Hounds of God

by Tarr, Judith

  He could not.

  Cynan.

  He could—so.

  He opened his eyes. The world was grey, all its colors poured into scent and sound. His body pulsed with a hotter and fiercer life than ever it was born to. When he stretched an arm it moved strangely, flexing claws.

  He blinked. Knowledge woke from he knew not where. A half-turn of thought, a flexing of his will; he saw as he had always seen, but from the same unfamiliar angle. His arm, become a foreleg, was white yet dappled with shadow and silver. He raised his head.

  They were staring, all three, in wonder and a touch of awe. He gathered his new body and flowed from the bed, testing his skill. He glimpsed himself in Jehan’s open mind, a great leopard as pale as the moon, with the eyes of an enchanter.

  As knowledge had swelled, so now swelled joy. So simple, so wonderful, to be his own soul’s creature. The other, his blazon—

  He laughed, and it was a hawk’s cry, his wings stretching wide, exultant. A flick of power; his voice was his own again. He lowered his arms and turned. “See,” he said to his son. “As easy as that. Come; will you not play the game with me?”

  Brave child; he laughed behind the hound’s face and plunged inward. Alf rode with him, steadying him, though he needed little of that. He was as strong as he was valiant.

  Together they found the center. The wall had gained a gate, and the gate was opening slowly. Cynan hesitated the briefest of instants. Then he loosed what lay within.

  Alf looked down. A stranger looked up, a manchild of two summers or perhaps a little less. His hair was long and straight and fine, the color of chestnuts; his eyes were silvered gold. Even so young, he had Thea’s pointed face and her wicked smile. Do you like me better now, Father?

  “I could never like you better than I do,” Alf answered as steadily as he could, “but I’m more than glad to see your proper face again.”

  I feel odd, Cynan said. He moved, exploring the ways of this new shape. It was clumsy; it was vaguely repulsive, smooth and all but hairless as it was. But its hands were purest fascination.

  He persuaded one to reach up, to touch his father’s face. His lips stretched again into that strangeness called a smile, his tongue pausing to explore the broad blunt teeth. His other hand followed its mate to clasp Alf’s neck; he rose dizzily to Alf-height, secure within the circling arms.

  Alf wept, and yet he laughed. “Oh, yes, I like you very much this way. But even as a hound pup you can hardly be as old as this.”

  I don’t want to be too little. Cynan wriggled, for the feel of it. May I eat now?

  Hungry though he was, he could not help but play with the cheese and the bread soaked in milk that Jehan brought and Alf fed him. Food was different to this body, richer and more savory, and his hands could grasp it in so many fascinating ways. Hands, he thought, made all the rest worth bearing.

  He fell asleep with a crust clutched in his fist. He did not heed the closing of the shields about his mind, nor see them all gathered to stare, even, hesitantly, to touch. But even in sleep he heard his father’s soft voice murmuring words of guard and comfort. He smiled and held the crust tighter, and lost himself in his dream.

  26.

  Stefania knew that she was dreaming. She was lying in her own familiar bed, bare as always under the coverlet her mother had made for her, with Anna breathing gently beside her and Bianca snoring beyond. The candle was lit, although she remembered distinctly that she had snuffed it as soon as she said her prayers.

  But surest proof of the dream was Nikephoros, who bent over her. Quite apart from the impossibility of his presence, he did not wear the pilgrim’s mantle she had always seen him in, but the full finery of a northern nobleman. He looked splendid in scarlet.

  She stretched out her hand to feel its richness. He bent lower still. His black curls, falling forward, brushed her cheeks.

  She pulled him down the last crucial inch. Since this was a dream, she could be as bold as ever she had yearned to be. She could—why, she could be frankly wanton.

  How real this was. The coverlet was down around her waist, her skin reveling in the caress of silk with the young man’s body behind it. His cheek pricked a little where it was shaven, tasting of salt and cleanness. His lips burned as she found them again.

  At last she let him go. He hung above her, braced on his hands. The candle, flaring, made his eyes glitter.

  She blinked and peered. His brilliant cotte had vanished. He was a pilgrim again, and she was cold, but she was fiery hot. Her breasts had forgotten silk; they remembered the harsh pricking of wool.

  She snatched wildly, clutching blankets, recoiling as far as the bed’s head would allow. She was very wide awake and he was very solidly present, and it was abundantly clear that she had not dreamed the rest of it.

  Except the cotte. Small comfort that was; would she ever survive the shame?

  Her mouth opened. His hand covered it. He glanced warningly at her companions, who had not moved through all of it; his free hand held up the dark limpness of her nightrobe.

  She snatched it and pulled it on, rising to finish, framing a scolding. His fingers, closing over her wrist, held it back once again.

  By the time he had led her down to the lower room, lit a lamp, and stirred up the brazier, she had cooled considerably. It was not he, after all, who had played the wanton. In fact, as she remembered it, his eyes had widened when first she touched him. He had not been reluctant in the least, but he had certainly been surprised.

  Well then, it was done, and there was no calling it back again. She called her thoughts to order and faced this welcome but utterly improper guest. “Has anyone ever told you, Messer Nikephoros, that a young man has no business rousing a respectable maiden from her bed?”

  He smiled slightly, hardly more than a flicker. He had that look again, fey, a little wild. I had to see you, he said. I couldn’t stand it.

  “Restraint is the first virtue of the philosopher.”

  He tossed his head like a restless colt. Don’t throw words at me, Stefania. Stop thinking I’m just another rutting male. I want you and I’ll always want you, but I can’t bear—

  “There now,” she said. He trembled under her hands, as only that evening she had trembled under his. Had he felt so powerful then, so piercingly tender?

  Sweet saints, she thought, and she was never sure that it was not a prayer, I love this silly beauty of a boy. Aloud she said again, “There now, caro mio, what’s not to be borne? You’ve loved women before, I know, which sets you well in advance of me; and don’t tell me it’s never been like this.”

  It hasn’t! he cried. He pulled back. They knew—they didn’t think I was—they knew the truth.

  “What truth is that? That you’re younger than I? I know it; you told me. That you’re higher born than you pretend? I guessed that long since.”

  He seized her. Look at me, Stefania. Look at me!

  That was never difficult to do. She brushed the errant lock from his forehead. His eyes blazed. Look, he repeated. See. See how I speak to you. Open your eyes; stop denying it. See.

  She went very still. No. Oh, surely, no.

  His lips had moved, of course they had. What mountebank’s trick was this that he played on her?

  He forced her hands up, one to the motionless mouth, one to the still throat. I don’t speak as men speak. I can’t. I was born half-formed, good enough to look on but without ears to hear.

  “But you are—”

  I told you I grew up in Rhiyana. Don’t you know what that means? I’m one of them. A witch, a sorcerer. I’m reckoned quite skillful. I can make you think I’m a man like any other. I can walk in your mind. I can set myself in your dreams.

  She shook her head. “No. It’s not possible. Reason, logic—”

  Reason and logic have no place among my kind. Haven’t you been wondering why neither Bianca nor your uncle said a word about my brother?

  “He came in and out through the back, by the courty
ard.”

  He came in and out by magic. The little hound that he grieved over, that was his son. He’s a very great enchanter, Stefania. He taught me; he made me what I am. I’m not of the true blood, you see. Mine is as human as yours; or was, before he changed me. Without him I’d have been nothing, a deaf-mute like those poor creatures who beg in the market, an animal in the shape of a man.

  Strange how one could grow accustomed to things. A minute or two of the impossible and it was no longer impossible; it became fact, like the existence of God.

  She had found logical arguments for the nonexistence of witches, had based a whole and yet unwritten treatise on them, contending that observation revealed the world thus, and thus, and thus. No doubt in due time she would have argued that God Himself was a creature of man’s overly fertile mind, and then she would have gone to the fire for heresy. Rightfully; for if a witch could be, then so could God.

  No, she rebuked herself. That was all folly. She had played with such arguments for the sake of playing with them, but never given them credit.

  In strict truth, she did not want to believe that this particular witch existed. This witch per rem, per speciem; this boy who had appeared on her doorstep and stolen her heart. Witched it away beyond any hope of recovery.

  That was the impossibility. That he was one of the Devil’s children, lost and damned, fair prey for any faithful son of the Church. He could not be a black sorcerer. Not Nikephoros.

  She felt his pain as if it had been her own, touched with a faint, bitter amusement. There at least you see clearly, my poor love. I’m not that kind of witch. I’m of the other faction, a white enchanter. Not that the Church cares. I’m still anathema.

  “Damn the Church!”

  He shook his head, tossing it, his black brows meeting over his black eyes. He did not look—he seemed—

  He had let go her hands. She caught his cheeks between them. She trembled; but not with fear, not precisely. It was far too late for that, or far too early. Especially when, caught off guard by her sudden swooping kiss, he responded with undisguised passion.

  Only for a moment. He tore free. It’s not only that, Stefania. I lied. I let you think I was a whole man.

  Her eyes ran over him, halting midway. “Aren’t you?”

  He actually blushed. But his mouth was grim. I pretended that I belonged to your world. I don’t. I can’t. The stroke of God that flawed me, the stroke of witchery that mended me, between them have set me apart. I’ll never be human as you are human. I can’t even—truly—wish to be. She had neither need nor time to voice her denial; he plunged over it. You saw how I was that night when I frightened you so much. I’d lost my power then. I was going mad in the silence. I couldn’t endure to live so always, even for love of you.

  “Do you think I’d ever force that on you?”

  Do you think you could live out your life in the knowledge of what I am? My children could be like me. Could you bear that?

  “I have no trouble enduring you.”

  What of your uncle? Of Bianca? Of your kin, your friends, the people you meet and speak to on the street? What would they say if they knew?

  “Need they ever know?”

  You’re not thinking. You’re just loving me.

  “Of course. It’s the only reasonable thing to do.”

  He grasped her, shook her. Stefania Makaria, do you mean that?

  “Absolutely.”

  Then, he said, come with me. One of my friends is a bishop. He’ll marry us tonight. We only have to go to him and ask.

  She backed away a step or two. She gathered her robe about her, shivering, realizing that she was barefoot and the floor was cold.

  That cold part of her mind which he was trying to wake, the clever thinker, the philosopher, was saying exactly what he wanted it to say. He tested her; rightly. He was not what she had thought him. If he could walk through her mind, seeing God knew what secrets, it stood to reason that he could do much more, some of it even less appealing. And the natural man, if man she could call him, was sadly flawed.

  On the other hand, if he had meant her ill, he could have overcome her long since and without this harrowing confession. He could have seized her, subdued her mind with her body, taken her, discarded her.

  Such, in tales, had always been the conduct of wizards. But then perhaps this was a subtler torment, a more necromantically satisfying conquest.

  However—

  She hurled down her damnable logic and set her foot on it. “You know full well, Nikephoros, that if either of us is ready to marry, it’s not likely to be tonight. For one thing, we have families, and these would prefer to be consulted. For another, we are in no condition of mind or body to be making a decision as serious as that.”

  Say it! he cried. Say that you won’t have such a horror as I am.

  Her chin came up. She knew her eyes were snapping; she felt the heat in them. “Nikephoros Akestas, what do you take me for?”

  An eminently sensible woman. Damn it, Stefania, I’m an honest-to-heaven, utterly unrepentant, practicing sorcerer.

  “You certainly look like one, with yesterday’s razor-cut on your chin. And your hem is torn again. What do you do with it? Take it for walks through thornbrakes?”

  Ah no; she had misjudged. He was too far gone to soften into laughter. Or was it that he persisted in seeing in her what—perhaps—she was adamantly refusing to see?

  He smote his hands together, and she heard it as thunder. Lightning leaped from his lifted palms. It coiled about him, hissing, spawning snakelets of fire, while he stood whole and fearless in its center.

  Surely it was only a seeming; just as surely, illusion or not, it raised every hair on her body.

  It’s not, Stefania, he said, and the voice was his but it was not, soft and inward, distant yet intimately close. He tucked his legs beneath him; he sat in comfort, cushioned on air.

  The lightning faded. Or perhaps it had entered him. He glowed softly like a lamp sheathed in parchment, light that shone through his heavy robe, leaving little to be imagined.

  “What happens when you get angry?” she asked him.

  I’m trained not to lose control. Even now he seemed proud of that. We’re not like the sorcerers in the stories. In many ways we’re stronger. We’re also more restrained. More ethical, you would say. He tossed back his unruly hair; his brows met in a single black line. You’re not supposed to be so cool about this!

  “Very well, I’m not. Shall I have hysterics? Would it do any good?”

  It would save you from me.

  “It seems to me,” she said, “that if you really wanted to do anything of the sort, you’d have left me on my doorstep that very first day. Or told me the truth then and there, before I formed an unshakable opinion of you.”

  What—

  “I think you’re a perfectly ethical witch, who also happens to be a very young and rather foolish boy. It doesn’t matter, Nikephoros. Won’t you accept that?”

  He moved swifter than sight. Caught her. Held her prisoner.

  She shrank; she shuddered, soul-deep. He felt no different. And yet—

  As swiftly as he had come, he was gone. His eyes tore at her soul. Wide, clear, unspeakably bitter. It doesn’t matter, he said in his voice that was no voice at all. Of course not. You can force yourself to touch me, for proof. But if I touch you...

  “You startled me,” she said sharply.

  He could laugh. Only the sound of it was illusion, the roughness that was pain.

  She hit him hard. As he rocked with the blow, she seized him, but gently, running her hands along his knotted shoulders.

  Her mind was a roil. She wanted him; she hated him for his long deception. She hated him for his strangeness; she wanted him fiercely enough to weaken her knees.

  He was warm under her hands, solid, human, no lingering crackle of lightning. But it was there. She saw it in his eyes. Quiescent though he was, he was not harmless, no more than a young wolf trained to hand. />
  That in itself was fascination. To know that power dwelt in him, power tamed to an arcane law; to know it would not wound her.

  Yes. She knew. “Are you telling me,” she asked him slowly, “that I can trust you?”

  The flash of his eyes made her breath catch. Perilous, beautiful. Ineffably tender.

  She could trust him. Implicitly. But always with that spice, the knowledge of what he could do.

  Well; that was true of any man. It was true of her own body. Which, if she did not soon call it to order, would be taking matters into its own hands. She was naked under her gown, and she knew what lay under his, and they were all alone. His witchery could make sure they stayed so.

  He moved before she did, standing away from her, although he spoiled it by taking her hands. Stefania. His lips followed the syllables, not too badly. What do we do now?

  “I can’t take it in all at once. I have to think. It’s all changed. What I thought you were; what I thought the world was. I only know... I think... I still love you.” She looked at him, drinking him in. “But for now, we should sleep. I in my bed, you in yours.”

  Yes. Yes, I should go. But he stood still. Stefania…

  She waited. He shook his head, all words lost to him; he bent and kissed her, gently, but with fire in it.

  She wanted to cling; she wanted to hurl herself away in a madness of revulsion. She moved not at all, but stood like a woman of stone, marble veined with ice and fire.

  With infinite reluctance he let her go, turned, began to draw away. Her hand rose then, but whether to beckon or repel, even she did not know.

  oOo

  Alf knew when Nikki rose, dressed, and slipped away. The boy’s trouble was as distinct as a bruise. There was little Alf could do for it, and Nikki would not have welcomed that little. The Akestas were most damnably independent.

  Alf stopped trying either to force or to feign sleep. He felt strange to himself, his new power shifting within him, begging to be freed again. Just for a moment; just for its pleasure.

  He almost smiled. That was the first danger any of his kind learned to face, the first bright wonder of a new art, when any small pretext seemed enough for its use.