“Father—” he cried, “are you hurt?”
His father held out shaking hands. The outer edge and the littlest finger were seared, blackened, but there was, as far as Allart could see, no greater hurt. Dom Stephen said in a weak voice, “The gods forgive me that I called your courage into question, Allart. You saved us all. I fear I am too old for such a struggle. But you mastered the fire at once.”
“Is the vai dom wounded?” Karinn called from the controls. “Look! They have fled.” Indeed, low on the horizon, Allart could see the small retreating shapes. Did they put real birds under spell by matrix to carry their vicious weapons? Or were they some monstrous, mutant-bred things, no more birds than the cralmacs were human; or some dreadful matrix-powered mechanical device that had been brought to deliver their deadly weapon? Allart could not guess, and his father’s plight was such that he did not feel free to pursue their attackers even in thought.
“He is shocked and a little burned,” he called anxiously to Karinn. “How long will it be before we are there?”
“But a moment or two, Dom Allart. I can see the gleam of the lake. There, below—”
The air-car circled, and Allart could see the shoreline and the glimmering sands, like jewels, along the shores of Hali… Legend says that the sands where Hastur, son of Light, walked, were jeweled from that day… And there the curious lighter-than-water waves that broke incessantly along the shore. To the north were shining towers, the Great House of Elhalyn, and at the far end of the lake, the Tower of Hali, gleaming faintly blue. As Karinn glided downward, Allart unfastened his restraining straps and clambered to his father’s side, taking the burned hands in his own, focusing into the matrix to look with the eyes of his mind and assess the damage. The wound was minor indeed; his father was only shocked, his heart racing, more frightened than hurt.
Below them, Allart could see servants in the Hastur colors running out on the landing field as the air-car descended, but he held his father’s hands in his own, trying to blot out all that he could foresee. Visions, none of them true… the air-car did not explode in flame… what I see need not come—it is only what may come, borne of my fears….
The air-car touched the ground. Allart called, “Bring my lord’s body-servants! He is hurt; you must carry him within!” He lifted his father in his arms, and lowered him into the waiting arms of the servants, then followed as they carried the frail figure within.
From somewhere a familiar voice, hateful from years ago, said, “What has come to him, Allart? Were you attacked in the air?” and he recognized the voice of his elder brother, Damon-Rafael.
Briefly he described the encounter, and Damon-Rafael said, nodding, “That is the only way to handle such weapons. They used the hawk-things, then? They have sent them upon us only once or twice before, but once they burned an orchard of trees, and nuts were scarce that year.”
“In the name of all the gods, brother, who are these Ridenow? Are they of the blood of Hastur and Cassilda, that they can send such laran weapons upon us?”
“They are upstarts,” Damon-Rafael said. “They were Dry-towns bandits in the beginning, and they moved into Serrais and forced or bullied the old families of Serrais to give them their women as wives. The Serrais had strong laran, some of them, and now you can see the result—they grow stronger. They talk truce, and I think we must make truce with them, for this fighting cannot go on much longer. But their terms will not compromise. They want unquestioned ownership of the Domain of Serrais, and they claim that with their laran they have a right to it… But this is no time to speak of war and politics, brother. How does our father? He seemed not much hurt, but we must get a healer-woman to him at once, come—”
In the Great Hall, Dom Stephen had been laid on a padded bench and a healer-woman was kneeling at his side, smearing ointments on the seared fingers, bandaging them in soft cloths. Another woman held a wine cup to the old lord’s lips. He stretched a hand to his sons as they hurried toward him, and Damon-Rafael knelt at his side. Looking at his brother, Allart thought it was a little like looking into a blurred mirror; seven years his senior, Damon-Rafael was a little taller, a little heavier, like himself fair-haired and gray-eyed as were all the Hasturs of Elhalyn, his face beginning to show signs of the passing years.
“The gods be praised that you are spared to us now, Father!”
“For that you must thank your brother, Damon; it was he who saved us.”
“If only for that, I give him welcome home,” Damon-Rafael said, turning and drawing his brother into a kinsman’s embrace. “Welcome, Allart. I hope you have come back to us in health, and without the sick fancies you had as a boy.”
“Are you hurt, my son?” Dom Stephen asked, looking up at Allart with concern. “I saw you were in pain.”
Allart spread out his hands before him. He had not been touched physically by the fire at all, but with the touch of his mind he had handled the fire-device, and the resonances had vibrated to his physical hands. There were red seared marks all along his palms, spreading up to his wrists, but the pain, though fierce, was dreamlike, nightmarish, of the mind and not of damaged flesh. He focused his awareness on it and the pain receded as the reddish marks began slowly to fade.
Damon-Rafael said, “Let me help you, brother,” and took Allart’s fingers in his own hands, focusing closely on them. Under his touch the red marks paled to white. Lord Elhalyn smiled.
“I am well pleased,” he said. “My younger son has come back to me strong and a warrior, and my sons stand together as brothers. This day’s work has been well done, if it has shown you—”
“Father!” Allart leaped toward him as the voice broke off with shocking suddenness. The healer-woman moved swiftly to his side as the old man fought for breath, his face darkening and congesting; then he slumped again, slid to the floor, and lay without moving.
Damon-Rafael’s face was drawn with horror and grief. “Oh, my father—” he whispered, and Allart, standing in shock and dread at his side, looked up for the first time around the Great Hall, seeing for the first time what he had not seen in the confusion: the green and gold hangings, the great carved chair at the far end of the room.
So it was my father’s Great Hall where he lay dead, and I did not even see till it was too late… My foresight was true, but I mistook its cause… Even knowing the many futures does nothing to avoid them….
Damon-Rafael bent his head, weeping. He said to Allart, holding out his arms, “He is dead; our father has gone into the Light,” and the brothers embraced, Allart trembling with shock at the sudden and unexpected descent of the future he had foreseen.
All around them, one by one, the servants knelt, turning to the brothers; and Damon-Rafael, his face drawn with grief, his breath coming ragged, forced himself to composure as the servants spoke the formula.
“Our Lord is dead. Live long, our Lord,” and kneeling, held out their hands in homage to Damon-Rafael.
Allart knelt and, as was fitting and right under the law, was the first to pledge to the new overlord of Elhalyn, Damon-Rafael.
* * *
CHAPTER SIX
« ^ »
Stephen, Lord Elhalyn, was laid to rest in the ancient burying ground by the shores of Hali; and all the Hastur kin of the Lowland Domains, from the Aillards on the plains of Valeron, to the Hasturs of Carcosa, had come to do him honor. King Regis, stooped and old, looking almost too frail to ride, had stood beside the grave of his half-brother, leaning heavily on the arm of his only son.
Prince Felix, heir to the throne of Thendara and the crown of the Domains, had come to embrace Allart and Damon-Rafael, calling them “dear cousins.” Felix was a slight, effeminate young man with gilt hair and colorless eyes, and he had the long, narrow pale face and hands of chieri blood. When the funeral rites were ended there was a great ceremony. Then the old king, pleading age and ill health, was taken home by his courtiers, but Felix remained to do honor to the new Lord of Elhalyn, Damon-Rafael.
E
ven the Ridenow lord had sent an envoy from far Serrais, proffering an unasked truce for twice forty days.
Allart, welcoming guests in the hall, came suddenly upon a face he knew—though he had never set eyes upon her before. Dark hair, like a cloud of darkness under a blue veil; gray eyes, but so darkly lashed that for a moment the eyes themselves seemed as dark as the eyes of some animal. Allart felt a strange tightening in his chest as he looked upon the face of the dark woman whose face had haunted him for so many days.
“Kinsman,” she said courteously, but he could not lower his eyes as custom demanded before an unmarried woman who was a stranger to him.
I know you well. You have haunted me, dreams and waking, and already I am more than half in love with you… Erotic images attacked him, unfitting for this company, and he struggled with them.
“Kinsman,” she said again, “why do you stare at me in such unseemly fashion?”
Allart felt the blood rising in his face; indeed it was discourtesy, almost indecency, to stare so at a woman who was a stranger to him, and he colored at the thought that she might possess laran, might be aware of the images that tormented him. He finally found a scrap of his voice.
“But I am no stranger to you, damisela. Nor is it discourtesy that a man shall look his handfasted bride directly in the face; I am Allart Hastur, and soon to be your husband.”
She raised her eyes and returned his gaze fairly. But there was tension in her voice. “Why, is it so? Still, I can hardly believe that you have borne my image in your mind since you last looked on my face, when I was an infant girl of four years. And I had heard, Dom Allart, that you had withdrawn yourself to Nevarsin, that you were ill or mad, that you wished to be a monk and renounce your heritage. Was it only idle gossip, then?”
“It is true that I had such thoughts for a time. I dwelt for six years among the brethren of Saint-Valentine-of-the-Snows, and would gladly have remained there.”
If I love this woman, I will destroy her … I will father children who will be monsters… she will die in bearing them… Blessed Cassilda, foremother of the Domains, let me not see so much, now, of my destiny, since I can do so little to avert it…
“I am neither ill nor mad, damisela; you need not fear me.”
“Indeed,” said the young woman, meeting his eyes again. “You do not seem demented, only very troubled. Is it the thought of our marriage which troubles you, then, cousin?”
Allart said, with a nervous smile, “Should I not be well-content, to see what beauty and grace the gods have given me in a handfasted bride?”
“Oh!” She moved her head, impatient. “This is no time for pretty speeches and flatteries, kinsman! Or are you one of those who think a woman is a silly child, to be turned away with a courtly compliment or two?”
“Believe me, I meant you no discourtesy, Lady Cassandra,” he said, “but I have been taught that it is unseemly to share my own troubles and fears when they are still formless.”
Again the quick, direct look from the dark-lashed eyes.
“Fears, cousin? But I am harmless and a girl! Surely a lord of the Hasturs is afraid of nothing, and surely not of his pledged bride!”
Before the sarcasm he flinched. “Would you have the truth, Lady? I have a strange form of laran; it is not foresight alone. I do not see only the future which will be, but the futures which might come to pass, those things which may happen with ill luck or failure; and there are times when I cannot tell which of them are generated by causes now in motion, and which are born of my own fear. It was to master this that I went to Nevarsin.”
He heard her sharp indrawn breath.
“Avarra’s mercy, what a curse to carry! And have you mastered it, then, kinsman?”
“Somewhat, Cassandra. But when I am troubled or uncertain, it rushes in upon me again, so that I do not see only the joy which marriage to one such as you might bring me.” Like a physical pain in his heart, Allart felt the bitter awareness of all the joys they might know, if he could bring her to return his love, the years ahead which might turn to brightness… Fiercely he slammed the inner door, closing his mind against it. Here was no riyachiya, to be taken without thought, for a moment’s pleasure!
He said harshly, and did not know how his own pain brought a rasp to his voice and coldness to his speech, “But I see, as well, all the griefs and catastrophe which may come; and till I can see my way through the false futures born of my own fears, I can take no joy in the thought of marriage. It is intended as no discourtesy to you, my lady and my bride.”
She said, “I am glad you told me this. You know, do you not, that my kinsmen are angry because our marriage did not take place two years ago, when I was legally of age. They felt you had insulted me by remaining in Nevarsin. Now they wish to be sure you will claim me without further delay.” Her dark glance glinted with humor. “Not that they care a sekal for my wedded bliss, but they are never done reminding me how near you stand to the throne, and how fortunate I am, and how I must captivate you with my charm so you will not escape me. They have dressed me like a fashion puppet, and dressed my hair with nets of copper and silver, and loaded me with jewels, as if you were going to buy me in the market. I half expected you to open my mouth and look at my teeth to be sure my loins and withers were strong!”
Allart could not help laughing. “On that score your kinfolk need have no fear, Lady; surely no man living could find any flaw in you.”
“Oh, but there is,” she said ingenuously. “They were hoping you would not notice, but I will not try to hide it from you.” She spread her narrow, ringed hands before him. The slender fingers were laden with jewels, but there were six of them, and as his eyes fell on the sixth, Cassandra colored deeply and tried to draw them under her veil. “Indeed, Dom Allart, I beg you not to stare at my deformity.”
“It seems to me no deformity,” he said. “Do you play the rryll? It seems to me that you could strike chords with more ease.”
“Why, so it does—”
“Then let us never again think of it as defect or deformity, Cassandra,” he said, taking the slight six-fingered hands in his own and pressing his lips to them. “In Nevarsin, I saw children with six or seven fingers where the extra fingers were boneless or without tendons, so that they could not be moved or flexed; but you have full control of them, I see. I, too, am something of a musician.”
“Truly? Is it because you were a monk? Most men have no patience for such things, or little time to learn them with the arts of war.”
“I would rather be musician than warrior,” Allart said, pressing the narrow fingers again to his lips. “The gods grant us enough peace in our days that we may make songs instead of war.” But as she smiled into his eyes, her hand still against his lips, he noted that Ysabet, Lady Aillard, was watching them, and so was his brother Damon-Rafael, and they looked so self-satisfied that he turned sick. They were manipulating him into doing their will, despite his resolve! He let her hand go as if it had burned him.
“May I conduct you to your kinswoman, damisela?”
As the evening progressed, the festivities decorous but not somber—the old lord had been decently laid to rest, and he had a proper heir, so there was no doubt the Domain would prosper—Damon-Rafael sought out his brother. Despite the feasting, Allart noticed he was still quite sober.
“Tomorrow we ride for Thendara, where I shall be invested Lord of the Domain. You must ride with us, brother; you must be warden and heir-designate for Elhalyn. I have no legitimate sons, only nedestro; they will not legitimate a nedestro heir until it is certain that Cassilde will give me none.” He looked across the room at his wife, a cold, almost bitter look. Cassilde Aillard-Hastur was a pale, slight woman, sallow and worn.
“The Domain will be in your hands, Allart, and in a sense I am at your mercy. How runs the proverb? ‘Bare is back without brother.’”
Allart wondered how, in the name of all the gods, brothers could be friends, or anything but the crudest of rivals, with suc
h inheritance laws as these? Allart had no ambition to displace his brother as head of the Domain, but would Damon-Rafael ever believe that? He said, “I would indeed that you had left me within the monastery, Damon.”
Damon-Rafael’s smile was skeptical, as if he feared that his brother’s words concealed some devious plot. “Is it so? Yet I watched you speaking with the Aillard woman, and it was obvious you could hardly await the ceremony . You are like to have a legitimate son before I do; Cassilde is frail, and your bride looks strong and healthy.”
Allart said with concealed violence, “I am in no hurry to wed!”
Damon-Rafael scowled. “Yet the Council will not accept a man of your years as heir unless you agree to marry at once; it is scandalous that a man in his twenties should be still unwedded and without even any natural sons.” He looked sharply at Allart. “Can it be that I am luckier than I think? Are you, perhaps, an emmasca? Or even a lover of men?”
Allart grinned wryly. “I grieve to disappoint you. But as for being emmasca, you saw me stripped and shown to Council when I came to manhood. And if you wished for me to become a lover of men, you should have made certain that I never came among the cristoforos. But I will return to the monastery, if you like.”
He thought, for a moment, almost in elation, that this would be the answer to his torment and perplexities. Damon-Rafael did not want him to breed sons who might be rivals to his own; and so perhaps he could escape the curse of fathering sons who would carry his own tragic laran. If he were to return to Nevarsin… he was surprised at the pain of the thought.
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