Rest, he told himself. Sleep ...
He did not want to close his eyes, for in the darkness of his mind, the fires of Highgarth still burned. He shivered, his soul sickened by the memory.
He saw a Tower crumbling into ruin, blasted by a rain of fire, the bodies of men and women blazing like torches. Varzil! Maura! he cried out, but his friends were not among them, yet they were so many. A great black stallion lay in a pool of blood. A land once green with pastures became a barren desert broken only by the twisted skeletons of trees. A young woman with eyes like a hawk’s wept helpless tears in the night Orain twisted in agony under Lyondri’s knife. Varzil stood bathed in white fire, his eyes blind with pain and loss and terrible purpose.
Blood everywhere, blood and fire and death.
Would this be the fate of everyone who followed him, everyone who trusted and believed in him?
High in the mountains, in the shadow of Aldaran, an army waited for its King. Would he lead them to victory or to ruin? This war between cousins would set brother against brother, father against son.
Had Rakhal ruled with a fair and just hand, had he treated his people as a king should, respecting and protecting them, then Carolin would have gladly yielded up the throne to him. If he had learned nothing else during his exile, it had been how little he wanted to be king.
Though he might fail, he had no choice but to try. He had sworn it, and of all the things left to him, his honor was the most precious.
As the hills grew steeper and more rugged, the weather turned foul. Carolin and his men traveled now by day, for few other men used the mud-churned roads.
They passed under the shadow of a ragged grove of pitch-pine. Carolin drew a halt, signaling with hand instead of voice. No one spoke. Only the steady whisper of the rain and the breathing of the horses broke the silence. The sound came again, a faint rustle, the muted clink of unshod hoof on stone. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, but he did not slide it free.
Chervine, not horse. A man on foot, maybe more.
Carolin’s skin tightened. As one, he and his men turned to face the sound. The next moment, a heavyset man appeared, leading a laden stag pony. Behind him, silent and dour, came two others in animal-skin cloaks, armed with heavy staves. Their leader’s clothing, once fine, was torn and stained, Carolin suspected, with more than trail mud.
For a long moment, the two parties stared at one another. Honest men did not roam these rugged hills, not in the rain. Carolin and his men looked like outlaws themselves in ragged clothing, having long since done away with any badge or emblem which might identify them.
Carolin’s black mare snorted and pawed the ground, restless with the tension. He patted her neck. “We bid you good travel, strangers,” he said, pointedly not asking their business.
The heavyset man did not reply at first, perhaps measuring the odds of battle or flight.
Carolin said, “I think you are neither thieves nor felons, but desperate men like ourselves. You need have no fear from us. We are no threat to any man who offers us none.”
At his words, the other man’s stance softened. He nodded. “Like better men than us, we seek exile here.”
“Then be on your way,” Orain said, nudging his horse to the fore, “for we are no hunters of men.”
“That you are not,” the man said. Clearly, he had made up his mind to speak, rather than pass by in silence. “I think there is one who hunts you, perhaps the same as seeks me.”
“Who might that be?” Orain said.
“By the word of the usurper whose backside warms the throne at Hali, I am a landless man. The crime for which I lost my farm and was flung into Rakhal’s prison under sentence of losing a hand and my tongue? My children shouted, ‘Long live King Carolin!’ as one of Rakhal’s men passed by my village. So here I am, ready to serve any king who will bring down Rakhal and his henchman, Lyondri.”
“We, too, serve the exiled king,” Carolin said, “but if you would join our company, we can offer no sure hope of victory.”
“I ask only to fight against my enemies,” the man said in a voice resonant with bitterness. “I have heard that King Carolin is gathering an army somewhere in the Hellers. If it is your purpose also to join them, we might share the road.”
Something of the wolf stirred behind Carolin’s slow smile. “Then we ride together, friend. How are you called?”
“Alaric.” The man gave no other name, for here in this lawless place, he had left the past behind.
Alaric. Like my little son.
They rode together, even as Carolin said, for another tenday, until they came to a little valley overlooked by a castle. Built into the living rock of the crags, it was little more than a fortress, but the men who lived here were distant kin of Valdrin Castamir and gave Carolin and his men welcome, though the news they brought was bitter.
“I can spare only a few men,” Dom Cerdric told Carolin, “for in these lawless times, we are beset by Ya-men from the heights on one side and bandits which haunt these passes on the other.”
Instead, he presented Carolin with an even greater gift, three sentry birds. They were great powerful birds, resembling kyorebni, the savage scavengers of the heights, more than proper hawks. Long feathered crests arched over their eye sockets. Their heads were naked and wrinkled, and their beaks gleamed like obsidian. Though they were far from beautiful and an odor of carrion arose from them, they were a magnificent gift. A trained laranzu, his mind linked with one of them, could spy out the land, locate enemy forces, track the movement of armies.
You will be my eyes, and perhaps through you, I may bring about a speedy end to this war, Carolin thought. From Nevarsin, they might contact Tramontana, to see if any of the workers there might join them.
Dom Cerdric’s saddlemaker attached blocks to three of the saddles for the sentry birds to perch upon. When offered fresh meat, however, the birds refused to eat. Before long, they became listless and irritable. Some of the men had trained hawks, but could not make out what ailed the sentry birds. Carolin began to think the gift was in vain, for the birds were failing and might not live until they reached Nevarsin.
Late one day, they climbed a little forested knoll. Away to the northwest, a high mountain loomed. Beyond it in the failing light, snowcapped peaks glimmered like pale shadows. Orain spotted a curl of smoke just off the road ahead.
Carolin’s laran stirred. He sensed no threat, although an undercurrent of fear ran through the mind of the boy—no, a young woman—who crouched in the thickest part of the trees.
Another dozen paces took them around a curve and into sight of a small clear space with the remains of a fire. The coals had been carefully covered so that no chance spark might set the hills ablaze. Whoever she was, this girl was forest wise.
“Come out, boy,” Orain called. “We mean you no harm.”
The girl emerged from the thicket, leading a horse which by its coat and staring ribs had lately seen hard travel and poor fodder. Carolin recognized the girl from his waking vision outside Highgarth, the proud bearing, the eyes shadowed yet alive with fire, like those of a bird of prey. She herself looked like a runaway hawkmaster’s apprentice, with her rough garb and improvised perch on her saddle.
As her gaze met his, Carolin felt an instant kinship with her. Like him, she traveled in disguise, shadowed by fear. Would that he might meet the future with the same courage he saw brimming in her eyes.
At the girl’s signal, a magnificent verrin hawk swooped down from the sky and caught her lifted forearm. She looked tenderly at the bird. “She is mine, for I trained her with my own hand.”
From her red hair and sure manner with beasts, Carolin wondered if she might have MacAran blood, as well as a touch of their empathic laran. “In this wild land,” he said, “your hawk could fly away if she would, and in that sense at least, you own her as much as any human can own a wild thing.”
She caught his meaning and gave him a smile of rare radiance. But when he
asked her name, she looked away and muttered, “Rumal.”
Keep your secrets, then, little hawkmistress. No harm will come to you or your hawk from any man of mine. From her bearing and speech, she was gently-raised, perhaps in the lands north of the Kadarin. Her horse, although thin, had good breeding. He could not imagine what had driven her to travel like this, alone, wearing a boy’s boots and breeches, her true nature concealed. Yet he sensed that she, too, was an exile, homeless, driven from her kin through no fault of her own except her own honor.
On impulse, Carolin asked the girl if she knew anything about treating ailing sentry birds, and was surprised when she approached them without fear. When told the birds had been fed only the best and freshest meat, even when the men went short of food, she replied, “There is your problem, sir. Look you, these are scavenger birds, which feed on half-rotted meat. They must have fur and feathers, too. These birds are starving because they cannot digest what you’ve given them.”
Each creature feeds according to its nature, Carolin thought as Rumal set about arranging for carrion for the sentry birds. The birds permitted her to handle them, and he saw how quick and light her hands were. Soon she and Orain were deep in discussion about what to name the birds. If only men could learn to live in the same way.
What if it were Rakhal’s nature to pillage and abuse his people, or Lyondri’s to destroy anyone who stood against him?
That is what a king is for, to restrain such men.
Rumal went about her self-appointed tasks, as much a member of the party as if she had always belonged. After some grumbling, for Alaric resented having to make do with his little stag pony while Rumal rode a proper horse, the men accepted her as the boy she pretended to be.
Orain in particular took a liking to her, and when they reached Nevarsin, bought her a warm vest and stockings. When she caught a fever, he dosed her with an herbal brew his mother had taught him to make.
So she finds a place with us, where there is no other, Carolin thought. He saw in her a kindred spirit, but could not foresee how well she would repay the kindness.
36
The fugitive King Carolin had so far eluded capture. Scattered rumors of his death proved false. The harsh treatment dealt anyone who aided or sympathized with him served only to strengthen support for him. Neighboring kingdoms snapped at Hastur’s borders, searching for any sign of weakness.
Often, Varzil thought of his friend, wandering the lawless lands beyond the Kadarin. Sometimes at night, he caught fragmented dream images, Carolin shivering by a pocket fire or with his sword drawn and crouched in a fighting stance. Carolin still lived, of that he was sure. He clutched that knowledge to him like a talisman.
Arilinn Tower, though not directly involved in the unrest, still felt the shifting tensions. Once messages flowed freely along the relays between all the Towers. Now Hali and Tramontana would fall silent or send only guarded communications. Almost every Tower from Dalereuth to Hali had begun making clingfire. Only Hestral and Arilinn were so far exempt. Since the incident which cost Auster his life, Arilinn had made no more weapons.
Varzil had been instrumental in keeping Arilinn apart from the conflict, although here, as elsewhere, the demands increased with each tenday: medicine, laran batteries for aircars or lighting, the building of fortifications or repairs. Despite Barak’s reservations, Varzil now had the status of tenerézu, a fully qualified Keeper. Arilinn could not function with a single Keeper in these times. Varzil had been adamant in working only on peaceful uses of laran.
Varzil sometimes spoke over the relays with Dyannis at Hali. She sounded worried and distant. Rakhal Hastur threatened Serrais, seat of the Ridenow chiefs, and she feared she might be forced to make weapons to be used against her own kinsmen.
Carolin promised us that we might elect to remain neutral at such times, doing only peaceful work, she said. But the new king thinks otherwise.
Surely Rakhal would not force Lady Liriel or Maura Elhalyn to fight against Carolin, Varzil said.
No, she answered. To do him justice, Rakhal offered exemption to those who had blood-ties to Carolin, so long as they swore not to engage in any hostile action against him either. But he has since reneged on that bargain after Lady Maura and several others left Tramontana. Maura said she could not continue to serve Rakhal after what he had done—but Varzil, was she not to marry him? I thought so when we were together at Hali that first Midwinter Festival.
So we all thought, Varzil answered. He did not want to imagine what turned her from a man she had defended so loyally.
As for me, Dyannis went on, Rakhal has no care for any Ridenow sentiments. He has lost too many of his own leronyn to neutrality to be willing to release any more of us. I think he is growing desperate. What if he orders us to attack the Great House at Serrais, or even Sweetwater, for as you must have heard, Harald has declared his support for Carolin. I love my work here, Varzil, but I love my family also.
Varzil caught the wistfulness in her mental voice, as if she were a child caught in an unpredictable and hostile landscape. Yet beneath it rang a core as tough and resilient as whipcord. Neither Dougal DiAsturian, the Keeper of Hali Tower, nor King Rakhal himself would find her pliant, were they to command her against her own conscience.
The next time Varzil took his turn in the relays, he signaled Hestral Tower. Within moments, distance compressed and he touched the mind of Serena, one of the monitors.
What news from Arilinn? she asked.
He passed on the messages for that evening. Some were complex, answers to inquiries Loryn Ardais had made of the Archives of the Comyn Council, stored in the Hidden City. Some of these dated back to the height of the Ages of Chaos and documented some of the more bizarre types of laran. During this time, inbreeding and genetic manipulation resulted in strange and unpredictable Gifts. Loryn was particularly interested in the ability to sense the vast electric and magnetic fields of the planet itself.
The Arilinn Archives were huge and records of this age poorly indexed. It would help, Varzil said, if he knew precisely what bloodlines Loryn was investigating and to what purpose. Silently, he prayed it was not for the development of some fearsome new weapon. The Aldarans were rumored to be able to generate storms of devastating force. He shuddered silently as he remembered his visions, so many years ago, at the bottom of the cloud-lake at Hali.
One of the younger workers, a Rockraven boy, seemed to have some measure of this talent, but so little was known about it that trying to train it seemed like stumbling about in the dark.
Bumping into shadows and hay-racks, Serena added. Let me summon Felicia to speak with you. She of all of us knows most, for she is developing a matrix lattice that we hope will allow Marius to focus his talent. She thinks that if we can determine the right conditions far enough in advance, we can shift cloud patterns and moist air, or perhaps even discharge the electrical energy in some harmless way. Only last winter, we lost five families and as many fishing boats to a fire-storm.
After a few moments, Felicia’s clear mental voice reached him, embracing him in welcome.
I am so glad to hear you, my dearest! Serena said there was some problem about our researches, but I think she was only looking for an excuse for us to talk!
Varzil could almost see her smile, the quick bright light in her eyes. Are you well, beloved?
Exceedingly! Again, came a sparkle of delight. I am working as a Keeper most of the time now, although not yet in name—Darkover is not quite ready for that! When I arrived, I was prepared to do battle with Loryn Ardais, to refuse to work on instruments of destruction, even if it meant doing nothing more challenging than distilling kirian and tending sick babies.
Varzil chuckled silently at the image of Felicia, her hair tied back in a kerchief, a screaming, red-faced infant in her arms. In his mind, her expression softened into tenderness. She lifted the baby and he realized the child was theirs. His heart shuddered with longing, but he knew it was no true clairvoyance, only a desp
erate hope.
In my heart, I share your wish, Felicia responded. I pray for a time when we may live it together.
Loryn is a surprising man, she went on, returning to business, a Keeper who encourages independence in others. I have his full support on my weather project. Eduin has been here this past season, and he has been helping me a great deal. Tomorrow night we’ll be ready to test the lattice he’s constructed.
She described what they hoped to do. Varzil was impressed by the creativity and depth of her work. Barak would never have permitted her such scope or allowed her to use her remarkable talents so rapidly.
And your feelings of trepidation? he asked. Have they been laid to rest?
She fell silent for a moment. In truth, I do not know. There has been so much work to do, so many exciting new things, I have not thought much about it. Before I came here, I had not realized my own ambition—I certainly was not encouraged to follow it at either Nevarsin or Arilinn! After all those years spent hiding my parentage, it was not easy to draw attention to myself and my abilities. I am anxious from time to time, but it is on account of the leroni in my care and the enormity of what we aim to accomplish. We stand upon the brink of a new age, beloved, and you and I will be part of its making.
Varzil sent her a pulse of love and pride. If you are not too tired, let me know the results of your experiment. I’ll wait tomorrow night in the relay laboratory.
Be assured I shall. Until tomorrow night—Oh, one thing more. I heard a lovely old saying, “Your words brighten the sky. ” I’ve been waiting for the chance to say it to you...
“Your words brighten the sky,” Varzil repeated after they had broken rapport. Her presence filled him with the sweetness of a summer dawn. He longed beyond words to hold her under that shining sky.
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