Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (64 page)

 
          
Torchlight
spilled into the vault, caressing veins of gold and the smooth ivory silk of
polished marble. From out of the shadows
lir
leaped, breaking free of marble bonds, tearing wings and beaks and claws out of
stone. Wolf, bear, mountain cat; hawk, falcon, eagle. And countless other
lir
, twisted this way and that, as if
once they had lived to walk the earth or ride the skies.

 
          
"Gods—"
Shona breathed.

 
          
"
Lir
," Aidan responded.

 
          
"Look
at all of them…" Shona leaned forward, edging toward the vault. "Can
we go in?"

 
          
"Aye.
Beware the oubliette."

 
          
She
looked. In the center of the vault, half-shrouded in distorted torchlight,
spread the nothingness of the Womb. A flawlessly rounded hole, rimmed with
rune-scribed marble, dropping straight down into the depths of the earth
itself. The oubliette was three paces equidistant from the four
lir
-worked walls.

 
          
She
was in awe, but not fear. Shona took two steps inside the vault, then turned
back. He saw comprehension in her eyes, and a vast, abiding acknowledgment. She
was, as he was, Cheysuli, child of the gods, born of the earth and the wind and
the sky; born to pride and power and magic.

 
          
Shona
smiled. She put out her hand, and he took it. Two steps and he was beside her,
within the vault housing the Womb; together they gazed on the fir, marveling at
the artistry that made them so alive, so vibrant within the stone. Even the
ceiling was worked with
lir
of all
shapes and sizes, struggling to burst free. In the distorting torchlight, all
of them seemed to lean toward the open door, as if longing to exit the vault.
As if they
could
, given leave. Given
the power to do so.

 
          
Aidan
shivered. Shona laughed softly and squeezed his hand. "Aye. I feel it,
too. D'ye see? Each of them means to go."

 
          
He
felt curiously distant. "One day, each of them will."

 
          
"What?"

 
          
He
shook himself. "What?"

 
          
"What
you said, Aidan. 'One day, each of them will.' " Shona stared at him.
"What were you meaning by that?"

 
          
"I
said that?"

 
          
"Just
now." She frowned. "Have you forgotten already?"

 
          
He
shivered again, glancing around. "It is this place. I feel it in my bones.
A cold, deep darkness…" He peered over the edge of the oubliette without
moving so much as a toe. "There is a story that one of our kinsmen threw
himself into the Womb."

 
          
She
was properly horrified. "Down
there
?"

 
          
"Aye.
Carillon."

 
          
"But—Carillon
was Mujhar." Shona's tone was puzzled. "If he threw himself into the
Womb, how did he become Mujhar? Did he not die?"

 
          
"Not
then. Supposedly he became Mujhar
because
he threw himself into the Womb." Aidan frowned, peering around the vault.
"They say at one time it was how a true Mujhar was judged worthy. He went
in a child and came out a man; went in a prince, came out a king. He was born
of the
Jehan
." Aidan looked at
her, marking her expression. "It is one of the
stories
, Shona. I doubt there is truth to it."

 
          
"My
mother never told me
that
."

 
          
"Aye,
well…" He shrugged. "There are hundreds of stories about our
ancestors,
meijhana
—and doubtless one
day there will be as many about us."

 
          
Shona
arched a brow. "And children to tell them to?"

 
          
He
grinned. "One day."

 
          
She
touched the knotted girdle. "Sooner than that, I'm thinking."

 
          
He
opened his mouth to question her, but the
kivarna
flared up even as she laughed. While he could not sense the presence of the
child, he knew the truth without a doubt. Shona's emotions were to easy to
read.

 
          
"Gods,"
he blurted, "
when
?"

 
          
She
smoothed a hand over the girdle, rattling its weight of gems. In the
torchlight, colors flashed. "Did you truly not guess?"

 
          
"
No
." He looked. "Not even now.
Are you certain?"

 
          
"Oh,
aye." She made a face. "To me, I'm showing—see how the gown barely
fits? And how short the girdle is tied?" She sighed, twisting her mouth.
"I meant to hide it, so I could tell you closer to my lying-in… but Aileen
and Deirdre saw it too soon. They sent the midwife to me." She grinned.
"Three months, my lord… and we'll have us a wee bairn of our own."

 
          
"
Three months
—"

 
          
She
nodded. "I'm so tall and wide, the babe is spread all over. If I were a
smaller woman, there'd be more bairn here." She put a hand to her belly.

 
          
He
was not thinking of that. "But that would mean…" He paused, counting
back. "That would mean we were still in Erinn."

 
          
Shona
nodded. "And, by the days, 'twas that first night together." She
laughed. "You're a potent one, I'm thinking."

 
          
Aidan
frowned. "I thought it was the Homanan food."

 
          
"So,
you
did
notice!" She scowled
fiercely, though without much sincerety. "Too polite to mention you
thought I was getting fat?"

 
          
He
colored. "There are more flattering things to discuss."

 
          
"Aye,
well…" Shona grinned. "Does it matter? 'Tis a bairn, not too much
Homanan food—will it be a lad, d'ye think?"

 
          
"How
am
I
to know?" Aidan slid the
torch into a bracket by the door and turned to pull her close. "And does
it matter? If not, there will time for us to make a lad."

 
          
"Six
or seven," she agreed, and then blurted out a garbled sound of shock.
"Aidan—
look
—"

 
          
He
swung from her, alerted by the very real alarm in her tone, and saw the shadow
stretching down into the door. And then the man who wore it, stepping into
guttering torchlight to stare blindly at them both.

 
          
Silvering
black hair was long and unkempt, tangling on his shoulders; leathers were
stained and tattered, fitting his frame too loosely; bare arms were naked of
lir
-gold. But the marks of armbands
remained, graven into flesh. As much as the loss of them—and his
lir
—were graven into his spirit. Teirnan
of the
a'saii
was well and truly mad.

 
          
Foreboding
swept in. Aidan touched the hilt of his knife. "What do you want?"

 
          
Teirnan
stood framed in the doorway. His tone was an odd amalgam of detachment and
intensity. "What I have always wanted."

 
          
He
felt rather than heard Shona's movement behind him. Instinctively he put out a
shielding hand, thinking of the unborn child. "How did you get in?"

 
          
Teirnan's
smile was a travesty. "Such a thing to ask a Cheysuli."

 
          
Aidan
swallowed back increasing trepidation. He had never met the man, knowing him
only by reputation; that reputation made him an enemy. "Your
lir
is dead," he said. "Spin
me no tale of
lir
-shape, kinsman. You
are
kin-wrecked
and
lirless
, and you have no place
here."

 
          
Torchlight
limned his intensity. "But you have just called me kinsman. And I
am
." He stared past Aidan to Shona.
"Are you Keely's daughter?"

 
          
Her
voice was level. "Aye."

 
          
He
nodded. "Blais described you. And the others… but none of them matter.
Even
you
do not; you are not of my
flesh. You are not of my bone." Yellow eyes burned fiercely in the
torchlight. "And most certainly not of my spirit."

 
          
There
was Blais in him. Aidan could see it, even beyond the harshness of age and
privation. They were of a like height and stature, in addition to coloring.
Maeve had given her son nothing.

 
          
Unless it be her good sense
. Aidan drew
in a breath. "Very few are of your spirit," he retorted. He looked
more closely at the warrior, looking again for Blais, or something of Maeve,
and marked the lines etched so deeply into the flesh beside his eyes, the
hollows below arched cheekbones. Teirnan's self-exile had not been an easy one.
But Aidan thought the emptiness of his spirit had more to do with
lirlessness
than with a life of
privation. "So, you have met Blais. What do you think of your son?"

 
          
Muscles
ticked in the ravaged face. "He is not my son. He is
hers
… Maeve made a Homanan out of him—an
Erinnish
—" Teeth showed briefly in a feral clenching.
"Left to me, he would have been a warrior. Left to
her
he is nothing, a shadow-man, a soulless halfling with no understanding
of the truth."

 
          
"Ah,"
Aidan said. "He repudiated you."

 
          
"Wise
man," breathed Shona.

 
          
"He
came to me and said he was my son—
my
son, whom she kept from me all these years…" Again the feral grimace.
"She should have left him to me."

 
          
"So
you could twist him? So you could take him into the deepwood and feed him on
lies?" Aidan shook his head. "Maeve knew what you would do. It is why
she left Homana."

 
          
"He
was
my
son, once—"

 
          
Aidan
overrode him. "He is a warrior. Clan-born, blood-born… no matter what you
say, Teirnan, he is a true-born Cheysuli, with the right to choose. The gods
gave us that right. Even you have profited from it—if you call the travesty of
your life profitable." Aidan shook his head. "You were a fool,
kinsman. There are other ways of undoing things. Quieter ways of accomplishing
change."

 
          
Teirnan
was too thin, too tense, too
unbalanced
.
He had voluntarily shed the anchor of his life by renouncing the prophecy and
everything it stood for; the death of his
lir
had stripped him of everything else. There was nothing left to Teirnan save the
fanaticism that had driven him from the clans, and even that was stretched too
fine. Without a
lir
, he was nothing.
A void stood before Aidan clad in human flesh shaped in the likeness of a man.

 
          
"Why
did you come?" Aidan asked.

 
          
"For
the Lion," Teirnan rasped. "Niall is dead. Now it is mine."

 
          
Aidan
shook his head. "The Lion has been claimed."

 
          
"By
Brennan?" Teirnan laughed. "That is an old conflict, kinsman… it
began even before you were born. Brennan and I are old enemies and older
rivals, both pursuing the Lion." His smile was a rictus. "If he
thinks it is for him, tell him to come down
here
."

 
          
Aidan
frowned. "What do you mean?"