Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  “Ready as ever,” Jebediah replied, leaning his head against the back of the chair and closing his eyes.

  With a glance at Camber, Rhys raised his hands to either side of Jebediah’s head and slid his fingers into the dark, greying hair, letting his thumbs rest against the temples. Jebediah did not flinch at the contact, though a flutter of his eyelids did betray his tension. Without giving him time to worry about it further, Rhys sent his mind questing outward, slipping past Jebediah’s well-disciplined shields along the familiar healing pathways and halting unerringly before the triggerpoint.

  For just an instant he paused, confirming what a deep-rooted part of him already knew, then extended just a hair’s breadth and felt the function snap into place. Jebediah’s shields and abilities all vanished in a heartbeat, there one second and gone in the same. He twitched at the awareness of what had happened, and opened his eyes as Rhys, with a muffled little cry, glanced at Camber.

  “Sweet Jesu, it worked!” he whispered, drawing away from Jebediah far enough to peer anxiously at his face. “I was sure it would, but a part of me still doubted. Are you all right, Jeb?”

  Jebediah, his eyes as wide as they would go, raised one hesitant hand to a temple and then let it slip down his cheek and fall weakly to his lap.

  “God damn, that’s the oddest thing I’ve ever felt!”

  “Shall I make it right?” Rhys asked. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Jebediah nodded tentatively. “No, don’t put it back right away. If you’re going to study this, somebody’s got to put up with it for a while.” He shook his head. “It’s as if I’m trapped inside my own mind.” He glanced at the door and shook his head again. “I can’t project as far as the door. I can’t even sense the four of you, except by what I see with my eyes. Mother of God, is this what it is to be human?”

  “I—suppose it is,” Rhys said uneasily. “Do the rest of you want to read him? The effect feels the same as Gregory to me, but I could be mistaken.”

  In succession, they read Jebediah, who endured their touches and their probes in typically stoic fashion. Other than his awareness that he once had had power, there was nothing to indicate what he was or had been. And when Rhys went softly back into his mind and blocked his memory, even that was gone. Camber, reading as deeply as he could, could detect no telltale sign. Had he not known Jebediah, he would not have believed that such a thing was possible.

  Rhys restored Jebediah’s awareness of what had been done, for they needed his on-going assessment of what was happening, at least from a non-Deryni viewpoint; but he did not restore the triggerpoint yet. There was no doubt in his mind that he could do that. Instead, he opened his medical kit and began assembling a succession of small cups of wine, dumping in powders from various packets and stirring them carefully.

  Merasha was the substance which gave them the most concern, for it was merasha which was best known to humans as a drug specific to Deryni in its action. A high enough dosage could act as a sedative in a human, but even a minute amount was sufficient to disrupt Deryni function for hours, incapacitating a Deryni’s physical coordination as well as extending the insidious mind-muddling effect for which merasha was so famous. They had decided to try a moderate dose on Jebediah first, of about the strength any Deryni might expect if detained by nervous human warders.

  Jebediah’s expression, as Rhys put the cup into his hand, was one of resigned distaste. Like all formally trained Deryni, he had experienced various such drugs and was well aware of the effect of this one, had he been in his normal state. None of them knew how he would react in his present condition.

  “Do you want me to drink the whole thing?” Jebediah asked, peering into the cup suspiciously. “It certainly looks like a lot.”

  “I used a lot of wine. It should diminish the aftertaste. Go ahead and drink it down.”

  “You’re the Healer,” Jebediah replied, tossing off the dose and automatically making a face, then raising one eyebrow in surprise. “Hey, that did reduce the aftertaste.” He gave the cup back to Rhys. “Are you sure there was merasha in it?”

  Rhys raised an eyebrow at Jebediah, though his thought to Camber belied his next words.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your tongue, at least,” he said, leaning out to take another cup from the table. “Try this one. The first was a blind, just in case you’d talked yourself into an expected reaction.”

  As Jebediah shrugged and took the second cup, Camber watched even more closely, knowing that this was the blind and not the first cup. Jebediah drained the second cup as efficiently as he had drained the first, again shaking his head as he handed it back to Rhys.

  “No aftertaste to that one, either. And none of the classic drug-signs. My hands are steady, my vision is clear, no nausea.…” He grinned. “Looks like your talent is good for preventing a merasha reaction, all right—though the cure may be worse than the disease. I’m putting on a brave facade for you, but if you tell me you can’t put things back aright, I’m likely to go to pieces on you.”

  “I can put things back,” Rhys said confidently, raising an eyebrow in thoughtful deliberation. “Can you feel that, other than physically?” he asked, laying a hand on Jebediah’s forehead and extending his mental touch to probe the areas usually affected by the drug. Even with perceptions stretched to their uttermost limits, he could detect no sign that merasha was in his subject’s system.

  After a few seconds, Jebediah shook his head.

  “All I can feel is your hand.”

  “That’s what I thought. Evaine? Anybody else?”

  In turn, the others confirmed what Rhys had already tried. With a sigh, the Healer laid his hands on either side of Jebediah’s head again and reached out toward the triggerpoint.

  “Brace yourself, if you can. The drug has had enough time to enter your system completely. I think it’s going to hit you like a catapult.”

  The Michaeline doubled up with pain as the return was triggered, and Rhys caught him to his chest and tried to ease some of the effect. As the other three entered rapport with him, Rhys confirmed full restoration—and merasha disruption—of all Jebediah’s Deryni senses. Wordlessly he signalled for Evaine to hand him yet another cup from the table, holding it to the stricken knight’s pale lips and encouraging him to drink. The medication would not neutralize all the effects of the merasha—nothing could do that except time and sleep—but at least it would help the nausea and splitting headache.

  Rhys triggered the block again, this time without asking Jebediah first, and that enabled the grand master to get the contents of the third cup swallowed and to lie back in the chair again, exhausted, color gradually beginning to return to his face as the new drug took effect. After a few minutes, Rhys restored him again, keeping a firm hold on his pain centers, and this time the backlash was bearable. Jebediah winced and closed his eyes, moaning a little as he brought both hands to his forehead and rubbed it gingerly, but at least he did not double up. After a few minutes more, he was able to open his eyes and look at them again.

  “It was really bad, wasn’t it?” Rhys asked softly.

  Jebediah managed a weak smile. “It still is, my friend—but it’s bearable. Jesu, do they really use that high a dosage in the prisons?” His speech was labored and required all his discipline.

  “That’s my information,” Rhys replied. “When I blocked you that second time, did it help at all?”

  Jebediah thought about it for a moment. “I think it did. It’s hard to tell for certain, though. I was so woozy already, I can’t be sure. God, I’d rather take a dozen battle wounds than go through that again!”

  “Well, I hope neither will be necessary,” Rhys said. “I want you to know that your ordeal is appreciated, though. Do you want to rest for a while?”

  “I’m not good for anything else,” Jebediah said wistfully, shaking his head, but gently. “Just put me to sleep and let me go away for a while. Maybe when I come back, it will all be like a bad dream.”r />
  “Your physician agrees with the diagnosis and the prescription,” Rhys grinned, putting one hand under Jebediah’s arm as the knight shifted forward to stand, and signalling Joram to support him on the other side. “Let’s just get you over to Joram’s bed and tuck you in for the night. You’ll feel a lot better in the morning.”

  “Have to,” Jebediah murmured thickly, as he staggered off between the two. “Felt any worse, and I’d be dead.”

  As the two helped Jebediah into the bed and got him settled, Camber glanced across at Evaine. He was more shaken than he would have admitted to Rhys over what he had just seen and witnessed, and he knew with a certainty born of working many years with the Healer that his daughter would be the next to taste what Jebediah had experienced. She knew it, too—he could see it in her eyes—and he went to her and held her close in his arms for just a moment, surrendering her only when Rhys and Joram returned.

  With a bright, feigned smile, Evaine arranged herself in the chair which Jebediah had lately vacated. Rhys picked up another cup from the table and glanced at it thoughtfully; then, almost as an afterthought, he handed it to Joram and sat on the chair arm beside his wife.

  “Before I have you drink that, let’s just make certain that the effect works in you the way it did with Jeb.” He laid his hands gently on either side of her head. “If you can, give me a little resistance with your shields—a lot of resistance,” he amended. “Sweet Jesu, the triggerpoint isn’t protected by normal shields at all! I can’t get past your shields to any other part of you, but the triggerpoint is there, totally exposed. Can you feel me next to it?”

  She whispered, “No,” and Rhys glanced at Camber and Joram.

  “Do the two of you want to link with me and watch me do it, the way you did with Gregory? I don’t think it’s going to make a bloody bit of difference, but you’re welcome to try.”

  Apprehensively, Camber laid his hand on Rhys’s arm, slipping into familiar rapport and feeling Joram do the same. With Rhys’s guidance, they could sense the area to which he was referring, intertwined among the partially-exposed Healing pathways, but Camber knew that he could never have located that point on his own. Joram knew it, too. That aspect was almost certainly a Healing function—the ability to sense levels that other Deryni not so gifted could not. He wondered whether the triggering of that point was also a Healing function, and not for the first time wished that the Healing talent had been among his gifts.

  “All right, this is what it’s going to feel like, if it works through the drugs and cancels out their effect,” Rhys said softly, looking into Evaine’s eyes.

  Camber felt something shift, and it was done. Suddenly Evaine was psychically invisible. She blinked in surprise, trying to run a rapid mental assessment, as she had always been taught—but there was nothing to assess beyond the usual senses of sight and hearing and touch. She was Blind!

  She swallowed and returned her attention to Rhys, who had not moved his hands from her head.

  “It—works on me, too,” she whispered, staring into his eyes and seeing only eyes, instead of the psychic windows they had always seemed for the two of them.

  Almost heartsick, he reached out and reset the triggerpoint again, then leaned down and kissed her hard on the mouth as normal Deryni senses came flooding back. She clung to him for a moment, then drew back and took a deep, steadying breath. At her nod, he took the cup from Joram again and put it in her hand.

  “Are you sure you want to do it?”

  “No. I don’t like merasha, but I like what just happened even less. The sooner we get on with it, the sooner it will be over.”

  She drank down the cup and made a face, screwing her eyes shut and shaking her head, then sat back in the chair and drew another deep breath.

  “I’ve certainly got the bitter aftertaste,” she murmured, after a few seconds. “My tongue’s going numb. My vision is starting to tunnel and blur, too. Nothing wants to focus.”

  “Normal reaction,” Rhys replied, professional detachment restored as he laid a monitoring hand on her near wrist. “You’re getting a slower effect than Jebediah did, because you’re getting it gradually.”

  She closed her eyes and grimaced, and he moved his free hand to her forehead.

  “Easy, love. I know it’s getting bad. Take another deep breath and flow with it. All right, read her with me,” Rhys said to the others. “She’s essentially got the full effect of the drug now. Her shields are in tatters—not that this apparently matters, where my little trick is concerned. Her Deryni functions are still there, but they’re mostly inaccessible. If she tried to use them, she might get a reaction, but it would undoubtedly be the wrong one. Control is gone. This is a classic merasha disruption, such as we’ve all experienced in training. I’m moving in to the triggerpoint now, and—there!”

  As he spoke the final word, Evaine’s eyelids fluttered and then she looked up at them, pain gone from her eyes, but also all trace of her Deryni powers. As they probed her mind, she looked around in amazement, astonished at the disappearance of the merasha effect which had been so excruciatingly apparent only a moment before. When the others had read in all the depth they cared to do, Rhys held another cup to his wife’s lips and bade her drink. After she had drained it, he led her into the next room and laid her down to sleep in Camber’s bed, not removing his block until he was sure the second cup had done its work. He returned to find Camber and Joram waiting by the fire, and settled in the chair between them without a word. Almost as an afterthought, and without warning, he reached out his right hand to touch Joram’s forehead. Before the priest could react, Rhys had triggered and reset the triggerpoint in him, leaving Joram with an astonished expression on his face and Rhys shaking his head.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, slumping in the chair and looking at the flames on the hearth as he rubbed at his eyes wearily. “I’m getting tired—this does seem to be akin to the kind of energy outlay used for Healing—but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of advance preparation necessary. We needed to know that, too. Joram, do you feel any kind of after-reaction?”

  “It was just a—a blankness, for the split second.” Joram swallowed. “Jesus, you scare me, Rhys!”

  “I know. I scare me, too.” Rhys took a deep breath, then looked up at Camber. “I suppose that to round out our knowledge, we really should see what this will do to your shape-change. If anyone else can do what I do, it could be a danger to you.”

  Steeling himself, though he knew that would do no good, Camber returned the Healer’s gaze.

  “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he said evenly. “Go ahead. I’m ready.” And he watched dispassionately as Rhys’s hand moved unerringly toward his head.

  He felt the touch of Rhys’s hand on his brow, and he closed his eyes as the contact was made, knowing at least part of what was almost certain to come. For an instant more he continued to take in information with all his Deryni senses.

  Then it was as if a light had been extinguished and there was only darkness and the psychic sensation of being muffled in heavy, shrouding wool, close and claustrophobic. Immediately he opened his eyes to search for Rhys and was startled, in spite of himself, to see Rhys still sitting where he had been a moment before. He knew where he was and what had happened, at least intellectually, but he could not remember how it had felt not to be Blind; only that something was lost.

  At least his appearance seemed to be causing no alarm. He saw Rhys and Joram staring at him intently, and knew they must be reading him, but he could feel nothing. After a moment, Rhys smiled and nodded, brushing his temple with a fingertip, and full awareness came flooding back. With a quick sensation of vertigo, Camber shook his head and swallowed.

  “I take it I stayed Alister,” he whispered, after a slight pause.

  “You did that,” Rhys agreed. “Curiously enough, your dangerous alter-ego remained shuttered away, too, though if someone knew to look for it, he might be able to dig it out. That isn’
t likely, I don’t think. At least we now know I can do it to anybody. And we know what merasha will do. Now we only have about half a dozen other common drugs to test, to see whether they affect blocked Deryni. I think we’re going to have a busy week, not to mention that it’s going to be hard on my volunteers.”

  Neither Camber nor Joram could quarrel with that.

  They continued their experiments throughout the rest of the week, drawing on Gregory and Jesse one night, Davin and Ansel another, Jaffray and then Jebediah again on a third, to finish testing all the substances Rhys felt needful. By the Feast of Saint Teilo, the day of Cinhil’s state funeral, all of them were ready for a break—even a Requiem.

  Cinhil’s funeral was rich with all the pomp and dignity which the regents could muster from Church and State. Gwynedd had not seen a royal funeral of a reigning monarch for more than thirty years. Cinhil had been neither a great king nor even a greatly loved king, but he had been human and Haldane, and he had ousted the hated Imre and prevented Imre’s sister from taking back the throne. No one could deny that these were all good things; and for these, at least, the people had been grateful.

  They were grateful, in their grudging ways, but they did not understand him. They did not comprehend the personal piety and commitment which had made Cinhil long for a return to his priestly life, for the setting aside of the Crown won at such high cost.

  What they did know and understand was that Cinhil, while not a brilliant or particularly wise king, had seemed genuinely concerned for the welfare of the people entrusted to his governance—even if he had not always known how to govern well or choose suitable advisors—and that he had been infinitely better than a child on the throne of Gwynedd.

  Now they faced that latter situation, and knew that the kingdom would be ruled for at least the next two years by regents. The regents were fairly popular among their human constituents, but they were still regents, and many folk were aware of how some of them had already taken advantage of their positions at Court to gain offices and lands and titles. No, regents would not be the same at all as an adult king on the throne.