress a sniff.
“What do you mean?”
Camber sat back on his haunches. “Would you believe me if I told you that even Alister’s death may have had its place in a greater plan?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Cinhil—about his increasing hostility toward me and toward our people in general, with a few notable exceptions like Alister and perhaps a few others. We changed him, Joram. From a simple, pious, dedicated priest, we made a king—yes. We taught him what he must know, and he adapted as best he could.
“But the changes which we so carefully forged in Cinhil were tainted by our urgency, warped of necessity—because even a warped Haldane was better than the Deryni madman who sat the throne of Gwynedd two years ago.”
“You’ve lost me,” Joram said. “What does this have to do with Alister?”
“Because in turning Cinhil against the Deryni Imre, we have unwittingly turned him against all Deryni, even if he does not fully know it yet. And Alister was one of our few hopes to keep him thinking otherwise.
“Oh, things may go tolerably for several years, maybe even until the end of the reign—God grant that it may be long—but what then? Unless Cinhil lays the groundwork for tolerance, despite his personal feelings against the Deryni—and maybe even if he does—I see a horrible backlash coming. If that happens, I shudder at what may happen to our people.”
“Can you do nothing about it?” Joram asked, eyes wide with the new-recognized danger.
“Can Camber? I fear not. You’ve seen how Cinhil reacts to me. You know why we’ve been feeding my input through you and Alister and Rhys increasingly these last few months—and even you have begun to slip somewhat in his estimation.”
Joram’s gaze dropped guiltily as Camber continued.
“I’ve been doing some thinking just now, Joram. I’ve reached the conclusion that perhaps I’ve outlived my usefulness. More and more, I’m becoming a liability rather than an asset—to Cinhil and to our cause. I’d even considered dropping out of sight, disappearing, so that I could work in secret to neutralize some of what we’ve inadvertently started. Only, now I think there’s a better way.”
“I don’t think I follow you,” Joram said uneasily. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“I’m not sure I want to, either,” Camber replied. “It scares me more than I can tell you. But it does present a solution of sorts, with potential which I, as myself, simply don’t have. Other than the two of us, no one knows that Cullen is dead. Few others need to know. If I were to take his place—”
Joram’s hands flew to Cullen’s chest in an instinctive protective gesture, his face going white.
“No! I know what you’re thinking, and I won’t have it!”
“Joram, if I must take the time to reconvince you of the neutrality of the magic involved, then we are lost. Believe me, it’s the only way. Alister Cullen must live, and so Camber MacRorie must die.”
“No,” Joram whispered stubbornly, even more stricken than before.
“Yes. Come, now. ’Tis not so bad as all of that. I shan’t really die, you know. Besides, to be remembered kindly as the Restorer of the Haldanes is not so bad a fate. Even our Haldane, bitter though he is, would not begrudge Camber of Culdi an honorable burial, in the vaults at Caerrorie, where his ancestors lie. And I, as Alister Cullen, can continue to work at the things which Camber is helpless to do right now. I think that our old friend would not mind.”
He glanced at Cullen’s still face, then back at his son.
“Joram, it may not turn out to be the best way, but it’s the only way I can
think of right now. And if we let this opportunity slip by, who knows if another will pass this way again? Think of Cinhil. Think of Gwynedd. Won’t you help me? I can’t hope to succeed in this charade unless you do.”
Joram squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head miserably, arms clutched comfortless across his chest. After a moment he looked up, gray eyes haunted by a grief which seemed to have no end in sight.
“Must you do this thing?”
“I think I must.”
Joram swallowed and fought back tears, forcing his mind to reenter its customary channels of logic.
“If you—do this thing, you will be treading a very dangerous balance, especially with Cinhil. I don’t see how you can hope to deceive him indefinitely—and what of all the others?”
“I shall take such memories as are left, what things you and I know of him, and pray,” Camber replied gently. “I can blame most initial lapses on battle fatigue and grief at Camber’s death—perhaps even go into retreat for a while.”
“And what then?” Joram asked. “Father, I don’t even know the full extent of his relationship with Cinhil. And then, there’s the Order—a full-time occupation in itself, and you not even a priest—and the bishopric he was to receive—My God, it’s insane even to think of it!”
“Then it’s insane, and I’m a madman, and you must either help me or betray me!” Camber countered. “Which is it to be? We haven’t time to argue any more. Someone could come along at any minute.”
Son and father stared at each other in silence for a heartbeat, shocked and defiant, sickened and determined, each reflecting the pain and indecision of the other. Then Joram bent to begin unbuckling Cullen’s greaves, a tear splashing on the polished metal as numb fingers fought with battle-gritted buckles.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Camber pulled the coif from Cullen’s grizzled head and then laid both his hands on the forehead. He closed his eyes and let his awareness center and then extend, reaching out for what was left of Alister Cullen.
The remaining memory fragments were chaotic, jumbled and rent already with death-wrought gaps which he could never hope to fill; but he had expected that. Without pausing to read those memories, he let them siphon off into a closely guarded vault of his own being, slowing the flow only to sift it from the shadows of death—not to impart any kind of order or understanding. Later, he would—he must—integrate the alien memories with his own, but for now such as remained of Alister Cullen must be merely locked away, partitioned off beyond kenning. There was no time for more.
He knew the price he would pay for that haste. To take another’s memories whole, without assimilation at the time of taking, was to court the throbbing, pulsing pain of all the other’s dying once he did find the time to do things right. And he dared not delay to find that time, not beyond a week or two, at best—for pressure built with passing time, like a wound festering with infection, and had been known to drive men truly mad, when at last they did dare to let the pressure out.
But he would not do that. In the mourning of the next week or so, he would make the time to deal with Cullen’s memories, perhaps with the aid of those precious few whose love he must rely upon to help play out what now began. There would always be blanks, and areas of gray which he could never fill, but even some of Cullen’s memories were better than none—were essential, if he was to become Alister Cullen to other men.
Memories secured and locked away, the binding made, he quested outward one more time, this time to touch those other bonds—grim, slimy chains—which lingered, part of Ariella. Those he loosed with the strength of his affection, as he had loosed others before—vestiges of arcane battle, which did not always kill cleanly, as Joram had pointed out. The very air seemed to lighten around him as the last of the spell was neutralized, and he bade a final farewell to Cullen: former adversary, fellow conspirator, intellectual sparring partner, friend, brother. He opened his eyes to find Joram staring at him.
“Is he …?”
“He’s at peace now,” Camber said gently.
Joram lowered his eyes, lips moving in prayer, then crossed himself and resumed unfastening Cullen’s armor. Camber helped him, the two working in silence for several minutes. When they had nearly stripped the body, Camber began removing his own harness, giving it to Joram to place on Cullen while he, himself, donned the fighting priest’s attire. When he had finished the last buckle and lace, he knelt again opposite his son, watching as Joram smoothed the battle-stained MacRorie surcoat over the still chest. As a last task, Camber removed his MacRorie seal ring and slid it onto Cullen’s bloody left hand. Joram removed the silver signet of the Michaeline vicar generalship and laid it gently on Cullen’s chest between them.
“How will you explain Camber’s death?” Joram whispered, not taking his eyes from the ring. “When we left to find Alister, you were unscathed. Were you killed in battle with her?”
Camber picked up the cross-embellished helm Cullen had worn and settled it over the coif on his own head. “We will explain all as it was, but for it happening later. You and I came upon Alister, locked in battle with Ariella. Alister was wounded, so I took his place and, myself, took fatal wounds in the struggle which ensued—but it was Alister who finally killed her. When you and I bring back the bodies of Camber and Ariella, no one will dream of disputing our story.”
Joram nodded miserably, still not looking up, and Camber leaned across to lay both hands on his son’s shoulders.
“We must do it now, son.”
In an impulsive movement, Joram gave his father a quick embrace, wiping tears with the back of his hand as he pulled away to crouch in place once more. Camber smiled as he folded his hands calmly before him.
“Will you ward us, please?” he whispered.
Drawing a deep breath and closing his eyes, Joram raised his arms to either side and triggered the words which would set the wards. Countless times before, he had done this, and often in his father’s presence, but never had the words meant so much or been so emotionally charged. Pale, blue-white light sprang up around them, barely visible in the growing darkness, and Joram lowered his arms, tears now streaming down his face quite openly.
Camber ignored the tears and leaned forward to touch lightly the ring lying on Cullen’s chest. At his touch, it began to glow with a cool white light. Then Camber raised his left hand and matched it, fingertip to fingertip, with Joram’s right, while his own right hand was laid gently on Cullen’s forehead.
“Remember, now,” he murmured low, the bond of his love forging the link between them as it had in a chapel at Caerrorie two years ago and more. “Match hand and heart and mind with mine, and join your light to mine when we are one.”
He watched Joram’s gaze waver, the flickering of his eyelids, trembling, closing, as he sank reluctant but obedient into that calm, profound Deryni trance. Then he let his own gaze drift to the ring between them, which glowed ever brighter in the ghostly twilight. After a moment, he let his own eyes close, and concentrated on the crystalline oneness of the bond they shared. Joram was ready.
No still waters here, for Joram was not that—but rather, the laugh of a sunlit spring dancing over stream-polished pebbles, bright and jewellike, rare existence—and the cool and glimmer of deeper places, soft and silver-pure, into which Camber now let his consciousness slip.
Joram was in control now; and if he had wanted to end what was to be, he could have done it. But he did not. With Camber’s merging into union with his mind came the weight of destiny and purpose which he now realized his father had known long before, if only unconsciously, and of which Joram himself had only dipped the surface.
No fearing now, but sharing, sureness, acceptance.
“Behold,” Joram’s voice whispered, green leaves floating on gently welling waters. “Behold the essence of thine outward form, O my father. Likewise, the outward form of him who was our friend.” He drew a steady breath. “Let each essence mingle now, in the cool fire which rests between you. Be Aliste
r Cullen, in all outward forming. And let the outward form of him who was our friend become most like the Earl of Culdi, thy dear face. Let it be done. Fiat. Amen.”
Camber’s lips formed the words, but no sound came forth—and Joram slitted his eyes open to watch with awe as a mist seemed to shroud his father’s face. As if through a veil, he saw the familiar features shift, glanced quickly at Cullen’s face and saw similar changes taking place.
Then the signet ring flared brightly between them, so that Joram flung up his free hand to shield his eyes. When he could see again, it was not his father’s form who knelt opposite him. The visage of one who had been dead now opened pale, sea-ice eyes to look at him uncertainly. And at his knees, his father’s face slept the sleep of those who will never walk the earth again.
Joram swallowed audibly as he pulled his hand away from a stranger’s touch.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
—Proverbs 24:33
It was full dark by the time they returned to camp. Cook fires were beginning to be lit among the tents of the common soldiers, and an occasional torch burned in a cresset set into the ground along the main aisles between the tent rows.
Small groups of men bearing the wounded and dead passed several times, but to these, the sight of two more Michaelines bringing in horse-borne bodies aroused no special notice. There were many dead; it was dark; the day had been long.
Joram led the way, guarding the cloak-shrouded body which the world would soon see as Camber MacRorie. Camber led the beast bearing the slain Ariella. Though they sometimes stumbled in the hoof-churned mud, Camber had not the heart to secure a torch and disclose his son’s grief to all. Time, soon enough, for that. For now, give him the kind anonymity of darkness. Too soon, their deadly game would begin in earnest.
And even now, it began. As they passed the royal pavilion, heading for the Michaeline encampment a little farther down the line, Joram was recognized, first by some Michaelines, then by a handful of his MacRorie retainers gathered by a fire near the earl’s standard. A murmur went up among the Michaelines as the grizzled head of their vicar general was also spotted, and Camber lowered his eyes, glancing neither right nor left.
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