“Lead us! Saravio, lead us to victory!”
Eduin held the scene as the people rushed forward, but was careful not to direct any action upon the figure of Saravio. This was not from any squeamishness about imposing his own will on the other man. He’d captured Saravio’s visions easily enough and shaped them to his own purpose. No, in order for Eduin’s plan to succeed, Saravio’s commitment must arise from own deepest wishes. It was he who would be the visible spearhead. Eduin could not risk public exposure. Saravio would take the brunt of any reprisals should their plans go awry. In that event, he, Eduin, must be free to try again, and that meant not presenting himself as the leader.
In the shared vision, the figure of Saravio lifted his head. Eduin saw the glisten of imaginary tears upon his cheeks. Saravio looked not like a man demented, but a man transfixed. Awe had given way to acceptance and then to utter joy. A light shone in his eyes, a light not of the flesh but of something beyond. Envy stirred in Eduin, though he scarcely recognized it.
Eduin willed the figure of Naotalba closer. She reached out her ghostly arms and raised Saravio to his feet. Then, bending close, she whispered in his ear.
“Be faithful, O my champion. Be faithful and strong. My enemies lurk everywhere, and those who once betrayed me are ready to rise up again. Will you serve me?”
Saravio’s eyes never left her face, but his assent was swift and unequivocal, his obedience complete.
“Then go—go and save my people! Lead them in the ways of righteousness and truth! Throw down the Towers and all the evil-doers who dwell therein!”
When Eduin returned to himself, he was sitting on the floor, his back muscles on the edge of spasm, his hands balled into fists, his jaw clenched. Saravio lay on the cot, gulping air and moaning softly.
Eduin clambered to his feet. His body cried out for food. He went to the shelf where the remains of yesterday’s supper lay wrapped—stale bread and cheese, a couple of shriveled apples, along with a half-full skin bottle of sour watered ale. He ate the apples and half the cheese, then forced himself to leave the rest for Saravio. He would have to resume his Tower exercises if he were to do any more laran work.
Eduin lowered himself to the cot, curling his body into the empty corner. Saravio had started snoring gently, but Eduin fell into an exhausted slumber. His last waking thought was that the storm had abated.
They slipped through the shadows along the street leading to The White Feather. The last dusky light had faded from the sky and there were few lamps here. Even the inns and other places that did business after dark waited as long as possible, in order to save fuel. Eduin hugged the sides of the buildings. Saravio went more awkwardly, but he was learning fast.
Even a commoner could have sensed the fear in the streets, lingering after the last of the lightnings had ceased. Fires still burned in several areas of the city, although those in the richer neighborhoods had already been extinguished. Smoke and ozone tinged the air.
They were not the only men abroad at this hour. On their way here, they had passed several others, sometimes singly, other times in groups of two or three.
“They are frightened,” Eduin murmured to Saravio, “although they do not know why.” He raised his voice and adopted a coarse country accent. “Aye, it’s sorcery for sure. My wife’s cousin tells of storms like this, and worse, down Arilinn way.”
He felt the surge of interest in the group of approaching men. In a moment, they were passed, the seeds planted. As they had rehearsed, Saravio nudged the men’s minds. Fear sharpened to the edge of pain. Eduin smiled.
... the winter so long . . . unnatural . . . Zandru’s curse . . .
Yes, let them think that. Let them whisper. Let the whispers grow and feed upon themselves.
... Tower witchery . . . can’t trust any of them . . .
Within the inn, they found light and warmth, hard-edged merriment overlying resentment like tinder awaiting a spark. The innkeep’s wife brought watered ale and meatless stew, which was all the refugees could afford. She collected their money before she brought the drink, but she hovered just outside the door to listen.
From the moment he threw back the hood of his cloak, Saravio burned with a fervor that drew all eyes. The dozen men already in the room fell silent, as did the handful more who entered after them.
Saravio’s first words caught them as easily as netting fish in a stream. Understanding dawned in their faces, along with surging rage. In his speech, they saw the pattern and the reason for it all, not only the obvious horrors of clingfire and bonewater dust, of taxes and the ravages of war, but the way the very heavens had turned against them. The killing cold of this last winter, the failure of their crops, the stillborn children, and now the eerie turbulence in the heavens themselves, all had one cause, one origin.
It was, Saravio announced as Eduin had rehearsed him, the work of the accursed leronyn in their Towers. Anger burned hot and clear, without hesitation or doubt. All the while, Saravio’s deft mental touch roused adrenaline, damped thought, heightened desperation.
“But what can we do?” the crippled farmer was the first to speak. “We have no magical powers, not even swords if we knew how to use them. We are men of the soil—farmers, herdsmen, plain, ordinary folk.”
“It’s easy for you to say these things,” a black-haired man with huge, callused hands confronted Saravio. “At the first hint of trouble, you’ll go running. Why should you care what happens to us?”
Stung, Saravio started to reply, but Eduin silenced him with a gesture.
“If my friend did not believe as he speaks, would he be here with you now?” Eduin demanded.
“If we were to go against them,” another man muttered, “what chance would we have? No more than a beast in the fields!”
“How do we know you’re not one of their spies?” Scowling, the black-haired man got to his feet.
Eduin sensed the quicksilver mood of the group, how quickly their fury could be turned to an easier, more immediate target. He raised one hand to the insulated starstone at his throat, although he feared he could not control so many by himself. Yet he must protect Saravio at any cost.
“Because I say so.” The innkeeper’s wife stepped away from the door frame, hands on her hips. “And you all know me. I’d never sell out one of my own. I tell you, this man is to be trusted. All the time Nance was dying, did any of those fancy lords lift a finger for her? No, it was this man who stands before you, this Saravio, who came every day to ease her passing. Did he have to do that? I say you’re throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to the working folk of Thendara if you don’t listen to him now.”
The black-haired man eased himself back into his seat.
“You want to know what we can do against the Towers,” Saravio said. From his mind, Eduin caught the image of Naotalba standing behind him, infusing each word with certainty. “If we are patient, if we are faithful, then we cannot fail. But the time is not yet ripe. You must be my heralds, to carry the message to all who still suffer.”
The men looked from one to the other, doubtful. Eduin stepped into the silence. “As has been said, we are too few to go up against the might of a Tower. It would be like storming a fortress with only a kitchen knife. We must bide our time and gather more men to our cause. We will wait and watch. Sooner or later, the accursed sorcerers of Hali must come out from behind their walls. Then we will see that even a man armed by magic can be felled.”
And then Varzil will hear of our attack. Carolin will summon him, even if the Keepers do not. That will bring him within my reach . . . and then Naotalba’s army will fall upon him. No power on Darkover can save him against men willing to die for their cause.
BOOK II
6
Dyannis Ridenow loosened the scarf that covered her copper-colored hair and gazed out over the Lake of Hali. A spring breeze, chill and laden with moisture, rippled through her cloak. She inhaled, welcoming the reflexive shiver.
Aldones, it was
good to be outside again. The winter had seemed interminable, each tenday of confinement more tedious and unbearable than the last. She stretched out her arms. The old women of both sexes who made it their business to mind everyone else’s would work themselves halfway to apoplexy if they knew she was here, unchaperoned and dressed in the scullery maid’s borrowed cloak and overskirt.
Let them cluck over her; it wouldn’t be the first time or the last. She might just spend the rest of the day abroad and give them even more to talk about.
One sacrifice Dyannis had not been willing to make for the sake of disguise was her own boots, fine leather worn to butter softness and fitted exactly to her small feet, which now rested at the very edge of the golden sand. Just beyond, the cloud-water of the lake curled and receded. Instead of the usual gentle waves, the surface looked choppy, torn.
Above, the sky hid behind a blanketing overcast. For an instant, her fancy seized upon the image and she saw not only herself, but all of Darkover, caught and pressed like dried flowers.
Pressed. Yes, the analogy was apt. Her nerves tingled with the electrical tension that had been growing daily. She could almost see the unborn lightning, taste its metallic trail.
The storms had been growing worse since winter’s end, both in frequency and intensity. The fire brigades in Hali and nearby Thendara had been run to the point of exhaustion, for the storms never brought rain. Nor did the lightning discharge the electrical tension. Instead, each one seemed to feed upon the one before.
Something had to be done. Even with maximum shielding, the circles at the affected Towers struggled for the concentration that usually came so readily. Sometimes, half the workers were incapacitated due to overload of their energon channels.
So far, the city of Hali was peaceful, but reports arrived daily of increasing unrest in Thendara. What began as a mere spark of temper or drunken quarrel would erupt into a riot filling the streets. Sometimes the City Guards could not restore order and had to let the outburst run its course. Dyannis, who had not worked as a monitor in some time, was called into service along with the other senior leronyn, to tend to the wounded.
Many times over the years, since Dyannis had first arrived at Hali Tower as a bewildered adolescent novice, she had sought the lake for the calm that the fresh air and rhythmic motion of the waves always evoked. Now she found the irritation was, if anything, worse here in the open than within the confines of the Tower. It seemed to permeate both air and land, sizzling over her skin. She wanted to lash out at something, to put her pent-up frustration into action. Even as her hands curled into fists, she knew how irrational that was. As a trained leronis, she recognized her own increasingly volatile temper as a response to the atmospheric disturbance, but as a human woman, she was still subject to its nerve-grating effects.
Impatiently, she kicked out with one foot, scattering grains of sand into the cloud-waves. The toe of her boot caught on a buried rock and she stumbled. She cursed, brushed damp sand off the leather, then bent to rinse her hands.
The instant her bare skin touched the mist, a jolt of psychic energy surged through her. Gasping, she tripped on the skirts that were two sizes too big for her and sat heavily on the sand. She drew breath, trying to calm herself, staring at the lake that had once been so familiar and soothing.
What in Zandru’s Seven Frozen Hells was that?
She felt as if she’d brushed an enormous bank of laran batteries, of the sort used to power an aircar or light an entire city, only unstable, so that the merest contact released a burst of discharge.
Impossible! She had touched the cloud-water many times, had even descended a short distance down the lakebed, but never experienced anything like this. Nor had she heard any report of anything untoward or unusual at the lake; but then, it had been a long cold winter, and few had ventured outdoors without need.
The lake was filled with a mist that was neither liquid nor gaseous. It curled and drifted, always in motion, and could be breathed like air, although to do so carried its own dangers. At the same time, the cloud-water conducted sound and light very much like ordinary water.
Dyannis, her heart still racing, forced herself to think, to reason things through. Water also conducted electricity, and so did the lake substance. From what source? Why would the curling mists feel like an overcharged laran battery?
She tilted her head to stare at the sweep of sullen, gray overcast sky. Her nerves tingled. Although she could not have put it into words, she sensed a connection between the electrical tension of the sky and what she had felt in that brief moment of contact with the lake waters. She did not believe the unusual storms were the source, but rather the effect.
If the lake were generating psychic energy that bled off into the air and manifested as electrical storms, why had no one noticed before now?
Dyannis frowned, considering the problem. The lake bottom was largely unexplored, true, and for good reason. The cloud-water sustained life, but something in it suppressed the breathing reflex after a time, so that it was not safe to remain submerged for more than the briefest excursion. Perhaps, too, this phenomenon was new, beginning during a particularly harsh winter and growing slowly in strength. She could very well be the first person to walk the lake shore for pleasure since last autumn.
Moments slipped by. The cloud-waves plashed gently. The diffuse overcast light continued unbroken. Somewhere behind Dyannis, a bird called out a three-note song and then fell still.
Dyannis pushed herself to her feet. A step or two carried her halfway to the water’s edge. She drew out a locket of filigreed copper on its chain around her neck. Within its silk-insulated interior lay a brilliant blue-white starstone. Without slipping it from its anchoring clasp, she pressed her fingertips to the stone and felt the answering surge of power.
Dyannis placed one palm on sand left damp by a receding wave. Again she sensed the strange psychic energy. Every nerve screamed to jerk away, but she shifted her weight, thrusting her fingers through the coarse grains of sand. Shivering, she forced herself to hold still as the wave returned. Warmer than water, the cloud-stuff swept over her hand.
Her vision went white, as if she had plunged through ice into a winter river. Then the discipline of her years of Tower training took over. Even as part of her conscious mind reeled with the overload, she diverted it, restoring the integrity of her own laran systems.
Her first impression, she realized, had been correct. The cloud-water acted as a conducting medium. Just as ordinary water evaporated from the surface of a lake or river, so this energy bled off as electrical potentials, manifesting as worsening storms.
Dyannis found it less difficult to hold still for the next wave. The power came in ripples like the waves themselves, each one building, cresting, and then subsiding. The pulses functioned to collect and direct the energy. With a shudder, she realized that this could not be a natural phenomenon.
Dyannis returned her focus to the rhythmic pattern. By using what her first Keeper had called, “the back door of her mind,” she sensed the telltale residue of a matrix lattice. It was faint enough so that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not get more than a general impression.
One inescapable fact emerged. Within the depths of the lake lay a source of immense artificial psychic power that radiated through the cloud-water. How long it had been there, she could not guess. Quiescent, it might have been created at the very beginning of the world, only to awaken in these perilous times.
Despite her training, Dyannis shuddered away from contact with it. The muscles of her belly clenched and bile rose in her throat, pulling her back into her physical body. By now, the drain on her body and mind that accompanied intense laran work began to shred her concentration. She had no monitor to safeguard her.
I hadn’t planned on doing a little unauthorized laran work out here!
With an effort, she raised her laran barriers and crawled backward beyond the reach of the water. She’d only touched the surface of what was going o
n in the lake, but she was not going to solve its mysteries all by herself. She dared not delay. Gathering her strength, she clambered to her feet.
As Dyannis rushed back to Hali Tower, she sent a mental signal ahead to alert her fellow leronyn. At this hour, after a night of intense work, many were asleep or resting, their laran barriers raised. With the sensitivity necessary to join with other trained telepaths in a circle came an exquisite vulnerability to the intrusion of random thoughts and passions. Experience had shown this could be not only distracting, but destructive when dealing with immensely powerful matrix systems. Many leronyn learned to shield themselves with special techniques. For this reason, too, the Tower had been built at the far end of the lake, well away from the city of Hali.
She found one mind awake and receptive to her call, that of a brilliant young laranzu from Carcosa. He was younger than she by a few years, in his mid twenties, and of all the matrix workers at Hali, they shared a special kinship of spirit.
Rorie!
Dyannis, he replied in greeting. What has happened?
Behind Rorie’s thoughts, she heard the fear that her impetuous adventures might have brought her to harm at last.
I am well enough, she quickly reassured him. I have discovered something—at the lake—and I fear it bodes ill for more than just the Tower. I must tell the Keeper!
With a wordless acknowledgment, Rorie withdrew to prepare for her arrival.
Raimon Lindir, the Keeper of Hali Tower, was waiting for her beside the outer gates, along with Rorie and Lewis-Mikhail. His appearance, tall and thin, unself-consciously graceful, suggested the chieri blood that was said to run in his family. Sometimes his eyes had an almost silvery cast. The deep crimson of his formal Keeper’s robe and his fiery red hair contrasted with the paleness of his skin, but there was nothing anemic about his personality or powers. He might be one of the youngest Keepers to hold sole power over a major Tower, but his proficiency was beyond question.
A Flame in Hali Page 7