Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (26 page)

           
"My lord," he said calmly,
"there is a thing we must discuss."

           
"The two of us have nothing to
discuss!"

           
"Oh, aye—we all of us do, my lord."

           
As he spoke the others came out of
the thinning darkness, gliding from trees and shadowed pockets, all in human
form, except for the lir. That hurt most of all, more than anything I had
expected; that there were lir in the world who would join the a'saii in
attempting to replace me.

           
I could not count them all, warriors
or lir. I knew only there were more than I had expected. More than I had
dreamed possible.

           
Ceinn smiled. It made the scar by
his eye crease. It made him look like a man who would be a good friend-A man
whose companionship would be valued.

           
As no doubt the a'saii valued him.

           
"My good fortune amazes
me," he said. "We have been so patient, expecting to wait a very long
time. Prepared to wait a very long time. Yet now you are here, and we are here,
and this thing can be settled at last."

           
I still sprawled on my back, one
knee thrust up. The claw mark continued to bleed. "How many?" I
asked.

           
"Of the a'saii?" Ceinn
shrugged. "Enough. I have not counted lately. At least two or three from
every clan."

           
"Every clan?"

           
"Even those from the Northern
Wastes, across the
Bluetooth
River
."

           
I tried not to show my dismay
openly. But I was at the magnitude of the Cheysuli rebellion. There were, at
last count, at least thirty clans in Homana, some large, some small, some
smaller, but all invaluable to the completion of the prophecy. And now, in
their misguided zealotry, they desired to destroy it.

           
I did not bother to look at the
others, though I addressed them as well. I looked only at Ceinn. "How much
of this is personal?"

           
"None of it," he answered
instantly, so sincerely that I believed him even as I desired not to.
"There were a'saii in Homana before Isolde and I ever lay down
together."

           
It was a shock as well as an
unpleasant realization.

           
"And now?"

           
"Now?" He nodded
thoughtfully. "I admit I enjoy the idea more."

           
Apprehension knotted my belly. I
could not help it; I winced against the familiar pain. "Would it do any
good if I told you there are Homanans who feel much as you do? That they also
desire to replace me with another?"

           
"The bastard." Ceinn
nodded. "We know."

           
I had hoped to buy my way free. I
should have known better. "Ian will never agree," I told him.
"And 'Solde has renounced you . . . who will you choose to hold the Lion
now? You?" I thought perhaps to breed dissension among the others; Ceinn's
personal ambitions might disturb them enough to delay their immediate plans-

           
"Ian may not agree while you
are alive," Ceinn told me, "but what happens when you are dead? The
Queen is barren. Donal has no other sons. Who else will succeed him?"

           
"Carillon's bastard."

           
Something flickered in his eyes.

           
I smiled, albeit was unamused.
"If I am dead, it gives the Homanan a'saii more chance than ever to put
the bastard on the throne. They are every bit as loyal and fanatical as you
are; do you think they will suffer Ian to hold the Lion? You are a fool,
Ceinn—you and the others. You will bring domestic rebellion to Homana again,
and destroy all hope of fulfilling the prophecy."

           
"Eloquent," he said,
"but our decision has been made."

           
Slowly I sat up all the way,
forgoing my unintentional posture of submissiveness. In the muted light of
early dawn, I looked at as many faces as I could. "How will it be? Will it
be the lir? Or all of you in lir-shape, leaving only scraps of clothing and
broken bone—with perhaps the ring remaining on my hand to make certain my identity
is known?"

           
"That may well be your
fate," he agreed, "but it will not be our doing. It will be your
own."

           
"Mine—" I laughed. "I
hardly think—"

           
“I do." He interrupted
smoothly. "You are a lirless man, Niall. Cheysuli, for all you sublimate
it beneath Homanan looks and customs." He glanced in distaste at my
thickening beard. "And a lirless Cheysuli gives himself over to the
death-ritual."

           
"I never had a lir." It
took all my determination not to show my fear. "I am not constrained to
the ritual."

           
"No," he agreed, "but
when we are done with you, you will believe you had a lir—and you will believe
you lost one."

           
Gods, they can do it. I tried to
scramble up, to lunge away from Ceinn, but it did not matter. The others closed
in even as he rose and brushed off his leathers.

           
"Rujho," —how he mocked
me, in his inexpressibly gentle tone— "for Isolde's sake, I promise we
will not hurt you."

           
Gods—

           
I tried to scream it. But by the
time I opened my mouth, I had lost the means to speak.

           
Or even the desire.

           
Oh gods—my lir—

           
—my lir is dead—

           
—my lir—

           
I knelt on the ground, hunched upon
my knees so that my heels cut into my buttocks. My forehead was pressed against
the layer of brittle fallen ieeves; I shut my eyes so tightly all I could see
were the pallid colors of my death: smutty blue, muddy black, an edge of maggot
white in the ashen darkness of my grief.

           
—-my lir~—my lir is dead—

           
Fists dug holes in the crumbLng
leaves; digging, digging, until they touched the cool dampness of soil beneath:
the humid, sweaty soil; of the consistency of clay; the clay that is used to
seal the eyes of a dead man closed.

           
—my lir—

           
I have known grief in my life, much
grief; I recalled how it was when I had believed my brother dead, but I have
never known, have never imagined what it would be lose to lose a lir. It was as
if a man had thrust a hand through flesh and gristle and bone to grasp my
heart; grasping it, he wrenches it from my chest and throws it aside, leaving
me both alive and dead. Alive because I do not die; dead because everything
within the fragile shell of human flesh is dead, so infinitely dead. How does a
man live like this?

           
How can a man survive?

           
He does not.

           
And then I knew what I must do.

           
I wrenched myself up from the ground
and ran, ran; running, I felt the grief rise up from my belly to clog my chest,
my throat, my mouth, until I could hear it rising from my lips to kite upon the
wind made of my own passing; a keening deathsong, a wailing griefsong; a song
composed of all the pain in my heart and soul and mind: my lir is dead, my lir
is dead; why can I not be dead as well?

           
I ran. I ran.

           
So hard. So hard.

           
—gods—how is it you can gift a man
with such a miracle as a lir, and then take him away from that man—?

           
I ran.

           
Vines slashed down across my face. A
tree limb scraped across my cheek, lifting skin and beard. A thorny creeper
looped my throat; tugged, tore.

           
I ran.

           
Bracken fouled my legs, slapping at
my thighs. Deadfall limbs cracked and rolled beneath my feet; I stumbled,
caught myself; ran on.

           
Gods—how I ran—

           
There is pain in my belly, in my
chest in my throat. I can hear my breathing wheezing, hissing, whistling, like
that of a wind-broken horse. There is dryness in my throat, such gods-awful
dryness; it burns, it burns ... I think it will burn me alive—

           
Gods—why did you take my lir?

           
I trip. I fall. I rise.

           
—run—

           
Something is running behind me. I
can hear it. I can hear it coming; hear it slipping through the path I break as
I run; running more quickly than I can run as I try to leave it behind.

           
I can hear it. I can hear it tearing
through the vines and creepers and bracken, unhindered by the thorns, the
roots, the traps that plants will lay for a man, seeking to bring him down.

           
I can hear it. I can hear it
breathing, breathing; I can hear its heavy panting.

           
I can hear it—

           
—and then I realize it is myself I
hear; there is nothing behind me, nothing at all, except grief and pain and the
awful weight of knowledge: my lir is dead, my lir—my lir is gone from me—

           
Oh gods. Will you not lift this
weight from my soul?

           
Aye, they tell me. Aye. You have
only to trust in us; trust yourself to us; give yourself over to us.

           
Aye. It is best. For the best. It
cannot be so hard.

           
—I give myself over to you—

           
No.1 A new voice I do not recognize.
Not myself. The gods?

           
—I give myself—

           
No!

           
—I give—

           
And more urgently yet: No!

           
No? Who—or what—is that which tells
me no?

           
I slow. I stop. I turn. But all I
can see is the grayness of finality; the grayness turning black, so black, it
promises relief. It promises an end to all the pain and grief and wretched
emptiness—

           
No, the new voice tells me. Firmly,
as if I am a child. And I think: perhaps I am one.

           
Not a child. No. But a man. A man. A
warrior. A Cheysuli.

           
And I laugh. Aloud, I shout:
"How can I be a Cheysuli when I have no lir?”

           
And then I realize what they have
done to me, Ceinn and the others; what they have tried to do.

           
And failed.

           
I fell. I fell down, painfully, and
felt thorns clawing at my face, catching the comer of my eye; tearing. A stone
was beneath my temple, pressing inexorably. I moved a little, seeking relief;
found it.

           
Gods—I would have given myself over
to death.

           
I lay face down in dirt and leaves
and fern, nearly blind from overexertion. I had tried so hard to run both from
my end and to it; to give myself over to the beast that would take my life, to
relieve the pain of my loss.

           
Except there had been no loss. None
at all: I had no lir.

           
You do now.

           
My breath stirred the crackling
skeletons of leaves that were no longer leaves. Motes rose, danced, insinuated
themselves beneath my lids. I felt sweat run down my nose, my brow, my jaw; the
tears run down my cheeks.

           
Lir, you would do better to get up.

           
I felt stones beneath my hip. But I
had no strength to move.

           
Lir.

           
Something cool, something damp,
something impossible to ignore; it reached beneath my neck and nudged, nudged
again; pushed—

           
I cannot lift you, lir . . . I am a
wolf, not a man; not a warrior.

           
Am I?

           
It pushed. It shoved.

           
I rolled. Opened my eyes. Saw black
nose, silver muzzle, green-gold eyes.

           
And teeth.

           
I lunged upward, away, away; then,
kneeling, hunching, bent to spew the. contents of my belly onto the ground.

           
You ran too hard. Lir, you should
not have run so hard.

           
My belly was empty, but still it
cramped. How it cramped, knotting itself like yarn from a woman's fallen
spindle.

           
I will wait.

           
I clawed for my knife and found the
sheath empty. I faced the wolf bare-handed.

           
Slay me and you slay yourself. The
tone, unaccountably, gentled. Lir—be not so witless. Have they made you deaf as
well as blind?

           
A wolf. Male. Silver-gray, with
green-gold eyes, and a mask of deepest charcoal.

           
He sat down. He sat. And his tongue
lolled out of his mouth.

           
"You are a—lir?" I croaked
aloud.

           
I am Serri. I am yours. I have been
empty so long, so long— Suddenly he rose, approached, butted his head into my
shoulder before I could scramble away. I am filled—I am filled—my spirit and
soul are complete—

           
I nearly fell over. My arms were
full of wolf; my lap was full of wolf. So—much—wolf—

           
I am Serri, he said. I am yours. And
I am no longer empty—-

           
And I realized, neither was I.

           
"Serri?" I whispered.
"Serri?"

           
There is no need to speak aloud,
unless you wish it. We share the lir-bond, lir.

           
I laughed. Once only; I was too
shocked, too utterly overcome, to blurt out anything more.

           
Serri?

           
You see? You may speak, or you may
not—it no longer matters, lir.

           
"Serri?" This time, aloud;
it was a croak, not a word, but the sound brought tears to my eyes.

           
Tears of joy, of disbelief; of
relief and exultation. But also tears of an absolute completion I had known
before only in a woman.

           
Sul'harai, Serri said. That is what
the Cheysuli call it.

           
But do not judge it too soon.

           
Apprehension lifted the hairs on the
back of my neck.

           
"Too soon?"

           
Too soon. You will see. It is often
better than this.

           
"Better than this?"

           
Better. When you trade your shape
for mine.

           
I laughed. And then I cried. And
then I pulled the wolf into n»y arms and hugged him, hugged him, as I had
hugged no one before.

           
Serri! I cried. Oh gods—why did it
take so long?

           
Because it was your tahlmorra.

           
I hugged him harder. I hugged him
until he sneezed; I laughed until he grunted.

           
"I am nineteen, Serri—am I not
a bit too old?"

           
Your jehan was too young, they say.
You are too old, you say. But age has nothing to do with it, lir; it has to do
with being ready.

           
"And I am ready?"

           
For me, and for your tahlmorra.

           
I fell back against the ground,
still hugging the wolf against my chest. I felt paws and nails digging into
flesh as Serri tried to right himself; tried to regain some semblance of
dignity. But I did not let him. I wrapped him more tightly yet in my arms and
buried my face against the thick ruff warding throat and neck against
attackers.

           
"Serri—"

           
Ihlini! The word rang a tocsin in my
head. Lir—on you—Ihlini—

           
On—me? "Serri—"

           
Ihlini—Ihlini! And then he was
grasping at my throat, lips peeling back from his teeth.

           
I thrust myself away at once, trying
to ward my throat with a shaking hand. "Did Ceinn send you?" I asked.
"Is this another trick?"

           
Ihlini—lir—Ihlini— Even as I tried
to scramble away, the wolf was leaping for my throat.

           
My fingers caught the leather thong,
and suddenly I knew.

           
Lillith's gift—Lillith's tooth—

           
I pulled the dangling tooth from
beneath my clothing.

           
"This?"

           
Be rid of it—be rid of it—lir, be
rid of it at once!

           
I scraped the thong over my head. In
my palm lay the curving tooth: thick at one end, capped by gold; pointed at the
other. A dog’s tooth, or a wolfs.

           
A wolf’s.

           
"Such an insignificant thing.
..." I said aloud.