Legacy of the Sword (17 page)

Thinking of Meghan reminded him that Finn had said she was with Alix. And his mother, no doubt, was with his
meijha.
Quite suddenly, Donal longed to be there as well, wishing to forget all about Aislinn and her troubles.

But he had promised, and he did not break his oaths.

A small firepit glowed in front of Finn. The smoke was drawn up to the top of the pavilion, where it was dispersed through a ventflap. Through the bluish haze, Finn’s eyes were almost hypnotic.

Aislinn half-turned as if to flee, but Donal blocked her way. Defeated, she turned reluctantly back. Her fingers crept up to pull nervously at the wool binding her braid.

Finn laughed. “You remind me a little of Alix, when first she joined the clan. All doe-eyed and frightened, yet defiant enough to spit in my face. That
is
what you would prefer to do, Aislinn…is it not?”

“Aye!” she answered, summoning up her own measure of defiance. “I want no part of this. It is Donal who says I am—tainted.” Her voice wavered just a little. “He said—she has meddled with my mind.”

Finn did not smile. He did not appear privately amused, as he so often did. His tone, when he spoke, was quiet and exceedingly gentle. “If she has, small one…I will see that we rid you of it.” For a moment he studied her silently.
“There is no need to fear me, Aislinn. Do you not know me through my daughter? You and Meghan are boon companions.”

Aislinn’s eyes were huge, almost colorless in the muted light of the pavilion. “But—
I
have heard all the stories.
”

“
All
of them?” Finn shook his head. “I think not. You had best ask Carillon for more.” Now he smiled, just a little, and looked past her to Donal. “Who is the boy you have brought?”

Donal prodded Sef forward. “Answer him. His
lir
may be a wolf, but it does not mean he will devour you. Any more than
I
will.”

Sef moved forward three steps. His hands were wound into the black woolen tunic that bore a small crimson rampant lion over his left breast. “Sef,” he said softly, keeping his eyes averted. “I am—Sef.”

“And I am Finn.” Finn smiled his old ironic smile. “You almost resemble a Cheysuli. Donal has not brought you home, has he? As I brought Alix home?”

Color rushed into Sef’s pale face, then washed away almost at once. His eyes, blue and brown, stared fixedly at Finn. “No,” he said on a shaking breath. “I am not Cheysuli.”

Finn shrugged. “You have the black hair and strong-boned face for it, albeit you are too fair for one of us.” For just a moment, a teasing glint lit his eyes. “Perhaps you are merely a halfling gotten unknown on some poor Homanan woman—”

Finn stopped. Donal, looking at him, saw the glint in his eyes fade; heard the teasing banter die. Finn frowned a little, looking at Sef, as if he sought an answer to some unknown question.

Donal laughed aloud. “Perhaps
your
halfling,
su’fali
?”

Finn looked at him sharply. “Mine?”

“You are no priest,
su’fali
, who keeps himself from women.” Donal, still grinning, shrugged. “Sef himself says he does not know who his
jehan
was.”

“He was
not
Cheysuli!” Sef declared hotly.

Donal looked at him quickly, startled by his vehemence. “Would it matter so much if he
were
?” he asked. “What if he were Finn himself?”

Sef’s eyes locked onto Finn’s. So intense was his regard he seemed almost transfixed. “No,” he said. That word only, and yet its tone encompassed an abiding certainty.

“No,” Finn agreed, and yet Donal saw a faint frown of puzzlement. Then Finn flicked a dismissive hand. “To get to the point: Electra has once more meddled with someone’s mind, and this time it is Aislinn’s.” He looked at the frightened princess. “Sit down, girl, and I will discover what I can.”

“Donal tried,” she blurted. “He could do nothing.”

“I am not Donal, and I have had somewhat of a more—
personal
—experience with such things as Ihlini trap-links.” Briefly he looked at Storr, lying on a pelt nearby, as if the words evoked some private memory they shared. “Aislinn, I will not harm you. Do you think Carillon would allow it?”

She stared at the furs beneath her feet. “No.”

Donal placed a gentle hand on Aislinn’s head. “Sit down. I am here with you, Aislinn.”

She shut her eyes a moment. And then she sat down where Finn indicated, cross-legged, across the firecairn from him.

“Now,” he said quietly, “if Donal has done this to you, you know it will not hurt.”

“Have
you
had it done?” she challenged with a defiance that only underscored her fear and vulnerability.

An odd look passed over Finn’s dark, angular face. The scar twisting across the left side of his face had faded from avid purple to silver-white with the passing of seventeen years, but it still puckered the flesh from eye to jaw, lending him a predatory expression he did not entirely require, having the look of a predator already. “Not—precisely,” Finn answered at last. “But something similar was done to me. It was—Tynstar. And your
jehana.
Together, they set a trap for me, and nearly slew me.” He studied her face closely, unsmiling. “But I survived, though something else did not.”

Aislinn, startled, sucked in a breath. “
What
did not survive?”

“An oath,” Finn said flatly. “We broke it, your
jehan
and I, because there was nothing left to do.” He reached out and touched her eyelids with two gentle fingers. “You are not your
jehana
, Aislinn, and I doubt she has done much to you that cannot be undone. Be silent, do not fear, and forget the stories you have heard.”

Silently, Donal knelt down at Aislinn’s side. He watched as Finn put his hands out, reaching through the smoke to touch her face. Finn ran his fingers softly across the delicate flesh of her brow, her nose, her eyelids, keeping himself
silent. And then he spread his fingers and trapped her skull in his palms.

His hands held her head carefully, cupping thumbs beneath her jaw and splaying fingers through her hair. For a long moment he only looked at her pale, rigid face with its tight-shut eyes, and then his mouth moved into a grim line. He glanced quickly at Donal. “Do you come?”

“Aye,
su’fali.
”

“Then come.” The grimness faded into relaxation, and the yellow eyes turned vague and detached. Finn was patently
elsewhere.

Donal knew what he did. Finn sought the power in the earth magic, tapping the source as he himself had done, drawing it up into his body until he could focus it onto Aislinn. He channeled it into the girl, seeking out the knotted web of Ihlini interference. Could he do it, he would untangle the web and disperse it.

Finn’s head dipped down a little in an odd echo of Aislinn’s posture. His eyes, fixed and unblinking, turned black as the pupils swelled. His mouth loosened; his chin twitched once; a slight tremor ran through his body.

Donal took a breath and slipped into the link with care. He felt his knowledge of body and surroundings fade away at once, dissipating into nonexistence, until he was but a speck of pulsing awareness in a void of black infinity. It was
nothingness
, complete and complex, and yet it was the essence of everything. Earth power, raw and unchanneled, surged up around him, threatening to smother him.

Carefully, Donal pushed it back. He maintained his awareness of self and the knowledge of what he did, remaining
Donal
in the face of such overwhelming power. And slowly, the power fell back, allowing him room to move. Quickly he sought Finn and found his presence in the void, the bright, rich crimson spark that was the essence of his uncle.

Su’fali
, Donal greeted him.

That which was Finn returned the greeting. As they made contact, Donal felt the flare of two Cheysuli souls joined in an odd form of intercourse. Together they would locate and evaluate the residue of sorcery that resonated in Aislinn’s mind, and they would free her of it.

There
, said Finn within the vastness of their link.

Donal saw it. Caught in the countless strands of Aislinn’s
subconsciousness was a mass of knotted darkness; a spider’s web. It looked tenuous as any thread, and yet he knew it was not. Tynstar’s “thread” would be tensile as the strongest wire.

Gently
, Finn said.
Gently. Springing the trap must be carefully done, or it will catch unwanted prey.

Donal crept slowly closer to the trap-link. He prepared to lend Finn what strength he could—

—and felt the sudden painful wrenching of a broken link.

Awareness exploded into a vast shower of burning fragments, hissing out one by one. Donal thought at first it was something within Aislinn, some form of ward-spell, then felt the scrape of a hand upon his shoulder. No longer was he free of his body, but bound by flesh again.

Dimly, he heard Aislinn’s garbled outcry. Finn was swearing. Donal caught himself before he fell face-first into the flames, then thrust an arm against the pelts to steady himself. He was disoriented and badly shaken, feeling distinctly ill.

Angrily, he turned. “To touch a Cheysuli in mind-link—”

But he broke it off. He saw how Sef slumped down on the fur pelt just behind, his face corpse-white in the blue-smoked air. The boy shuddered spasmodically and his mouth gaped open as if he could not breathe. Donal thrust himself up in one movement and caught Sef before he tumbled into the fire.

Donal looked back at Aislinn. Finn still held her, and by the look of his eyes he had not stepped out of the link. Aislinn still drifted in the trance and Finn still sought the trap-link. But there was no doubting Donal’s broken link had affected them both. The shattering had been too powerful.

Donal closed his eyes a moment. He still felt ill. His ears buzzed. Lights fired in his eyes. But somehow he managed to stand up with Sef in his arms and stagger out of the pavilion.

He set the boy down against a tree. Even as he did so, Sef began to rouse. Donal, seating himself on the ground, put his head down against his knees and tried to regain his composure.

Lir
? It was Lorn, thrusting his nose beneath Donal’s elbow.
Lir
?

Even as Sef stirred, Donal raised his head.
Broken link
, he told the wolf.
Sef touched me.

You should have told him,
lir.
You should have warned the boy.

My fault
, Donal said, and blew out a heavy breath.

Color crept back into Sef’s face. He blinked, rubbed dazedly at his temple, then tried to sit bolt upright.

Donal pressed him back down. “No. Be still. Do you recall what happened?”

Sef frowned blankly. “I—I was drowning. I was being sucked down. It was like I was buried alive.” He stared at Donal. “Was it the magic? Did I feel it?”

Donal sought the best words. “Sef—what you did was done out of ignorance. I understand. And I should have warned you: never touch a Cheysuli when he has gone into another’s mind.”

Sef’s eyes widened. “What could happen?”

Donal rubbed at burning eyes. His ears still buzzed, though the sound had almost faded. “Many things, depending upon the severity of the break, and how deeply the warrior has gone. And a link is a link—in touching me you touched Aislinn and Finn. You might have injured us all in addition to yourself.”

Sef sucked in a strangled breath. “Oh my lord, I’m
sorry—
”

Donal caught one thin shoulder. “Do not fret. It is over with. No permanent harm was done, that I can see.”

“I was so afraid.” Sef looked steadfastly at the ground. “I was—afraid.”

“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of,” Donal told him gently. “It strikes all men, at one time or another, and mimics many things. You were not drowning. You were not being buried alive.”

Lorn still pressed against Donal’s side.
The boy is more than frightened,
lir.
There is
something…else.

Is the boy a halfling
? Donal asked.

The wolf seemed to shrug.
I
cannot say. Perhaps—but I leave him to you.
Lorn turned and went back to his place on the rug by Finn’s tent, sharing it with Storr.

Sef’s eyes were fixed on Donal’s face. “You are—different,” he said gravely. “Never do you make me feel a child. Oh, aye, there are times I deserve chastising, and you deliver it—but never do you treat me as if I were unworthy of courtesy. Others do.”

Donal smiled. “Maybe it is because I am used to boys asking questions. I have a son, you see, though he lacks ten of your years.”

“A—son?” Sef sat more upright. “But—I thought you were to wed the princess!”

“I am. But I have a Cheysuli
meijha
, and she has given me a son.” He glanced back at the pavilion, wishing to go back in so he could join again in the link with Finn.

“I didn’t know that.” Sef’s brows drew down in a frown.

Donal smiled. “Does it matter? You are still my sworn man, are you not?”

“What of your son?”

“He is too young yet. Ian has years before he can serve me as you do.” He pulled Sef to his feet. “If the pavilion is too close for you, or you feel too frightened to enter, wait here. I will be out when I can.” He released Sef’s wrist, but as he did he felt something soft and supple against his fingers. “What is this?” he asked, peeling back Sef’s sleeve.

It was a narrow bracelet of feathers bound around Sef’s wrist. Brown and gold and black.

Sef jerked his wrist away and covered up the band with his other hand. “A—charm.” Color blazed into his face. “Protection against strong magic.” His eyes flicked toward the pavilion. “I was—afraid. When—when I was given time of my own to spend as I wished, I went into the city. I—found an old woman who makes charms and love-spells.” He shrugged defensively. “I said I was afraid of the Cheysuli, and she gave me this.” He exposed the feathered band briefly as the color ran out of his face. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“Only if you paid her all the coin I gave you,” Donal said wryly. “Did you?”