Legacy of the Sword (43 page)

—bind a lir and a Cheysuli is bound…harm a lir and a Cheysuli is harmed…trap a lir and a Cheysuli is trapped—

The litany clamored inside his skull. His
jehan
had explained it once in terms a boy could understand; a boy who had received his
lir
too soon, sooner than anyone else. He had never forgotten the lesson.

He fell against a tree, jarring his sore chest and aching shoulder. He stumbled on, responding to the desperate compulsion in his body.

Lir—lir—lir—

He tripped. He fell to hands and knees.

A figure stepped out of the trees and stood before him. Donal, half-blinded by pain, saw the boots first, then slowly looked up.

He saw a slender figure in dark, unremarkable clothing. Pale, delicate hands. And in those hands was clasped the sword with the rampant lion on its hilt.

Donal’s head rose. He saw the smooth, youthful face; the mismatched eyes.

Sef smiled. “My lord Mujhar, this is well-met. Though you seem discomfited at the moment.”

“You—you are
dead—”

“Am I? No. That was another boy. But I am glad the illusion held. I lost one of my ward-stones, you see.”

Donal gasped.
“You
are Ihlini—?”

“My name is Strahan,” he said, “not Sef. I am the son of Tynstar and Electra.”

Donal sat back on his heels. “Electra
lost
that child! In Hondarth—on the way to the Crystal Isle—my
jehan
said she
lost
the child—”

Sef—Strahan—smiled. “So she wanted him to think. But—when you are Electra of Solinde and you have loyal women by you—there are many secrets you may keep…many illusions you may hold.”

“Not before a Cheysuli.”

“Look at me, Mujhar. Tell me if I lie.”

Donal looked. No more did the boy give him humility and innocence. He gave him truth. He smiled the pure, beguiling smile of his father, with all the lambent beauty of his mother.

Donal grasped at his knife with his left hand, knowing his right arm too numb, too weak and sore to accomplish the task. But the boy set the tip of the sword against his throat, and Donal did not move.

“I hold your wolf, warrior, and therefore I hold you. Do you wish him to live, do nothing to gainsay me.”

Donal spat blood from his bitten lip. “It was
you
in the Womb of the Earth. It was
you
all those times.”

“Of course.
I
gave the potion to my mother so she could escape imprisonment.
I
hired the Homanan to attack you in the hall, knowing he would fail. I wanted you afraid. I wanted you uncertain. I wanted you in a place special to the Cheysuli, so I could slay you there.”

“Not Aislinn,” Donal said. “And—not
Bronwyn
, either.”

Strahan smiled. “Not Aislinn. Not Bronwyn—
this
time.” The smile widened. “What is it like to know your wife and sister are bloodkin to the enemy? They are, do not forget. Aislinn through her mother, Bronwyn through her father. What is it like,
Cheysuli
, to know you are kin to Ihlini?”

He echoes Tynstar’s words
…Donal swallowed heavily and looked at the rune-worked sword. In Sef’s—
Strahan’s
—hands, the weapon was huge. The ruby was half the size of his fist. “How did you come by Carillon’s sword?”

“Carillon’s? Or yours?” Strahan laughed. “Osric brought it to me. I had joined him by then—in the aftermath of my ‘death’—and I asked for it. As proof that the murderer of my mother and father was dead.” Fierce anger and a powerful hatred burned deeply in the un-matched eyes. “He
should
have left Carillon to me. He
should
have let me slay him.
I
would have given him a much more fitting death.” His teeth showed briefly in a smile echoing that of his father. “Do you wonder why I touch the sword now? Do you wonder how I
can
? Because of you,
my lord—
you have been so remiss in your responsibilities. Oh, aye, this sword knows you—a little. But you have not had the ritual performed. You have not held it long enough in your possession for it to know an enemy’s hand each time one is laid upon it. It knew me on
the hilltop—knew me for what I was—but it has been too long now since you touched it. And without the ritual, the power is reduced.”

No one has spoken of a ritual to
me— But Donal shook his head. “
I
should have known you. Through my
lir
…an Ihlini is ever known.”

“No,” Strahan said gently. “Not while I wore the feathered band.”

Donal’s left hand went at once to his belt-pouch. But he did not try to open it.

The boy laughed. “Look upon it, Donal. See what has helped me so well.”

Unwillingly, Donal unfastened the pouch and took out the feathered bracelet. He looked at it mutely. Such a simple thing. A slender band of braided feather: black and gold and brown.

He met Strahan’s eyes. “How could
this
gainsay my
lir
?”

“They are from your father’s hawk.”

Breath rushed out of Donal’s body. He stared blindly at the feathers in his hand, and recalled his father’s body in his arms.
How could I not have known
—?

“A token, but powerful,” the boy explained cheerfully. “My father took the hawk’s body. And then he took Duncan. With them both, dead
lir
and live warrior, my father fashioned a powerful spell. It hid my identity. It allowed me to come to you. It even made Finn wonder if I were
kin
!” Strahan laughed. “And it made it an easy thing to infiltrate the palace.”

I kept this to recall Sef’s murder…but it is a tool of my own.
He looked up at the boy again. “What do you intend to do with me?”

“Make you a
toy,”
Strahan said. “The way I made one of your father.”

I
nside his head, the memories were at war.

He recalled his father from his childhood, when Duncan had been clan-leader and responsible for people other than his son. But he had still made time for that son, teaching him what he could.

He remembered Duncan in his madness, with empty eyes and taloned hands.

He recalled the first time his father had taken him hunting, to teach him what he must know about tracking animals and slaying them to help feed the clan.

He remembered Duncan begging for their help, begging to be made whole again; a man.

He recalled how his mother had taken care to keep his father alive in his memories when Duncan was gone because all too often memories faded into nothingness.

He remembered how Alix had saved them all by sacrificing herself.

But mostly he remembered how his father had died in his arms, knowing himself a toy in the hands of Tynstar’s son.
And Donal knew
he
was, also.

No!
he cried.
I—am—

“—not!”

He jerked awake. He heard his breathing rasping in the confines of the cabin. The echo of his shout. The clank of heavy iron as it rattled at wrists and ankles, bolting him to the bunk aboard the ship.

Oh gods
…He remembered it
all
, now. How Strahan had
captured him and thrown him into irons, abusing Lorn to keep Donal a subdued, well-mannered prisoner.

“Tell me something.” The boy’s voice; Donal opened his eyes. “Tell me something, Donal…why was it so easy?” Strahan stood in the cabin just inside the door. He wore dark blue tunic and trews of the finest wool, belted with leather and silver.

Donal swallowed. He had no intention of answering Strahan, but his throat was very dry.

“All my life my father taught me the Cheysuli were not men to be taken without expending great effort…yet you fell easily into my hands and make no effort to break free.” Black brows knitted over hooded eyes. “Is this an example of the power of the
lir
-bond? I have heard how consuming it is—how a warrior gives up his life when the life of a
lir
is taken…but Lorn is not yet
dead.
Merely—
confined.”

Strahan did not elaborate on the confinement, but Donal knew very well what the wolf had undergone. He could feel it in himself as he lay chained to the bunk. Weakness. Hunger. Disorientation. Great thirst. Fever. And while Lorn suffered, so did he. So
would
he, until the wolf was free and well.

The boy moved closer to the bunk. “I expected more from you. In all our months together, you led me to believe you were a warrior. But I see no warrior. Just a
man
—a
human
man, caught within my trap.” Yet another step closer.
“Where is the falcon, Donal?”

Donal heard the change in tone. Strahan was a boy, but a boy with recourse to all the arcane arts of the netherworld. It made him old though young. It made him seem a man when he was not.

He is not a fool…and I dare not treat him as one.
“Taj is dead.” His voice was mostly a croak.

Strahan laughed. “Do you expect me to believe
that?
I
know
what that death entails, Donal. I know about the madness.”

“Taj is dead.”

“Do not undervalue me!” Color stood high in Strahan’s face. “I will paint you a picture,
my lord.
Let us say the falcon is dead. Because you have the wolf, you need not concern yourself with the death-ritual; you are released from the responsibility. But I hold Lorn. Lorn is—ill. The wolf is not himself. And while neither are
you
yourself, precisely, I
would hardly claim you mad.” Strahan shook his head. “With Taj dead and Lorn so close, you would not be sane.”

“What lies has Tynstar told you?”

“None at all,” the boy said gently. “It is no secret to me. A
lirless
Cheysuli, left alive, loses what mind he has left. But because your race is so proud, so strong, so
arrogant
, you cannot bear to see any warrior lose his mind along with his
lir.
And so you created a ceremony. Glorified suicide.” Strahan smiled. “Oh, aye, I know about the taboo. A Cheysuli would never stoop to suicide. But what else does a warrior do when his
lir
is dead? He gives himself over to whatever force will slay him.”

“No—”

“Aye.
I know it, Donal. Do you forget I held your father?”

Donal lunged up against his chains. “Get out of my sight!”

“No.”

“He was not—a
toy
…he was a man…a
man
—you did not defeat the warrior! Therefore you did not defeat the man! You did not defeat my
jehan—”

“Oh, but I think I did.” Strahan stared at Donal. The faintest underscore of comprehension edged his tone. “And, in doing it—I think I defeated
you—”

“He was a
man
…not a beast, not a bird, not a
thing
—” Donal sucked in a breath. “He was Duncan of the Cheysuli, from the line of the Old Mujhars…in the days when the Lion of Homana still belonged to
us—”

Strahan looked down upon him. “Us,” he echoed. “Aye. My father has taught me, too. How the Lion belonged to us all.”

“
No
!” Donal shut his teeth into his lip.
No more—give this boy no more words to twist around—
“The Lion was ever ours.
Cheysuli
—never Ihlini. Tynstar spun a tale—”

“Tynstar spun
nothing,”
Strahan retorted. “My father told the truth.”

“The old gods take you,” Donal said weakly. “There are nothing but lies in your head.”

“And nothing but truth on my tongue.” Strahan stood next to the bunk. “Even
if
my father lied, do you think he would ever claim kinship to you? Would he admit to a taint so willingly if there were no need for it?”

“Taint.”
Donal nearly spat. “Cheysuli blood would be his saving grace.”

Strahan’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a smile full of spite. “Then consider us nearly
saved
, my lord. Consider us full of grace.”

“Ku’reshtin,”
Donal swore weakly, but the boy had left the cabin.

*   *   *

He did not know where Lorn was. He had wakened on board a ship in heavy iron, half senseless from the blast of power Strahan had leveled against him. He knew Lorn still lived for the link was intact. His Old Blood gave him the ability to converse with his
lir
regardless of the presence of Ihlini, but he could not break through the wolf’s pain. He was, more or less, alone.

Yet again he entered the link in search of Taj, knowing it likely the falcon was still too distant to hear his pattern; knowing also it was worth trying. With Taj free, he had a chance. The falcon could rouse the others and warn of Strahan’s purpose.

But there was no answer from Taj. All Donal could do was detach himself from the link and hope Lorn would recover in time.

He hung in his chains and sweated into the thin blanket on his bunk.

*   *   *

Donal was brought on deck under close guard. He squinted against the sunlight and nearly fell. Confinement in irons had stiffened his muscles and slowed his reflexes. He caught himself against the taffrail and wrenched himself upright, then realized where Strahan had brought him.