A Flame in Hali

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “You must warn them that for some time, they may have nightmares or see things that are not truly there,” he told Dyannis and the others. “This was no simple mob, driven by hunger and injustice. These people have been overshadowed by some force beyond my understanding. I can sense a foreign laran behind their thoughts, as if some renegade laranzu had spurred them to this attack, but there is something more, some malevolent influence that I have never encountered before.”

  Dyannis noticed that he said nothing of her counterattack, of how she had abused her training and her Gift. At this point, she was too tired to care. She trudged back to the Tower, refusing the offer of a mount and biting back a retort when Lewis-Mikhail suggested she ride in a litter, as had Rorie. Varzil had already castigated her, and rightly so, for indulging in her own personal self-recrimination. She had no right to demand any special attention or consideration.

  The next morning, although she had barely slept and forced down only a few morsels of food, she went down to the infirmary to work. Ellimara, who was in charge that morning, ordered her back to bed.

  “What do you think you are doing?” the younger woman demanded. “How do you think you will serve anyone if you make yourself ill from inattention to the most elementary principles of care? And do not tell me your health is yours to abuse as you wish, Dyannis Ridenow, for we are all of us needed.”

  Mute and miserable, Dyannis did as she was told.

  Days blended into one another. Dyannis slept and ate, as she had been taught, escaping further censure from Ellimara, and awaited what came next.

  During this time, she woke often from fragmented dreams, reliving the attack. Sometimes, she would be buried in an avalanche of howling, distorted faces, all crying out their accusations. She fell down corridors where every door gaped open and hordes of scorpion-demons rushed out, stabbing at her with pincer and stinger. Other times, she became the pursuer, seeking that flash of trained laran in the mass of fleeing minds. Once, as she strained to touch it, a breath beyond her reach, she found herself back in a real memory, lying in Eduin’s arms at Midwinter Festival Night. She awoke trembling, confused, aroused. Had her mind, under the onslaught of recrimination and exhaustion, retreated for a moment to a happier time, or had Eduin been there, amidst the rabble?

  Of Eduin, there was no trace. She must have imagined that moment of recognition. When she mentioned it to Varzil, he looked thoughtful but offered no comment.

  Finally, the worst of the cases, the men and women who had withdrawn into nightmares within their own minds, whose bodies had been locked in catatonic spasm, had been judged well enough to go about their own lives again, or other provision had been made for those few who would never recover. The old man was one of three deaths. One woman jumped from a window high in the Tower, although it was never clear how she had gained access to it from the infirmary; a painfully thin young man, barely out of his teens, slipped away quietly in his sleep, his body riddled with tumors. It was a mystery how he had kept going so long.

  I have done a wrong that can never be made right, Dyannis repeated to herself, and threw herself back into the oblivion of work.

  She knew rationally that the boy’s death was not her doing, but the three lives hung on her like leaden chains. She sat with each of them before they were taken away for burial, etching their features into her mind, the jaws slack and eyes sunken, the flesh so still in death, repeating to herself that this was the result of her willful defiance of all the rules of ethical laran use. Against all training, against all decency, she had used her powers over the minds of ordinary men and these deaths, with all the anguish the others had suffered, were the result.

  I must never for an instant forget that these people paid the price for my own recklessness.

  More than that, she had violated the Compact, to which every member of Hali Tower was sworn. She had used her Gift as a weapon to kill defenseless men at a distance, while she herself remained immune from any such counterattack.

  When a servant came to her chamber with Raimon’s summons, Dyannis knew the moment of judgment had come. She found herself strangely lightened by the thought that soon the waiting would be over. She would know the worst, would submit herself willingly to his punishment.

  Raimon’s voice was kind as he invited her inside. The sun was well past noon, and the chamber pleasantly light. A small fire flickered in the grate. Three chairs had been drawn up around the hearth. Raimon occupied his favorite, of wood so old it looked black. His pale hands rested on the arms.

  Varzil, in the second chair, smiled in welcome. Dyannis lowered herself into the third, thinking the arrangement entirely too comfortable for such a serious hearing. Perhaps they meant to put her at her ease, to better receive her confession of guilt.

  “Chiya, do not look so grim,” Varzil said in an easy tone, after the usual civilities had been exchanged. “Are you still unwell after working so hard?”

  Dyannis shook her head. She kept her laran shields tightly raised and used speech instead, just as she might if she were brought before the cortes.

  “Please do not toy with me, vai tenerézi. I hope you will be merciful in this respect, although I do not deserve it in any other.”

  She felt the flicker as Varzil and Raimon exchanged a mental question. They must be aware that she had walled herself off from all telepathic contact. She had decided to do this very early after the disaster, when the full realization of her crimes was still fresh. She had abused her laran and therefore, must stand to judgment without any of its privilege, unworthy of her Gift.

  Varzil’s eyebrows lifted, and she wondered if he had caught the edge of her thought, even through her barriers. He was perhaps the most powerful telepath of his day, and certainly the most disconcerting. These days, he managed to divide the ruling Comyn into those who supported him with wild enthusiasm and those who wanted him dead. Now he settled in his chair and turned his attention to Raimon, as resident Keeper.

  “Dyannis, we have no intention of tormenting you,” Raimon said in his calm, quiet voice. There was a stillness about him, a clarity of spirit, that reminded Dyannis of the stories she had heard about his chieri blood. “As you have rightly assumed, we have asked you here to review the events of the attack at Lake Hali.”

  She drew in her breath, unconsciously bracing herself. “There is no need to elaborate the charges against me. I have lived with them every hour, waking or asleep, since then. I confess that I used my laran against my oath and every principle of Tower integrity, to invade and oppress the minds of ordinary men.” She paused, gathering herself. “With the result that three people lost their lives and untold others suffered damage they will carry for the rest of their days.”

  “You condemn yourself, then?” Raimon said.

  “I cannot see it otherwise.” Though she wanted more than anything to hang her head in shame, she kept her gaze steady, unflinching. “Varzil, I gave only token agreement to your Compact before this. Now that I see—I know—what I have done, what it means, I—” her voice broke, “I have betrayed our highest ideals. I—forgive me, I do not deserve—”

  “That is quite enough,” Raimon interrupted in a tone that reminded Dyannis of how Ellimara had scolded her. “Here is a unique situation, with the judge trying to persuade the accused of the possibility of her innocence. We understand you feel remorse for your actions. That is only natural, and it does you credit. A person of lower scruples would have brushed the incident aside, claiming all of the glory and none of the responsibility. It is equally wrong to do the reverse.”

  It took Dyannis a few moments to comprehend Raimon’s meaning. Was he saying there was glory in what she had done? What, she thought bitterly, the glory of the berserker? The honor of the butcher? She would as well praise the heroism of a banshee on the hunt!

  “What do you suppose would have happened if you had not acted as you did?” Raimon went on, unperturbed. “Defenseless, vulnerable, outnumbered, the circle had little chance of survival. In
stead of three deaths, none of them deliberate, there would have been a dozen—” Here he paused, glancing at Varzil, meaning, and one more, who is vital to Darkover’s future.

  “I—I did not think—”

  “Of course, you did not. How could you have, in the midst of the rabble’s attack? Or if you had, by some superhuman feat, managed to reason it out, what else would you have done? Could it be that your instinct was true? That your quick action saved us all?”

  Dyannis fell silent, although she softened her laran barriers to allow for mind-speech. What you say may be true, but it cannot absolve my guilt.

  No, her Keeper responded in kind, it cannot. He said aloud, “Will you submit to my judgment?”

  This was the moment Dyannis had been waiting for.

  “Then hear my verdict, Dyannis Ridenow. You did indeed misuse your Gift, against your oath, the Compact, and the most fundamental principles of the Tower. You violated the minds of those people for your own ends, thereby inflicting great and lasting harm. You have betrayed your sacred trust.”

  Dyannis quivered, each word cutting deeper than a razored lash. Her cheeks burned and she wanted desperately to raise her hands to cover them, but held herself still. She had not anticipated the depth of her shame. It was one thing to enumerate her own wrongs within the privacy of her own mind, and quite another to hear them spoken aloud with such uncompromising bluntness. Yet it was no more than she deserved. Through the sting of tears, she kept her face lifted and lips pressed tightly together.

  “Although you are guilty of this act,” Raimon went on, “you also committed a heroic deed that saved many lives, and you have striven unstintingly to aid those very people who attacked you without provocation. Indeed, if your monitor has not exaggerated, you have come near to placing your own life and health at risk. It is my judgment as your Keeper that you have repaid your debt. You are free of any further obligation in this matter.”

  Dyannis stared at him through blurred eyes as his words sank in. She was sure she could not have heard rightly. How could he absolve her of such a thing? As for what she had done afterward, that was no more than any leronis of the Tower would do, and carried no special virtue.

  Raimon must not have understood the enormity of her transgression. Perhaps the blow to his head had impaired him in some way. And yet he was her Keeper, the laranzu to whom she had given her oath. She had agreed to submit to his judgment, never thinking that it might be far more lenient than her own.

  “Did you wish to respond to this sentence?” Raimon asked.

  Dyannis was suddenly aware of how much time had slipped by. The tears that had brimmed her eyes were now drying upon her cheeks. She shook her head.

  It is not enough, it will never be enough. But there is nothing I can do about it now.

  “Chiya,” Varzil said. The tenderness in his voice scored her already raw nerves; she had forfeited all such consolation. “You judge yourself too harshly.”

  “I know what I have done,” she replied. Her words came out low and hoarse, choked by the immensity of her emotions.

  No, he replied telepathically, I think you do not. Listen to me. There are forces at work here, powerful and hidden. Not all of them may be human. We who are Gifted with laran often err in believing ourselves elevated in foresight and understanding above ordinary men, but it is not so. There are destinies that shape our times and even the wisest of us cannot know them all. I certainly do not, and I know more of this story than any of us. But this much I do know. Many things were set in motion long ago and have not yet come to rest. The rift beneath the lake is only one of them, and its resolution is not yet complete, not while Cedestri Tower still possesses the terrible weapons it created with that power.

  She nodded. That much was true. Cedestri’s bonewater dust must be dealt with.

  We see the world as if through a keyhole, Varzil went on, and even as we strain to make it out, it shifts before our eyes. We can only do our best with that small part we can see. Your story is not yet finished. Your penalty is to go on. Can you accept that?

  With an effort, she found her voice. “I will serve in any way I can.” It would not be enough, but it was all she could do.

  Varzil smiled, his expression echoed by Raimon. “Then when you have recovered a little more, you will ride with me to Cedestri, and there we will do our utmost to end this evil before it spreads any further.”

  11

  Footsteps pounded by in the street, the heavy booted tread of the Thendara City Guard. Eduin flattened himself against the rough-cut stone wall of a side street, hardly daring to breathe. They were out in force, the Hastur scum, scouring the city for any trace of the lake shore rioters. He and Saravio had fled, along with the mob, from Hali all the long way back to Thendara, only to find themselves hunted here as well.

  The echoes of the Guard died down and a sickly lassitude descended once more on the alley, a mixture of garbage and despair. Above, a window opened and a plain-faced woman in a dirty head scarf tossed a bucket of refuse into the alley. Eduin dodged in order to avoid the noxious splash, but not quickly enough. He was slowing, reflexes and laran worn thin by the day’s catastrophe.

  He had gone to the lake tightly barriered, lest one of the circle there—especially Varzil—recognize him. It was impossible to disguise Saravio’s unusual laran, so Eduin hoped the psychic turbulence of the mob would mask any trace of individual personality. Saravio had been so overlain by the mental image of Naotalba that Eduin doubted he’d be recognizable as human, anyway.

  Even now, when all his plans had come to nothing and he hid like a hunted rabbit-horn, Eduin remembered the rush of exhilaration when he heard of Varzil’s coming. How he had counted the hours, numbered the heartbeats. Carefully, he had readied his forces. Individually, the poor beggars stood no chance against a Tower circle. But throw enough of them at the leronyn, distracted by their task, and even a circle of Keepers could be overrun.

  He remembered thinking how he would trample Varzil beneath the thousand feet of Naotalba’s army. He dreamed of gazing upon the smashed and bloody remains of the one man who stood between himself and freedom, the one man who had stolen his dreams, his happiness.

  Deep within his belly, triumph, warm and liquid, had surged. The whisper in his mind had sung like silver.

  Everything had gone according to plan. The mob had even improvised an effigy of a Keeper and set it ablaze. Howling, they rushed to the lakeside. Eduin, hanging back, caught only a glimpse of the Tower workers assembled there. How smug they were, how secure in their privilege. They had not even bothered to set a lookout, but had proceeded to their work. What arrogance to assume their work was so important and they themselves so revered, no one would dare disturb them!

  When the concentration of the circle was broken, when the rabble’s ingrained awe of Tower folk dissolved under the torrent of their rage, when victory was all but certain, only then had Eduin realized that Varzil was not on the shore.

  Impossible! Eduin had thought. He must have come down with the circle!

  Then Eduin had lowered his laran barriers, casting about for his prey. He had scented Varzil though the turbulence of the energy-charged cloud-water.

  But how to reach him? Eduin had wondered. Would it be better to wait for Varzil to come to the aid of his fellows? Or should he risk descending into the lake after him? In that moment, he himself had become vulnerable to counterattack from the circle. He had judged there to be no real danger, disoriented as they were. At least two of them, including their Keeper, had been felled by the onslaught of stone and arrow. He was wrong.

  Images had burst upon his mind, a dragon searingly vivid in color and brightness. The clash of its scales and the noxious reek of the poison dripping from its fangs filled the air. Instantly, he recognized it as a laran-driven hallucination. Its power and fury stole his breath. The mob, their minds weak and defenseless, gibbered in terror. They threw their weapons to the ground. Some collapsed in convulsions.

 
Eduin had slammed his psychic barriers tight. Some of the spell seeped through, like glowing patterns seen through closed eyelids. He had been long away from a Tower, but few telepaths in his memory could have created—and held—such a projection.

  Then he had caught the unmistakable imprint of personality, the one mind he could never fully blockade himself against.

  Dyannis Ridenow.

  When they had been lovers so many years ago, she was only a novice. Talented beyond doubt, but unformed in the discipline necessary to bring those Gifts to fruition. At the time, he had not cared about her potential as a leronis. All that mattered was the heart-bond between them.

  For as much as he had struggled against it, he had fallen in love with Dyannis Ridenow, younger sister to that very same Varzil the Good who was now counselor, defender, and support of his sworn enemies. He had met Dyannis at Midwinter Festival in Hali, where they were both guests of Carolin Hastur, then still a young prince. She had been very young, generous of heart, willful, and she had loved him without caring about his lack of lineage or powerful connections. Of all the people he had met during his time in the Towers, only she had offered such a pure and undemanding acceptance.

  Even after a separation of years, Eduin remembered how hope rose within him, the vision of himself as something other than an instrument of his father’s justice.

  It had all come to naught, as it must. There was no room in his heart or life for anything beyond vengeance. In despair, he had prayed to have this love, this sweet, deadly, treacherous love, taken from him.

  They had come together again, briefly, during his term at Hali, when he covertly searched the Hastur genealogies for any trace of the offspring of Queen Taniquel. Their encounter had been an uneasy mixture of old longing and new concealments. She had let him go his own way and he had not inquired into her own affairs. Clearly, in the interval, she had become a powerful leronis, the equal of any he had known, capable of blasting such a horrific image into the minds of so many.