Legacy of the Sword (34 page)

Carillon moved to one of the supple leather chairs and sat down slowly, lowering himself carefully into the seat. “I have learned, over the years, to respect many Cheysuli customs. I admit I do not understand most of them, but I have learned what integrity there is in your race. Though, given a choice, I would prefer you set aside your
meijha
—for my daughter’s sake—I will not ask it of you.”

“You did not answer my question.”

Carillon smiled. “No, I did not. Well enough.” He shifted
in the chair and drank more wine; the pale, sweet wine with its acidic bouquet, that Carillon allowed no one else to touch. “I do not hate you, Donal. I kept myself to Electra when we were together because I desired no other—she would inspire fidelity in any man, regardless of his tastes…but it does not mean I cannot comprehend your ability to wed one woman and keep another as well.” He gazed into the brazier coals. “For all that, I am the
last
to speak of such things as a man desiring only one woman when there is another one he cares for. The gods know I wanted your mother badly enough, even when both of us were wed to other people.” There was pain in his voice as he said it, immense pain; he had taken the news of Alix’s death very badly.

Donal’s hand closed spasmodically on the parchment, crumpling it into ruin. “My
jehana
—?”

Carillon turned. In his eyes was an arrested expression. “Did she never tell you?”

“My
jehana
?” It was all Donal could manage.

Carillon sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. “An old story, Donal….I thought surely you must know it by now.” Twisted fingers scraped silver hair back from his pain-wracked face. “Gods—I cannot believe she is
gone.
Not
Alix.
After all she has been to me…after all she has done….”

And my jehan
? Donal wanted to ask.
You say nothing of my jehan. Is it that even in death you compete
?

Aloud, Donal said, “What old story, my lord?”

Carillon shook his head after a moment. “I never stopped caring for her, Donal, even after she wed your father. Even after she had borne you.” He swirled wine in his goblet. “I wed Electra. And when that marriage was finished, I turned again to your mother.”

Possessiveness overruled Donal’s empathy. “Even while she was Duncan’s
cheysula
—?”

“No.” Carillon looked at him. “Your father was already
lirless.
Dead—or so we believed.” Carillon’s brow furrowed a little, as if reflecting a measure of his grief. “The day I took you and your mother back to the Keep, I asked her to marry me. I would have made her Queen.”

My jehana, the Queen of Homana
—but the wonderment did not last. “She wanted no one but my
jehan.”
He said it a trifle cruelly, but he felt threatened by Carillon’s admission.

For so many years he had known how deeply his parents had loved one another, and how deeply Alix grieved for Duncan. Now, to think of her wed to Carillon— “No,” Donal said. “She was Cheysuli.” He thought it was enough.

Carillon lifted his head and looked directly at Donal. There was no hesitation in his tone, no tact. Just raw, clean emotion. “It would have made you my son…as much as if you were my own.”

Donal stared at the aging face; at the lines and creases and brackets put there by Tynstar’s sorcery. He saw sorrow and regret and anguish in that face, and an almost inhuman strength of will coupled with unexpected vulnerability.

Donal drew in a breath. “I never knew, my lord.”

Carillon smiled a little. “She would not have me. She would not put another man in Duncan’s place. And so we did not wed—” He broke off a moment. When he resumed, it was with careful intonations so as not to display the magnitude of his grief. But Donal heard it regardless. “Together, they died. And you are still Duncan’s son.”

“My lord!” The urgent voice came from outside the pavilion.

“Rowan—” Carillon straightened in his chair. “Come in at once!”

Rowan pulled aside the flap and came through part way, so that the crimson fabric hung over one shoulder like a cloak. “Carillon—you had best come. There is something you should see.”

The Mujhar pushed himself up from his chair awkwardly and moved at once to pick up his sword and sheathe it. The black ruby glittered in the candlelight; Donal, seeing it again, felt guilty that he had not yet accepted it from Carillon. But somehow he
could
not.

“Come.” Carillon went with Rowan out of the pavilion. Donal, waiting for his
lir
, threw down the crumpled parchment and followed a moment later.

Outside, Donal frowned. Something was—different. Something was—not right. There was a tension in the air, a sensation that set the hairs to rising on the back of his neck. A prickle ran down his spine.

Sorcery.
That from Taj, flying above in the darkness.

Ihlini
, Lorn agreed as he paced next to Donal’s left leg.

The light was wrong. Instead of normal deepening twilight, it was nearly black as pitch. Torchlight illuminated the encampment,
but the flames seemed almost muted, swallowed by the darkness. Something muffled sight, sound, smell, as if the camp had been swept beneath a carpet.

Rowan took them westward to a line of gentle hills that rolled out to ring the camp. He gestured briefly to the moon hanging so low against the starless sky: its face was filled with darkness. A thick, viscid darkness. The color was deepest purple.

Carillon stopped at the crest of a grassy hill where another man waited with his wolf. In the light from the dying moon, the slender stalks of grass glowed a luminous lavender.

“Ihlini,” Finn said.

Donal frowned. Wreaths of cloying mist rose up from the flatlands below the hills: bog steaming in a storm. There was the faintest of hisses, almost lost in the heavy darkness. “Some form of spell?”

“More like a warning—or a greeting.” Carillon’s hand was on his sword. “Who can say what Tynstar means by anything he does?”

Rowan, next to them, frowned. “How can he summon sorcery before so many Cheysuli?”

Carillon’s eyes did not stop moving as he studied the lay of the land and the mist that rose to obscure it. “Here, there are four times as many Homanans. Tynstar strikes at
them.”

Finn’s expression was stark in the purpled moonlight. “Even face to face with a Cheysuli, the Ihlini still have recourse to simple tricks and illusions. With so many Homanans present, he need not concern himself with us. He need only play upon the superstitions of the Homanans, as he has done in the past.”

Lir, Donal said.
I wish you could do something.

Nothing
, Lorn answered.
You know the law. We cannot fight Ihlini.

And yet Ihlini fight
us.

I did not say the law was fair.
Lorn’s tone was ironic.
I only know we of the
lir
honor what the gods have given us.

If
I
die, you and Taj are dead.

It is all a part of the price.

Too high
, Donal retorted.
You should tell the gods.

Why not do it yourself
?

Ground fog rolled. Within the violet wreaths flashed tiny sparks of deepest purple, as if fireflies danced in the mist.

“The men are understandably—
concerned,”
Rowan said pointedly.

“They are afraid.” Finn had no time for wordplay. “As Tynstar means them to be.”

Donal glanced around. Behind the rim in the shallow bowl gathered all of the Homanan army. He heard whispers and mutters and curses as the river of fog flowed over the hill and downward. The muffled silence of the night was palpable.

Donal shivered. Lir—
call me a coward. I do not like this at all.

Taj still hung in the air.
Then all of us are cowards.

Carillon gestured sharply to Rowan. “Go and speak to the captains. I will not have my men fleeing Ihlini
illusions.”

“Aye, my lord, at once.” Rowan departed with alacrity, wading through rolling fog.

“Donal? Donal?” It was Evan’s voice, as the Ellasian climbed the hill. “Is this what you meant when you told me about Ihlini magic?”

Donal waited until Evan had reached the top of the hill. “Somewhat,” he answered tersely. “Evan—it is not a joking matter.”

The Ellasian prince frowned as he looked out across the blackened land. “No,” he said after a moment. “It is not.
Lodhi
!—but what a coil!”

Donal looked at his uncle worriedly. “You think he intends no harm, then—if he uses only illusion?”

Finn shook his head. “It is not Tynstar’s way to join in battle without first seeking to fill men’s minds with fear.” His mouth hooked down. “What better than to win before blood is shed?”

“That would never stop him,” Carillon answered. “He will spill all the blood he must.”

“
Look
!” Evan cried.

The mist parted, sliced neatly as if cloven with an ax. In the wound stood a fountain of purple flame with a heart so brilliant it burned a pristine white. The illumination pouring from the fountain filled the world up with light, bathing each face with a starkness from which there was no hiding. Men squinted, holding up their arms to shield their eyes. Picketed horses screamed and tried to bolt. Cries of fear rose from the clustered mass of men.

Carillon spun around to face them all, thrusting up a
belaying hand.
“No!
It is only Ihlini
illusion.
Do not fear what is not real!”

But Donal watched the burning fountain. It cracked open and spilled out a sinuous gout of flame that crept across the grass. Blackness spread out around it; what it touched it consumed, and anything else nearby.

“Lodhi!”
Evan whispered dazedly.

A serpent
, Donal thought.
Tynstar’s serpent, sent to do his slaying for him—

“Carillon,” Finn warned.

The Mujhar turned. Ten feet from them all, on the crest of the hill, the writhing serpent halted. It coiled, rose upward, stretched itself toward the sky. It thickened, as if it had been fed. It swelled, as if heavy with child.

And then the swollen belly spit open, and the serpent gave birth to a man.

He was wrapped in a purple cloak so dark it was nearly black. A silver brooch glinted at one shoulder; silver earrings flashed in his lobes; a ring was on one hand. But it was the eyes, not the jewelry, that Donal saw more than anything else; the eyes, black and beguiling, set in the smooth flesh of eternal youth. The smile, framed by black and silver beard, was singularly sweet.

For the first time Donal faced the man who done so much to destroy his life, and he found he was afraid.

Gods—I am not fit to hold the throne—I can barely
look
at the man—

“I bid you farewell, Carillon.” The voice was warmly affectionate, lacking the hostility Donal had expected. “We have been good enemies, you and I, but I am done with you at last. The time for your death has come.”

Donal looked quickly at Carillon. He could not conceive of what
he
might say, did Tynstar speak to him. But Carillon was more accustomed to facing the man.

The Mujhar laughed aloud. “Tynstar, you
fool
—what makes you think you will succeed
this
time? Have you not failed repeatedly before? Even the last time we met, nearly sixteen years ago, you could not end my life. Oh, aye, you
shortened
it—but I am still alive to thwart you.”

Donal was more than a little amazed by Carillon’s composure
and
the audacity of his answer. But then, the Mujhar had had years in which to refine his courage.

Tynstar’s smile was genuinely amused. “It is true you have guarded yourself well. The Cheysuli ever serve their Mujhar.” He looked at Finn. Then at Donal. “But now there is one of their
own
who waits to take the throne—and you are no longer needed.”

Carillon shook his head. “You will not put me in fear of the warriors who serve me so well. I am not Shaine, Ihlini. I do not succumb to such transparent tricks as these.”

The flame around Tynstar rippled, as if the serpent writhed. “Shaine succumbed to his own fears and inner madness. You will succumb to something else.” Light glinted off his silver ornaments. “Carillon, you have played out your part in the prophecy. You are toothless now, like an old lion—useless and merely a bore. There is another who serves the prophecy now, even as it serves him.” One hand rose to point directly at them. “Do you see him? You have only to look at the warrior who wards your left side, so solemn and silent beside you.” The sorcerer smiled. “A man at last, Donal…no more the boy I sought to make my own so many years ago.”

Unconsciously, Donal put one hand to the flesh of his throat. He could feel the kiss of the iron collar, the weight of his vulnerability. Then he forced his hand away. “You are a fool indeed if you think I will turn against Carillon.”

Tynstar smiled. “No. I am quite aware of the folly in trying that. You are not so pliant as I could wish. No, you will not turn against Carillon…but you will not have to. He will be dead within a year.”

“And the throne?” Carillon rasped.

“Mine,” Tynstar said simply. “As it was ever meant to be.”

“Mine,”
Donal retorted. “The Lion will never accept an Ihlini. The gods intend it for
us.”

Tynstar, cloaked in purple shroud and brilliant flame, merely shook his haloed head. “Your
shar tahl
has failed your clan, Donal. You know nothing of the histories.”

“Ku’reshtin!”
Donal swore.

“Resh’ta-ni,”
Tynstar returned equably, clearly fluent in the language.

Donal stared. But he told himself anyone could learn the Old Tongue—including an Ihlini—if there were reason enough to do it.

Casually, Tynstar made the gesture of
tahlmorra.
“I shall have to instruct you, I see, to reduce your alarming ignorance.”

Finn laughed. “An amusing idea, Ihlini.
You
instructing
us
?”