the hold itself.
“I wanted you to see this,” Roh said above the howl of wind. “I wanted you to know the compass of this place. And she will finish it, end all hope for them. That is what she has come to do.”
He turned a hard look on Roh, leaned against the stonework, for he had begun to shiver convulsively in the wind. “It is impossible for you to persuade me,” he said, and held up his scarred hand to the moonlight “Roh or Liell, you should remember what I am, at least.”
“You doubt me,” said Roh.
“I doubt everything about you.”
Roh’s face, hair torn by the wind, assumed a pained earnestness. “I knew that she would hunt me. She was always our enemy. But from you, Nhi Vanye i Chya, I hoped for better. You took shelter from me. You slept at my hearth. Is that nothing to you?”
Vanye flexed his fingers on the corded hilt of the sword, for they were growing numb with cold. “You are supposing,” he said hoarsely, “what passed between Roh and me—what was surely common knowledge throughout Chya—and I do not doubt you had your spies. If you want me to believe you, then tell me again what Roh told me last in Ra-koris, when there was none to hear.”
Roh hesitated. “To come back,” he said, “free of her.”
It was truth. The unexpectedness of it numbed him. He leaned against the stonework, ceasing even to shiver, and abruptly turned his face from Roh. “And it might be that Roh counseled with others before saying that to me.”
Roh pulled him about by the shoulder, grimacing into the wind.
“So you could say, Vanye, for any other thing you might devise to try me. You cannot be sure, and you know it.”
“There is one thing you cannot answer,” Vanye said. “You cannot tell me why you are here in this land. Roh would not have fled the road we took; he had no reason to—but Liell had every reason. Liell would have run for his life; and Roh had no reason to.”
“He is here,” Roh said, a hand upon his heart. “Here. So also am I. My memories—all are Roh’s—they are both.”
“No,” he said. “No. Morgaine said that would not happen; and I would rather take her word than yours—in any matter.”
“I am your cousin. I could have taken your life; but I am your cousin. You have the sword. There is no witness here to say it was no fair fight—if the Shiua lords cared. You are already known for a kinslayer many times over. Use it. Or listen to me.”
He flung off Roh’s hand, blind as a turn of his head brought his own shorn hair into his eyes. He shook it free, stalked off across the battlements, stood staring down into the squalor of that courtyard, the wind pushing at his back, fit to tear him from the edge and cast him over.
“Nhi Vanye!” Roh called him. He turned and looked, saw Roh had followed him. He stubbornly turned his head toward the view downward, toward the paving and the poor shelters huddled against the keep walls. He felt the breaking of the force of the wind as Roh stepped between it and him.
“If you are kinsman to me,” Vanye said, “free me from this place. Then I will believe your kinship.”
“Me? And care you nothing for that child that came with you?”
He looked back, stung, unable to argue. He affected a shrug. “Jhirun? Here is where she wanted to be, in Shiuan, in Ohtij-in. This is the land she wished for. What is she to me?”
“I had thought better of you,” Roh said after a moment “So, surely, had she.”
“I am
“There are men,” said Roh, and pointed at the squalid court, where beasts and men shared neighboring quarters. ‘That is the lot of men in Ohtij-in. That is their life, from birth to death. Men now. Tomorrow the rest that survives in this land will live in that poverty, and the
“I have nothing to do with what is happening to these people. I cannot help them or harm them.”
“Can you not? The Wells are their hope, Vanye. For all that live and will live in this world, the Wells are all the hope there is. They had no skill to use them; but by them, these folk could live. I could do it. Morgaine surely could, but she will not, and you know that she will not. Vanye, if that ancient power were used as it once was used, their lot would be different. Look on this, look, and remember it, cousin.”
He looked, perforce. He did not wish to remember the sight, and the faces that had raged wildly beyond the guards’ pikes, the desperate hands that had reached through the grate. “All this is a lie,” he said. “As you are a lie.”
“The sword’s edge,” Roh invited him, “if you believe that beyond doubt.”
He lifted his face toward Roh, wishing to see truth, wishing something that he could hate, finding nothing to attack—only Roh, mirror-image of himself, more alike him than his own brothers.
“Send me from here,” he challenged him who wore the shape of Roh, “if you believe that you can convince me. At least you know that I keep my sworn word. If you have a message for Morgaine herself, then give it to me and I will deliver it faithfully—if I can find her, of which I have doubts.”
“I will not ask you where she is,” Roh said. “I know where she is going; and I know that you would not tell me more than that. But others might ask you. Others might ask you.”
Vanye shivered, remembering the gathering in the hall, the pale lords and ladies who owed nothing to humanity. A fall to the paving below was easier than that. He stepped forward to the very edge, inwardly trying whether he had the courage.
“Vanye,” Roh cried, compelling his attention. “Vanye, she will have little difficulty destroying these folk. They will see her, they will flock to her, trusting, because she is fair to see—and she will kill them. It has happened before. Do you think that there is compassion in her?”
“There has been,” he said, the words hanging half soundless in his throat.
“You know its limits,” said Roh. “You have seen that, too.”
Vanye cursed aloud, flung himself back from the battlements and sought the door, sought warmth, fought to open it against the force of the wind. He tore it open, and Roh held it, came in after him. The torches in the hall fluttered wildly until the door slammed, Roh dropped the latch. They remained on opposite sides of the little corridor, facing one another.
“Say to them that you could not persuade me,” Vanye said. “Perhaps your hosts will forgive you.”
“Listen to me,” said Roh.
Vanye unhooked the sheathed sword and cast it across the corridor; Roh caught it, mid-sheath, and looked at him in perplexity.
“God forgive me,” Vanye said.
“For not committing murder?” Roh said. “That is incongruous.”
He stared at Roh, then tore his eyes from him and began to walk rapidly down the corridor, descending the ramp. There were guards below. He stopped when their weapons levelled toward him.
Roh overtook him and set his hand on his arm. “Do not be rash. Listen to me, cousin. Messengers are going out, have already sped, despite the storm, bearing warnings of her throughout the whole countryside, to every hold and village. She will find no welcome among these folk.”
Vanye jerked free, but Roh caught his arm again. “No,” said Roh. The guards stood waiting, helmed, faceless, weapons ready. “Will you be handled like a peasant for the hanging?” Roh whispered in his ear, “or will you walk peaceably with me?”
Roh’s hand tightened, urged. Vanye suffered the grip upon his arm, and Roh led him through the midst of the guards, walked with him down the windings of the corridors; and they did not stop at the door of the room that confined Jhirun, but went farther, into a branching corridor, that seemed to lead back to the main tower. The guards walked at their backs, two bearing torches.
“Jhirun,” Vanye reminded Roh, as they entered that other corridor.
