Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven Read online

  Aidan reached out and recaptured the skin he had tossed aside, dragging it across grassy ground. "What was he like?"

  Ian quirked an eyebrow. "I thought you said you met him yourself ten nights ago."

  Aidan waved a hand. "Aye, aye—I did… but how am I to know if he was real or not? You met the real man. The warrior Mujhar who won Homana back from Solinde and the Ihlini."

  "Your great-great-grandsire." Ian smiled, tugging Tasha's tufted ears in absentminded affection. "I remember little enough. I was three the last time I saw him… to me he was little more than a huge man dressed in leather and ringmail, glinting and creaking when he moved. He was entirely Homanan, in appearance as well as habits… to me, that was what counted. Carillon the Homanan: my jehana made it so. He was Mujhar, aye—but I was taught to be aware his blood was different from mine."

  "But you were kin to him."

  Ian shrugged. "My granddam was his cousin… aye, we were kin, but the link was never explored. There was something else that took precedence—" He shifted against his saddle, resettling Tasha's weight. "I was the bastard son of Donal's Cheysuli light woman. I was not entirely approved of by the Homanans, who knew Donal was pledged to marry Carillon's daughter."

  "Aislinn," Aidan murmured.

  "Aislinn of Homana." Ian sighed and thrust one arm beneath his head. Gray-white hair, in the darkness, was silvered by the moon. "My jehana was half Homanan herself, but she hated it. I remember her petitioning the gods to let her spill out the Homanan in her blood many times—whenever my jehan left the Keep for Homana-Mujhar." Ian was silent a moment. "Eventually, she did… in the Keep across the Bluetooth, she spilled all of her blood. Homanan as well as Cheysuli."

  Aidan made no comment. The history was his own, and well-learned in now-distant boyhood, but hearing it from Ian made it come alive. His great-uncle had known those people. Carillon, Finn, Donal—even Alix herself, who had proven to be the catalyst for the resurgence of the Old Blood. Others carried it, aye, but it was Alix who, by bearing a son to Duncan, breathed new life into the prophecy.

  Who put new blood into the stable—Grimly, Aidan smiled. When the old blood grows too weak, the new blood makes it strong.

  But his thoughts did not linger there. From his great-uncle, as with others, the emotions were tangible things. Aidan sensed shame, regret, grief; a tinge of bitterness. He put aside his own.

  "Su'fali," he said softly, "has it followed you so long?"

  Startled, Ian glanced over. His eyes asked the question.

  Aidan answered it. "She killed herself, your jehana. She brought dishonor to her name, expunged her rune-sign from the birthlines… but that does not destroy the memory of the mother in the mind of her son."

  "No." Ian's tone was rough.

  With care, Aidan proceeded. "Once a year you carry out i'toshaa-ni—"

  Ian cut him off. "That is my concern."

  Aidan drew breath and tried again. "I think it is wrong for one man—one warrior—to assume responsibility for things he had nothing to do with."

  "And you think that is why I carry out i'toshaa-ni?" Ian's eyes in the darkness were black, save for the rim of feral yellow. "You do not know everything, regardless of your 'gift.' "

  Aidan gestured placation. "No, perhaps not—but I think that is a part of it. As for the rest, there is also the knowledge of what Lillith did to you, and what your child on her became."

  Ian plugged the wineskin abruptly, squeaking the stopper home. "These are personal, private things."

  "So is what I feel. Yet everyone wants to know."

  Ian's motion to toss down the wineskin was arrested. Then, in silence, he set it carefully by his saddle. "Aye," he said finally, "everyone wants to know."

  Aidan wet dry lips. "And yet when the taboo topic is raised, everyone turns away."

  Ian's silence was loud.

  "Taboo," Aidan repeated. "Even mere contemplation that a Cheysuli warrior might lie with an Ihlini woman."

  Ian was, if nothing else, a man of much compassion. Yet now the emotions Aidan sensed were anger and bitterness. "We have little reason to consider such a bedding a benevolent thing," Ian declared. "Look at Lillith—daughter to Tynstar himself, half-sister to Strahan… servant of the Seker." He sighed, rubbing at tired eyes; age, all of a sudden, sat heavily on him. "Lovely, lethal Lillith—who, holding my lir, ensorcelled me so well I had little choice in the matter… and then bore me abomination."

  "Who then bore my father a daughter." Aidan stroked back hair. "You see, su'fali, it has been done before. And children have been born."

  "But children who are not Firstborn." Ian's voice was emphatic. "Now, more than ever, we must be vigilant. The Ihlini have proved we can be tricked, even into bed… they have proved they have the power to alter the prophecy. It is only our good fortune the bloodlines were not whole…" Abruptly, his tone altered. "Aidan, if ever a child of the Lion sires a child for the Seker, everything is undone. Everything is undone."

  Tension was palpable. Aidan sought to break it. "Do not fret about me, su'fali. I may be bound for my wedding, but she will not be an Ihlini."

  Ian's face was taut. "There is danger in complacency."

  "Aye," Aidan agreed. "But even if I should fail, the gods will tend to the outcome."

  "Do not—" But Ian broke it off.

  Aidan nearly laughed. "You were intending to suggest I not trust so much to the gods? But that is heresy, su'fali. And you a devout believer."

  Ian fought to retain his composure. "This is not a topic for jest and mummery. We have dedicated our lives to the prophecy, devoted all honor and commitment to the gods—"

  "—with whom I speak." Aidan shrugged correction. "Or, at least, with one."

  "Aidan—"

  "Fate," Aidan declared. "The Homanan word for tahlmorra. If it is meant to be, surely it will be. And nothing I do can change it."

  Desperation underscored Ian's tone. "But it can be changed. By me, by you, by—"

  "—Ihlini?" Aidan nodded. "Certainly they may try. And perhaps they can win—the gods gave us all free choice."

  Staring in dismay, Ian slowly shook his head. "Does it make no difference to you? Does any of it matter?"

  Aidan sighed. Weariness swept up out of the darkness and threatened to swallow him whole. "Su'fali, I do not mean to be contentious or perverse. But I have these thoughts, these feelings—" He shook his head, dismissing it. "I promise—all of it matters to me. But as for making a difference…"He collapsed against his saddle, too tired to stay upright. Through a yawn, he said, "—we shall have to wait and see."

  The day dawned bright and warm, with no hint of rain in the air. They rode in companionable silence, taking comfort in mere presence, and lost themselves in the season. It was very nearly midday when Ian pulled his gray to a halt atop a hillock. "There," he said. "Solinde."

  Aidan, reining in his dun, squinted across the distance. "How can you tell?" he asked. "It looks the same as Homana."

  "There speaks ignorance." Ian grinned. "Is this land the same as the land around Mujhara?"

  "No, of course not—"

  "Is this land the same as that we left yesterday?"

  "No, no—of course not—"

  "And while there are similarities between this patch of ground and that, there are also differences." Ian resettled reins, unthreading tangled gray horsehair from red-dyed braided leather. "Just as there are in people."

  Aidan forbore to answer. His great-uncle was being obscure.

  No more than you, reminded Teel. The raven was a black blot against blue sky, swinging back from the border to return to his lir.

  Aidan scowled into air. "How much longer to Lestra?"

  Ian shrugged. "A six-day or so… I am not certain. The only time I went there was in lir-shape. It changes the measure of distance."

  Aidan nodded vaguely. He sat quietly a long moment, soaking up the sun, then relaxed into the saddle. The depth of his relief was unexpected as well as welcome. Then he
sat rigidly upright, thrusting arms into the air to cloak himself in the day. "Gods—I can breathe again!"

  Ian's question was quiet. "Has it been so very bad?"

  Aidan shrugged, lowering his arms. He was unwilling to discuss it. Not now. Not here; he did not want to destroy the new freedom he was feeling. "Not all of the time. But now it does not matter. I am no longer in Homana, hounded by gods and fetches, but in a new realm. And beginning a new life—complete with a cheysula." He grinned at his kinsman. "Four daughters," he laughed. "Hart must be hungry for sons."

  "Hart is hungry for nothing except the means to wager." Ian's tone was dryly affectionate.

  Aidan laughed. "Jehan said I will like him."

  Ian nodded agreement. "Everyone likes Hart… until he wins their coin."

  Lir. It was Teel. Lir, there comes a storm.

  "Storm?" Aidan spoke aloud. "The sky is blue as can be—"

  Look behind you, lir. There the sky is black.

  Aidan, sighing, twisted in his saddle to glance back the way they had come. "Teel says there is a storm…" He stopped speaking to gape inelegantly. "Where did that come from?"

  "Tasha, too—" Ian also broke off. Then, with exceeding mildness, "I think we had better run."

  Behind them the world was dark. Aidan glanced back toward Solinde—summer-clad Solinde—then back again to Homana, wearing wind-torn robes of black and gray, edged with a hem of lightning. "How do we outrun that?"

  "By trying," Ian suggested, setting heels to his horse.

  Aidan wasted a moment staring at the storm sweeping inexorably toward them both, rolling out of Homana like a wave of brackish ocean. It was impossible to believe; where they were it was warm, bright, still.

  Then stillness began to move. Brightness began to fade.

  By trying, Aidan agreed, then followed Ian's lead, sending his dun after the gray. Above him the rising wind buffeted Teel, who cried his displeasure.

  "There is no cover!" Aidan shouted ahead to his kinsman. "The border is too barren… there is no place we can go!"

  "Just run!" came Ian's reply, tossed back over a shoulder.

  Aidan hunched down over the dun's neck, recalling the last storm-flight he and the gelding had shared. Then it had proved disastrous; he feared now might be the same. There were no trees with which to collide, but the scrubby grass of the borderlands could hide all manner of holes. A horse, falling in flight, could easily break his neck.

  Or the head of the man who rides it—

  He chanced a glance over a shoulder, squinting back stinging hair. The sky was indigo-black. He could not see the horizon. "Teel!" he shouted. Lir—

  Here, the raven answered. This wind disturbs my feathers.

  Aidan peered upward, reassured to see the raven. Teel was battling wind and winning, though his pattern was erratic.

  We need trees, Aidan sent. Trees—or better, a croft-Too late—Teel cried.

  The curtain of darkness caught up, then settled its folds about them. It turned the day to night.

  The dun was laboring. Fear dotted a line of sweat across summer-slick shoulders, brown in place of dun. Cold, clammy wind bathed exposed flesh. "Su'fali—" Aidan shouted. "We cannot run them forever!"

  The first bolt of lightning broke free from the sky and struck the ground in front of them, blasting apart the earth in a rain of dirt and grass. The brilliance blinded Aidan. The explosion of thunder was deafening, buffeting his skull.

  The dun gelding screamed, then tried to bolt. That he did not was only because Aidan used all the strength and skill he had to hold the horse in place; a blind man tipped off a frightened horse was surely bound for death. He fought even as the horse fought, spitting dirt from a gritty mouth, and blinked burning eyes repeatedly, trying to banish blackness.

  —not blind—I am not—

  "Teel!" he shouted. "Su'fali—" In thunder-bruised ears it was merely noise.

  No rain, only wind. The darkness was absolute. It muffled the world around him like swaddling cloths on a corpse.

  Teel—Through the link.

  Lightning plunged into earth before him. The air stank and sizzled, raising the hair on his arms. Silhouetted against the brilliance was the shape of a man on horseback.

  "Ian—" Aidan screamed. "Oh, gods—no—not him…"

  The gelding thrashed and reared, as blinded and deafened as Aidan.

  "Wait—wait, you thrice-cursed nag from the netherworld—"

  But the dun chose not to wait. He shed Aidan easily and galloped off into keening darkness.

  Aidan landed hard, one arm crooked awkwardly, but scrambled up without thinking about his own discomfort. Somewhere before him was his great-uncle and the gray horse who had fallen.

  Teel, he sent frenziedly. Lir—where is he… ask Tasha—

  Through the link came the familiar tone, naked of customary bite. Six paces ahead, no more.

  Six paces… Aidan counted. And nearly tripped over Tasha, huddled by Ian's side.

  "Su'fali—? Su'fali—"

  Ian offered no answer.

  "Oh, gods, not like this… please, do not be dead—"

  Eyelids twitched. "No," Ian blurted. "No—not like this… agh, gods, harani…" The voice was tight with pain. "How—is the horse?"

  Aidan looked, scraping hair out of his face. The wind was merciless. "Where—oh." The gray stood exhausted on three legs; a shattered foreleg dangled. Aidan looked back to his kinsman. "Broken leg," he answered tersely. "Su'fali—what of you?"

  Ian's smile was faint, then spilled away. "Broken, too…" he gasped. "But I think hip in place of leg…" One hand hovered over a hip. "The horse fell, and rolled… gods, I will shame myself—"

  "Because it hurts?" Aidan loosened Ian's belt gently. "You can cry, if you like—do you think I will complain?"

  Ian's face was gray. His bottom lip bled from where teeth had broken through. "First, tend the horse. He has been a good mount."

  Aidan did not answer, squinting against the wind and grit and hair as he peeled the waistband from Ian's abdomen.

  The weak voice gained authority. "Harani, I will wait. The horse deserves a good death."

  "And you, none at all." But Aidan knew his kinsman; he went to tend the horse.

  It was not an easy task. He cared for horses as his father cared: with every bit of brain and body. But a broken leg was a death sentence, requiring immediate action. Aidan, with his Erinnish gift, sensed bewilderment and pain as the gray attempted to walk.

  In Erinnish, he tried to soothe; the language was made for horses. He eased saddle and packs from the mount, then stroked the sweating neck. "Shansu," he whispered gently, sliding long-bladed knife from sheath. "The gods will look after their own."

  He went back to his kinsman wet with blood, then knelt at Ian's side. Tasha growled a warning. "Shansu," Aidan repeated, one hand brushing her shoulders. Tasha growled again, ears flattening.

  Ian's eyes were closed. In lightning, his years showed clearly, sharp bones protruding beneath aging flesh changed from bronze to linen white. Blood smeared his chin. Thunder boomed distantly.

  "How can I move you?" Aidan pleaded, mostly of himself. "The pain alone could kill you. And if not that, what is to say the movement itself will not?" Wind whipped gray-white hair across Ian's face. Aidan peeled it back. "Su'fali, what do I do?"

  Ian's eyes opened. From pain, they were nearly black. "Bones grow brittle with age," he remarked. "Take ten years away, and I would only have bruised."

  Aidan tried to smile, because Ian wanted him to. "Su'faili, what can I do?"

  "Be true to yourself," Ian murmured. "Be true to the blood in your veins."

  "Earth magic," Aidan said numbly. "But—I have never required it. I have never even attempted—" Futility was painful. "I'm not knowing how to do it!"

  "Ask," Ian said raggedly. "You are Cheysuli—ask—"

  Aidan flung back his head, searching black sky for a smaller blackness. Lir—he appealed. Teel—

  Wou
ld I tell you any different? Use what you have been given!

  Beside her lir, Tasha wailed.

  "—time—" Aidan muttered. "Gods—give me the time—"

  You waste it! Teel told him. What are you waiting for?

  Aidan did not know. Courage, he thought dimly; assurances of success.

  Tasha's wail increased.

  The raven's voice intruded. Old men die of this!

  Old men, Aidan echoed. And looked again at his kinsman, who once had known Carillon.

  Tasha's tail beat the ground. Angry eyes glowed dimly. The storm raged unabated, buffeting them with wind. It keened across the land, spitting dirt and grass and dampness.

  "Now—" Aidan murmured, digging fingers into soil. "Let us see who is Cheysuli—let us see what gods can do—"

  The lightning came down a third time and blasted him apart.

  Chapter Nine

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  He stood before a door. The door swung silently open.

  "Come in," the woman invited, and put her hand on his arm.

  She drew him into the croft, where no croft had existed before. It was small, thatched, lime-washed white, smelling of warmth and wool. He saw three cats: the black on the hearth, the brown on a stool, the white-booted silver tabby curled in the tangle of colorless yarns piled in haphazard fashion on the floor. In the center of the room stood a loom.

  She shut the door behind him. And, when he tried to speak, closed his mouth with her hand. "No," she said quietly. "Ian will be well. There is no need to fear." She gestured toward a chair.

  He did not intend to sit, but found himself obeying. And staring at her in wonder.

  She was unremarkable. A small, fragile woman with callused hands, graying hair snugged back in a knot pinned against her head. She wore a woolen skirt of many patches, as if she added a swatch of weaving each time the skirt wore thin. Over it was a tunic the color of winter grass: dull and lacking luster. A single colorless stone shone on her buckle: lone, unwinking eye. Her own eyes were blue, faded with time, and the flesh of her face was worn.

  Aidan stirred sluggishly, coming out of disorientation. Urgency made him curt. "Lady, I have no time—"