Camber the Heretic

by Katherine Kurtz

  “I know that.”

  Quietly Evaine glanced across the table at her husband. In the back of her mind, she could feel the shocked rapport of her father, helpless, once again, to do anything to prevent what now seemed to be inevitable.

  “Rhys, what do you think? Could Davin carry it off, given your block and a shape-change? I can handle the latter, if you don’t feel competent.”

  Rhys sighed, knowing the reluctance both Evaine and her father were feeling, yet unable to find a good reason to object.

  “I can block him. I’d feel safer if someone else also knew how to undo it, in case anything should happen to me, but I’m afraid I must agree that Davin seems to be the only man for the job—if, indeed, this is a job we need to have done. Unfortunately, I’ve been racking my brain ever since he mentioned it, and I can’t think of any other way to keep tabs on Tavis and our wayward princes and their even more wayward regents. I say we let him try it, if he’s willing.”

  “And if he fails, will you take his blood on your hands, too?” Joram asked harshly. “Can we afford to risk one of our own number on something this chancy?”

  “There is blood already on our hands,” Evaine murmured, remembering the many, many who had already died. “But if there is to be more, then better there be the chance of our best blood succeeding rather than the greater chance of failure by those less qualified.”

  “Amen to that,” Jaffray breathed.

  “Then, are we agreed?” Evaine asked. “I say aye, and Rhys, and Jaffray, and Davin, of course. And Joram says nay. Gregory, how say you?”

  “Aye.”

  “And Father Alister?”

  He felt her sorrow and her resignation across the bond of her love, and knew that she was right. Slowly he nodded, not daring to meet his son’s eyes. He felt his daughter’s swell of support, deep and bolstering, as she turned her attention to Jebediah.

  “And you?”

  “He is right. There is no one else. I say aye.”

  “Then so be it,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, Brother,” she added, as Joram hung his head and gnawed his lip.

  After a long silence, it was Davin who dared to speak. “Well, then, it’s all settled. When can I start?”

  “It will be a week or so,” Jebediah quickly replied. “We must find guard officers who know our replacement guard, but not too well, and then you must review the guard protocols, so you’ll know what you’re doing. It’s a little different from being an earl. I’d say at least a week. Evaine, Rhys, do you agree?”

  Both nodded simultaneously.

  “I’ll need to work with him on the blockage and memories we must instill,” Rhys said. “Then there must be a compulsion for him to appear, after things are safe, where I can join him to remove the blockage and restore his real memories. Somewhere the guards can go when off duty. And I’m sure that Evaine will want to work on the physical shape-changing more than once.”

  Two weeks later, they were ready. A week it took to drill Davin in his military manners, for he would be playing a far lower rank than ever he would have held in his own right as earl; and another week he worked with Rhys and Evaine, practicing the total relaxation which would be necessary for optimum effect. The while, Jebediah sought out the officers who would be able to vouch for Davin in his new role. The soldier he was to replace was also found: one Eidiard of Clure, a slender young highland man of Davin’s approximate coloring and build who had only lately been assigned but had not yet reported to court. On the appointed evening, the full Council, less Jebediah, gathered in the keeill, below the Council chamber.

  Keeill: the term meant chapel or sanctuary, and this one had been ancient when the first Haldanes pacified what later became Gwynedd, nearly three centuries before. It, and most of the Council chamber above, lay hidden beneath a high, rock-girt plateau of the rugged Rhendall mountains, almost within sight of the sea. An ancient Deryni brotherhood known only as the Airsid claimed credit for the keeill itself, and apparently had at least started work on the chamber which now housed the Council, but they had disappeared before it could be finished—no one knew why.

  Neither keeill nor Council chamber were now accessible except by Transfer Portal, and no one could even guess how the first one might have been placed there. Even the existence of the complex had been discovered only by accident, from a chance reference in one of the ancient manuscripts which still occupied most of Evaine’s leisure time. After that, many more months had passed before they were confident enough of their visualizations of the described Portal there to risk an actual Transfer.

  Eventually they had done it, though; and discovery of the then only partially completed Council chamber and keeill had given them both a secure meeting place and a sanctuary for ritual workings. They had felt at home immediately.

  The keeill was heavy and massive, the walls curved instead of faceted-in-eight. Roughly-dressed ashlar pillars, twelve of them, stood flush against the perimeter, with enough space between for a person to stand. The single bronze door in the northern quarter opened between two of them. Four bronze cressets held torches which gave smoky, wavering life to the four quarters, thrusting vague, dancing shadow-shapes in and among the recesses of the pillars. The ceiling was somewhat more finely finished, having geometric vaulting of a blue-grey stone that glittered slightly in the torchlight.

  A dais of grey-black slate occupied most of the center of the room, the first of its seven shallow steps starting only an armspan from the heavy mass of the pillars. Precisely in the center of the dais was a square of stark white marble, an armspan on each edge and a hand’s-breadth thick. Around that slab knelt Rhys, Evaine, and a taut-looking Davin, the three of them putting the final touches to a Ward Major construct which wanted only final activation, once its components were placed at the edge of the dais.

  The others waited among the pillars, Jaffray and Gregory standing at the eastern and southern quarters and Camber and Joram by the door in the north—though Joram still was not resigned to what was about to take place. As those in the center began moving the ward components into position, the door opened to admit Jebediah and a sleepwalking young man who wore the harness of the Gwynedd Royal Guards. The grand master closed the door behind them, then turned slightly toward Camber and Joram, his gloved hand resting lightly on his companion’s arm.

  “It’s necessary, Joram. You know that,” he said.

  “So you tell me.”

  “But you don’t believe it, do you?”

  Joram shrugged. “It simply seems that we’re getting into more deception, all over again.”

  “You reconciled yourself to the others,” Camber murmured.

  “Those were different.”

  “How, different?”

  “They just—happened. There was no premeditation. This is—cold. And your victim, there, has nothing to say about it. Before, all the participants were willing ones.”

  Camber nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. Crinan and Wulpher agreed to help us. Evaine chose to do what she did. And for Alister, it didn’t matter.” He glanced at the silent Eidiard, at the blank, unseeing eyes, the slack expression, then back at Joram.

  “But this young man has not been asked. And that bothers you?”

  “It does.”

  “He will not be harmed by what we do. He merely will be held incommunicado. It will be a very honorable confinement.”

  “But his life is ruined, especially if this fails,” Joram pointed out. “Even if we change our minds and pull Davin out before anything happens to him, this man’s military career is finished. You could never fill in the gaps so that he could step back into his place as it exists today.”

  “No,” Jebediah agreed. “But we can make him another place. And even if we can’t—well, sometimes soldiers in a war serve in many different ways. This will be his.”

  “But he wasn’t allowed to choose it,” Joram said.

  “No, he wasn’t, son. But that’s the way it has to be.”

  Jor
am made no answer to that, merely folded his arms across his chest and watched sourly as Jebediah took the compliant Eidiard up the seven shallow steps of the dais and transferred control to Evaine. Then, as Jebediah came back down to rejoin Camber and Joram, Rhys raised his arms and focused on the cubes, speaking the words which brought the Wards to life.

  “Primus, Secundus, Tertius, et Quartus, fiat lux!”

  Light flared in the perimeter of the dais, flickering blue-white starshine in a circle defined by the four ward components. Evaine touched her fingertips lightly to Eidiard’s temples and deepened his trance. After a few seconds he swayed on his feet and would have overbalanced, had not Rhys moved in to support him. At that, Evaine drew her hands away and glanced at Davin, who had watched all in tense silence.

  “He will know nothing of what we do. Come and change clothes with him now.”

  Beneath the steel-gray robe he now removed, Davin already wore the simple linen undertunic and breeks of a guardsman. Wordlessly he and Rhys began removing Eidiard’s battle harness, only the muffled clank of leather-cased plate and the jingle of buckles intruding on the hollow silence of the wards. When the guardsman had been stripped down to the same garb as Davin, Davin began putting on the other’s clothing.

  Close-fitting leather britches of a deep, rich brown; then the gambeson, heavy linen quilted over sheep’s wool in a lozenge design. Next, a leather brigandine of the new design, sewn with hand-sized metal plates between the two layers, covering all the torso and shoulders and reaching to midthigh. Over that, the crimson surcoat of Haldane service, with a lion’s head blazoned on the shoulder.

  He pulled on heavy, knee-high boots after that and buckled on plain steel spurs, a sword-belt of brown leather carrying a plain sword, and a dagger which appeared to have seen much use. Eidiard’s gloves were slipped under the belt. His mantle and helmet had been left outside the circle.

  “Let’s see you now,” Evaine said, as Rhys helped their nephew tug the last strap-end into place. “Stand here beside him. Yes, the resemblance is uncommonly good, even without the shape-change. That makes it easier.”

  Davin shifted the weight of the armor on his shoulders and tried to scratch between his shoulderblades. “I’m glad you approve,” he murmured with a grimace. “I could have wished for a little less realism, though. I think there are bugs in this gambeson!”

  “Welcome to the life of the common soldier,” Rhys grinned. He glanced at Evaine, the amusement going out of his eyes. “Are we ready?”

  “As ready as we’re going to be.”

  Gently she took Eidiard’s hand and led him into the center of the circle, guiding his step up onto the square white slab which marked it. When she had placed him to her satisfaction, she turned to Davin and gestured for him to step up beside the man he was about to become. Davin, with a deep breath, obeyed.

  “Now, you understand how important it is that you open completely for this?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good,” Evaine replied, exchanging glances with Rhys as he came to stand behind Davin. “Because the deeper you can go, the wider you can open to me, the better image I’ll be able to put on you. That’s important, since you won’t be able to do anything to help stabilize your shape for the first few weeks, while your abilities are blocked.” She laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. “Now, take a deep breath and let’s get started. Good. Now, another.”

  Davin obeyed, letting himself begin to sink into familiar trancing. The first stages were not difficult, but as he sank deeper and deeper under Evaine’s subtle guidance, he could feel himself reaching new depths which were not easy to keep open in the smooth, passive widening which Evaine demanded, even though they had done it many times in the past week.

  He drew another deep breath, pushing himself down another level as he let it out, and then was dimly aware of Rhys’s gentle hands slipping along either side of his head from behind, the Healer beginning to draw him even deeper, so that he lost track of his surroundings.

  His eyes were closed now. He could not see with his vision, but his mental Sight was increasing with every breath—and those were becoming farther and farther apart, as his body settled into the relaxed, receptive state which Evaine guided and encouraged.

  He was no longer master of his breathing now—though that did not matter, since Rhys guarded that function with his Healer’s touch. Nor was he certain that his heart would have continued to pump, were it not for Rhys’s Healing hands. His whole being was now contained between those other hands resting on his shoulders, now slipping up to touch his forehead. Something seemed to settle into place at that new touch—something which gave over, for all his present existence, the control of his destiny. Now, even if he had wanted to break the rapport, he was not certain that he could—and did not care.

  Evaine’s hands left him briefly then, and vaguely he sensed that Eidiard was being similarly prepared, that his pattern was being brought into the linkage. He teetered there on the brink of knowing and unknowing, precariously balanced between Rhys’s two hands, until Evaine’s touch once more glittered just behind his closed eyes.

  Hold steady now, her mind whispered into his, as she poised between him and Eidiard on the balance point.

  Then the energy began to flow, and he abandoned himself to its filling. He could sense the power tingling in his limbs, an eerie sensation like hundreds of tiny insects crawling all over his body—yet, oddly, not an unpleasant feeling—a vibrancy which permeated every part of him. He felt it as his own, and yet there was a part of it which was not his.

  Suddenly it was over. His body was his own again, all strange sensation gone. As Evaine drew hand and mind apart from him, he felt himself surfacing from the place where he had been—swayed a little with the sheer giddiness of so rapid a return to normal consciousness. Rhys’s hands steadied him, the Healer’s mind withdrawing more slowly as functions were returned to Davin’s control. When Davin opened his eyes, Evaine was gazing at him with a pleased smile on her face, one hand resting on the shoulder of the still-entranced Eidiard.

  Rhys came around to face the northern boundary of the Ward Major and open a gateway toward which Jebediah was ascending. Evaine laid Davin’s discarded robe around Eidiard’s shoulders, then turned him over to Jebediah, who took him out. When Jebediah had returned, and Rhys had secured the wards again, she turned back to Davin.

  He could see in her eyes that he had changed. From the movement outside the circle, seen only dimly through the haze of the warding, he could tell that the others were similarly impressed. Fleetingly he wished that he had a mirror, then dismissed the notion as frivolous, almost as soon as it had come.

  He needed no mirror to tell him what he looked like now. In the week just past, he had looked like every one of them, with Evaine’s help. Besides, the most difficult part was yet to come—and the most frightening part, though he knew that he would not remember that. They had worked with the block numerous times during the past week, though in their training sessions, Rhys had always let him retain his awareness of what was happening. This time, Davin knew that he was to remember nothing of his true identity. Even to Deryni scrutiny, he must appear to be only what his exterior proclaimed: a soldier, human, of no particular consequence other than being assigned to the princes’ guard.

  Then Rhys was standing before him and flashing that peculiarly reassuring smile that Healers were wont to display when about to attempt some particularly difficult or unusual Healing—except that this was not a Healing; and for the next few weeks, Davin would be completely at the mercy of whatever they chose to leave him with. Was he sure that he wanted to go through with this?

  But they had gone over all of this before. Though he had volunteered on impulse, his capabilities and motives had been carefully scrutinized and studied all through the past two weeks. Father Alister and Joram had been particularly against his taking on this mission; but it had been clear, in the end, that there was no one better suited to do the job, an
d that the job needed to be done.

  With a deep breath to banish his conflicting emotions, he returned Rhys’s lopsided little smile and held out his hands to the Healer. Rhys took them. Without a word they settled into the rapport they had practiced so often in the past two weeks.

  Evaine’s hands were on his shoulders as he slipped deep into trance once more, and Davin knew that she was monitoring in the same way that Rhys had done, during the first part of the working. He achieved a good depth of trance immediately at Rhys’s urging, then slipped even deeper, gave up control wholly to Rhys as the Healer’s mind insinuated itself in ways far different from Evaine’s touch.

  This was the control of a Healer now, light yet firm, pushing down all his conscious reflexes and protections, gentle yet insistent, irresistible. Davin’s last conscious thought, as the Healer’s mind took hold and began the odd, sense-wrenching operation which would block his powers, was that he might die from this—but that somehow, it did not matter. Here, safe between Rhys and Evaine, he could sleep forever. His life was in their hands.

  And Rhys, as he took control and tilted the energies, touching the triggerpoint and shifting it as he had before, felt the familiar jolt in his own mind as the block was set in place and he slowly began to withdraw.

  Evaine pulled out completely then, only lending her physical support as the changed Davin slowly crumpled under Rhys’s continuing touch and sank to the marble slab. As Davin dreamed on, human now, Rhys continued his patterning, securing the controls he had planted, weaving the background in what would become the conscious mind of a soldier named Eidiard, while Evaine went about the business of releasing the wards.

  When Rhys finally looked up, Davin-Eidiard slept still and sound beneath his hands. Rhys let out a deep sigh as he withdrew his final contact, glancing around at all of them.

  “That’s about the best I can do,” he murmured, “but I think it will stand the scrutiny. Go ahead and test, if you wish. You won’t disturb him.”