“Despair? No, for you also spoke of hope,” Varzil said. “But it seemed to be a hope of endurance, rather than renewal.”
“Ah, my friend, that may well be, for in my dreams, some shadow yet hovers over us. I fear we have not seen the worst.”
Varzil laid his fingertips gently upon the other man’s arm. For a moment, he felt ashamed that he had been so lost in his own private grief for Felicia that he had been blind to the suffering of those around him. “Well, it is said that nothing is certain but death and next winter’s snows. Whatever new hardships lie ahead, we shall meet them together.”
Loryn shook his shoulders and his eyes cleared. He took Varzil’s hand in his, an uncharacteristically direct touch between telepaths. “I am glad you are here.”
Together, the two men left the commons hall, even as the fire was flickering out in its grate. Silence settled over Hestral Tower, a deep numbing quiet, and its inhabitants slept dream lessly through the longest night of the year.
There had been no question of Varzil returning immediately to Arilinn, for that winter was the worst within memory. The overcast days stretched on as one bank of swollen gray clouds followed another. Swirling gales made aircar flight impossible even in the lowlands. Roads and fields froze solid and animals shivered in their barns. Wolves came ravening down from their forests to harry the very young or the very old. Many babies sickened and died.
At Hestral, as at every other Tower within the relay network, there was more than enough work to do. Varzil was grateful to be occupied and useful. There were many sick people from the village and surrounding areas, cases of everything from frostbite to lung fever to the illnesses of the mind from too much close living and not enough sunlight. Some patients could not be sent home immediately, but required a period of convalescence. Loryn finally turned the common room hall into an infirmary. The kitchen was often given over to the preparation of medicines, so that the mingled smells of herbs and tinctures lingered in the air.
On too many nights, after he’d finished a long shift and was too exhausted to sleep, Varzil made his way down to the stone cellar. Felicia had been moved here at Oranna’s suggestion not long after Midwinter, when space in the infirmary was needed by others. Oranna had, at Loryn’s behest, constructed a small lattice that would maintain the stasis field without continuous input of thought-energy. She’d incorporated it into Felicia’s pallet.
Felicia lay with a white blanket pulled almost to her chin. The cover was for the comfort of those who loved her, for although the cellar was almost as cold as the ground in which it was embedded, Felicia herself could suffer no hurt from it. No decay could touch her within the faintly shimmering field. Time itself slowed to a bare crawl. Centuries might pass without the slightest hint of change, except the slow accumulation of dust that managed, particle by particle, to sift through the energonic net of the field.
On such nights, Varzil lacked the strength to weep. His heart ached within him like an ancient wound. He thought of soldiers who had taken hurts in battle, wounds which throbbed with remembered agony decades after the flesh had healed, and of old men whose swollen, arthritic joints warned of storms approaching.
He would cup the ring between his hands, pressing its faint glow over his heart. Sometimes, the stone seemed to answer him; a whisper of presence, sweet as the first buds of spring, would brush against his mind.
Beloved, I am here ...
And then the dark would cover him. He could no longer hold the bone-deep chill at bay. He would drag himself back to the realm of the living, to sit beside the small fire in his own rooms, rocking himself, gathering himself for the next day’s work.
Like all things, that terrible winter eventually passed. Spring came hesitantly, as if unsure of its welcome. The men who ventured forth into the muddy fields or stared up at the pale sky had not enough strength left to believe in it. Slowly, day by day, one blade of grass at a time, winter faded. One day, the fields were bare, lined by skeletal trees. By twilight, the rich damp smell of the earth was matched by the bright perfume of new leaves, of first blossoms. Everywhere, birds perched, wings fluttered. Nests sprang up like some new tree growth.
All through Hestral Tower, Varzil felt a quickening. Here and in the village below, people laughed as they stretched their arms and threw their heads back in the sun. Farmers sang in their fields. Herds bent their heads to the new grass and lost their winter gauntness.
As soon as the afternoons were warm enough to risk opening the windows, even a fraction, the coridom began a systematic cleaning and airing of each Tower wing in succession. The number of sick in the infirmary dwindled and the commons was restored to its usual service. Although Varzil still went down into the stone cellar regularly, he spent less and less time there. The ring, with its spark of living light, held far more of Felicia than the cask of her body.
Once winter’s iron grip had broken, even the spring rains fell more gently than in other years. Travelers dared to venture forth. At first, only the hardiest of traders braved the muddy roads, but as one tenday melted into the next, more and more appeared.
And with them, soldiers.
The roads had barely dried, though the fields and hedgerows still glittered with moisture, when a company of armed men clattered up to the gates of Hestral Tower. They carried pennants with the Hastur fir tree, silver against blue.
Loryn went down to meet them at the gates of Hestral, along with his senior workers. He’d taken the time to put on his Keeper’s robes and insignias of rank. “Come with me, Varzil, for I may have need of your counsel.”
At his touch, the matrix lock released and the gates swung open. The Hastur captain sat on a tall dun horse with his men arrayed behind and to either side. His face and posture were vaguely familiar to Varzil; they must have met during the Midwinter Festival Varzil had passed at Hali, he and Carolin and his cousins, Lyondri and Rakhal, he who now sat upon Carlo’s throne. And Maura and Jandria and her brother Orain. And Eduin.
The captain stared overly long at Varzil, clearly recognizing him in return.
My presence here may put Hestral at risk, Varzil sent the telepathic thought to Loryn. Men have been executed and their homes burned to the ground for their sympathies. Rakhal knows of my friendship with Carolin Hastur.
I do not think Rakhal Hastur would foment trouble with Arilinn, Loryn answered, for he is too canny to risk the enmity of a Tower not under his control.
Varzil followed Loryn through the open gate, acutely aware that beyond the protection of the matrix which kept out all weapons, he entered a world where another set of laws held. He lifted his chin. As laranzu and Keeper, he was hardly helpless. He knew how to defend himself. Only a madman would attack a Tower-trained worker, and then only once.
Still, the company of soldiers looked larger here, standing before them, than seen from above. The faces of the men were ruddy from long riding in the brisk spring air. A pair sat a little apart from the others, the hoods of their gray traveling cloaks drawn up around their faces. Varzil recognized them instantly as laranzu‘in from Hali Tower, but although their minds might have touched many times on the relays, or one of them might have tended him after his adventure in the cloud-lake at Hali, the situation forbade them from greeting each other.
This is what war does, rends kin apart and sets men to kill those they once saved
A young man, scarcely more than a boy, nudged his horse to the front, took out a trumpet and blew a fanfare, cried out, “By command of Rakhal Felix-Alar Gavriel, King at Hali and Hastur of Hastur!” then rattled off a string of additional titles and finished, “I bear a message for the Keeper of Hestral Tower.”
The insult of omitting Loryn’s name and rank was blatant. The Hastur force had not come with any conciliatory intention.
“On behalf of Hestral Tower, I greet you,” Loryn said. “Our customs do not permit any men bearing arms within our precincts. If you will leave yours outside, you are welcome within. There we can discuss our busines
s in comfort and privacy.”
Nicely done, Varzil thought. With impeccable politeness, Loryn had made it impossible for the Hastur captain to do anything but answer directly.
The captain shifted in his saddle. “I’ll stay as I am, although I thank you for your hospitality. My mission requires no secrecy. All here know that I have come on behalf of my liege and King, Rakhal Hastur, for the clingfire which is his due.”
“I fear you have come in vain,” Loryn responded in the same easy tone as before. “I have already sent word last year that what your master seeks no longer exists. It was destroyed some time ago.”
“Clingfire, destroyed?” The captain made a gesture of derision, as if Loryn had made a casual reference to destroying rock or iron. “Even if it were possible, what fool would so disarm himself?”
Loryn paused for a moment before replying, “A fool, perhaps, who would seek some other solution to men’s differences than raining liquid fire upon them. Ravaged lands nourish neither victor nor vanquished. I pray that thought will be of value to His Majesty, for it is the only answer I can give. I am sorry to send you back empty-handed. If he insists upon having clingfire, he will have to look elsewhere for its making.”
“We thought you might have some such excuse.” The Hastur captain squared his shoulders. His horse pulled at the bit and danced sideways. He hauled on the reins to hold it still. “So I am bid to say to you that one way or another, we will have clingfire from this Tower, as is our right. If your predecessors have been so unwise as to do away with it, then you shall make more. And speedily, too, for we have wars to fight, and they cannot wait.”
Loryn, there is danger here. These men care nothing for honor or justice, only power. Go carefully.
I know, Varzil. I feared such a time might come even before the first messages from King Rakhal last year.
Varzil realized what Loryn meant to do and why he had asked for his support. Varzil might not speak formally for Arilinn Tower, but in a very real sense, Arilinn stood with Hestral.
“Hestral Tower makes no more clingfre, nor any other laran weapon,” Loryn said.
“What madness is this? It must be his doing,” the Hastur man pointed at Varzil. “Even in Hali, we have heard of Varzil of Arilinn and his seditious notions. He would persuade Towers to go renegade, to flaunt the lawful commands of their king!”
“It is true I have spoken my mind on the subject of laran weaponry, at Hali as well as Arilinn,” Varzil said quietly. “I oppose those which kill from afar, so that the men who wield them need never look upon the faces of those who suffer, or put themselves at equal risk. But I have made no attempt to persuade Dom Loryn. He is Keeper here, the master of his own conscience.”
“Perhaps not for long. Loryn Ardais, will you deliver up a stock of clingfire, as you have been rightfully commanded to do?”
“That I cannot,” Loryn replied.
“Then at the order of Rakhal, Hastur of Hastur and King at Hali, I name you traitor! From this moment forth, your life and that of any who follow you is forfeit, and any man may slay you without penalty. Your bones will be buried in salted ground and your soul consigned to Zandru’s coldest hell. You—”
Loryn tilted his head back and laughed. “You will have to catch me first! And if you’ll pardon my saying so, you haven’t had a good deal of luck catching Carolin Hastur either.”
Don’t taunt him, Loryn.
It is too late for soothing words. I would know the worst he has come to do.
“I give you until dawn tomorrow to consider your rash words, Loryn of Hestral. Then I will have either your obedience or your head—”
Loryn raised one eyebrow in skepticism.
“—if I have to tear down Hestral Tower, stone by stone, to get it!”
41
The Hastur captain departed within the quarter-hour. Later that day, the senior workers of Hestral Tower gathered in the Keeper’s quarters to make plans. It was characteristic of Loryn that instead of issuing orders, he encouraged discussion and listened with grave concentration.
“Rakhal’s affairs must be going badly indeed to render him so desperate,” Varzil remarked. “Surely he must know how unlikely he is to get clingfire or anything else of military value from us. The tighter his grip, the more men are drawn to Carolin’s cause.”
“I have never heard that higher taxes and harsher punishments inspired men’s loyalties,” Oranna remarked. Her family had come from one of the little border kingdoms that Rakhal had swallowed up soon after taking the throne.
Loryn brought the debate back to what kind of attack Lyondri would most likely use and the best defensive strategy.
“You say there were two leronyn with him, Varzil,” one of the older men said. “Did you recognize them?”
“I do not know them well,” Varzil said. The Hali workers had kept their laran barriers raised, against the custom of friendly greeting between colleagues. “I suppose if we had handed over the clingfire,” he went on, “they were to have taken it into their care, but I do not think they expected it.”
“I agree,” Loryn said, nodding. “This captain wasn’t chosen for his meekness or tact. His presence is a gesture of intimida tion to anyone else who might defy Rakhal’s orders. Hestral is a small Tower, and we do not supply anything of strategic importance to Hastur.”
“Only healing and knowledge!” Oranna said. “We may be small in size, but what we do is hardly inconsequential.”
“I agree with her, Loryn,” Varzil said. “We could disappear overnight, and Thendara be no worse for it. Our importance is more symbolic—” for what other Tower has dared to train a woman Keeper? “—and now Loryn has made us a symbol indeed.”
“A symbol of defiance, you mean,” Eduin said, deliberately misunderstanding. “We could not have done anything else. They came here thinking to bully us into submission, but they will come away with another lesson. We will teach them not to make idle threats against Hestral, or any Tower.”
“What, are you suggesting we make our own clingfire to use against them?” Oranna said.
“I am merely pointing out that we are not powerless,” Eduin said. “Too long have we of the Towers been servants to these Hundred Kings, many of whom have no more laran than my lady’s lapdog! But it was not always so. At my last post, at Hali, I spent many long hours in the archives, cataloging and copying the old records. Once the Comyn made their own laws. Men were judged not by some accident of birth and rank, but by the strength of their laran and the uses they put it to. There were no limits save those of our own will! Any venture we could conceive, any problem which caught our imagination, any quest of mind or flesh—all this lay before us, ripe for the taking!”
“You speak of the Ages of Chaos,” Varzil said gravely, “and of the abuses of power which ended them. The genetic breeding programs, designed to produce even stranger and more potent forms of laran, left us a legacy of horrors. Today we must still contend with the sicknesses that sprang from inbreeding. I fear it will be many generations before we can recover.”
“I spoke of an Age of Opportunity, of freedom from the narrow vision of the head-blind,” Eduin rushed on, but Loryn silenced him with a gesture.
“Some day we may have the pleasure of debating the morality of our ancestors and whether their world was indeed superior to ours. For now, we—like every generation before us—must face our own test. I cannot in all conscience accede to Rakhal Hastur’s demands, and as Keeper, I am responsible for every person within these walls. If there are any who cannot abide my decisions,” and here his gaze lingered first on Eduin, then Oranna, and finally Varzil, “I will attempt to arrange a truce under which you may leave Hestral for your own homes.”
“Leave Hestral!” Oranna cried. “Abandon my home to that—that debauched oudrakhi!”
“You mistake me, Loryn,” Eduin broke in, tight-lipped. “My intent was that we must resist not only this order, but all orders from usurpers! I will stay and fight with you. I beg you,
give me command of Felicia’s circle, so that I may smash Rakhal’s army into bits!”
One of Loryn’s eyebrows twitched upward, but his features remained otherwise composed.
Oranna said, “Are you mad, Eduin! You may be an excellent technician, but you cannot simply step into such a role, especially at a time like this. Besides, we already have two Keepers.”
“Varzil?” Eduin cast him a sidelong glance. “He is only here because of Felicia’s accident. He is not one of us.”
“Let us hear from you, Varzil,” Loryn said. “Eduin is right in this much, for our quarrel with Rakhal Hastur is none of yours. Arilinn is neutral in this affair.”
“But I am not,” Varzil said. “Carolin Hastur is my dearest friend and Rakhal, his enemy. Moreover, I have sworn to oppose all abuses of laran. In that sense, this quarrel is very much mine, not because I have sought it out but because I cannot turn away, not when it is within my power to resist.”
Loryn nodded, his features lightening with relief. “Then together we will defend ourselves and our principles. Go and get something to eat, all of you. We must be ready when the Hastur forces make their first move.
The next moment, however, there came the faint, unmistakable clangor of bells from the village below. From his vantage point in the Tower, Varzil saw the soldiers swarming up the hill, the ranks on horseback and on foot. Blue-and-silver pennants rippled in the wind of their passing. The afternoon sun set their swords and spear points ablaze.
“Sweet gods!” one of the workers exclaimed. “He’s sent an army!”
“He means to make a quick victory here,” someone else said.
“The gates are spelled against any who bear arms,” Loryn said, “but they are not the only way into the Tower. These men may bring grappling hooks and ladders. The walls must be reinforced. For this, I will need all your strength.”