Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (42 page)

           
The deathsong of my race.

           
Gods, how I ran—

           
I was through the defile: out of
heat I was thurst into cold. I shivered. Shivered again; snow still clogged the
canyons. Vented steam was now the plume of breaths expelled. My sweat
shapechanged to ice.

           
"Serri?"

           
Lir, I am here. And he was,
suddenly, here, bounding toward me out of the snow.

           
Briefly, I stopped, gasping;
preparing to go on. But I thought now I had a chance. I thought: now it can be
done.

           
But I had reckoned without
interference; without Ihlini irony.

           
Serri saw it first. Lir—beware the
hawk.

           
Like a fool, I looked at the sky.
And the hawk descended upon me.

           
Descended—

           
—and took an eye.

           
—hands—

           
—hands touching—

           
—touching me—

           
Oh gods—the pain—

           
Serri—Serri—Serri—

           
Hands touching me. Moving me.
Lifting me.

           
NoNoNoNo—not with all this pain—

           
Seni-Sem—SERRI—

           
Oh gods, what has happened?

           
What have you done to me?

           
"What have you done to
me?"

           
The question jerked me into
awareness; I realized I had asked it. A trace of my voice still sounded in my
ear.

           
"Be still. Be calm. Be
tranquil. The worst is over now."

           
I twitched in shock. It sent a shaft
of pain through bandaged eyes. I winced, gasped, hissed; the pain was
all-consuming.

           
"Be still. Do not bestir
yourself. Pain is a wolf at the door in winter: fob him off with a morsel or
two and he may wait for spring before he comes again."

           
The voice painted pictures with
intonations; with subtleties of emphasis. Such a magnificent voice.
"Wolf—"

           
My voice was more croak than
anything else. "Oh gods—the white wolf—“

           
"Gone," the clear voice
told me. "And for now, you must let him go. Aye, he must be caught, be
slain, but there is nothing now you can do. Not yet. Wait a bit; I promise, you
will fulfill your own tahlmorra."

           
All was darkness. My eyes were
sealed shut by bandages. I smelled the tang of herbs; felt the warm weight of a
poultice against my right eye.

           
Oh gods—my eye is gone—

           
"Be still," the calm voice
warned me. A hand was against my shoulder, pressing me down even as I tried to
sit up.

           
—the pain•—the pain—the pain—

           
"Serri? Serri?"

           
"He is here," the voice
told me, and I felt the cold nose pressed against my neck.

           
Lir, do as Taliesin tells you. His
skills will heal you.

           
"Taliesin?"

           
"Aye," the voice answered.
"But you are too young to know me. And my name is no longer spoken."

           
"Where have you brought
me?"

           
"To my cottage. You need not
fear discovery; Strahan does not come here."

           
"You know Strahan? You know he
did this to me?"

           
"I know Strahan, aye. And I
know what he did to you." The voice hesitated a moment. "Not so very
different from what he did to me.'"

           
I shut my teeth in my bottom lip. My
eye throbbed with increasing pain. I thought I might swoon from it.

           
Serri—Serri—

           
I am here. I am here. Do not fear I
will go. I will not leave you, lir.

           
"Here." A hand was slipped
beneath my head, tipping it up. Such a strong, wide hand, cradling my skull so
gently. Another pressed a cup against my lips; I drank the bitter brew.
"It will help the pain," Taliesin told me.

           
"Sleep, my lord—let the herbs
do their work."

           
My lord. . . . "You know
me?"

           
"I do not know you—how could I?
But aye, I know who you are. Be at ease, my lord. Solindish I may be, but I
have no quarrel with Homana. Certainly none with you."

           
"Your voice—" I was
slipping into sleep. "I am sorry. I could not say if you are man or
woman."

           
Taliesin laughed. "Well, a true
bard may be either or both when he sings his lays and sagas. But when your eye
is free again, you will see I am a man."

           
When your eye is free again. . . .
How odd it was to know I had only one.

           
How it twisted the blade in my
belly.

           
The hawk has stolen my eye—

           
Be still, Serri told me. Rest. Cheat
Strahan of his triumph. He meant to slay you. lir.

           
The hawk? Serri—Serri—that hawk.

           
Dead, Did you think I would let him
live?

           
I shut my hand in Serri's ruff. I
wanted to hug him, to pull him into my arms and press him against my chest, to
bury my face in his fur.

           
Mostly I wanted to cry.

           
But even as I tugged at his pelt,
seeking strength and reassurance, I felt myself slipping away. Serri, do not
go—do not leave me—

           
I will never leave you, lir.

           
I slept.

           
*

           
"You said I would fulfill my
tahlmorra."

           
"Aye. You will."

           
"But you are Solindish. What do
you know of tahlmorras?"

           
"Better to ask: what do I know
of Cheysuli?"

           
I lay on the pallet beneath warm
furs. As yet I was a blind man; Taliesin told me the hawk bad torn the flesh
near my left eye as well as destroying the right. Until the wounds were healed,
I would be kept in darkness.

           
Serri was additional warmth
stretched the length of my body. He slept, twitching in dreams; I wondered what
he chased.

           
"What do you know of
Cheysuli?" I asked obligingly.

           
But my curiosity was genuine.

           
"I know of tahlmorras and lir
and responsibilities. I know of the dedication that drives your race; the
loyalty of the fanatic; the arrogance of a man who believes he is a child of
the gods."

           
"Believes!" I did not like
his attitude, regardless how quietly he expressed it. "We are children of
the gods."

           
"Oh, aye, I know. The word
Cheysuli means that precisely. But it means other things, as well: zealotry and
intolerance, single-minded determination, the willingness to sacrifice many for
the sake of a single man: the Firstborn. The child of the prophecy. The Lion of
Homana."

           
"By the gods, you sound like an
Ihlini."

           
"I should. I am." A hand
pressed me down again. "Be still, my lord. I am not one of Strahan's
minions. That I promise you."

           
"Do you set a trap for
me?"

           
"Do I? Test it. Test me, my
lord." The hand released me. "Get up from your sickbed and walk out
of my hut forever. I will not keep.you. I will not call you back. I will tell
no one you were here."

           
Sweat broke out on my flesh.
"You know I cannot. You know I can hardly raise myself without the pain
throwing me down again."

           
"Then ask your lir," he told
me. "Ask Serri. Think, Niall—has the link between you been broken?"

           
No. Serri and I conversed as we
always conversed.

           
There was no weakness in the link,
no interference that drained the power away.

           
"If you are Ihlini, this is not
possible."

           
"It is. I am not one of
Strahan's Ihlini; nor am I one of Tynstar's, though once he was my lord. No. I
am Ihlini, aye, but no more your enemy than your lir. There is a difference, my
lord, a divergence of opinion. Strahan does not rule us all, only those who
wish it. Only those who serve Asar-Suti."

           
"And you do not." My
dubiousness was plain, but Taliesin was patient.

           
"Asar-Suti is the god of the
netherworld; the Seker, who made and dwells in darkness. But I caution you, my
lord: be not so quick to lump us all together. Be not so ready to give me over
into darkness when I prefer the light."

           
I thought suddenly of the old woman
in Homana, the old Ihlini woman, who had sacrificed her life to make certain
lan and I believed she told the truth. She had not done it for us. She had done
it for Homana.

           
"How can it be?" I asked
blankly. "How is it possible?"

           
"It is possible because the
gods gave us the freedom to choose. Even you. Aye, I will admit there seems to
be no choice when you know you deny the afterworld by denying the prophecy, but
there still exists the choice. You could renounce your title, your birth, your
blood. You could renounce your tahlmorra."

           
"I would die!"

           
"All men die eventually."

           
"I have no wish to hasten
it!"

           
I heard him move. No longer did he
kneel beside me. I heard footsteps, the scrape of a chair, the sound of him
sitting down. But still his voice carried to me as if he knelt beside me.

           
"I have no wish to shake your
faith; to question your dedication. Once, I shared it myself, though I gave it
to my lord and Asar-Suti. I believed, because Tynstar made certain I did. And I
served as well as I could, until I began to question the validity of Tynstar's
intentions.

           
Why, I wondered, was it so important
for him to have Homana? Why was it so necessary to destroy our brother race in
order to claim the land? And so, one day, I asked him."

           
My fingers were locked in Serri's pelt.
"What did be say?" I asked tightly .."What was Tynstar's
answer?"

           
"He said if the Ihlini did not
destroy the Cheysuli, the end of the world would come."

           
"He lied!”

           
"Did he?" For a moment
there was silence. "Be not so certain, Niall."

           
"Tynstar lied! How could the
world end? Do you think the gods would let it?"

           
"I speak of perception, my
lord, not of absolutes. You know what enmity lies between the races. You
yourself are a victim of it; do you not distrust and hate Ihlini? Do you not
slay one when you can?"

           
"Taliesin—“

           
"Perception, Niall: if the
Cheysuli are allowed to live and the prophecy is fulfilled, the bloodlines will
be merged. The Firstborn will emerge. And, in time—as it is with horses, dogs,
sheep—the original bloodlines will be overtaken by the new." He paused.
"Tynstar spoke the truth: if the Ihlini do not destroy the Cheysuli, the
world will come to an end. The world as Ihlini perceive it."

           
"But—if that were true—"

           
"It is all we have, Niall—our
only legacy. And the prophecy will destroy it."

           
Survival, Lillith had called it.
Nothing more than a struggle to keep a race complete, undivided, undiminished
by the thing that would destroy the Ihlini: the prophecy of the Firstborn.

           
How can I blame them for it? How can
I hate them for it? They do what I would do; what anyone would do, trying to
keep a race whole.

           
"Oh gods," I said aloud,
"you turn me inside out."

           
"I do not ask you to question
your convictions, Niall. I do not say you are wrong, or that the Cheysuli are.
I say only that when I realized the cost of Tynstar's intentions, I knew I
could not afford it."

           
"But if we did not serve the
prophecy—" I broke off.

           
It was unthinkable. It was
impossible to envision. Take the prophecy away and what have we to live for?