Madbond (25 page)

He reached out and pulled the great knife of strange substance from its scabbard at my side, lifted it in his hand. His people shrank back from the sight of him as he held it, blade flickering like lightning, jewel stone in the hilt gleaming like a yellow, benighted eye.… The sword glinted both dark and brilliant as he raised it. The sun was setting in a blood-red glow that shadowed the deep lines of his face.

Face I had loved, face I had dreamed of …

“Bind him,” he said to Ytan. Kor already stood bound to a yew tree some ten paces away from me. My brother, still leering, came to me and passed the leather lashings around my wrists tightly enough to hurt, to cut, then kicked my feet out from under me and pushed me to the ground, binding my legs as well.

“I think I will see what this sorcerer Seal king is made of inside,” my father remarked, hefting the sword whose name I did not know.

“Father,” I whispered to him, a plea for his ears alone. Still the thought was in me, if only he would hear me truly, all might yet be well. If only he would hear … But there was no such hearing left in him.

He went to Kor and slit his clothing with the tip of the sword, flicked it off in like wise, leaving shallow gashes in Kor's skin. Blood trickled down, and Kor stood without a sound, his sea-dark eyes gazing. All was blood light fading to wounded dusk, my people watching as stricken as I, bound up in horror and helpless. Somewhere near me someone was sobbing, dry sobs. No, it was I, myself, making that hurtful sound, Dannoc with his heart breaking. I knew my heart was breaking because the agony was familiar. It had done so sometime before.

“Let me, Father.” It was Ytan, and he had my own arrows and bow, brought back from where they had been lashed in their leather cases to Talu's gear.

Tyonoc turned on him with force enough to make him step back. “No.” My father's voice was harsh, ugly. “This kingling is mine.”

Korridun king. “Kor,” I breathed, and though he could not in any way have heard me at the ten paces of distance, his eyes turned to mine. There was a rapt look about him, as if he faced a devourer.

“I am sorry,” I whispered to him, still knowing he could not hear me. Knowing by then that I had been a fool, accursed fool and a wantwit fool to have believed in my father's goodness. I had let us be seized and bound when we could have escaped. Even as they held my arms I could have broken away easily enough had I let myself be roused, and with my uncouth weapon in hand I could have freed us both. But supposing my father had come in the way of the sword—

Black, black horror, terror drowning deep …

Tyonoc twirled the tip of the sword and gouged out Kor's left eye.

I think I went mad, then, truly mad. Months past, Istas had threatened me with similar torments, and Kor had sworn he would far rather have taken them on his own body than stand by helpless.… He took them. His sea-dark eyes, gone, his beloved face slashed into a mask of blood, mutilated. And hands, heart, manhood … The many torments, he suffered all of them, in slow and brutal succession, and though I saw him cry out from time to time I could not hear him, for I was sobbing and roaring and tearing myself to the bone against the thongs that bound me helpless. Love of my father had bound me helpless, and he was a monster, he—he had—killed—

I remembered. Everything.

I grew suddenly still, still enough to hear Kor scream in mortal agony as Tyonoc hacked open his chest. And like a storm breaking in thunder, flame, and flood, all happened at once. I was free of my bonds, someone or something had freed me, and I was on my feet, moving, and I was myself but also—something more, larger, like someone out of legend, self I knew yet did not know by name—but I knew the name of my sword.

“Alar!” I called her.

Lightning, the name meant. Sky fire. And I ran to meet her as she tore from my father's hand and lightly flew to mine. The hilt met my palm like a friend's warm grasp. My father's face floated before me, pale, mouth parted, my father's face, it was he who had betrayed me, made a mockery of my love, and I was in frenzy, I knew what I wanted to do to him—

With a roar of grief I slashed him open from throat to vent.

I wanted his guts to spill out at my feet so that I could spit on them, and trample them, and curse his soul—I was so anguished, so enraged. But no innards were there. Tyonoc looked perplexed and fell, and out of the gaping wound I had made in him there flowed something as gray as guts, fish-gray, unfurling and rippling and flying away—

A devourer!

I heard my people sob, scream, gasp, but I did not even look after it as it flew off westward. I turned to Ytan—I had wanted to behead him, but now I knew I must deal with him as I had with Tyonoc. Heart told me there was a devourer in him as well. But already he was fleeing through the crowd of my frightened people, and as I looked he threw himself on Talu and galloped away.

All became for a moment very quiet.

My father lay dead at my feet, his body empty and collapsed in on itself, like a broken shell. My father. I dropped Alar where I stood. I had killed my own father.…

He would never hurt me again. He would never hurt Kor again.

Kor!

Kor …

Leotie and Tyee were already there at the yew tree, cutting the thongs that bound Kor to it, tears streaming down their faces. And Kor sagged against their gentle hands, lifeless. No, it could not be—

In a single stride I was by his side, and I took him into my arms, feeling, listening, breathless, silently begging to Sakeema, let there be life, any life.…

It was too late. He was dead. Bloody, mutilated, and dead.

Too late, far too late even before I had lifted my sword, I had struck too late, ass, dolt, fool, murderer that I was, world-accursed wantwit madman and murderer, I had let them kill him.

I sank down where I was and cradled his body against me, the poor violated thing, held his eyeless, disfigured head against my shoulder. More than half demented, I rocked him as a mother rocks her child at the breast, as if by rocking him I could somehow comfort him or myself, and as I rocked I crooned—or moaned.… His blood clotted on my fingers. All around me I heard my tribefellows raising the keen for a fallen leader, not for their dead king but for Korridun who had been king by the sea, and my grief could no longer be contained in moaning. I put up my head and howled and wailed as a wolf might howl to a midwinter's moon and bellowed as a mother bison would, mourning her slain calf. And then I wept.

May I never have to weep so again—the water ran down my face like torrents off the mountains during a springtime storm. I wept for my father, who had left me years before. I wept for my friend.
Ai,
my grief—I felt as if I would forever weep, there could be no end to my grieving. My people had gathered all around me, I knew they wanted only to comfort me, but they had no comfort to offer me, and they were grieving as well.…
Ai,
Kor, Kor, if I had known before I lost you how I loved you, more than any father.… Pain was in me like a knife that could not be withdrawn, and I ached and shook with sobbing.

Time is an unkind thing, a relentless thing; it will not be swayed for the sake of any peril. Tarry but a little, mired in heartache, and it is too late, the king is dead.… Time flies away with joy or a friend's life, but it cruelly crawls for agony. And that night when I wept over Kor, time seemed to stand torturously still, so that I who yet lived grieved through a lifetime that would never end.

Tears blinded me.… Time was just. Merciful, even. Forever was too short a time for me to mourn Kor.

Sometime in the midst of forever I blinked and saw someone kneeling before me, tears on her face, hands faltering out toward the lifeless body that lay cradled in my arms. Someone with dark eyes and a face of startling beauty. I looked on that beauty with indifference. Even Tass could not comfort me.

“Too—late,” I told her, my voice choked between sobs.

“No,” she said numbly.

“Dead.”

“No,” she said again, and her hands came out and fumbled at his chest, feeling for a heartbeat.

“Killed …”

“No,” she said, “you are wrong. He breathes. Look.”

It was not possible. His whole chest was laid open. But I looked, my tears falling down on him—and I saw his chest rise and fall, the terrible wounds closing before my eyes.

“Your tears—” Tass edged away, her hands bloodied.

My tears had fallen on Kor's face. And as I watched, trembling, the raw sockets where his eyes had been filled out, the lids closed smoothly as if in sleep. And his face, his mouth, were whole again, comely. And with my arms, with all my body, I felt his heart beating, faintly at first but more strongly with every moment. And I was weeping still, more than ever, but the tears were tears of joy.

“I am frightened of you,” Tass breathed, backing away from me, still on her knees. “There is a fate in you. I am terrified of both of you.” She got up and bolted.

I scarcely saw her go, scarcely comprehended any of what was happening, myself afraid, terrified of the hope and the joy, knowing that if it were somehow madness or an illusion, if Kor were taken away in the night, I could not bear it, I could not endure such weeping again, I would die. Or if his eyes under the smoothly closed lids were not his own … I could not bear it.

“Kor …” I jostled him in my arms. “Kor!” I begged.

“Please wake!” But he was sleeping so soundly I could not rouse him.

“He—he is breathing? Truly?” It was Leotie, beside me, coming close to look, and all my tribesfolk were crowded around, babbling to each other in a tumult of relief and joy. Then their voices fell to a whisper and trailed off into an awed silence. In that silence I felt a great peace, and my sobbing quieted, though from time to time my shoulders still shook.

“But he is sleeping so gently,” an old woman said softly to her neighbor. “See, he nearly smiles.”

“His skin, as smooth as a babe's.”

It was true. All marks of wounds were gone, even the scars the devourers had put on him in vigils past.

“Very comely, for all that he is so dark,” someone else murmured.

“And so brave. He never begged—”

“Yes. Hush. We are all shamed by what happened.”

“Sakeema has taken mercy on us,” a man's voice said, “that he is alive.”

“He is as fair as Sakeema himself, sleeping there.”

“Dan.” It was Leotie again, coming up to me with an armload of pelts and fleeces and blankets. She arranged the things into a thick bed. “Here, lay him gently down, and come, let me see to you, those wrists—”

I did not yet feel that I could speak. I shook my head.

“Dan, please. Only for a moment.”

But I would not lay Kor down. Whether more out of love for him or fear of losing him, I would not let go of him, even for the moment. I sat where I was. In the end, Leotie washed off of me what blood she could and put a blanket around my shoulders and around Kor—he was naked, but warm. Others brought food for me, but I would not taste any. I had no thought for food. And then they took down my father's tent, brought it and raised it over me, on the spot, to keep off the dew and nighttime chill and perhaps the rain. They built a fire near my feet—the smoke curled up through the vent at the tent's ridge. Then, leaving the food and the bedding and some firewood, they went away, for it was very late.

I sat holding Kor through the night as he slept. Sometimes he stirred in his sleep, and every time he did so my heart warmed with joy. Between times I was afraid or angry or grieving, my thoughts tossing and swirling like the waves around the headland, but slowly quieting like the sea after a storm. I steadied my anger, my grief, as I might steady a lathered horse, and on toward morning at last I was calm enough to truly think. And think I did, more deeply and plainly and well than I had ever thought in my life.

Dawn lightened the sky above the smoke vent, turning it the colors of a wild rose. All was still—my people were finally asleep after a troubled night. The small birds were just beginning to stir and sing in the trees, one soft note, then a pause, then another, soft as the dawn. The world was fragrant, quiet, peace lying on it as simply as the dew.

“Kor,” I said, my voice sounding loud in the hush, “wake up.” My arms were numb and aching from holding him.

He stirred, but still he slept.

“Sakeema,” I said very softly, “please wake and speak to me.”

His eyes opened, and they were his own, looking on me with amusement and love.

Chapter Eighteen

Kor sat up, gathered the blanket around his waist and looked at me. “You are calling on the name of Sakeema?” he asked gravely.

“I spoke to you,” I told him levelly enough, though there was a catch in my voice. It unsteadied me to see him sitting there, after all that had happened, well and whole—with the merriment starting in his eyes.

“Dan, for the first time I begin to think you truly mad! You call me Sakeema? You, who brought me back to life with your tears?” His voice grew hushed as he said that, and his hand lifted toward me, but I could not quite touch it. I was almost afraid of him.

I said, “Only Sakeema could have done what you have done for me. You came here knowing what would happen, letting it happen so that—I would see—”

“Dan,” he interrupted, “I knew only a little. I had some fool's thoughts of—interceding for you, somehow. Certainly I did not intend to be killed.”

“But you meant for me to be well.”

“Yes, body of Sakeema, what else? All of us who love you wish you well.”

“You knew you would not be talking with my father. You knew what he was likely to do to you.”

“No. I thought it more likely that he would try to hurt you. As he had done before.”

I stared at him, startled. He looked down at his hands. “I heard your ravings,” he said softly, “when we were in the pit. I learned some things. You have remembered, Dan?”