by Glenda Larke
Alyss, his wife, would betray him to Chantry? she was stupefied. If Chantry knew about his sigil, Davron would die, condemned as an apostate. Immediately, after the most summary of trials, with no time for any excuses. The woman threatened him with death, yet he had done it all for her, for Alyss, his wife.
Davron leant against the tree and Keris watched in growing horror as he began to cry, shoulders shaking helplessly as the grief of five years spilled over into the present.
~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty
Nothing is colder than the grey ashes of an old love, nothing warmer than the bright coals of the new.
—Old saying of the Margravate of Malinawar
Domain lords were allowed to have large families. The reason was obvious and undisputed. So many of their sons were destined to die in service to the people of their stability, to die—or to be tainted and excluded.
Thus, when Davron of Storre was born to the wife of a domain lord of the Fourth Stability, he already had four elder brothers and two sisters.
His father, Camone of Storre, was a large untidy man with untidy habits who had married a woman of fey charm and no self-discipline. The result was a family that enjoyed life in a state of eternal disarray and constant laughter. The children ran wild for much of the time, scattering their mischief through the house and the estate, leaving the consequences for the servants. Had they been less likeable they may have been despised for their irresponsibility, but like their parents, they were pleasant-natured and kind. They may have been fickle, but none of the Storre brood were ever malicious. The more perspicacious servants were doubtless aware that the wildness and the self-centredness of the Storre children were products of their future rather than their present. The Storres knew the sweetness of life, possibly the length of life itself, would for them be short-lived, and they were determined to live it to the full.
Their existence was not completely without discipline. There were lessons and these could never be shirked. Arms training started for the boys when they were five and part of every day was dedicated to it thereafter; combat drills and exercises became an integral part of life. A variety of weapons was presented to them over the years, each needing to be mastered before the ultimate choice of a personal weapon was made.
There were other lessons too. Those in reading and numbering and the Rule were taken in the local Chantry school. Pathfinding, mapreading, equestrian skills and similar attainments that would help them one day in the Unstable were taught by expert tutors or by their father. The sons of Storre knew how to magnetise and read a compass, how to plot a course by the stars, how to live off the land. They could mount and dismount from a galloping horse by the time they were ten, or they could diagnose and treat common equine problems such as a sprained fetlock or a bout of colic.
By the time he was twelve, Davron had passed all the written and oral tests needed to qualify him as a Defender, and he’d chosen his preferred weapons, the throwing knife and the whip. For two more years he honed his skills within the walls of his father’s domain, but by then the carefree years were already over. The first inevitable tragedy had come and left its scars. The eldest Storre brother was dead in the Unstable, killed by a Minion while riding guard on a large fellowship.
When he was fourteen, Davron started riding in the local Defender troop that policed the area against those who broke the Rule. A year later, his father died as a consequence of a combination of old injuries received in the Unstable, and another brother, retired from the Defenders after being mauled by a Wild, took over the domain. That same year, Davron killed his first human, an Unbred boy whose only crime was to have been born deformed. A few months later, sixteen-year-old Geralt Storre, the best loved of his brothers and the closest to Davron in age, disappeared after being tainted.
When Davron himself was sixteen, he rode his first tour of duty in the Unstable, crossed his first ley line, and discovered, against all odds, that he was ley-lit. At that age he was a pleasant boy, well-liked by his male peers and the object of sidelong glances from Trician girls who saw something in him beyond the ordinary: a romanticism, a sense of honour, a thoughtfulness that was beginning to overtake the superficiality his early erratic upbringing had encouraged. At twelve Davron had been both shallow and spoiled. By sixteen, he was much more caring and introspective. He accepted responsibility and fought with courage. If he had a fault, it was pride. He was proud of his honour, of his integrity.
As a younger son, with no possibility of ever inheriting the Storre domain and thus being one of the landed gentry, he was destined to be a Defender, alternating guard duty on crossings with policing duties at home. There was no other profession open to him, although the domain of Storre would always be obliged to provide him with a home in one of the domain cottages.
He embarked down the expected road knowing there were no other options and it worried him not one whit. The first time he’d ridden out into the Unstable as part of a guard contingent he’d enjoyed himself. He liked the comradeship of his fellow Trician Defenders, he enjoyed the exhilaration of the unknown, the danger of ley crossings, the sheer unbridled adventure of the ever-changing Unstable.
He began to read the ley lines, and because he was ley-lit as well as being talented, promotions came quickly. He volunteered for more crossings than were required of him and gradually acquired the skills that would stand him in good stead later, as a guide. Both his mind and his body were being challenged, and as a consequence his personality developed more depth, but he never lost the strong streak of romanticism and honour.
At eighteen he fell in love.
Alyss of Tower-and-Fleury was on her pilgrimage when he met her. She was two years older than he was, but less wise and with much less experience of the world.
Taken with the black-eyed youth who was all whipcord and muscle yet who seemed gentle, she gave him every encouragement. By the time her pilgrimage was over, they’d declared their love.
He courted her with letters and frequent visits; they were married immediately after his own pilgrimage at the age of twenty. Alyss moved to the Storre domain as custom dictated. At her insistence, and when he was given a choice, Davron opted for local law enforcement duties rather than crossings assignments. As a married man, soon with a child on the way, he had no wish to be parted from his wife, and yet there were times when he regretted he could not spend more time in the Unstable. If he’d allowed himself to consider the matter, he would have realised that at heart he was an Unstabler. Stability with all its regulations stifled him. When it was necessary to deal with Chantry, he had to subdue his hostility. The Rule irritated him and only in the Unstable could he feel truly free.
Yet when his daughter Mirrin was born, there could have been no happier man than Davron of Storre. He adored his daughter and resented the duties that took him away from her. As for Alyss… Had he known how Scow was to describe his wife to Keris, he would have agreed with the description. Alyss was indeed like moonlight: ethereal, beautiful quicksilver. She was a tease and a flirt and so much fun. She was kind and gentle and generous. She could never pass a hurt creature or a beggar child without stopping. He loved her as much as it was humanly possible to love, and had the Unmaker not stepped into his life, he would probably have gone on loving her that way, and been happy in that love. He didn’t see that she was still untried, as yet untouched by adversity, callow. Even her charity was something that never caused her pain. It was the footman who passed her coppers on to the beggar, the maid who cared for the wounded fawn she found, her physician who cared for the newly-tainted boy they discovered in the Unstable. There was little below the surface of Alyss of Tower-and-Fleury, but Davron felt no lack and did not know the illusory nature of the dream he lived.
When Mirrin was three, Alyss found she was expecting another child, but this pregnancy did not seem to progress well. She was tired and fretful and often ill. She was irritated by Mirrin’s noise, discontented by the smallness of their house on the Storre dom
ain, unhappy with Davron’s absences on patrol. She harped on things that hadn’t worried her before: her parents had never seen Mirrin, it was so long since she’d seen her mother, she missed her home in the Fifth. She wanted her mother for this new birth. She was frightened. Please—could they go to the Fifth Stability? She could have the baby there…
Davron, while sympathetic, was more concerned about the danger. Crossings were becoming more treacherous. He knew better than most the sort of tricks a ley line could produce and he dreaded gambling the life of his wife and child on the unpredictability of ley. But he loved Alyss, and she pleaded so desperately.
He planned it meticulously. It was to be a strong group with a large contingent of Defenders, too large surely for any of the Wild or the Minions to risk attacking. He was aware of the paradox that the larger the group, the more they drew the attention of the Unmaker, but at the time he still felt it was worth the risk to have the security of numbers. He hired the best of guides. He himself would lead the armed escort and the men were his hand-picked elite. Every comfort was provided for Alyss and Mirrin, including a physician and a chantor in attendance. Alyss laughed at her husband for all his precautions, but he was determined that they should not come to harm.
Not far into the Unstable, they found and rescued a young farm boy called Sammy Scowbridge. Abandoned by his fellowship after having been tainted, he was almost dead of starvation and half out of his mind because of what had happened to him. Alyss insisted that her physician give him the best of care, but it was Davron, hardly much older than the traumatised farm boy, who restored Sammy Scowbridge’s peace of mind. He saw something in the youth, in his tragedy, that tugged at him; inevitably he was reminded of Geralt’s disappearance. His brother had been abandoned just as Sammy had, alone and on foot, never to be seen again.
And so he spent time talking to Scow, brushing aside the differences between Trician and farm boy. He delved inside himself to find the wisdom to help Scow confront what had happened: the tainting, the betrayal of his love. Along the way he made the closest friend he would ever have. When Scow finally was able to look down at his reddish mane and say with mournful humour, ‘But Tilly always said she liked men with hair on their chests,’ Davron knew he was over the worst.
A day later they arrived at the Wanderer.
All seemed quiet. The guide was well pleased with the ley patterns, and Davron concurred. But the patterns lied. Perhaps the two men missed some subtle clue that would have told them all was not well, perhaps it was just that when the Unmaker was present he could, if he wished, subdue the patterns as he sat in wait…
The main party was already across when Davron rode into the line as escort for Alyss, with Mirrin sitting on his saddle bow. Both mounts were well-trained crossings-horses, so he had seen no need to dismount.
They were halfway through when a thick mist of sulphurous yellow surrounded them. The air was clear where they were, but the artificial way the vapour swirled around told Davron that it was designed to cut them off from escape. When he reached out to touch one of its eddies, he was burned by its acidity, when he breathed one of its tendrils, he choked.
‘What is it?’ Alyss asked, impatient. ‘Why are we stopping? It’s just a mist.’
‘Don’t move. It’s harmful.’
She looked around, expression dubious. ‘How can a mist be harmful?’
He felt a moment’s irritation and quelled the feeling as unworthy. ‘This is a ley line, Alyss. We’d better dismount in case it spooks the horses.’ His voice was quiet as he tried not to show her the fear he had for her safety, hers and Mirrin’s. Neither of them were ley-lit. They could both be tainted.
He helped Alyss down from her horse and she clung to him, trembling as she sensed his fear. He held Mirrin in his arms and cursed himself for ever agreeing to this trip.
That was when the Unmaker appeared.
He was naked except for his pendant. His skin glistened with golden sweat and open sexuality. He was aroused and his arousal threatened them all. His swarthy penis thrust through the tight curls of his golden pubic hair, its lividity ugly and menacing.
He feasted his eyes on Mirrin and Alyss, and laughed.
‘What do you want of us?’ Davron asked, dry-throated.
‘You,’ Carasma replied. ‘You, Davron of Storre. You, to become a Minion of Chaos, mine to command for all eternity.’
Alyss buried her face in his shoulder, weeping; Mirrin began to cry too, and her sobs of terror tore into him. He could not help his shudder. ‘Never—’ he whispered. ‘You would unmake my soul.’
‘Of what use is a soul to him who will not die?’
‘My soul is not mine to give,’ he said with a courage he did not feel. ‘I worship the Maker; my soul is His.’
The golden face tensed, its classic features suddenly seeming to take on hard shadowed planes, like an anvil. ‘Come to me, or I taint your wife and child.’
Alyss heard and moaned, sagged in his clasp. Mirrin, not understanding, began to scream.
Davron felt the world crash in on him. There was no direction he could turn, no route for escape no matter what he did, and he didn’t know what to do. The alternatives were each so terrible there could be no choice between them. ‘I cannot,’ he whispered, almost not believing that this could be happening. ‘I cannot give up my soul; I cannot serve evil. I cannot.’
Alyss turned on him, twisting in his arms. ‘Davron, for mercy’s sake, stop him!’
‘I don’t know how—’ he stammered.
Her eyes dilated with a horror so extreme he thought she might cease to breathe. He had never felt so helpless, never felt such inadequacy. All he held dear he had in his arms, yet he was unable to protect them. The muscles in his throat tightened.
‘Let me show you what I can do,’ Carasma said, and drew an image with a gesture of this hands. The yellow mist cleared a little; just enough to show a semblance of Alyss and Mirrin before them… Monsters, dragging themselves along the ground, monsters with human faces. Mirrin, innocent and apple-cheeked; Alyss, silver-smiled and gentle. The rest was obscenity.
Alyss, the real Alyss, screamed. She beat at him with her fists, begged him to save her, to do what the Lord asked, why was he frightened of a little mist, let them ride away out of there, flee, anything, anything— Mirrin saw her face in the monstrosity before her, heard her mother’s hysteria, and her own screams redoubled. Davron buried her face in his shoulder and rocked her.
He stood speechless, spirit-broken, knowing now all the colours of evil. The choking horror in his throat clamped his muscles tight, tearing his voice from him. He did not know it then, but he would never be smooth-voiced again.
‘If you loved me you would do anything—’ Alyss shrieked, her hands clutching, digging in, shaking him. ‘What of Mirrin? You say you love her!’
And in that moment he left all his youth behind.
‘Look on them as they will be, if you refuse,’ the Unmaker purred. ‘Look well, and ask yourself it you will be able to live with what you have done.’
‘I will kill us all,’ Davron said, his voice hoarse and painful, as he strove to hold his frantic daughter. Alyss screamed at him, but he could not bring himself to hear what she was saying.
‘Not yet,’ Carasma said. The words were viciously joyful. ‘Not yet. First I will taint them. Look, Davron of Storre, and see what your stubbornness has wrought.’
But as he lifted his hand to point it at Alyss, she drew herself away from her husband, shuddering. ‘No,’ she said with sudden cold calm. ‘No. I will not be tainted. I would rather give up my s—’
Davron knew what she was going to say. To her, anything was better than being tainted, or was it Mirrin’s fate that concerned her? Perhaps she was going to offer herself to Carasma so that her daughter could go free, but Davron was no longer sure if he knew her. There had been a coldness in her voice he’d never heard before, as if she was a stranger who despised him.
He drew back his fi
st even as she started to say the words that would sell her soul to the Unmaker. And he hit her, hard. Her head snapped back and she fell senseless.
Mirrin struggled out of his arms and ran to her mother. ‘I hate you!’ she screamed at him. ‘You hit Mummy! You’re not my Daddy never again!’ They were the last words she ever spoken to him, and they were to echo and re-echo in his memory like shards of hell, the pain of them never diminishing. Mirrin, with her head buried into her mother’s clothing, crying herself almost into a stupor, never looking at him again…
Davron stared at Carasma, helpless. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ he croaked, his voice harshly unrecognisable to his own ears. ‘I will not be your Minion, not ever, no matter what it costs me, or mine. But—let them go free, without harm now or ever, and I will perform one task for you. One task, of your choosing and at a time of your choosing.’ He was gambling, and he knew it. Gambling that Carasma would give him time, time to suffer, and that in that time he would find a way out of his dilemma. Or kill himself.
Carasma hesitated, suspicious. ‘Anything?’
‘As long as it is to be done within your realm. I will do nothing in any stability. One task, and I shall be free of any obligation and safe from you and your servants.’ Bile welled up into his throat and mouth. Traitor! Betrayer of his class, apostate of his Oath to the Defenders, traitor to Chantry. The moment he opened his mouth to bargain with the Unmaker, he lost his honour…
Carasma considered. ‘What pain is there in that for you? I am beginning not to like you, Davron of Storre—I prefer you to suffer.’ He sneered down at Alyss. ‘I wonder what sort of baby will be born to a tainted monster?’