“How is it your fault? Did you attack Felicia? Did you deliberately channel destructive energy in her direction?”
“No!” The boy’s voice cracked. “No, I would never—”
“Then you have nothing to reproach yourself with, certainly not something you neither caused nor could possibly control. Exactly what did happen?”
“I don’t know! I’ve been racking my memory, trying to find a reason! There’s nothing—”
“Just start at the beginning. How did this—” Varzil indicated the matrix apparatus, “come about?”
The boy took a deep breath to steady himself. “Our goal was to modulate my weather talent. If only I’d been able to manage it properly, none of this would have been necessary. I have something of the old Rockraven weather sense, did you know?”
Varzil nodded and sent a pulse of calm to the boy’s mind.
“It seemed to be more than just a talent for sensing patterns in wind and cloud. Lots of people can do that, even if they don’t know it. They think it’s the birds nesting a certain way or the growth of a sheep’s wool that tells them a bad storm is coming. I—I have moments when I see these flows of energy, at least that’s what Loryn and Felicia say they are. To me, they’re like rivers and streams, so big and deep and strong I don’t have words for it. Ordinary storms—those waft about in the air. These rivers lie deep underground, and everything—” he gestured to include not only the room, the Tower, the valley, but all the lands beyond, “—everything resonates to them.”
Aldones! He sees the lines of magnetism of the planet!
“I can’t see them all the time,” the boy rattled on, “not even when I concentrate, and I’ve never been able to do anything with them. Felicia thought that some day I might.”
If you could, every tyrant on Darkover would be after you. Varzil did not want to imagine what uses Rakhal Hastur might put the boy’s talent to.
The youth went on to describe how Felicia planned to use a specially constructed matrix to focus and balance his natural ability, enhancing or buffering it as needed.
“It should have worked! All the preliminary tests we did were wonderful—as if I’d suddenly taken off blinders I’d worn all my life. But we hadn’t used it as a circle—that was the first test. We started off in the ordinary way and then, when we were settled in our circle, I felt Felicia make the bridge to the lattice. Something—I don’t know—something hot and white exploded right where she was. She tried to hold the circle. I felt her struggling. There was this jolt like being hit with bucket of live coals. I’ve still got a headache from it.”
Varzil paced the room, his mind ranging through the psychic space. The atmosphere still quivered with the residue of destructive energy. He couldn’t identify it. There was no trace of outside intrusion or any invading personality. His circuit took him to the door, where a telepathic damper sat on a table beside the platters of food, beakers of sweetened wine, a folded shawl. He touched the damper and felt the faint, fading pulse of its interference fields.
“This was turned on?”
The boy looked startled. “Of course. Don’t you use them at Arilinn?”
“Indeed. And no one entered the room physically?”
“No, nothing like that. Why are you asking? It was an accident!”
Either that, or Felicia’s own carelessness. Varzil could not bring himself to believe that she had somehow brought this on herself. She was too competent, too well-trained by Arilinn’s exacting standards, to attempt work beyond her ability, especially when the minds and lives of others depended upon her. In their last conversation over the relays, her words had rung with assurance and competence. She’d known what she was doing.
Varzil gestured toward the ruined matrix. “I must study this. Perhaps I can discover some flaw, some reason for what happened.”
The boy moved back to the table. “I hardly see how. Eduin worked on the design with Felicia and then constructed it. He—”
“Eduin constructed this? And was he—” O, Dark Lady Avarra!—“was he part of the circle?”
“No. He was working in Loryn’s circle.”
Varzil forced himself to breathe slowly, to think. His heart pounded in his chest and his hands threatened to shake. “Isn’t that unusual? For a technician to build something this complicated and then leave its operation to others?”
“Why, yes, I thought so, too.” The boy blinked rapidly and the red haloes around his acne lesions darkened. He wavered on his feet.
Varzil recognized the danger signs of exhaustion. Clearly, the boy was too overwrought, too tormented with guilt to see reason. Varzil wanted to examine the ruined lattice undisturbed, to ponder Eduin’s part in the disaster.
“Varzil?” a girl’s voice, light and pleasant, interrupted him. She stood in the doorway and Varzil recognized her at once as Serena, whose mind he had touched many times over the relays. She smiled back at him. “Loryn asks if you would join him in his chambers.”
Varzil put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Marius,” he said gently, “you must get some food, then go to bed. You aren’t going to do anyone any good if you become ill.”
Some of the brittleness seeped from the boy’s muscles. He nodded and led the way from the laboratory.
Loryn Ardais was one of those men who by their constitution showed little outward trace of fatigue, yet Varzil noticed the slight sag of his shoulders. The man had worked through the rest of the night and then met with an envoy and his armed escort.
Do not admire me for a trait that is none of my choosing, Loryn said telepathically. I owe my constitution to the gods; it is no credit of mine.
He went on aloud, “I asked you here to consult with you as a fellow Keeper. Most of the time, I rule Hestral with an easy hand. My people are skilled professionals and perfectly capable of their own reasoned decisions. But in the world at large, only one voice may speak for the Tower, and that is mine.”
Varzil thought a moment. “So you sent Hastur’s men on their way without whatever they came for. Do you need my blessing for that? I give it freely.”
“Do you remember my mention of a stockpile of clingfire, made by one of my predecessors and all but forgotten?”
“I remember that we spoke of a future when not only the stuff itself, but the secrets of its making and its very name would vanish with time,” Varzil said.
Did Rakhal Hastur find out about it? he added mentally.
Yes, undoubtedly from the records of that same king who commanded its manufacture. These would be kept at Hali.
Varzil shuddered inwardly at the notion of handing over a supply of clingfire to Rakhal Hastur.
“Did Rakhal say why he wanted it? Or shall I guess it was to pursue his war against Carolin and his allies?”
Loryn raised one hand in a dismissive gesture. “I do not care why he wanted it. I wish I had destroyed the stuff the very hour I learned of its existence. I told the Hastur captain that is what I had done.”
“You lied?”
“I anticipated,” Loryn replied with such an expression that Varzil almost smiled. “Now I need—I ask your help in bringing truth to my words. I would have this thing done in secret, so that if any of my people are questioned under truthspell—an eventuality I pray will never happen—they can all swear they knew nothing of it. It is much to put upon you, Varzil. This is not your problem. I thought you might feel some kinship of spirit with us, if only for Felicia’s sake.”
“I am not protesting,” Varzil said quickly. “I heartily agree with what you have done. I am honored you would look to me for this.”
Loryn looked at him with a curious expression, half in wonder, half in appraisal. “Your reputation has preceded you, Varzil of Arilinn, as a man of honor and vision.”
“Please, do not flatter me,” Varzil said, cutting Loryn off before he could utter more praise. “I have already said I will do it. You need not cozen me with sweet and improbable words to enlist my help.”
I h
ave done nothing so praiseworthy, Varzil thought. Not yet, at any rate. I have done my work as best I can, and on occasion shared the dreams of others.
Your modesty does not become you, Loryn answered silently. Nor does reticence further the wisdom behind your words. Yet, I will leave the subject. We will have more than enough troubles in the days ahead.
“I fear we have not seen the last of Rakhal’s soldiers,” Loryn said aloud.
Varzil realized with a pang that his investigation into Felicia’s accident would have to wait. The clingfire must be dealt with as soon as possible. A time of rest and grieving would give him a plausible public reason to remain at Hestral without arousing anyone’s curiosity.
“The welfare of the Tower and all who dwell herein must take precedence over any individual desires,” Varzil said, though each word turned in his heart like a dagger.
Kings know this; Keepers know this. And I—Aldones save me—I have a greater duty.
“Do not regret that you are a man with a man’s heart,” Loryn said gently. “All things happen in their proper season.”
Loryn had fitted out a small stone cellar for their work in dismantling the clingfire. The windowless space was set below ground level and had been cleared of all combustible material. Even the makeshift benches and worktable were of brick, the vessels of glass.
The cellar, hidden from the sun and shielded by the earth itself, struck Varzil as the worst possible place for their mission. Destroying clingfire ought to be an act of public conscience, not a secret. Perhaps one day, it would be.
Varzil lowered himself to his seat. The cold edge bit into his flesh. There were only a handful of vessels, begrimed with dust and cobwebs. Even so, their contents glowed slightly like banked embers.
Loryn, wearing padded gloves, set aside all the vessels but one, which he placed in the center of the table.
It was not enough to simply isolate the clingfire, setting it apart from anything combustible. So far as Varzil knew, clingfire did not degenerate with age, but would stay potent for years, perhaps even centuries. It must be rendered into its component parts. These would then be teleported to widely separated locations deep within the earth. Fortunately, none of the processes involved the most dangerous step of its original manufacture, the distillation under high heat. Working together, two Keepers should be able to handle the material safely.
“I have not done this before,” Varzil said, “although I am familiar with the theory. I look to you for instruction in the practice.”
Loryn’s mouth twisted in a rueful half-smile. “Sadly, I have done this before. My earliest training was at Dalereuth, where making clingfire was an everyday event. So much so, in fact, that from time to time a contamination would not be discovered until afterward and then the product could not be used or even safely stored. Once—” Loryn rolled up his sleeve to display a pitted scar running the length of his forearm, “a batch corroded through its container. We had used glass, as we do here and everywhere else, I suppose, because it is chemically inert, but this stuff—”
He jerked the sleeve down. “This stuff not only ate through the glass, it seemed have an intelligence of its own, the way it sought out human flesh.”
“That would be horrendous indeed,” Varzil said. “Ordinary clingfire is deadly enough.”
Loryn projected the image of the steps they must follow and the two set to work. It was simple, but not easy. Each slow, meticulous step required unwavering concentration. Without a circle, they must generate their own psychic power.
By the time Loryn called a halt, Varzil was near the limits of his own endurance, so soon after his transit through the relay screens. Sweat filmed his face and trickled down his sides. His mouth felt dry and pasty.
He rose, noting the faint unsteadiness of his knees, and looked down at the first vessel. They had been working for two or three hours, and had finished only a quarter of it.
“True,” Loryn said, catching his unvoiced thought. “But that small portion is gone forever.”
Varzil nodded. “To move slowly and thoroughly is perhaps the wisest course of all. When faced with an evil, it is tempting to want to obliterate it instantly. I fear this is what leads good men to adopt rash solutions which only create worse problems.”
“Even good men can be driven past patience and reason,” Loryn agreed.
Gray with fatigue, Varzil headed for the infirmary. He did not consider the wisdom of sitting there, rather than attending to his own physical care. All he knew was that he needed to be near Felicia, as a drowning man needed air or a Dry Towner needed rain.
Stiff joints protested as he climbed the stairs from the stone cellar. He paused several times to gather the strength to take the next step. At the portal to the commons, the mingled aromas of hot apple and meat pastry assaulted him. His mouth watered and his leg muscles quivered.
You must eat, he told himself, listening to the rumble of his stomach. Or you will make yourself ill. You are responsible for more than your own welfare. Would you let your willfulness expose Loryn to the dangers of clingfire?
The voices in his mind were a mingling of many—old Lunilla, back at Arilinn, Fidelis, Oranna, even Felicia herself. It had ever been a failing of his, to push himself, deny himself, as if his passions could eliminate all more mundane concerns.
Serena, who had been working the relays, came rushing into the room just as Varzil began his second pastry.
“Everyone! There is such news!” she exclaimed.
“What has happened?” Eduin asked from across the room.
“I have had word from our fellow leronyn at Tramontana!” she rushed on, her features flushed with excitement. “They will make no more laran weapons for King Rakhal, nor will they be a party to his wars against Carolin Hastur, who they now hail as the rightful king. In short, the entire Tower has declared its independence. Several of its workers have already gone to offer their aid to Carolin—I should say King Carolin.”
“At last,” Eduin said, “a Tower has the courage to stand for itself instead of toadying to some arrogant Lowland Hali‘imyn!”
“Carolin has sworn he will use neither clingfire or any other laran-made weapon,” Varzil said.
“The more fool he,” one of the men said, shaking his head, “for Rakhal will not hesitate to use whatever is in his grasp.”
Loryn appeared in the doorway. He and Varzil exchanged glances. “Then it is just as well,” the Hestral Keeper said, “that we have none to give him. He must be desperate indeed to send to us for it.”
“I think he must be,” Varzil said thoughtfully, “for did he not use clingfire against Dom Valdrin Castamir? The stuff is so difficult to make, he cannot have much remaining to him.”
“Aye, perhaps he now regrets squandering it so early in his reign, when now he has greatest need of it,” someone else said.
“All the better for Carolin’s poor men,” Serena said.
“One day, men will go to war without such weapons, if they go to war at all,” Varzil said.
“You are such a dreamer,” Eduin said, “for what man would throw away his sharpest sword and fight only with his bare hands—especially when his enemy still goes armed with steel? I say, let Carolin and Rakhal fight it out on the battlefield, one king is as bad as another. Our only real hope is that we of the Towers make our own decisions about how to use our talents. We choose to make clingfire. We choose the ones we give it to.”
Varzil, pondering Eduin’s words as he continued to the infirmary, thought that despite their differences, Eduin was right. In the end, in order for the Compact of Honor to succeed, the Towers themselves must choose.
39
When the last particle of clingfire had been separated into its component parts and sent into the bowels of the earth, when the stone cellar had been cleansed of every remaining trace of their task, Varzil ventured back to the matrix laboratory. He did so with some trepidation, for the destruction of the clingfire had required all his concentration. No
w, the powerful emotions he had held at bay returned.
His thoughts kept returning to the last conversation he had with Felicia over the relays. He’d asked if her earlier fears had been laid to rest. From the first, she’d sensed something dark, ominous. He’d persuaded her to go against her own best instincts.
The blame is mine. If only I had listened... She trusted me and I betrayed her. I saw only what I wanted to see... a woman Keeper... someone to change the face of Darkover ...
Do not trouble yourself, came a thought, framed by the mental voice he knew so well. The choice was mine alone, and mine alone the risk.
The piercing guilt subsided, but only for a time: He sat beside her, hands clasped around her ring, searching her face for any impossible sign of life.
If only I had listened...
Loryn had ordered the laboratory chamber sealed, and no one had disturbed it. Varzil stood for a long moment, studying the matrix lattice. It sat like a misshapen lump in the center of the table, half charred, half fallen in upon itself. Enough of the structure remained intact to make out its original shape.
It had been a thing of beauty, crystals mounted on struts of glass, held with wires of copper and other metals, some of them braided. Even mangled, it caught the light of the glows and fractured it into tiny rainbows. The colored light reminded Varzil of the Veil at Arilinn, mysterious in its beauty, yet disturbing.
Stepping closer, Varzil bent to inspect the damaged section. Here, metal and glass had fused and blackened. He closed his eyes and shaped his thoughts into a probe.
To his surprise, the lattice hummed in response to his laran, as it had been designed to do. He followed the resonance from stone to stone, studying how the device amplified certain mental vibrations and damped others. Many pathways no longer functioned, but he seized upon what remained.
The design was brilliant, the execution subtle and elegant. Yet even as he admired Eduin’s work, Varzil searched for some imperfection, some flaw.