Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (2 page)

           
I think no one can fully understand
what pain and futility and emptiness are. Not as I understand them: a man
without a lir. And what of them I do understand comes not of the body but of
the spirit. Of the soul. Because to know oneself a lirless Cheysuli is an
exquisite sort of torture I would wish on no man, not even to save myself.

           
My father was young, too young, when
he received his lir, and then he bonded with two: Taj and Lom, falcon and wolf.
Ian was fifteen when he formed his bond with Tasha. At ten, I hoped I would be
as my father and receive my lir early. At thirteen and fourteen I hoped I would
at least be younger than Ian, if I could not mimic my father. At fifteen and
sixteen I prayed to all the gods I could to send me my lir as soon as possible,
period, so I could know myself a man and a warrior of the clan. At seventeen, I
began to dread it would never happen, never at all; that I would live out my
life a lirless Cheysuli, only half a man, denied all the magic of my race.

           
And now, at eighteen, I knew those
fears for truth.

           
Ian still knelt by the king stag.
Tasha—lean, lovely, lissome Tasha—flowed across the clearing to her lir and
rubbed her head against one bare arm. Automatically Ian supped that arm around
her, caressing sleek feline head and tugging affectionately at tufted ears.
Tasha purred more loudly than ever, and I saw the distracted smile on Ian's
face as he responded to the mountain cat's affection. A warrior in communion
with his Ur is much like a man in perfect union with a woman; another man, shut
out of either relationship, is doubly cursed . . . and doubly lonely.

           
I turned away abruptly, knowing
again the familiar uprush of pain, and bent to recover my bow. The arrow was
broken; Tasha's mock attack had caused me to fall on it. A sore hip told me I
had also rolled across the bow. But at least the soreness allowed me to think
of things other than my brother and his lir.

           
I have never been a sullen man, or
even one much given to melancholy. Growing up a prince and heir to the throne
of Homana was more than enough for most; would have been more than enough for
me, were I not Cheysuli-born. But lirlessness—and the knowledge I would remain
so—had altered my life. Nothing would change it, not now; no warrior in all the
clans had ever reached his eighteenth birthday without receiving his lir. Nor,
for that matter, his seventeenth. And so I tried to content myself with my rank
and title—no small things, to the Homanan way of thinking—and the knowledge
that for all I lacked a fir, I was still Cheysuli. No one could deny the Old
Blood ran in my veins. No one. Not even the shar tahl who spoke of rituals and
traditions very carefully indeed when he spoke of them to me, because—for all I
lacked a lir—I still claimed the proper line of descent. And that line would
put me on the Lion Throne of Homana the day my rather died.

           
That, at least, was something my
brother could not lay claim to—not that he would wish to. Being bastard-born of
my father's Cheysuli meijha—light woman, in Homanan—attached no stigma to him
in the clans. Cheysuli do not place such importance on legitimacy; in the
clans, the birth of another Cheysuli is all that counts, but as far as the
Homanans were concerned, Donal's eldest son was tolerated among the Homanan
aristocracy only because he was the son of the Mujhar.

           
And so Ian, as much as myself, knew
what it was to lack absolute acceptance. It was, I suppose, his own part of the
discordant harmony in an otherwise pleasing melody. It only manifested itself
for a different reason-

           
"Niall—?" Ian rose with
the habitual grace I tried to emulate and could not; I am too tall, too heavy,
I lack the total ease of movement born in so many Cheysuli.

           
"What is it?"

           
I thought I had learned to mask my
face, even to Ian.

           
It served no purpose to tell him
what torture it was to see my brother with his fir, or my father with his. Most
of the time it remained a dull ache, and bearable, as a sore tooth is bearable
so long as it does not turn rotten in the jaw. But occasionally the tooth
throbs, sending pain of unbearable intensity through my mind; my mask had
slipped, and lan bad seen the face I wore behind it.

           
"Rujho—" so quickly he
slipped into the Old Tongue—"are you ill?"

           
"No." Abrupt answer, too
abrupt; I inspected the bow again, for want of another action to cover my brief
slip.

           
"No, only— " I sought a
lie to cover up the pain “—only disappointed. But I should know better than to
match myself against you in something so—" I paused—"so Cheysuli as
hunting a stag. You have only to take lir-shape, and the contest is
finished."

           
Ian indicated the arrow. "No
lir-shape, rujho. Only human form." He smiled, as if he knew we joked, but
something told me he knew well enough what had prompted my discomfiture.
"If it pleases you, Niall, I will concede. Without Tasha's interference,
you might well have taken the stag."

           
I laughed at him outright. "Oh,
aye, might have. Such a concession, rujho.You will almost have me believing I
know what I am doing."

           
"You know what I taught you, my
lord." Ian grinned. "And now, if you like, I will- go fetch the
horses as a proper liege man so we may escort the dead king home in
honor."

           
"To Homana-Mujhar?" The
palace was at least two hours away; rain threatened again.

           
"No, I thought Clankeep. We can
prepare the stag there for a proper presentation. Old Newlyn knows all the
tricks." Ian bent down and with a quick twist removed the unbroken arrow
from between the ribs of the stag. "Clankeep is closer, for all
that."

           
I shut my mouth on an answer and did
not say what I longed to: that I much preferred the palace. Clankeep is
Cheysuli; lirless, I am extremely uncomfortable there. I avoid it when I can.

           
Ian glanced up. "Niall, it is
your home as much as Mujhara." So easily he read me, even by my silence.

           
I shook my head. "Homana-Mujhar
is my place. Clankeep is yours." Before he could speak I turned away.
"I will get the horses. My legs are younger than yours."

           
It is an old Joke between us, the five
years that separate us, but for once he would not let it go. He stepped across
the dead king stag and caught my arm.

           
"Niall!" The levity was
banished from his face. "Rujho, I cannot pretend to know what it is to
lack a lir. But neither can I pretend your lack does not affect me."

           
"Does it?" Resentment
flared up instantly, surprising even me with its intensity. But this was
intrusion into an area of my life he could not possibly understand. "Does
it affect you, Ian? Does it disturb you that the warriors of the clan refer to
me as a Homanan instead of a Cheysuli? Does it affect you that if they could,
they would petition the shar tahl to have my birth-rune scratched off the
permanent birth-lines?" His dark face went gray as death, and I realized he
had not known I was aware of what a few of the more outspoken warriors said.
"Oh, rujho, I know I am not alone in this. I know it must disturb you—a
full-fledged Cheysuli warrior and a member of Clan Council—in particular: that
the man intended to rule after Donal lacks the gifts of the Cheysuli. How could
it not? You serve the prophecy as well as any warrior, and yet you look at me
and see a man who does not fit. The link that was not forged." It hurt me
to see the pain in his yellow eyes; eyes some men still called bestial.
"It affects you, it affects our sister, it affects our father. It even
affects my mother.”

           
Ian's hand fell away from my arm.
"Aislinn? How?"

           
His tone was unguarded; I heard the
note of astonishment in his voice. No, he would not expect my lack of a lir to
affect my mother. How could it, when the Queen of Homana was fully Homanan
herself, without a drop of Cheysuli blood?

           
How could he, when there was so
little of affection between them? Not hatred; never that. Not even a true
disliking of one another. Merely—toleration. A mutual apathy.

           
Because my mother, the Queen,
recalled too clearly that what love my father had to offer had been given freely
to his Cheysuli meijha, Ian's mother, and not to the Homanan princess he had
wed.

           
At least, not then.

           
I smiled, albeit wryly, and more
than a little resigned.

           
"How does it affect my mother?
Because to her, my lacking a lir emphasizes a certain other bloodline in me. It
reminds her that in addition to looking almost exactly like her father, I
reflect all his Homanan traits. No Cheysuli in me, oh no; I am Homanan to the
bone. I am Carillon come again."

           
The last was said a trifle bitterly;
for all I am used to the fact I look so much like my grandsire, it is not an
easy knowledge. I would sooner do without it.

           
Ian sighed. "Aye. I should have
seen it. The gods know she goes on and on about Carillon enough, linking her
son with her father. There are times I think she confuses the two of you."

           
I shied away from that idea almost
at once. It whispered of sickness; it promised obsession. No son wishes to know
his mother obsessed, even if she is.

           
And she was not. She was not.

           
"Clankeep," I said
abruptly. "Well enough, then let us go. We owe this monarch more than a
bed of leaves and bloodied turf."

           
A muscle ticked in Ian's jaw.
"Aye," he said tersely; no more.

           
I went off to fetch the horses.

           
Once, individual keeps had been
scattered throughout Homana, springing up like toadstools across the land.

           
Once, they had even reached a finger
here and there into neighboring Ellas, when Shame's qu'mahlin had been in
effect. The purge had resulted in the destruction of Cheysuli holdings as well
as much of the race itself; later the Solindish king, Bellam, had usurped the
Lion Throne and laid waste to Homana in the name of Tynstar, Ihlini sorcerer,
and devotee of the god of the netherworld.

           
With Carillon in exile and the
Cheysuli hunted by Solindish, Ihlini and Homanan alike, what remained of the
Cheysuli was nearly destroyed completely. The keeps had been sundered into
heaps of shattered stone and shreds of painted cloth.

           
My legendary grandsire had, thank
the gods, come home again to take back his stolen throne; his return ended
Solindish and Ihlini domination and Shaine's purge.

           
Freed of the threat of extirpation,
the Cheysuli had also come home from secret keeps and built Homanan ones again.
Clankeep itself, spreading across the border between woodlands and meadowlands,
had gone up after Donal succeeded to the Lion on Carillon's death. And though
the Cheysuli were granted freedom to live where they chose after decades of
outlawry, they still preferred the closeness of the forests. Clankeep, ringed
by unmortared walls of undressed, gray-green stone, was the closest thing to a
city the Cheysuli claimed.

           
As always, I felt the familiar
admixture of emotions as we entered the sprawling keep: sorrow—a trace of trepidation—a
fleeting sense of anger—an undertone of pride. A skein of raw emotions knotted
itself inside my soul . . . but mostly, more than anything, I knew a tremendous
yeanling to belong as Ion belonged.

           
Clankeep is the heart of the
Cheysuli, regardless that my father rules from Homana-Mujhar. It is Clankeep
that feeds the spirit of each Cheysuli; Clankeep where the shar tahls keep the
histories, traditions and rituals dear of taint. It is here they guard the
remains of the prophecy of the Firstborn, warding the fragmented hide with all
the power they can summon.

           
And it was here at Clankeep that
Niall of Homana longed to spend his days, for all be was prince of the land.

           
Because then he would be Cheysuli.

           
The rain began again, though falling
with less force than before. This was more of a mist, kiting on the wind.

           
Sheets of it drifted before my
horse, shredded by the gusts.