Circling Birds of Prey, Page 3

  The silence went on so long Lian finally had the courage to look up, to find himself staring into the black, intent eyes of a very tall, dark man who limped forward, interest in the big eyes. Lian almost cringed, a hand to his mouth and his blue eyes filling with tears.

  "Sar," he said, so softly no one near him heard.

  But Sarehl did. He stopped and stood still, his eyes scanning the man not that much younger than himself. There was a lack of recognition in the dark eyes that made Lian give a gesture of despair.

  "Who are you?" said Sarehl quietly, coming within a foot of Lian and extending his hand. "I should know you, shouldn't I? There's something about you." Lian shrugged.

  "You may not remember me, Sar, but you were kind to me. The others teased but you never did." Sarehl's eyes narrowed intently.

  "Lian?" he asked, in absolute disbelief. "Lian?" Taking the hand held out, Lian nodded. "It truly is you? After all this time? Where've you been?"

  "I don't know exactly," whispered Lian. Sarehl glanced over at the Kyaran and then back at the oddly young face that resembled that of a youth barely beyond boyhood.

  "Where in the name of the gods did you find him?" he asked the eldest Kyaran, his eyes flickering back to Lian.

  "Just east of the camp perimeter, Strategos, outside a cavern the boys use every so often. He appears deeply afraid of the Churchik."

  "Aren't we all?" muttered Sarehl. He nodded at the Kyaran. "You've brought me our brother, my friend. I thank you."

  The Kyaran stared astonished at Sarehl then at Lian, before he remembered protocol and stiffened before withdrawing with his men. It left Lian and Sarehl alone. The former stared pleadingly at the latter who looked profoundly thoughtful as he guided Lian to a chair, then handed him a goblet that he absently and generously filled. Lian sipped at it before heaving a sigh. Sarehl filled a second goblet then sat opposite his half-brother, his expression sombre.

  "Something traumatic's happened to you for cycles, hasn't it, Lian?" Swallowing with a little difficulty, Lian nodded. "Can you tell me?"

  "Sar, I'm unused to speaking," Lian whispered rather huskily, "but I'll try." Sarehl pursed his lips.

  "You seem confused, Lian. Do you wish to rest alone?"

  The shake of the blond head was a definite negative, so Sarehl sat back, his goblet to his mouth while he waited patiently. After a prolonged pause, Lian spoke.

  "Once I knew nothing, brother, but there's much told me in the last cycles, though I was a prisoner and could do nothing." He saw the spasm of distress cross Sarehl's face. "Sar, I'm not whole. I know that now and I know, too, that I never will be for as long as I live. I have to accept that."

  "I don't understand about being whole, Lian." A shiver shook Lian.

  "I hope you never do," he mumbled, upending the goblet.

  Sarehl drank quietly, his eyes never leaving Lian's face. He saw the blond head averted as Lian struggled against tears.

  "Be easy, Lian," Sarehl said gently. "I won't hurt you."

  "You never hurt anyone, Sar," Lian murmured, a hand up to brush away falling tears. "Though I see someone's hurt you. Was it the Churchik?"

  "Yes," was the emotionless reply.

  "Alicia and the children?" The question was torn from Lian.

  "Dead."

  "Was it the warlord who did this?"

  "Possibly," replied Sarehl, eying Lian curiously. "It's thought he set out to destroy much. Why do you ask, brother?"

  Lian shook his head and drank hastily. His voice was thick and choked with emotion when he managed to control it enough to speak again.

  "I'll tell you what I know, Sar, though you'll probably disbelieve it - even as I do. It seems too fantastic to be real. If it hadn't happened to me I'd say it was a story fit for children." He sounded suddenly very tired.

  "Try me," suggested Sarehl quietly. "I may have been disbelieving once, but not anymore."

  Lian gulped at the wine. He still sometimes shook with sudden shivers though his voice calmed. He coughed, cleared his throat twice and began.

  "When I was a boy, my father was visited by healers when we still lived in southern Dahkilah. Pa was settled there because of his trading and he wanted me taught under the Dahkilans whom he admired. He was very successful as a trader and we wanted for nothing. Pa didn't know who the healers were, but they said they'd come for silks." Lian hesitated, then continued. "I was very young, the last of a family that was grown and living across southern Ambros. I was all Pa had. We loved each other very much." Here the voice faltered. "Pa?"

  "I haven't seen him since Ortok, Lian, I'm sorry." The blue eyes blinked against a resurgence of tears.

  "I understand," whispered Lian, with an effort. "All I remember is Pa weeping and begging the healers not to do something that he said would hurt me. The healers ignored him, only telling him that if he didn't respond suitably my pain would be worse. Pa put out his hand to me, held me close, told me how much he loved me and said he had no choice about what might happen. By allowing the healers to touch me, he said it would mean less hurt for us both. I trusted Pa - I still do." Lian bent his head before speaking again, his voice husky. "I didn't understand and I know Pa never knew what was done next. I was taken to a man of power, Sar. I don't know if I was physically there. It was where the healers strapped me to a bed in a way that meant I couldn't move, not even my head. Later I was somewhere else, I think."

  Lian couldn't go on. When he lifted his head, Sarehl saw unspeakable terror cloud the blue eyes. Sarehl was beside Lian in an instant, his arms about him and his free hand grasping Lian's pitiably shaking ones. The goblet, empty, fell to the ground. Sarehl had never seen emotion such as this on the usually expressionless face.

  "Gently, Lian," Sarehl murmured. "Gently, lad. You speak of the southern mage, don't you?" Frantically seeking comfort, Lian's eyes sought Sarehl's.

  "His name's Blach," he whispered, his fingers curling convulsively round his brother's. "I didn't know, but she told me." Sarehl's forehead puckered and he'd have asked enlightenment had Lian not begun talking again. "The mage tormented me in unspeakable ways, Sar, and finally drained me so I can know some emotion, pain of all kinds mostly, and fear, but that's all."

  "Gods," mumbled Sarehl. He stood. Lian pressed white lips tightly together, then forced himself to speak.

  "I became used to the summons, though the agony that came with them was -." He broke off briefly. "Once I obeyed, the pain went. Pa told me we had to move north to the Samar states, to a city-state called Ortok, where he'd meet a widow named Melas."

  "Mam," sighed Sarehl, his black eyes watchful.

  "Pa said if we didn't, I'd suffer. He fought the healers twice, but gave in when he saw what was done to me. I remember how he screamed at them to stop. Though my memory's hazy, I recall awful torment those times. Pa then yielded, came north to the Choice ceremony and mated with your mother, Sar, as he was told to do, though I still believe he fell deeply in love with her anyway."

  "Why?" asked Sarehl, almost to himself. Lian shook his head.

  "Pa said he'd rather kill me than see me hurt and used, but said he couldn't because he loved me too much." Lian's voice was very quiet and he paused before adding simply, "I wish he had killed me."

  "No!" Sarehl remonstrated fiercely. "Gods, Lian, I wish we could've helped you."

  "In odd ways you did, Sar."

  "We didn't know what you'd endured. How could we? The boys wouldn't have teased you had they known."

  "It was never malicious. I knew that, even then."

  "And?" prompted Sarehl gently, watching the eyes close tiredly. "Do you wish to rest now?"

  "I want you to know."

  Lian watched as Sarehl stooped to retrieve the goblet and crossed the pavilion to refill it. Lian took it when it was held out to him, but placed it next to him on the ground. He fingered his long hair unconsciously.

  "Then talk when you want to, Lian." Sarehl sat opposite his brother again.

  "The warriors came
at Choice." Sarehl saw the eyes cloud again with pain. "They abused Pa to remind him he mustn't fail. I never knew this until -." He broke off, again visibly disturbed. "They torture and rape. I promised them obedience. By the time they left, Sar, I wanted to die. You see, I had no will. Where there's no will there can be nothing."

  Sarehl's face showed shock, revulsion and compassion and his hands about the goblet clenched and unclenched.

  "Do they abuse everyone they touch?" he asked, anguished. "Is nobody inviolate?" Lian shrugged helplessly, lifted his goblet and drank deeply.

  "I came to your family where I was happy, as much as I could be. Those two cycles are ones I remember with such affection. Myme Chlo -."

  Lian's control completely broke. He bowed his head in his hands as if to continue was unbearable. Sarehl became aware of movement at the entrance to the pavilion, looked across and up, and, seeing both Kaleb and Ensore he nodded to them that they enter unobtrusively and sit. They went quietly to chairs set beyond where Sarehl knelt painfully next to Lian. Lian wiped his face with the back of his hand, his voice shaken and unsteady. Sarehl fell back.

  "Sar," Lian whispered. "Thank the gods you're here."

  "You cared for Myme Chlo, didn't you, Lian?"

  "I grew to love her, as I believe she came to care for me. I was unaware this was what I was conditioned to do, because it felt natural and I just knew she was gentle and didn't threaten me, any more than Bethel. I felt safe with them, Sar. She trusted me as she was meant to. Where's little Beth?" Sarehl swallowed.

  "Bethel's a slave captive of the warlord's, Lian."

  "No!" gasped Lian, his eyes widening with horror. "No, Sar! How is this possible?"

  "The warlord found him in a slave pen of pretty boys. Bethel wouldn't have stood a chance, would he?"

  "Ah the gods," moaned Lian. "The others? What about my baby brother, Sar? Have they killed little Brue, too?"

  "Lute's a slave, Dase is here with me, and your little brother's likewise with us, Lian, and looking more and more like your father every day."

  Lian drank deeply again, quite unable to speak for long moments as he tried to grasp what Sarehl said. Sarehl rose and went back to his chair, his eyes still fixed to the youthful face opposite and his expression decidedly sad. Watching him, Kaleb thought the Strategos wore the haunted look of old but he sensibly refrained from comment, merely settling himself back further in the chair. Ensore could've been made of stone. Lian turned his head to his brother, his eyes strangely compelling and sorrowful.

  "Sar, I didn't know what I'd be told to do, or how conditioned I was to do it. I swear this to you as you're my brother." Sarehl's eyes involuntarily and fleetingly met Kaleb's, before flickering to the still figure of the Marshal.

  "What did you do?"

  "The warlord summoned me as I knew one day he would," replied Lian quietly, his voice subdued. "I'd forgotten the pain a summons brought so I was unprepared for it. I can't describe it to you. Also the warriors taunted and hurt me so much they'd made me deeply afraid of the warlord and what he might do to me." Lian stared expressionlessly into his goblet. "Though he didn't threaten me, I sensed his power. He's a huge man of overbearing menace, Sar." Lian missed the flinch Sarehl gave and how his brother drank suddenly and long. "He just told me what I knew already - that I was to take Myme Chlo to him the following evening and was to open the gates of Ortok for him as well. Ortok was to be betrayed, Sar."

  Lian paused and Sarehl took a deep breath. There was a long silence. Sarehl sat, appalled at the implications of what he was hearing, while Lian sat hunched.

  "Lian, if you were conditioned, you couldn't have done anything else," Sarehl finally said.

  "Somehow that doesn't make it better," mumbled Lian.

  "No," agreed Sarehl helplessly. "I guess not. Until a short time ago we'd no idea what happened to Myme Chlo, brother. We hope she escaped, but until just now we didn't know Ortok was betrayed either."

  "She escaped?" breathed Lian, on a strangled croak.

  "We hope so, but what I need to know is whether or not you took her to Lodestok." Lian shook his head at the distress in Sarehl's voice.

  "No, Sar, I failed." Ensore and the healer exchanged looks but said nothing. Sarehl's voice was urgent.

  "What happened, Lian?" Lian chose his words carefully and thoughtfully.

  "I took her with me that evening, Sar," he began, the expression in his eyes confused. "We got outside the gates so the rest should've been easy, but the next thing I knew I was running alone in the forest. The little girl's clasp was gone. You see, someone made me think I had Myme Chlo with me, but she never entered the forest. I know that now, because I was told.

  Lban chased me. He suspected there was something unusual about our little sister and I guess he followed us. As I've often done throughout my life, Sar, I wished to die, but it seems that's impossible for me. As I recall, I fell into a grove where I became so cold. And I think it was Lban who betrayed Ortok, not me.

  I couldn't think because the pain from the cold seemed to eat into my very bones. It was intense, even though Ortok was in summer. It was then I saw it, Sar. You may've heard of them - I had. Pa dismissed them as myths, but my mother believed in the old sagas and she told me about them when I was a small child." Lian gave a gasp, his head went down again and there was silence. Sarehl waited. The blond head lifted and the eyes cleared to luminous brightness that was as alive as Sarehl had seen Lian. "An estani butterfly dragon, Sar." Sarehl watched a smile of recollection transform the tragic face, but only briefly. "I watched it and tried to follow it before I lost my senses." The voice was sad. "It was very beautiful and I swear it beckoned me on. Perhaps not. When I did follow it, it led me into darkness where it left me." Lian shivered. "I was so afraid, Sar. Then it came again, later. It may've been much later and I suspect it was. The cold was agonising. It ate with such cruelty - worse than Blach, Sar, worse even than him. " Lian fell silent again and drank deliberately before he resumed in a faltering voice. "I was alone and terrified by that and the pain. I was frozen quite deliberately, Sar, and knew it even as it happened to me, but you can't fight being frozen alive, can you?" The weary voice trailed away.

  "Where were you?" asked Sarehl gently. Lian shook his head, then pushed back blond hair falling down his chest in a cascade. It was as long as Bethel's, though straight and silky, not wildly thick and curly.

  "I don't know," came a whisper. "As I became living ice, in such agony, I saw the Ice dragon who did this to me stare at me." Lian began to shiver uncontrollably, his teeth chattered with recollection and the wine splashed from his goblet.

  "You're here, Lian lad, with me. It's Sar."

  Lian looked at his half-brother, the blue eyes melancholy.

  "Do you believe me, Sar? I don't lie. I never have." Sarehl stared deeply into dilated pupils.

  "I believe you, brother," he said softly. "Indeed I do."

  "The dragon was a she, Sar, with violet eyes. I thought she was Mam. The eyes were Melas."

  "And was it?" asked Sarehl curiously, his tone incredulous. For the first time, the likeable smile that Sarehl always associated with Lian, touched the sad face.

  "For cycles I was left alone there, Sar, encased in ice." Sarehl watched the smile grow. "Not so long ago she came back and talked with me, as did a man who came to give me comfort."

  "Did it help?"

  "Yes," murmured Lian absently. "The time passed as if I was in a dream after that."

  "And the dragon?"

  "She explained what was done to me and why I acted in the way I did. She told me I've little essence left, that I'll possibly never be whole, though she thought one day, perhaps, that may not be so. She was angry with me for threatening her child in the forest, but what she did to me was done when she was so very young.

  You see, she was barely hatched when I tried to take Myme Chlo to the warlord, so she had me suspended in time, by others, until she could come herself to punish me by turning me to ice. She
was older then, but still only a hatchling. When she came to me, not long ago, she was sorry she hurt me, but the man said she saved my life. I accept that."

  "Who was the man?" Lian gave a half-shrug.

  "I don't know. He was an unusual-looking man with dark copper-streaked hair."

  "Melas? Was it Mam?" The questions were wrung from Sarehl.

  "She's not Melas or Mam now, Sar," Lian said with some difficulty, his eyes wavering from contact with Sarehl's. "Her name's Goldlas. She's promised we'll meet again. I await that day, Sar."

  Lian's eyes finally met Sarehl's, the mention of Melas making the blue eyes briefly lustrous before they clouded again. Lian fell silent.

  "She released you, Lian. When was that?" The answer was deeply muffled but it shook Sarehl as much as anything.

  "Today, Sar. I was released today, not long before the men found me."

  "You've been frozen all these cycles?" whispered Sarehl, awed and aghast. When there was no answer Sarehl stood still, his stare taking in the white and silver threads sprinkled through the blond hair. Sarehl shivered deeply. "Gods!" he whispered. Lian's voice was now very weary.

  "I'm tired, brother. I'm afraid too."

  Sarehl stared down at Lian, suddenly aware how almost childlike he was. With a shock he realised a youth had been held in stasis for cycles then abruptly freed into an environment that must be frightening, confusing and strange. Sarehl understood how disoriented Lian must be. He glanced meaningfully over at Kaleb who nodded quickly, then both he and Ensore quietly left the pavilion. Sarehl spoke very gently.

  "I'll look after you, Lian, you can believe that. I'll let nothing happen to you."

  Sarehl took the extended hand that he remembered as long-fingered and tapered. Quietly he helped Lian to his feet, just as Kaleb returned with Leon close behind. Sarehl glanced at Leon.

  "We need your help for our brother, Leon. Has Kaleb explained?" Leon nodded sharply. Sarehl bent his head. "Lian lad, my friends will take you and care for you," he explained softly.

  Lian looked up and over at the two healers, then blenched, all colour wiped from his face and his eyes wide with terror. He made an inarticulate sound and bent his head in his hands.