Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 Read online

  A Pride of Princes

  Chronicles of the Cheysuli 5

  Jennifer Roberson

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  PART II

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Interlude

  PART III

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Interlude

  PART IV

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Interlude

  PART V

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The cavern was dense with smoke. The woman stepped through and dutifully it followed, purling in her wake. It gathered along the hem of her skirts like puppies on a bitch, suckling at her feet.

  She walked from shadow into glare, into the pure clean light of godfire as it leaped from a circular rent in the stone floor. A hole, like a wound in the earth itself, bleeding flame.

  Sparks issued forth, fell, formed a glowing necklet on the nap of her velvet gown. But she did not flinch as they died; the fire—like the sparks—was cold,

  Beyond the flame, she saw her brother. Standing as he stood so often, for hours on end, and days, at the rim of the netherworld. Godfire bathed his face in its lurid lavender glare, limning the magnificent planes of his bones. A beautiful man, her brother; she might have been jealous, once, but she knew she claimed more power.

  He saw her. He smiled. In the light his eyes were mirrors.

  Briefly the flame died back; was sucked down, withdrawn, like a tongue into a mouth. But the afterglow remained, shrouding him in light. A transcendent luminescence that made her want to squint.

  Beneath her feet, the floor was hard and sharp. The entire cavern was formed of black, glassy basalt, faceted as a gemstone. There were no torches in deference to the godfire, there was no need for manmade light when the Seker lent them his.

  All around her columns gleamed. Slow spirals mimicked blown glass, delicately fluted; twisted strands, oddly seductive, stretched from floor to ceiling. Light lost itself in endless glassy whorls. The world ran wet with fire.

  She crossed, hearing the echoes of her steps and the chime of girdle, silver on black, nearly lost in the weight of velvet. As always, she smelled the breath of the god.

  But to her, it was not unpleasant. The promise of power was a heady scent that set her flesh to tingling.

  She paused on the brink of the orifice. "How long has it been since you ate?"

  He smiled. Trust you to concern yourself with things such as food."

  "How long, Strahan?"

  He shrugged; smoke shrugged with him. "A day, two, three—what does it matter, Lillith? I will hardly waste away in the service of the god."

  Briefly she glanced down. They stood but six feet apart; between them lay a world. The world of Asar-Suti.

  They had only to open the Gate—

  Not yet. There was time.

  Time for the fruition of their plans.

  "Come up," she said. "You should eat."

  His hair, like hers, was black. And it flowed back from a brow as smooth and unlined as a girl's, though there was nothing girlish about him. It cloaked his shoulders and reached beyond, bound back by a silver fillet wrought with Ihlini runes. In the glare of the godfire his gray suede leathers were dyed an eerie lilac, glowing purple in the creases. The doublet hung open from throat and chest, and in the gap she saw the white edge of a linen tunic. Soft gray boots stretched to his thighs. His wide belt was clasped with a two-headed silver serpent.

  Lillith sighed as he did not answer. She was his sister, not mother or father. But both parents were long dead, and so this fell to her. "Will you come up?"

  "I am hungry," he admitted, "but for something more than food. And I am thirsty, also, but the wine I want is blood. The blood of Niall’s sons."

  His eyes were alight with something more than reflected glare. One brown, one blue; even she had difficulty looking past the mismatched pairing to the emotions in their depths. But she looked, and she saw, and knew his patience was nearly ended.

  "A little longer," she said. "Surely you can wait."

  "No. I have waited. I am done with waiting." He smiled his beautiful, beguiling smile. "Lillith—I am hungry."

  "Time," she said. "We have all the years of our lives."

  "They do not. They are human, even if Cheysuli. They die. They live seventy, eighty years, and they die. While we are still but children."

  "You are still a child." Lillith laughed, and the girdle chimed. "The last time I counted mine, my years were nearly two hundred."

  He grunted, unimpressed; he was young in years, compared to her, but his power grew every day. "I have need of them, Lillith. The sons are no longer infants, no longer boys. They are men. Warriors. If we wait much longer—"

  "But we will." Lillith shrugged naked shoulders. "We will wait as long as we must, and longer. Until the time is right."

  "Twenty years, Lillith!" His shout reverberated in the hidden shadows of the cavern. "Twenty years since Niall thwarted me."

  "Twenty years is but half a day to us." But she saw his frustration and felt a measure of her own. "I know. I know, Strahan ... I weary of it, also. But we are close. The game begins—all of the pieces are in place. As you say, now they are of an age to make a difference."

  "Of an age to serve me well." In the light, his mismatched eyes were eerie. "I want them. I want them here, within the walls of Valgaard, so I may make them mine. Mine to rule, as I will have them rule." He laughed suddenly, and their eyes locked in perfect accordance across the Gate of Asar-Suti. "When they are mine, Niall's sons, I will set them on their thrones, all three of them ... I will take their lir and take their minds, all three of them, making them faithful Ihlini minions—" He broke off a moment, considering his words; continued in quiet, abiding contentment, "—and then I shall rule through their empty bodies in the name of Asar-Suti."

  Lillith smiled, nodded, sketched an idle rune in the air between them that pulsed with purple godfire. It spun, whirled, twisted; tied itself in knots, was gone. "Of course. It is to be expected; we have laid our plans." She paused. 'When will you come up?"

  "Up," he echoed. "Aye. In a moment. There is something I must do."

  And in the eerie lurid light, Strahan the Ihlini knelt in deep obeisance to the god of the netherworld.

  PART I

  One

  The sun hung low in the west, painting the city rose-red, ocher-gold, russet-brown. Sunlight, trapped and multi-plied by mullioned glass, made mirrors of countless windows. Mujhara was ablaze with gilded glory.

  The one-eyed man stood alone upon the curtain wall surrounding the massive palace of Homana-Mujhar. Spilling in all directions from the battlements was the royal city, home of kings and queens; home of the Mujhars of Homana. Home to countless others of lesser birth as well; he could not even begin to estimate Mujhara's population. He knew only that the number had increased one hundredfold, perhaps one thousandfold, over the past two weeks. The festival was even larger than his brother had predicted.

  "Every
one will come, Ian had said, from everywhere, even the other realms. Scoff if you like, Niall, but it is past time the Homanans paid homage to their Mujhar. More than past time they showed their gratitude for twenty years of peaceful rule."

  Twenty years. It seemed longer than that. And then, at times, it seemed only days since he had assumed the Lion Throne from his Cheysuli father, Donal, who had given himself over to the death-ritual on the plague-born deaths of his lir. With Taj and Lorn gone, there had been nothing left for Donal, save madness. And no Cheysuli warrior willingly gave himself over to madness. Not when there was a choice. Not when there was the death-ritual, which was surely more merciful than madness.

  Niall sighed deeply, frowning down at the street far below the curtain wall, and the smooth earthwork ridge that girded the lower portions of the thick wall. He could hear the distant sounds of celebration: faint ringing tambors of the street-dancers; cries of stall-merchants; shouts and screams of children in their finery, turned loose to play in crowded streets and alleys.

  Dead so long, my jehan. He readily acknowledged the still familiar pain. There was grief. Regret. Even bitterness, that a man so strong and healthy as his father should throw his life away.

  Homanan thinking, he told himself wryly, made aware yet again of the division in his attitudes; how pervasive that division could be. Have you forgotten the oaths you made when you accepted the responsibilities of the lir-bond before Clan Council?

  No. Of course he had not forgotten. But it was difficult to be two men at once: one, born of a Homanan mother, who was the daughter of a king; the other born of a Cheysuli shapechanger, a warrior with a lir, and claiming all the magic the gods had given the race.

  Automatically he looked for Serri, but the wolf was not with him. His lips tightened in annoyance. How could he have forgotten Serri was in the royal apartments?

  Because, he told himself ironically, in a spasm of defensiveness, with all the toasting going on, it is fortunate you can remember your own name, let alone Serri's whereabouts.

  Still, it displeased him that he could forget for even a moment. A sign of age, he wondered?

  Niall abruptly laughed aloud. Perhaps. No doubt his children would agree he was aging, but he thought not. At forty, there were decades ahead of him still.

  And then he recalled that his own father had not been so much older than forty when the loss of his lir had ended his life. His mother as well was gone; Aislinn, Queen of Homana, had died ten years after Donal. Some said of grief that grew too strong.

  He stopped the laughter. Memories welled up. Most of them Niall had believed buried too deeply to trouble him. The gods knew he had tried to bury them; with drink, with daily council sessions lasting from dawn till midnight, with abrupt departures—escapes—into the woodlands with Serri, seeking respite in his lir-shape. But Deirdre had made him realize none of those things held the answers; that he would have to find a place for each memory and let it live there, where he could look at it from time to time and know what was lost, was gained, was learned.

  Deirdre. The memories of her were fresh, beloved, cherished, and very near the surface. But there were other ones as well, buried more deeply: of guilt, of fear, of self-hatred, because once he had believed her murdered by his own unintended instigation. No matter how helpless, how unknowing he had been, trapped within the Ihlini web of madness, deceit and sorcery, he could not think of that time in his life without experiencing a fresh burst of shame, guilt, pain.

  "So." She approached from his right side, his blind side; he had not heard her, either. "With all your great palace in an uproar, you'll be coming out here to escape it." Deirdre smiled, glancing over the nearest crenel to look upon the crowded city. "Peace in turbulence, then?"

  Though she had been with him twenty years in Homana, she had not lost the lilt of Erinn. He smiled, "Aye, escape, except there is no escape. Everywhere I turn there is a servant telling me I must go here, go there—even Ian. Even you."

  Deirdre laughed, green eyes alight, and moved in close to his side. His arm settled around her shoulders automatically. She wore green, as she so often did, to play up the color of her eyes. It suited her, as did the torque of braided gold and carved green jade he had given her the night before. "But 'tis for you all of this is being done," she reminded him tartly. "D'ye wish to disappoint so many people who have come here to pay their respects?"

  He grimaced. "You make it sound like I am dead."

  Deirdre leaned her head against his chest. She was neither tall nor short, but he was head and shoulders above most men, even the Cheysuli. "No, not dead," she said calmly. "Very much alive—or so you would have me thinking; I who share your bed."

  Niall laughed and hugged her against his chest. "Aye, well, there is that." His fingers smoothed the weave of her braided hair. A year younger than he, she looked no more her thirty-nine years than his daughters. The hair was still thick and brassy gold; the skin still fair and smooth, with only a shallow threading of lines by her eyes; her hips and breasts, respectively, still slender and firm as a girl's.

  "What were you thinking?" she asked.

  "Remembering," he answered. "The night I stood atop the dragon's skull in Atvia. and lit the beacon-fire."

  Deirdre stiffened. "Why?" she asked. She pulled away and faced him. "Why, Niall—why that? Twas more than twenty years ago."

  "That is why," he told her. "Twenty years. The Homanans are even now celebrating twenty years of my rule, and all I can see are the memories of what I nearly did that many years ago." His voice was unsteady; he steadied it. "I killed your father, Deirdre. And nearly the rest of the eagles.”

  His pain was reflected in her face. "You fool," she said softly. "Oh, ye great silly fool. Liam would be taking his fist to you, he would. I should." She shook her head and sighed. "Aye, Shea died, but he took the assassin with him. Else we would all be dead, and you could be blaming yourself for that." Firmly, she shook her head. "You lit the fire, 'tis true, but 'twas Alaric's doing. Thanks to his addled daughter."

  Addled daughter. Gisella of Atvia, half Cheysuli herself, and Niall's full cousin. Poor mad Gisella, who had married the Prince of Homana; Niall, now called Mujhar.

  The Queen of Homana, who now resided in Atvia in permanent exile from the land of her mother's birth.

  He sighed. "Aye. Tis done, as you would say. But I cannot forget it."

  "Then don't. Come in, instead, where a bath is being poured." She took his hand. "Are you forgetting? There is to be a feast for you in the Great Hall."

  "Oh, gods, not again," he blurted. "Who is host tonight?"

  "Prince Einar, heir to the King of Caledon," Deirdre answered, smiling. "The one you want to make a new trade alliance with."

  He strolled with her along the sentry-walk. "Aye, I do. The old one is far out of date; there are more concessions to be won. Without them, we lose more money than we make, which serves Homana not at all. What I want to get—"

  "No," Deirdre said firmly. "No, don't be filling my ears with that. I've been hearing too much of it these past two weeks, and I'll hear more of it over my food. No, Niall—not now."

  He laughed. "Well enough, meijha—not now. I am sick of it myself."

  The sentry-walk was not wide enough for two to walk abreast comfortably, not when one was as large as Niall.

  He moved Deirdre away from the edge, closer to the wall, and assumed the risk himself. Below them, in the other bailey, men-at-arms in new crimson livery practiced a close-order drill. The shouted orders from the captain carried easily to the sentry-walk, though Deirdre and Niall were still some distance away. It was easiest to stay on the wall and follow it around than to go down into the baileys, which were thronged with royal escorts and honor guards from other realms.

  Niall sighed. "I think Homana-Mujhar will burst before the month is through. Certainly Mujhara will."

  Deirdre frowned absently. "Einar," she said. " Twas him, was it not, so dissatisfied with his chambers?"

  Nia
ll snorted inelegantly. "You are chatelaine of this great sprawl of red stone, meijha, not I."

  Deirdre's face cleared. "Aye, 'twas him. He demanded better quarters."

  "Well, he is a king's son—and the heir to Caledon."

  "And what of the heir to Ellas?" Deirdre demanded.

  "Am I to put Diarmuid out just because Einar wants his room?"

  "What did you do?" Niall asked curiously.

  Deirdre grinned. "Homana-Mujhar is filled to bursting, my lord Mujhar. I made them share."

  Niall's shout of laughter erased the lines of tension that had etched themselves into his face as a result of trying to juggle multiple princes, envoys, cousins and heirs without giving offense to any. Deirdre felt he needed no more lines at all, regardless of his responsibilities; Strahan's demon-hawk had already ruined enough of his face. A patch hid the empty right socket and most of the scarring, but the old talon weals still scored the bridge of his nose and much of his right cheek, as well as dividing one tawny eyebrow neatly in half.

  She glanced up at his face. To her, it was familiar, beloved, unremarkable, save for the unmistakable stamp of Cheysuli pride, even if he lacked the coloring. But to others, unaccustomed to the disfigurement, he was note-worthy only in that respect. She had first known him as a young man, at eighteen, when the handsome looks of his maternal grandsire. Carillon, had been fresh, boyish, as yet unformed by adversity. But the demon-born hawk of Asar-Suti had robbed him of his boyhood in addition to his looks.

  For that, if for nothing else, Deirdre hated Strahan.

  Through the casements of the palace came the dim glow of new-lit candles. The rose-red hue of the stone deepened as the sun dropped down behind the massive walls, from pink to dull, bloodied gray. Deirdre suppressed a shiver; there were times, she thought, Homana-Mujhar resembled a monument to war and death, rather than the home of Homanan kings.

  Niall took her off the sentry-walk into one of the exterior comer towers, then down a coil of stairs to the interior of the palace. Deirdre had always felt Homana-Mujhar more confusing than Kilore, the clifftop fortress her brother Liam ruled from in Erina. Kilore, known as the Aerie of Erinn, was plainer, more functional, lacking the multitudinous staircases and tower chambers of Homana-Mujhar. But then perhaps it was only time and distance that made it seem so; Deirdre had not been home in eighteen years.