Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (4 page)

           
I beaded straight toward the nearest
gate leading into the inner city, but nothing in Mujhara is straight. Streets
and alleys and doses wind around and around like Erinnish knotwork, lacking
beginning and end. So the Prince of Homana and his royal mount also wound
around and around.

           
In fall, the light dies quickly.
With the sun gone the streets lay shadow-clad in deepening darkness. I frowned
against those few torches that threw inadequate illumination from dwellings
into the street, for they played tricks on the eyes by hiding real obstacles
even as they created others.

           
Your own fault, I reminded myself.
Ion offered a warm pavilion, dry pallet, good food, company, drink.

           
Well, so would Homana-Mujhar,
providing the horse allowed me to reach it before the night was through.

           
The rising yowl of an angry cat
broke into my thoughts.

           
The sound came closer stall, rising
in volume as well as tone; I turned, searching, and saw the dark streak come
running at me from out of the shadowed wynd. Behind the cat came a dog
singularly dedicated to catching his prey. Neither animal paid mind to me or my
horse, both intent upon the moment. The cat flew by me, closely followed by the
dog, and as I turned to watch them go I came face to face with a cloaked and
hooded man.

           
I stopped short. So did my horse; he
nearly walked over me. As it was, I felt hoof against heel before I could step
away.

           
The cloaked figure did not attempt
to move out of my way, nor did he offer apology. He stood his ground. I thought
perhaps he mistook me for another; when he put out a restraining hand as I made
to go on around him I knew he did not, and I closed my free hand around the
hilt of my knife.

           
"A moment of your time,"
said the cloaked figure quietly.

           
The gelding, so close behind me,
snorted loudly into my left ear and showered me with mucus as I jumped and
swore. The stranger pushed the hood from his head and let it settle on his
shoulders. I could see his face dimly in the diffused light of the torches. He
was smiling; my horse's response had amused him.

           
I let the merest hint of knife blade
show and hoped my voice sounded steadier than I felt. Thieves and cutpurses
abound in any city, even Mujhara, and I was not in an area I knew well. For
that matter, only rarely do I go into the city alone at all. Ian is almost
always with me, or others from the palace.

           
"I carry no wealth," I
challenged, attempting to sound older and more confident than I was. "I
have only this horse, which is far from a valuable beast at the moment. Else I
would be riding."

           
The smile widened a little. "If
I wanted your horse and your wealth, my young lord, I would take both. As it
is, I desire only a moment of your time. But first, let us have better light. I
would let you see to whom you speak."

           
I opened my mouth to repudiate his
arrogance and his demands upon my time; I said nothing. I said nothing because
I could not, being struck dumb by the illumination he conjured out of the air.

           
A hand. The merest flick of eloquent
fingers, sketching, and a rune glowed in the air. Deepest, richest purple,
swallowing the darkness and creating light as bright as day.

           
I thrust up an arm to block the
sudden flame and fell back two steps. Briefly I felt the bulwark of my horse's
chest behind me. But then he, too, took fright from the fire and shied badly,
lunging away so quickly be jerked the reins free of my hand. I whirled, trying
to catch him, but for the moment his lameness was forgotten. He wheeled and
went back the way we had come, spraying t thick clots of mud into the air and
liberally daubing my clothing as well as my unshielded face.

           
But the horse was the least of my
worries. Much as he had spun I also spun, but not away. Not yet. I faced the man
instead, though admittedly only through utter astonishment and no particular
measure of courage. But I could hardly see him through the brilliance of his
rune.

           
The hand dropped back to his side,
hidden in woolen folds of darkest blue. The rune remained, hissing, shedding
tendrils of brilliant flame,. . . and yet there was no heat. Only the bitter
cold of harshest winter.

           
"There." He was content
with what he had wrought. "Light, my lord. Illumination. Not in the manner
to which you are accustomed, perhaps, but light nonetheless. Which would lead me
to believe there is no Darkness in my sorcery if I can conjure Light."

           
Illumination filled out the details
of his face. He was an immensely attractive man, as some men are; not precisely
pretty, but more than merely handsome. As a child H he would have been
beautiful. But he was no longer a p child, and had not been for years.

           
Suspicion flared much as the rune
flared, blinding and all-consuming. At once I looked for the telltale eyes and
found the stories true. One blue. One brown. The eyes of a demon, men said of
people with mismatched eyes; appropriate, in this case, for his name was linked
with such. With Asar-Suti himself, the god of the netherworld, who made and
dwells in darkness.

           
Black hair, worn loose and very
long, was held back from his face by a narrow silver circlet. He was
clean-shaven, as if he wished all to see his face and marvel at its clarity of
features. No modest Ihlini, Strahan; he wore pride and power like a second
cloak, and finer than any silk. I saw the glint of silver at one ear. His left,
as if he mocked the lir-gold of the Cheysuli.

           
But then perhaps he mocked no one;
he could not wear an earring in his right because he lacked the ear.

           
I took a single backward step.
Stopped. Again, not because I found a sudden spurt of courage, but because I
found I could not move. Facing him, seeing for myself what manner of man he
was, I could not go immediately out of the sorcerer's presence.

           
Ensorcellment? Perhaps. But I choose
to call it consuming fascination.

           
I licked my lips. Breath was harsh
in my throat. It was difficult to swallow. A weight was pressing on my ribs.

           
The contents of my belly threatened
to become discontent with their surroundings.

           
The odd eyes watched me. Strahan
judged, as Ceinn bad judged. And, like Ceinn, the Ihlini saw I had no gold of
my own. But then, undoubtedly, Strahan already knew quite well of my lack.

           
He smiled. I wondered how much of
Tynstar was in him, his father, whom men claimed a handsome man.

           
And his Solindish mother, Electra,
who had been Carillon's wife and queen before Carillon had slain her. Oh aye, I
wondered how much of Electra was in him, because she was in me as well.

           
"Kinsman." Coolly, he
acknowledged the blood between us. "You must tender my regards to your
father when I am done with you."

           
I did not care for the implications
in the statement.

           
And yet I knew I stood little chance
against him, whatever he chose to do. Lirless, I lacked the magic of my race.
Nothing would turn the Ihlini's power if he chose to use it against me.

           
Strahan smiled again. Women, I knew,
would be at once swallowed whole by the magnitude of his allure.

           
And men. For a different reason,
perhaps, but the results would be the same. Where Strahan had need of loyal
servants, he would find them. He would take them. And use them up before he
ever let them go.

           
"I have heard stories of you,
Niall." That did not serve to settle me at all. "Tales of how the
Prince of Homana, young as he is, bears a striking resemblance to Carillon. Of
course it is in the blood, you being his grandson, but I wonder. . . .” The
smile showed itself again. There was speculation in his ill-matched eyes.
"When I knew him, he was an old man made older by my father's arts, and he
was ill.
Ill
and dying, slowly, as the disease devoured
him. But still a strong man, as strong as he could be."

           
Black brows drew down a little
beneath the silver circlet; he was judging me again, and using my grandsire as
the point of comparison. Like my mother. Like so many

           
Homanans. "He was the enemy, of
course, a man I desired to slay—especially once he had slain my father,"
the cool voice hardened, "but in the end, Osric of Atvia did the slaying
for me." Briefly, one corner of his beautiful mouth twisted in an
expression of irritation. "And now, in some strange manner, I see I must
face Carillon again."

           
"No." Inwardly, I drew in
as deep a breath as I could.

           
It did not dull the fear, but it
filled the emptiness of my belly with something other than utter panic.

           
Strahan's arched brows
rose.."No?"

           
I wanted to clear my throat before I
tried my voice again. I did not. because I knew he would take it as a sign of
my fear. And then, looking into the sorcerer's face, I no longer cared what he
thought or what he knew.

           
This man is kin to me ... Ihlini,
perhaps, and powerful, but still a man like me.

           
"You face me, Strahan," I
told him as evenly as I could. "Not my grandsire. Not my father. I am the
one you face."

           
The Ihlini smiled a little.
"You, then." Casually said, as if I hardly mattered. So easily was I
discounted by Tynstar's son. "Again; you will tender my regards to your
father, the Mujhar."

           
I smiled. I felt it stretch my lips
a little, and heard the steadiness of my voice. As even as I could want it.
"Be certain I will, Strahan. And know he will be pleased you have shown
yourself in Mujhara. He has sought you many years."

           
"And will seek me many
more." He was patently unruffled by my bravado. "What is between
Donal and me will be settled one day, but not tonight. Tonight I came seeking
you."

           
"And if I said I had neither
the time nor the inclination to trade empty threats with you?"

           
Strahan laughed. The rune hissed and
spat and pulsed against the darkness, as if it laughed as well. "The wolfs
cub hackles, snapping; the falcon's hatchling spreads his wings and tries to
fly." The laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun. Softly, he said,
"A suggestion, my lord prince: waste no effort in displays of dominance
when you have no lir to mimic."

           
From a Homanan, from a Cheysuli, the
taunts were bad enough. But from an Ihlini sorcerer—

           
Rage roared up from inside my head.
I heard a voice shouting at Strahan, calling him foul names in Homanan and Old
Tongue alike. That much I knew of the language. I felt my body take two steps
forward, saw my hands rise up as if to clutch at the Ihlini's throat. And then
my hands struck through the flaming nine and the bones filled up with pain.

           
Cold. Not hot. Cold.

           
I cried out. I felt myself crushed
to my knees in the mud of the street. The rune ate through leather and flesh to
my bones and turned my blood to ice.

           
Through the haze of pain and the
glare of living flame, I saw the Ihlini's inhumanly beautiful face. Dimly, I
saw how he watched me, glinting eyes narrowed, black brows drawn down as if he
studied a specimen. Waiting. Watching. Examining the results of the specimen's
foolishness I watched him watching me and remembered who he was.

           
As well as what he was.

           
At last, he spoke. "Not now.
Not yet. Later."

           
No more than that. A fluid gesture
of one hand and the rune ran away from my body, spilling out of my flesh like
blood from an opened vein. It ran down my thighs to splash against the mud,
pooling like rancid water. Puddled. Ran in upon itself. And then buried itself
upward to renew its form in the shadows of the night.

           
Strahan looked down upon me as I
knelt in the mud of the street. Once again he smiled. I saw genuine amusement
and a trace of pleasure in his eyes; a look of contented reminiscence.