Jennifer Roberson Cheysuli 1 Shape Changers

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"I cannot say what I will do. I cannot even say what I want!"
He grunted. "Those are the restraints put on you by your
Homanan upbringing. Among the Cheysuli, a woman takes what man she will." A
fleeting shadow passed across his face as he frowned. A shrug banished me
expression. "A woman of me clan may refuse one man and take another, easily."
"My father did not bring me up to be a light woman," she said firmly. "One day
I will wed a crofter, like my father, or a villager." She shrugged. "One day."
"You father did not bring you up at all," he said bluntly.
Alix opened her mouth to protest yes, he most certainly did, men realized
Duncan referred to Hale. Once again she recalled the astonishing story behind
her own birth if she would accept mat story as troth. But she could not tell
him what she thought, so she settled for the familiar litany she had repeated
each evening.
"Carillon will wed a princess. Of course."
"Of course," he mocked. "If he lives at all, he will wed a princess."
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"Lives!"
Duncan stretched one eyelid and rubbed at it. "The Hilini will
see to it Carillon does not live to wed."
"The Ihlini!" Alix stared at him, horrified. "The sorcerers who serve the dark
gods? But why? What do they care for
Carillon? Is it not Bellam who dictates what Solinde will do?''
Duncan picked up his bow and studied it, then began to oil it once more. His
voice, deep and quiet, took on an instructive tone. "Solinde has ever been a
strong land, but her kings are greedy. They arc not satisfied with Solinde,,
they also want
Homana in vassalage. Bellam has sought to achieve that all his life, but these
constant skirmishes at the borders and the full battles that slay so many have
won him nothing. He seeks to gain Homana how he can, now."
"By turning to the /A/t'm?"
"Already Solinde is much stronger than before. Bellam seeks the unnatural
power of Tynstar, who rules the Ihlini if a sor-
cerer can be said to rule his own race.'' He bent his head over his work.
"Tynstar is the might behind Solinde, not Bellam."
"Tynstar ..." she whispered. For a moment she allowed her mind to recall me
tales she had heard as a child, when her mother despairing of winning Alix's
attention to chores had threatened her with Dilini retribution.
Until my father said she should not, for to speak of Tynstar and the Ihlini
was to invite his power over you. Alix shuddered once, seeking to throw off
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the specter.-but Duncan did not seem to notice.
"Tynstar, called the Ihlini," he said, "perhaps the most powerful of all those
who serve the dark gods of the netherworld.
He has arts at his command no man should have, and he uses them for Bellam's
gain. This time Homana cannot stand against her enemies."
Alix sat upright, flushed with affrontedness and defiance.
"Homana has never fallen! Not in all the years the kings of
Solinde have sought to defeat us." She thrust her chin up, "My father said."
Duncan looked across the fire at her, showing her an expres-
sion of such amused tolerance she longed to throw the cup at him. "And in all
these years the Mujhars of Homana had the
Cheysuli by their sides. We used our own god-gifts to defeat the
Solindish troops. Not even the Ihlini could halt us." The toler-
ance faded. "Twenty-five years ago we helped Shaine hold his borders against
Bellam,' putting down a massive force that might have destroyed Homana. The
peace that resulted from our victory would have been solidified by a marriage
between Lindir and
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Bellam's son, Ellic, When that was broken, so was the peace.
Now Shaioe slays us, and Homana will fall to the Dilini."
"Twenty-five years . . ." she echoed.
"Lindir remained hidden with Hale for eight years of the qu'mahlin, fleeing
her jehan's wrath. When he was slain she returned, and bore you but weeks
later."
"Well ... if the Ihlini are so powerful, how is it you have withstood them
before?''
"That is a thing between the races. I cannot say." He frowned faintly. "The
Ihlini have no real power before us. Oh, they have recourse to some of their
illusions and simple arts, but not the dark magic. But we also suffer, for
though the Ihlini cannot overcome us with their arts, neither can we take
fir-shape before them, or hear our /ir. We are as other men before them."
Alix, stunned by his words, said nothing. All her life she had known the
Cheysuli had awesome arts at their call, though she could not have named what
they did; to hear Duncan speak of the Ihlini as the demons she had ever
thought a Cheysuli charac-
teristic upset her preconceived notions of the order of things.
Already Finn had destroyed her innocently confident childhood.
Duncan had further shaken her foundations by speaking of a prophecy and the
future she faced with his clan. Now, to think of the Ihlini as a real threat
to the land she loved, Alix felt a desperation building in her soul.
Too much is being shattered . . . she thought abstractedly.
They are taking too much of me, twisting me, promising things I
have ever feared . . .
"Here," Duncan said gently, "you have suffered long enough."
She dragged her eyes from the fire, blinking at the residue of flames that
overlay his dark face. He held something in his hand, offering it to her. She
saw it was a silver comb, gleaming in the firelight. Slowly she put out a hand
and took it, fingering the intricate runic devices that leaped and twisted in
the flickering shadows.
"You may have it," Duncan said. "I carried it for a girl in the Keep. But you
have more need of it.*'
Alix hesitated, staring at him. She could not, even as she tried, view him as
her enemy. Finn's threat was very real, substantial; Duncan's was not.
Or else he hides it from me . . .
"Use it," he urged gently.
After a moment she set the comb down and began to undo her tangled braid.
Duncan stirred the fire with a stick, coaxing life back to me rosy coals.
She picked twigs and leaves from the heavy plait, gritting her
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teeth at the pain of snarls set so deeply she would have to rip most of them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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