The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [28]
At last, the boy came with word that Ilar wanted to see him. Ulan found him in the large bed, propped up against the bolsters with the comforter pulled up under his chin, his long wet hair soaking the silk of both.
"There now, that's better isn't it?" Ulan said, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. "Can you tell me how you came to be in such a state? Did Seregil i Korit do this to you?"
Ilar shook his head vehemently. "No ... he would never ..." But his gaze was vague now, and his attention clearly wandered.
"Do you bring news of the rhekaro, and the others?" Ulan knew he should let the poor man sleep, but he was too anxious for answers.
"Rhekaro?"
"Is it--" Ulan covered his mouth quickly with the stained handkerchief as another fit of coughing overtook him. This was as bad as the previous one. "Please go on," he wheezed when it passed. "Tell me of the rhekaro," he urged gently, trying to recapture Ilar's attention.
"His child ..."
Child? That was an odd way to look at it. "Did your master discover the elixir he promised me?"
Ilar gave him a blank look. "It can heal."
Ah, yes! This was what Charis Yhakobin had promised in return for so much Viresse gold.
Ilar let out an hysterical little laugh. "They aren't supposed to speak!"
A speaking elixir? The man was mad.
Ilar's eyes went vaguer still. "Ilban would have--But there was a terrible sound! It hurt ... stinking in the sun ... but not Seregil and Alec ... so beautiful under the sky!" Ilar's twisted smile sent a chill up Ulan's spine. "But the bodies! Oh, the bodies and the birds!"
"Whose bodies?"
"Ilban ... all of them ... Seregil ... So beautiful!"
The way Ilar spoke of the Bokthersan told Ulan that this wreck of a man still had strong feelings for Seregil, even after all these years. He'd guessed as much when Charis had sent word, asking that Seregil be delivered to him, as well as the boy.
"Seregil is not dead," Ulan told him. "He is in Gedre."
"Alive? Seregil is alive?" Something like joy momentarily lit that gaunt face. "Alive. But ..." He reached out from under the comforter and pulled back the sleeve of his linen nightshirt to show Ulan the scratches, even as his eyes began to drift shut. "Beautiful."
That word again, so incongruous with his actions. The man's mind was obviously as fragile as his ruined body, skipping between thoughts and memories. Ulan took his hand and felt the delicate bones through the chapped skin. "Rest now, my friend. Sleep well, and we will talk more tomorrow."
Ilar was asleep before Ulan reached the door.
The khirnari made his way slowly down to his private bath chamber. Hot needles of pain shot through his arthritic knees and feet. He was an old man, with the afflictions of age as well as sickness, but he couldn't let that stop him from carrying out his duties. He'd been khirnari of Viresse for two hundred and seventy years--longer than any person in any clan had ever served. He'd never given his people any reason to feel worry or doubt about his leadership, and he had but one regret. The reopening of the port at Gedre had cut into the business of his fai'thast far more deeply than he'd anticipated when he'd struck the bargain at Sarikali, and this was largely the doing of Korit i Solun's brat, Seregil, the exile. If the council that had judged Seregil all those years ago had been held anywhere but in that sacred haunted city, Ulan would have seen to it--quietly and skillfully, of course--that Seregil was given the proper sentence of dwai sholo. As it was, he'd discovered at Sarikali the sort of man he'd grown into--a spy and sneak thief of the highest order, and therefore a potential threat and one to be watched. For that reason Ulan had men in Rhiminee, and even one on the privateering ship Seregil owned, the Green Lady. Little happened on the water that Ulan i Sathil did not know about. He'd thought himself well rid of Seregil when he'd given him into the hands of the slavers.
He reined in his wandering thoughts. Another affliction of age.
The bath servants were