He laughed joyously. "I cannot—I feel precisely the same today as I did when I awoke here—but he assures me it is true. And so I begin to think I may be of some use after all."
"Some use," I agreed. "But no one suggests how much." I laughed at his feigned heart-blow. "And what are you planning? I see the look in your eye."
His hand rose in the gesture I knew so well.
Two rings glinted upon it: my emerald, and the lifestone. There was no hesitation in his manner.
His fingers were steady, assured, and the rune was more elaborate than any I had seen from him before.
"Kir'a'el!" I cried. "Devin—"
It shimmered in the air. Then it snuffed out the candles and became the only illumination in the room, dominating the dawn. It set his eyes aflame.
"Only a trick," he said negligently, but he could not hide his satisfaction.
"Three months ago you could not bestir the air to save your soul." I raised my own hand and built a matching rune. It was the distaff side of kir'a'el.
Mine met his; they melted together like wax, then twined themselves into one. The conjoined rune glowed with the purest form of godfire. I stared hard at Devin, filled with blazing pride. This was what we were born for. "Together we can make anything!"
"A child?"
"Not yet." We touched our hands together, let the new rune bathe our flesh, then bespoke the word that banished it. "We shall have to try again."
His eyes were still alight with the acknowledgment of power. "Come out with me now. I have horses waiting."
"You are sure of yourself."
"Then I will go by myself."
"Hah." I arched brows haughtily. "You could not even get beyond the Field of Beasts, let alone find the defile."
"I found it before."
"Tied to the back of a horse like so much dead meat? Aye, you found it." I caught his hand and kissed it. "Let us go, then. I could not bear to have you lost."
But even as I dressed, having banished him from the chamber—otherwise I would never progress beyond the disrobing stage—I was aware of a tiny flicker of trepidation. For so long he had been helpless, bereft of Ihlini power, yet now he promised power in full measure. I did not begrudge it—we are what we are—but I was concerned.
Would he become so consumed by the power and Lochiel's ambitions that he would neglect me? Once the child was born, would there be a need for me? Or would I become as my mother: valueless in their eyes because my duty was done?
Naked, I shivered. Before me I conjured his eyes, so avid in tenderness. I felt his arms, his mouth; knew the answer in a body perfectly attuned to his.
Lochiel had sired me. Melusine had borne me.
But it was Devin of High Crags who had brought me to life. Without him, my flame dimmed.
I will not be defined by the man with whom I sleep.
Yet he was defined by me. I was his only water in a wasteland of emptiness.
Devin took me out of Valgaard into the rocky canyons. It was all new to him, who had seen none of it, and I gloried in the telling of our history. He was fascinated, asking many questions, until the cat squalled. The noise of it echoed eerily.
He reined his horse in at once. His face was stark white, bleached of color and substance. Even his lips cried out for my mother's paint.
"Only a cat," I said. "Snow cat, I would wager. They sometimes come into the canyons. Though usually in winter." I frowned. "It is early for it, but—"
The cat screamed again. Devin stared blindly.
I searched for any subject to break his mood. "My father will call for a hunt. Perhaps you would care to go. You could have the pelt for your own ... or perhaps I could make a coverlet for the cradle—"
He turned to me then and fixed me with a gaze of such brittle intensity I thought he might shatter. His voice was a travesty. "The cat is calling for something."
I shrugged. "Its mate, perhaps. Devin—"
A shudder took him. The tendons stood up in his neck like rope knotted much too tightly. His mouth moved rigidly as if to form words, but no voice issued.
"Devin—"
"Do you hear it?" His eyes were wholly empty.
"A lonely, unhappy beast."
"Devin, wait—" But he rode on, ignoring me. "Snow cats can be dangerous. If it is sick, or injured ..." He heard none of it. I turned my own mount and followed, irritated. "Wait for me."
He halted his horse roughly. As I saw the cause, I reined mine in as well. "By the god," I whispered.
Not a snow cat after all, but a black mountain cat. She crouched upon a ledge not far above our heads, keening a wail that echoed throughout the canyon. Great golden eyes glared.
I caught my breath. "Beware—"
But the cat did not spring. She merely held her crouch, staring down at him. Then, as I rode forward, she looked directly at me and screamed.
I reined in abruptly, apologizing inwardly to my mount. But the spell was broken. The cat turned and ran, leaping up through a wide crack. She was gone almost at once.
I released a breath. "Thanks to Asar-Suti ..." I rode up to Devin. "I thought she would have you."
He stared after the cat.
"Devin."
His eyes were empty.
"Devin!"
At last, he looked at me. "Lonely," he said. Then, "Let us go home."
I was glad to turn my horse and ride back toward the defile, side by side with Devin. I did not like the pallor of his face, or the bafflement in his eyes.
As if he were incomplete, and now knew it more than ever.
Five
He cried out in his sleep and woke me, so that I sat upright with a hand clutched to my breast to still the lurching of my heart. He was still asleep, but he thrashed; I saw him grasp at his naked hip as if he meant to draw a knife.
"Devin." I put a hand upon his shoulder and felt the rigidity of muscle. "Devin—no." He came awake at once and lunged upward, one hand grasping my throat as if he would kill me. "Devin!"
His eyes were wild in the shadows of the chamber. Then sense came back to him, and horror. He knew what he had done. "Gods—"
"I am well," I said at once, seeing the look in his face. "Only somewhat surprised by your ferocity." He seemed no better for all my irony, I dismissed it. "I promise. I am well."
One hand raked hair from his face. Moonlight was gentle, but I could see the scars on his back from where the river had embraced him. His eyes were still full of realization: he had nearly strangled me.
I touched his shoulder and felt it tense, "What did you dream?"
"The cat."
At first I did not understand. Then the memory came. "The mountain cat we saw two weeks ago?"
"No. Another." His eyes were black in the darkness. "It was a lion."
"A lion!" Lions were mythical beasts. "Why would you dream of a lion?"
"It stalks me . .." He let his breath out on a long sigh, and the tension went with it. "Only a dream."
"Then I will chase it away." I caught the fallen forelock in my fingers and stripped it back from his face. "I know what to do."
"No." His hand was on my wrist, pushing it away. "Not—now." He turned back the covers and slid out of the curtained bed. "I need to go out."
I was astonished. "In the middle of the night?"
"I need to walk. Just along the battlements. I need to be alone." He slipped into a linen shirt that glowed in the dimness. "I beg you, understand—there is a demon in me. Let me exorcise it, and I will come back to you."
I reached again for irony, so I would not sound too petty, too clinging, too much in need of him.
"By morning? Or is this a difficult demon?"
"Difficult." His smile was strained. "But my memory of you will vanquish it."
"Go, then." I yanked the covers back over my breasts. "But do not be surprised if I am fast asleep. It troubles me not at all to have an empty bed."
He knew it for what it was, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He fi
nished dressing, pulled on a fur-lined cloak, and went out of the chamber.
I stared into darkness. Resolution set me afire.
"I can banish a lion. I am Lochiel's daughter."
He came up hours later. I was not asleep. He knew it instantly and apologized for keeping me awake by his absence.
I held the blankets up so he could climb beneath them. "Do you think I care?" His face was worn and bleak as he stripped out of his clothing; we had but an hour before dawn. "Have you destroyed the demon?"
He climbed in beside me, shivering, and drew me very close. At first he was gentle; then he held me so tightly I thought I might shatter. He shuddered once, twice. "Ginevra—" It was muted against my hair, but a cry nonetheless. "Gods—"
I had known it was coming. He had been wound too tightly. Now the wire snapped.
I held him tightly, wrapping arms around his shoulders and legs around his legs, until he was cocooned in flesh and hair. "Be still," I whispered. "I am here for you. I will always be here for you."
"I think—I think I am going mad."
"No. No, Devin. There is no madness in you."
"I wake in the night, in the darkness—"
"I know."
"—and there is nothing there, nothing at all, save emptiness and anguish .. . and then I recall there is you, always you—Ginevra, here, for me. And I know that you are my salvation, my only chance for survival—and I am afraid—"
"What do you fear?"
"That—you will go. That I will prove myself unworthy. That I will be turned out of Valgaard. That you will repudiate me because I am not what Lochiel needs me to be."
I stroked hair from his face. "You said he is pleased by your progress. And I have seen it also. There is nothing to fear, Devin. What can come between us?" Then, when he did not answer, "Where did you go?"
He said nothing at first. Then he shifted onto his back, cradling me in one naked arm. My head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. "I went below," he said finally. "To the undercroft."
For the merest moment I believed he meant the Gate. "The cats," I blurted.
"Aye." He was very still. The storm had passed, but the aftermath was as painful to see. His expression was wasted. "They are wild things, Ginevra. They were not made to be caged." His breath gusted softly. "Nor was I."
A hollow fear began to beat in my breast. "They are cats."
"I looked in their eyes," he said. "I saw the truth in them. They know what they have lost. They long for it back,"
More desperately, I repeated, "They are cats."
"So am I, in my own way. I am very like them. I am caged by ignorance."
I knew it suddenly, "You want to set them free."
His hand settled in my hair, winding it through his fingers. "If we did, he would only replace them with others. Perhaps even the black one we saw in the canyon. I think—I think I could not bear to see more imprisoned then he already has. No. Let them alone. They have known their cages too long."
I drew him closer yet, warming his body as I wished I could warm his spirit. How long? I wondered. How long will you know your cage?
How long would I know mine, in the prison of his arms?
As long as I permitted it. As long as I desired it.
Forever is frightening.
The door opened very quietly as I sat before the polished plate and combed my hair- In the reflection I saw Devin's face, peeking around the door, and the expression he wore.
I stopped combing instantly and turned on the stool. "What?"
The set of his brows was comical in dismay. "I wanted to surprise you." But he did not seem so disheartened that the smile left his face.
"What?" I repeated.
He gestured me down as I made to rise. "No.
Wait." His expression was serious now, and very intent. His outstretched hand was held palm up.
He watched it closely; I watched him. I saw the concentration, the effort he used, and then the startled wonder he suppressed instantly so as to hide his childlike pleasure in a task at last accomplished.
In his palm danced a tiny column of pure white flame. Slowly it twisted, knotting itself, then reshaped itself into the aspect of a bird, brilliant as a diamond.
I held my breath. The bird made of flame became a bird in truth.
Devin extended the hand. "For you."
I put out my own hand, took the bird onto a finger, and suppressed the urge to cry. It was a tiny white nightingale, perfect in all respects, and very, very real. It cocked its head, observed me from glittering eyes, then began a jubilant song.
Devin's eyes shone. "Lochiel says it is because of Valgaard. That though I have no recollections of power, the power simply is. We are so close to the Gate ... he says there is power for the taking; that we breathe it every day, A man—or a woman—need only know how to use it. Even a Cheysuli, given enough time, if he claims the Old Blood."
The bird's tiny feet clung to my fingers. I could not look at Devin for fear I would see the change as I gave him the truth not all men would tolerate.
"You do know, do you not . . . that I am also Cheysuli?"
He laughed. "Since your mother is a halfling, one would assume so."
I set the nightingale on the edge of my mirror.
"The House of Homana and my own House are so thickly intertwined, it is a wonder we keep our identities straight." I looked at him now. "You do not mind?"
He came to me and threaded fingers into my hair. "Cheysuli—Ihlini .. . what difference does it make? What matters is that we have one another."
"It is tainted blood. The Cheysuli desire to destroy us."
"So we will destroy them first." He laughed. "It is a matter of upbringing, not blood. Prejudice and hatred is created, not born. You serve the Ihlini because you know nothing else .. . but had you been raised in Homana you would serve the Cheysuli instead."
"I never could!"
"If you knew no better, of course you would."
"But I do—"
"So you do. And so you serve the Seker."
It could not go unasked. "What about you?"
Devin smiled. "I will do what must be done. If the god grants us immortality, it would be a sorry thing to repudiate his grace—and therefore watch forever as our race dies out at the behest of the Cheysuli."
I guided his hands and pressed them against my belly. "We will not die out. Not while the child within me lives."
Wonder engulfed his face. His fingers were gentle as he pressed them against the folds of my skirts. "Here?"
I laughed. "Thereabouts. It is too small for you to feel. But in six months you shall have your son."
He cradled my face in his hands. "Thank you," he said. "You have made it possible for me to be a man."
I found it odd. "But you are a man!"
"An incomplete one. Do you understand? Now we can be wed. Now, at last, I can go before the god and let him weigh my value."
Against my ear I heard the beating of his heart.
Behind us, the bird stopped singing. When I looked around, the nightingale was gone.
Illusions are transitory. At least Devin was not.
I had seen the Gate many times, and the cavern that housed it, but never through Devin's eyes. It made it new again.
I took his hand as we stepped out of the passageway into the cavern. He did first what everyone does: tipped his head back to stare up at the arches, the glasswork ceiling alive with reflected flame. The symmetry was incomparable. So many layers of ceilings, so many soaring arches, and massive twisted columns spiraling from the floor.
We were required to pass through them; at the end of the colonnade lay the Gate itself.
Devin was puzzled. "Where does the light come from? I see no torches."
I smiled. "It comes from the Gate. See how it is reflected time and time again, multiplied one hundredfold in the columns and the arches?" I watched his avid eyes. "The Gate itself is in the ground, but it is open, and its light is uninhibited.
>
It is godfire, Devin—it is the light of truth, so that the Seker can illuminate the dark comers of your soul."
The light was in his eyes. I could see no pupil in them, only a vast empty blackness filled now with livid godfire. "He will see my weakness."
"All men are weak. He will draw it from you and replace it with strength."
"Is that why you have no fear?"
"I have fear." I touched his hand. "His glory is terrible. When one looks upon his aspect, one knows he—or she—is insignificance incarnate." I closed my fingers on the still flesh of his hand.
"The Seker awaits."
"Ginevra!" He drew me back as I turned toward the columns. "Ginevra—wait." His face was graven with lines of tension. "I need you."
I carried his hand to my mouth I felt his minute trembling; he feared as all men do, who must face Asar-Suti. Against his palm, I said, "I am here for you. Before the god, I swear it: I will always be here for you. We are bound already by the child in my body. Once we share the nuptial cup, we will be bound forever."
His voice was raw. "I am—unworthy,"
"Of the god?" I smiled. "Or of me?"
Devin laughed; it was what I had hoped for. "Of both," he said.
I arched haughty brows. "Then neither the god nor I have grounds for discontentment. Things are as they should be." I glanced toward the Gate, then looked back into his face. "Come," I said gently. "There is no sense in delaying the truth."
"Truth," he echoed, "is what I fear."
I held his hand tightly in mine. "Why?"
"I am what you have made me. Ginevra's Devin, whatever—whoever—that is. I know nothing at all of my past . .. what if Devin of High Crags is a man who aspires to waste his coin in tavern wagers and his seed in roadhouse whores?"
My laughter echoed throughout the cavern. "Then the greater truth will be that Devin of High Crags is now a changed man." I shook back hair. "And they may spin the tale that it was the god's doing—or lay credit where it is due."
He was suspicious now. "Where?"
I set his hand against my heart. "Here," I said, "deep in my soul. What other truth is there?"
Devin looked beyond me. "Then let us get it done. Have them bring the nuptial cup. I am very thirsty."
Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 Page 37
