Kellin leapt to his feet and ran, and was jerked down almost at once. Iron teeth bit through boot and compressed fragile flesh, scraping now on bone.
—no—no—
—no—no—NO— "
The lion, still coughing, broke out of shadow into moonlight. Kellin jerked at the chain again, but palms slipped in sticky blood. The weight of the trap was nothing as he tried to stand again, to meet his death like a man.
But then the lion roared. The boy who meant to die a man was reduced, by sheer terror, into nothing but a child screaming frenziedly for his father.
But his father would not come, because he never had.
Eight
Horseback. And yet he did not ride as a man but as a child, a small child, rump settled across the withers, legs dangling slackly upon one shoulder while the rest of him was cradled securely against a man's chest.
Kellin roused into terror. "Lion—" He was perfectly stiff, trying to flail his way to escape. Terror overwhelmed him. "Lion— LION—"
Arms tightened, stilling him. "There is no lion here."
"But—" He shut his mouth on the protest, the adamant denial of what the voice told him. Then another panic engulfed. "Ihlini—"
The man laughed softly, as if meaning no insult.
"Not I, my lad. I've not the breeding for it."
Kellin subsided, though his strained breathing was audible. His eyes stretched painfully wide, but saw nothing in the darkness save the underside of a man's jaw and the oblique silhouette of a head. "Who—?" It faded at once. Pain reasserted itself. "My leg."
"I'm sorry for it, lad .. . but you'll have to wait for the healing."
It took effort to speak, to forced a single word through the rictus of his mouth. "—whole—?"
"Broken, I fear. But we'll be mending it for you."
Kellin ground his teeth. "—hurts—" And then wished he had said nothing, nothing at all; a Cheysuli did not speak of pain.
"Aye, one would think so." The grip shifted a little, sliding down Kellin's spine to accommodate the weight that was no longer quite so slack.
" 'Twas a trap for a bear, not a boy. You're fortunate it left the foot attached."
Kellin stiffened again, craning, as he tried to see for himself.
The other laughed softly. "Aye, lad, 'tis there. I promise you that. Now, settle yourself; you've a fever coming on. You'll do better to rest."
"Who—?" he began again.
The rider chuckled as Kellin tried to sit up. He turned his face downward. "There, now—better? I'm one of you after all."
"One of—me?" And then Kellin understood. Relief washed through him, then ebbed as quickly as it stole his strength away.
Indeed, one of him. The stranger was his grandsire, if stripped of forty years. His accent was Aileen's own. There was only one Cheysuli warrior in all the world who sounded like the Mujhar's Erinnish queen.
"Blais," Kellin murmured. Weakness and fever crept closer to awareness, nibbling at its edges.
The warrior grinned, displaying fine white teeth in a dark Cheysuli face. "Be still, little cousin. We've yet a ways to ride. You'll do better to pass it in sleep."
In sleep, or something like. Kellin slumped against his kinsman as consciousness departed.
He roused as Blais handed him down from the horse into someone else's care. Pain renewed itself, so strongly that Kellin whimpered before he could suppress it. And then he was more ashamed than ever because Blais himself was Cheysuli and knew a warrior did not voice his discomfort.
Sweating, Kellin bit again into a split lip and tasted fresh blood. It was all he could do not to moan aloud.
"My pavilion," Blais said briefly. "Send someone to Homana-Mujhar with word, and call others here for the healing."
The other warrior carried Kellin inside as Blais dismounted and carefully settled him onto a pallet of thick furs. Kellin opened his eyes and saw the shadowed interior of a Cheysuli pavilion. Then the stranger was gone, and Blais knelt down on one knee beside him. A callused palm touched Kellin's forehead.
"Shansu," Blais murmured. "I know it hurts, little cousin, no need to fight it so, I'll think none the less of you."
But Kellin would not give in, though he sweated and squirmed with pain. "Can't you heal me?"
Blais smiled. His face was kind in a stem sort of way. He was very like them all, though Erinn and Homana ran in his veins as well as Cheysuli blood. Physically the dilution did not show; Blais' features and coloring were purely Cheysuli, even if the accent was not. "Not without help, my lad. I was ill myself last year with the summer fever—well enough now, you'll see, but weak in the earth magic yet. I'd rather not risk the future of Homana to a halfling's meager gifts."
Halfling. Kellin shifted. What am I, then? "You have a lir. Tanni. I remember from when you visited Homana-Mujhar two years ago."
"Aye, but she came to me late. Don't be forgetting, lad—I was Erinn-raised. The magic there is different. I'm different because of it."
Fever-clad weakness proved pervasive. Kellin squinted at his cousin through a wave of fading vision. "I'm different, too, like you . .. will I get my lir late?"
" Tis between you and the gods." Blais' callused palm was gentle as he smoothed back dampened hair. "Hush. now, lad. Don't waste yourself on talking."
Kellin squirmed. "The Lion—"
" 'Twas a bear-trap, lad."
Kellin shut his eyes because it made him dizzy to keep them open. "An Ihlini Lion . .." he asserted weakly, "and it was after me."
"Lad."
"—was—" Kellin insisted. "The Ihlini killed Urchin. And Rogan."
"Kellin."
"They were my friends, and he killed them."
"Kellin!" Blais caught Kellin's head between two strong hands, cupping the dome of skull easily. "No more of this. The healing comes first, then we'll be talking of deaths. D'ye hear?"
"But—"
"Be still, my little prince. Homana has need of you whole."
"But—"
And then the others were there, crowding into the pavilion, and the wave of exhaustion that engulfed Kellin was as much induced by the earth magic as by his fever.
Voices intruded. The murmurs were quiet, but they nonetheless broke apart Kellin's tattered dreams and roused him to wakefulness.
"—harsh for any man to lose his closest companions," Blais was saying from outside as he pulled aside the door-flap. "For a lad, that much the harder."
Light penetrated the interior, turning the inside of Kellin's eyelids red. The answering voice was well-known and beloved. "Kellin has always seemed older than his years," Brennan said as he entered the pavilion. "Sometimes I forget he is naught but a boy, and I try to make him into a man."
" 'Tis the risk any man takes with an heir, especially a prince." Blais let the door-flap drop, dimming daylight again into a wan, saffron tint.
Brennan's voice was hollow. "He is more than that to me. I lost Aidan—" He checked- "So, now there is Kellin. In Aidan's place. In all things, in Aidan's place. He was made to be Prince of Homana before he was even a boy, still but an infant wetting his napkins."
Kellin cracked his lids slightly, only enough so he could see the two men through a fuzzy fringe of lashes. He did not want them to know he was awake. He had learned very young that adults overheard divulged more information than when asked straight out.
Blais' laugh was soft as he settled himself near the pallet. "You had no choice but to invest him when you did. Aidan had renounced the title already, and I had come from Erinn. D'ye think I am dead. I heard all the whispers, sufali ... had you delayed Kellin's investiture, my presence here in Homana might have given new heart to the a'saii. Your claim on the Lion would have been threatened again."
"I might have packed you off to Erinn," Brennan suggested mildly.
"Might have tried, my lord Mujhar." Blais' tone was amused as he gestured for his guest to seat himself. "When has a warrior been made to do anything he preferred not to do?"
Brennan sighed as he knelt down beside his grandson. "Even Kellin. Even a ten-year-old boy."
The humor was banished. "He spoke of a lion, and an Ihlini."
The line of Brennan's mouth tautened. "The lion is something Kellin made up years ago. It is an excuse for things he cannot explain. He is fanciful; he conjures a beast from the lions in banners and signets, and the throne itself. And because he has been unfortunate to witness Ihlini handiwork, he interprets all the violence as the doings of this lion."
"What handiwork?"
"The death of a fortune-teller. He was a foreigner and unknown to us, but his death stank of sorcery."
"Lochiel," Blais said grimly.
"He knows very well. Kellin offers the greatest threat to the Ihlini."
"Like his father before him."
"But Aidan no longer matters. He sired the next link, and that link now is the one Lochiel must shatter." Brennan's fingertips gently touched Kellin's brow. "It all comes to Kellin. Centuries of planning all comes down to him."
Blais' tone was dry, for all it was serious. "Then we had best see he survives."
"I have done everything I could. The boy has been kept so closely it is no wonder he makes up stories about lions. Had my jehan kept me so tied to Homana-Mujhar, I would have gone mad. As it is, I am not in the least surprised he found a way to escape his imprisonment. But Urchin and Rogan are also missing; I can only surmise they, too, were lured away. No Ihlini could get in, and Kellin is too well-guarded within the palace itself. He would go nowhere without the Homanan boy, and Rogan would never permit Kellin to leave if he heard any whisper of it. So I believe we must look at a clever trap set with the kind of bait that would lure all of them out."
Blais' tone was grim. "An imaginary lion?"
Kellin could no longer hold himself back; his eyes popped open. "There was a Lion!"
"Cheysuli ears," Brennan said, brows arching, "hear more than they should."
"There was," Kellin insisted. "It chased me into the bear-trap . .. after Urchin and Rogan died."
Brennan shut his eyes. "More deaths."
Blais shifted. He sat cross-legged, one thigh weighted down by the head of a ruddy wolf. His expression was oddly blank as he stroked the wide skull and scratched the base of the ears.
Brennan's momentary lapse was banished. He was calm, unperturbed. "Tell us what happened, Kellin. We must know everything."
Kellin delayed, testing his ankle. "It doesn't hurt any more."
"Earth magic," Blais said. "You've a scar, but the bones are whole."
"A scar?" Kellin peeled back the deerskin coverlet and saw the bared ankle. Indeed, there was a jagged ring of purplish "tooth" marks ringing his ankle. He wiggled his foot again. There was no pain.
" 'Twill fade," Blais told him. "I've more scars than I can count, but hardly any of them show."
Kellin did not care about the scar; if anything, it proved there was a Lion. He looked now at his grandsire, putting aside the Lion to speak of another grief. "It was Rogan," he said unsteadily.
"Rogan betrayed me to the Ihlini."
The Mujhar did not so much as twitch an eyelid.
The mildness of his tone was deceptive, but Kellin knew it well: Brennan wanted very badly to know the precise truth, without embellishments or sup-positions. "You are certain it was he?"
"Aye." Kellin suppressed with effort the emotions to which he longed to surrender. He would be all Cheysuli in this. "He said he would take me to my jehan. That you knew we were to go, just the three of us, but that we meant to go to Clankeep. He said he would send true word to you where we were, but only after we were on our way to Hondarth."
Brennan's face grayed. "Such a simple plan, and certain to work. I was a fool. Lochiel has ways of suborning even those I most value."
"Not money," Kellin said. "So he could have his wife back. Only—" He checked himself, recalling all too clearly the tiny dancing woman and Rogan's horrible ending. "Corwyth killed him first. With sorcery. And then Urchin." Pain formed a knot in chest and throat. "Urchin's dead, too."
After a moment the Mujhar touched Kellin's head briefly. Gently, he said, "You must tell me everything you remember about how this was done, and the Ihlini himself. Everything, Kellin, so we may prepare for another attack."
"Another—?" Kellin stared hard at the Mujhar, turning over the words. Realization made him breathless. "They want to catch me. Corwyth said so. He said he was taking me to Lochiel, in Valgaard."
Brennan's expression was grim, but he did not avoid candor. "You are important to the Ihlini, Kellin, because of who you are, and the blood in your veins. You know about that."
He did. Very well. Too well; it was all anyone spoke of. "They won't stop, then." It seemed obvious.
"No."
Kellin nodded, understanding more with each moment. "That's why you set the dogs to guarding me."
"Dogs? Ah." Brennan smiled faintly. "We dared not allow you to go anywhere alone. Not in Mujhara, not even to Clankeep." His jaw tightened.
"Do you recall how you sickened after your Naming Day feast?"
Kellin nodded, recalling with vivid clarity how ill he had been after eating his meal. He had not wanted fish for a sixth-month, after.
"Lochiel had no recourse to sorcery in order to harm you, not so long as you remained in Homana-Mujhar, or at Clankeep, but coin buys people. He bribed a cook to poison the meal. We were forced to take serious steps to safeguard Homana's prince, and his freedom suffered for it."
Brennan's words were stated with careful precision. "Rogan understood. Rogan knew why. He comprehended fully how you were to be protected."
That is why they were all so upset when I ran away from the fortune-teller. Guilt flickered. "It was after I heard you speaking with granddame. About how my jehan would not have me see him." Kellin swallowed heavily. "Rogan came and said he would take me to my jehan."
Brennan's expression was bleak as he exchanged a glance with Blais. "I have learned from this, too, though I believed myself wise in such matters."
He sighed heavily. "Nearly every man has his price. Most will deny it, claiming themselves in-corruptible, but there is always something that will lure them into betrayal- If they disbelieve it, it is because they have not been offered that which they most desire."
Rogan was offered his wife. Kellin wanted to protest it. It hurt him deeply that Rogan had betrayed him, but he understood his grandfather's words.
Hadn't he been bought by the promise of his father?
"I would never submit to an Ihlini," he muttered. "Never."
"And that is why you are here." Brennan smiled faintly, tension easing from his features. "Tell us everything."
Kellin did. By the time he was done he felt tears in his eyes, and hated himself for them.
Blais shook his head. "There is no shame in honest grief."
Brennan's tone was gentle. "Rogan was everything to you for two years, and Urchin was your best friend. We think no less of you because you loved them."
Kellin let that go, thinking now of something else. "You said something about me. To Blais, earlier. That I offer the greatest threat to the Ihlini."
He looked first at Blais, then at the Mujhar. "What harm can I do them?"
"You can bring down their House," Brennan said quietly, "merely by siring a son."
It was incomprehensible. "Me?"
The Mujhar laughed. "You are young yet to think of such things as sons, Kellin, but the day will come when you are a man. Lochiel knows this. With each passing year you become more dangerous."
"Because of my blood." Kellin looked at the scar ringing his ankle, recalling the warm wetness running down between his toes. "That blood."
Brennan took Kellin's wrist into his hand and raised it, spreading the fingers with the pressure of his thumb. "All the blood in here," he said. "In this hand, in this arm, in this body. And the seed in your loins, provided it quickens within the body of a particular woman. Lochiel cannot
risk allowing you to sire that son."
"The prophecy," Kellin murmured, staring at his hand. He tried to look beneath the flesh to bone and muscle, and the blood that was so special.
"The Firstborn reborn," Blais said- "The bane of the Ihlini. The end of Asar-Suti."
Kellin looked at his grandfather. "They died because of me. Rogan. Urchin. The fortune-teller. Didn't they?"
Brennan closed the small hand inside his own adult one. "It is the heaviest burden a man can know. Men who are kings—and boys who are princes—carry more of them than most."
His chest was full of pain. "Will more die, grandsire? Just because of me?"
Brennan did not lie. He did not look away. "Almost certainly."
Nine
Kellin felt important and adult: Brennan had said he might have a small cup of honey brew, the powerful Cheysuli liquor. He knew it was his grandfather's way of making him feel safe and loved after his encounter with tragedy, so he sipped slowly, savoring the liquor and the intent, not wanting the moment to end because he felt for the first time as if they believed him grown, or nearly so. Nearly was better than not; he grinned into the clay cup.
The Mujhar was not present. When Brennan returned to the pavilion, he, Kellin, and Blais would depart for Homana-Mujhar, but for the moment Kellin was required to stay with his cousin. Brennan met with the clan-leader to discuss the kinds of things kings and clan-leaders discuss; Kellin had heard some of it before and found it tedious-He was much more interested in his kinsman, who was fascinating as a complex mixture of familiar and exotic.
An Erinnish Cheysuli with Homanan in his blood, Blais did not look anything but Cheysuli, yet his accent and attitude were different. The latter was most striking to Kellin. Blais seemed less concerned with excessive personal dignity than with being content within his spirit; if that spirit were more buoyant than most, he gave it free rein regardless.
At this moment Blais was working on a bow, replacing the worn leather handgrip with new. His head was bent over his work and a lock of thick black hair obscured part of his face. Lir-gold gleamed. Next to him sprawled sleeping Tanni, toes twitching in wolf dreams.
Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 Page 9
