The Shapechangers (9 page)

Alix scowled at him. Mutinously, she followed him through the trees to his waiting horse.

Alix was so weary by the time the evening fell she let Duncan lead her to his fire and push her down onto a thick tawny pelt without saying a word. A crofter’s daughter spent little time on horseback; her muscles ached and her legs had raw sores rubbed on them. She huddled on the pelt numbly and pulled her tattered skirts around her bare feet as best she could. When Duncan put a bowl of hot stew into her hands she thanked him shakily and began to spoon it into her mouth.

He sat down on another pelt across from her and picked up the bow Carillon had praised. Silently he began to rub it with an oiled cloth, eyes on his work.

Alix sipped at the cup of honey brew he had given her, nearly choking on its vitriolic taste. She kept her reaction from him by covering her mouth with a hand, trying not to gasp aloud. She did not wish him to see her disability, or her weariness.

He seemed oblivious to her as she scraped up the last of the stew and set the bowl aside, rattling the wooden spoon. She felt better for a full stomach, but it also made her more alert to the dangers she faced. She could no longer take refuge in the haze of exhaustion and helplessness that had dogged her during the long ride. Now she could look across the small campsite and see the dark warriors so intent on taking her away from her people.

Alix was still apprehensive, but most of the overpowering fright had left her. Duncan had treated her with calm kindness all
day, and with Finn gone she sensed no threat to her person or her equilibrium. She had the chance to consider her plight from a more sensible angle.

“Will you answer my questions, shapechanger?”

Duncan did not look up. “I have told you my name. Use it if you would speak with me.”

Alix studied his bowed head, marking how the black hair fell forward into his face as he worked. The gold earring winked through thick strands. Then she glanced at the hawk who sat so silently in the nearest tree.

“How does one get himself a
lir
?”

The bow gleamed in his supple hands. “When a Cheysuli becomes a man he must go into the forests or mountains and seek his
lir.
It is a matter of time, perhaps even weeks. He lives apart, opening himself to the gods, and there the animal who will become his
lir
seeks him out.”

“Do you say the
animal
does the choosing?”

“It is
tahlmorra.
Every Cheysuli is born to a
lir
, and a
lir
to him. It is only a matter of finding one another.”

“Yet not all animals are
lir
, Finn said.”

“No. Just as all men are not Cheysuli.”

Unwillingly she smiled at his wry tone, though he did not look at her. “What happens if the
lir
is not found?”

His hands stopped their work as his eyes came up to meet hers. “A Cheysuli with no
lir
is only half a man. We are born with it in our souls. If it lacks, we are not whole.”

“Not whole…”

“It is a thing you cannot comprehend, but a man who is not whole has no purpose. He cannot serve the prophecy.”

Alix frowned at him thoughtfully. “If you are not whole…what happens to you if Cai is slain?”

Duncan’s hands tensed on the bow. First he looked at the hawk perching in the tree, then he set the bow aside and gave her his full attention. He leaned forward intently and Alix felt the full power of his strength.

“You do not ask out of mere curiosity. If you seek to escape by slaying my
lir
you will be Cheysuli-cursed. It is not a simple thing to live with.” A flicker passed across his face. “But you would not live long enough to truly suffer.”

Alix recoiled from the deadly promise in his voice. She shook her head in speechless denial.

“I will tell you, regardless of your intent,” he said quietly, “so you will know. I put my life in your hands.” He watched her closely; judgmental. “If a man seeks to slay a Cheysuli, he need only slay his
lir.
Does he imprison that
lir
, he imprisons a
Cheysuli. He is powerless, without recourse to the gifts the gods have given us.” He relaxed minutely. “And now you know the price of the
lir
-bond.”

“How can it be so consuming?” she demanded. “You are a man; Cai a bird. How is it you keep this bond?”

Duncan shrugged as he smoothed the leather of his snug leggings. “I cannot say clearly. It is a gift of the old gods. It has been so for centuries, and will doubtless continue.” He grimaced. “Unless the Mujhar slays us all. Then Homana will lose her ancestors.”

“Ancestors!” she exclaimed. “You would have me believe
you
made this land what it is, if you speak so.”

Duncan smiled oddly. “Perhaps.”

Alix scowled at him. “I do not believe you.”

“Believe what you wish. If you ask, the
lir
will tell you.”

Her eyes went to the hawk. But she refused to hear it from the bird. She preferred to draw Duncan out. “And if you are slain, what becomes of the
lir?
”

“The
lir
returns to the wild. For the animal the broken link is not so harsh.” He smiled. “Creatures have ever been stronger than men. Cai would grieve for a while, perhaps, but he would live.”

Do not dismiss my grief so lightly
, the bird chided.
Else you ridicule our bond.

Duncan laughed silently and Alix, surprised by his response, stared at him. The solemnity she had learned to associate with him was not as habitual as she had assumed.

After a moment she put out her arms and stretched them, cracking sinews. “What truly becomes of you if the
lir
is slain?” she asked lightly.

Duncan grew very still. “A Cheysuli without a
lir
, as I said, is not whole. He is made empty. He does not choose to live.”

She froze, staring at him. “Does not choose…”

“There is a death-ritual.”

Her arms dropped. “Death!”

Duncan looked again into the trees, eyes on Cai. “A Cheysuli forsakes his clan and goes into the forests to seek death among the animals. Weaponless and prepared. However it comes, he will not deny that death.” He shrugged, making light of the matter. “It is welcome enough, to a
lir
less man.”

Alix swallowed back her revulsion. “It is a barbaric thing. Barbaric!”

Duncan was impassive. “A shadow has no life.”

“What do you say?” she snapped.

He sighed. “I cannot give you the proper words. You must
accept what I say. A
lir
less man is no man, but a shadow. And a Cheysuli cannot live so.”

“I say it is barbaric.”

“If it pleases you.”

“What
else
must I think?”

He leaned forward and placed more wood on the small fire. It snapped and leaped in response, highlighting his pale eyes into a bestial glow.

“When you have learned more of your clan, you will think differently.” Duncan relaxed, setting the bow aside as he studied her impassively. Then a faint flicker of curiosity shone in his eyes. “Would you wed Carillon?”

Alix stared at him. “Carillon!”

“Aye. I have seen what is between you.”

For a moment she could find no proper answer. The question stunned her, both for its audacity and the implications. In all her dreams of a tall prince, she had never considered marriage with him. Somehow the thought of it, and the regret that it could never be, hurt.

“No,” she said finally. “Carillon would never take me to wife. He is meant for a foreign princess; some highborn lady from Atvia, perhaps, or Erinn. Perhaps even Solinde one day, if this war between the realms ends.”

“Then you will be his light woman. His
meijha.
”

She disliked his easy assumption. “That is difficult to do if I must stay with this clan you prate about.”

Duncan grinned, suddenly so much like Finn it startled her. But the similarity vanished when she looked closer, for there were none of Finn’s roguish ways about Duncan.

“You are not a prisoner, though it must seem so to you. As for the prince…I think he means what he says. He will come back for you.” He sighed, losing the animation in his face. “I cannot say when, but he will do it.”

“I will welcome it, shapechanger.”

Duncan regarded her solemnly a moment. “Why do you fear us so much? I have said we do no harm to our own.”

Alix looked away from him. “
I
have said. I was raised to fear you, and to acknowledge the sorcery in your blood. All I have ever known is that the Cheysuli are demons…dangerous.” She looked back at him. “You raid crofts and steal the livestock. People are injured. If that is no harm, you have a strange way of showing your peaceful intentions.”

Duncan smiled. “Aye, it would seem so. But do not forget…Shaine has forced us to this. Before we lived quietly within the forests, hunting when we would and having no need to
raid
for our food. The
qu’mahlin
has made us little more than brigands, like those who ply the tracks to steal from honest folk. It was never our nature—we are warriors, not thieves—but Shaine has left us little choice.”

“Had you the choice…would you return to your former way of life?”

He fingered the gold hilt of the long-knife at his belt absently, eyes gone oddly detached. When he answered Alix heard the echos of prophecy in his voice.

“We will never regain our former way of life. We are meant for another way. The old gods have said.”

She shivered, shrinking from the implications of his words. She picked up the wooden cup, intending to drink to cover her confusion, saw it was empty and set it down.

“You will be Carillon’s light woman?”

The cup fell over as her fingers spasmed. “I will be no man’s light woman.”

Duncan’s smile was crooked; disbelieving. “I have been led to believe most women would slay for a chance to be so honored.”

“I am not most women,” she retorted. She sighed, picking at the twigs caught in her tangled braid. “I cannot conceive of it ever happening, now, so there is no need for me to consider it.”

“Then you give him up so easily?”

Alix dropped the braid and stared at him despondently, forgetting he was her enemy and thinking only of the sympathy in his voice.

“I cannot say what I will do. I cannot even say what I
want!
”

He grunted. “Those are the restraints put on you by your Homanan upbringing. Among the Cheysuli, a woman takes what man she will.” A fleeting shadow passed across his face as he frowned. A shrug banished the expression. “A woman of the clan may refuse one man and take another, easily.”

“My father did not bring me up to be a light woman,” she said firmly. “One day I will wed a crofter, like my father, or a villager.” She shrugged. “One day.”

“You father did not bring you up at all,” he said bluntly.

Alix opened her mouth to protest
yes, he most certainly did
, then realized Duncan referred to Hale. Once again she recalled the astonishing story behind her own birth—if she would accept that story as truth. But she could not tell him what she thought, so she settled for the familiar litany she had repeated each evening.

“Carillon will wed a princess. Of course.”

“Of course,” he mocked. “If he lives at all, he will wed a princess.”

“Lives!”

Duncan stretched one eyelid and rubbed at it. “The Ihlini will see to it Carillon does not live to wed.”

“The Ihlini!” Alix stared at him, horrified. “The sorcerers who serve the dark gods? But why? What do they care for Carillon? Is it not Bellam who dictates what Solinde will do?”

Duncan picked up his bow and studied it, then began to oil it once more. His voice, deep and quiet, took on an instructive tone. “Solinde has ever been a strong land, but her kings are greedy. They are not satisfied with Solinde; they also want Homana in vassalage. Bellam has sought to achieve that all his life, but these constant skirmishes at the borders—and the full battles that slay so many—have won him nothing. He seeks to gain Homana how he can, now.”

“By turning to the
Ihlini
?”

“Already Solinde is much stronger than before. Bellam seeks the unnatural power of Tynstar, who rules the Ihlini—if a sorcerer can be said to rule his own race.” He bent his head over his work. “Tynstar is the might behind Solinde, not Bellam.”

“Tynstar…” she whispered. For a moment she allowed her mind to recall the tales she had heard as a child, when her mother—despairing of winning Alix’s attention to chores—had threatened her with Ihlini retribution.

Until my father said she should not, for to speak of Tynstar and the Ihlini was to invite his power over you.
Alix shuddered once, seeking to throw off the specter, but Duncan did not seem to notice.

“Tynstar, called the Ihlini,” he said, “perhaps the most powerful of all those who serve the dark gods of the netherworld. He has arts at his command no man should have, and he uses them for Bellam’s gain. This time Homana cannot stand against her enemies.”

Alix sat upright, flushed with affrontedness and defiance. “Homana has never fallen! Not in all the years the kings of Solinde have sought to defeat us.” She thrust her chin up. “My father said.”

Duncan looked across the fire at her, showing her an expression of such amused tolerance she longed to throw the cup at him. “And in all these years the Mujhars of Homana had the Cheysuli by their sides. We used our own god-gifts to defeat the Solindish troops. Not even the Ihlini could halt us.” The tolerance faded. “Twenty-five years ago we helped Shaine hold his borders against Bellam, putting down a massive force that might have destroyed Homana. The peace that resulted from our victory would have been solidified by a marriage between Lindir and
Bellam’s son, Ellic. When that was broken, so was the peace. Now Shaine slays us, and Homana will fall to the Ihlini.”

“Twenty-five years…” she echoed.

“Lindir remained hidden with Hale for eight years of the
qu’mahlin
, fleeing her
jehan’s
wrath. When he was slain she returned, and bore you but weeks later.”