Carillon sighed heavily. “Be patient,” he told Donal. “She is young…and till now her lot as my daughter has been little more than a beautiful game. Now she knows its price.”
“I will bring her back before nightfall,” Donal promised. “As for what she will face—there is nothing for you to fear. It is Finn who will do the testing.”
Briefly, Carillon smiled. “After all these years, it comes again to Finn. And I think it will amuse him.” Slowly, he swung down out of the saddle and patted the horse’s shoulder. “Safe journey, Donal. And now you had best go after her before she gets so far ahead you lose her entirely.”
* * *
It was Sef, edging his horse close to Donal’s, who remarked about the vastness of the Keep. “There are pavilions everywhere.”
The oiled pavilions, dyed warm earth and forest tones and painted with myriad lir, spread through the forest like a scattering of seed upon the ground. The Cheysuli, when they could, left the trees standing, setting up their pavilions in clustered copses of oak and elm and beech with vines and bracken still intact. Surrounding the permanent encampment, snaking across the ground, stood the curving gray-green granite wall.
“It seems so, now,” Donal agreed. “When I was a boy, there were not so many as this. But that was when we lived across the Bluetooth River, trying to stay free of Ihlini retribution and Bellam’s tyranny.” He glanced around the Keep as they rode through, reining around cookfires and running children. “This is a true Keep now, with the half-circle walls and painted pavilions. But for years—too many years—we lived as refugees and outlaws.” He glanced at Aislinn, locked up in her silence. “It was Carillon who allowed us the freedom to come home.”
Sef’s mismatched eyes were fixed on Donal. “It’s no wonder they sing songs and tell stories about him, then. Look at what he’s done.”
Donal felt a stab of sympathy for Carillon, even in his absence. We have made him into a legend for us to idolize, and we have stripped him of his freedom. It must be more difficult for him to live up to the name, and he is the one who wears it.
“My father is a great man,” Aislinn said flatly. “There is no one like him in all the kingdoms of the world. No one will ever be able to match him.” Her gray-pale eyes were fastened with great deliberation upon Donal’s face.
“Aislinn,” he said gently, “I do not compete with your jehan. And I will not even when his throne has passed to me.” Trying to break the moment, he glanced around the Keep. “This is smaller now than it was when first we came here. But some of the clans have gone back across the Bluetooth to return to the Northern Keep.” Involuntarily, he shivered. “It was cold there—too close to the Wastes. I prefer this Keep. And now—here is Finn’s pavilion.”
“Another wolf,” Sef said. He pointed at the green pavilion with its gold-painted wolf on the side. “Lorn’s father?”
Donal grinned down at the ruddy wolf as Lorn snorted in surprise. “No. More like grandsire, perhaps, did lir age normally. But as they do not, it makes no difference.” He jumped off his chestnut stallion even as Taj settled on the ridgepole of the pavilion. “Come down, Sef…there is nothing to harm you here.”
“You said that about the Crystal Isle.” Sef slid off his brown horse.
“And was there?” Donal looped his reins about a convenient tree branch and turned to help Aislinn down.
“There was,” Sef said, “but I didn’t let it.”
Ignoring the boy’s superstitions, Donal ducked under the reins and scratched at the pavilion doorflap. “Su’fali,” he called. “Are you in?”
“No. I am out, but very nearly in.” Finn came around the side of the pavilion with Storr padding at his side. The wolf’s muzzle had grayed and grizzled, showing as much of age as a lir could, for his lifespan paralleled Finn’s. Until his warrior died, Storr was free of normal aging.
Finn’s black brows ran up beneath his silver-flecked, raven hair. But for that and a few deep lines etched into the flesh at the corners of his yellow eyes, he hardly looked old enough to have a nephew of twenty-three. The dark flesh of his bare arms was still stretched taut over heavy muscles; his lir-bands gleamed in the sunlight. “You have been a stranger to your Keep, Donal. What brings you here now?”
“Aislinn,” he said briefly, and sensed her instant tension.
Finn glanced at her. “You are well come to the Keep, lady. Meghan will be pleased to know you are here. She is with Alix just now, but I can send Storr for her.”
“No.” Aislinn’s face was tight with apprehension. “I have not come to see Meghan. I have come because Donal made me promise, and my father insisted I keep it.”
“As one should, particularly a princess.” But Finn had lost his welcoming smile as he glanced again at Donal. “This is not a casual visit.”
“No,” Donal agreed. “Aislinn, as you know, has been with Electra on the Crystal Isle. She has been—tampered with.”
“A trap-link?” Finn’s hand shot out and clamped on Aislinn’s head before she could move. And by the time she did move, crying out and pulling away, Finn was done with his evaluation. “No. Something else. Bring her inside.” He turned and pulled the doorflap aside.
Aislinn hung back. She looked at Donal, and he saw the terror in her face. Gently, he set one hand on her shoulder. After a moment, she slipped inside the pavilion.
Sef, like Aislinn, hung back. But for different reasons. “It isn’t my place,” he said. “He’ll work magic in there. I’ll do better out here.”
“Come in,” Donal insisted mildly. “What Finn will do is nothing I cannot do myself, and I do not doubt you will be witness to it sooner rather than late. It may as well be now.” He settled one browned hand around Sef’s arm and ushered him into the pavilion, leaving Lorn to trade greetings with Storr—as well as the grooming ritual—and Taj to converse with the other lir.
Finn sat on a spotted silver fur taken from a snow leopard. As clan-leader he was entitled to a large pavilion, and he had accepted that right. Furs of every texture and color cushioned the hard-packed earthen floor, and fine-worked tapestries divided the pavilion into sections. One of those sections, Donal knew, belonged to Meghan, Finn’s half-Homanan daughter.
Thinking of Meghan reminded him that Finn had said she was with Alix. And his mother, no doubt, was with his meijha. Quite suddenly, Donal longed to be there as well, wishing to forget all about Aislinn and her troubles.
But he had promised, and he did not break his oaths.
A small firepit glowed in front of Finn. The smoke was drawn up to the top of the pavilion, where it was dispersed through a ventflap. Through the bluish haze, Finn’s eyes were almost hypnotic.
Aislinn half-turned as if to flee, but Donal blocked her way. Defeated, she turned reluctantly back. Her fingers crept up to pull nervously at the wool binding her braid.
Finn laughed. “You remind me a little of Alix, when first she joined the clan. All doe-eyed and frightened, yet defiant enough to spit in my face. That is what you would prefer to do, Aislinn…is it not?”
“Aye!” she answered, summoning up her own measure of defiance. “I want no part of this. It is Donal who says I am—tainted.” Her voice wavered just a little. “He said—she has meddled with my mind.”
Finn did not smile. He did not appear privately amused, as he so often did. His tone, when he spoke, was quiet and exceedingly gentle. “If she has, small one…I will see that we rid you of it.” For a moment he studied her silently. “There is no need to fear me, Aislinn. Do you not know me through my daughter? You and Meghan are boon companions.”
Aislinn’s eyes were huge, almost colorless in the muted light of the pavilion. “But—I have heard all the stories.”
“All of them?” Finn shook his head. “I think not. You had best ask Carillon for more.” Now he smiled, just a little, and looked past her to Donal. “Who is the boy you have brought?”
Donal prodded Sef forward. “Answer him. His lir may be a wolf, but it does no
t mean he will devour you. Any more than I will.”
Sef moved forward three steps. His hands were wound into the black woolen tunic that bore a small crimson rampant lion over his left breast. “Sef,” he said softly, keeping his eyes averted. “I am—Sef.”
“And I am Finn.” Finn smiled his old ironic smile. “You almost resemble a Cheysuli. Donal has not brought you home, has he? As I brought Alix home?”
Color rushed into Sef’s pale face, then washed away almost at once. His eyes, blue and brown, stared fixedly at Finn. “No,” he said on a shaking breath. “I am not Cheysuli.”
Finn shrugged. “You have the black hair and strong-boned face for it, albeit you are too fair for one of us.” For just a moment, a teasing glint lit his eyes. “Perhaps you are merely a halfling gotten unknown on some poor Homanan woman—”
Finn stopped. Donal, looking at him, saw the glint in his eyes fade; heard the teasing banter die. Finn frowned a little, looking at Sef, as if he sought an answer to some unknown question.
Donal laughed aloud. “Perhaps your halfling, su’fali?”
Finn looked at him sharply. “Mine?”
“You are no priest, su’fali, who keeps himself from women.” Donal, still grinning, shrugged. “Sef himself says he does not know who his jehan was.”
“He was not Cheysuli!” Sef declared hotly.
Donal looked at him quickly, startled by his vehemence. “Would it matter so much if he were?” he asked. “What if he were Finn himself?”
Sef’s eyes locked onto Finn’s. So intense was his regard he seemed almost transfixed. “No,” he said. That word only, and yet its tone encompassed an abiding certainty.
“No,” Finn agreed, and yet Donal saw a faint frown of puzzlement. Then Finn flicked a dismissive hand. “To get to the point: Electra has once more meddled with someone’s mind, and this time it is Aislinn’s.” He looked at the frightened princess. “Sit down, girl, and I will discover what I can.”
“Donal tried,” she blurted. “He could do nothing.”
“I am not Donal, and I have had somewhat of a more—personal—experience with such things as Ihlini trap-links.” Briefly he looked at Storr, lying on a pelt nearby, as if the words evoked some private memory they shared. “Aislinn, I will not harm you. Do you think Carillon would allow it?”
She stared at the furs beneath her feet. “No.”
Donal placed a gentle hand on Aislinn’s head. “Sit down. I am here with you, Aislinn.”
She shut her eyes a moment. And then she sat down where Finn indicated, cross-legged, across the firecairn from him.
“Now,” he said quietly, “if Donal has done this to you, you know it will not hurt.”
“Have you had it done?” she challenged with a defiance that only underscored her fear and vulnerability.
An odd look passed over Finn’s dark, angular face. The scar twisting across the left side of his face had faded from avid purple to silver-white with the passing of seventeen years, but it still puckered the flesh from eye to jaw, lending him a predatory expression he did not entirely require, having the look of a predator already. “Not—precisely,” Finn answered at last. “But something similar was done to me. It was—Tynstar. And your jehana. Together, they set a trap for me, and nearly slew me.” He studied her face closely, unsmiling. “But I survived, though something else did not.”
Aislinn, startled, sucked in a breath. “What did not survive?”
“An oath,” Finn said flatly. “We broke it, your jehan and I, because there was nothing left to do.” He reached out and touched her eyelids with two gentle fingers. “You are not your jehana, Aislinn, and I doubt she has done much to you that cannot be undone. Be silent, do not fear, and forget the stories you have heard.”
Silently, Donal knelt down at Aislinn’s side. He watched as Finn put his hands out, reaching through the smoke to touch her face. Finn ran his fingers softly across the delicate flesh of her brow, her nose, her eyelids, keeping himself silent. And then he spread his fingers and trapped her skull in his palms.
His hands held her head carefully, cupping thumbs beneath her jaw and splaying fingers through her hair. For a long moment he only looked at her pale, rigid face with its tight-shut eyes, and then his mouth moved into a grim line. He glanced quickly at Donal. “Do you come?”
“Aye, su’fali.”
“Then come.” The grimness faded into relaxation, and the yellow eyes turned vague and detached. Finn was patently elsewhere.
Donal knew what he did. Finn sought the power in the earth magic, tapping the source as he himself had done, drawing it up into his body until he could focus it onto Aislinn. He channeled it into the girl, seeking out the knotted web of Ihlini interference. Could he do it, he would untangle the web and disperse it.
Finn’s head dipped down a little in an odd echo of Aislinn’s posture. His eyes, fixed and unblinking, turned black as the pupils swelled. His mouth loosened; his chin twitched once; a slight tremor ran through his body.
Donal took a breath and slipped into the link with care. He felt his knowledge of body and surroundings fade away at once, dissipating into nonexistence, until he was but a speck of pulsing awareness in a void of black infinity. It was nothingness, complete and complex, and yet it was the essence of everything. Earth power, raw and unchanneled, surged up around him, threatening to smother him.
Carefully, Donal pushed it back. He maintained his awareness of self and the knowledge of what he did, remaining Donal in the face of such overwhelming power. And slowly, the power fell back, allowing him room to move. Quickly he sought Finn and found his presence in the void, the bright, rich crimson spark that was the essence of his uncle.
Su’fali, Donal greeted him.
That which was Finn returned the greeting. As they made contact, Donal felt the flare of two Cheysuli souls joined in an odd form of intercourse. Together they would locate and evaluate the residue of sorcery that resonated in Aislinn’s mind, and they would free her of it.
There, said Finn within the vastness of their link.
Donal saw it. Caught in the countless strands of Aislinn’s subconsciousness was a mass of knotted darkness; a spider’s web. It looked tenuous as any thread, and yet he knew it was not. Tynstar’s “thread” would be tensile as the strongest wire.
Gently, Finn said. Gently. Springing the trap must be carefully done, or it will catch unwanted prey.
Donal crept slowly closer to the trap-link. He prepared to lend Finn what strength he could—
—and felt the sudden painful wrenching of a broken link.
Awareness exploded into a vast shower of burning fragments, hissing out one by one. Donal thought at first it was something within Aislinn, some form of ward-spell, then felt the scrape of a hand upon his shoulder. No longer was he free of his body, but bound by flesh again.
Dimly, he heard Aislinn’s garbled outcry. Finn was swearing. Donal caught himself before he fell face-first into the flames, then thrust an arm against the pelts to steady himself. He was disoriented and badly shaken, feeling distinctly ill.
Angrily, he turned. “To touch a Cheysuli in mind-link—”
But he broke it off. He saw how Sef slumped down on the fur pelt just behind, his face corpse-white in the blue-smoked air. The boy shuddered spasmodically and his mouth gaped open as if he could not breathe. Donal thrust himself up in one movement and caught Sef before he tumbled into the fire.
Donal looked back at Aislinn. Finn still held her, and by the look of his eyes he had not stepped out of the link. Aislinn still drifted in the trance and Finn still sought the trap-link. But there was no doubting Donal’s broken link had affected them both. The shattering had been too powerful.
Donal closed his eyes a moment. He still felt ill. His ears buzzed. Lights fired in his eyes. But somehow he managed to stand up with Sef in his arms and stagger out of the pavilion.
He set the boy down against a tree. Even as he did so, Sef began to rouse. Donal, seating himself
on the ground, put his head down against his knees and tried to regain his composure.
Lir? It was Lorn, thrusting his nose beneath Donal’s elbow. Lir?
Even as Sef stirred, Donal raised his head. Broken link, he told the wolf. Sef touched me.
You should have told him, lir. You should have warned the boy.
My fault, Donal said, and blew out a heavy breath.
Color crept back into Sef’s face. He blinked, rubbed dazedly at his temple, then tried to sit bolt upright.
Donal pressed him back down. “No. Be still. Do you recall what happened?”
Sef frowned blankly. “I—I was drowning. I was being sucked down. It was like I was buried alive.” He stared at Donal. “Was it the magic? Did I feel it?”
Donal sought the best words. “Sef—what you did was done out of ignorance. I understand. And I should have warned you: never touch a Cheysuli when he has gone into another’s mind.”
Sef’s eyes widened. “What could happen?”
Donal rubbed at burning eyes. His ears still buzzed, though the sound had almost faded. “Many things, depending upon the severity of the break, and how deeply the warrior has gone. And a link is a link—in touching me you touched Aislinn and Finn. You might have injured us all in addition to yourself.”
Sef sucked in a strangled breath. “Oh my lord, I’m sorry—”
Donal caught one thin shoulder. “Do not fret. It is over with. No permanent harm was done, that I can see.”
“I was so afraid.” Sef looked steadfastly at the ground. “I was—afraid.”
“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of,” Donal told him gently. “It strikes all men, at one time or another, and mimics many things. You were not drowning. You were not being buried alive.”
Lorn still pressed against Donal’s side. The boy is more than frightened, lir. There is something…else.
Is the boy a halfling? Donal asked.
The wolf seemed to shrug. I cannot say. Perhaps—but I leave him to you. Lorn turned and went back to his place on the rug by Finn’s tent, sharing it with Storr.
Legacy of the Sword Page 12
