The strange cloud-waters enfolded him, dim, strange, and the thick, foggy sensation surrounded him. He breathed it in, feeling the curious exhilaration it gave at first. He could see quite clearly, as if through a thin morning mist. Brilliant creatures—fish or bird?—glided past him, their shimmering orange and green colors like nothing he had ever seen, except the lights behind his eyes when he had been given a dose of kirian, the telepathic drug which opened the brain… Allart felt his feet falling lightly on the weedy bottom of the lake as he began to run along the lake bed.
Something had passed this way, yes. The fish-birds were gathering, drifting in the cloud-currents. Allart felt his running feet slowing. The heavy gas of the cloud was beginning to oppress him now. He sent out a despairing cry: “Cassandra!” The cloud of the lake would not carry sound; it was like being at the bottom of a very silent well, silence engulfing and surrounding him. Even at Nevarsin he had never known such silence. The fish-birds drifted past him, noiseless, curious, their luminescent colors stirring reflections in his brain. He was dizzy, light-headed. He forced himself to breathe, remembering that in the strange gaseous cloud of the lake, there was none of that element which triggered the breath reflex in the brain. He must breathe by effort and will; his brain would not keep his body breathing automatically.
“Cassandra!”
A faint, distant flicker, almost pettish… “Go away. …” and it was gone again.
Breathe! Allart was beginning to tire; here the weeds were deeper, thicker, and he had to force his way through him.
Breathe! In and out, remember to breathe… He felt a long slimy trail of weed lock around his ankle, had to stoop and disengage it. Breathe! He forced himself to struggle on, even as the brilliantly colored fish-birds began to cluster around him, their colors blurring before his eyes. His laran rushed upon him, as always when he was troubled or fatigued, and he saw himself sinking down and down into the gas and ooze, lying there quiet and content, suffocating in happy peace because he had forgotten how to breathe… Breathe! Allart struggled to draw in another damp breath of the gas, reminding himself that it would support life indefinitely; the only danger was forgetting to breathe it in. Had Cassandra already reached this point? Was she lying, comfortably dying—a painless ecstatic death—here at the bottom of the lake?
She wanted to die, and I am guilty… Breathe! Don’t think of anything now, just remember to breathe…
He saw himself carrying Cassandra from the lake, still, lifeless, her long hair lying black and dripping across his arm… saw himself bending over her, lying in the swaying grasses in the lake bed, taking her in his arms, sinking down beside her… no more laran. no trouble, no more fear, the family curse ended forever for them both.
The fish-birds moved, agitated, around him. Before his feet, he saw a flicker of pale blue, no color ever to be seen at the bottom of the lake. Was it the long sleeve of Cassandra’s gown? Breathe… Allart bent over her. She was lying there, on her side, her eyes open and still, a faint joyous smile on her lips, but she was too far gone to see Allart. His heart clutching, he bent over her, lifted her lightly into his arms. She was unconscious, faint, her body lolling against him in the drifting weeds. Breathe! Breathe into her mouth; it is the gas in our expelled breath which triggers breathing… Allart tightened his arms about her and laid his lips againt hers, forcing his breath into her lungs. As if in reflex, she breathed, a long deep breath, and was still again.
Allart lifted her and began to carry her back along the lake bed, in the dim cloudy light reddened now by the setting sun, and terror suddenly struck him. If it grows dark, if the sun sets, I will never find my way to the shore in the darkness. We will die here together. Again he bent over her, forcing his expelled breath into her mouth; again he felt her breathe. But the automatic breathing-mechanism was gone in Cassandra, and he did not know how long she could survive without it, even with the oxygen of the reflex breaths he forced her to take, every two or three steps, by breathing into her mouth. And he had to hurry, before the light was gone. He struggled along in the growing darkness, holding her in his arms, but he had to stop every two or three breaths, to breathe life into her again. Her heart was beating. If she would only breathe… if he could only rouse her enough to remember to breathe…
The last few steps were nightmare. Cassandra was a slight woman, but Allart was not a big man, either. As the cloud-fog grew shallower, he finally abandoned any attempt to carry her and dragged her along, stooping and holding her under the shoulders, every two or three steps stopping to force his breath into her lungs. At last his head broke out into air and he gasped air convulsively, hearing it sob in and out of his lungs. Then, with a final effort, he grabbed Cassandra up and held her with her head out of the cloudy gas, stumbling drunkenly toward the shore, collapsing beside her on the grass. He lay beside her, breathing into her mouth, pressing her ribs, until after several breaths she shuddered and gasped and let out a strange wailing cry, not unlike the cry of a newborn child as his lungs filled with the first breath. Then he heard her begin to breathe normally again. She was still unconscious, but after a little, in the gathering darkness, he felt her thoughts touch his. Then she whispered, still faintly, only a breath, “Allart? Is it you?”
“I am here, my beloved.”
“I am so cold.”
Allart caught up the garment he had flung away, wrapped it tightly around her. He held her, close-folded, murmuring hopeless endearments.
“Preciosa… bredhiva … my treasure, my cherished, why… how… I thought I had lost you forever. Why did you want to leave me?”
“Leave you? No,” she whispered. “But it was so peaceful in the lake, and all I wanted was to stay there forever in the silence, and not to fear anymore, or cry anymore. I thought I could hear you calling me, but I was so weary… I only lay down to rest a little, and I was so tired, I could not rise. I could not seem to breathe, and I was afraid… and then you came… but I knew you did not love me.”
“Not love you? Not want you? Cassandra—” Allart found that he could not speak. He pulled her close to him, kissed her on the cold lips.
Moments later he took her up again in his arms and carried her into the Tower, through the lower hall. The other members of the matrix circles, assembled there, stared at him with shock and amazement, but there was something in Allart’s eyes that kept them from speaking or approaching the couple. He felt Renata watching them, felt the curiosity and horror from them all. Briefly, without thinking about it, he saw himself as he must appear in their eyes, soaked and bedraggled, bootless, Cassandra’s drenched garments soaking the cloak he had wrapped around her, her long dark hair streaming dampness and entangled weeds. Before the grim concentration in his face they drew aside as he went through the hall and up the long stairs; not to the room where she had slept, alone, since they had come here, but along a wide hallway on the lower floors of the Tower, to his own room.
He shut and locked the door behind him and knelt beside her, with shaking hands removing the soaked clothing, wrapping her warmly in his own blankets. She was still as death, pale and unmoving against the pillow, her damp hair hanging lifelessly down.
“No,” she whispered. “You are to leave the Tower and you did not even tell me. I felt it would be better to die than to stay here alone, with all the others mocking me, knowing I am wed and no wife, that you did not love me or want me.”
“Not love you?” Allart whispered again. “I love you as my blessed forefather loved Robardin’s daughter on the shores of Hali centuries ago. Not want you, Cassandra?” He held her to him, covering her with kisses, and he felt that his kisses were breathing life into her as the breath of his lungs had given her life at the depths of the lake. He was almost beyond thought, beyond remembering the pledge they had made to one another, but a final, despairing thought crossed his mind before he drew the blankets aside.
I can never let her go, not now. Merciful Avarra, have pity on us!
Chapter Thirteen<
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Allart sat at Cassandra’s side, looking into her sleeping face. Physically she was not much the worse for her experience in the lake. Even now he was not certain whether it had been a genuine attempt at suicide, or only an impulse born of deep unhappiness, compounded by illness and exhaustion. But in the days since then he had hardly left her side. He had come so close to losing her!
The others in the Tower had left them much to themselves. As they had known the state of affairs between himself and Cassandra, he sensed they knew the change that had come, but it did not seem to matter.
Now, he knew, as soon as Cassandra was able to leave her bed, some decision must be made. Should he leave the Tower and take her with him, send her to a place of safety (for if they were making weapons here, the Tower would be under attack), or should he go away himself and leave her here for the laran training he knew she must have?
Yet again and again, his own laran gave him visions of riding away to the north, Renata at his side. Cassandra’s absence from these visions frightened him. What was to become of her?
He saw strange banners overhead, war, the clashing of swords, the explosion of strange weapons, fire, death. Maybe that would be best for us both…
He found it impossible to keep to the disciplined calm he had learned at Nevarsin. Cassandra was ever-present in his mind, his thoughts and emotions as hypersensitive to her as his body.
He had broken the pledge they had made to one another.
After seven years in Nevarsin, I am still weak, still driven by the senses and not by the mind. I took her without thought, as if she had been one of old Dom Marius’s pleasure girls.
He heard the soft knock at the door, but even before it registered on his ears, he knew—it has come. He stooped and kissed the sleeping woman, with an aching sense of farewell, then went to the door, opening it in a split second after the knock, so that Arielle blinked in surprise.
“Allart,” she whispered. “Your brother, the lord Elhalyn, is below in the Stranger’s Hall and asks to speak with you. I will remain with your wife.”
Allart went down to the Stranger’s Hall, the only room in the Tower into which outsiders were permitted to come. Damon-Rafael was there, his paxman noiseless and unmoving at his back.
“You lend us grace, brother. How may I serve you?”
“I suppose you have heard of the truce’s end?”
“Then you have come to summon me to arms?”
Damon-Rafael said with a contemptuous laugh, “Do you suppose I should come myself for that? Anyhow, you would serve me better here; I have little faith, after all those years of monkish seclusion, in your skill at arms or any of the manly arts. No, brother, I have another mission for you, if you will accept it.”
It took all of Allart’s hard-won discipline to remain silent at the taunt, remarking quietly that he was at the service of his brother and his overlord.
“You have dwelled beyond the Kadarin; have you ever traveled to the Aldaran lands, near Caer Donn?”
“Never; only to Ardais and Nevarsin.”
“Still, you must know that clan grows over-powerful. They hold Castle Aldaran at Caer Donn, as well as Sain Scarp and Scathfell; and they make alliances with all the others, with Ardais and Darriel and Storn. They are of Hastur kin, but Lord Aldaran came not to my accession as lord of Elhalyn, nor has he come to midsummer festival in Thendara for many years. Now, with this war breaking forth again, he is like a great hawk in his mountain aerie, ready to swoop down on the Lowlands whenever we are torn by strife and cannot resist him. If all those who owe allegiance to Aldaran were to strike us at once, Thendara itself could not hold. I can foresee a day when all the Domains from Dalereuth to the Kilghard Hills might lie under the lordship of Aldaran.”
Allart said, “I knew not you had the foresight, brother.”
Damon-Rafael moved his head with a quick, impatient gesture. “Foresight? That takes not much reading! When kinsmen quarrel, enemies step in to widen the gap. I am trying to negotiate another truce—it profits us nothing to set the land aflame—but with our cousins of Castle Hastur under seige, it is not easy. Our carrier-birds are flying night and day with secret dispatches. Also, I have leroni working in relays to send messages, but of course we can entrust nothing secret to them; what is known to one is known to all with laran. Now we come to the service I ask of you, brother.”
“I listen,” Allart said.
“It is long since a Hastur sent a kinsman on diplomatic mission to Aldaran. Yet we need such a tie. The Storns hold lands to the west of Caer Dorm, close to Serrais across the hills, and they might find it useful to join with the Ridenow. Then all of the alliances within the Hellers could be drawn into this war. Do you think you might persuade Lord Aldaran to hold himself and his liegemen neutral in this war? I do not think he would join it on our side, but he might be willing to stay out of it entirely. You are Nevarsin-trained; you know the language of the Hellers well. Will you go for me, Allart, and try to keep Mikhail, Lord Aldaran, from joining in this war?”
Allart studied his brother’s face. This seemed all too simple a mission. Did Damon-Rafael plot some treachery, or did he simply want Allart out of the way, so that the Hasturs of Elhalyn would not have loyalties divided between the brothers?
“I am at your command, Damon-Rafael, but I know little diplomacy of that sort.”
“You will carry letters from me,” Damon-Rafael said, “and you will write secret dispatches and send them to me by carrier-birds. You will write open dispatches, which spies on both sides will certainly see; but you will also write secret dispatches, and send them under a matrix-lock which none but I can open or read. Surely you can arrange a lock spelled shut so that if other eyes fall upon them they will be destroyed?”
“That is simple enough,” Allart said, and now he understood. There could not be many people to whom Damon-Rafael would willingly give the unique pattern of his own body and brain to set a matrix-lock; such a lock was a common tool for assassins, like the homing device Coryn had mentioned.
So I am one of the two or three persons living to whom Damon-Rafael will entrust that power over him; because I am sworn to defend him and his sons.
“I have arranged it so you will have a cover for your mission,” Damon-Rafael said. “We have captured an envoy from Aldaran, fearing he had been sent to declare for the Ridenow. But the messenger, when my household leronis probed his sleep, told us he was on a personal mission for Lord Aldaran. I don’t know all the details, but it has nothing to do with the war. His memory has been matrix-cleansed, and when he speaks with your Keeper, which he will do soon, I suppose, he will not know that he was ever captured or that he has been probed at all. I have arranged with our cousin Coryn that you will be, ostensibly, in charge of the truce flag which will escort Aldaran’s messenger northward to the Kadarin. No one will notice if you simply continue and ride with them to Aldaran. Is that satisfactory to you?”
What choice have I? But I have known for days now that I must ride northward; only I did not know it was to Aldaran. And what has Renata to do with this? But aloud he said to Damon-Rafael only, “It seems you have thought of everything.”
“At sunset, my paxman will ride here to give you documents qualifying you as my ambassador, and instructions for sending messages, and access to carrier-birds.” He rose, saying, “If you wish, I will pay a courtesy visit to your lady. It should be thought this is a family visit without any secret purpose.”
“I thank you,” Allart said, “but Cassandra is not well, and has kept her bed. I shall convey her your respectful compliments.”
“Do so, by all means,” Damon-Rafael said, “although, I suppose, since you have chosen to dwell with her in the Tower, there is no reason to send congratulations. I do not imagine she is already carrying your child.”
Not now, perhaps never… Allart felt again the surge of desolation. He said aloud only, “No, we have not as yet any such good fortune.” Damon-Rafael had no way of knowing the real state
of affairs between himself and Cassandra, neither the pledge they had made one another nor the circumstances in which it had been broken. He was only twisting a knife at random. There was no need to waste anger on his brother’s malice, but Allart was angry.
Still, he was bound to obey Damon-Rafael as overlord of Elhalyn, and Damon-Rafael was so far right. If the Northmen from the Hellers joined this war, there would be ravage and disaster.
I should be grateful, he thought, that the gods have sent me such an honorable way to serve in this war. If I can persuade the Aldarans to neutrality I will indeed do well for all the vassals of Hastur.
As Damon-Rafael rose to depart, Allart said, “Truly, I thank you, brother, for entrusting me with this mission,” and his words were so heartfelt that Damon-Rafael stared at him with surprise. When he embraced Allart at parting there was a touch of warmth in the gesture. The two would never be friends, but they were nearer to it at this moment than they had been for years or Allart knew it sadly—were ever likely to be again.
Later that night he was summoned again to the Stranger’s Hall, this time, he supposed, to meet with Damon-Rafael’s envoy, bearing safe-conducts and dispatches.
Coryn met him outside the door.
“Allart, do you speak the languages of the Hellers?”
Allart nodded, wondering if Damon-Rafael had taken Coryn into his confidence and why.
“Mikhail of Aldaran has sent us a messenger,” Coryn said, “but his command of our language is uncertain. Will you come and speak to him in his own tongue?”
“Gladly,” Allart said, and.thought, Not Damon-Rafael’s envoy, then, but Aldaran’s messenger. Damon-Rafael said he had been mind-probed. I think that unjust, but, after all, this is war.
When he came with Coryn into the Stranger’s Hall, he recognized the messenger’s face. His laran had shown it to him again and again, though he had never known why: a dark-haired, dark-browed, youthful face, looking at him with tentative friendliness. Allart greeted him in the formal speech of the Hellers.
The Ages of Chaos Page 17