Her expression began to harden, the tenderness giving way to bitter hurt. Tears spilled again down her cheeks. “When you chose me I thought…” She stopped, lifted her chin defiantly, and dashed the moisture from her face. “But I see I was a fool. Even on your last night of life, what would you, a great northern prince and a hero of the people, want with a Dorsaddi whore, eh?”
She lurched toward the doorway. He caught her arm, his head spinning with the scent of her and the force of the emotion finally erupting in him. Her face came around, etched with hurt and anger, and he stopped her protests with his mouth.
It was an awkward kiss, quick and clumsy-he had never kissed a woman before. Had he stopped to think, he wouldn’t have done it now. But there had been no thought. As in combat, there was only time for action, and he had acted.
As he drew away, the cold conviction of error gripped him. What had he done? That was surely the last thing she wanted, never mind what she’d said about loving him.
She stared at him as if she’d been struck by Command, unmoving, her mouth agape, her eyes so wide the whites ringed them. He had, at least, stunned her as much as she had stunned him.
Still she said nothing, just stood there, staring up at him. When at last he realized she hadn’t yet wrenched herself free of him and wasn’t going to, he bent toward her again. She held her ground and lifted her lips to meet him. Then her hand was pressing against the back of his neck, and suddenly, incredibly, she was in his arms, her intoxicating softness pressed against the length of his body.
The doors on that secret place in his soul blew off, and all his desire and need and love came roaring out, igniting his flesh with fire and filling him with a rising pressure that made his ears ring and his chest feel as if it might explode.
He could not hold her close enough, could not get enough of her softness, her spicy scent, her sweet, warm lips. Yesterday, today, tomorrow-vows and heroes and the looming prospect of a horrible death-it was all blasted away by the wild winds of his passion. There was no thought of restraint, no thought of propriety or consequence. She loved him, wanted him as much as he wanted her.
For a few hours that was all that mattered.
C H A P T E R
23
The morning mist hung chill and damp, heavy with the scent of the sea. Pale tendrils curled around Abramm’s head and drifted between him and the balconies to either side of him. It had swallowed most of the city and, from this vantage, rendered even the plaza directly below veiled and indistinct.
He’d arisen a little while ago, pulled on shirt, britches, and tunic in the darkness, and left Shettai asleep in the draperied bed. He should be sleeping himself-he understood now why Brogai tradition demanded celibacy on the eve of battle-but sleep had become impossible.
Last night had been … glorious. Never had he known such delight, such intense physical pleasure, such deep contentment and satisfaction. It had faded with the dawn, of course, but it had left behind the sense that somehow his soul had been expanded. It had changed everything. And nothing.
Awakening to find Shettai in his arms, her dark hair spread like a wing across his chest, he’d been totally unprepared for the emotion that surged through him, totally unprepared to find his righteous thoughts of heroism and duty withering before the brightness of a desire magnified for having been expressed and reciprocated. His desire for her, his fear of dying, his agonized reluctance to cause her pain, all the reasons Katahn had advanced for his defection-as well as those Shettai herself had put forth-had all boiled up in a hot surge of decision, and for a moment he was convinced he was going to go over. And then, in the next moment, the heat had transmuted to horror and revulsion and scalding self-contempt … only to revert back to longing and rationalization. The cycle repeated over and over. It was the same excruciating duality he’d endured last night, intensified a hundredfold.
Consumed at length with the restless fervor of his indecision, he’d arisen, dressed, and come out here-as if the brightening light and chill morning air might somehow settle him one way or the other.
In the plaza below, lantern keepers were at work snuffing the flames of the fish-bladder lanterns, one after the other of them winking out in the gloom. Last night’s celebrants had gone home, replaced by eager fans waiting for seats that would be assigned first come, first served. Many had arrived long ago, still curled beneath their cloaks and blankets in a line that started at the main gate somewhere to his right.
Already the merchants were returning to reopen their wagons and set out their wares, sea gulls swooping around them, seeking booty that had been dropped last night. Soon the sleepy fans were staggering to their feet as the smell of fry bread warmed the air.
The scent triggered memories of distant summer morns, playing tag with Carissa and Gillard and the cousins around striped festival tents. Squealing with excitement, they’d darted between the horses and flags, the ropes and gear and barrels, savoring the sweet scent of the baking sugar-crusted twistbreads they’d soon be eating….
He sighed and pushed the memory away. That was a long time-and place-ago.
More and more people filtered into the plaza, taking their place in line. A good number carried slender sticks topped with misshapen whitewashed diamond motifs that they occasionally waved above the crowd. Supposedly representing himself in costume, the diamonds proclaimed support for the Pretender. Similar sticks bearing silvered crescent moons designated Beltha’adi’s supporters, markedly in the minority this morning.
The rising level of babble below drew his attention leftward as a division of gray-tunicked soldiers marched up behind the purple banner of the Black Moon. Forcing the civilians to dive aside, the soldiers bored straight through the waiting line and stopped at the main gate. As their commanding officer began barking orders, men ran to take up posts alongside the gate, then at points along the plaza’s outer and inner perimeters.
Another unit passed by them and entered the amphitheater itself.
Riot control, Abramm reflected grimly.
No one dared say anything to the soldiers, but as the ticket line reformed, he saw a few resentful shakings of the diamond-topped sticks at the soldiers’ backs.
After today they’ll be shaking those sticks at me, he thought. Or more likely, will have broken them and thrown them in the fire. After today, if he chose in favor of his desire, the White Pretender would be transformed from a symbol of hope and courage to one of betrayal and cowardice.
He frowned, dismayed by the renewal of aggrieved self-loathing, and pushed the thought away. Would he rather be dead? Lose Shettai? Break her heart?
Of course not. Of course not …
“You’re up early, my love.” As if his thoughts had drawn her, Shettai slipped up beside him and slid an arm underneath his unfastened tunic. She lifted her lips for him to kiss and he did so, slowly, tenderly, savoring the taste and touch and smell of her.
Dust and ashes! How can I even think of giving this up?
When they drew apart she stayed in his arms, looking up into his eyes, searching for the answer he still hadn’t given her and clearly hesitant to ask. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her he had indeed decided-that he would never leave her, never hurt her like that … but the other side of him kept his tongue frozen and his mouth closed.
After a while he saw the despair move across her face. “You’re going to refuse,” she said quietly.
It was as if she’d stabbed him through the heart. “N&” His voice came out a ragged croak. “I’m not! I’m going to take it! I am? It would be insane to do anything-“
She laid her fingers on his lips, stopping the flow of words. Then she smiled, that old, ironic smile. “I can see it, even if you can’t. And I can’t say I’m even surprised, though I had hoped …” She trailed off. Her eyes moved across his face, as if she sought to burn his features into her mind. She touched his lips, the rings in his ear, the thick, shoulder-length hair come loose of its knot hours ago. Finally she sighed. �
��I wish for once you could fight without the costume,” she said. “There are those who do not believe you are Kiriathan.”
“It won’t matter, because I’m not going to fight,” he declared firmly, resolve hardening once more within him. “I’m going to take his offer.”
He saw the hope flare in her eyes, then fade as she smiled sadly. “I think,” she said, “if you were the kind of man who could take such an offer, I would never have fallen in love with you in the first place.”
His resolve crumbled, shattered by the impact of her words and the sudden, devastating certainty that they were true. It was the most agonizing, gutwrenching realization he’d ever made, and for a moment he thought he might become physically ill.
He saw the tears welling in her eyes and kissed her again, fiercely this time, wishing he didn’t have to die, wishing he could take Beltha’adi’s offer without losing his soul, wishing she hadn’t loved him after all, and a hundred other things that weren’t going to happen.
Abdeel and Dumah arrived a little while later, banging open the door and clumping into the room, jeering and laughing until they saw her in his arms. They stopped, surprise widening their eyes, followed by a flicker of jealousy and, yes, a light of new respect.
That only made it worse, however. As they escorted him back to the underbelly of the Val’Orda, they jabbered incessantly, tossing out ribald questions and vulgar suggestions that, had he done anything but ignore them, would have roused him to a fury.
Trap sat in the front room of the suite of chambers he and Abramm shared in the lowest level, eating black bread, figs, and cheese. He looked up as Abramm entered, cocked a brow at the sight of him, but said nothing. He looked haggard, as if he had gotten no more sleep than Abramm last night.
As the handlers left them, Abramm dropped onto the bench across from him and stared at the portion of dark, crusty loaf on the plate. The last thing he wanted was food.
He felt Trap’s eyes upon him and knew if he sat here much longer the man would speak to him. Wanting conversation even less than he wanted food, he stood and took one of the wooden practice swords down from the wall. Wordlessly he started through the basic cycle of forms, the need to concentrate on technique and sequence effectively keeping more troubling thoughts at bay. When it came to an end, he started the next form, then the next, and the next. Finally, though, he was forced to stop for breath. Leaning the sword against the wall, he stripped off the heavy tunic.
“So it’s true, then,” Trap said behind him. “He did make you an offer.”
Abramm froze, crushing the tunic in his fists.
“Brogai status, they say,” Trap went on. “Wealth, honor, everything you could want.”
“What good is it if you have to sell your soul to get it?” Abramm asked, dropping the tunic onto the bench. He picked up the sword again. Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth-he ran through the intermediate forms, holding his mind to each nuance of stance and stroke. But inevitably he was once more reduced to weak-armed panting and thoughts he wanted to forget. Shettai in a hundred different images of beauty and softness and sweet, wonderful scent, realities of memory that far surpassed anything he might have imagined. The price of pleasure, it seemed, was the amplification of pain.
And there was nothing he could do to change it.
“We’ll probably die out there, my lord.”
Abramm stood where he was, staring at the wall, his breath rushing between his teeth, his back to the other man. Sweat trickled down his chest and sides. He didn’t know what to say.
After a moment, Trap spoke again. “You’re not ready.”
At that Abramm finally turned, barking a bitter laugh. “Seeing as I’ve defiled myself in every possible way by now”-he’d broken the last of his holy vows just last night, in fact-“I’d say you’re right. Unfortunately, there isn’t time enough to do anything about it.” He feigned a start of surprise, then widened his eyes as if in sudden understanding. “But wait! I could take hold of your gray talisman? Let it burn that golden shield into my flesh and then … why, then I’d be ready, wouldn’t I? Isn’t that what you were going to say?” He snorted. “Sorry, but it’s just too convenient for me to believe.”
Meridon regarded him steadily. “‘Those who receive the truth and spurn it shall be without excuse.’”
That was from the Second Word of Revelation. Abramm grimaced. “Very nice, Captain. But frankly, I don’t care anymore. Even if Eidon is in your mysterious light, why should I want it? He hasn’t done any more for you than he has for me. We’re both slaves, marked and unmarked.”
Trap smiled slightly. “But very well treated slaves, you must admit.”
“Oh yes, very well treated. Right up to the point where we’re defeated and tortured to death. The last thing they’ll hear from you will be your screams for mercy,’” he quoted from Katahn’s warning last night. He snorted again. “What good is a god who can’t protect his followers from harm?”
“He can.”
“Then why hasn’t he? Or does he take pleasure in making you suffer?”
“Of course not.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Trap.”
“Suggesting he takes pleasure in our pain is blasphemous. But he has given us the freedom to choose. Some choose to do sinful, evil things, which have inevitable and ugly consequences.”
“Consequences that spill over to others who did not so choose,” Abramm added bitterly.
“But that’s the beauty of it-Eidon can use those evil deeds and consequences for the ultimate benefit of his servants.”
“Benefit?” Abramm’s voice cracked with incredulity. He waved the sword at the chamber around them. “You’re saying this is for our benefit?”
“Yes?” Trap’s gaze bored into his own, arresting his outrage. When next he spoke, the Terstan’s voice was quietly compelling. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve changed, my lord? You are not at all the man you were when you left Kiriath. You have become a hero here, the champion about whom innumerable stories and songs are even now being written and spread.”
Of course Abramm knew he was a hero. How could he not with his supporters waving their diamond-topped sticks and screaming their approval at every match? He wouldn’t be facing the match he faced today if not for their growing adulation and the dangerous attitudes he had spawned in them through his continued success at defying Beltha’adi’s claims of destiny and right to rule.
But suddenly, somehow, perhaps because of the way Trap had said it, he saw his newfound status through different eyes-the eyes of a frail and scorned little boy who spent entirely too much time reading adventure stories and tales of the great champions of Kiriathan history. The greatest goal of his childhood, besides knowing Eidon, was to emulate those champions, to become someone honored, admired, sung about. Someone who was emulated by other little boys. It was a dream that had died on the practice floors of the royal school of fencing a good fourteen years ago. A dream, he now saw, that had been realized, in spite of its death and through no conscious choice of his own.
The sword point sank slowly to the stone.
“Can you think of any other way you could have become what you are today?” Trap pressed. “Could it have happened in Kiriath? Would you have made the kinds of decisions that have led you to this point? Would you have even had the opportunity?”
Abramm stared at the nicked and polished length of wood before him, and a chill swept up his spine. No. He would not have.
“How can you say he has not been with you, Abramm?” Trap demanded softly. “Using you for his glory even though you continue to reject him.”
Denial welled up. “You’re wrong? I’m no hero in his eyes. I have killed-“
“Defending yourself against those who would kill you. The Words forbid murder, not self-defense.”
“But I have hated-I have struck in anger. I have defiled myself in every possible way. Last night I-” He broke off, not yet willing to verbalize that confession, even knowing Tra
p must have guessed what he’d done. “I have … I have hated him. Cursed him…”
And even so, he has not abandoned you.”
Abramm looked down at him, into his eyes, and felt all at once as if he were sliding down a bright hole, slipping away, losing control, his mind captured and enspelled by Terstan power…
His forearm tingled, jerking him free of the spell. “I don’t believe that!” he cried, an irrational anger flooding into him. “It was Gillard’s treachery that brought me here.” He swept the sword up sharply, blade hissing through the air. And it’s the power of Beltha’adi’s evil that keeps me here.”
He started into the next form, stepping and slashing with rapid, angry strokes that only gradually settled back into the smooth precision that normally characterized his practices.
The next time he stopped, Trap was no longer looking at him, was instead watching his own fingers crumble the dark bread on his plate. His lips were pressed tightly together, his face closed and hard with frustration. Abramm noticed again the dark circles around his eyes, the way his freckles stood out against pale skin, and was struck by a new and alarming thought.
`Are you sick? You look awful.”
For a moment he thought the Terstan meant to ignore him. Finally, though, the man seemed to shake off his sulk and shrugged. “Nothing a little sleep wouldn’t cure.”
Abramm lifted a brow. He had never known Meridon to lose a night’s sleep for worrying. Hadn’t he claimed just yesterday to be completely at ease with whatever Eidon chose for him today, death or life, either one? Appar ently, alone on his pallet last night, he had not been so at ease after all.
The walls shuddered as one of the lions roared, and they both looked toward the wall nearest the arena proper. The lion fight was scheduled for some three hours before the final and most anticipated match, but Abramm had thought they still had double that amount of time. The creature roared again, and as the subsequent silence stretched itself out longer and longer, Abramm relaxed. The beast was just sounding off. Or else it was feeding time.
Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) Page 27
