But he sensed no unhappiness, no dissatisfaction in the wind. Perhaps the island was used for mundane Homanan concerns, but at heart it was still Cheysuli, still part and parcel of the Firstborn. It merely waited. One day, someone would return it to its proper state.
Donal feared to tread the crushed shells of the pathway at first, admiring its delicate beauty, but he saw no other way to the palace on its green-and-lilac hill. He took nothing with him save his lir and Sef. And, he hoped, his courage.
The isle was full of noise. Soft noise; gentle noise, a peaceful susurration. He and Sef and Lorn trod across crushed shell. They passed through trees that sighed and creaked, whispering in the wind. They heard the silences of the depths, as if even the animals muted themselves to honor the sanctity of the place.
Sef tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, scattering pearly shells so that they spilled out of the boundaries of the pathway, disturbing the curving symmetry. Aghast, he hunched on hands and knees, staring at what he had done.
Donal reached down and caught one arm, pulling him to his feet. He saw embarrassment and shame in the boy’s face, but also something more. “There is nothing to fear, Sef,” he promised quietly. “There are no demons here.”
“I—I feel something…I feel it—” He broke off, standing rigidly before Donal. His eyes were wide and fixed. His head cocked a trifle, as if he listened. As if he heard.
“Sef—”
The boy shuddered. The tremor ran through his slender body like an ague; Donal felt it strongly in his own hand as it rested upon Sef’s arm. His thin face was chalky gray. He mouthed words Donal could neither hear nor decipher.
“Sef—”
Sef jerked his arm free of Donal’s hand. For a moment, a fleeting moment only, his eyes turned inward as if he sought to shut out the world. He raised insignificant fists curled so tightly the bones of his knuckles shone through thinly stretched flesh. Briefly his teeth bared in an almost feral grimace.
“They know that I am here—” As suddenly he broke off. The eyes, filled by black pupils, looked upon Donal with recognition once again. “My lord—?”
Donal released a breath. The boy had looked so strange, as if he had been thrown into a private battle within himself. But now he appeared recovered, if a trifle shaken. “I intended to say it was only the wind and your own superstitions,” Donal told him. “But—this is the island of the gods, and who am I to say they do not speak to you?”
Especially if he is Cheysuli. Donal felt the cool breeze run fingers through his hair, stripping it from his face. The wind was stronger than before, as if it meant to speak to him of things beyond his ken.
“They know it,” Sef said hollowly. And then his mouth folded upon itself, pressing lip against lip, as if he had made up his mind to overcome an enemy. “It doesn’t matter.”
Donal felt the breath of the gods against the back of his neck. He shivered. Then he helped put Sef’s clothing into order once again. “I will not deny I feel something as well, but I doubt there is anger in it. I think we have nothing to fear. I am, if you will pardon my arrogance, a descendent of the Firstborn.”
“And I am not,” Sef said plainly. Then something flickered in his eyes and his manner altered. He looked intently at Donal a moment, then shrugged narrow shoulders. “I don’t know what I am.”
Donal smoothed the boy’s black hair into place, though the wind disarranged it almost at once. “The gods do. That is what counts.” He tapped Sef on the back. “Come along. Let us not keep the lady waiting.”
The interior of the expansive palace was pillared in white marble veined with silver and rose. Silken tapestries of rainbow colors decked the white walls and fine carpets replaced rushes which, even scented, grew old and rank too quickly. Donal did not know how much of the amenities had been ordered by Electra—or, more likely, by Carillon—but he was impressed. Homana-Mujhar, for all its grandeur, was somewhat austere at times. This place, he thought, would make a better home.
Except it is a prison.
Racks of scented beeswax candles illuminated the vastness of the entry hall. Servants passed by on business of their own, as did occasional guards attired in Carillon’s black-and-crimson livery. Donal saw a few Cheysuli warriors in customary leathers and gold, but for the most part his fellow warriors remained unobtrusive.
When the woman came forth to greet Donal, he saw she wore a foreign crest worked into the fabric of her gown: Electra’s white swan on a cobalt field. The woman was slender and dark with eyes nearly the color of the gown; he wondered if she had chosen it purposely. And he recalled that Carillon had also exiled the Queen’s Solindish women.
He wondered at the decision. Would it not have been better to send the women home? Here with Electra, they could all concoct some monstrous plot to overthrow the Mujhar.
How? Taj asked as he lighted on a chairback. Carillon has warded them well.
I do not trust her, lir.
Nor does Carillon, Lorn told him. There is no escape for her. There are Cheysuli here.
The Solindish woman inclined her head as she paused before Donal. She spoke good Homanan, and was polite, but he was aware of an undertone of contempt. “You wish to see the Queen. Of course. This way.”
Donal measured his step to the woman’s. She paused before a brass door that had been meticulously hammered and beveled into thousands of intricate shapes. The woman tapped lightly, then stepped aside with a smooth, practiced gesture. “Through here. But the boy must wait without—there, on the bench. The Queen sees no one unless she so orders it, and I doubt she would wish to see him.”
Donal restrained the retort he longed to make, matching the woman’s efficient, officious manner as he inclined his head just enough to acknowledge her words. Then he turned to Sef. “Wait for me here.”
Sef’s thin face was pale and frightened as he slowly sat down on the narrow stone bench beside the door. He clasped his hands in his lap, hunching within his cloak, and waited wordlessly.
“Be not afraid,” Donal said gently. “No one will seek to harm you. You are the Prince’s man.”
Sef swallowed, nodded, but did not smile. He looked at his hands only, patently prepared to wait with what patience he thought was expected, and wanting none of it.
Knowing he could do nothing more, Donal gave up the effort and passed through the magnificent door. It thudded shut behind him.
Taj rode his right shoulder. Lorn paced beside his left leg. He was warded about with lir, and still he felt apprehensive. This was Electra he faced.
Witch. Tynstar’s meijha. More than merely a woman. But he went on, pacing the length of the cavernous hall.
Electra awaited him. He saw her standing at the end of the hallway on a marble dais. And he nearly stopped in his tracks.
He had heard, as they all had, that Electra’s fabled beauty was mostly illusory, that Tynstar had given it to her along with the gift of youth and immortality; so long as she was not slain outright, she—like Tynstar—would never die. He had heard that the beauty would fade, since she was separated from Tynstar. But Donal knew how much power rumors had—as well as how little truth—and now as he saw the woman again for the first time in fifteen years, he could not say if she was human or immortal; ensorceled or genuine.
By the gods…separation from Tynstar has not dulled her beauty; has not dispersed the magic!
Her pale gray eyes, watched him approach the dais. Long-lidded, somnolent eyes; eyes that spoke of bedding. Her hair was still a fine white-blonde, lacking none of its shine or texture. Loose, it flowed over her shoulders like a mantle, held back from her face by a simple fillet of golden, interlocked swans. Her skin lacked none of the delicate bloom of youth, and her allure was every bit as powerful as it had been the day she trapped Carillon in her spell.
Donal looked at her. No longer a boy, he saw Electra as a man sees a woman: appraising, judgmental and forever wondering what she would be like if she ever shared his bed. He could not look at
her without sexual fantasy; it was not that he desired her, simply that Electra seemed to magically inspire it.
I have been blind, he realized. No more can I say to Carillon I cannot comprehend what made him keep her by him, even when he recognized her intent. He swallowed heavily. I have been such a fool.…But he would never admit it to her—or to Carillon.
Electra wore a simple gown of silvered gray velvet, but over it she had draped a wine-purple mantle of sheer, pearly silk. Unmoving, she watched him. Watching her watching him, Donal made up his mind to best her.
“You come at last.” Her voice was low and soft, full of the cadences of Solinde. “I had thought Carillon’s little wolfling would keep himself to his forests.”
Donal managed to maintain an impassive face as he halted before the dais. A word within the link to Taj sent the falcon fluttering to perch upon the back of the nearest chair. Lorn stood at Donal’s left knee, ruddy pelt rising on his shoulders.
As if he too senses the power in the woman.
Electra was not a tall woman, though her tremendous self-possession made her seem so. The dais made her taller yet, but even marble could not compete with Donal’s Cheysuli height.
It was an odd moment. She stood before him, impossibly beautiful and immortally young. Too young. He came to speak of her daughter, when she appeared hardly old enough to bear one.
He smiled. I have you, Electra, and you do not even know it.
She watched him. The clear, gray-pale eyes did not move from his face, as if she judged him solely by his own eyes. Well, he knew what she saw: a clear, eerily perfect yellow; eyes bestial and uncanny, full of a strange inborn wisdom and wildness, and a fanatic dedication to the prophecy of the Firstborn.
We are enemies. We need say nothing to one another; it is there. It was there from the day I was born, as if she knew what I would come to mean to her and the Ihlini lord she serves.
“I have come to fetch home your daughter, lady,” he said quietly. “It is time for us to wed.”
Electra’s head moved only a little on her slender neck. Her voice was quiet and contained. “I do not give my permission for this travesty to go forth. No.”
“The choice is not yours—”
“So you may say.” Slender, supple hands smoothed the silk of her mantle, drawing his eyes to their subtle seductiveness. “Think you I will allow my daughter to wed a Cheysuli shapechanger? No.” She smiled slowly. “I forbid it.”
He set his teeth. “Forbid what you will, Electra, it will do you little good. If you seek to rail at me like a jackdaw because of your fate, I suggest you look at the cause of your disposal. It is because of you Carillon has made me heir to Homana and your daughter’s intended husband. You, lady. Because you conspired against him.”
Long-nailed fingers twisted the wine-red fabric of her mantle. Her eyes held a malignant fascination. “Your prophecy says a Cheysuli must hold the Lion Throne of Homana before it can be fulfilled. Undoubtedly all of the shapechangers think that man will be you, since Carillon has let everyone know—no matter how unofficially—that he intends to proclaim you his heir. ‘Prince of Homana,’ are you not styled, even before the proper time?” Electra smiled. “But that is not the prophecy Tynstar chooses to serve…nor is it mine! We will put no Cheysuli on the Lion Throne but an Ihlini-born man, and we will see to Carillon’s death.”
“You have tried,” he said with a calmness he did not feel. “You have tried to slay him before, and it has failed. Is Tynstar so inept? Is he a powerless sorcerer? Or has the Seker turned his face from his servant, so that Tynstar lacks a lord?” He waited, but she made no answer. Even in her anger, she was utterly magnificent. He felt the tightening of his loins, and it made him angry with himself as well as with the woman. “Electra, I ask you one thing: have you said this to your daughter? Do you tell her what you intend to do? He is, after all, her father.”
“Aislinn is not your concern.”
“Aislinn will be my cheysula.”
“Use no shapechanger words to me!” she snapped. “Carillon may have sent me here, but this is my hall! My palace! I rule here!”
“What do you rule?” he demanded. “A few pitiful acres of land, served only by those who serve the Mujhar, except for your loyal women. An impressive realm, Electra.” He shook his head. “It is a pity you hold no court. Instead, you have only the memories of what you once had the ordering of.” He smiled ironically. “The grandeur of Bellam’s palaces in Solinde and the magnificence of Homana-Mujhar. But all of that is gone, Electra—banished by your treachery and deceit. Curse not me or mine when you must first curse yourself.”
For the first time he had shaken her composure utterly. He could see it. She trembled with fury, and clutched at the silk of her mantle so that the fabric crumpled and rent. Rich color stood high in her face. “First you must wed her, shapechanger, to merge the proper blood. But what is not yet done shall remain undone…and the prophecy shall fail.”
Electra stretched out a hand toward him. He saw the merest crackle and flare of purple flame around one pointing finger, but the color died. The hand was nothing more than a hand. Before a Cheysuli, the arts Tynstar had taught her failed.
“Tynstar’s sorcery keeps you young now, Electra,” Donal said gently. “But you should remember: you are a woman of fifty-five. One day, it will catch up to you.” He walked slowly toward the dais, mounted it even as she opened her mouth to revile him, and slowly walked around her. “One day he will be slain, and then what becomes of you? You will age, even as Carillon ages. Your bones will stiffen and your blood will flow sluggishly. One day you will not be able to rise, so feeble will you have become, and you will be bound to chair or bed. And then you shall have only endless empty hours in which to spin your impotent webs.” He stopped directly before her. “That is your tahlmorra, Electra…I wish you well of it.”
Electra said nothing. She merely smiled an unsettling smile.
“What of me?” asked a voice from a curtained opening. “What do you wish for me?”
Donal spun around and saw the young woman gowned in snowy white. A girdle of gold and garnets spilled down the front of her skirts to clash and chime against the hem. Red-gold hair flowed loosely over her shoulders, in glorious disarray. Her lustrous white skin and long gray eyes were her mother’s; her pride was Carillon’s.
“Aislinn!” It was the only word he could muster. For two years he had not seen her, knowing her only through her letters to Carillon. And in those two years she had crossed the threshold between girlhood and womanhood. She was still young—too young, he thought, for marriage—but all her awkward days were over.
He smiled at her, prepared to tell her how much she had changed—and for the better. But his smile slowly began to fade as she moved into the hall.
Aislinn let the tapestry curtain fall from a long-fingered hand. The gems in the girdle flashed in the candlelight. Gold gleamed. A fortune clasped her slender waist and dangled against her skirts. And Donal, knowing that Carillon’s taste in gifts to his daughter ran to merlins, puppies and kittens, realized the girdle was undoubtedly a present from Electra.
He looked at Aislinn’s face. It was taut and forbidding, set in lines too harsh for a young woman of sixteen years, but if she had heard his final words to Electra he was not at all surprised she should view him with some hostility.
The girdle chimed as Aislinn moved. And Donal wondered uneasily if Electra had somehow purchased her daughter’s loyalty.
Carillon should never have sent her…not for so long. Not for two years. The gods know he meant well by it, realizing the girl needed to see her jehana…but he should have had her brought back much sooner, regardless of all those letters begging to remain a little longer. Two years is too long. The gods know what the witch has done to Aislinn’s loyalties.
The girl halted before him, glancing briefly at the wolf. Donal thought she might greet her old friend, but she made no move to kneel down and scratch Lorn’s ears as she had in e
arlier days.
Aislinn’s pride was manifest. “Well? What say you, Donal?” Her tone was a reflection of her mother’s, cool and supremely controlled. “What of me?”
“By the gods, Aislinn!” he said in surprise. “I have no quarrel with you. It is your jehana who lacks manners!”
It was obviously not what she expected him to say. She lost all of her cool demeanor and stared at him in astonishment. “How dare you attack my mother!”
“Donal.” Electra’s voice sounded dangerously amused, and he looked at her warily. “Are you certain you wish to wed my daughter?”
He wanted to swear. He did not, but only because he shut his mouth on the beginning of the word. He glared at Electra. “Play no games with me, lady. Aislinn and I have been betrothed for fifteen years. We have been friends as long as that.”
Electra smiled: a cat before a mousehole. “Friends, aye—at one time. But are you so certain she is the woman you would wish to keep as your wife the rest of your life?”
No, he said inwardly. Not Aislinn…but what choice do I have?
He gritted his teeth and made up his mind not to lose the battle. Not to Electra. He knew she took no prisoners. “I imagine you have done what you could to turn Aislinn against this marriage in the two years you have hosted her.” He glanced at the girl and saw contempt for him in her eyes. Electra’s eyes, so cool and shrewd. Contempt, where once there had been childlike adoration. “Aye,” he said grimly, “I see you have. But I have more faith in Aislinn’s integrity.”
“Integrity has nothing to do with it,” Electra said gently. “Ask Aislinn what she thinks of bearing unnatural children.”
Shock riveted him. He stared at the woman in horror. “Unnatural children—”
“Ask Aislinn what she thinks of babies born with fangs and claws and tails, and the beast-mark on their faces,” Electra suggested softly. “Ask Aislinn what she thinks of playing mother—no, jehana—” she twisted the Old Tongue cruelly “—to a thing not wholly human nor wholly animal—but bestial instead.” The perfect mouth smiled. “Ask Aislinn, my lord Prince of Homana, what she thinks about sharing a bed with a man who cannot control his shape—in bed or out of it.”
Legacy of the Sword Page 4
