Camber the Heretic (40 page)

“He will know nothing of what we do. Come and change clothes with him now.”

Beneath the steel-gray robe he now removed, Davin already wore the simple linen undertunic and breeks of a guardsman. Wordlessly he and Rhys began removing Eidiard's battle harness, only the muffled clank of leather-cased plate and the jingle of buckles intruding on the hollow silence of the wards. When the guardsman had been stripped down to the same garb as Davin, Davin began putting on the other's clothing.

Close-fitting leather britches of a deep, rich brown; then the gambeson, heavy linen quilted over sheep's wool in a lozenge design. Next, a leather brigandine of the new design, sewn with hand-sized metal plates between the two layers, covering all the torso and shoulders and reaching to midthigh. Over that, the crimson surcoat of Haldane service, with a lion's head blazoned on the shoulder.

He pulled on heavy, knee-high boots after that and buckled on plain steel spurs, a sword-belt of brown leather carrying a plain sword, and a dagger which appeared to have seen much use. Eidiard's gloves were slipped under the belt. His mantle and helmet had been left outside the circle.

“Let's see you now,” Evaine said, as Rhys helped their nephew tug the last strap-end into place. “Stand here beside him. Yes, the resemblance is uncommonly good, even without the shape-change. That makes it easier.”

Davin shifted the weight of the armor on his shoulders and tried to scratch between his shoulderblades. “I'm glad you approve,” he murmured with a grimace. “I could have wished for a little less realism, though. I think there are bugs in this gambeson!”

“Welcome to the life of the common soldier,” Rhys grinned. He glanced at Evaine, the amusement going out of his eyes. “Are we ready?”

“As ready as we're going to be.”

Gently she took Eidiard's hand and led him into the center of the circle, guiding his step up onto the square white slab which marked it. When she had placed him to her satisfaction, she turned to Davin and gestured for him to step up beside the man he was about to become. Davin, with a deep breath, obeyed.

“Now, you understand how important it is that you open completely for this?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” Evaine replied, exchanging glances with Rhys as he came to stand behind Davin. “Because the deeper you can go, the wider you can open to me, the better image I'll be able to put on you. That's important, since you won't be able to do anything to help stabilize your shape for the first few weeks, while your abilities are blocked.” She laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. “Now, take a deep breath and let's get started. Good. Now, another.”

Davin obeyed, letting himself begin to sink into familiar trancing. The first stages were not difficult, but as he sank deeper and deeper under Evaine's subtle guidance, he could feel himself reaching new depths which were not easy to keep open in the smooth, passive widening which Evaine demanded, even though they had done it many times in the past week.

He drew another deep breath, pushing himself down another level as he let it out, and then was dimly aware of Rhys's gentle hands slipping along either side of his head from behind, the Healer beginning to draw him even deeper, so that he lost track of his surroundings.

His eyes were closed now. He could not see with his vision, but his mental Sight was increasing with every breath—and those were becoming farther and farther apart, as his body settled into the relaxed, receptive state which Evaine guided and encouraged.

He was no longer master of his breathing now—though that did not matter, since Rhys guarded that function with his Healer's touch. Nor was he certain that his heart would have continued to pump, were it not for Rhys's Healing hands. His whole being was now contained between those other hands resting on his shoulders, now slipping up to touch his forehead. Something seemed to settle into place at that new touch—something which gave over, for all his present existence, the control of his destiny. Now, even if he had wanted to break the rapport, he was not certain that he could—and did not care.

Evaine's hands left him briefly then, and vaguely he sensed that Eidiard was being similarly prepared, that his pattern was being brought into the linkage. He teetered there on the brink of knowing and unknowing, precariously balanced between Rhys's two hands, until Evaine's touch once more glittered just behind his closed eyes.

Hold steady now
, her mind whispered into his, as she poised between him and Eidiard on the balance point.

Then the energy began to flow, and he abandoned himself to its filling. He could sense the power tingling in his limbs, an eerie sensation like hundreds of tiny insects crawling all over his body—yet, oddly, not an unpleasant feeling—a vibrancy which permeated every part of him. He felt it as his own, and yet there was a part of it which was not his.

Suddenly it was over. His body was his own again, all strange sensation gone. As Evaine drew hand and mind apart from him, he felt himself surfacing from the place where he had been—swayed a little with the sheer giddiness of so rapid a return to normal consciousness. Rhys's hands steadied him, the Healer's mind withdrawing more slowly as functions were returned to Davin's control. When Davin opened his eyes, Evaine was gazing at him with a pleased smile on her face, one hand resting on the shoulder of the still-entranced Eidiard.

Rhys came around to face the northern boundary of the Ward Major and open a gateway toward which Jebediah was ascending. Evaine laid Davin's discarded robe around Eidiard's shoulders, then turned him over to Jebediah, who took him out. When Jebediah had returned, and Rhys had secured the wards again, she turned back to Davin.

He could see in her eyes that he had changed. From the movement outside the circle, seen only dimly through the haze of the warding, he could tell that the others were similarly impressed. Fleetingly he wished that he had a mirror, then dismissed the notion as frivolous, almost as soon as it had come.

He needed no mirror to tell him what he looked like now. In the week just past, he had looked like every one of them, with Evaine's help. Besides, the most difficult part was yet to come—and the most frightening part, though he knew that he would not remember that. They had worked with the block numerous times during the past week, though in their training sessions, Rhys had always let him retain his awareness of what was happening. This time, Davin knew that he was to remember nothing of his true identity. Even to Deryni scrutiny, he must appear to be only what his exterior proclaimed: a soldier, human, of no particular consequence other than being assigned to the princes' guard.

Then Rhys was standing before him and flashing that peculiarly reassuring smile that Healers were wont to display when about to attempt some particularly difficult or unusual Healing—except that this was not a Healing; and for the next few weeks, Davin would be completely at the mercy of whatever they chose to leave him with. Was he sure that he wanted to go through with this?

But they had gone over all of this before. Though he had volunteered on impulse, his capabilities and motives had been carefully scrutinized and studied all through the past two weeks. Father Alister and Joram had been particularly against his taking on this mission; but it had been clear, in the end, that there was no one better suited to do the job, and that the job needed to be done.

With a deep breath to banish his conflicting emotions, he returned Rhys's lopsided little smile and held out his hands to the Healer. Rhys took them. Without a word they settled into the rapport they had practiced so often in the past two weeks.

Evaine's hands were on his shoulders as he slipped deep into trance once more, and Davin knew that she was monitoring in the same way that Rhys had done, during the first part of the working. He achieved a good depth of trance immediately at Rhys's urging, then slipped even deeper, gave up control wholly to Rhys as the Healer's mind insinuated itself in ways far different from Evaine's touch.

This was the control of a Healer now, light yet firm, pushing down all his conscious reflexes and protections, gentle yet insistent, irresistible. Davin's last conscious thought, as the Healer's mind took hold and began the odd, sense-wrenching operation which would block his powers, was that he might die from this—but that somehow, it did not matter. Here, safe between Rhys and Evaine, he could sleep forever. His life was in their hands.

And Rhys, as he took control and tilted the energies, touching the triggerpoint and shifting it as he had before, felt the familiar jolt in his own mind as the block was set in place and he slowly began to withdraw.

Evaine pulled out completely then, only lending her physical support as the changed Davin slowly crumpled under Rhys's continuing touch and sank to the marble slab. As Davin dreamed on, human now, Rhys continued his patterning, securing the controls he had planted, weaving the background in what would become the conscious mind of a soldier named Eidiard, while Evaine went about the business of releasing the wards.

When Rhys finally looked up, Davin-Eidiard slept still and sound beneath his hands. Rhys let out a deep sigh as he withdrew his final contact, glancing around at all of them.

“That's about the best I can do,” he murmured, “but I think it will stand the scrutiny. Go ahead and test, if you wish. You won't disturb him.”

One by one, they did, each withdrawing after a time to nod agreement or shake a head in disbelief at what they read. Camber and Joram alone did not accept his invitation, Camber because he did not need to and Joram because he did not wish it. When they were finished Jebediah stood and dusted the knees of his blue riding leathers with a gloved hand.

“Well, that's done, then. I'll take Davin back to the horse Eidiard had waiting and see him off to his new assignment. Several of my Michaelines are waiting there, and will take the real Eidiard back to Argoed with them. They're Deryni, so there won't be any problem.”

“That sounds fine,” Rhys agreed. “And beginning tonight, I think one of us should always try to be in the chamber above and monitoring for him, ready to pull out quickly and notify Jaffray immediately, if anything should go wrong. Jaffray, you'll be the only one within physical reach, in such a case.”

Jaffray nodded. “Understood.”

“I'll take the first watch, if you like, then,” Camber said. “I'm apt to be missed in the daytime. Father Willowen runs Grecotha as if it were his, and gets almost indignant when he can't find me.”

“Sign of a good dean,” Jaffray said with a tight little smile. “He'll keep things running, whether you're there or not. I'll take tomorrow night, though, since I, too, am likely to be missed in the daytime. Besides, I can't let those regents run amok in the council.”

An hour later, they were all gone except Camber, who sat silently at the great table in the Council chamber and thought about what they had done this night.

More deception, Joram would have said—
had
said, though not in so many words. And Camber had to agree that it was so. They had worked no such deception in all the long years since Camber had assumed Alister's form.

And now it began again, with Camber's grandson also in a position of jeopardy and not even knowing the fullness of why it must be done.

Oh, there were immediate reasons, of course, and they were all good or at least reasonable ones. But the fact remained that all they did today was predicated on what had happened so many years before, was bound up with the deception of Camber taking the form and shape of Alister, to try to retain some influence over the royal family which they themselves had placed in power.

And if things had been shaky during the reign of Cinhil at times—and only a fool could claim that they had not—what were they now, with a child on the throne and avaricious regents controlling that child and his even younger brothers?

Not that
all
the children were totally under the influence of the regents. Javan had shown surprising spunk in the past few weeks. His support of Tavis O'Neill, while not unexpected from a purely human standpoint, had become far more than that on a psychic plane.

No one had been able to get close to Javan to see precisely what had happened. But even in the short contact which Camber and Rhys had had with Javan that night of the attack, it was clear that something about Javan had changed—whether from what they had done to him that night of Cinhil's death, or from working with Tavis, or what, Camber didn't know. But if it had come of what they did to him, then they were to blame for whatever happened. And a human who could shield like Javan could be dangerous, indeed.

In the meantime, there was Davin to be watched and guarded, and a host of other things to be tended now that Camber was back at Grecotha permanently.

And where was Davin now? Ah, yes: mounting his horse, where Jebediah had just left him. The entity was Davin, but the part which was Davin himself was so deeply submerged that Camber must constantly remind himself just whom he was tracking. He certainly could not read a distinctive spark.

Only soldier thoughts were on the surface of Davin's mind as he guided his horse onto the main road and began cantering easily toward Valoret. He was concerned with his new commission, eager to enter the king's service, pleased that his commanders had esteemed him sufficiently competent to procure him the new assignment.

Few other thoughts crossed his mind as he rode along, but he was not aware of the shallowness of his existence in this shell of the real Eidiard, so he did not think it amiss that his mind seemed occupied only with soldier thoughts.

And Camber, as he watched idly with one part of his mind, let himself drift off to contemplation of other things as the dawn approached.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure
.