Can a warrior maintain lir-shape as long as he desires it?
As a child, he had asked his father. Duncan had told him a warrior probably could retain lir-shape for as long as he desired; perhaps longer than he desired.
The last had frightened him. Intuitively, he had understood. A man left too long in lir-shape might never turn back into a man.
But would that be so bad?
No. But what if he were ever to change his mind again, and found himself locked inside the body of a wolf or falcon forever?
No, he decided. No.
Weary. So weary. His left foreleg ached. And then he recalled how it had been burned, broken, in human form; the healing could not give back that which had been lost. The magic was not absolute. He had not given the injured limb enough time to recover.
Through the lir-link, he passed the message to Lorn. He must stop. Stop. It was dark now, but the moon, full, had risen, and they were nearly there. They could walk the rest of the way.
Donal stopped running. He panted, head hanging; he tucked his tail between his legs. Slowly, so slowly, the shapechange altered his body. He faced them as a man again.
Man-shaped, he leaned against the nearest tree. “—Sorry,” he said. “Too tired—can we rest?”
Alix put a hand upon his arm. A hand, not a paw. “We should have ridden at least half the way.”
Donal shook his head. “No. We needed to get home as quickly as possible.”
Finn’s smile was very faint. “Sorcha should not worry; you will always be Cheysuli.”
“Because I call the Keep home?” Donal laughed breathlessly. “Aye—I could not become a Mujharan if the prophecy commanded it.”
Alix glanced around. “We are almost there. Oh gods, let the girl simply be lost…”
“Unlikely.” But Finn’s tone was gentle. “She is your daughter, Alix…with all your stubbornness. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps what, Finn?” Alix scraped fallen hair away from her face. “Perhaps she decided to visit another Keep? No. She was helping Sorcha with the baby.”
Finn’s hand clasped her shoulder gently. “Meijha, do not fret so—”
Donal nearly smiled at Finn’s use of the inaccurate term. Alix had never been Finn’s meijha, but that had not stopped him from wishing she would someday change her mind.
“Do you not fret about Meghan from time to time?” Alix asked in irritation. “You are a jehan, Finn, as much as I am a jehana. Tell me you do not know what that entails.”
Looking at them, Donal saw two worried people. More worried than they intended him to know. For only a moment, he saw the possibilities through their eyes: Bronwyn, Ihlini, attempting to use her burgeoning powers…or instinctively seeking her father.
“But she thinks Duncan is her jehan.” He said it aloud, distinctly; Alix and Finn looked at him in surprise.
“Aye, of course, but—”
Finn’s hand across Alix’s mouth cut her sentence off. He made a quieting gesture with his other hand and they instantly obeyed.
In silence, they waited. And in silence, they heard the other approach.
Because in the forest, at night, absolute silence betokens a presence coming.
Bronwyn—? Donal wondered briefly. She knows how to move as quietly as any—
But it was not Bronwyn. It was not a woman. It was a man. A man who had once been Cheysuli.
He was a shadow within shadows, a wraith among the trees. There was no sound, only silence; the silence born of the passing of a spirit on its way to the afterworld. Insubstantiality, Donal thought; yet it had substance. It was not a wraith, but a man. Not a shadow: a man who was once a warrior.
A warrior without a lir.
Out of the shadows a man stepped into the luminescence of the moon, and they saw his face clearly: old/young; human/inhuman; of sorrow and bittersweet joy. And his face, in the moonlight, was Donal’s, but carved of older, harder wood.
“Forgive me,” he said; two words, but filled with an agony of need.
Donal felt his senses waver. For an instant, the ground seemed to move beneath his feet. He put out a hand to steady himself, and when his fingers touched the trunk of the nearest tree he found himself turning to press against it. Clinging to it. Clinging, as if he could not stand up.
And he knew, as he clung, he could not. He could only press his face against the bark and let it bite into his flesh.
Jehan? Jehan? But he could not ask it aloud. He no longer had a voice. No tongue. No teeth. No mouth. He had lost the means to speak.
He shut his eyes. Tightly. So tightly he saw crimson and yellow and white. When he opened them again he blinked against the shock of sight once more, and realized the impossible remained.
It is my jehan— And yet he knew it could not be.
It was Alix who moved first. Donal expected her to run to Duncan. To grab him, kiss him, hold him. To cry out his name and her love. But she did none of those things.
Instead, she turned her back.
Her face, Donal saw, was ravaged. “If I look—if I look—he will be gone…gone…again. If I look—he will be gone.”
Gone…Donal echoed. But how can he be here?
The bark of the tree bit into his face. But he welcomed the pain; it kept him from losing possession of his senses.
Slowly Finn reached out and closed a hand around one of Alix’s arms. Donal saw how the fingers pressed against the fabric of her gown—pressing, pressing—until Donal thought she would cry out because of the pain.
But Alix did not.
It was Finn who cried.
“No,” Duncan said. “Oh no…”
“You.” Finn’s voice was ragged. “You stoop to apostasy—”
“No—” Alix, wrenching free of Finn’s hand, spun around to face Duncan again. “How can you call a miracle apostasy—?”
“He can,” Duncan said. “He must. Because it is the truth.”
“Because you are alive?” Alix shook her head. Donal saw how she trembled. “I begged you not to go. Why waste a life? But you denied me. You said you had to go because your lir was slain.” She tried to steady her voice. “How can you come back now? Why did you stay away—if the death-ritual could be left unheeded?”
Finn stopped her from going to the man. “Wait.”
“Wait?” She tried to wrench free again. “Wait? Have you gone mad? That is Duncan—”
“Is it?”
Duncan moved a single step closer to all of them. And his face was free of shadow, open to them all.
It was in the eyes. Donal saw it even as Finn and Alix did. Emptiness, aye. Sorrow: an abundance of it. Such pain as a man, left sane, could never know.
But there was no sanity left in Duncan.
Oh gods…oh gods—! Donal shut his eyes. He felt the trembling start up in his limbs; the roiling in his belly. He is back—he is back—and yet he is not my jehan—
Finn jerked Alix back beside him. “Rujho,” he said, “stop.”
Duncan stopped. His head twisted quickly, faintly, oddly to one side, jerking his chin toward his shoulder. Twice; no more. A nervous tic, Donal thought dazedly. He knew other men who had them. But—this was something more.
“I need you,” Duncan said. “I need you all.”
“Why?” Finn asked flatly. “Why does a dead warrior need help from any man?”
“Finn—” That from Alix, in horror, but he cut her off again.
“A lirless man is a dead man, of no value to his clan. He is half a man, and empty, lacking spirit, lacking soul.” Finn’s chant sounded almost bitter. “Is that not what we believe?”
We believe—we believe— Donal bared his teeth. But how do we believe? My jehan has come back to us—
Duncan twitched again. Briefly, so briefly; Donal almost did not see it. But he found himself, in fascinated horror, anticipating yet another.
“I need your help.” Duncan’s hair was silver in the moonlight. “I need your help. I need to find the magic to make me w
hole again.”
“Whole? You are lirless. How can you be whole?”
“Finn!” Duncan cried. “Would you have me beg for this?”
Do not beg, do not beg—not you—not Duncan of the Cheysuli—that man does not beg—
Without waiting for an answer, Duncan dropped to his knees. His head, tilted up, exposed the look of mute appeal. He was a supplicant to his brother. To his wife. And to his son. “Can you not see why I come to be here?”
Now, they could. Clearly. It showed in the eyes; in altered pupils, altered shape. It showed in the set of his shoulders, almost hunched upon themselves. It showed in the mottled skin of his arms, bare and naked of lir-gold. It showed in the bones of his hands: fragile, brittle bones, rising up beneath the flesh to fuse themselves together and turn the fingers into talons.
Not a man. But neither a hawk. Some place between the two.
“Cai was dead!” Finn cried. “How is this possible?”
“I am abomination,” Duncan said. “Can you make me whole again?”
“But—you are lirless.” In Finn, the cracks began to show. “Rujho, you are lirless…”
“You can make me whole again.”
Alix, trembling, went down on her knees before the kneeling man. She put out her arms and drew him in until his face was against her breasts. “Shansu,” she said, “peace. We can make you whole again.”
“He is lirless!” It burst out of Donal’s mouth in something near incoherence.
Alix did not hear. “I promise. I promise. We will make you whole again.”
“Tynstar took the body. Tynstar took the body,” Duncan said against her breasts. “I could not give my lir proper passage to the gods.”
“Oh gods,” Finn said. “Oh—gods.…”
“I could not die,” Duncan said. “There was no ritual. Tynstar had the body, and there was no ritual.”
“Shansu,” Alix said. “We will make you whole again.”
“Not without Cai’s body,” Finn said. “Oh rujho, surely you must see!”
Duncan’s head twitched against Alix arms. The taloned fingers came up in a twisted gesture of supplication.
Donal at last wrenched himself from the tree and faced them all. “The earth magic!” he cried. “There are three of us, and the lir. More than enough, is there not? We can summon up the healing and make him whole again!”
Alix stroked Duncan’s silver hair. “Do you see? Your son is much like you. He will be a wise Mujhar.”
“Donal—” Finn began, and then he shut his eyes.
“Make me whole again,” Duncan begged.
Lir. For the first time, Lorn spoke. Lir, what he requests is dangerous.
But it can be done?
There is much power in the earth, Taj said from a nearby tree. With three of you to summon it, augmented by three lir, you can call upon powerful sources. But there is danger in it.
And worth it, Donal said. This man is my jehan!
Slowly, Finn knelt down. He bowed his head in acquiescence.
Dangerous, Lorn said.
Shakily, Donal went to the kneeling triad. There were so many things he wanted to say to his father, whom he had not seen in fifteen years. So many, many things; he thought none of them would get said.
“Join hands,” Finn said. “The link must be physical as well as emotional and mental. What we do now will stretch the boundaries of the power; if those boundaries break, all will be unleashed. The magic will be wild.”
Donal, kneeling between father and uncle, looked at Finn sharply. “Wild—?”
“Before there were men and women in the world, there was magic in abundance. And all of it was wild. It made the world what it is. But it must be held in check if we are to live in the world.”
“Then—this could destroy the world….”
“Duncan would never risk that,” Alix said suddenly. She looked at the silver-haired man. “Would you? That much risk?”
His malformed hands trembled in hers; in Donal’s. “I am abomination. Make me whole again.”
“Duncan would not risk it,” Finn said quietly. “But this man is not Duncan.”
White-faced in the moonlight, Alix looked at Finn. “Then—what we do is wrong.”
“Is it?” Finn looked at Donal. “Is it wrong to do this, harani?”
Deliberately, Donal looked into the eyes of the raptor who had once been his father. “It is not wrong if we can control the magic. Stretching the boundaries is not evil, if we learn from what we do. A risk not taken means nothing of consequence is ever learned.” Donal drew in an unsteady breath. “I say it must be done.”
“Down,” Finn whispered. “Down…and down…and down….”
* * *
Drifting.
—drifting—
—down—
He sank through layers of earth, of rock, of rock, drifting, drifting down, until he was a speck of sentience in the midst of omniscient infinity, aware only of his insignificance in the ordering of things.
Alone?
No. There were other specks, all black and glassy gray, as if they had burned themselves out. As if the infinity had become, all at once, finite, and the sentience emptied out.
Down.
—down—
—down—
Jehan, he asked, are you here?
Down.
He felt the void reach out for him. Reaching, it caught him. Catching, it tugged him in; tugging, tugging, until he was a fish on a line; a cat in a trap; a man at the end of a sword—
—with the hilt in another man’s hands.
Pain.
The sword pierced flesh, muscle; scraped across rib bone. And entered the cage around his heart.
—pain—
He cried out. The speck, in the midst of the void, cried out to the other specks that he was in pain, in pain, and he knew it should not be so.
The line was cut; the trap was sprung; the sword was shattered. And Donal, hurled back through infinity to know finiteness once more, heard the words screamed from his mother’s mouth: “Ihlini trap-link—”
And then he knew the truth.
Not my jehan after all?
Pain.
* * *
He lay on his face. His mouth was filled with dirt and leaves. He spat. The sound reverberated in his skull.
Lir. Lorn, whose muzzle was planted solidly in Donal’s neck, shoving. Donal felt the tip of a tooth against the flesh of his neck. Lorn’s nose was cold.
Lir. Taj, who stirred dirt and debris into Donal’s face with the force of his flapping wings. The falcon was on the ground, but his wings continued to flap.
He felt a hand on his arm. “Donal. Donal!”
Finn’s voice. Hoarse. Donal allowed the hand to drag him up from the ground. He flopped over onto his back.
Through slitted lids and merging lashes he saw Finn’s face. In the moonlight the scar was a black ditch dug into the flesh; the other side of his face was dirty. Scraped. As if he had been hurled bodily against the ground. His leathers were littered with dirt and leaves.
“Gods—” Donal shoved himself up from the dirt. He wavered on his knees, pressing one hand against the ground. And then he saw his mother. “Jehana—?” Stiffly, he crawled across the clearing. “Jehana?”
Finn sat down suddenly in the dirt as if he could no longer stand. One hand threaded rigid fingers through his silver-speckled hair; he stripped it back from his eyes. He bared the face of his grief to his nephew, who still could not believe. Storr sat down next to Finn, leaning a little against him, as if he knew without his support Finn would surely fall.
“He was sent,” Finn said. “That was not my rujho. Not your jehan. Not my rujholla’s cheysul. That was Ihlini retribution.” He lifted his head and looked at Donal. “He was saved, and he was sent. We are alive because of Alix.”
Donal could only stare at his mother’s body.
Finn’s voice droned on. “We are alive because when she saw how the trap-link would
swallow us all, she threw us out of it. There was power enough in the trap to slay four hundred Cheysuli, four hundred… not just four… but—she threw us out of the link…and let it swallow her.”
Donal’s vision wavered. He blinked. He could not say if it were tears or the aftermath. He thought it might be both.
Alix was clearly dead. She lay sprawled on her back, arms and legs awry, spilling awkwardly from her clothing in the obscenity of death. Blood still crawled sluggishly from nose, ears, mouth. Her amber eyes were closed.
Transfixed, Donal looked slowly from mother to father. Like Alix, Duncan was sprawled in the dirt. The silent shadows lay across him, hiding malformed hands, hunching shoulders, the predatory eyes.
But not the fact that Duncan was not—quite—dead.
Donal twitched in shock as life spilled back into his body. Awkwardly he scrambled across to his father. He saw the blood in Duncan’s nostrils. He felt it in his own.
“Jehan?” His voice was a ragged whisper as he hunched beside the form. “Jehan—have we made you whole again?”
“A toy,” Duncan said thickly, and there was—briefly—sanity in his eyes; his human, Cheysuli eyes. “Tynstar—made me—a toy—”
“Jehan—?”
“For fifteen years—a toy—”
Almost frenziedly, Donal dragged Duncan’s head and shoulders into his lap. Tentative hands stroked his father’s silvered hair. “Jehan,” he begged, “do not go—I have only just found you again—”
And in his arms, his father died.
Donal sat in his mother’s pavilion. Around him were her belongings, waiting for her return: wooden chests filled with clothing and trinkets; the tapestry she had painstakingly worked for his father so many years before; cook pots and utensils; the jewelry his father had given her; many other things. And all of them spoke of Alix.
She had, over the years, made Duncan’s things hers, though she had given many to her son. The pavilion no longer was the clan-leader’s pavilion; that was Finn’s. But once, this pavilion had known the laughter the three of them had shared; the tears; the evenings of stories and future plans. Once it had known fullness. Now it knew emptiness.
Legacy of the Sword Page 18
