Bloodstone (67 page)
Xevhan’s delight oozed through him like malignant sap. This is what his father had experienced when Morgath attacked, this hopeless realization that there was no place to hide, no barrier strong enough to shield him. And the boundless terror of that malevolent spirit savoring his fear and prying into his memories.
Summoning his power, Keirith attacked, driving Xevhan back. His momentary surprise gave way to a ripple of pure pleasure.
Again, Keirith attacked, shame as potent as qiij.
The upwelling of wrath surprised them both. His father’s spirit lashed out; even Xevhan, powerful as he was, retreated before the furious assault. It was hopeless; his father knew it. He possessed neither the skills nor the strength to sustain the attack, but it was fueled by something more potent than qiij or shame or hatred.
Fierce and protective, his father’s love flooded Keirith. Once, he had been blind enough to resent his strength, believing it somehow diminished his. Only now did he realize that it only made him stronger.
Was it that knowledge that made Xevhan falter? Or was the strain of The Shedding finally taking its toll?
Keirith summoned his power, drawing energy from unyielding stone and honeysuckle-scented air, from the shuddering fire of the torches and the pool of Hakkon’s blood. He summoned his power for Hircha, for Urkiat, for the nameless men who had died under the Zheron’s dagger. For Malaq, his friend and mentor. And for his father who loved him.
He summoned the power and held it while the bloodsong swelled, eager yet controlled, hungry yet calm. The song of the hunter closing in for the kill. With heart and mind and spirit, Keirith hurled the coiled energy at Xevhan.
Shock turned to disbelief, disbelief to fear. And when the relentless power continued to surge, the fear changed to terror.
It was Xevhan’s turn to flee and his to pursue, carried effortlessly on the tide of his power. He was an eagle swooping in for the kill, deadly talons seeking fur and flesh and bone. His father cried out a warning, but he could no more allow Xevhan to escape than he could harness the power he had unleashed. All he could do was ride the torrent that connected him to Xevhan.
His spirit ripped free of his father’s body. For a moment, he drifted, observing the shock of those below who watched Xevhan totter backward. The familiar peace stole over him. The thread connecting him to Xevhan was as slender and fragile as the spinneret that had connected him to the eagle. If he severed it, he could fly away forever.
Hunger for vengeance overrode the desire to escape. He channeled that hunger into the thread, spinning it thicker and stronger. His father cried out his name, but already the power was pulling him forward, carrying him down.
The world lurched as he rooted himself in Xevhan’s body. Lurched again as Xevhan slammed into a wall. Colors exploded before him—russet, gold, brown—all the colors of autumn. Trees filled his vision—slender birches, thick-trunked oaks. He was home and it was harvest time and he was flying through the forest.
He blundered into a tree and pushed it aside. Another rose in its place and he burst through it, scattering evanescent shards of wood that flickered like embers in the night sky. He ripped through an interwoven barrier of saplings that screamed as his power shredded them. Nay, not saplings. Shields. Erected by the man who had murdered him.
His power surged, feeding on the terror. This was what Morgath had experienced: the dizzying invasion, the intoxicating arousal of battle. Xevhan fought hard and that only made it sweeter. Brutal and relentless, Keirith pressed the attack, thrusting at his opponent’s spirit, penetrating it, savaging it. Xevhan’s scream echoed through him and he quivered with anticipation. Xevhan’s body convulsed and he shuddered with pleasure.
He was close now, so close. He could feel Xevhan’s hold on his body weakening. It required only a final push to expel him. But he was tiring. The battle was draining them both. He sensed a tiny crack in his enemy’s spirit and gathered himself for one last assault.
For Malaq.
Xevhan’s spirit shattered. A cascade of discordant emotions inundated Keirith—denial, hatred, terror—and with them, random thoughts and memories: a bloody, pulsating heart, a child’s laugh, a man’s reproving voice. Keirith flung off the contamination, casting out the shreds of Xevhan’s spirit, flinging them into the void.
Somewhere, a scream was fading into silence. His strength was fading, too. So tired now, too tired to fight. The brilliant colors of the forest dimmed. He looked up to find his father struggling helplessly in Fellgair’s arms. The world shrank to their faces—his father’s contorted, Fellgair’s calm. He tried to speak, to bid his father farewell, but he could only lie there, caught by the golden fire dancing in the Trickster’s eyes.
Abruptly, the fire went out. The dance vanished, leaving two dark pools that grew larger and larger until they filled his vision. Gratefully, Keirith allowed the welcoming darkness to claim him.
Chapter 45
H
E WOKE TO FIND himself staring up at a whitewashed ceiling. The scrape of sandals alerted him to another presence. He turned his head to see a figure retreating through the doorway.
E WOKE TO FIND himself staring up at a whitewashed ceiling. The scrape of sandals alerted him to another presence. He turned his head to see a figure retreating through the doorway.
Keirith reached for his father’s spirit and felt nothing. He bolted upright. Bracelets clattered against his wrists. A scarlet robe fell to his ankles. A ring with a red stone adorned his right forefinger. Black tattoos snaked up his slender, swarthy forearms.
With a tentative finger, he touched the tattoo on his left arm. Involuntarily, his hand jerked back. He forced himself to touch it again, running his trembling fingers down the length of the twisting snake. Again and again, he traced the snake’s shape until he was rubbing it with mindless ferocity as if to scrub it off. His fingernails scored four red marks in his flesh. The snake slithered through them, mouth agape, laughing at him.
In the flickering light of the oil lamps, the ring winked. He wrenched it from his finger and hurled it away. He tore the bracelets from his wrists and heard them clatter dully against the tiles. But the snakes remained, jeering at his pitiful attempt to obliterate them.
The wave of nausea made him double over. Dully, he noted that Xevhan’s second toe was longer than the big one. He covered his eyes to shut out the sight of them. Helplessly, his fingers played over his face, feeling the clammy forehead, the smooth cheeks, the small cleft in the chin.
Xevhan was dead.
Xevhan was gone.
And now he possessed his body.
“Oh, gods . . .”
He flinched at the sound of that voice. His voice. Deeper than it should be, breathy with horror. He should feel triumphant instead of sick. He had killed his enemy. He had won. He was Keirith the Destroyer. Keirith the Eater of Spirits.
“Feeling better?”
His head jerked up. Khonsel do Havi stood in the doorway, observing him. Belatedly, he realized this was the Khonsel’s chamber. Thin cracks snaked up the whitewashed walls. A thick layer of dust covered the stool. A broken vase spilled wilted bitterheart onto the floor. Judging from the light outside the tiny window, it must be close to nightfall—or dawn.
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“A night and a day.”
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Your quarters were damaged.”
Stupid, Keirith. The Khonsel thinks you’re Xevhan.
He took a deep breath. “Khonsel do Havi, I am not the Zheron. I am Kheridh. My father—”
His father would only know he was gone. He would believe he was dead. He would suffer that same lacerating grief all over again.
“Please. My father. The Spirit-Hunter. Is he alive?”
“The Spirit-Hunter’s alive.”
Keirith covered his face with trembling hands. Then, ashamed at displaying such emotion in front of the Khonsel, he pretended to smooth his hair. He started when he touched the bare scalp. Of course, he had no hair. Xevhan shaved his head; all the priests did. His stupidity made him chuckle, then laugh. He fell back on the fleece. Even when he heard the rising note of hysteria, he couldn’t stop the helpless shrieks of laughter. The Khonsel’s grim expression finally sobered him.
“My father took my spirit in when I was dying.”
“Took your spirit in?”
“Yes. We are together. One body. Two spirits.” His Zherosi was fracturing under that narrow-eyed stare. He knitted his fingers together to make his point clearer. “Hircha and Hakkon took us to the temple of the Supplicant. You must talk to her. The Supplicant. She knows the truth.”
“I did talk to her. She didn’t mention anything about ‘one body, two spirits.’ Perhaps it slipped her mind.”
It was typical of the Trickster—one moment, helping them, and the next, putting them in jeopardy.
“You were saying?” the Khonsel prompted.
“We wake—woke up. In the temple. And then Xevhan came. And you. And the performer—Olinio. And Xevhan says my father kills Malaq. But it is not so. It is just like the vision. I see the dagger in Xevhan’s hand . . .”
He gasped, as if reliving that moment when the dream state had shattered, leaving him standing among a sea of fleeing adders, watching the dagger descend.
“Too late . . .”
Malaq slumping against the altar. Xevhan bending to wrench the dagger free. The earth convulsing beneath his feet as he staggered up the steps.
“I fight . . . I try . . .”
He could feel the delicate bones of that wrist under his fingers, the strain in his arms as he tried to hold off death. And then the shock of the blade driving into his flesh.
He fell back against the wall. His hand clawed its way up his chest to grasp the hilt of the dagger. Instead, his fingers closed around the vial of qiij. He was panting now, his heart pounding as wildly as it had during those last moments of life. But he had to make the Khonsel understand. He had to make him believe.
“We see him—my father and I. In the temple. Laughing. Happy. And we want to kill. We make him angry so he will attack. And he does. He is inside us. He tries to cast us out. But I fight. He runs away and I follow. Into his body. And this time, I win.”
The Khonsel nodded thoughtfully and relief washed over him. Slowly, the big hands came up. Palm slapped against palm, steady as a drumbeat at first, and then faster and faster until the Khonsel’s applause echoed in the small chamber.
“You missed your calling. Perhaps your friend Olinio can find a place for you among his players.”
“No. Please. You do not understand.”
“You’ve even got the boy’s mannerisms and speech down. Very impressive. You were impressive in the temple, too. All righteous indignation and wrath. Until the man mentioned the vision.”
The Khonsel bared his teeth in a feral grin and Keirith shrank back.
“You nearly pissed yourself, didn’t you? Pity you didn’t know he spoke Zherosi. Still, you might have pulled it off if you’d kept your head. Was it the qiij that pushed you over the edge? Malaq always said you couldn’t handle it.”
“You must believe . . .”
In a few long strides, the Khonsel was on him. He seized him by the front of his robe, yanked him off his feet, and shoved him up against the wall.
“I told Malaq the boy would be the death of him. Well, Malaq paid for his stubbornness. And the boy paid as well. That leaves you.”
The Khonsel’s face was so close he could see the dust caked in the deep lines that age and exhaustion had carved around his eyes. But exhausted or not, the meaty fingers that encircled his throat were very strong.
“I thought about killing you last night. But I wanted you awake. I wanted to see your eyes go wide—yes, just like that—and smell the stink of fear on you and listen to you beg for your life.”
“Please . . .”
“Good. Beg some more, and I might kill you quickly.”
He was going to die. After twice evading Xevhan, he was going to die at the Khonsel’s hands. Fury welled up in him—and just as quickly faded.
The Khonsel wanted to kill Xevhan. He’d never even know that he was giving him the release he sought. Relief made Keirith smile.
The fingers around his throat relaxed slightly. Two lines appeared between the Khonsel’s heavy brows.
“Do it,” Keirith whispered.
The Khonsel’s expression cleared. “Yes. You first. And then the Spirit-Hunter.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“He . . . he is not the Spirit-Hunter.”
“So you lied about that.”
“Yes. Yes, I lied. He is just a cripple.” He had to fight to keep from wincing when he said those words. “A worthless cripple,” he repeated, injecting scorn into his voice.
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