Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (41 page)

           
Alone with the wondering.

           
Alaric of Atvia was indeed an old
man, though Corin could not venture how old. A few years more than sixty, he
knew, and yet he seemed much older. His hair was white. His frame was wracked
with palsy. When Corin compared him to Liam, but fourteen years Alaric's junior,
the contrast was astonishing.

           
And somehow frightening.

           
He had been called to attend his
grandsire in one of the massive halls. He had gone immediately, in deference to
the courtesy Deirdre and Niall had taught him, but he did not like it. And now,
facing the man, he liked it even less.

           
The old man, the old king, was a
pile of bones in an oversized chair. Rich cloth adorned the bones, but it did
not hide the fragility of his flesh or the brittleness of his spirit. The loss
of many teeth altered the line of mouth and jaw. The flesh over the nose had
thinned so that it was little more than a blade-thin beak jutting out of a
hollowed face. His brown eyes were rheumy, nearly swallowed by drooping lids,
and he stank of insidious decay.

           
One hand stabbed out peremptorily,
indicating a place before the throne. "Here!"

           
Uneasily, Corin approached. Even
with Kiri warding one teg, he wanted to take his leave.

           
"Here!"

           
Corin stopped before the throne. The
hand with its rigid finger was little more than thinning hide stretched over
bone. He could see dark, mottled blemishes and knotted sinews beneath the
flesh.

           
"Here." The hand was
lowered at last.

           
Corin waited. He could think of
nothing to say, of nothing to do, other than to force himself not to stare.

           
And so he looked at Alaric's feet,
wishing himself anywhere but where he was.

           
"Gisella says you are my
grandson."

           
"Aye."

           
"Look at me, boy! Tell me what
you see!"

           
Startled by the thready shout, Corin
looked at the man. "My lord?"

           
" ‘My lord,' " Alaric
mimicked. " 'My lord' indeed! Tell me what you see!”

           
Corin's short-lived courtesy
vanished; he did not like this man. "I see death," he snapped.
"Death, decay, disillusionment, and the destruction of a man."

           
"Tell me what you see!"

           
"An old man,” Corin cried.
"The man who killed his cheysula ... the man who destroyed his daughter .
. . the man who lay with an Ihlini witch in exchange for petty power!"

           
"What power?" Alaric
demanded. "What power do I hold? Atvia? No. Sorcery? No. The control of my
wits and body?—no! Lillith has stolen them all.”

           
Corin frowned. This was not what he
had expected.

           
Alaric had always worked with
Lillith, trying to shape the downfall of Homana. "You reap what you
sow," he said shortly.

           
Alaric laughed, although the sound
was unlike any Corin had ever heard. And the tears ran out of his eyes.

           
"The seed of my destruction was
sown so many years ago," he said. "More than forty, when Lillith
first came to Atvia."

           
"You should have sent her
away."

           
"At the time, she served a
purpose." Alaric's fallen mouth moved into a travesty of a smile. "I
gave her freedom. I gave her power. I gave her everything she wanted, and
willingly. There was no coercion. She used no sorcery on me. We worked toward
similar goals." He bent forward, coughed; spittle flew out of his mouth.
"I even gave her my daughter."

           
"And now she wants your
throne." Corin tried to keep the distaste from his expression.

           
"Lillith has the throne in
everything but name." The old man thrust himself more deeply into the huge
chair, thin hands gripping armrests. "She is done ruling through me. Now
she wants you."

           
Cold radiated outward from the
silver on his wrist and encompassed his entire body. "No," Corin
said. "Do you think I would give in to her? I am not as you."

           
"But I am in you." Alaric
smiled again. "Will you tell me there is no ambition in .you? No desire
for power? No need to rule other men?"

           
"Grandsire—"

           
"Will you tell me you do not
want it?" Alaric's add tone, though diluted by age, retained enough of its
arrogance and spite to stop Corin's protest dead. "Will you stand there,
blood of my blood, and tell me you do not dream of holding the Lion
Throne?"

           
Appalled, Corin stared.

           
"Aye," Alaric said.
"'Aye ... I know what you feel. Because I felt it. . . I desired it ... I
even dreamed of it. We know better, you and I. There is more to this world,
much more, than petty island kingdoms. There are places such as Homana."

           
"You are disgusting,"
Corin said. "A disgusting old man awash in the stink of his death. Atvia
will be mine on your death because I am your grandson, not because I need
it—"

           
"But you do. You do." With
great effort Alaric grasped the armrests and pulled himself out of the chair.
He was stooped, twisted, wracked. But the flame of his hatred blazed. "She
drains me ... drains me to feed Gisella ... to replace her addled wits. Once it
is done, I am dead. And then she will turn to you."

           
"Grandsire—"

           
"She means to send Gisella to
Homana," Alaric said steadily, "where they will see that she is not
mad, not mad at all, merely the victim of Niall's lust for Deirdre of Erinn.
And because there are Homanan laws governing the rights of husbands and wives,
the lives of kings and queens, they will make him take her back . . . they will
make her Queen again, not knowing what she is." Tears ran down his face.
"My beautiful, addled daughter. . . ."

           
"Grandsire." This time,
Corin overrode Alaric. "Do I understand you? Lillith is using you to
restore Gisella's wits?"

           
Alaric tapped his head. "It
grows emptier by the day—"

           
Lillith laughed. "So it does,
old man. I think your time grows short."

           
Corin spun even as Alaric sagged and
fell back into the chair. Lillith stood in the open doorway, one hand on the
door, and then she swung it shut.

           
Kiri's upper lip lifted. Hackles
rose, Corin could not touch her through the link, but there was no need; what
both of them felt was obvious, requiring no conversation.

           
"Old man," she said,
"are you unhappy with your lot?"

           
Alaric mumbled something.

           
"Old man," she said,
"you knew it would come to this."

           
The old man stirred uneasily in his
chair. Between them the tension was palpable; Corin wanted to back away, to
leave the hall entirely, wanting no part of this.

           
"Old man," she said,
"it was what you wanted. To see your daughter made whole."

           
"Gisella," Alaric
whispered, and the tears ran down his face.

           
Lillith looked at Corin. "He
asked it," she said. "He begged it of me: to make his daughter whole.
To restore her wits so he could see the woman she might have been, had he not
destroyed her mother."

           
"I know the story," Corin
said hoarsely. "Alaric shot her out of the sky. Bronwyn was in lir-shape,
a raven, and he shot her out of the sky."

           
"Not knowing it was her,"
Lillith said quietly. Her hands were folded in dark green skirts, hiding the
silver-tipped nails. "Not knowing the fall would steal the wits from his
unborn daughter, whose birth was so rudely precipitated." Her eyes were on
Alaric, huddled formlessness in the throne. "He begged it of me, Corin: to
make his daughter whole."

           
Corin swallowed back the bile that
tickled his throat.

           
"For how long?" he asked.
"How long will it last?"

           
Lillith shrugged. "Once Alaric
dies, the wits die. The power is not unlimited. Gisella will become what she
has been from the moment of her birth."

           
"Mad," Corin said.

           
"We are all a little mad."
Lillith approached the throne.

           
She put her hands on Alaric's head.
"Oh, my lord, I promise the pain will end. In a day, two, three, you will
not know its name anymore. You will only know senselessness."

           
"Knowing she will go mad, you
send her to Homana."

           
Lillith barely glanced at Corin.
"It will be sweet to trouble Niall."

           
Beneath her hand, Alaric stirred.
And Corin, looking into the face of approaching madness, found he could no
longer. He turned and walked rapidly from the hall with Kiri close beside him.

           
Lillith's laughter followed him.
"Welcome to Rondule."

           
With Kiri, he left the castle. He
ignored the servants who asked how they could serve him; ignored the soldiers
stationed at the gates who offered to fetch him a horse. He ignored them all,
too intent on escaping the castle, and said nothing at all to them. He went out
of gates, out of the walls, out of Rondule entirely, climbing to the headlands.
To the top of the dragon's skull.

           
He shut his eyes and reached for the
earth magic with all of his strength. And as it came tumbling forth, surging up
to fill his bones with power, he summoned his other self.

           
Now— His eyes snapped open.

           
It hurt. It hurt. Perhaps it was
Lillith’s proximity that twisted the power, perhaps it was something else. But
the shapechange was slow and sluggish, wracking his bones with pain.

           
He gasped. He fell, kneeling on the
turf, and tried to thwart the pain. But it came at him in waves, as if
intending to keep the earth magic from reaching him.

           
Kiri—Kiri—Kiri—

           
He gagged, then retched, as his
belly twisted. He felt the shapechange start, then stop, then waver, then
withdraw, only to try again. What he was he could not say, knowing only that if
it continued he would no longer be Corin at all, but someone else. Something
else; beast instead of man. Or something even worse.

           
He cried out, hearing the echoes of
an eerie yapping howl. Sweat blinded him, distorting his vision. Kneeling on
the turf with arms outstretched, fingers clawing at the dirt, he saw the silver
on his wrist. Lillith's seamless shackle.

           
Muscles knotted. Cramped. Spasmed.
Altered shape, then altered again.

           
This time, Corin screamed.

           
Kiri.

           
Here.

           
Kiri.

           
Here. Her nose pressed against his
neck.

           
Lir—

           
I am here.

           
He was stiff. He ached. Flesh,
muscle, bone, all ached with unremitting pain. Not blinding, screaming pain,
but the deep-seated ache of a body abused within and without. Corin felt as
though someone had stretched all his muscles out of shape, binding them tightly
around the bones of an ancient man, to form a new one entirely.

           
Or was he a new thing?

           
He stirred. "Lir—"

           
Here, she said. Here.

           
He opened his eyes. The world was
the world again, though he could not speak for himself. He lay curled on his
side, arms and legs tucked up, and stared in shock at the woman.