Which meant that the raw, terrible, killing surge of Power could do only one thing: force unspent, it rebounded in all its fury on its creator.
And that was the end of Ybarre.
CHAPTER XX
THE PRODIGAL RETURNS
I don't remember all that much of what followed after Ybarre's death. The only thing certain in my exhausted mind was an ache not to return to the troubles of Estmere's court, but to Cymra, to my homeland and Ailanna—
Och, Ailanna! My poor love wouldn't have known what had happened to me. She wouldn't have known why she couldn't contact me. Did she think me dead? I made a gallant try to reach her with my will. And for one brief, wonderful moment I thought I felt her mind brush mine. . . .
But then my strength gave way. I lost my hold on the contact, and nearly lost my hold on everything else, too. I couldn't have actually fainted, or I would have fallen to my death, but my next clear recollection is of early morning sunlight warming me, and of the griffin, with no clue as to where I wanted him to fly, swooping smoothly down to a landing on a rampart of Estmere's castle.
So be it.
I slid resignedly from the griffin's back—and kept right on sliding, ending up in a crumpled heap at his feet. The griffin shrilled in alarm, his wild animal panic tearing at my nerves, and I struggled up again to stroke his tawny coat, thank him as best I could, then send him on his own free way. I watched his slowly diminishing figure till it was out of sight, then turned slowly away, wondering if I could possibly make it all the way to my tower before I collapsed. Despite the sunlight pouring down on me, burning at my head, the dungeon chill seemed to cling to me till I felt I would never be warm again, and I was so unutterably weary I wanted nothing so much as to lie down right where I was and never move.
"Your Highness!" The voice was high and childishly shrill with alarm. "My prince, what have they done to you?"
It was my young friend, Arn. He hesitated a moment, stunned shock in every line of him, then rushed forward to give me his arm.
"Gently, lad . . . or you'll . . . knock me over."
"I—they all said—" His voice sharpened with renewed panic. "But you shouldn't be here, you mustn't—"
"Arn, I have no strength for riddles. Either help me . . . or go find someone to carry me. . . ."
"Oh, my prince, lean on me, do!"
By that point, there wasn't much choice. But something penetrated my exhaustion haze: why was Arn's bright livery now muted by black?
"Arn, what is it?" Sudden fear gave me a spurt of strength. "My brother—has something happened to my brother?"
"You . . . really don't know?"
"Know what?" I would have shaken him if I could. "Tell me!"
"Tell him nothing." The voice came from behind us, and it was terrible in its pain.
"Estmere!" I cried in relief and, "Your Majesty!" gasped Arn.
"Leave us." The words were flat and so very deadly that the half-dozen courtiers behind Estmere promptly scuttled away. Only Arn remained, frightened but gallantly facing his king.
"Sire, please, I—"
"Leave us!"
The boy shot me an anguished glance, saying without words, Forgive me, I dare not disobey. I pulled free from his support, nodding to him that it was all right. As the boy hurried unhappily away, I turned to Estmere—and recoiled, shocked at the mingled horror and fury raging in his eyes: fury at me.
"Estmere . . ."
"Are you such a fool? Are you actually such a fool as to return?"
What in the name of all the Powers? In my confusion, I seized on the only thing I could possibly have done wrong: "Granted, I should have done you the courtesy of telling someone where I was going, but things were happening too swiftly and—"
"Enough! Don't try to charm me with your smooth magician's words!"
Gallu. He was coming to sound more and more like Clarissa. And I—I wasn't going to be able to stand much longer. "For the love of y Duwies, tell me what I'm supposed to have done."
He stared at me, radiating such anguish he was unable to speak. And what he wore registered for the first time.
"All in black . . . ? First Am, now you . . . mourning garb? Och, brawd, who—"
"And still you pretend! I never thought you, you, my brother whom I loved—oh God, I never thought you could be so cruel!" Cold-eyed, trembling, Estmere continued, "Very well. Play your little game. Pretend you know nothing of the fever."
"What fever?"
"Damn you! The fever that took Clarissa!"
An image of Estmere's wife as I'd last seen her, so full of rage and life, flashed through my mind, and I gasped, "Estmere, no, she's not, she can't be—"
He continued remorselessly, "It was a fever you could have cured. God knows you spend enough time healing peasants. But when I sent everyone in search of you, we found you had oh so mysteriously flown away." His voice faltered. "And . . . with you gone . . . the court physicians did their best, but . . . She was so delicate, it happened so swiftly . . . they could do nothing."
Clarissa, poor, jealous, frightened, helpless little Clarissa. Sick with shock, I stammered, "I—I'm so very sorry."
His face was as hard as a tomb effigy. "She became ill just one week after you left. Isn't that odd? One short week after folk had heard you quarrelling. You threatened her, didn't you?"
For a moment I stared at him without comprehension, struggling desperately to remember what I had said. But my overtaxed mind refused to function, and all I knew was that there had been a meeting, harsh words. . . .
And then I realized what Estmere was trying to say, and cried out in horror, "You can't believe I'd hurt her! Yes, we argued, at 1-least I think we argued, but she was your wife! And—and what you're accusing me of is murder!"
I should have said more, should have forced him to listen to me, but I was past the point of coherency. And Estmere quite shut his mind to the stammerings I managed. The raw fire of his anguish and rage burned and burned at me like Bremor's torments till I cried aloud in pain, till I couldn't hope to defend myself, till I couldn't even think. Estmere's fury drowned me in waves of despair till at last my hold on reality was shattered.
And I fainted dead away.
I returned to reality in slow, weary stages. The first waking was a vague thing of sheer, bewildered panic, not knowing where I was, half expecting to be back in the cold hopelessness of my prison cell. The relief of realizing I lay not on hard stone but in a soft bed was so great I nearly wept. But before tears could fill my eyes, someone was pressing a goblet of wonderfully cool water to my lips. I drank thankfully. Then, too weak to notice aught else, I slipped back into sleep.
The second waking didn't last much longer. But at least this time that mindless panic was gone. I was able to accept the wonderful fact that I was free, to know the bed in which I lay was my own, in my own tower rooms. I was still weak as a sickly fawn, though, with a vague memory of fever and delirium. And . . . hadn't Father Ansel been at my bedside at one time or another, murmuring words from his faith? Had I been that ill?
Someone was sitting at my bedside. I turned a head that seemed heavier than stone to find Estmere watching me. I tensed, hardly in the condition for a renewed attack, but there was nothing of anger left in my brother. He looked . . . och, piteously worn, far older than his years, his eyes deeply shadowed.
"Aidan?" he began tentatively. "Do you know where you are?"
I made two attempts, finally got out, "Yes," not sure in which language I'd said it, and promptly slid right back into sleep.
With the third rewakening I finally felt more nearly human. Once again Estmere was there, asking warily, "How do you feel?"
For a frantic moment I couldn't find a word of Anglic. But then I managed to retort, "I've . . . heard more . . . tactful questions."
My brother laughed with an enthusiasm born, I think, more of relief that I could even try to jest than of humor. "Your voice sounds painfully dry. Wait, now . . . I've watched how this is done; I
should be able to help you drink without drowning you or soaking the bed."
While he filled a goblet with water for me, I made a quick self-inventory. Some nameless servant (to whom my gratitude went out) had bathed and shaved me, had even untangled and trimmed what must have been a briar bush of hair, and my inward survey found nothing worse than a score of scrapes, bruises and the inevitable prison sores, and two bandaged wrists. No trace of lung sickness, Duwies diolch, or any seeds of the bone-and-joint illness.
Estmere supported my head with a surprisingly gentle arm so I could drink. As I lay back again, throat soothed, I added, "I'll live."
It had been meant as another, admittedly feeble jest. But Estmere, though he usually wasn't so dramatic, murmured something reverent and crossed himself. I stared. "Now, was that out of gratitude or regret?"
"How can you ask that?"
"After the welcome I received . . ."
"No. Wait. First, do you think you're up to so much talking?"
"If you . . . don't expect too much from me."
"I'll try not to weary you. Especially after . . . God, when you just collapsed like that, I thought you were dead. For all the sorry state you were in, I just hadn't realized you were so ill."
Neither had I. Most of it had been total exhaustion, of course, and prison fever, and the result of Ybarre's little pleasantries. But I suspected the court physicians had been in on it, too, overly zealous in their attempts to heal the magician-prince and prove themselves a better healer than he; they'd nearly finished me off. "How long was I out of my head?"
Estmere winced. "Three, almost four days." As I stared at him, he burst out, "Where in God's name were you? Vanished for so long—"
"How long?" I had lost all track of time. "A week? Two?"
"Two weeks! Almost two months, Aidan."
"Two . . . months . . ." Suddenly I saw only a dark, dark cell, suddenly I felt the weight of my chains. "Was I in that foulness for two long months?"
"Aidan? Aidan, what is it?" Estmere's hands fastened on my shoulders, dragging me back from shadow.
"Nothing," I said wearily. "A memory."
"But what happened to you? Gone for two months you're plainly horrified to recall, then reappearing like some poor wretch of a . . ." He stopped, touching one of my bandaged wrists with a gentle hand. "There are the marks of chains on you. What happened to you?"
I shook my head. "Some other time, Estmere. Please."
He sighed. "Just remember, you are a prince, brother to a king who—"
"I take my own revenges."
Worn out by that fierce little touch of pride, I had to stop to catch my breath. My brother hesitated, then got to his feet. "You should rest now."
"Wait."
"What would you?"
"What am I to you now? Your prisoner? Your enemy?"
He froze. "Certainly not my prisoner. Never my enemy." Very slowly, Estmere sat down again at my side. "They thought you were going to die. The physicians—no, I won't grace them with that name! Those fools, those frauds thought you were going to die, and so they sent for me." His eyes were suddenly very bright. "Even if you had been my enemy, it would have hurt my heart to see you so. I believed them, I believed them— Dear God, I was so sure this was going to be your deathbed, that in less than two little months I was going to lose the second of the two most dear to me."
That fierce, despairing brightness was painful to watch. I let my gaze fall to give him at least a semblance of privacy, waiting for him to regain control. And what I recall most clearly is the sight of Estmere's hands, so neatly folded, so savagely clenched.
But after a time those hands relaxed, lying limply on his knees, and my brother continued wearily, "I stayed by your side as much as my duties permitted. And while I was watching you, and waiting for . . . one thing or the other, I had rather more time to think than I wanted."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I considered everything I knew about you—and it really is very little, do you realize that? Oh, you've told me charming stories about your Cymra and its people, but only seldom anything about you, the inner Aidan."
I blinked. "I never meant—"
"No. Let me finish. What I came to accept after all that lonely time was what I suppose I knew from the start. No matter what the fools at court were insisting, no matter what cruel, stupid things I said to you up there on the ramparts, I know you never could have used your Art against Clarissa. I know you never could have harmed her. Deliberately harmed her." He added painfully, "No matter how much you two might have hated each other."
That "deliberately" bothered me. "I never hated her."
Estmere got abruptly to his feet. "Enough talk for now. You look most dreadfully weary."
I was. But I called after him, "Please. One thing more."
He sighed. "Do you want the fever to return? You must rest. We can talk later."
"No. Estmere . . ."
"Ay me, very well. What is it?"
"Why did you say I never would have deliberately harmed Clarissa? What did you mean?"
He stood for a long moment, back to me, hand on the door. But at last Estmere turned to face me again, his face a mask.
"There were times during your fever when you grew so violent we feared you would hurt yourself. At last I had my harp brought to me, and I played to you. The music did seem to be soothing, for you stopped your struggles and smiled. And you spoke words in . . . another language."
"The nonsense of delirium, surely."
"No. It was a language, very beautiful, very strange. And after a time I knew it must be the Faerie tongue." I must have shown some small sign of alarm, for Estmere gave an odd little laugh. "You can't deny it, can you? You spoke it with the ease of long familiarity, almost as though you spoke your native Cymraeth."
In my weakness, that struck me as so wonderfully ironic I burst into laughter. Tairyn, Tairyn, here you've been so careful to keep me from revealing your secrets—and your own training of me betrays you!
Estmere was staring at me in alarm. At last he touched a hand to my forehead, but I turned away. "I'm not fevered."
"No." But he was still staring. "Or . . ." he murmured, almost inaudibly, "quite human . . . ?"
"Don't be ridiculous! You know who my father was, and my mother, witch or not, was fully human. As am I!"
"Between the magic and the Faerie Folk, I wonder."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I hadn't realized till that moment when I heard you speak their tongue just how familiar you are with the ways of that Folk." His voice was light, as falsely casual as though he were speaking to some not-quite-to-be-trusted ambassador. "It's hardly surprising that you might see life through their eyes."
"Please. Come to the point. Of what am I accused?"
"Of nothing. Would I accuse a fox of being true to its foxy nature?"
"Estmere . . ."
"Very well." Though his voice was as determinedly light as ever, his eyes had gone dull as winter ice. "The Faerie Folk aren't evil, are they?"
"No! Alien to human ways and thoughts, but never evil."
"But they are practical, all the old tales agree on that, very coolly practical." Estmere's voice was slipping with each word into bleakness. "You must have known of Clarissa's illness, as a magician you surely must have known. But . . . the Folk are ever practical. I know you had nothing to do with the cause of her illness; you are no murderer. But what more practical way to be rid of an enemy—too strong a word?—of an encumbrance, then, than to simply step aside, to fly away and let illness do what you would never—"
"Estmere, no!"
"I'm not blaming you. You only acted according to your nature."
"No! Listen to me!" I was frantically trying to scour my memory—but I couldn't remember! I couldn't remember anything!
Wait. That wasn't true. I knew who and what I was, I knew Estmere, and—and . . .
Desperate lest Estmere leave before I could explain, I tried to force m
emory again, terrified at how many blank spots I found. I thought I remembered that final confrontation with Clarissa, at least I remembered being in the same room with her. Hints of Faerie afterwards, and . . . and . . . and what? Everything after that was dark: painful, nightmarish scraps of the recent past that whirled aside like leaves in the wind when I tried to concentrate.
Of course I knew about shock. I knew, as any good healer does, how a mind that's undergone some horror may temporarily lose track of the past. But nothing I had learned had prepared me for the sheer terror of that loss, feeling the solid ground of history turned to mist beneath my feet, or for the anguish that shot through my head when I fought to remember. Yet I must remember! I needed every memory of that last meeting with Clarissa.
But all I could find was a quick flash of those too-bright eyes, the patches of bright color staining her pale cheeks. The result of anger? Or the first warnings of illness—Duwies, had I known? Had I, and yet done nothing?
No, I couldn't, I wouldn't . . .
But I couldn't be sure, I just could not remember! Nearly sobbing from the pain blazing through my mind, wild with the need to convince myself as well as Estmere, I gasped out, "To have known Clarissa to be so ill, and yet to have abandoned her—that would have been murder as surely as though I'd struck her down myself!"
"You're exhausting yourself," he said flatly, and turned to leave.
"Estmere, wait!"
In my frenzy to stop him, I sprang from my bed— which wasn't the cleverest thing I've done. The blood surged painfully in my already aching head, my legs went right out from under me, and I would have fallen headlong had Estmere not made a catlike leap to catch me. I remember the strength of my brother's arms supporting me, I remember trying and trying to get him to listen, though I couldn't seem to get the words out right, I remember him shouting for servants. . . .
And then it was quite literally as though someone had pulled a black curtain down in front of my eyes.
King's Son, Magic's Son Page 17
