Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08

by A Tapestry of Lions (v1. 0)

Kellin did not care overmuch about what the lir conspired to do. He was wholly fixed on the acknowledgment that the man who stood before him had planted the seed which had grown in Shona's belly, only to be torn free on a night filled with flames. He loved her, they say. Could he not have loved her son as well?

  Aidan sat down on one of the benches. Kellin, pointedly, remained standing. Bitterly he said,

  "Surely with your kivama—aye, I know about it—you must have known I was coming."

  Color had returned to Aidan's face. It was no longer stretched so taut, no longer empty of a tranquillity that annoyed one who lacked it. "I do not question your right to bitterness and hatred, but this is not the place for it."

  Kellin barked a harsh laugh. "Is that why you brought me in here? To tame my tongue and render me less than a man?" He wanted to jeer. "You forget, jehan—I have none of your reverence, nor your humility. If I choose to honor the gods, I do it in my own fashion. And, I might add, with less elaboration," He cast a scornful glance over the chapel. "I did not know a man would exchange the flesh of his own son for the confines of stone."

  Aidan waited him out. "I would not expect you to offer reverence or humility. You are not the man for it."

  It was veiled insult, if Kellin chose to take it so.

  Another might acknowledge it as simple statement of fact. "Do you believe me too weak to be as you are? No, jehan: too strong. I am not a coward. I do not turn my face from its proper place to hide upon an island with a mouth full of prophecies."

  "Indeed, you are not weak. Nor are you a coward." Aidan shrugged. "Nor am I, but I give you the freedom to believe as you will—just now, there is more. What you are is a confused, angry young man who only now confronts his heritage—and knows his ultimate fate lies in other hands." He overrode the beginnings of Kellin's protest. "You mentioned my kivama first—shall we let the gift guide me in the examination of your soul?" He smiled without intending offense, reminding quietly that what he could do was what few others could. "You will do as I did when the time has come: acknowledge and fully accept what the gods have designed for you in the ordering of your life."

  "If you know it, then tell me!" Kellin cried."You claim communion with the gods. Tell me now and save me time wasted in discovering it for myself!"

  "And deny you the chance to grow into the man the gods intend you to be?" Aidan smiled. "A warrior cannot circumvent a tahlmorra so easily ... he is charged to become what he is meant to become in the husbandry of his soul. Were I to tell you what becomes of you, I might well alter what is meant to happen."

  "Obscurity," Kellin charged. "That is what you teach here: how to speak in riddles so no man can understand."

  "A man learns," Aidan countered, "and then he understands."

  Kellin laughed. "Tell me," he challenged. "If indeed you can. Prophesy for me. For your only son."

  Aidan did not move upon the bench. His hands lay in his lap. "Do you forget who I am?"

  "Who you are? How could I? You are the man I have sought all my life—even when I denied it—and now that I have found you I am at last able to tell you precisely what I think of you and your foolish claims!"

  "I am the mouthpiece of the gods."

  Kellin laughed at him.

  And then his laughter died, for Aidan began to speak. "The Lion shall lie with the witch. Out of darkness shall come light; out of death: life; out of the old: the new."

  "Words," Kellin began, meaning to defame the man who said them, to leech them of their power, but his challenge died away.

  "The Lion shall lie with the witch, and the witch-child born of it shall join with the Lion to swallow the House of Homana and all of her children."

  "Jehan!"

  Yellow eyes had turned black. Aidan stared fixedly at Kellin, one hand raised to indicate his son. "The Lion," he said, "shall devour the House of Homana."

  "Stop—"

  His voice rose. "Do you think to escape the Lion? Do you think to escape your fate?" Lips peeled back. "Small, foolish boy—you are nothing to the gods. It is the Lion's cub they desire, not the Lion himself ... you are the means to an end. The Lion shall lie down with the witch."

  Kellin was instantly taken out of himself, swept back ten years. To the time of Summerfair, when he had put on his second-best tunic to go among the crowds and see what he would see, to taste suhoqla again and challenge a Steppes warior. To enter the tent filled with a sickly, sweetish odor; to see again the old man who sat upon his cushion and told who he was, and what would be his fate.

  "Lion—" Kellin whispered, staring at his father. "There is a lion—after all—"

  Aidan smiled an odd, inhumane smile. "Kellin," he said plainly, "you are the Lion."

  Two

  "I am sorry." Aidan's tone was quiet, lacking its former power. "But I warned you. It is never a simple thing—and rarely pleasant—to learn your tahlmorra."

  Kellin clung to the heel stone for support. He did not precisely recall how he had reached it.

  He remembered, if dimly, stumbling out of the shadow-clad chapel into clean sunlight—and then he had fallen to his knees, keeping himself upright only by virtue of clinging to the heel stone as a child to its mother's neck.

  He continued to clutch it. He twisted his head to ask over a shoulder. "Do you know what you said?"

  Aidan, squinting against sunlight, sighed and nodded. "Most of it. I can never recall clearly what I say when I prophesy, but the intent remains in my mind," His eyes were steady, if darkened by the acknowledgment of what had occurred. "Despite what you led me to believe with regard to your ignorance of your tahlmorra, it is not the first time you have heard such words."

  "I was ten." Kellin stood up and relinquished his grip on the stone, aware of a cold clamminess in his palms. "But I did not know—"

  "No," Aidan agreed, "a child could not. Nor many men. You were not ready. Even now you are not."

  Resentment congealed. "So you did it to prove something."

  Mildly, Aidan said, "You did ask. In plain and impolite words."

  Another time he would have fought back. Just now something else struck him as more important. "You said—" He looked warily at the chapel, as if it were responsible for putting the thoughts inside his head. "You said I am the Lion."

  "You are."

  "But how? I am a man. Not even in lir-shape am I a lion!"

  Aidan nodded. "Where words will not serve, symbols often do." He traced the runes inscribed in the heel stone. "These are symbols. And so is the Lion."

  "The Lion is a throne."

  "That, too, is a symbol." Aidan smiled. "You are a man in all the ways in which a man is measured; fear nothing there. But you are also the next link in the prophecy of the Firstborn. It may somewhat devalue my dedication to say this so baldly, but prophecies are sometimes little more than colorful pictures, like the lir we paint on pavilions."

  It gave Kellin something, a tiny bit of strength with which to reassert his challenge. "Then there is no truth to it."

  "Of course there is truth to it. Does the painted animal shape mean there is no living lir?" Aidan shook his head. "A prophecy does not lie. At times circumstances change, and the fate itself is changed; they gave us free will, the gods. The ultimate result may be altered, but what served as catalyst was never a falsehood. It is not graven in stone." He tapped fingertips against the heel stone. "This will remain here forever—for as long as the world has—to speak of the prophecy and all it entails. Eighteen words." His smile was not condescending, but unadorned serenity; he was certain of his place within the prophecy. "Eighteen simple words that have ruled our lives since before we were even conceived."

  Kellin looked at the runes. " 'One day—' " But he broke off reflexive quoting. There was another matter he considered more important. "How can I be the Lion?"

  "You are. No more than that. You are the Lion .. . just as I was the broken link."

  Kellin wanted to deny it all, to accuse the shar tahl who was also his father that
purposeful obscurity offered no one an answer. But what came out of his mouth was a simple truth: "I do not understand."

  "That is one of my purposes here: to explain things more fully."

  Bitterness reasserted itself. "To other men whose lives have been twisted by their tahlmorras?"

  "Come with me."

  It provoked. "Where? To that palace? I have seen it. You do not live there."

  "To my pavilion." The smile, now lacking the unearthly quality of prophecy, was freely offered again with nothing more in its shaping than hospitality. "I am Cheysuli, Kellin. Never forget that."

  Aidan's pavilion clustered with others in a smaller version of Clankeep. It was pale green with ravens adorning its sides; on the ridgepole sat the model.

  Sima, sprawled on a rug before the doorflap, blinked sleepily in the sun. You found him.

  Kellin scowled. As you meant me to. That is why you left me.

  She was unrepentent. Teel and I thought it best.

  I do not appreciate such secrecy in my own lir.

  Nor does your jehan. She twitched her tail. Even now he chastises Teel.

  He deserves it. So do you. He did not stoop to pat the cat but went on by her and into the pavilion as his father pulled back the flap.

  Aidan seated himself on a brown bear pelt and gestured for Kellin to make himself comfortable.

  "We built the Keep here because I saw no sense in inhabiting a palace. We are Cheysuli. We are here to rebuild what we can of the old religion, while imbuing it with new." He smiled. "I am somewhat controversial with regard to my beliefs; some elders name me a fool."

  Kellin said nothing. He had come for none of this.

  "This is a place of history and magic," Aidan continued, "and we treat it as such. Palaces have no place here."

  He disputed at once. "I thought the Cheysuli built it. There are runes in the pillars. Old Tongue runes, like those on the heel stone." It was proof; it was enough; it trapped his traitorous father.

  "Runes can be carved later, as those on the heel stone were."

  Kellin exhaled patience. He was wrung dry of it. "So, it is a Homanan palace after all. Should that matter? The Homanans are our people, too."

  Aidan smiled. "If that was a test, then assuredly you have passed it."

  In succinct Homanan, Kellin swore. "I did not come for this!"

  "No." Aidan rested his hands on his knees. "Ask what you will, Kellin."

  Kellin did not hesitate. The question had been formed nearly twenty years before. He had mouthed it every night, practicing in his bed, secure in his draperies as a child in its mother's womb. Now he could ask it in the open, in the light, of the man who knew the answer- "Why did you give me up?"

  Aidan did not hesitate. "It was an infinitely Cheysuli reason, and one you will undoubtedly contest, though you should know better; you, too, are Cheysuli."

  Kellin inhaled angrily on a hissing breath.

  "Tahlmorra. That is your answer."

  "The gods required me to renounce my title, rank, and inheritance. I was the broken link. The chain could only be mended—and therefore made much stronger—if I gave precedence to the next link. Its name was Kellin." Aidan's eyes did not waver. His tone did not break. His demeanor was relaxed. All of his self-possession was very much in opposition to the words he spoke. "It was the hardest thing I have ever done."

  Through his teeth, Kellin said, "Yet you did it easily enough."

  The first crack in Aidan's facade appeared. "Not without regret. Not without pain. When I set you into my jehana's arms—" Aidan broke it off, as if afraid to give up too much of himself after all. His tone was husky. "You were Shona's child. You were all I had of her. But I was, in that moment, a child of the gods—"

  "It is a simple thing to blame gods."

  Aidan's lips parted. "It was done for Homana."

  "Homana! Homana, no doubt, would have been better off with a contented prince instead of one who lacked a Jehan. Do you know what my life has been?"

  "Now, aye—the kivama has told me."

  "And what does it mean? Nothing? That I spent my childhood believing myself unworthy, and my adulthood cognizant that I mean nothing at all, save I can sire a son?" Kellin's fists trembled against his thighs. "Use your famous kivama and see what you did by renouncing a son in favor of the gods."

  "Kellin." The chalk cliff sloughed another layer; soon it would be bare, and the true man uncovered. "I never intended for you to suffer so. I knew it would be hard, but it had to be done . . . and you are not, above all things, a malleable man. You choose your own path—have always chosen your path—no matter the odds."

  "I was a child—"

  "So was I!" Aidan cried. "I had dreams, Kellin—nightmares. To me, the Lion was a vastly frightening thing." With effort, he let it go. He smiled sadly, no longer hiding his truths. "Do you know what it is like for a Jehan to at last acknowledge that the thing which frightens him most is his own son?"

  Kellin was nearly incoherent with outrage. "Is this your excuse for giving me up? That you are afraid—"

  "It was necessary. There was a purpose in it for me—and one, I believe, for you."

  Kellin jeered. "Facile words, jehan."

  "True words, Kellin."

  "Why would you be afraid of me? I am your son."

  "You are the Lion. You are meant to lie down with the witch. You are meant to sire the Firstborn." Aidan's eyes did not waver. "It is one thing to serve the gods, Kellin, knowing what you work toward—it is entirely another to realize that what you do matters in the ordering of the world." His smile was without humor. "Men who honor no gods, who fail to serve the gods, cannot understand the enormity of the truth: that the seed of a single man's loins can alter forever the shape of a world."

  Kellin was furious. "You will not blame me for this! You will not for one moment lay this at my door-flap! Do you think I am a fool? Do you think me so ignorant as to be led by facile words? By the gods, jehan—by any fool's gods—I will not be turned aside by your faith, by your admirable devotion, by the mouthings of a madman when I want to know the answer to a single, simple question!"

  "And I have told you why!" Kellin had at last shattered Aidan's composure. It loosed the final layer of cliff and laid bare the underside of the man, not the shar tahl; the once-born Prince of Homana who had bequeathed it all to his infant son. "My tahlmorra. You should understand a little of that, now that you know what yours is."

  "Jehan—"

  "Would you have me hold you by the hand and lead you through it? Are you so blind—or so selfish—that you cannot permit yourself to see another man's pain?"

  Kellin expelled a curse framed upon the Old Tongue. "What manner of pain could lead a man to renounce his son?"

  "The pain in knowing that if he did not, an entire race might be destroyed."

  "Jehan—"

  "The throne was never meant for me. Here is where I was bound. The link—my link—was shattered in Valgaard; do you understand what I mean? I was broken, Kellin ... I was .. . my link—a symbol—was destroyed. Yours was left whole.

  Whole, Kellin—to be joined with the rest of the chain when Brennan is dead, and a new king ascends. Do you see? I was in the way. I was unnecessary, The gods required a prophet, not another rump upon the throne ... someone to proclaim the coming of the Firstborn. Someone to prepare the way."

  "Jehan—"

  "You are the Lion. You are meant to devour the House of Homana."

  Kellin's face spasmed. "You say first I am the Lion, and then I am a link in a chain . . ." He shook his head in emphatic denial. "I understand none of it!"

  Aidan's voice was hoarse. "We are all but links. Mine was shattered. Its destruction sundered the chain. Even now it lies in Valgaard, in Lochiel's keeping."

  "A real chain?"

  "A real chain."

  "Broken."

  "I broke it. I broke me to strengthen you."

  Kellin bared his teeth. "What good does it do, then, if Lochiel hold
s it?"

  "Someone must get it back."

  "From Lochiel?"

  "Someone must take the two halves and make them one again."

  Kellin understood. He sprang to his feet. "By the eods—not I! I will not be used in a personal revenge that concerns only you.”

  Aidan's eyes were infinitely yellow. "Lochiel killed your jehana."

  Kellin recognized the battle and struck back at once, using all his weapons, "I never knew her. What does it matter?"

  "He cut you from her body as he burned down all of Clankeep."

  It hurt desperately. He had blamed himself so long for his mother's death. "No—"

  "He wanted the seed," Aidan said. "He wanted to raise you as his own, to turn you against your House ... to defang the Lion utterly before it reached maturity."

  Kellin fastened on a thing, a small, cruel thing, because he needed to, to salvage his anger, to shore up his bitterness. They were things he knew.

  "Where were you," he asked viciously, "while Lochiel the Ihlini cut open my mother's belly?"

  Aidan's eyes mirrored Kellin's desperation.

  "Where do you think I got this?" A trembling hand touched the white wing in his hair. "A sword. It broke open my skull and spilled out all the wits, all the words, all the things that make a man ... and turned me into someone no one, not even I, can truly understand." His face was wasted. "Do you think, in all your hatred, when you lie awake at night cursing the man who left you, that any man, any father, would ask the gods to give him such a fate?"

  Kellin was shaking. He could not stop himself.

  "I want—I want ..." He wet dry lips. "I want to be free of the beast."

  "Then kill it," Aidan said,

  "How?"

  "Go to Valgaard. Rejoin two halves of a whole."

  "And that will make me whole?" Kellin's wild laugh tore his throat. "Expiation for your weakness does nothing to destroy my own!"

  "Go to Valgaard."

  Kellin bared his teeth. "You have not seen what I have become!"

  "Nor has Lochiel." Aidan rose and opened the doorflap. "Perhaps the beast in you is a weapon for us all."

  "I killed a friend'" Kellin cried. "Do you say it was necessary, that the gods required this to fashion a weapon?"