Legacy of the Sword (25 page)

Slowly Finn reached out and closed a hand around one of Alix’s arms. Donal saw how the fingers pressed against the fabric of her gown—pressing,
pressing
—until Donal thought she would cry out because of the pain.

But Alix did not.

It was Finn who cried.

“No,” Duncan said. “Oh no…”

“You.”
Finn’s voice was ragged.
“You
stoop to apostasy—”

“No—”
Alix, wrenching free of Finn’s hand, spun around to face Duncan again. “How can you call a miracle
apostasy—
?”

“He can,” Duncan said. “He must. Because it is the truth.”

“Because you are
alive
?” Alix shook her head. Donal saw how she trembled. “I begged you not to go. Why waste a life? But you denied me. You said you had to go because your
lir
was slain.” She tried to steady her voice. “How can you come back now? Why did you stay
away
—if the death-ritual could be left unheeded?”

Finn stopped her from going to the man. “Wait.”

“Wait?” She tried to wrench free again. “
Wait?
Have you gone mad? That is
Duncan—
”

“Is it?”

Duncan moved a single step closer to all of them. And his face was free of shadow, open to them all.

It was in the eyes. Donal saw it even as Finn and Alix did. Emptiness, aye. Sorrow: an abundance of it. Such pain as a man, left sane, could never know.

But there was no sanity left in Duncan.

Oh gods…oh gods—
! Donal shut his eyes. He felt the trembling start up in his limbs; the roiling in his belly.
He is back—he is back—and yet he is not my
jehan—

Finn jerked Alix back beside him.
“Rujho
,” he said, “stop.”

Duncan stopped. His head twisted quickly, faintly, oddly to one side, jerking his chin toward his shoulder. Twice; no more. A nervous tic, Donal thought dazedly. He knew other men who had them. But—this was something more.

“I need you,” Duncan said. “
I
need you all.
”

“Why?” Finn asked flatly. “Why does a dead warrior need help from any man?”

“
Finn—
” That from Alix, in horror, but he cut her off again.

“A
lirless
man is a dead man, of no value to his clan. He is half a man, and empty, lacking spirit, lacking soul.” Finn’s chant sounded almost bitter. “Is that not what we believe?”

We believe—we believe
— Donal bared his teeth.
But
how
do we believe? My jehan has come
back
to us—

Duncan twitched again. Briefly, so briefly; Donal almost did not see it. But he found himself, in fascinated horror, anticipating yet another.

“I need your help.” Duncan’s hair was silver in the moonlight. “I need your help. I need to find the magic to make me whole again.”

“Whole? You are
lirless.
How can you be whole?”

“Finn!” Duncan cried. “Would you have me
beg
for this?”

Do not beg, do not beg—not
you—
not Duncan of the Cheysuli—that man
does not beg—

Without waiting for an answer, Duncan dropped to his knees. His head, tilted up, exposed the look of mute appeal. He was a supplicant to his brother. To his wife. And to his son. “Can you not
see
why I come to be here?”

Now, they could. Clearly. It showed in the eyes; in altered pupils, altered shape. It showed in the set of his shoulders, almost hunched upon themselves. It showed in the mottled skin of his arms, bare and naked of
lir
-gold. It showed in the bones of his hands: fragile, brittle bones, rising up beneath the flesh to fuse themselves together and turn the fingers into talons.

Not a man. But neither a hawk. Some place between the two.

“Cai was
dead
!” Finn cried. “How is this possible?”

“I am abomination,” Duncan said. “Can you make me whole again?”

“But—you are
lirless.
” In Finn, the cracks began to show. “
Rujho
, you are
lirless…
”

“You can make me whole again.”

Alix, trembling, went down on her knees before the kneeling man. She put out her arms and drew him in until his face was against her breasts. “
Shansu
,” she said, “
peace.
We can make you whole again.”

“He is
lirless!
” It burst out of Donal’s mouth in something near incoherence.

Alix did not hear. “I promise. I promise. We will make you whole again.”

“Tynstar took the body. Tynstar took the body,” Duncan said against her breasts. “I could not give my
lir
proper passage to the gods.”

“Oh gods,” Finn said. “Oh—
gods.
…”

“I could not die,” Duncan said. “There was no ritual. Tynstar had the body, and there was no ritual.”

“
Shansu
,” Alix said. “We will make you whole again.”

“Not without Cai’s body,” Finn said. “Oh
rujho
, surely you must see!”

Duncan’s head twitched against Alix arms. The taloned fingers came up in a twisted gesture of supplication.

Donal at last wrenched himself from the tree and faced them all. “The earth magic!” he cried. “There are three of us, and the
lir.
More than enough, is there not? We can summon up the healing and make him whole again!”

Alix stroked Duncan’s silver hair. “Do you see? Your son is much like you. He will be a wise Mujhar.”

“Donal—” Finn began, and then he shut his eyes.

“Make me
whole
again,” Duncan begged.

Lir.
For the first time, Lorn spoke.
Lir, what he requests is dangerous.

But it can be done?

There is much power in the earth
, Taj said from a nearby tree.
With three of you to summon it, augmented by three lir, you can call upon powerful sources. But there is danger in it.

And worth it
, Donal said.
This man is my jehan!

Slowly, Finn knelt down. He bowed his head in acquiescence.

Dangerous
, Lorn said.

Shakily, Donal went to the kneeling triad. There were so many things he wanted to say to his father, whom he had not seen in fifteen years. So many,
many
things; he thought none of them would get said.

“Join hands,” Finn said. “The link must be physical as well as emotional and mental. What we do now will stretch the boundaries of the power; if those boundaries break, all will be unleashed. The magic will be wild.”

Donal, kneeling between father and uncle, looked at Finn sharply. “Wild—?”

“Before there were men and women in the world, there was magic in abundance. And all of it was wild. It made the
world what it is. But it must be held in check if
we
are to live in the world.”

“Then—
this
could destroy the world….”

“Duncan would never risk that,” Alix said suddenly. She looked at the silver-haired man. “
Would
you? That much risk?”

His malformed hands trembled in hers; in Donal’s. “I am abomination. Make me whole again.”

“
Duncan
would not risk it,” Finn said quietly. “But this man is not Duncan.”

White-faced in the moonlight, Alix looked at Finn. “Then—what we do is
wrong.
”

“Is it?” Finn looked at Donal. “Is it wrong to do this,
harani
?”

Deliberately, Donal looked into the eyes of the raptor who had once been his father. “It is not wrong if we can control the magic. Stretching the boundaries is not evil, if we learn from what we do. A risk not taken means nothing of consequence is ever learned.” Donal drew in an unsteady breath. “I say it must be done.”

“Down,” Finn whispered. “Down…and down…and down….”

*   *   *

Drifting.

—drifting—

—down—

He sank through layers of earth, of rock, of
rock
, drifting, drifting down, until he was a speck of sentience in the midst of omniscient infinity, aware only of his insignificance in the ordering of things.

Alone?

No. There were other specks, all black and glassy gray, as if they had burned themselves out. As if the infinity had become, all at once, finite, and the sentience emptied out.

Down.

—down—

—down—

Jehan
, he asked,
are you here?

Down.

He felt the void reach out for him. Reaching, it caught him. Catching, it tugged him in; tugging, tugging, until he
was a fish on a line; a cat in a trap; a man at the end of a sword—

—with the hilt in another man’s hands.

Pain.

The sword pierced flesh, muscle; scraped across rib bone. And entered the cage around his heart.

—pain—

He cried out. The speck, in the midst of the void, cried out to the other specks that he was in pain,
in pain
, and he knew it should not be so.

The line was cut; the trap was sprung; the sword was shattered. And Donal, hurled back through infinity to know finiteness once more, heard the words screamed from his mother’s mouth: “
Ihlini trap-link—
”

And then he knew the truth.

Not my jehan after all?

Pain.

*   *   *

He lay on his face. His mouth was filled with dirt and leaves. He spat. The sound reverberated in his skull.

Lir.
Lorn, whose muzzle was planted solidly in Donal’s neck, shoving. Donal felt the tip of a tooth against the flesh of his neck. Lorn’s nose was cold.

Lir.
Taj, who stirred dirt and debris into Donal’s face with the force of his flapping wings. The falcon was on the ground, but his wings continued to flap.

He felt a hand on his arm. “Donal.
Donal!
”

Finn’s voice. Hoarse. Donal allowed the hand to drag him up from the ground. He flopped over onto his back.

Through slitted lids and merging lashes he saw Finn’s face. In the moonlight the scar was a black ditch dug into the flesh; the other side of his face was dirty. Scraped. As if he had been hurled bodily against the ground. His leathers were littered with dirt and leaves.

“
Gods
—” Donal shoved himself up from the dirt. He wavered on his knees, pressing one hand against the ground. And then he saw his mother. “
Jehana
—?” Stiffly, he crawled across the clearing. “
Jehana
?”

Finn sat down suddenly in the dirt as if he could no longer stand. One hand threaded rigid fingers through his silver-speckled hair; he stripped it back from his eyes. He bared the face of his grief to his nephew, who still could not believe.
Storr sat down next to Finn, leaning a little against him, as if he knew without his support Finn would surely fall.

“He was
sent
,” Finn said. “That was not my
rujho.
Not your
jehan.
Not my
rujholla’s cheysul.
That was Ihlini
retribution
.” He lifted his head and looked at Donal. “He was
saved
, and he was
sent.
We are alive because of Alix.”

Donal could only stare at his mother’s body.

Finn’s voice droned on. “We are alive because when she saw how the trap-link would swallow us all, she threw us out of it. There was power enough in the trap to slay four
hundred
Cheysuli,
four hundred…
not just
four…
but—she threw us out of the link…and let it swallow her.”

Donal’s vision wavered. He blinked. He could not say if it were tears or the aftermath. He thought it might be both.

Alix was clearly dead. She lay sprawled on her back, arms and legs awry, spilling awkwardly from her clothing in the obscenity of death. Blood still crawled sluggishly from nose, ears, mouth. Her amber eyes were closed.

Transfixed, Donal looked slowly from mother to father. Like Alix, Duncan was sprawled in the dirt. The silent shadows lay across him, hiding malformed hands, hunching shoulders, the predatory eyes.

But not the fact that Duncan was not—
quite
—dead.

Donal twitched in shock as life spilled back into his body. Awkwardly he scrambled across to his father. He saw the blood in Duncan’s nostrils. He felt it in his own.

“
Jehan
?” His voice was a ragged whisper as he hunched beside the form. “
Jehan
—have we made you whole again?”

“A toy,” Duncan said thickly, and there was—briefly—sanity in his eyes; his human, Cheysuli eyes. “Tynstar—made me—
a toy—
”

“
Jehan—
?”

“For fifteen years—a
toy—
”

Almost frenziedly, Donal dragged Duncan’s head and shoulders into his lap. Tentative hands stroked his father’s silvered hair. “
Jehan
,” he begged, “do not
go
—I have only just
found
you again—”

And in his arms, his father died.

D
onal sat in his mother’s pavilion. Around him were her belongings, waiting for her return: wooden chests filled with clothing and trinkets; the tapestry she had painstakingly worked for his father so many years before; cook pots and utensils; the jewelry his father had given her; many other things. And all of them spoke of Alix.