She felt his smile, although she could not see it in the darkness. “Best be careful, chiya, or you will become a formidable diplomat.”
“The gods forbid!” she laughed.
In the next few days, several of the more seriously injured workers died, despite the best efforts of Dyannis and Varzil. By happenstance, the part of the Tower first struck had housed most of Cedestri’s monitors. The young girl who had worked with Dyannis was their only surviving healer. The people of the village did what they could for the rest with herbs and soothing poultices.
Francisco mended slowly. It would be many tendays before he was well enough to resume any duties. The headman of the village insisted upon giving him his own bed, where the Keeper sat, propped up on pillows to ease his breathing, and discussed the Compact with Varzil.
Varzil’s energy astonished Dyannis. During the day, they worked together, using their linked laran for healing, supervising the village folk and Carolin’s men. Normally, laran work would have taken place after ordinary people were asleep, to minimize the psychic distractions, but with the loss or incapacity of so many of the Cedestri leronyn, they were heavily dependent upon the help of commoners.
When her day’s work was done, an evening meal eaten and personal chores finished, Dyannis wanted nothing more than to crawl off to her own tent, one shared with several of the Cedestri women. Sometimes, she saw candles burning in the house where Francisco stayed and knew that Varzil was sitting with him. Other times, she sensed his mental signature from afar and found him sitting alone on the small rise beyond the barley field.
She went out to him during these times, fearing that something troubled his mind. He was the rock upon which they all rested. If he should fail, there was no hope for any of them. She knew he carried some secret grief; she saw it in the shadows of his eyes when he turned away into solitude. She felt it in the way he cupped the ring he wore on his right hand, one she did not recognize, one he never spoke of.
BOOK III
14
The town of Robardin’s Fort lay on the edge of the vast Plains of Valeron. Here the Greenstone River crossed two major trade roads, linking the kingdom of the Aillards with Isoldir, as well as the Hastur Lowlands. It was an independent township, fiercely neutral, owing allegiance to neither realm.
The central part of the Fort lay behind stout palisades that had been buttressed and repaired over the years, some portions weathered into ghostly whiteness, others newly cut or glistening with oil.
On the day of their arrival, Eduin and Saravio shuffled along with a convoy of wool traders they had followed for the last part of the journey.
Eduin recognized the river with its bustling wharves, the bright pennons in the town’s colors. When he had passed through Robardin’s Fort many years earlier, he had been a privileged traveler, a laranzu trained at Arilinn. His belly had been full, his clothes rich and warm, and aside from a little trail dust, he had been as clean and well-groomed as any Comyn lord.
Now he wore tatters, stiff with grime, and he had not eaten in days. He carried a ragged pack, patched together from homespun and scraps of leather, to which he’d tied a water pouch and the blanket that had been his only warmth along the road. Their food was long gone and the last of their meager supply of coins spent. The pack was empty except for a shirt in even worse condition than the one he wore and a few oddments, a wooden cup and spoon of the cheapest sort, a stick for cleaning his teeth.
Saravio’s health had deteriorated during their flight, although he made no complaint. With his laran, Eduin sensed the other man’s withdrawal into himself, despair turning into mute endurance. Saravio did not suffer any fits along the road, at least none Eduin recognized, but he seemed to be slipping into a dream world. He ate when Eduin gave him food and lay down when it was time to rest, although he rarely slept in a normal way. Instead, he curled upon himself, eyes open, lips moving soundlessly.
Despite the added burden of caring for Saravio, Eduin refused to abandon him. If Saravio had exhausted himself in controlling the mob at Hali, it was at Eduin’s instigation. Eduin was not unaccustomed to feeling responsible for another human being. He rationalized that Saravio was still useful to him. Even at times when Saravio seemed barely conscious of his surroundings, he would rouse at Eduin’s urging and hum his special song. The relief was enough to keep Eduin’s inner demons at bay. Although Eduin hated being dependent on Saravio, he also felt a strange pity for this poor addled soul, so racked with his own private torment. Perhaps when they found a place to live and work, perhaps Robardin’s Fort, Saravio might recover some measure of sanity. Until then, Eduin determined to remain with him, caring for him as best he could.
Along the road, Eduin had listened for news from Hali, especially any hint that he might be hunted. He learned nothing of any significance. Because he and Saravio had left Thendara so quickly, never lingering in one place, they had outstripped the usual network of rumor. Occasionally, there would be some hint of a disturbance at Hali, but Eduin said nothing to his fellow travelers, pretending ignorance rather than risk betraying greater knowledge than an innocent man ought to have.
At the entrance to Robardin’s Fort, Dry Towns oudrakhi lumbered amidst horses, mules and chervines, wagons and carts. Liveried footmen ran ahead of sedan chairs, crying for pedestrians to make way. A small company of soldiers, mercenaries by their battered armor and lack of any lord’s colors, shoved their way through the crowd.
This late in the day, the great red sun cast long shadows across the dusty road and softened the worn, splintered palisade. They approached the gate. There was an inspection point, armed guards and a clerk of some kind, a weedy man who squinted down at his book as he inscribed the name and business of each man. He waved the wool traders through with a warning to unload their pack animals and have them out of the town before curfew.
He peered at Eduin and Saravio. “Names? Business?”
Eduin fabricated a couple of names. “We seek work.”
“You and half the countryside,” the clerk sniffed and rubbed his long, blade-thin nose. “I don’t suppose you have the money for an inn either.” He pointed with the end of his quill in the general direction of the motley sprawl outside the gates. “See those striped poles? You can offer yourselves as day labor tomorrow, starting an hour before dawn. If your employer requires you to enter the city, he’ll give you a day token.”
They headed for the livestock pens, since Eduin had often found work in Thendara at livery stables. He knew horses well enough and could manage chervines. It didn’t take much skill to muck out stalls, just a strong back. This late in the day, however, the drovers had long since hired whatever casual labor they needed. By their sharp looks, Eduin knew that he and Saravio were not welcome to linger.
The light was fading fast, and with it, any hope of entrance to the town. Small cook fires dotted the clusters of hovels and marked where traders camped out with their wagons. By this time, Eduin was trembling with weariness and hunger, and Saravio had lapsed into silence. He moved only when Eduin pulled him along.
They approached several of the campfires, and each time they were turned away, sometimes with scowls, sometimes with an apology that there was nothing extra to share. When Eduin feared he might fall to his knees and beg, two grizzled men hunkered around a cook fire beside a shambling hovel offered them soup and bread. Eduin had seen their like a hundred times in Thendara. He knew the color of their skin, prematurely aged from exposure and hunger, knew the calculating look in their eyes. These were men he could bargain with.
The soup was barely more than grain boiled into thin gruel, with perhaps a little wild onion, but it warmed Eduin’s stomach. He held the wooden bowl to Saravio’s mouth for him to drink.
One of the men watched him break off pieces of bread and urge Saravio to eat. “Yesh, you got to look out for youse selves,” the man said, the words distorted by the gaps in his teeth. His companion grunted and poked the fire with a stick.
“Ho
w do you find work here?” Eduin kept his tone casual.
As the two men explained the process of hiring and the best places to find various kinds of work, one of them drew out a leather flask. When he pulled out the stopper, Eduin caught a whiff of crude hard cider. The man took a swig and offered it around. Saravio gave no indication he’d seen it, but Eduin shook his head. One drink would surely lead to another, and he knew himself well enough to be certain he would find some way of getting thoroughly drunk and staying that way. His father’s command throbbed between his temples, his empty belly cramped, and he recoiled at the smells of unwashed bodies and despair, the hard light in the eyes of the men.
“Can’t hold it?” one of the men snickered, but the other narrowed his eyes.
“Ghostweed more to your liking, eh?”
Again, Eduin shook his head. Like most laran-Gifted, he had a horror of the mind-altering weed. “No, I just need to keep my wits about me.”
“If you had youse wits about you,” the second man said with a nasty grimace, “you wouldn’t be here to begin with, eh?”
With that, the talk turned to life in the outlying encampments. The collection of tents and huts outside the walls of Robardin’s Fort afforded shelter for a succession of travelers every summer. Most of these were wanderers like the two men, broken soldiers, farmers or herders displaced by war. Once there had been only a few vagrants, and then only in the mildest weather. They had been housed within the Fort. In recent years, however, their numbers had swelled to the point that there was not enough work or housing. Those who could, moved on. Others ended up facedown in the river.
“Eh, but you’ll make it all right, soon as you get youse bearings,” said the first man. “Here now, you bed down next to the fire and we’ll go out tomorrow morning to the hiring place.”
Weary past argument, Eduin unrolled his blanket and helped Saravio to do the same. Wrapped in the coarse wool, near enough to the dying embers to catch a glow of warmth, he fell asleep.
In his dreams, he swerved and darted down the mazework of alleyways. They should have been familiar, but he could not make out his way. He searched for landmarks, but found none, only unexpected dead ends, walls barring his way. The faster he ran, the greater his feeling of dread.
Kill! came his father’s voice, no longer a whisper but a whip crack. K-k-kill them all!
Behind him, a dark shape like a woman in a hooded cape condensed from the cloud-choked sky. Eduin dared not take his eyes from the narrow lane ahead. He strained for more speed, dodging this way and that. With a hiss, a rope dropped across his shoulders. The next instant, it tightened around his neck. He jerked to a halt, clawing at the noose. He thrashed about, struggling for air—
Kill!
Eduin’s eyes jolted open. A thin sharp edge of metal pressed into his throat. Any movement would drive it deeper into his flesh. By the dim light of a single moon, he glimpsed one of the men bending over him. Instinct froze him.
“There’s nothing here,” came the voice of the second man, and the muffled sound of a pack being shaken. “Not worth a single reis.”
The first man cursed. He seemed not to realize Eduin was awake. “We’ll have to finish them off, anyway.”
Eduin gathered himself. He was no fighter, even if he had not been weakened by hunger on the long days on the road. But he was not defenseless; no one trained at Arilinn was. He focused his thoughts, reaching for the other man’s mind, the nerves that would loosen his grip—
Kill!
Pain lashed at him, as if the skin had been flayed from his body and the oozing flesh rubbed in salt. His vision went white and the muscles of his chest locked in spasm, so that he could not draw a breath.
With a shriek, the man hurled himself backward. The knife went skittering into the dust. A short distance away, the other man howled like an animal.
Laran attack!
Saravio, perhaps roused by Eduin’s nightmare, had lashed out with all the power of his Gift. The psychic projection of Rumail’s compulsion spell—to kill—had blasted the tiny camp.
Eduin slammed his barriers into place, as hard and tight as he could. From the day he arrived at Arilinn, he had shielded his innermost thoughts from the most powerful leronyn on Darkover. The years of hiding in exile had only toughened his ability to create an unbreachable wall around his own mind.
The pain vanished instantly. He caught his breath. In the dim light of moon and embers from the fire, he saw Saravio sitting up, a look of mingled triumph and bewilderment on his face.
One of their assailants, the man with the knife, lay unconscious. The other had curled into a fetal ball, moaning.
In the name of all the gods, what had Saravio done?
Eduin knew well how laran could affect the vulnerable. During the siege of Hestral Tower, he had projected illusions into the minds of the enemy soldiers. Driven mad, each had fallen prey to horrific visions drawn from his own worst nightmares. Some, believing themselves possessed or attacked by Zandru’s demons, had fallen on their swords or hacked off their own legs. For the first time, Eduin began to realize what he had done.
Tentatively, Eduin lowered his mental barriers. Saravio had broken off his attack. It should be safe enough to monitor the two victims. Eduin performed a quick scan of their bodies, looking for physical injury. As he expected, he found none. Saravio had not caused their hearts to stop or their internal organs to rupture.
Eduin searched for damage to their brains. There, in the deep primitive structures that governed primal emotions, he spotted ugly red auric fields streaked with black and purple.
Lord of Light, Lady of Darkness! Without meaning to, Eduin called upon Aldones and Avarra.
Saravio had blasted the pain centers of each man’s brain with enough force to create a cataclysmic wrenching of their life energies. The tumult of raging colors enlarged, reaching toward other areas, the nerve centers for regulation of breath and heart beat, of sleeping and waking.
“What have you done?” Eduin cried.
“I—I don’t know what you mean. Eduin, what is wrong with these men? Have they fallen sick from bad food? Or do they carry the plague?” Saravio sounded genuinely confused. His thoughts, what Eduin could sense of them, reflected only concern.
“Whatever you did to them, you must reverse it,” Eduin said. “Now, before it is too late!”
Saravio shook his head, his face a pale shadow against the night. “What am I to do? This is beyond even a monitor’s skill.”
A white fireball edged with crimson flared up in the mind of the man with the knife and then collapsed upon itself. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the man’s mental energies fell away to silence. Not all the smiths in Zandru’s Forge could bring him back.
Eduin watched numbly as a similar process consumed the brain of the second man. For long minutes, he sat beside the last dim embers of the cook fire. Saravio rocked back and forth, crooning under his breath. Eduin braced himself, but felt nothing from the other man, other than his fear and sadness. He could not look to Saravio for help. He must decide for both of them what was to be done.
The two would-be murderers were beyond anyone’s help. Eduin did not think they would be missed, especially if they had waylaid other strangers. Certainly, no one in authority in the Fort would come looking for them. If they just disappeared, their neighbors, such as they were, might well assume they had moved on or chosen their next victims unwisely. Which was pretty much, he thought wryly, what had actually happened.
After a time, Saravio roused enough to help Eduin carry the bodies down to the river. The bank was sloped and muddy, laced with water-ferns. The bodies slipped beneath the scummy surface. Even if some fisherman or river scavenger found them the next morning, Eduin thought, there was nothing to show how they had died. In the unlikely event he and Saravio were questioned, they could say that the two men had offered them gruel and a space to sleep, then disappeared in the night. Which was also, in its own way, the truth.
The next morning, Eduin jerked awake, his nerves scoured raw, his eyes scratchy from lack of sleep, at the first sound of movement in the encampment. Eduin’s fingers closed around the hilt of the knife that was now his. Haze swept the eastern sky, but people were already stirring. The smell of boiling onions came from the next hovel.
No one approached or disturbed them, nor did anyone take any notice of him and Saravio, beyond a stare and a nod, as they made their way to the striped poles in search of that day’s work.
15
One afternoon, as spring wore into summer, Eduin finished his day’s work and returned to the hovel that was now his home. He clenched half a loaf of bread wrapped in a scrap of cloth against his chest. His other hand made a stiff fist at his side, nails digging into the palms of his hands hard enough to draw blood. He welcomed the physical pain, clasped it to him. It alone was real, not the bone-weary fatigue nor the hunger nor the rows of tents and tumbledown hovels. Not the sour smells, the flat hard light in the eyes of passersby. Not the whispers in his head. Pain. Just pain.
He was almost there. Ahead, near the end of the ramshackle lane was the shed he and Saravio shared with a succession of tinkers and herders who could not afford anything better. The few coins or bits of food in rent eased their own situation, especially on the all-too-frequent days when Saravio could not leave his bed. Eduin concentrated on the familiar sagging contour, the central pole, the ragged panels. Saravio would be there. This night or the next, Eduin would reach that moment when he could not go on, when he had nothing left of will or endurance, and then he would ask Saravio to sing once more. At the thought, his belly quivered and his mouth filled with a sour, stale taste.
A Flame in Hali Page 17