Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (34 page)

 
          
"All
Cheysuli follow their
tahlmorras
,"
Aidan answered automatically, and then knew how foolish it sounded in view of
Teirnan's actions, and those of the other
a'saii
.
Quickly he asserted, "I intend to follow
mine
."

 
          
"Freely,
or because you are constrained by blood and heritage?"

 
          
"Freely,
of course." Aidan spread his hands. "But the choice is hardly a true
one… what other path is open to me?"

 
          
"Many
paths are open to you. Any number of them will seem easier than the true path
awaiting you. Your life is very young, Aidan… do not judge what has gone before
as the measure of what will come. You may despise the gods before your time on
earth is done."

 
          
Aidan
disagreed politely. "I think not, kinsman."

 
          
Donal
arched black brows. "Innocence speaks hastily."

 
          
Disgusted,
Aidan scowled at him—this meeting with yet another dead kinsman was as obscure
as all the others—then marveled that he dared. Donal had been dead for many
years. "I have been properly raised, my lord Mujhar. You need have no fear
your son has failed in his duty, nor
his
son… I will do whatever the gods ask of me."

 
          
"And
if they ask your life?"

 
          
"They
asked
yours
," Aidan retorted.
"And you gave it."

 
          
Sorrow
altered Donal's face. He briefly touched a
lir-
band—wrought
gold depicting wolf and falcon—then let the hand fall away. "I gave it.
But my
lir
were dead… I wanted no
empty life, no madness. Better to die whole, knowing, than die a
lirless
madman."

 
          
Aidan
shivered, though he was not cold. Out of habit he moved to pull the shroud to
cover his nakedness, and as he did so he heard the chiming of links falling. He
stopped himself from touching the chain.

 
          
He
looked squarely at Donal. "You are my great-grandsire."

 
          
"Aye."

 
          
"Then
I ask a kinsman's boon." Aidan took a deep breath. "Tell me what I
must do. Tell me what I must become."

 
          
Donal,
backlighted now by sunlight, though the barge had not turned, was only a
silhouette. Aidan could no longer see his features. But he saw the pole shrink,
swallowing itself, until it was a sword in the hand of its master. The point
was set through one of the links; lifted, the chain dangled. Aidan stared,
transfixed, as the chain was carried closer.

 
          
Donal
tipped the sword. The chain slid off steel and landed in Aidan's silk-swathed
lap. "I cannot tell you what to do. The gods constrain me from that. But I
can
tell you what you must
become."

 
          
Aidan
wrenched his gaze from the chain so close to his manhood to the shadowed face
of his kinsman. "Tell me, then."

 
          
Donal's
eyes were oddly serene. "You must become Aidan," he said gently.
"Not Aidan of Homana; Aidan the prince; Aidan, son of Brennan, grandson of
Niall, great-grandson of Donal." He smiled. "You must simply become
yourself."

 
          
"But
I
am
all those things! How can I not
be?"

 
          
"That
is your choice."

 
          
Aidan
put out a shaking hand and touched the chain in his lap. "Is it?" he
asked. "Is it my choice… or the gods?"

 
          
But
when he looked up, hoping for an answer, a word, anything, Donal—and the sword—was
gone.

 
          
He
jerked awake with a gasp. His chest felt heavy, empty, as if it had been sat
upon for a very long time. He shuddered once, gulping air spasmodically, then
opened his eyes and saw Hart's haggard face.

 
          
Breath
flowed slowly back into his body, filling his chest until he thought he might
burst. Then he swallowed forcibly, working his flaccid mouth, and managed to ask
a question.

 
          
At
first, Hart only stared. And then he muttered several things, including a
leijhana tu'sai
Aidan understood was for
the gods, rather than for him, which he found oddly amusing. Quietly, he
waited.

 
          
"Do
you know," Hart said shakily, "I had composed it in my head? But the
idea of putting it down on paper…"He shook his head, then abstractedly
pushed silvering hair out of his eyes. "How could I tell Brennan? How
could I make the words?"

 
          
Aidan
smiled faintly. "No need now." He swallowed. "How long,
su'fali
?"

 
          
"Four
days," Hart answered raggedly. "I thought we had lost you. I thought
both
of you—" He wiped his hand
across his face, older now than before. "How could we have been so blind
to him? To bring him into our home, into my daughter's
bed
—" He stood abruptly and turned rigidly away, as if he
could not face Aidan. His voice was muffled. "Blythe swears she will kill
herself."

 
          
Shock
and revulsion turned Aidan cold. Suicide was taboo.

 
          
The
dignity was stripped from Hart's voice, leaving behind a father's fear and
anguish. "She swears the only way to undo her transgression is to destroy
the body itself."

 
          
Aidan
sighed wearily. "Then she is a fool indeed, and not fit to be
Cheysuli."

 
          
It
jerked Hart around. "How can you say—?" But he understood at once.
"Oh. Aye. Perhaps if she looked at it that way…" He resumed his seat
once more. "I think—I
hope
—once
the shock has passed she will be more rational After all, both Ian and Brennan
survived—"

 
          
"—and
Keely." Aidan was oddly light-headed. "
Su'fali
—four days?" It felt like only an hour. It felt like
four years.

 
          
Hart
nodded. "At first I thought the earth magic too weak to destroy the
poison. But this morning the fever broke."

 
          
Aidan
reached for an itchy face and felt stubble. He grimaced in distaste; he
detested his propensity for growing a beard. It felt oddly unclean. Or perhaps
merely too foreign, evoking his other bloodlines.

 
          
Hart's
smile was strained. "The Homanan in you. Brennan and I are smooth as a
baby—" He broke it off. Only the closed eyes gave away his grief, and then
he opened them again. New lines etched his flesh.

 
          
Aidan
glanced around. He was in the guest chamber allotted to him. The room was empty
save for Hart, who sat in a heavy chair beside the bed.

 
          
Teel.

 
          
Here
. The raven briefly fluttered wings;
he perched, as always, on the canopy.
Rest
yourself, lir… I am here
.

 
          
Awareness
reasserted itself; Aidan looked sharply at Hart. "The Ihlini?"

 
          
"Gone.
Blythe's scream brought servants… Tevis—no,
Lochiel
—dared
not remain. Too many Cheysuli." Hart's tone was grim. "He took his
leave as so many of them do: in smoke and purple fire."

 
          
Aidan
was, abruptly, in the audience chamber, holding a tiny infant only barely
named. He recalled the insignificant weight; the crumpled, sleeping face; the
hope for continuity.

 
          
He
recalled also the look of pride and peace in Hart's face as he had named Tevis
second-father.

 
          
The
pain was greater than expected, because it was twofold. The
kivarna
gave him that; he experienced
his own grief while also echoing Hart's.

 
          
Aidan
drew in a deep breath. He could think of no words worth the saying. So he said
the obvious ones. "I am sorry,
su'fali
."

 
          
"I
know." A slight gesture closed the topic. A right-handed gesture, since he
had no left.

 
          
And
suddenly Aidan's fear and anguish was for himself. He thrust his left hand into
the air, staring at it fixedly. It was swathed in bandages. He remembered, with
unwanted clarity, the vision of steel piercing flesh, slicing too easily
through skin and blood and muscle, dividing even bone.

 
          
"Is
it whole? Oh, gods,
su'fali
—is it
whole?"

 
          
Hart
drew in a deep breath. "Whole," he said, "but damaged."

 
          
"How
damaged?" All he could see was the old pain in Hart's eyes whenever he
spoke of a clan no longer his. Would he share it, now? "Will I have the
use of it?"

 
          
"I
cannot say."

 
          
Aidan
struggled upright. "Cannot, or will not? Are you trying to save me grief?
Trying to save me the realization—?"

 
          
Hart's
face hardened. "I told you the truth, Aidan. No one knows. The hand is
whole, but damaged. You may or may not recover the use of it. I promise you
nothing at all."

 
          
"A
maimed warrior has no place in the clans," Aidan quoted numbly.

 
          
Pain
and anguish flared afresh in Hart, with such virulence that it smashed through
Aidan's awareness like a mangonel stone. "No," he agreed.

 
          
Aidan
slumped back against bolsters. Strength and fear and comprehension spilled out
of him like a bag of grain emptied. He had not wanted to pass the pain to Hart
yet again. Ihlini poison had left him weak. "But," he said quietly,
"I am still a prince, as you are, with a place at the Lion's side, with a
hand or without."

 
          
When
he could, Hart smiled. "Aye."

 
          
"The
gods will have to be content with me as I am—
they
gave me the burden." Aidan's eyes drifted closed.
"Where are my links?"

 
          
"Your
links?"

 
          
Eyes
remained closed. "The links on my belt." He was naked beneath the
coverlet, as he had been on the bier.

 
          
"They
were put away. Do you want them?"

 
          
"No.
Just to know they are safe."
Because
there will be a third to come. There must be; I met Donal
.

 
          
"Aidan."

 
          
All
he could do was grunt.

 
          
"Shall
I arrange to send you home once you are feeling stronger?"

 
          
It
made sense. He wanted to go. He had very nearly died—he would like to see home
again, and all of his kinfolk—

 
          
—but
his great-grandsire Donal had come to set him back on the proper path.

 
          
"No,"
he managed to whisper. "There is Erinn yet to see."

 
          
So
, Teel observed,
you did not lose
all
of your
wits
.

 
          
Sluggish
irritation.
Only the use of a hand
.

 
          
Teel,
to do him credit, did not respond to that. He merely tucked his head under a
wing.