[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
you must have known I was coming."
Color had returned to Aidan's face. It was no longer stretched so taut, no
longer empty of a tranquillity that annoyed one who lacked it. "I do not
question your right to bitterness and hatred, but this is not the place for
it."
Kellin barked a harsh laugh. "Is that why you brought me in here? To tame my
tongue and ren-
der me less than a man?" He wanted to jeer. "You forget, jehan I have none of
your reverence, nor your humility. If I choose to honor the gods, I do it in
Page 171
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
my own fashion. And, I might add, with less elaboration," He cast a scornful
glance over the chapel. "I did not know a man would exchange the flesh of his
own son for the confines of stone."
Aidan waited him out. "I would not expect you to offer reverence or humility.
You are not the man for it."
It was veiled insult, if Kellin chose to take it so.
Another might acknowledge it as simple statement of fact. "Do you believe me
too weak to be as you are? No, jehan: too strong. I am not a coward. I
do not turn my face from its proper place to hide upon an island with a mouth
full of prophecies."
"Indeed, you are not weak. Nor are you a cow-
ard." Aidan shrugged. "Nor am I, but I give you the freedom to believe as you
will just now, there is more. What you are is a confused, angry young man who
only now confronts his heritage and knows his ultimate fate lies in other
hands." He overrode the beginnings of Kellin's protest. "You mentioned my
kivama first shall we let the gift guide me in the examination of your soul?"
He
A TAPESTRY OF LIONS 355
smiled without intending offense, reminding qui-
etly that what he could do was what few others could. "You will do as I did
when the time has come: acknowledge and fully accept what the gods have
designed for you in the ordering of your life."
"If you know it, then tell me!" Kellin cried-
"You claim communion with the gods. Tell me now and save me time wasted in
discovering it for myself!"
"And deny you the chance to grow into the man the gods intend you to be?"
Aidan smiled. "A war-
rior cannot circumvent a tahlmorra so easily ...
he is charged to become what he is meant to be-
come in the husbandry of his soul. Were I to tell you what becomes of you, I
might well alter what is meant to happen."
"Obscurity," Kellin charged. "That is what you teach here: how to speak in
riddles so no man can understand."
"A man learns," Aidan countered, "and then he understands."
Kellin laughed. "Tell me," he challenged. "If in-
deed you can. Prophesy for me. For your only son."
Aidan did not move upon the bench. His hands lay in his lap. "Do you forget
who I am?"
"Who you are? How could I? You are the man
I have sought all my life even when I denied it
and now that I have found you I am at last able to tell you precisely what I
think of you and your foolish claims!"
"I am the mouthpiece of the gods."
Kellin laughed at him.
And then his laughter died, for Aidan began to speak. "The Lion shall lie with
the witch. Out of darkness shall come light; out of death: life; out of the
old: the new."
"Words," Kellin began, meaning to defame the
3S6 Jennifer Robersm man who said them, to leech them of their power, but his
challenge died away.
"The Lion shall lie with the witch, and the wit-
ch-child born of it shall join with the Lion to swal-
low the House of Homana and all of her children."
"Jehan!"
Yellow eyes had turned black. Aidan stared fixedly at Kellin, one hand raised
to indicate his son. "The Lion," he said, "shall devour the House of Homana."
"Stop "
His voice rose. "Do you think to escape the
Page 172
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Lion? Do you think to escape your fate?" Lips peeled back. "Small, foolish
boy you are nothing to the gods. It is the Lion's cub they desire, not the
Lion himself ... you are the means to an end.
The Lion shall lie down with the witch."
Kellin was instantly taken out of himself, swept back ten years. To the time
of Summerfair, when he had put on his second-best tunic to go among the crowds
and see what he would see, to taste suhoqla again and challenge a Steppes
warior. To enter the tent filled with a sickly, sweetish odor;
to see again the old man who sat upon his cushion and told who he was, and
what would be his fate.
"Lion " Kellin whispered, staring at his father.
"There is a lion after all "
Aidan smiled an odd, inhumane smile. "Kellin,"
he said plainly, "you are the Lion."
Two
"I am sorry." Aidan's tone was quiet, lacking its former power. "But I warned
you. It is never a simple thing and rarely pleasant to learn your tahlmorra."
Kellin clung to the heel stone for support. He did not precisely recall how he
had reached it.
He remembered, if dimly, stumbling out of the shadow-clad chapel into clean
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]