Bloodstone

by Barbara Campbell

  His father’s spirit fought with mindless desperation, insensible of everything except his horrified belief that Morgath had taken possession of his body as well as his spirit. Keirith knew he should calm him, but the instinct for survival overwhelmed reason. Even the Supplicant’s command failed to restrain him. His body convulsed as they battled. Desperate, he summoned his power.

  “No! You will cast him out!”

  Keirith’s heart slammed against his ribs. The power continued to swell, as wildly uncontrolled as his thrashing body. Too late, he tried to call it back. A bolt of pure agony pierced him and he screamed, then screamed again as he felt the aftershock rip through his father’s spirit. He was still screaming when his father vanished.

 

  The Supplicant’s voice spoke inside him. His body went limp. His scream faded. A shrill voice shouted something, but it came from outside his spirit and he could identify neither the speaker nor the words. He groped for his father and met an impenetrable wall. He battered against it, a butterfly assaulting stone.

 

  His whimper of relief sounded loud in his ears.

 

  The whimper crescendoed to an animal cry of fear.

 

  Guilt filled him, overwhelming the fear.

 

  Why are you helping us? You’re a Zherosi priestess.

 

  Who are you?

 

  His spirit shuddered and shrank away.

 

  Why should I believe you?

  He felt something that might have been exasperation.

 

  There was a pause and then he felt the voice again, still soft, but far more gentle and unquestionably masculine.

 

  The wall prevented him from sensing his father’s responses. Unless it was a trick.

 

  It was as if the Trickster kept them isolated in separate rooms, able to hear and speak to both of them, while they could only communicate with him.

 

  There was a brief pause.

 

  Another pause, longer than the first.

 

  Another flash of exasperation, this time directed at his father.

 

  How could the Trickster shame his father by revealing his fear?

 

  The tiniest chink cracked open in the wall. For a panicked moment, he felt nothing and wondered if his father refused to touch him. Obeying the Trickster’s instructions, he quelled his anxiety, remembering how it had been when he and Malaq shared a connection. But instead of Malaq’s gentle probing, a wild torrent of emotions and thoughts poured through the gateway. He touched uncertainty and fear and a tremulous determination, but stronger than any of these was the sense of delirious relief.

  I’m here, Fa. I’m all right. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

  That was all he managed before his father disappeared. Although he knew Fellgair had simply closed the gateway, his panic resurfaced. Again, he mastered it, but the effort left him exhausted. With his remaining strength, he willed himself to surrender his father’s body.

  He drew his breath in. His father let it out. Keirith could feel the heaving chest and the beating heart, but the sensations came from a great distance. It was stranger still to hear his father’s voice murmuring his name, feel his father’s fingers clenching and unclenching in the fleece, and be helpless to make the sound or the movements.

 

  Panic surged again; he’d never managed to erect a shield himself.

 

  And will my father . . . will he know what I’m feeling?

 

  Before he could prevent it, the emotions flooded him: the helpless terror of the rape, the sickening joy of the castration, the guilt of Urkiat’s death, and the growing horror of the half-life that stretched ahead of him. Only now did he begin to grasp the implications of his rescue. The endless vigilance required lest their most private thoughts and emotions be laid bare to each other. The impotence of being locked in a body he could never possess—feet moving without his volition, mouth opening to receive food he couldn’t taste. Every private act of his father’s exposed—when he pissed, when he moved his bowels, when he . . . dear gods, what about his mam? His father’s lips kissing her, his father’s hands touching her, his father’s . . .

 

  The Trickster’s presence filled him, bathing him with the calm and peace of the honeysuckle sea. But instead of retreating into that restfulness, Keirith fought.

  Let me go.

 

  What about my sacrifice? I was willing to die. I wanted to die. I only came back to ease his grief.

 

  I didn’t mean to stay!

 

  Please. Let me go. I can’t do this.

 

  Desperation made him bold.

  You’re always interfering.

  He felt a flash of amusement.

 

  Then do it for her. Or you’ll destroy us.

 

  He recoiled under the lash of the god’s displeasure.

  The Trickster’s voice was gentle now, as it had been when he spoke to his father.

  What choice did he have? If the Trickster wouldn’t free him, he would have to protect his father—and himself.

 

  And the next and the next and all the endless days and nights that stretched ahead of him. Na
y, that was an invitation to madness. The Trickster was right. He must survive from moment to moment. He must maintain his vigilance, no matter the cost to him. And when his father was safe, he must find a way to free himself and end the suffering he was causing them both.

  Fellgair shooed the fair-haired slave girl—Hircha, he’d called her—out of the chamber, but he allowed Hakkon to remain. Together, they washed him and dressed him in his spare clothes. When one of Fellgair’s attendants reached for his breeches, Darak snatched them back. That was Keirith’s blood splashed on the doeskin, the only tangible part of his son’s body he still possessed.

  Fellgair refused to allow him to return to the temple of Zhe. Nor would he send one of his attendants to bring Keirith’s body here. Darak might have challenged him, but Hakkon and the girl had risked much to protect him and he could not repay their courage by bringing the Zherosi down on them. He would never be able to kiss his son good-bye or cut a lock of hair in remembrance. He could only sit here, well-fed, well-clothed, and well-tended, and picture the Zherosi desecrating his son’s body as Urkiat had mutilated the raider.

  When he wasn’t imagining that gruesome scene, he was seeing Keirith sprawled across the altar—the dagger’s hilt between his ribs, the blood pulsing out of his chest. He’d watched the life fade from those blue eyes and thought only of preserving him. Now that the first shock had worn off, he wondered if it would have been kinder to let his spirit fly to the Forever Isles.

  Fear is the enemy. Control the fear. Control yourself.

  Those were the words he must live by in the coming days if he was to spare Keirith the tumult of his emotions. But his determination failed him when Fellgair opened the gateway again. When his spirit collided with Keirith’s, he panicked and fled. Each successive encounter, however, proved a little easier. Although Keirith’s barrier was far weaker than Fellgair’s, it was strong enough to dilute the impact of his thoughts and emotions. It was like sleeping on the beach, hearing the constant ebb and flow of the surf. When the strain of maintaining the barrier grew too great, Keirith’s presence crashed in upon him. Then his son retreated and Darak had to fight the urge to follow.

  If the effort of controlling his thoughts and emotions tired him, it was exhausting Keirith. Each time they came together, it was harder for his son to shield himself. Finally, he asked Fellgair to keep the barrier closed so Keirith could sleep.

  That was when the girl stormed back into the chamber to plead with Fellgair to allow them to leave the city. When Fellgair demurred, she announced that she would go alone. In a few short sentences, Fellgair explained what had happened. The small amount of color in her face leached away.

  “When Darak and Keirith are able to exist in the same body, they will leave,” Fellgair announced. “Until then, you will all remain here. Rest. Eat. Chat. Hakkon and I will have to forgo the chat, he for obvious reasons, and I to attend to other matters.”

  “It’s on your head, then,” she called as Fellgair left the chamber. “If the Zheron discovers him here—”

  “He’s still alive?” Darak reached up to grab her wrist. Ignoring her wince of pain, he dragged her down beside him.

  “Aye. I think so. I saw him running away.”

  He was alive. The man who had ordered him to fight Urkiat. The man who had planned to sacrifice him. The man who had murdered his son. He was alive.

  The killing lust sang, hot and hungry. He wasn’t aware that he’d released Hircha or gotten to his feet until he saw her backing away. Hakkon gripped his shoulder, pleading silently for calm. He banked the hunger until it sang with the icy fire of frostbite.

  “Let him come.”

  “Do you think he’ll come alone?” Hircha demanded. “He’ll bring guards. If you touch him, they’ll cut you down. And then Keirith will die, too.”

  Darak swallowed down his disappointment and tasted blood; in his eagerness for the kill, he must have bitten his lip. The taste lingered in his mouth, sour and stale.

  Denied the pleasure of contemplating the Zheron’s death, he sought information. The soft venom in Hircha’s voice told him she’d be happy to see the Zheron die. Prying information from her about Keirith was more difficult, getting her to talk about herself nearly impossible. Although she possessed Griane’s boldness and strength, he found little evidence of a warm heart. It was hard to tell whether she was simply hiding her feelings or whether her years of captivity had hardened her. When he pressed her too hard, she turned sullen and silent. He had to be content with her version of the events that had led up to Keirith’s astonishing display of power.

  He wished he possessed some way to reach Tinnean. Of all men in the world, his brother understood how two spirits could survive within the same body; he had dwelled with the spirit of the Oak for more than a moon. The experience had changed him, certainly, but the essence of his brother remained intact—the quiet strength, the flashes of humor, and the wonder. Perhaps it was different when you dwelled with a god; he scarcely noticed Fellgair’s presence now.

  The thought prompted a resurgence of the familiar power.

 

  I didn’t mean that and you know it. Where are you?

 

  We can’t stay here much longer. When will you open the gateway again?

 

  I know. I just . . .

  He wanted Fellgair to be in the chamber with him. To his astonishment, he found the god’s physical presence comforting.

 

  Since he walked in moments later, he was probably lurking in the outer chamber.

  “I never lurk. I appear. Creating wonder and amazement. Are you ready?”

  Both Hakkon and Hircha looked startled, then uneasy. Darak quelled the inevitable flutter of panic and nodded. Braced for the impact of their joining, he felt only the gentle brush of Keirith’s spirit against his.

 

  He must be utterly exhausted if the opening of the gateway failed to rouse him. Fellgair’s presence vanished. They were on their own now.

  Darak closed his eyes; one of the most difficult parts of this enforced union was the inundation of sensations from without as well as within. He saw a younger Conn—perhaps eleven or twelve—down on all fours, pretending to munch grass. Conn raised his head, shook it in apparent resignation, and baaed. Amusement rippled through Keirith, followed by a bark.

  Keirith was dreaming, Darak realized, and he was seeing the dream through his son’s eyes. Conn looked far too old for this sort of game, yet he could feel the boys’ shared delight and rejoiced in it; in his dreams, at least, Keirith could find happiness.

  Conn winked and crawled toward a rock. Keirith’s gaze swung away to follow an eagle soaring overhead. Dejection mingled with awe, as if Keirith was observing his dream as well as experiencing it.

  Something growled and his gaze swung back to the rock. Callie was perched upon it. He couldn’t be more than three summers. His snarl turned into a fit of giggles as Conn crawled around in circles, bleating madly. He was still giggling when Keirith raced toward him, barking.

  Up he went, high in the air, his laughing face looking down into Keirith’s. Conn interrupted his bleating. “The dog’s supposed to chase the wolf off, not pick him up.”

  “He’s not a wolf anymore,” Keirith said. “He’s an eagle.”

  “Fly, Keiry, fly!”

  Keirith raced across the hillside, Callie’s legs bumping against his chest. Their happiness tumbled over Darak, fresh and pure as a stream. As soon as Keirith set him down, Callie poked him. “You be the wolf. I’ll be the dog.”

  “Why am I always stuck being the sheep?” Conn asked plaintively.

  “Because you’re so baaed at barking.”

&n
bsp; A clump of grass hit Keirith in the belly. He picked it up and hurled it back. Soon, they were tussling with each other, with Callie shouting encouragement. Conn demanded that Keirith play the sheep, but he refused. The playfulness of the dream-Keirith warred with a growing anxiety from the dreamer.

  Keirith’s power surged as he pushed Conn away. Although it was just an echo of what he had experienced, the memory made Darak recoil. Revulsion tore at Keirith as his dream-self directed the power at his tormentor.

  Conn cried out and collapsed. To Darak’s horror, Keirith turned toward Callie. His little boy’s scream tore through him. Like the wood pigeon, he thought, then realized the thought had come from Keirith.

  Keirith’s dream-self went down on his knees, shock and guilt radiating from him. Then he looked up. It took Darak a moment to recognize himself. Gods, was this how Keirith saw him, this stern-faced, accusing stranger? He was as helpless to stem his shock and denial as Keirith was to keep his self-loathing from battering them both.

  It’s only a dream, son. You would never hurt Conn or Callie.

  Voices from the outer chamber pulled his awareness away. He opened his eyes to find Hakkon staring at the doorway and Hircha with her back against a wall. Only Fellgair’s expression remained placid.

  Darak heard a deep chuckle. It came from Keirith’s dream. When he shut out the external distractions, he found only darkness and a fear so pervasive it made his heart race. Sensations flooded him from within and without: whispers in the dark; shouts from the outer chamber; the grittiness of the cloth shoved in his mouth; the tramp of booted feet, growing louder by the moment.

  Darak opened his eyes and found Fellgair watching him. “It seems you’ll have that confrontation, after all.”

  Palms and knees scraped against wood. A hand yanked back the draperies across the doorway of Fellgair’s chamber. Soft doeskin brushed his back. Armed men marched toward him.

  “Stop. It’s too much.”

  Cruel fingers dug into his buttocks.

  “Nay. Oh, gods. Keirith!”