Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (58 page)

And this is Philip, Captain Meridon’s brother,” Carissa said, gesturing to
the youth and smiling ruefully. “We’ve shared a common goal.”

Philip bowed, too, and murmured a respectful, “Your Highness.”

Behind her one of the Dorsaddi muttered in the Tahg, “He really is a
prince of Kiriath.”

Abramm’s gaze had gone on to Danarin, and Carissa’s chest constricted.
All the old suspicions roared back to life, rearing out of her memory like old
Chelaya from her evil swamp. Suddenly everything he’d done in the last
twenty-four hours took on new and sinister significance. Danarin had known
of Fah’lon’s leanings toward the Dorsaddi, had probably heard of his suspected dealings with the Pretender, as well. And he had seen Abramm in
Xorofin when she had. Had he seen the truth that she had not? If Fah’lon
had chosen Danarin to serve his hidden purposes, might not Danarin have
also chosen Fah’lon for hidden reasons of his own? Danarin had been the one
to insist they follow the trail tonight, all but threatening Cooper openly to do
it.

Fire and Torment! Was it all just a ploy, all part of a plot to get himself
down here face-to-face with the man he was sworn to kill? She wanted to
shout and throw her body between them. But Abramm only stared at the
man, a small crease etched between his dark brows, and Danarin did nothing
but return the stare. She swept to her brother’s side.

“This is Danarin,” she said. “He has been our salvation-our guide and
protector.”

“Then you have my thanks, Danarin,” Abramm said.

The Thilosian bowed. Unlike Cooper and Philip he did not seem overawed, merely cautious and respectful. “It has been my pleasure, Your
Highness. And I am delighted that after all the lady has been through, her
persistence has been rewarded.”

“Mmm.” Open suspicion colored Abramm’s expression, and Carissa felt a
profound relief Evidently her brother’s experiences had burned away his
naivete.

Her gaze returned to the sword hanging at his belt, its bronze hilt gleaming in the torchlight. The hand that rested upon it was still long of finger but
callused and scarred. A strong hand. There was no concern in him, no bravado, only a quiet confidence and, riding that, a hint of deadly threat.

The White Pretender, she thought again. And laughed softly. Abramm
glanced at her. “Something amuses you?”

“I was just imagining Uncle Simon’s face if he could see you now. The
White Pretender. He’d be speechless. And this …” She reached up to rub his
beard and chuckled. “I wouldn’t have thought you could even grow one. It
makes you look quite fierce.”

He cocked a dubious brow at her, the expression achingly familiar.
Abruptly the laughter almost turned to weeping, and for a moment she
wanted to fling her arms about his neck again, to bury her face in his shoulder
and sob anew with relief and this crazy, giddy joy. But she controlled herself,
remembering now that they had an audience.

Meridon, who had been eyeing her companions suspiciously, drifted up
to Abramm’s left side, an instinctive, almost unconscious move of protection.
“We’d best get back, my lord.”

Abramm’s wry amusement gave way to a grimace. “He’s right. I’m afraid
we have no time for lengthy reunions. Come.”

Abramm led them along a narrow corridor to a large natural vault where
the Dorsaddi had set up camp. Numerous brass oil pots held aloft on high
poles shed their flickering light across the hundreds of men sleeping on the
sandstone floor. Sentries walked among them and stood guard at the low,
arched opening on the vault’s far side, an outside entrance through which
Carissa could just make out the stained, sheer face of an opposing cliff wall,
ghostly in the growing light of day. Just inside it stretched a row of striped
pavilions, the centermost of which was larger than the others and attended
by a cadre of pale-robed guards. Horses shuffled and stamped in a shadowed
far corner, the sharp odor of their manure mingling with that of sweat and
dung smoke and fresh-baked flatbread. Everywhere she looked she saw piles
of rope, longbows, arrows, spears, rocks-the accoutrements of war.

A compact, lean-faced Dorsaddi with strangely pale eyes and a striped
headcloth met them as they entered. His expression did not change as he
looked over the newcomers, though his gaze did hesitate on Carissa. Then he
turned to Meridon and, with a nod toward Philip, asked in the Tahg, “This is
indeed your brother, my Lord Deliverer?”

“It is, my Lord Commander,” Meridon said. And the Pretender’s sister, as
well. They have apparently come to rescue us from slavery.”

The Lord Commander’s stern face broke into a white flash of teeth. A
woman and a boy?” Grinning, he cocked his head at the two men. “I begin
to be more certain we have underestimated your people’s courage.” The smile widened as he eyed Carissa again. `And perhaps their capacity for madness,
as well.”

“Who are those men?” Abramm asked, gesturing at the group by the main
pavilion.

As quickly as the amusement had bloomed across the Dorsaddi’s face it
vanished, and he was all business again. “The warriors from Deir have
arrived. I’ve sent the main body of them on to the southern plateau as you
suggested.” He paused. “They have heard of Beltha’adi’s challenge, sir.
Debouh is yammering to know when you mean to face him. If you mean to
face him.”

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Meridon said before Abramm could
respond, earning himself a sharp look from the latter.

The Lord Commander gave them both a calm nod. “Just so you know
what’s going on, my friends. Debouh is something of a hothead.”

“Yes, Shemm’s told us all about him,” Abramm said dryly.

Shemm? Carissa thought. He’s on a first-name basis with the king of the
Dorsaddi? Well, of course, he’s the White Pretender.

It still gave her goose bumps to think of it. For the first time in months
she wanted to go home, to be there when everyone saw him, when they realized who and what he had become.

The White Pretender had turned to her and was speaking in Kiriathan
again. “… take you to my quarters, such as they are.” He gestured to the row
of pavilions. “When I’m done talking to the king, I’ll return and-“

“Absolutely not!” she interrupted. “You’re not leaving my sight for at least
a month. I’m going with you.”

Muffled laughter rose up around them. The crease in his brow returned.

She waved a hand. “Oh, I know women aren’t supposed to speak in public and all that. Believe me, I know? I promise not to say anything. Besides,
you are no more Dorsaddi than I, so why must we abide by their silly rules?”

“Because the king is my friend, and I have no intention of insulting him,”
Abramm said firmly. `And because, frankly, this is none of your business.”

She gaped at him.

“We’ll decide what to do next when I’m done.” He didn’t wait for an
answer, didn’t seem to expect one, just turned and followed Meridon and his
brother and the Lord Commander across the crowded floor to the royal pavilion.

It took her a moment to find her tongue. Spluttering outrage, she lurched
after them, only to find a Dorsaddi blocking her path. She dodged around
him, but another pulled her back. “I’m sorry, serra,” he said in the Tahg, “but
the Lord Pretender says you must come with us.”

She would have struggled, but Danarin came up close on her off side.
“Better, my lady, not to make a scene.”

“But he has no right-“

“He is not your little brother anymore, ma’am. And I suspect in this place
he has the right to treat you any way he likes.”

The cold truth of his words quenched her resistance, if not her indignation. Teeth clenched, she let the Dorsaddi lead her to one of the side pavilions. A veil blocked off the sleeping area at the rear, and the front half was
field-plain, furnished only with a worn, dusty, dark-patterned rug and a low
table on which sat a flickering oil lamp.

Though Danarin followed her in, Cooper did not, standing as if on guard
just outside the door. She glanced around the small space, then stepped back
to the doorway, her irritation intensified by the realization that Philip had not
come with her. That he, a mere boy, had been allowed to attend the meeting
that was barred to her.

By the Flames, I hate this land! These people are such narrow-minded barbarians. I cannot wait to be away and back to our home.

“You gave him no real choice, my lady,” Danarin said. “Challenging him
like that in front of everyone.”

She frowned at him, standing in the doorway beside her. “What are you
talking about?”

“He is the White Pretender. Have you not seen the way the others look
at him? Defer to him?”

She had not, being too busy looking at him herself. But now that she
thought of it, she realized it was true. Moreover—

All at once she could hardly breathe. The White Pretender? The one who
was supposed to face Beltha’adi in personal combat. Today, possibly.

Bright pinwheels spun at the edges of her vision as she gasped for air.
“No,” she murmured. “Oh, no…”

“My lady?” Danarin’s voice came softly in her ear, and she realized that
somehow she had come to lean upon his arm, her legs all wobbly beneath
her.

She looked up at him. “He’s going to face Beltha’adi. Isn’t he?”

Danarin’s handsome features hardened. “Meridon said it wasn’t yet
decided.”

“Fah’lon said he had to do it. That if he didn’t, everyone would call him
coward and the Dorsaddi hearts would melt.”

“Yes, he did say that. Here. Why don’t you sit down?”

She let him help her to the floor, then leaned forward to drop her head
into her hands as he settled across the table from her. “This can’t be happening,” she moaned. “It just can’t be.”

But it was typical of her luck, was it not? Typical of the cruelty of her life.

“Frankly, I don’t understand it,” Danarin said. “They’re calling Meridon
the Deliverer, so why would Abramm be the one to take the challenge? The
prophecy says it’s the Deliverer who’s supposed to slay Beltha’adi.”

“Perhaps that’s what the discussion is about.” She looked up with new
hope. `And why Meridon said it hadn’t been decided yet.”

“Perhaps, but …”

“But what?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his nose and squinted out
the doorway. Then his gaze came back to hers. “Have you noticed that most
of these men are Terstan?”

“What?”

“They wear their tunics slit open so you can see the shields.”

“I thought those were just Dorsaddi medallions-“

“They’re not. I had heard rumors of this. That instead of wearing the
shields as they have in the past, they were now actually branded with them.
I didn’t think it possible, but seeing as Meridon is apparently the DelivererI suspect what’s happened is he’s managed to convert most of them.”

Nausea swirled under her heart. “You can’t be serious?” And yet, as she
sorted frantically through her memories, she feared he was right. Had not
Philip said something about it himself?

Her pulse quickened. If Meridon had infected all the Dorsaddi, had he
infected Abramm, too? Abramm had, after all, spent the last two years with
the man, and in close company. It was obvious, watching them, that they
shared a strong bond. And if Abramm had already been deceived once, was
that not more reason to fear he might be again? There was that undeniably
religious side of his nature, that fascination with things spiritual, that tendency to want to sacrifice himself for a higher good. She might not understand it, but she mustn’t ignore it or underestimate its power.

The pinwheels were back. She laid a hand on the table to steady herself
and made herself breathe deeply, the taste of bile bitter on her tongue.

Danarin laid a hand on her own. “No, my lady, it is not what you are
thinking-Abramm is not one of them. Yet.”

“He’s not? How can you be sure?”

“He’d be showing it, like the others, if he were.” He glanced down at his
hand resting on hers and drew it away. “I suspect, however, they are pressuring him to change his mind.”

“Then we must stop them?” She leapt to her feet.

He looked up at her. “How?”

She started for the door, turned back, wringing her hands. “I don’t know.
Something. We have to do something.”

But what could she do when she wasn’t even allowed to be part of the
discussion?

Oh, that would be absolutely the end. To have come all this way, endured
all she had endured, to see the miraculous change in him-the scrawny, fearful boy become the champion of legend-only to have him …

A vision of the old man of the hollow flashed in her head, his body bent,
his eyes full of curd, his voice shrill with madness as he railed at the boys who
came to tease him. It was replaced by her last memory of Raynen, raging
about the sparrows, that line of curd already begun in his eyes. In a few years
that could well be Abramm. And almost worse was the scorn he would
receive from the nobles. The snickers behind his back, the snide remarks, the
veiled contempt-scorn a hundred times worse than any he had yet received.