Citadels of Darkover

by Deborah J. Ross

  They were halfway through their meal when Officer Petrie set down her fork and regarded Miralys seriously. “I hope this isn’t a personal question. They told us in our training that Darkovans don’t really like to leave home. But you went to Vainwal and then you joined the Civil Service. Why?”

  Miralys paused, a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth, remembering the two years she’d spent at Neskaya Tower. How the closeness and telepathic rapport her foster-father had spoken so fondly of had begun to feel stifling and claustrophobic, how—much as she loved Donal and Amalie and Byrna—she’d longed for more than an instant or two of privacy and the chance to have thoughts she knew were wholly her own. Teenage folly, some of it, but even now the thought of going back to a Tower filled Miralys with an urge to find a berth on the nearest starship and never come back. Finally she drew a deep breath and said, “There aren’t a lot of roles open to women on Darkover. I didn’t fit into any of them very well.”

  “Well,” Officer Petrie said, “I think you fit here pretty well. Mind if I eat with you after class tomorrow?”

  Miralys couldn’t help but grin.

  ~o0o~

  Unfortunately, after such a pleasant start, the day took a decidedly sour turn. An hour after lunch, Miralys accompanied the Interim Legate to Comyn Castle for a meeting to discuss the status of three Terranan researchers who were currently mewed up at the Legation, unable to move forward with their work. Legate Hamilton had extracted a promise from the Hastur to allow them access to the villages in the Kilghard Hills, but with Hamilton’s death that promise was null and void.

  And it looked likely to stay that way, Miralys reflected when she saw they’d been relegated to one of the outermost reception chambers and that the Hastur had sent Miralys’s cousin, Kyro Aillard, as his representative. Miralys liked Kyro well enough: as children growing up together in Comyn Castle, they’d played together in this very chamber more times than she could count, and he’d sent her frequent letters while she was studying on Vainwal. For a time, they’d even talked about marriage. But Kyro was a younger son, and while he nominally sat on the Comyn Council, he had neither political standing nor any real authority to make decisions.

  Something felt strangely off from the moment Kyro set foot in the room. He paused for a moment in the doorway, a vague, distracted look on his face, and frowned when he met Miralys’s eyes. At the same instant her vision blurred in the same odd way it had at lunch. Miralys didn’t really care for Terranan physicians, but she was beginning to wonder if she should speak to one. By the time her vision cleared, Kyro seemed to have gathered himself. He strode briskly to the chair at the head of the table, and waved Miralys and the Interim Legate into seats without bothering to offer them refreshment. From the look on Neemah Bell’s face, she knew enough of Darkovan culture to be well-aware of the snub.

  Still, one had to go through the motions.

  The motions largely involved a lot of shouting, both on Neemah Bell’s part and on Kyro’s, while Miralys did the delicate dance of translating faithfully while attempting not to give offense to either party. In the end, they were all exhausted and no closer to a resolution than they’d been when they started. Miralys wondered why the Hastur had even bothered to let them arrange this meeting when he could more easily have sent them a firm no by messenger.

  “Well, that was a waste of two hours,” Neemah Bell muttered as she got to her feet wearily. “I can’t imagine what harm having three well-trained musicologists loose on Darkover can possibly do. You’d think I was asking to set Terran Intelligence’s entire propaganda arm free to do as they liked.”

  Miralys shrugged helplessly and stood a beat behind the Interim Legate. It was impossible to explain the Darkovan distrust of their Terranan cousins to anyone who wasn’t Darkovan. But before she could follow Neemah Bell into the hallway, Kyro caught her arm. The touch was entirely unexpected. They were neither married nor closely related, and she was a grown woman.

  Miralys froze, more offended than she’d expected by the minor impropriety. “Kyro, bredu, what are you playing at?”

  “I’ve heard Terranan women don’t mind being touched. That’s what you are these days, isn’t it? I’m told you have the passport to prove it and everything.” His expression as at once vicious and oddly blank.

  All Miralys could do was gape at him. This wasn’t the boy she’d known practically from babyhood, and it certainly wasn’t the young man who had written her monthly letters for years. The one who, mere weeks ago, had professed his delight that she was coming home at last.

  “And when you go back to the Terran Zone where you belong, you can tell that Terranan cow of yours that we are done letting you Terranan spread your filth outside Thendara.”

  ~o0o~

  By the time Miralys got back to her tiny suite of rooms in the women’s hostel it was all she could do to yank off her boots and shrug out of her clothes. Leaving her skirt in an untidy heap on the floor, she peeled the bed coverlet back just far enough to admit her weary body and crawled into bed in her shift and stockings without bothering to unpin her hair.

  ~o0o~

  Some hours later, shouts from the tavern across the square awakened her. The room was chilly. The orange and pink neon light pouring in through a crack in the curtains cast strange shadows. Miralys squinted at the dial of the wrist chronometer she’d tossed across the bedside table. Just past midnight, local time. Another damned bar brawl. Probably spacers on layover. She wondered if the Terranan would ever learn to mind their manners. Grumbling, she pulled the covers back over herself and closed her eyes.

  And all at once the sense of utter wrongness she’d felt at Comyn Castle descended on her, only this time it was so thick it threatened to strangle her.

  The shouting grew louder, but it was so distorted by distance and window glass she couldn’t make out what was being said.

  Driven by that unnerving feeling, Miralys set her feet on the floor and lunged toward the door, groping for her dressing gown with one hand and her boots with the other. There would be no getting back to sleep tonight.

  She shoved her feet into the fur-lined boots and plunged down the stairs to the street while she was still tying the belt of her fur-lined dressing gown. She’d worry about the sight she made, half-dressed with her hair mussed and coming loose from its pins, later.

  The cold that greeted her when she stumbled out onto the street drove the air from her lungs, but Miralys hardly felt it. The scene that confronted her would burn itself forever into her memory.

  In the center of the square, ringed by helpless bystanders, a red-headed young man holding a short sword faced off with a tall Terranan woman wearing the uniform of a security officer from the Legation. The pitiless yellow light from the Terranan street lamps that illuminated the streets of the Trade City threw their faces into harsh relief. Their expressions, she would think later, were oddly blank. With a shock she recognized Officer Petrie and a young man she’d seen once or twice when she visited Comyn Castle with the Interim Legate. Coryn, she thought his name was.

  And then Miralys’s saw the sleek silver object in Officer Petrie’s hand and recoiled in horror. No, no, it can’t be. Not energy weapons. Not here. The Compact forbids it. Surely she knows. Staggering backwards, Miralys fetched up against the wall of the hostel. Officer Petrie leveled the snub-nosed weapon at the young swordsman’s chest. Miralys tried to call to her, but the sound died in her throat.

  “Coryn! Coryn, no!” Another young man on the edge of the crowd lunged forward, only to be held back by his comrades. “Let me go, you sacks of chervine dung!”

  Oblivious to his friend, Coryn lunged at Officer Petrie, snarling curses. His flat expression never changed. Time seemed to slow. Miralys tried to look away and found that she couldn’t.

  The smothering sense of utter wrongness intensified, driving Miralys to her knees. Panting, she pressed shaking hands to her temples.

  For the briefest of instants, an image skittered through her mi
nd. Officer Petrie and young Coryn, depending from strings like a pair of grotesque marionettes.

  Petrie leveled her weapon at the young man. Her expression was as vacant as his. Her finger closed on the trigger.

  A bolt of pain as intense as the flash of blue light that leapt from the weapon’s muzzle to lodge in young Coryn’s side lanced through Miralys’s head. She crumpled onto the cobblestones and knew nothing more.

  ~o0o~

  “Breda? Breda, can you hear me?” The woman’s voice seemed to come from a million miles away. For a long terrifying moment, the words were nothing but sounds without sense. “Gods, she’s half-frozen. Donal, I may need you to monitor.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to get hurt. You said—” That was a man’s voice.

  “Donal, hush. This isn’t the time or the place.”

  Miralys opened her eyes slowly. Icy cobblestones pressed painfully into her back. Her head throbbed. Two startlingly familiar faces swam into focus above her. Wincing, she sat up. Amalie steadied her and Donal crouched down to take Miralys’s hands, scanning her with the same gentle, practiced efficiency she remembered. Donal was more stoop-shouldered than she remembered, and his hair was thinning.

  “I’m all right, bredu.” Why was it that his touch filled her with unease?

  “You’re in shock,” Donal said gently. His rumbling baritone was as soothing as Miralys remembered. He did not sound as shaken as he certainly must be. “I think we all are. But it would be worse for you, I think, with the Ridenow Gift.”

  Amalie’s eyes widened in horrified realization. “Did you feel—”

  “I felt—I’m not sure what I felt.” Miralys closed her eyes, shivering with the memory of that nauseating sense of wrongness.

  Donal frowned, then got to his feet and reached down to help Miralys up. “Come, chiya, let us take you home and tend you. You need a stiff dose of kirian brandy and a good night’s sleep.”

  The square was near empty and unnaturally still. A few guardsmen prowled the perimeter. Only a dark stain remained where young Coryn had fallen. Miralys’s stomach roiled. She bit her lip until the pain cleared away some of the fog in her mind.

  She could feel the disaster she’d so dimly sensed that day in the spaceport bearing down on them like an onrushing wave.

  “The Terranan guardswoman. The one who...shot...Coryn.” She could hardly say the words. Terranan energy weapons. Here. It made her want to retch. “What happened to her?”

  “What does it matter? She’ll be dealt with.” Amalie put an arm around her shoulders.

  “It matters. Where did they take her?” Miralys shrugged off Amalie’s arm.

  “Comyn Castle. She’s been arrested by the Hastur’s own guardsmen.” Donal reached toward her imploringly. “She went willingly. This can wait until morning, chiya. We’ve had enough of tragedy this night.”

  “No,” Miralys said, forcing her voice to steadiness. “No, it can’t. Amalie, Donal, I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  ~o0o~

  Miralys forced herself to wash and dress, to arrange her hair in a manner suitable for an audience with the Hastur. Her hands shook and every passing second crawled past like an eternity. There was a hot, tender lump on the back of her head where she must have cracked her skull against the cobbles.

  Neemah Bell would have gone to Comyn Castle the moment she heard what had happened. Probably without a guard. Miralys had only known the Interim Legate for ten standard days, but it was hard to mistake what sort of person Neemah Bell was. And where she is, the Hastur will be.

  As soon as Miralys was presentable, she tossed a cloak around her shoulders and ran.

  ~o0o~

  Despite the hour, Comyn Castle boiled like a disturbed anthill. Members of the Comyn Council in various states of dress shouted at each other in the halls. Guardsmen were mustering in the big courtyard with the loud stamping of booted feet. Servants, some still rubbing sleep from their eyes, bustled everywhere, trying to manage the chaos. It was easy enough for Miralys to slip in unnoticed. No one glanced twice at a comynara in a green woolen gown.

  It only took a few minutes of listening at doorways to ascertain Neemah Bell’s whereabouts, but it was simple blind luck that gained Miralys admission to the Hastur’s private sanctum. Ewan, the guardsman at the door, was a man she’d known since childhood and a good friend of her foster-father’s paxman, Daniskar. “I have to see him, Ewan,” was all she had to say for him to hold the door open for her. Silently, she promised an offering to the Lord of Light for her luck when this was over, and stepped hesitantly through the door.

  In contrast to the sumptuous meeting rooms in the rest of the castle, the small chamber was plain, almost barren. Nevertheless, the walls were paneled with costly wood, and the furniture was clearly the work of a master joiner. Beyond the red-curtained windows, the sky was still dark.

  Neemah Bell sat, stiff-backed and silent, in a hard wooden chair. Two guardsmen in the Hastur livery flanked her, hands on their swords. Naked relief flooded her face for a fleeting moment when she saw Miralys.

  Miralys’s head throbbed dully and the room seemed to tilt a bit on its axis. I probably have a concussion. She ignored it and settled into a chair next to the Interim Legate.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably no more than a few minutes, the Hastur strode in, wrapped in a dressing gown thick with embroidery and wearing house shoes. His white hair was bound back in a neat horsetail. His expression was thunderous.

  Miralys scrambled to her feet. Neemah Bell tried to do the same, but one of the guards put a heavy hand on her shoulder. The Hastur’s eyes narrowed.

  “I see your translator has arrived. But I will say this in Terranan Standard so that I can be sure you understand.” The Hastur’s eyes were fixed on Neemah Bell. The contained fury in his too-even voice made Miralys shudder. “Your guardswoman has transgressed our most sacred law. Coryn Ardais is dead. His father demands satisfaction.”

  Neemah Bell spoke before Miralys could shush her. “This has been a terrible tragedy. I assure you we will get to the bottom of this and Officer Petrie will face consequences.”

  “Indeed she shall,” the Hastur agreed. “The penalty for the use of distance-weapons in violation of the Compact is death.”

  “She is under our jurisdiction,” the Interim Legate protested. “You have no right to—”

  “Be glad I do not extend the penalty to you, Mestre Bell. You are the head of the house of the Terranan. Your guardswoman was under your authority.”

  Neemah Bell opened her mouth to speak again, but Miralys caught her eye and shook her head. Not while he’s so angry. Later, he may be willing to be reasonable, but not just now. She exhaled slowly in relief when the Interim Legate subsided, sinking wearily back in her chair.

  “The Interim Legate understands, vai dom,” Miralys said in casta.

  “Then the Interim Legate may go,” the Hastur said tightly in the same language. “I have said to her all I have to say on this matter for the moment, and I have much to discuss with the Council.” He turned cold eyes on Neemah Bell. “Get out of my sight,” he added, this time in Terran Standard.

  ~o0o~

  Miralys hung back when the guards, taut-lipped, escorted the Interim Legate from the room. “Uncle, wait.”

  The Hastur whirled to face her, and it took every ounce of courage Miralys could call up from deep within to stand her ground. Meeting his pale eyes, she suddenly understood why her foster-father had always regarded this man with a mix of awe and terror. “As a representative of the Terranan you have no standing here, Miralys Ridenow. You made your choice when you left Neskaya Tower and took ship to Vainwal.”

  “I know.” She forced her voice to steadiness with an effort. “But I’m not speaking for the Terranan. I am speaking as your kinswoman.”

  “And what does my kinswoman have to say to me?” At least his expression had softened a trifle.

  “Your kinswoman is hoping to keep you from making a
terrible mistake.” Miralys gripped the arm of the chair that stood between her and the Hastur so hard she could feel the carvings on it digging into her palms. The pain cleared her concussion-mazed head for a moment. “There’s more going on here than it seems. I’m certain of it.”

  The Hastur slammed his hands, open-palmed, on the desk. Involuntarily, Miralys flinched back. “A Terranan killed a young lord of the Comyn with a forbidden weapon. What more is there?” Half to himself, he added, “Anjali Aldaran warned me years ago what would come of letting the Terranan bring their filth to Thendara. I should have listened then.”

  “There is a great deal more, vai dom. I don’t understand yet how it’s all connected, but I know that it must be.” And she found herself telling him all of it. Her inexplicable foreboding at the spaceport. Kyro’s hostility, after all the letters he’d sent her on Vainwal. The odd but undeniable sense that neither Coryn Ardais nor Officer Petrie had really been under their own control.

  The Hastur steepled his fingers thoughtfully and regarded her. “Laran. Have you confided your suspicions to the Terranan?” His eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “No, Uncle. I’ve kept my word to Keeper Ruanna.” She suddenly found herself wondering whether she’d really understood the price of the promise she made so easily when she left Darkover for Vainwal.

  “I know you have the Ridenow Gift, Miralys. And occasional flashes of the Aldaran, however unreliable, no thanks to your late father. But what you say you’ve sensed makes no sense. Who on Darkover stands to benefit from Coryn Ardais’s death?”

  “Anyone who wants to get rid of the Terranan.” Miralys met his eyes unflinchingly. It hadn’t occurred to her until just this moment, but now that it had, it made perfect sense. “Legate Hamilton was popular, even among our people. I know you and he were even friends after a fashion. So long as Hamilton represented the Terranan, the anti-Terranan faction on the Council would have a damnable time rallying any support. But with him gone, and a woman sent to replace him, and with a nudge here and there to make sure our people stayed angry and the Terranan behaved especially badly, even for Terranan...”