Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  "No," Brennan said. His eyes were on the leather-wrapped stump. "Hart, what happened?"

  "Foolishness," Hart said bitterly. "Idiocy, and worse. I put myself in the hands of the enemy for the price of a stupid game."

  "You wagered your hand?"

  "No. Worse. I wagered Solinde." Hart drew in a deep breath, than blew it out. "It is complicated, rujho, and I am not proud of it. You can see the result plainly."

  Frowning, he looked more closely at his brother. "What has he done to you?"

  "To me? To me? Nothing." Brennan turned away, paced a few steps, swung back. "Nothing that shows, rujho ... he is too clever for that."

  "Sleeta?"

  "He has her. Somewhere here. Somewhere hidden."

  He shook his head. "Close enough to keep me from the edge of lirlessness and madness."

  "But only just," Hart said flatly. "Do you think I cannot see it? I can see it in your eyes—"

  Brennan waved it off. "Aye, aye," he said shortly, "but what of Strahan? I know why he wants us—to use as puppet-kings—but why this protracted mummery? Why not simply force us to do his will? He can. Easily. This is Valgaard, the Gate of the netherworld—his power is manifest. It should be a simple task—"

  "Should be," Hart echoed, "but is it? Could there be a limit to his power? Does he require willing victims?"

  Brennan's expression was a scowl of consideration.

  "He has other minions, but none of them are Cheysuli . . . none of them have the Old Blood—"

  "But this is Valgaard. Why should it matter here?"

  "Supposedly, it should not." Brennan shrugged. "Wishful thinking, rujho—but could it be that he needs more power to make a Cheysuli his? That one who fights his influence could drain him of his strength?"

  "Strahan's strength seems boundless."

  Brennan rubbed a hand through dirty hair. "Aye. But what other explanation? Why does he try to induce us when force should be enough?"

  Hart stared toward the Gate. "Perhaps it is nothing more than a facet of his perversity. Which would please him more, rujho—a Cheysuli who was forced, or one who accepted service willingly?

  "Even Gisella was not forced."

  Hart shivered once. "No. What need? Lillith twisted her so badly—"

  "—at least, what was left from the unfortunate circumstance of her birth." Brennan's expression was unsettled; only rarely did he give over any time to thinking of his mother. "But this is different, rujho—"

  "Aye," Hart said harshly. "He knows what inducements to use."

  Brennan looked at him sharply, suddenly afraid. The note in Hart's voice, the expression in his eyes . . . foreboding was iron in Brennan's belly. "Hart, I can hardly begin to comprehend what you have lost—"

  "Aye," Hart said curtly. "Look to yourself, rujho. My choice is my own to make."

  And abruptly, the fence of fire died away.

  Smoke boiled up from the Gate and carpeted the floor.

  It touched their knees, no higher; spread out to engulf cavern and corridor, wreathing glassy columns. Through the smoke came Strahan, holding the rune-worked box.

  Hart's breath was harsh in his throat. Brennan looked away.

  "Tahlmorra lujhala mei wiccan, cheysu," Strahan said as he walked. Echoes thrummed in the Seker's harp.

  "Such an all-encompassing statement, this thing of gods and fate. Have you never thought to question it? To free yourselves of such blind and binding service?"

  Slowly, Brennan shook his head. "No more than you have questioned your own service to the Seker."

  "Ah, but I have my reasons." Strahan paused between them, near the lip of the Gate. And then circled it calmly to stand on the other side. He smiled and made a gesture. "A full complement of Niall's sons."

  As he meant them to. Hart and Brennan turned to look. And stared, rigidly, as Corin was brought into the cavern. That he could not walk was plain; both legs were tightly bound in wooden splints and linen wrappings.

  Ihlini carried him on a litter. He reclined against piled bolsters, but gripped the litter with both hands.

  "You may blame me as you like," Strahan said, as Hart and Brennan turned back to him with anger in their faces, "but it is not my doing." He shrugged. "Broken legs mend. He will be whole soon."

  "Provided he accepts the bargain you offer him," Brennan turned his head and spat. "You are abomination—"

  "Am I?" Strahan smiled. He watched as his servitors brought the litter to a halt near the Gate and set it down. "I was thinking I might prefer to be known as deliverance."

  Hart went to Corin. "Rujho—“

  "I am well enough," Corin said. "For all I hate to admit it, Strahan does not lie. I am nearly healed." His eyes were on Hart's left wrist. "He told me—he told me—"

  Hart's mouth twisted. "Strahan does not lie." He sighed.

  "You know what he wants from us."

  Corin averted his gaze. "Aye. He has made it very plain."

  Brennan came to the litter and knelt. "Corin—"

  "Enough," Strahan said. "The reunion may come later. I want you to listen to me."

  After a moment, Brennan rose. Hart turned to face the Ihlini squarely. On his litter, Corin watched.

  "I am no more abomination than you," Strahan told Brennan. "What I do, I do for my god, my race, myself. I believe in what I do, because what I do is just."

  "The destruction of the Cheysuli? The fall of Homana?"

  Brennan shook his head. "I think—“

  "You do not think!" Strahan shocked them all with the abruptness and intensity of his passion. The sound reverberated in the cavern, threading its way among the columns of the Seker's monstrous harp. “If you thought, you would realize that what I do is no different from what you do, if for a different reason." Now his tone was cold as he looked at each of them individually. "When I was a boy, and very young, I learned what hatred was, and I learned that it had no place in what I was meant to do. And so I do not Hate you." He drew in a breath, strung so tightly the others thought—prayed—he might snap. "I learned what it was to prepare myself to serve my father's god with absolute loyalty, knowing the way of the Seker was the only way for me. And when Carillon slew Tynstar and Electra, stripping me of my parents, I learned what it was to know of the desire for revenge—and how to detach myself from it so it did not affect my judgment, my needs, my loyalty to my God and to his needs."

  "No doubt." Brennan said coolly. "We see the design quite clearly."

  "Do you? I think not. I think you see only yourself caught within a trap, when the trap involves much more than a single man." Strahan shook his head. "You give yourself too much value, too much weight in the fabric of life ... you are but a slub within the cloth, subject to rejection."

  Brennan's brows rose. "If that were true—"

  "—I would not want you?" Again, Strahan shook his head. "You are an ingredient, but hardly the dish itself."

  "What is this nonsense?" Hart asked harshly. "What is this senseless talk of hatred, revenge, cloth—?"

  Strahan's odd eyes were incredibly compelling. "I am no different from any of you. I serve my god as you serve the pantheon of your own, as dedicated to destroying the prophecy as you are to fulfilling it. Why? Because fulfillment destroys the Ihlini." He spread one hand; the other held the rune-scribed box. "You see? A simple answer for you: I believe in what I do every bit as strongly as you do in your prophecy. Does it make me a monster? Does it make me abomination? Does it make me different from you?"

  "We do not kill people arbitrarily," Corin said curtly.

  "We—"

  But Strahan's laughter overrode his retort. "Oh, no?" the Ihlini asked. "Then what of the thirty-two innocent souls who burned to death in the Midden? Was that done with purpose?"

  For a long moment all any of them could do was stare, stricken. And then Hart stirred, knowing himself most guilty.

  "But we do not set about destroying an entire race," he answered flatly. "What of the plague, Strahan? Twenty years
ago it nearly killed us all. What of the wars, Strahan? How many hundreds of years has Homana fought Solinde merely to stave off the Ihlini? What of all the trap-links and other sorcerous things designed to bring us down?"

  "War requires harsh measures," Strahan said, "and this is war. A battle for survival that you would fight as hard, if you were not so blind."

  "What are we blind to?" Corin demanded in frustration.

  "Yourselves," Strahan told him, looking from Corin to Hart to Brennan. "Once the Firstborn have come, we will be redundant. Ihlini and Cheysuli; the need for us is gone."

  Brennan's disgust was plain. "I have heard that before." He thought of Tiernan and other similar sentiments. "It is idiocy, Strahan—why would the gods sentence us to death on the birth of other children?"

  "It is the way of things." Strahan said. "When you breed a stallion and mare to improve exisiting bloodlines, you desire offspring combining the best of both. And then you breed get to get to fix the characteristics. It is the same with dogs, with sheep, with cattle . . . and one day, when you have the characteristics you want, you realize there is no need for the progenitors; they are obsolete. The new breed is much better." The light was odd on his face. "It is the same with people."

  Corin laughed once. "You reduce the House of Homana to a collection of studs and mares."

  "Look at your prophecy," Strahan snapped impatiently. "Are you blind to its commands?" Glibly contemptuous, he quoted. " 'One day a man of all blood shall unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magical races.' " He stared at them angrily. "Marry here, wed there, get the blood for the prophecy . . . look to no other kingdom because we need this one, to fulfill the prophecy." He shook his head in disgust. "A collection of studs and mares . . . what else do you think you are?"

  None of them could answer.

  Strahan nodded slightly. "You are all of you one of the final links in the prophecy. You combine the blood of three realms: Homana, Solinde, Atvia. You lack only Erinn, but children born of Brennan and Aileen will fulfill that portion, as well as children of Keely and Sean. And that leaves only the blood of the Ihlini." Black brows touched the circlet in an expression of delicate amusement. "The hardest feat of all, getting Cheysuli to lie with Ihlini."

  Brennan's flesh went suddenly hot on his bones.

  "Of course," Strahan continued, "the precedent has been set. By Ian. The unspeakable was accomplished once—and then again." He looked at Brennan. "And yet an impediment exists. The child will not quite be a Firstborn, lacking some of the blood ... it will not quite be the human equivalent to fulfillment of the merging of power and bloodlines—but it will have a complement of powers greater than most of ours. And I will put it to good use in breeding it for my own."

  "Then Sidra's child is yours," Corin blurted.

  "Of course." Strahan smiled. "The Cheysuli have done well breeding so close to the prophecy, so I will adopt a successful strategy and use it for my own. Rhiannon's child shall marry mine, once the genders are in balance."

  His glance at Brennan was amused. "I doubt Brennan will freely participate again, but Sidra is young and I am potent. In time, I shall have the pair I require."

  "Then let us go," Hart suggested. "Of what use are we to you?"

  "To me. not so much. But to the Seker, aye. He wants the realms, and I will do what I can to win them from those who would keep them from him."

  "Why does he want them?" Hart demanded. "Why all this greed, this overweening ambition? He has the netherworld—why must he want the rest?"

  Strahan, for the first time, looked truly perplexed.

  "Why? Because he does." He shrugged. "It is not my place to question the ambitions of a god."

  Corin nodded. "And when you are become a god?"

  Strahan's motion was arrested. He looked at Corin blankly,

  "Aye," Corin said, "I begin to put it together." He struggled to sit more upright on the litter. "A faithful servant, Strahan, working for the god—but when the task is done? When you have succeeded? Does he give you what you want?"

  "What I want is immaterial—"

  "A godhood of your own?"

  "Godhood!" Brennan stared. "Is that what—“

  "I serve Asar-Sutil" Strahan's shout reverberated in the cavern. "He is my god, my lord, the Seker, the font of all my strength—"

  "And you want parity." Corin smiled. "I understand an ambitious man. But I wonder . . . does Asar-Suti?"

  Strahan's eyes narrowed slightly, but his smile remained unblemished. "And does Brennan know how much you want Aileen?”

  Corin's arms collapsed beneath him. He slumped back into the pillows.

  "Aileen?" Brennan said blankly. Then he looked at Corin. "You want-—"

  "He said you were unfit." Corin's tone was curt and characteristically defensive.

  "Unfit! I? And you believed him?"

  "Are you not?" Strahan asked.

  Brennan nearly gaped. "I have spent nearly twenty-two years of my life learning how to rule—I doubt I am unfit!"

  "Are you not?" Strahan repeated. "Think back, my lord of Homana . . . think back to your fear."

  Brennan's color faded.

  "Aye," Strahan said. "Your fear of small, dark places—the terror of close confinement... the diminishment of the man who becomes nothing more than a beast." He smiled. "Do you think I have not seen it? Rhiannon told me of it, and I have watched you in your cell."

  "Enough!" Hart shouted, seeing Brennan's eyes.

  Strahan looked only at Brennan. "I ask you to serve me willingly, as I have done before. Accept, and I will free you forever of this fear."

  Brennan swallowed tightly. "No."

  "Then live in it again . . . show Corin how fit you are to rule." Strahan raised his hand and Brennan's world was changed.

  He was small, so small, so tiny in the abyss of the world. He knelt on the ground and hugged himself, wrapping himself in his arms, trying to withstand the pain and fear of knowing himself alone.

  The vastness amazed him. It made him insignificant, reduced him to obsolescence. Alone in the world he knelt on a vast stone plain, watching the world around him, and saw it begin to move.

  —how it moved—

  Like a sphincter squeezing closed, it began to move upon him. Fold upon fold, swallowed by itself. The world grew smaller and smaller and smaller, until he could put out his hands and touch it, and then it grew smaller still.

  All around him the world trembled. And then it touched him, even as he withdrew. It drew closer, closer, until he could not breathe without feeling its caress; without smelling the stink of its fetid breath and the slime of its glass-black skin. Awash in the power of helplessness, he felt the world draw closer.

  —so small—

  —he could not straighten legs—could not sit up—could not stretch out his arms—

  All around him the world squeezed.

  —so dark—

  He was entombed within the world, and it was deaf to his cries.

  Brennan fell backward, rolling from one hip onto his spine. Cramped thighs spasmed and trembled. Jerking twisted tendons. His skull banged against the floor, released from the rigidity of his neck. He lay on the stone and shook, wet from the sweat of his fear.

  Dimly he heard movement. But no one came to aid him.

  "What kind of king," Strahan said, "fears confinement more than death? Fears it so much that it robs him of control?" He pointed slowly to Brennan's trembling body on the floor, "Do you, Corin, truly believe him fit to rule? Fit to hold the Lion? To sire children on Aileen?”

  "Stop!" Corin shouted.

  Strahan ripped open the box, "Accept service with me, and I will make your brother whole!”

  Sickened, Corin stared. "Oh—gods—stop—“

  "You see what Brennan is—I can free him of that!”

  "No more!" Corin cried.

  "Take the Lion for me. Hold Homana for me. Take the woman for yourself.”

  Corin clapped both his hands to his head. "Mak
e him stop—"

  Hart tried. Even as Strahan shouted something more, he lurched forward and threw himself across the expanse of the Gate.

  Flame licked up. It bathed Hart briefly as he leaped.

  He cried out, came down, landed hard on the other side, too near, too near the Gate—

  Brennan, still weakened from his ordeal, struggled to hands and knees. "Hart—no!"

  Strahan stood his ground. "Corin—"

  "No—" Hart scraped his knees and boots against the rim of the Gate, grimacing in pain.

  "I will give your brothers their lir."

  "Corin—no—" Hart gasped.

  Brennan rose unsteadily. "Hart—get back—Hart—"

  Abruptly, Strahan knelt on one knee before Hart. His hands held out the box. "Do you want it? Do you want it? You have only to say the word—"

  "No—" Brennan shouted.

  Strahan's smile was unearthly, "To be a whole Cheysuli, honored by all the clan—"

  "Leave him alonel" Corin cried.

  "—to be able to fly again—"

  Brennan stumbled forward. "Hart—get back—"

  Flame exploded from the Gate and blinded all save Strahan.

  "—to know the freedom of the skies—"

  Hart wavered on his knees. "Ku'reshtin—"

  "Take me," Corin shouted, "I will accept the service—"

  "Corin—Corin, no—" Brennan tried to round the Gate.

  Flame licked out, slapped him down, smashed him against the floor.

  "Take me," Corin cried.

  Hart threw himself at the Ihlini. Strahan fell heavily, landing on hip and elbow. A shower of sparks exploded from the Gate.

  "He is forsworn!" Strahan shouted. "You heard what he said—"

  Hart dragged himself forward, bodily preventing the sorcerer from rising. Steadfastly he ignored the rope of Ihlini godfire that caught an ankle and tugged, trying to jerk him into the Gate.

  "He is forsworn!" Strahan shouted.

  Hart's hand was on the box. Runes blazed up and writhed, then circled the rectangular box in a blur of uncanny script. Faster, faster, until the blur ran off the wood and leaped onto Hart's remaining hand. He cried out in pain, but did not release the box.

  Brennan, badly disoriented, tried to stand up and failed.