by Ann Marston
“It still takes a lot of getting used to,” he muttered. “Better see to Kerri while I set up camp.”
I knelt by Kerri and examined her carefully, but found no sign of injury save a small bruise along her jaw and a split lip. Nothing to explain the deep unconsciousness. I placed my hands to either side of her head, gently cupping her temples between my palms, fingers spread in the silken softness of her hair. I wondered if I could do this. An obvious injury, such as Cullin’s hands, was not difficult to heal. All I had to do was concentrate on visualizing it whole and healthy. It took a lot of energy, but it was not particularly arduous. But what was I to do when I detected no injury? How could I see something as whole and healthy when I didn’t know what was wrong? The General had given me her life, but it might be a life spent in a trance.
I stared at her blank, pale face for a long time. Then suddenly, bright images swirled and darted through my mind. I knew them this time for what they were: Kerri’s memories. I thrust myself deep into them, searching through them for some indication of what held her in the unnatural sleep. I walked through her memories as one would walk through a garden, the images like bright flowers or deep, cool shadows in green shade. I recognized her father in some of them, Cullin and myself in others. Surface things only. I had to go farther into her memories if I could.
I pushed deeper...
...And met blackness. The same hard, dark armour that surrounded the General. It surged outward, seized me and tried to drown me too in its darkness. I fought it, but it was like wrestling with the night itself. Smothering, hungry, clutching, it was all around me. I could not find anything to hold onto. It slipped through my fingers like quicksilver, only to wind tendrils of itself around my throat. I tore away wisps of it, but could not loosen its hold, neither on me, nor on Kerri. Choking and gagging on the foul stuff filling my nose and mouth, I struggled to breathe. I could not cry out, could not break away from the bond with Kerri that lashed me to the dark and formless enemy.
Then I thought I heard Kerri’s voice, desperately faint, hopelessly distant. “The sword,” she cried the sound frail as a whisper on the wind. “Kian, the sword...”
But I could not tear my hands from her head to reach for the hilt at my left shoulder. My strength ebbed quickly. I would not be able to fight much longer. In despair, I felt the sense of triumph throbbing and pulsing through the black, formless entity invading Kerri.
Then, in a flash of lucid understanding, I knew what I had to do. As the last of my strength drained into the darkness, I formed an image of the sword. I saw its plain, leather-bound hilt fitted comfortably into my hands, saw the polished, graceful blade with its glittering runes spilling down the centre. I made it glow with that radiant brilliance it had first showed me on the gravel strand of the small burn. I saw the light in a burst of colour raying out to slice the darkness to shreds and tatters.
Terror and rage suffused me. Not mine. Not Kerri’s. It emanated from the dark mist itself. In one last burst of passionate fury, the mist blew apart, fragments raining like splinters of rock around me. Then even the shreds were gone, and Kerri’s eyes opened to stare wonderingly into mine.
“Kian?” she asked, puzzled.
I fell back, exhausted and drained. It startled me badly to see it was dark, and the moon rode among the dissipating clouds in the night sky. Cullin knelt on the other side of Kerri’s bedroll, facing me, worry and relief warring for dominance on his face. Dizzy and weak, I put my hand to my forehead, unable to believe I had spent the whole day battling that black horror the General had set so deep into Kerri’s mind.
“Are you all right?” I asked Kerri, my voice rusty and hoarse.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said faintly. “Just very tired. What happened?”
I hadn’t the strength to reply. “Later,” I mumbled.
“I was afraid to touch you,” Cullin said, his voice sounding as rough-edged as mine. “I thought you were both going to die on me, but I was afraid to touch you. Are you all right, ti’rhonai?”
He held out one hand. I reached across Kerri, caught it in both of mine. For a moment, we simply looked at each other, both of us grinning like idiots.
“I need sleep,” I muttered, and crawled toward the pack I had left beside a thatch of willow scrub. I don’t even remember wrapping my plaid around me before I was asleep.
XVII
I dreamed of the low hill crowned by the dance of stones. Again, I stood at the foot of the hill, my sword on my back, while the Watcher, still and erect as one of the menhirs, regarded me calmly from above. An odd sensation of peace permeated the eerie light. There was no disturbance to indicate the approaching presence of the opponent I expected to step forth at any moment from a darkness of his own making. But the pearlescent light remained tranquil and serene, and at last I knew he would not come this time.
I turned to the Watcher and set my foot to the gentle slope of the hill. The Watcher remained unmoving as, one slow step after another, I climbed the hill. It took far longer than I thought it would to reach the outer ring of capped menhirs, and when I looked behind me at the way I had come, it looked a dizzying height above the small, circular patch of grass at the bottom. My breath caught in my throat and I turned quickly back to the Watcher. But when I tried to step between two of the standing stones, I found I could not. I detected no physical restriction, yet something held me back, something intangible as air, but impenetrable for all that.
I wanted very badly to go to the polished altar stone at the heart of the dance. There lay understanding and the answers to all the questions I had no idea how to ask. But I could not penetrate that barrier.
“You cannot enter here, my young friend,” the Watcher said. “Not until you have defeated your enemy and fulfilled your purpose.”
“My enemy is not here this time, as you see,” I said.
“You have weakened him, but not destroyed him,” said the Watcher.
“Where is this place?” I asked.
The barest suggestion of a smile touched his features. “It is a place men come to in dreams,” he said.
I looked down at the scar on my arm. In this light, it was only faintly discernible. “What sort of dream will leave a scar on a man’s arm?”
“A dream here. Should you fall to your enemy’s sword here, you will never waken. Die here, and you die in the waking world.”
“Do all men come here in dreams?”
“No, not all. I called you here.”
“Did you also call my enemy?”
“No. He comes seeking you. He has his own magic.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “Who are you that you can call me here against my waking will?”
“I am the one who sent the Swordmaster to you so that you might be prepared to take up the Kingmaker’s Sword,” he answered. “And I am the one who directed the sword to you so that you might complete your task.”
“Kingmaker’s Sword?” I repeated. I shook my head. “I am no king...”
“No,” he agreed. “Nor will you ever be a king. But you will deliver the sword into the hand of the man who shall be. The sword will proclaim him, and you will know him.”
Too many questions flooded through me. The one I chose to ask startled me.
“Who am I?”
His answer surprised me, too. “Who do you wish to be?”
“Just who I am,” I said fervently. “Kian dav Leydon ti’Cullin. It’s good name enough for any man.”
“Then that is who you shall be,” he replied. “Although men may call you otherwise for a time.”
“How will they name me?” I asked.
“Who can say the future? Unfortunately, not I.”
***
I awoke lying curled in the shelter of a willow thicket, wrapped in both my plaid and Cullin’s. I was warm and dry, and far too comfortable to feel like moving. But the sun was high in the sky, already past zenith, and we had to get as far away from the General, and Mendor and Drakon, as we could. I sa
t up reluctantly. My head was clear and I was alert. My stomach thought it was pinned to my spine, though and I was ravenously hungry. That might account for the slight residual weakness I felt.
Kerri sat by a small campfire, hunched over a steaming cup of khaf tea. She, too, looked as if she had just recently been dragged out of a comfortable bed. I dug out my own cup from my pack and went to join her. She hardly looked up as I reached for the kettle hanging above the fire.
“Where’s Cullin?” I asked. The tea was strong and sweet, and sharply redolent of snowberry root and kafe bean. It should revive me if anything could.
“Hunting,” she said. “He told me he should be back shortly.”
“Good. I’m starving. How long have you been awake?”
“Not long. Only a few minutes.” She looked up at me and smiled wryly. “Cullin tells me I slept for two days.”
I smiled and took another sip of the steaming tea. “I slept for nearly three days the last time I Healed you,” I said. “This is an improvement.”
She made a sour face.
“What happened, sheyala?” I asked. “How did the General catch you?”
For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she sighed. “I made a mistake,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. Only a fair imitation of Cullin’s eloquent gesture.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she said fiercely.
“I have no intention of laughing,” I told her. And I hadn’t. A mistake that nearly caused a death, perhaps even three deaths, was no cause for amusement. Not now while the danger still hovered near. There would be time enough for amusement and teasing laughter when the tale could be told in the safety of home, after time had added enough distance to the raw edge of fear to soften it.
“And if you say I told you so, I’ll have your ears.”
“There’s no much I could say to make you feel worse than you’ve made yourself feel, sheyala,” I said gently enough. “What happened?”
“It was so stupid,” she said in a dreary voice. “I ran into that general—Hakkar, he’s called...”
“I know. Cullin and I met him, too, albeit rather informally. How did he find you out?”
“Remember when I used the masking spell in Trevellin?”
I nodded, then smiled ruefully. “The farm woman and her faithful dog.”
“Yes. Well, I used the same semblance this time, too. Hakkar recognized me. It was incredible, but he did. He wanted to question me. When I tried to get away, he hit me. He knocked me out. I couldn’t hold the spell unconscious. Next thing I knew, I was tied hand and foot in a horrid, black-draped room.” She shuddered. “He came to talk to me. He asked about you and Cullin, and I told him I’d left you at that inn where the Isgardian officer told us about him. Then I remember looking into his eyes. It was like falling down a mine shaft. Deep and black and cold. So cold.” She shivered again and drank more of her tea. “The next thing I remember is waking up and seeing you there. Gods, Kian. You looked like death itself.”
“I felt like death.” I hesitated, then told her about the black thing I had fought in her mind. She lost what little colour she had, and the cup in her hands trembled violently enough to spill some of the tea.
She set the cup carefully aside, and clasped her hands between her knees. “Thank you,” she whispered at last. She took a deep, steadying breath. “Cullin told me how you got me out of there. I owe you thanks for that, too.”
“That’s twice in the last moment you’ve thanked me,” I said. “My heart canna take too many shocks like that.”
One corner of her mouth tilted upward into a resigned little smile. “Well, don’t become too used to it. It may never happen again.” She picked up her cup and sipped the tea.
“I should hope not. It might lead me to think you’re turning gentle and sweet.”
That didn’t get the reaction I had hoped for. She merely gave me that half-smile again, her mind clearly on some other thing. Finally, she said, “Kian...”
“Aye?”
She looked up and met my eyes. “Cullin said you knew something was wrong. He said it was you who knew I was in trouble, and he simply came along with you.”
“He was worrit, too,” I said. “But mayhap because I got so jittery.”
She paused again, toying with her cup. “How did you know?”
I hesitated, unsure how to explain it to her. Hellas, I couldn’t even explain it coherently to myself.
“Please, Kian,” she said. “Please. I have to know. It’s very important.”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, sheyala,” I said truthfully. “I just knew. I got all nervous and jumpy, and I just had to go after you. I still don’t know why. I only know I was right.”
“I was afraid of that.” She looked away, then suddenly slammed her fist down onto her knee. “Damn!” she exploded. “Oh, damn, damn, damn!” She got abruptly to her feet and flung her cup at an elm tree. She missed. “Hellas birthing,” she muttered and walked stiffly to retrieve the cup. Clutching it, she spun to face me, anger and something else sparking in her eyes. It might have been resentment. I didn’t know her well enough to tell. “You know what that means, don’t you?” she demanded harshly.
I was afraid I knew all too well. “The bond?” I asked.
“Yes,” she muttered. “That accursed bond. We’re bonded, you and I. And it’s a true bond, damn all to Hellas. It wasn’t supposed to happen with you. You’re only a— a—”
“An uncouth barbarian?” I said helpfully. “An ignorant savage?”
She shot me a look so full of annoyance, it sizzled. She came back to the fire and sat down. “An Outlander,” she said. “A non-Celae.”
“Look, if it helps, I’m no exactly joyful about it, either,” I said, becoming irritated myself.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” she said bleakly. “I think nothing short of death can break it.” She looked up as Cullin appeared through the trees carrying a large goose. “There’s no sense worrying about it now,” she said. “We can’t do anything about it. We’ll see later.”
***
We rode hard for what was left of the day. When we left Frendor, we had turned north toward the Tyran border and safety. Now we rode west. West toward Honandun.
“We must warn the Ephir,” Cullin said as we packed up to leave the campsite. “He needs to know about Balkan and Hakkar.”
“But the sword leads northeast,” Kerri protested. “We have to follow it.”
“We will,” Cullin said. “After we’ve spoken to the Ephir.”
She threw down her pack and stalked over to confront him, that look I was too familiar with in her eye. “No,” she said firmly. “We go northeast, and we go now.”
Cullin turned his head to meet her glare. “Isgardian silver has supported me and my family very well for nearly fifteen years,” he said, tying off the last pack fastener on the saddle. “I’m not about to turn my back on that. We owe it to Isgard to warn them. West first, then northeast.”
I stopped what I was doing and leaned my forearms on Rhuidh’s withers to watch. This could become interesting. Kerri was beginning to resemble a small, one-woman thunder storm about to erupt in a flurry of lightning bolts. In all the time I’d known him, I had seen Cullin really angry only twice. I doubted Kerri was able to rouse that anger, and I was fairly certain she had finally met her match when it came to being stubborn. Cullin hardly ever argued. He stated his intentions, then acted on them. I was fully prepared to be greatly entertained.
Kerri’s fists went to her hips, her jaw thrust out aggressively. “I gave you gold to help me find my prince,” she said. “You owe me service.”
He dug into his pack, pulled out the small leather bag and flipped it negligently to her. Her reflexes were excellent. She got her hands off her hips and up in plenty of time to catch the heavy bag before it hit her in the face.
“It’s all there, my lady Kerridwen,” he said. “But for expenses to date, of c
ourse.”
Kerri flung the bag to the ground, and snorted in derision. “Do you think they’re likely to listen to a mercenary merchant train guard?” she asked scornfully. “Especially one wanted by the City Guard for assaulting the cousin of the Ephir?”
Cullin smiled. “Mayhap not,” he said. He straightened and by some unique alchemy, even in his stained, ragged and singed stolen guard’s uniform, attained a regal and dignified bearing any prince might envy. “But they will certainly believe Cullin dav Medroch dav Kian, the son of Medroch dav Kian dav Keylan, Eleventh Clan Laird of Broche Rhuidh of Tyra. Especially, I think, now that envoys have been sent to my father to contract for an alliance.”
She glared at him. “But you simply can’t do this,” she cried furiously.
Cullin raised an eyebrow. “Can I not? I thought I just did.” He looked at me. “Are you ready, ti’rhonai?”
“At your command, ti’vati,” I replied.
Kerri turned to me. “You can’t go with him,” she cried. “You have to take me to the prince—”
I finished lashing my packs to the saddle. “Cullin is not only my ti’vati,” I said, “he’s my captain. He commands, I follow.”
“But—”
“That’s the way it is, sheyala,” I told her.
Cullin mounted his stallion, then swung the horse around so he could look at Kerri. “You’re welcome to accompany us, my lady,” he said mildly. He kicked the stallion to an easy canter. I swung up onto Rhuidh and followed. We left her standing in the clearing. She was not a calm and content woman.
Cullin looked at me and allowed himself a smile. “She’ll follow,” he said confidently.
I thought of the stiffness of Kerri’s shoulders and back. “I’m not so sure,” I replied.
“She’ll follow,” he repeated. “She’s stubborn and wilful, but she knows we’re right.”
