Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (45 page)

           
Hart turned toward the Ihlini. Shock
at seeing Brennan had overtaken the immediacy of his disability, but now it was
obvious that Brennan had been told. He had expected it. And it obviously made a
difference.

           
Emptiness overwhelmed him. Despair
was overpowering.

           
"I offer your brother a choice,"
Strahan said, "now I will give it to you."

           
Hart sighed wearily, too weary to
protest as he stripped fallen hair out of his gaunt face. Cheysuli were
characteristically angular, formed of remarkably striking bones, but captivity,
illness and strain had fined Hart down too far. If the dark skin were any tauter,
the cheekbones would cut through flesh. "You asked him for Homana. Now you
ask me for Solinde."

           
"But your bargain is
different." Strahan's fingers splayed across the lid of the box, tapping
idly. "He says there is no inducement to make him accept my service. But
you are a different man. What would you have of me?"

           
Hart's laughter had the edge of
madness in h. "My freedom," he said promptly. "The freedom of my
rujholli. No further dealings with you."

           
"Unacceptable." Strahan
smiled. "Serve me. Hart. Accept the Seker as your lord."

           
"And destroy the
prophecy." Hart shook his head. For all he meant to sound fierce and
adamant, unimpressed by Strahan's words, he knew he sounded precisely what he
was: badly frightened, nearly worn through, on the brink of breaking down from
the loss of hand and clan. It took all he had to speak steadily, betraying
nothing of what he felt inside the dwindling shell. "You have taken my
hand, Ihlini . . . you have stolen my heritage from me. I am, as you have said,
clanless and unwhole. There is no place for me among the Cheysuli." He
spread his arms and displayed hand and stump. "What have I left to
lose?"

           
"Your lir"

           
Hart laughed at him, though it had a
ragged sound.

           
"Rael is free .. . Dar never
caught him. Try again, Ihlini."

           
"He may be free," Strahan
conceded after a moment, "but you are separated. Eventually, the lir-bond
shall grow thin, too thin . . . grow brittle, so brittle . . . until it cannot
survive, and breaks."

           
Hart drew in a deep breath. "So
be it, Ihlini. Madness—and eventual death—is preferable to serving you and your
noxious god."

           
Strahan tilted his head toward Brennan.
"The life of your twin-born brother."

           
Hart looked at Brennan. He saw the
rigidity of the body, the bleakness in yellow eyes. He looked for some
suggestion, some hint of what Brennan desired him to say. But there was none.
Brennan looked soundly defeated, cocooned in futility.

           
That shook Hart more than anything
else. He drew in another deep breath. "An idle promise, Ihlini. Brennan
would sooner be dead than have me become your minion merely to save his
life."

           
Brennan's smile was bittersweet.

           
Strahan considered it. He stroked
the wooden box. "I will give you the girl."

           
Anger flared anew. "Is she not
what you promised Dar?"

           
"Dar is expendable."
Strahan brightened. "Would his life be enough for you?"

           
Hart drew in his left arm and hugged
it against his chest. "You will kill whomever you choose, regardless of
what I want. I would be a fool to accept such terms."

           
"Give in." Strahan
suggested. "The service will not harm you. You will still be Prince of
Solinde. Still have the white-haired woman. Still have your games of chance. What
more could you want?"

           
Hart's hard-won demeanor began to
slip. In his eyes was emptiness. "What I want you cannot give."

           
Brennan, clearly afraid, took a step
toward him.

           
"No." Strahans tone was a
whiplash of sound that hissed in the glassy cavern. "This is his choice,
now."

           
"No!" Brennan shouted. A
tendril of flame flowed out of the Gate and slapped him to the ground.

           
A second gout deftly blocked Hart's
move to reach his brother. It beat him back until he cursed aloud.

           
“Now," Strahan said, "tell
me what you want."

           
Hart hugged his arm, swaying on his
feet. "I want my clan!” he shouted. "I want the regard and honor of
my race, not the ouster I am due." He thrust his left arm into the air and
displayed the emptiness at the end of his leather-cuffed wrist. His arm shook
with the tension of his rigid body. "With one blow of a sword, Dar had me
stripped of my heritage. Maimed warrior, worthless warrior ... not fit to be
part of the clan. And so I am kin-wrecked—" He shut his eyes a moment,
then drew in an unsteady breath and went on. "Where does it leave me,
Ihlini? Why should I serve you?" Hart stood on the edge of the Gate,
oblivious to its flame as the tears ran down his face. "You cannot give
back my hand—no more than grow back your ear!"

           
Strahan opened the box.

           
In noisy silence. Hart stared at the
hand in its bed of silk. There was no blood. The cut had been clean, leaving no
gore at all. Oddly dispassionate, coldly assessive, he studied the severed
hand. He marked scars won in childhood and arms-practice. The enlargement of
one knuckle. The sinews beneath brown flesh. There was no mistaking the hand.
He knew it was his own.

           
Instinctively he made an impossible
fist. As the tremor spread through his stump, the hand in the box closed its
fingers.

           
Hart cried out. He wavered on the brink.
Flame licked up and drove him back, staggering, until he fell to his knees. He
cradled his arm and rocked.

           
To and fro.

           
To and fro.

           
Oblivious to his brother.

           
Strahan's tone was gentle. "You
have only to say you will serve me."

           
Hart hugged his arm and rocked.

           
Strahan looked at Brennan. "You
have a choice as well."

           
Brennan knelt on the glassy floor.
All he could do was stare at Hart, sharing a measure of his anguish.

           
"I will let you consider
it." A flick of his hand built an encircling fence of flame to keep them
near the Gate.

           
Then Strahan walked away. As he
moved, smoke followed. The columns sang their atonal song.

           
Corin leaned back on his elbows,
gritting his teeth in response to the discomfort of ribs and legs. He was
indeed fortunate, as Strahan had pointed out, to have survived the fall from
the cliff. To survive the fever that followed. But he had, and now he healed;
with healing came renewed and abiding anger: he was prisoner to the Ihlini.

           
And yet he was not in a cell. His
room was small, hut hardly bereft of luxuries. The bed was comfortable. The
hangings were richly patterned, if in runic glyphs he did not know and feared
to leam. The door was clearly unlocked. If he could walk, he might go free. But
his legs were not quite healed.

           
He had tried, time and again, to
contact Kiri through the link. But Valgaard was the font of Strahan's power;
even Old Blood was neutralized. It would take wits instead of magic to win free
of his captor's grip.

           
The door swung open. Corin tensed as
Strahan entered. He saw rich dark clothing, rune-wrought circlet, the
compelling mismatched eyes. And he knew the time had come at last to meet
absolute power in human form.

           
The room lay in darkness in
deference to his rest. But now Strahan bent over a gilded candle, blew, set the
wick ablaze. The flame was purest purple.

           
Another. Another. Until the room ran
with lurid godfire, the excrescence of the god.

           
Strahan stood over him. "The
time is come," he said gently. "You must make your choice."

           
Corin slowly leaned back against
piled bolsters and uncrooked his elbows, hearing the pop of weakened joints;
feeling the fatigue of battered flesh. He tried consciously to ease the tension
from his rigid body, knowing he would fail.

           
"I have something for
you." Strahan put it into his hand.

           
Corin stared at it. A ring. A
circlet of heavy gold, incised with careful runes, and a brilliant blood-red
ruby held firm by taloned prongs. The ring of the Prince of Homana.

           
Chilled, Corin looked at Strahan.
"You have my rujholli"

           
"Brennan. Hart. You" In
the eerie light, Strahan's face was etched in fretwork shadows. "In
addition to your lir."

           
Corin's eyes went back the ring. It
was too large for him, he knew, because he had tried it on once. Brennan was
taller, heavier, more strongly made than Corin; Hart was very like him. Their
fingers were longer, stronger, browner. More Cheysuli than his.

           
Corin looked at his own signet. The
emerald still glittered against his flesh. The gold shone brightly as ever, if
perverted by the godfire. Strahan had not touched it.

           
"Trade," Strahan
suggested.

           
His hand spasmed closed, trapping
the ring in his palm.

           
"This is Brennan's ring."

           
"Put it on, and it is
yours," Strahan smiled. "And all it represents.”

           
Corin swallowed tightly. "Is he
dead? Have you killed him? Is that why you taunt me with it?"

           
"He is quite unharmed, and I do
not taunt. I offer."

           
Strahan paused. "If you want
it, it is yours. You need only put it on."

           
"I am Crown Prince of Atvia."

           
"You are prisoner to
me,"'Strahan moved a trifle closer. "There is no need for
dissembling, Corin. I understand very well what it is to desire something very
badly. I understand passion and ambition and the need for a thing fulfilled. Do
you think I do this for pleasure?"

           
His eerie eyes were black in the
purple glare. "Brennan is unfit for his inheritance. Homana lacks a proper
prince. There is a need for you."

           
"Unfit—" Corin clenched
the ring in his hand. "What have you done to him?"

           
Strahan's gemstones glittered.
"Shown him what he is: a man unfit to rule."

           
"Brennan is more fit to rule
than any man I have seen!"

           
"More fit than you?” Strahan
smiled coolly. "I think you discount yourself needlessly . . . and I think
you misjudge him." He turned away briefly, paced three steps, turned back.
And halted. "If a man is unfit to rule, should he not be replaced?"

           
"My rujholli—“

           
But the angry protest was
overridden. "If a man is incapable of holding the Lion, should he be its
master?"

           
"And if Brennan were unfit.
Hart is next in line!”

           
"Hart will have Solinde."

           
Corin spoke distinctly. "My
jehan was most particular in parceling out the realms. Mine is Atvia."

           
"Your realm, Corin, has been
mine for several months, because of Lillith's power over its lord. But now
Alaric is dead. His heir has disappeared. Into the confusion, I have moved to
quell the fear." Strahan smiled. "There is no need for you
there."

           
Corin sighed. "They would still
turn to Hart. He is second-born. I would end up with Solinde."

           
"Hart will never be accepted in
Homana ... at least by the Cheysuli."

           
A chill touched
Conn
's neck. "What have you done to
Hart?" Foreboding knotted his belly. "Why would they not accept
him?"