Camber the Heretic (30 page)

Camber managed to keep his Alister smile from becoming an uncharacteristic grin at the implied compliment—and real truth—though he chose his words carefully.

“Let us say that I have learned a great deal through my association with Rhys and his lovely wife and my secretary Joram,” he replied easily. “As for the Council, yes, I am a member. And as you undoubtedly have guessed by now, the Council is very interested in you and Dom Emrys, especially if you can learn to do what Rhys has just done.”

Queron's brow furrowed. “You—the Council, that is—you see a practical application, then, for neutralizing a person's Deryni powers?”

“We believe it's a blocking rather than a neutralization,” Rhys replied. “Granted, this would be a desperation possibility, but consider how selected individuals might be blocked and hidden away, safe from discovery as Deryni, once the persecutions start. And if it
is
a blocking, rather than a taking away of powers, then the Deryni potential should be passed on to the children, even if it should happen that the parents cannot be restored to knowledge, for some reason. Of course, preventing the persecutions in the first place is the better solution, but we can't count on that, given the present political situation.”

Queron nodded, his equilibrium obviously returning.

“I fear you may be right. But—do you really think that Emrys and I can learn to do what you just did, on command and without preparation or detection? I've never heard of anyone doing that before.”

“Neither have I, so I suppose we'll be breaking new ground.”

Emrys, who had kept silent, once reassured of Queron's return to full function, shook his head incredulously and folded his arms across his chest.

“I'm not certain I like the idea, Rhys. Is the Council truly behind this plan of yours?”

“They think it bears further study, at any rate,” Rhys replied. He shifted his attention back to Queron. “How about it? Shall we do it again, so that Emrys can watch from my perspective instead of yours this time?”

Queron opened his mouth to speak, then swallowed with a visible gulp, though the sound was muffled in the heavily draped room.

“You
are
good at destroying a man's self-confidence, aren't you?” he murmured, controlling a shiver of apprehension. “Do you really know what you're asking? No, don't answer that. You're right, it should be me, so that Emrys can observe. No sense in
both
of us being set off balance.”

Rhys grinned and glanced at Camber. “Healer's pride. You can bet that this is the last thing in the world that he wants to do right now, but he's going to do it anyway. Thank you, Queron.”

“He need not do it on my account,” Emrys said, laying a restraining hand on Queron's shoulder. “Why not give him a day or two to settle? Only God knows how hard that must have been on him.”

“Not as hard as if we wait and I get to think more about it, without knowing how it's done,” Queron interjected, shaking his head vigorously. “Let's do it now, Rhys, before I lose my nerve. Do you want me here?”

“Let's try the couch,” Rhys said, getting up as Camber rose to make room for Queron to recline. “Lie down and really make yourself comfortable this time. I'll try to go more slowly, so Emrys can have a chance for deeper reading.”

“Just don't go too slowly, or the suspense will have me gibbering,” Queron said with a nervous grin, stretching his wiry frame on the couch and arranging his body for maximum relaxation as Rhys came around to sit on his left.

“And Alister,” Queron added, “why don't you pull up a chair on my right and keep me from edging into hysteria while Emrys studies me like a prize beetle?” His voice held more than a hint of tension, and Camber realized he was deliberately using speech as a means to channel off some of it. “Emrys, you link with Rhys and try to figure out what he does.”

Emrys looked dubious, but he came around and stood in the angle between Rhys and the head of the couch, resting one weightless hand on Rhys's shoulder. Camber laid his right hand over Queron's right, then watched as Rhys took the first of his centering breaths to begin easing into Healing mode. Matching his rate of descent with Rhys's, he extended to sense Queron's shields, felt them already beginning to collapse as Rhys began to work.

“Excellent,” Rhys murmured, slipping his hands lightly along either side of Queron's head. His thumbs came to rest firmly on the temples, the long fingers threaded in the wiry, reddish-brown hair.

“Good. Now let's show Emrys what we did before, all right? Take another deep breath and let it out, and let the shields go with it. You know it's safe here, even though you know what's coming this time. Don't tense up. That's right, let go. I'm going to allow you to keep your awareness of what's happening, so you can describe it to Emrys, once it's done. That's right,” he continued, as Queron closed his eyes.

“Now, Emrys, follow where I go, and watch what I do—watch carefully, or you'll miss it. It's—now.”

And again, seeming even more quickly than he had done it the first time Camber witnessed the feat, Rhys reached out and gave that little wrench—and Queron was once more bereft of Sight. The eyelids trembled, but they did not open. Rhys glanced up quickly at Emrys.

The Master Healer's pale, unlined face had taken on a look of concentration such as Camber had never seen before. As Rhys withdrew his hands, making way for Emrys's more direct probe, Queron opened his eyes and hesitantly met Emrys's gaze, very uneasy, but with his panic in control this time. Rhys pulled back discreetly from all rapport, until finally Emrys sank to his knees beside the couch and turned to stare him full in the face, slowly shaking his head.

“I'm afraid I missed it again,” Emrys murmured. “It's truly incredible. I saw it before, but I still can't believe it. He even let me read his memory, his sensations, of what you did before. None of it prepared me for this.”

“It must be a frightening experience,” Rhys agreed.

“You just—reached out and—twisted something,” Emrys said, searching Rhys's golden eyes with his pale, colorless ones. “Don't you have any idea how you do it?”

“A little,” Rhys admitted. “I've had my wife read me, and Alister, and several others, but never another Healer. They could only give me hints. I was hoping that you would be able to see what I did.” He sighed. “Emrys, if you or Queron can't learn this, I'm not sure it can be learned. Maybe this is to Healers what Healing is to other Deryni.”

“Well, let's not jump to conclusions, son. No one said anything about not being able to learn it,” Emrys retorted, sounding almost a bit annoyed, though Camber could not be sure. “I simply wasn't watching closely enough; and Queron was in no position to watch.” He glanced at Queron, who was studying them all tensely from his frozen position on the couch. “Remove the block again, and let's take another crack at it. Alister, you watch this, too. A Michaeline point of view could be very useful. I may be missing something entirely obvious.”

Bringing his hands to Queron's head again, Rhys took another deep breath and let the linkage settle in with Emrys and Camber, deftly guiding both of them to the location where he thought the function was occurring. With a reassuring smile at Queron, projecting what he hoped was his best bedside manner, he reached out mentally and took Queron down as easily as if he were dealing with a human child of no training whatsoever. All trace of the formerly magnificent Healer was undetectable.

Then, as he had done before, he shifted that ineffable something—and Queron was restored. Emrys, like Camber, could only shake his head.

“Damn, I missed it,” Emrys whispered, almost to himself. “Do it again?”

And Rhys did.

He did it to Queron. He did it, after several more repeats, to Emrys. He did it as slowly as he could to each of them, while the other watched and tried to learn. He did it to each of them while in an almost normal state, and even while resisting. His only limitation seemed to be the necessity for physical contact between Rhys and his subject—but then, that was a limitation under which Healers had always had to work. The laying on of hands was an established requisite for the Healer's vocation.

He did it to two different student Healers, leaving their memories blocked after it was over. He even, as Emrys's suggestion and Queron's exasperated agreement, did it with Queron sedated to the eyeballs, as Gregory had been the first time. He did not do it to Camber, but he explained that by saying that at least one of them should remain neutral and untouched by the phenomena, and that Alister was not a Healer. They accepted that.

But nothing seemed to work, so far as learning was concerned.

“I can only conclude,” Emrys finally had to admit, while they sipped at wine, “that this may, indeed, be a talent which is unique to you, Rhys. We've certainly tried to learn it, but in this, I'm afraid you've far outstripped your teachers. I honestly don't know what to tell you.”

Exhausted, Rhys stretched and craned his neck from side to side to ease cramped muscles. It was late afternoon, and other than the present wine and a slab of hard yellow cheese which Camber was slicing, all of them had been working without proper respite for far too many hours.

“Well, maybe our baptizer cult wasn't such a good idea, after all,” he said, gnawing at the rind-end of a piece of cheese which Camber handed him. “If I'm the only one who can do this, we're going to have to rethink the whole concept. I said, somewhat facetiously, that I'd play the role of religious fanatic if there were no other way—and the stage is set for it to work, regardless of who takes that role—but I'd sure like to find an alternative.”

“I'm sure we all would,” Camber replied, passing cheese to Queron and then to Emrys. “We'll have to see what can be done.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Strangers conspired together against him, and maligned him in the wilderness
.

—Ecclesiasticus 45:18

Unfortunately, the Council had no ready answer to Rhys's dilemma. A philosophical setting was being established by Revan's presence among the Willimites, ready for a Healer of Rhys's gifts to step in and activate it; and Joram and Evaine, in turn, kept secretly feeding Revan more and more information to build his cover more tightly; but only time would tell whether Rhys's talent could be taught or whether he himself would be forced to assume the role of associate messiah. The slim chance also remained that the plan might never have to be set in motion.

But if Deryni were not yet setting drastic plans in motion, during the nearly four months between Cinhil's death and Alroy's coronation, others certainly were. Though the actions of the new regime were no more outwardly spectacular than those of the Camberian Council, they were no less precise and efficient, bespeaking serious long-term implications for those not in the regents' favor. No violence broke out during those early months of spring, much to the relief of Camber and his colleagues, but change was definitely in the air, and not to the advantage of Deryni.

One of the first and most insidious changes had to do with the army of Gwynedd. The regents well understood the importance of the army as a power base, and knew that here, among Jebediah's Michaeline-trained officers, human as well as Deryni, lay the most likely seeds for a successful Deryni revolt. It was therefore necessary that the army be cleansed of all taint of Deryni and Deryni sympathy.

Accordingly, the army underwent a massive reorganization at all levels of rank, with younger, less experienced officers and commanders—humans, all—gradually being phased in to replace Jebediah's seasoned troops. Helpless to prevent it, Jebediah watched his army change into a conscienceless tool which might eventually be used against him and his people. All he could do was to despair and try to find positions for his displaced men.

His task was not an easy one. Such a political climate as the regents were engendering did not bode well for men born and bred to live by the sword. Most Deryni nobles already had a surfeit of retainers, Deryni and human, and were disinclined to take on any more, especially in light of the apparently declining opportunities at Court for those of their race. Some were even letting men go, no longer anticipating the wherewithal to pay large numbers of private troops.

As for the human nobility, they were becoming increasingly reluctant to employ fighting men dismissed by the regents. Where once Michaeline military training had been prized for producing outstanding soldiers, tacticians and strategists, human and Deryni, now it became more and more a stigma connected with the old days of Deryni domination, a liability instead of an asset.

Fortunately for Gwynedd, Michaeline training also instilled discipline and responsibility, so the land was not plagued by bands of masterless Michaelines riding aimlessly through the countryside as their noble counterparts still did. Most actual members of the Michaeline Order, Deryni and human, simply retreated to the commanderie at Argoed, or one of the provincial houses in Gwynedd or without, there to hold themselves in readiness or, in some cases, to return to duties related to the teaching which had long been the other Michaeline specialty besides fighting. A few of them began organizing small, clandestine groups to preserve Deryni and Michaeline training and tradition, ready to become islands of refuge, if the worst came to pass.

It was only a matter of time, Jebediah guessed, before the Order would be suppressed as brutally as it had been in the last year of Imre's reign. The plans for the entire Order going underground again must be brought up to date and readied. At least until Alroy came of age and the regents were out of power, Michaelines would have to tread almost as carefully as Deryni, and Deryni Michaelines must be doubly careful.