Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (73 page)

 
          
Aidan's
sudden smile was brilliant. "Ask Lillith what I can do."

 
          
Lochiel
recoiled.

 
          
There. That touched him. There
are
weaknesses in him
… Aidan nodded
intently, driving home the promise of power. "Because of
me
," he whispered. "At
my
behest. Because the gods
answered
me."

 
          
The
challenging gaze was unrelenting. Lochiel sought something in Aidan's eyes, in
expression, in his tone. And then turned away abruptly, striding to a table,
where he poured a cup of wine. None was offered Aidan; he drank it down
himself. When he was done, he smiled. "This is
still
Valgaard."

 
          
Aidan
smiled back. "Would you like to meet them now?
Right
now;
here
?"

 
          
Lochiel
slammed down the cup. The footed stem bent. "I have sovereignty over this
place!"

 
          
Aidan
tilted his head. "Shall I test it for you?"

 
          
The
Ihlini's smile was malignant. "
And
I hold your son."

 
          
He
very nearly laughed. "My gods would never harm him."

 
          
"Ah,
but
mine
would." Lochiel
attempted to right the tipped cup; when he could not do it, he glanced down in
distracted annoyance. When he saw the stem was bent, he cast the cup away with
a negligent flick of dismissive fingers. He stared at Aidan again. "Do you
wish me to summon my gods? They can duel, yours and mine: the gods of light and
air against those of death and darkness."

 
          
Aidan
made no reply.

 
          
Pale
eyes widened. Lochiel's lips parted minutely. Even his posture was arrested,
alert as a hound on a scent. His expression now was intensely compelling.
"Is this why you came here? Hoping to set your gods on mine—or on
me
!—and win back your son that
way?"

 
          
Aidan
set his teeth. There was still a chance, he believed, no matter what Lochiel
said.

 
          
A
blurt of disbelief distorted Lochiel's mouth. "I understand, now… you
thought you could come before me and threaten me—no,
frighten
me—into acquiescence—"

 
          
Aidan
allowed a delicate tone of contempt to underscore his words. "How could a
man do that? How could he dare? Are you not
the
Ihlini, and heir to all the arts?"

 
          
Lochiel
still stared. "But you
did
…"
A faint bemused frown tightened brows briefly as he reassessed his conclusion,
then faded as he laughed aloud in discovery. "I understand, now—your
weapon is
faith
! You believe your
gods can win even here in Valgaard!"

 
          
Aidan
began to wonder if perhaps he had misjudged. If perhaps he had made a mistake.
He had been so certain. So determined. His conviction was absolute.

 
          
I trust them. I HAVE to. They answered me
before. When I faced Lillith.

 
          
Lochiel's
tone was a whiplash. "Do you think this is a game? Did you come expecting
to play Bezat with me?" Pale eyes narrowed. "We are
all
at the mercy of our gods, Aidan.
Certainly you and I. I am not so complacent as you. I know better. In the
moment of their confrontation, they could well destroy us both. And that is not
how I want to die."

 
          
Nor
Aidan. He had come to threaten Lochiel with a weapon no one else had: divine
retribution. He had tapped it once, facing Lillith—but he
had
been complacent. He had believed utterly in his gods, who would
face only a single man. A man of great power, but still merely a
man;
now Lochiel threatened a gruesome
retribution of his own conjuring, with a god that frightened Aidan much more
than anticipated. Asar-Suti, the Seker, had always been an undefined threat,
hosted only in vague references.

 
          
Now,
in the heart of Valgaard, smelling the god's noxious breath, the threat became
all too real. He took it more seriously.

 
          
As seriously, perhaps, as Lochiel takes MY
gods.

 
          
Lochiel,
face taut, snatched up the silver cup and displayed the ruined stem. "Do
you see? This was nothing. I did it unaware. It required no power, no magic.
Nothing more than anger." His gaze was unrelenting. "Do you
understand? They are
gods
, Aidan!
Your gods, my gods—do you think it matters? We are men, and flesh is weak…
weaker by far than silver…" He shut both hands on the rim and crashed
together the slender lips. Then displayed the result to Aidan. "I can
think of more
comfortable
ways."

 
          
Inwardly,
Aidan rejoiced. He had found a weakness in Lochiel. He was himself as afraid of
a confrontation between the Ihlini's gods and his own, but he had the
advantage. He
knew
Lochiel was
afraid. And that fear could serve him.

 
          
With
a serenity he did not entirely feel—Lochiel would call it complacency—Aidan
merely shrugged. "I can think of no better way of settling what lies
between us. Summon your gods, Ihlini. I will summon mine. We will let
them
decide this issue."

 
          
Lochiel
threw down the ruined goblet. His smooth face was white and taut. And then,
with infinite tenderness, he asked a single question: "Do you recall how
easily I killed Hart's son from afar?"

 
          
Aidan
was very still. Complacency dissolved. Conviction wavered profoundly.

 
          
Lochiel's
gaze was unrelenting. "I could do the same now, with
your
son."

 
          
It
burst free before he could stop it. "
No
—"
And cursed himself desperately as he surrendered his advantage.

 
          
Lochiel
smiled thinly, gracious in victory. "But I am remiss. Come with me, my
lord. Come and see your precious son."

 
          
In
an adjoining chamber, Aidan saw the wide, high-standing cradle carved out of
satiny wood. For a single insane moment he could not comprehend such a normal
and mundane thing being within an Ihlini household.

 
          
Lochiel
gestured. "There. Alive, as promised. For now."

 
          
Aidan
stepped closer, then stopped abruptly. The cradle held
two
babies, not one; in infancy, identical.

 
          
Lochiel
laughed. "You asked if I had a son. No. A daughter. But I invite you to
tell me which seed is mine, and which yours."

 
          
Aidan
stared at the babies. They were swaddled against the cold, hands, head and feet
hidden, with only small faces showing. Both slept, oblivious, depriving him of
eye color, although even that was no proof. Shona's eyes had been brown; so
were Lochiel's. And his
kivarna
,
strangely, was silent.

 
          
Lochiel
moved to the cradle. "Even as I cut the child from the belly of your dead
Erinnish princess, my own woman bore me a daughter. Melusine has given suck to
your son, so he would know the taste of mother's milk." He saw the spasm
of shock in Aidan's face, and smiled. "They share the same breast, the
same cradle, the same roof. Tell me again, Aidan, how it is impossible for a
Cheysuli to be turned against his
tahlmorra
."

 
          
"No,"
Aidan said hoarsely.

 
          
Lochiel
put both hands down and touched two heads, caressing each in an obscene parody
of affection. "What do you say to knowing your son will think I am his
father?" He paused. "Perhaps I should say:
jehan
."

 
          
"No."
Yet again. Knowing it was futile.

 
          
Lochiel
bent and whispered tenderly to the sleeping babies, though his gaze remained on
Aidan. When he straightened it was with the fluid grace that once more called
the dream-being, Cynric, to Aidan's mind.

 
          
The
Ihlini's voice was hushed, mocking solicitude. "What shall I do with them?
Kill one, and let you wonder if it was your son—or my daughter? Or kill them
both, so you
know
?"

 
          
Aidan
nearly laughed. "Do you expect me to believe you would kill your own
daughter?"

 
          
"I
can make more. And if it gives you pain…"

 
          
The
off-handedness hurt most. Desperation boiled up. "You
ku'reshtin
!"

 
          
Lochiel
cut him off with a silencing slice of his hand. "Choose one, Aidan. Assume
the role of a god and determine a child's fate."

 
          
It
was a cruel twist on a conversation Aidan had had with the Weaver. "And if
I say let both live? Would you honor that decision?"

 
          
Lochiel
spread eloquent hands. "Both are mine regardless."

 
          
Aidan
twitched. His head throbbed dully. He tried to set aside the discomfort, but
failed. Weakness worked its way from head to neck to shoulders, then down to
encompass the rest of his body. He knew what would happen if he did not control
the weakness. He fought to suppress the trembling before it showed itself.

 
          
Lochiel
saw it regardless. Dark brows arched slightly, the chiseled mouth pursed. He
considered the white wing of hair. "The sword blow," he said softly.

 
          
Aidan
suppressed the first spasm. "What of our bargain?"

 
          
Clearly
Lochiel was distracted. "Our bargain?"

 
          
"You
said I could choose."

 
          
But
the Ihlini was beyond that. He smiled slowly, replete with comprehension as he
watched the tremors in Aidan's hands. "You are pale, my lord. Have you a
headache? Have you an illness?"

 
          
"Let
me choose," Aidan grated. It was something on which he could focus.

 
          
Lochiel
laughed. "In addition to your manhood, I have deprived you of your
health." He saw Aidan's jerk of shock. "Oh, aye—I knew all about the
bonding of mutual
kivarna
. I take
pains to know such things." He studied Aidan more closely. "Why else
do you think I killed her? And
where
I killed her: there, before your eyes. She was hardly a worthy opponent, and of
no danger to me that night… but her loss would devastate you. Even in the
moments before I killed you." His mouth twisted in a mocking moue of pity.
"But you survived after all, and now the poor Prince of Homana is
unmanned.
Castrate… gelding
… no more
bedsport for
you
!" He paused,
lingered a moment. "And no more heirs for Homana.
I
have the only one."

 
          
Aidan's
head was pounding. Waves of pain poured down, distorting his vision so that
Lochiel became a man of two heads and eight limbs. Teeth clenched convulsively.
He had no time at all.

 
          
"What
use
are
you?" Lochiel mused.
"With empty head—
and
empty loins—what
use are you to the Lion?"

 
          
The
Ihlini blurred before him. Sweat broke from Aidan's flesh, followed by the
first onset of spasms that would suck the strength from his limbs and drop him
to the floor, a twisted wreck of a man. Humiliation bathed him.

 
          
Not before Lochiel
—

 
          
Lochiel
gazed at him intently. And then a smile began. "No," he said in
discovery. "No, I will
not
kill
you. What need? You can do more to harm the prophecy by living… gods, who would
want
this
for a king?"