P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

“Good,” he muttered, his eyes still closed.

“More?”

He blinked at her. “Yes.”

She poured him another cupful and supported his head as he drank. His hair was greasy with sweat. He squinted at her over the cup’s rim.

“I knew you’d bring that monster,” he said, “and that we would be lucky to escape from it alive.”

“You had a good horse.”

“The best. Old Gray-leggings will be hard to replace.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was to the death, whatever you were told. I just never counted on horse before rider.”

“You’d rather it was the other way around?”

“I could have spared that idiot Fash.”

“So could we all. Now rest. You left enough blood in the square to launch a small fleet.”

At the door, his voice stopped her. “I nearly killed you.”

“I know. Never mind. And cheer up: here comes Timmon with a nice bunch of flowers.”

The water cup shattered on the lintel over her head.

“Now, was that called for?” asked Timmon, approaching with an arm full of white daisies, some pulled up by the roots and dribbling dry soil.

Jame closed the infirmary door. “He really isn’t up to teasing.”

“Would I do that?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Then you take these.” He thrust the flowers at her. “In token of your victory. Besides, I look silly carting them around.”

“And I don’t?”

“They complement your eyes. Also, the Commandant asked me to tell you to meet him in the great hall.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. And congratulations,” he called after her. “That was quite a show, if rather hard on the livestock.”

The Commandant paced before the empty fireplace in the great hall. Dusk filtering through high windows supplied the only light, the only sound his heels clicking and a murmur from the square outside. He had locked the doors. The hall was as secure as he could make it.

Keeping him company were the looming banners of all nine major houses. He glanced up at his lord’s against the northern wall, a great, swollen collection of stitches that all but obscured its design with more to be added that evening. What would Caldane say about today’s events? His heir’s near death would mean far less to him than the Knorth Lordan’s success. Would he carry out his threats? Sheth accepted philosophically that Caldane might, and that his own active career as a randon might end as soon as word of today’s events reached Restormir. If so, then so. He had emerged from the paradox with his honor intact, a thing which, in itself, would make Lord Caineron smash anything within his reach.

The Commandant looked up at the rathorn banner hanging over the fireplace and shook his head. Oh, the Knorth. He had thought before, more than once, that they put everyone to the test whether they meant to or not. So it had proved again.

Footsteps sounded on the stair. Jameth descended, carrying a sheaf of bedraggled flowers.

“You sent for me, Ran?”

He flicked a drooping daisy with a fingertip. “Very becoming. Not I. Him.”

Puzzled, she turned in the direction that he indicated, down the hall. A pale face crowned with silver-shot hair seemed to materialize out of the growing gloom, approaching.

“Tori!” she cried, first joyful, then perplexed. Sheth saw her gulp. She faced the Highlord, straightening, as if against a force of nature.

“Have you words for me, brother?”

“Sister, I challenge you as the Knorth Lordan to prove your worthiness of that title.”

“Truly, Tori?”

“Truly.”

“Then I accept your challenge.”

She handed the flowers to the Commandant, who received them with a raised eyebrow, and started down the hall toward the Highlord. They approached like images in a mirror, lithe, loose of limb, and black clad, their house and kinship proclaimed by the fine bones of their faces and by their silver-gray eyes. Three paces apart they stopped and saluted each other, equal to equal. Then they began to circle.

At first their moves were tentative as they felt out each other’s skill. Torisen flicked a fire-leaping blow at Jameth which she deflected with water-flowing. He struck again, harder and faster. She blocked and snapped back with a response that grazed his cheek. With that, the fight settled into a serious match. Her style was classic and smoothly cadenced, his rougher but no less effective, though neither as yet had landed a telling blow. Fire-leaping met water-flowing, wind-blowing channeled aside earth-moving.

Their shadows moved with them, larger than they, and the banners rippled against the walls at their touch. Each gesture extended beyond itself to sweep dust from the floor and fan the Commandant’s coattails. He felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck. His Shanir sense told him that here was power, barely aroused, barely controlled. Torisen reversed suddenly with a move from Kothifir street-fighting. Jameth blocked awkwardly and stumbled back against a pillar. She only brushed the stone, but it groaned and dust shifted down from the rafters. She came back with a Kothifir counterblow that knocked the Highlord off his feet.

The Commandant watched with interest: he had heard that the Southron Brier was training the lordan, but hadn’t guessed that her lessons had proceeded so far.

He was also concerned. The hall seemed to swell with the force that it contained and his ears popped. Clearly, these two should never fight each other. He put down the flowers and drew a wooden flute out of his sleeve. At what seemed like a propitious moment, he began to play.

Jameth instantly shifted to the Senetha. Torisen, not so quick to adjust, carried through with his attack and kicked her in the head. She staggered. It had been a potentially killing blow, but she didn’t fall. After a moment’s pause, the Commandant continued to play.

They were dancing now. Jameth stumbled through the opening moves, kept on her feet as if by some external force that defied gravity. Torisen swayed to support her, but never quite had to. They glided through the forms again mirroring each other, swoop and turn, dip and rise. Hands slid past hands, arched bodies nearly touched, flesh tingled, to pass so close. Power was building up again, this time thick and erotic. The Commandant could feel it rippling up and down his spine but still he played as if unable to stop. The floor on which they danced was dark green shot with glowing verdigris veins, the banners multiplied, now with faces that watched and smiled, lopsided, hungry. If he could have turned, what would have been on the hearth behind him?

Squeee, squeee, squeeeee . . .

Claws flexed on stone. The shapes of long-dead Arrin-ken rose at the edge of his vision to loom over him.

“You see how they are drawn together,” whispered a mocking voice in his ear. “Ah, my dark lord’s sweet blood-kin. What if they should touch? Who of us would survive the union of creation and destruction? Schoolmaster, should you forbid them, or wait to see what follows?”

The Commandant wrenched the flute from his lips, tasting blood as flesh sundered from wood.

Jameth stumbled and fell. As Torisen bent over her, she spat out a tooth and groaned. “Not the same one.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop in time.”

“ ’S all right. It will grow back.”

The Commandant slipped the flute up his sleeve. “Highlord, are you satisfied?”

“Trinity, yes. I was a fool to doubt you, wasn’t I?”

Which of them he meant wasn’t clear, but one would do for both.

The Commandant wondered, though, if Torisen’s fears were unjustified after all. Jameth would make a good randon, no doubt, but Kothifir would be lucky to survive her. Might not the same be said about the entire Kencyrath? What, after all, had he been nurturing in his nest at Tentir?