Amulet Rampant

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “Why?” Jahir whispered, trembling.

  “Because we both need to know how to defend against it. Because the Eldritch go to war, Galare, and we cannot go with a weakness this extreme.”

  “The dragons cannot wield these powers…”

  “The dragons can take our shape, and when they do, I assure you, cousin, they are not afraid to try anything that might secure them an advantage.” Lisinthir held him fast, waited for him to start thinking and stop panicking. It was working… he needed something else. What to say? What to do? Ah—“And more than that, I need your help.”

  A husky answer then, but beneath the tremor there was a willingness to listen. “My help.”

  “Your help,” Lisinthir said, and let his own horror drip through their touch. “Because I am afraid.”

  In the long pause that followed, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. But then Jahir whispered, “You are not a monster, cousin.”

  “Then help me,” Lisinthir said. “Please.”

  Jahir swallowed, deepened his breath. “All right. What… how shall we?”

  Hands seemed less fraught than some of the other choices. “Set your hand there, on your chest. You will try to keep it there. I will try to make you move it.”

  “That… I… we can do that.” Jahir cleared his throat. “Let us.”

  Lisinthir settled alongside him, on his side, and stared at his cousin’s hand, and as he watched it rose from Jahir’s skin. He stopped concentrating, and Jahir pulled it back again.

  God and Living Air.

  “Again,” Lisinthir said. “I will try more slowly.”

  “Not slowly. More intently. Perhaps if you push harder, I will notice.”

  “Very well.”

  The next few experiments were agonizing. Again and again, Lisinthir wrested control of his cousin’s body from him and left him helpless—did it easily, as if this was something he’d always been capable of. Had this power always been germinating in him? And for how long? Had he been using it here and there without realizing it, and without knowing it existed to be harnessed? He wondered if he’d been wrong about becoming a monster. Had there not been stories so? The evil of powerful Eldritch whose talents had run unhindered until they’d been defeated by armies. To fight an enemy and win by right of sword and claw and muscle was one matter. To defeat him before he could lift a hand by stealing his will from him…

  It would make everything safer. But what would it turn him into?

  Again. Again. He rested his head against his fist on the pillow alongside Jahir and didn’t even look, didn’t need to look; he could sense his cousin’s limbs, his body, his breathing, as something he could cup in a palm and crush. All initiative, all volition, gone. It was delicious. It was horrifying.

  Jahir’s voice was almost clinical. Had they not been touching skin to skin at the shoulder-tip, the tone would have fooled Lisinthir into thinking he’d come to consider this an intellectual exercise. “I can sense you doing it now. I can even sense it about to happen. But I can’t stop you.”

  The revulsion that flooded him was almost physically incapacitating, but when had he ever had the luxury of being overwhelmed? Lisinthir pushed himself upright. “You’re thirsty, and so I am.”

  Again, that unnatural calm. “Water would be welcome.”

  Water be damned, Lisinthir thought, sliding from the bed and going to the tray. He reached for the bottle of port and another wave of nausea swamped him, so intense he groped for the edge of the bureau until it passed. Alcohol would be a terrible idea. Except that he hadn’t thought it a terrible idea—it was an amazingly good idea—and again he moved toward the bottle. When his stomach cramped he wondered if he was relapsing, though the chances of it were frankly astronomical given the extent of the repairs the surgery team had enacted on his failing body. Staring at his quaking hand, Lisinthir fought to swallow: even his throat tried to close against the idea.

  When had he ever been revolted by alcohol? He had been habituated by his circumstances to associate it with safety, not with disgust. His body was reacting paradoxically. It should have been carrying through with his first impulse, which had been to leave bed in search of something strong enough to take the edge off both their terrors.

  Slowly he looked over his shoulder and said, “You. You are doing this to me.”

  His cousin had chosen the only thing that could have penetrated the disassociation that had accompanied his shock at the sight of his own body obeying someone else’s commands. Jahir looked up sharply. “I… I beg your pardon?”

  “You are making me not want to drink.” Lisinthir leaned on the bureau, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re doing it now. I am near to wanting to vomit over the idea of pouring that port.”

  “Surely…” He grasped for his scattered thoughts. “Surely you are… you are responding to the discovery we have made.”

  Lisinthir’s eyes narrowed. “That would be another thing. I am far more distressed about this than I should be. On my own, I’d be considering the pragmatic uses of this discovery first and its moral applications later. And a discovery of this magnitude, revealed on the eve of a war for our survival? I should be receptive to the potential of such a novel weapon, one I have no reason to believe my enemy would predict. Instead I find myself distracted by the possibility of becoming a villain out of a nursery tale, in a cascade of images that prophesy my certain ethical and physical demise. This sounds far more like your thought process than mine, cousin. And I am gambling that the only reason I’m noticing it now is that my accusation is distracting you from projecting your emotional state.”

  “What?” Jahir asked, stunned. “I am doing… what?”

  Lisinthir did pour the port now, and brought a single glass back to the bed. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it. I have always exercised my aggression physically, whether it was on a dueling ground or in the Empire. My talent appears to have developed in that direction: I can force bodies. You, however, work more subtly. Every day you contemplate psychologies. You never resort to violence when you can distract or suggest a different course. So your talent has made you into someone who can force minds.”

  Before Jahir could react to this statement, Lisinthir pressed the glass’s knife-thin brim to his lips. “Drink.” Dark eyes met his. “I am not forcing you. I am telling you to do so. Choose to obey me, if you would.”

  Startled, Jahir did.

  “More, do. That sip wouldn’t affect a stripling boy.”

  The fears he was ignoring were pushing up his throat. To stop them, he drank again, and accepted the third suggestion as well. His head dropped against Lisinthir’s shoulder; he felt his cousin swallow, the long movement of throat, and then the stretch of muscle over ribs as his cousin placed the glass on the table. Then there were two arms around him, and he needed them both. He needed them both, but they were not enough. The drink wasn’t enough either: three swallows or thirty.

  Someone who can force minds.

  No. He couldn’t live in the same space as the words. As the thoughts. As the realization that his cousin was right.

  Someone who can force minds.

  “You want,” Jahir whispered, “very much to kiss me.”

  That won him a kiss on his hair. “I want very much to do many things to you, cousin, but this is most certainly not the time.” Wry humor then, tingling on his skin like cinnamon oil. “It might not become the time until after I must leave. But I will not, absolutely not, touch you until you’re sure that you’re not being compelled.”

  His heart stumbled.

  “You can’t—you can’t go without doing this to me,” Jahir whispered, tasting it in his mouth like bile and terror. Memories of the Pattern glimpsed so fleetingly on the captured Chatcaavan ship clogged his thoughts, whipped his heart to a desperate rhythm. “Cousin… you must. Or they will do it to me first.”

  Lisinthir stilled. “You can’t be sure.”

  “I know,” Jahir said, sweating. God and Goddess, bu
t would this unwanted increase in talent develop the nascent gift of prophecy with it? A gift he wanted not at all? If he could sense the thoughts of strangers, their emotions, without touching them… what would that do to him? Would he even be capable of supporting it? He remembered the disorientation and faints that had afflicted him on Selnor when too many people had crowded him, magnified it by a populace the size of Veta’s. Bad enough to have all that pressing on him, but if he could force his own thoughts and feelings on others… what would that do to his patients? Could he work again? Would he ever be sure if he was reshaping people to meet his standards of normal behavior?

  There was not enough liquor in the worlds to stamp this panic down. He could see his life collapsing around him. Mind-mage, something in him hissed. You will become a mind-mage, fit for nothing but imprisonment. You will have to leave it all behind. And the dragons will warp you first—

  “Oh, God, cousin, my-better, please,” Jahir moaned, pulling out the Chatcaavan words through Lisinthir’s skin and cutting himself with them until he bled, mouth and mind and heart, and all the future was opening the wounds. He heard the hiss, knew he’d opened his cousin’s scars and didn’t care. “Please!”

  “I don’t—I won’t, not like this, not forcing you—”

  “You aren’t! You won’t!” Jahir fisted his hand on Lisinthir’s chest to keep it from shaking. The words were a jumble now, Universal, their tongue, Chatcaavan. “I want it, I want it now, before they get to me. I want it to be you. I want…”

  Lisinthir tipped up his chin with a curled finger, his gaze unrelenting.

  “Make me stop thinking, please…!” Jahir whispered. And then, louder, as his thoughts grew fangs and claws. “Please, now, cousin, NOW—” Lips crushed against his, and he scrabbled for purchase as his back hit the bed. Yes, this, this now, but don’t look at me—sliding onto his stomach, with a hand clenched in his hair at the nape. Biting kisses that drove everything from him when they were on him, but the thoughts returned when they lifted, and he squirmed to get under more of them. Love there, and a savagery he craved like water. More—but it would hurt—make it hurt, “Please, do it, I can take it—” And running like a line of fire beneath the words: I want it I want it that way

  A long sigh over his shoulder: capitulation that felt like being conquered. He bowed his head, arched his neck, begged through skin... lost time. And then there was enough pain even for him, and a rapture that emptied his head, stopped his thoughts from their crazed downward whirl, and he wept into the pillow with relief and then ecstasy.

  And then there was nothing.

  For a long time, nothing. A good, sated, cored-out nothing that left him adrift, when he so badly needed it.

  He became aware of sweat next, trapped against his ribcage beneath an arm that was holding him. Two arms holding him. He was in someone’s arms. Someone who cared for him so much it seemed incredible that he might also be so concerned. Jahir pressed his cheek against skin, felt a breath blow out over the bridge of his nose, perfumed with port.

  “With me?” Lisinthir asked, husky.

  Was he? Could he speak? He could hardly remember how. His throat was dry—ah, here was a glass. Alcohol, but that was all right, now.

  “You don’t have to answer. Just nod.”

  But his cousin was owed an answer. Choose a language... Universal, easy, familiar. “Here,” he murmured. And with a smile, winsome, whimsical…happy. “Barely.”

  Lisinthir’s gaze was grave, far too grave. But the kiss pressed to his brow... that was forgiveness. “Not how I planned to do this.”

  So much under the words. He had used Lisinthir ill. “I know. I’m—”

  Lisinthir rested a finger on his lips, so Jahir left the apology unsaid. They both knew this was how he’d needed it, or Lisinithir wouldn’t have relented. Instead, he tucked himself closer, spread his hand on his cousin’s chest. And said, very quietly, “We are mind-mages.”

  A pause in the metronymic breathing. Then, “So it seems.”

  “Terrifying,” Jahir murmured. “And improbable.”

  Gentle fingers separated sweat-matted hair from his temple, tucked it behind his ear. “It is only another weapon. A weapon is blameless. It can be a tool of oppression in the hand of a tyrant and a liberating force in the hand of a paladin.”

  The thought of knives ran a shiver of longing up his side. Now, at least, he knew why pain was so good. It took so much, so very much, to make him stop thinking and just… let go. “A weapon. But I am not a knight.”

  “Make no mistake, Galare,” Lisinthir said, soft. “We are both our Queen’s swords. Whether we fight with words or blades.” That gentle hand traveled down, found his chin and lifted it up. Surprised, Jahir met his cousin’s eyes.

  “And you fight very well with words,” Lisinthir said. His voice chilled down to the menace of a blade. “’My-better.’ Never call me that again.”

  “No!” Jahir promised.

  His cousin smiled a little, letting the anger dissipate, and that... that was needful. Because he hadn’t seen Lisinthir’s wrath since their first meetings, and yet, suffering it now... he’d still been able to breathe, to move his chin enough to swallow. His cousin could have fettered him, and hadn’t.

  Jahir let out a breath with a shudder. “Mayhap your third language is too fraught for pillow talk.”

  That surprised a blurt of laughter from Lisinthir. “You learned Chatcaavan to use it for that?”

  “What else?” Jahir said, flushing. “You resort to it in your passion. I thought—” He dropped his head back onto Lisinthir’s chest and sighed. “Obviously I should have thought more.”

  “No, no! If you learned it for this purpose we must use it so. You are right—I do think of it as a love language. Among other things.” Lisinthir kissed the top of his head gently. “It is those other things you must not trespass upon, for they were ugly and I would not have you demean yourself. I will teach you the proper way. If you still trust me?”

  What a question. It teased a lopsided smile out of him. “Should I not?”

  “You have been roughly used. I would not blame you if you decided not to repeat the experience.”

  “Cousin, no.” Jahir cleared his throat. “You gave me what I needed. Very much. And I wanted it, just as you gave it to me. I will want it again, if… you are willing.”

  “So long as you trust me,” Lisinthir said, quiet. “To force you, but not to coerce you.”

  “Will you trust me, not to infect you?” Jahir asked, and was gratified by the pause, and didn’t know why. An acknowledgement of power, perhaps. Was it important that he still have it? Wasn’t it, though? He thought of dragons, and the war he saw spinning out of the Pattern.

  Lisinthir rested a finger on his lower lip. “I do trust you, yes. But we should explore the parameters of our unexpected abilities, ere we leave.”

  “So long as we have time for… this.”

  “I promise,” Lisinthir replied, and kissed him gently. The gentleness was good also… reminded him that the cruelty he’d begged for had been given to him by a loving hand that had, he realized, ridden him to the edge of what he could bear and not over. How had he known?

  “Skin,” Lisinthir whispered against the corner of his mouth. “Skin doesn’t lie. And yours, cousin…” Flash of red want. “…yours sings.”

  In some other world, perhaps he would have had a witty riposte, something that would have bled away the intimacy of the confession. But here, still diffuse and contented, he could only say, “I’m glad I pleased you.”

  “More than I could express,” Lisinthir said, and pulled him close. “Now, put your spine to me, where I might ward it, and rest. You need it badly.”

  “Do I?” Perhaps he was tired. He let his cousin draw him down, settled on his side. Felt the pressure of Lisinthir’s nose against his shoulder.

  “You do. Sleep, dear cousin.” A hand settled over his heart. “Beautiful cousin.”

  Jahir sighed ou
t, and eased into that pool of spreading awareness, felt it wick him thinner and thinner until at last the world faded into stars.

  Lisinthir knew the moment Jahir slept by the way the anxiety dropped from him with the abruptness of a doused lamp. He exhaled against his cousin’s hair and smiled a little, grim. Had anyone asked him if the projection of emotions would make a useful weapon he would have found the notion risible. He did not find it quite so amusing anymore. And it was obvious his cousin had no conscious control over an ability of significant power, one he’d used to nearly force Lisinthir into the love-making he had originally decided would have to wait.

  It had been a very near thing. Even now, he wasn’t sure what would have happened had he not sensed the flash of the Pattern through his cousin’s skin, the one that had proven Jahir’s words. Cousin… you must. Or they will do it to me first.

  Perhaps this was something the Unicorn bestowed on its house, because Lisinthir had always operated on an instinctive understanding of patterns. That intuition had guided him safely through the Empire’s politics, though he’d barely kept one breath ahead of the hunters who’d wanted him dead. He’d never thought to question its provenance until he’d touched it, throbbing like a desperate heartbeat under Jahir’s skin. And unlike his cousin, he’d had the context to interpret some of the desperate flashes of insight that had cluttered the spiraling chains of events he’d sensed.

  Lisinthir pressed his nose against the back of Jahir’s neck. Absent his cousin’s fears, he was free to consider the application of his talent’s unexpected expansion and find the potential compelling. There had been stories from his youth about mind-mages holding off armies; he’d dismissed them as fantasies, so he no longer remembered the details, but perhaps his cousin would. If he could, indeed, hold off an army—or better yet, kill one—with his mind alone….

  A sobering thought. But then, shooting one of the Alliance’s entropy packets at the enemy would kill them just as dead. Did the method matter so much if the end was the same?