Legacy of the Sword
Page 31
“You will know what it is like,” she said in a hard, brittle voice. “I want you to feel what it is like. I want—”
But he did not hear what else she wanted.
* * *
He dreamed of Sorcha. And sought release in her supple body.
* * *
Donal sat bolt upright in the bed, shocked into full wakefulness so quickly his heart lurched within his chest and his head pounded. He thought he might be ill.
He stared at the woman blindly. He swallowed twice, tasting a flat foulness on his tongue. “Aislinn, what have you done?”
She turned from her belly to her back. Languorously, she stretched, then pulled silken sheets up demurely to cover her nakedness. “I took your will away.”
He rubbed at his face with one hand, trying to vanquish the tingling numbness. His body told him he had lain with a woman last night; his mind recalled nothing of it. “I did not intend to spend the night—I was going to the Keep, and then on to the army.”
“I know.” Aislinn’s smile reminded him of Electra’s. “What was it like, my lord, to know yourself so helpless?”
He swore violently and got out of the bed, but clutched one of the testers for support. “Witch. No better than your jehana—”
“We will not speak of her.” Aislinn hitched herself upright in bed and wrapped herself more tightly in the sheets. “I did not bewitch you, Donal…I merely drugged your wine.”
Dizzy, he sat back down on the edge of the bed. “But—why did you not simply slay me? The gods know you have tried before. Unless you have a different plan, now that Electra and Tynstar are dead.”
“Plan?” Aislinn frowned. “What do you say? Why would I try to slay you? What do you mean—I have done it before?”
He glared at her sourly. “In Hondarth, Aislinn. Do you not recall? That is a fine example.”
Color rushed into her face and one hand flew to cover her mouth. “But that was my mother’s doing!”
“And last night was yours.” He rubbed at his head again, suppressing a groan of pain.
She shifted closer to him, kneeling at his side. “I did not mean for you to feel ill. But you drank more wine than usual—you swallowed more of the drug than I intended.” Her hand, reaching out to his shoulder, fell away. “By the gods, Donal!—what do you expect me to do? Last time you took my will from me with your magic and forced me to lie with you. I only wanted you to know what it was like! Can you blame me? And—and—it is true we need an heir. We cannot put off such need.”
“We can.” —And now we will.
“We cannot! Do you think I am blind to the requirements of a queen?” Her eyes were blazing at him. “You seek your light woman, my lord—what else am I to do when I am in need of a son?”
“Aislinn—”
“I want a baby,” she said with a desperate dignity. “to replace the one I lost.”
He opened his mouth to answer harshly, then shut it again. He had never thought what it was to be a woman, waiting only to bear sons to inherit a throne. And in Aislinn’s case it was imperative she bear them soon; sooner, now Carillon was dead.
He slumped on the bed and stared at her; at her pale eyes and paler face. She had much of her mother’s beauty and all of her father’s pride.
Slowly, he rose from the bed and dressed. He said nothing until he was done, and then he walked to the door. “Perhaps a woman must do a thing she dislikes for a reason that demands it—but I cannot forgive you for it. No more than you have forgiven me.”
“I do not want forgiveness!” She rose up on her knees before him. “If you cannot bring yourself to get sons on me I will do what I have to do.” Her voice shook with tears. “Go back to your light woman, Donal—go back to your shapechanger whore!”
It was all he could do not to cross the room and take her throat into his hands. But he did not. “You have delayed me long enough,” he told her curtly. “Now I must ride directly to the army, without stopping at the Keep.” He looked at her angry face and felt his own anger intensify. “You had best hope for a son from this travesty…you will get no more children from me.”
Her anger fell away. “But—Homana must have an heir!”
“I have a son already.”
Aislinn scrambled out of the bed. She stood before him, perfectly nude, but her fury was unimpaired. “You would not claim her child Prince of Homana!”
“If there is no other, what else could I do?”
Pale fists clenched. “The Homanan Council would never accept a bastard by your Cheysuli whore,” she said flatly. “Never.”
Donal smiled grimly. “I am Mujhar. In the end, they will do as I tell them.”
Aislinn glared back at him. But the quality of her anger had undergone a change. Her tears were dry. He saw a new awareness in her eyes. A cool guardedness in her appraisal.
She smiled Electra’s smile.
* * *
Donal took a horse from Homana-Mujhar, knowing if he went straight to the army in lir-shape he would be too weary to go directly into battle. He sent Taj on to the Keep to pass word to Sorcha that he would not be home after all. He did not relish the confrontation when at last they did meet. She would claim the Homanans turned him from his Cheysuli heritage, and in a way, he thought perhaps she was right.
As the fleet bird disappeared Donal felt a twinge of regret. Without Taj he felt half naked. A part of himself was missing, and would be, for a while. He had told Taj to fly ahead to the army when he had finished his business at the Keep. Still, he was more fortunate than other warriors. He would lack the ability to assume falcon-shape while separated by such distance, but his link to Lorn remained intact.
Donal slowed the horse as the forest grew more dense. The track narrowed to little more than a footpath, but hoofprints marked the ground. Branches slapped at his head. Fighting the vines grew tedious.
Lorn, trotting ahead, glanced over one shoulder. Catch me if you can. With a flick of his tail he was gone.
The wolf was at home in the forests of Homana; the horse was not. But Donal gave it a try.
He bent low in the saddle, hugging with his legs while his heels urged the stallion faster. He rode high on the chestnut withers, shifting his weight unobtrusively. Hands gave the bit to the horse. Flying mane whipped against his face and he tasted the acrid salt of horsehair.
Lir—lir—lir—
Lorn’s agonized scream scythed through Donal’s mind as the path before the horse fell away into a pit. He felt weightless and a sudden blaze of fear.
Donal threw himself free of saddle and stirrups.
He caught a twisted, buried root in one hand. Gnarled and whiplike, the root dropped him three more feet before jerking him to a halt. He felt shoulder muscles tear.
He swung in perfect silence, eyes shut tightly against the pain as he reached out with his other hand. As he grasped the root he pulled himself upward, taking the weight from his injured shoulder. Sweat ran down his face as he tried to detach himself from the link with Lorn, for the wolf’s pain compounded his own. Taj was too far; there was no hope of flying out.
He swung himself gently against the earthen wall of the pit, clinging with both hands. Slowly he forced himself upward, hand-over-hand, boot toes digging into the crumbling sides. Inch by inch he rose, dragging himself upward to the rim. For a moment he hung suspended, gathering his strength, then lurched upward and clawed at the tangled roots that fringed the pit.
He grunted with effort; tasted the salt-copper tang of blood against his teeth; smelled the sweat of his effort and the stench of his growing fear. The link with Lorn vibrated with the intensity of the wolf’s pain. But he dragged himself over the edge of the pit and fell down against the ground.
He coughed. His breath whistled in his throat. His belly heaved as it tried to draw in breath. Lorn! he shouted silently, and received no answer through the link. Only pain. Pain and emptiness.
Donal struggled to his knees, nursing his aching shoulder. Dazedly he pus
hed himself to his feet and staggered toward the trees, trying to follow the thin threat of contact with his lir.
—bind a lir and a Cheysuli is bound…harm a lir and a Cheysuli is harmed…trap a lir and a Cheysuli is trapped—
The litany clamored inside his skull. His jehan had explained it once in terms a boy could understand; a boy who had received his lir too soon, sooner than anyone else. He had never forgotten the lesson.
He fell against a tree, jarring his sore chest and aching shoulder. He stumbled on, responding to the desperate compulsion in his body.
Lir—lir—lir—
He tripped. He fell to hands and knees.
A figure stepped out of the trees and stood before him. Donal, half-blinded by pain, saw the boots first, then slowly looked up.
He saw a slender figure in dark, unremarkable clothing. Pale, delicate hands. And in those hands was clasped the sword with the rampant lion on its hilt.
Donal’s head rose. He saw the smooth, youthful face; the mismatched eyes.
Sef smiled. “My lord Mujhar, this is well-met. Though you seem discomfited at the moment.”
“You—you are dead—”
“Am I? No. That was another boy. But I am glad the illusion held. I lost one of my ward-stones, you see.”
Donal gasped. “You are Ihlini—?”
“My name is Strahan,” he said, “not Sef. I am the son of Tynstar and Electra.”
Donal sat back on his heels. “Electra lost that child! In Hondarth—on the way to the Crystal Isle—my jehan said she lost the child—”
Sef—Strahan—smiled. “So she wanted him to think. But—when you are Electra of Solinde and you have loyal women by you—there are many secrets you may keep…many illusions you may hold.”
“Not before a Cheysuli.”
“Look at me, Mujhar. Tell me if I lie.”
Donal looked. No more did the boy give him humility and innocence. He gave him truth. He smiled the pure, beguiling smile of his father, with all the lambent beauty of his mother.
Donal grasped at his knife with his left hand, knowing his right arm too numb, too weak and sore to accomplish the task. But the boy set the tip of the sword against his throat, and Donal did not move.
“I hold your wolf, warrior, and therefore I hold you. Do you wish him to live, do nothing to gainsay me.”
Donal spat blood from his bitten lip. “It was you in the Womb of the Earth. It was you all those times.”
“Of course. I gave the potion to my mother so she could escape imprisonment. I hired the Homanan to attack you in the hall, knowing he would fail. I wanted you afraid. I wanted you uncertain. I wanted you in a place special to the Cheysuli, so I could slay you there.”
“Not Aislinn,” Donal said. “And—not Bronwyn, either.”
Strahan smiled. “Not Aislinn. Not Bronwyn—this time.” The smile widened. “What is it like to know your wife and sister are bloodkin to the enemy? They are, do not forget. Aislinn through her mother, Bronwyn through her father. What is it like, Cheysuli, to know you are kin to Ihlini?”
He echoes Tynstar’s words…Donal swallowed heavily and looked at the rune-worked sword. In Sef’s—Strahan’s—hands, the weapon was huge. The ruby was half the size of his fist. “How did you come by Carillon’s sword?”
“Carillon’s? Or yours?” Strahan laughed. “Osric brought it to me. I had joined him by then—in the aftermath of my ‘death’—and I asked for it. As proof that the murderer of my mother and father was dead.” Fierce anger and a powerful hatred burned deeply in the un-matched eyes. “He should have left Carillon to me. He should have let me slay him. I would have given him a much more fitting death.” His teeth showed briefly in a smile echoing that of his father. “Do you wonder why I touch the sword now? Do you wonder how I can? Because of you, my lord—you have been so remiss in your responsibilities. Oh, aye, this sword knows you—a little. But you have not had the ritual performed. You have not held it long enough in your possession for it to know an enemy’s hand each time one is laid upon it. It knew me on the hilltop—knew me for what I was—but it has been too long now since you touched it. And without the ritual, the power is reduced.”
No one has spoken of a ritual to me— But Donal shook his head. “I should have known you. Through my lir…an Ihlini is ever known.”
“No,” Strahan said gently. “Not while I wore the feathered band.”
Donal’s left hand went at once to his belt-pouch. But he did not try to open it.
The boy laughed. “Look upon it, Donal. See what has helped me so well.”
Unwillingly, Donal unfastened the pouch and took out the feathered bracelet. He looked at it mutely. Such a simple thing. A slender band of braided feather: black and gold and brown.
He met Strahan’s eyes. “How could this gainsay my lir?”
“They are from your father’s hawk.”
Breath rushed out of Donal’s body. He stared blindly at the feathers in his hand, and recalled his father’s body in his arms. How could I not have known—?
“A token, but powerful,” the boy explained cheerfully. “My father took the hawk’s body. And then he took Duncan. With them both, dead lir and live warrior, my father fashioned a powerful spell. It hid my identity. It allowed me to come to you. It even made Finn wonder if I were kin!” Strahan laughed. “And it made it an easy thing to infiltrate the palace.”
I kept this to recall Sef’s murder…but it is a tool of my own. He looked up at the boy again. “What do you intend to do with me?”
“Make you a toy,” Strahan said. “The way I made one of your father.”
Inside his head, the memories were at war.
He recalled his father from his childhood, when Duncan had been clan-leader and responsible for people other than his son. But he had still made time for that son, teaching him what he could.
He remembered Duncan in his madness, with empty eyes and taloned hands.
He recalled the first time his father had taken him hunting, to teach him what he must know about tracking animals and slaying them to help feed the clan.
He remembered Duncan begging for their help, begging to be made whole again; a man.
He recalled how his mother had taken care to keep his father alive in his memories when Duncan was gone because all too often memories faded into nothingness.
He remembered how Alix had saved them all by sacrificing herself.
But mostly he remembered how his father had died in his arms, knowing himself a toy in the hands of Tynstar’s son. And Donal knew he was, also.
No! he cried. I—am—
“—not!”
He jerked awake. He heard his breathing rasping in the confines of the cabin. The echo of his shout. The clank of heavy iron as it rattled at wrists and ankles, bolting him to the bunk aboard the ship.
Oh gods…He remembered it all, now. How Strahan had captured him and thrown him into irons, abusing Lorn to keep Donal a subdued, well-mannered prisoner.
“Tell me something.” The boy’s voice; Donal opened his eyes. “Tell me something, Donal…why was it so easy?” Strahan stood in the cabin just inside the door. He wore dark blue tunic and trews of the finest wool, belted with leather and silver.
Donal swallowed. He had no intention of answering Strahan, but his throat was very dry.
“All my life my father taught me the Cheysuli were not men to be taken without expending great effort…yet you fell easily into my hands and make no effort to break free.” Black brows knitted over hooded eyes. “Is this an example of the power of the lir-bond? I have heard how consuming it is—how a warrior gives up his life when the life of a lir is taken…but Lorn is not yet dead. Merely—confined.”
Strahan did not elaborate on the confinement, but Donal knew very well what the wolf had undergone. He could feel it in himself as he lay chained to the bunk. Weakness. Hunger. Disorientation. Great thirst. Fever. And while Lorn suffered, so did he. So would he, until the wolf was free and well.
Donal heard the change in tone. Strahan was a boy, but a boy with recourse to all the arcane arts of the netherworld. It made him old though young. It made him seem a man when he was not.
He is not a fool…and I dare not treat him as one. “Taj is dead.” His voice was mostly a croak.
Strahan laughed. “Do you expect me to believe that? I know what that death entails, Donal. I know about the madness.”
“Taj is dead.”
“Do not undervalue me!” Color stood high in Strahan’s face. “I will paint you a picture, my lord. Let us say the falcon is dead. Because you have the wolf, you need not concern yourself with the death-ritual; you are released from the responsibility. But I hold Lorn. Lorn is—ill. The wolf is not himself. And while neither are you yourself, precisely, I would hardly claim you mad.” Strahan shook his head. “With Taj dead and Lorn so close, you would not be sane.”
“What lies has Tynstar told you?”
“None at all,” the boy said gently. “It is no secret to me. A lirless Cheysuli, left alive, loses what mind he has left. But because your race is so proud, so strong, so arrogant, you cannot bear to see any warrior lose his mind along with his lir. And so you created a ceremony. Glorified suicide.” Strahan smiled. “Oh, aye, I know about the taboo. A Cheysuli would never stoop to suicide. But what else does a warrior do when his lir is dead? He gives himself over to whatever force will slay him.”
“No—”
“Aye. I know it, Donal. Do you forget I held your father?”
Donal lunged up against his chains. “Get out of my sight!”
“No.”
“He was not—a toy…he was a man…a man—you did not defeat the warrior! Therefore you did not defeat the man! You did not defeat my jehan—”
“Oh, but I think I did.” Strahan stared at Donal. The faintest underscore of comprehension edged his tone. “And, in doing it—I think I defeated you—”