Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 by A Tapestry of Lions (v1.0) Read Free Book Online

rug just
opposite the fortune-teller. "For the boy's sake, then."
                "And nothing for
yourself?" The fortune-teller's teeth were stained pale yellow. "Give
me your hands."
                Kellin dropped to his knees and
waited eagerly.
                "Go on, Rogan. Give him your
hands."
                With a small, ironic smile, Rogan
acquiesced.
                The fortune-teller merely looked at
the tutor's hands for a long moment, examining the minute whorls and scars in
his flesh, the length of fingers, the fit of nails, the color of the skin. Then
he linked his fingers with Rogan's, held them lightly, and began to murmur
steadily as if invoking the gods.
                "No tricks," Rogan
reminded.
                "Shhh," Kellin said.
"Don't spoil the magic."
                "This isn't magic, Kellin . . .
this is merely entertainment.''
                But the fortune-teller's tone
altered, interrupting the debate. His voice dropped low into a singsong cadence
that made the hair rise up on the back of Ketlin's neck: "Alone in the
midst of many, even those whom you love ... apart and separate, consumed by
grief. She lives within you when she is dead, and you live through her, seeing
her face when you sleep and wake, longing for the love she cannot offer. You
live in the pasts of kings and queens and those who have gone before you, but
you thrive upon your own. Your past is your present and will be your future,
until you summon the strength to give her life again. Offered and spurned, it
is offered again; spurned and offered a third time until, accepting, you free
yourself from the misery of what is lost to you, and then live in the misery of
what you have done. You will die knowing what you have done, and why, and the
price of your reward. You will use and be used in turn, discarded at last when
your use is passed."
                Rogan jerked his hands away with a
choked, inarticulate protest. Kellin, astonished, stared at his tutor; what he
saw made him afraid. The man's face was ashen, devoid of life, and his eyes
swam with tears.
                "Rogan?" Apprehension
seized his bones and washed his flesh ice-cold. "Rogan!"
                But Rogan offered no answer. He sat
upon the rug and stared at nothingness as tears ran down his face.
                "A harsh truth," the
fortune-teller said quietly, exhaling husath fumes. "I promise no
happiness."
                "Rogan—" Kellin began, and
then the fortune-teller reached out and caught at his hands, trapped the
fingers in his own, and Kellin's speech was banished.
                This time there were no gods to
invoke. The words spilled free of the stranger's mouth as if he could not stop
them. "He is the sword," the hissing voice whispered. "The sword
and the bow and the knife. He is the weapon of every man who uses him for Hi,
and the strength of every man who uses him for good. Child of darkness, child
of light; of like breeding with like, until the blood is one again. He is
Cymric, he is Cynric: the sword and the bow and the knife, and all men shall
name him evil until Man is made whole again."
                The voice stopped, Kellin stared,
struggling to make an answer, any sort of answer, but the sound began again.
                "The lion shall lie down with
the witch; out of darkness shall come light; out of death: life; out of the
old: the new. The lion shall lie down with the witch, and the witch-child born
to rule what the lion must swallow. The lion shall devour the House of Homana
and all of her children, so the newbom child shall sit upon the throne and know
himself lord of all"
                A shudder wracked Kellin from head
to toe, and then he cried out and snatched his hands away.
                "The Lion!" he cried.
"The Lion will eat me!"
                He