A Flame in Hali (2 page)

Screams echoed through the caverns of Rumail’s mind. Around him, walls shuddered under blasts of psychic lightning as each Tower unleashed its terrible weapons upon the other. Stones burst into unnatural flame. He sensed the dying minds of his own workers and, echoed from afar, those of their enemies. Blue flames shot skyward, rocking the foundations.

Rumail remembered stumbling from the ruined Tower, wandering in a daze, now a disembodied spirit in the Overworld, now ragged and half-starved, through the wild lands where none knew him.

Now the memories flickered through his mind like candles guttering in a winter wind. He looked upon the homely village woman he had taken to wife, gazed down upon the rounded face of a newborn son, then another and another. The years blurred together. He looked upon the bright eyes of his sons and his own vengeance mirrored in them. Felt a distant wrench as his oldest son’s mind flared and fell into silence. Saw the weathered face of a traveling tinker, bringing news that King Rafael Hastur had died under mysterious circumstances.

Heard the voice of his second son:
“Father, Felix Hastur of Carcosa has claimed the throne and he has a healthy heir, his nephew Carolin.”

“Then Carolin, too, must die,” Rumail had said, “so that their line be obliterated. I will send my youngest son, my Eduin, to Arilinn Tower, there to train as a
laranzu,
the perfect weapon against this Hastur Prince.”

“La! There!” said the village girl, smoothing the hair back from Rumail’s forehead. “Feeling better, are we?” He had no energy to favor her with a response, for the past pressed even closer now.

The face of his youngest son drifted behind Rumail’s closed eyelids and it seemed that once more he wandered in delirium, his body racked to the core with lung fever, his lungs weakened by his battlefield ordeal. When word reached Arilinn of his illness, Eduin had rushed to his side. Rumail felt the touch of his son’s trained
laran.

Live . . .
he heard his own mental voice, dim and far off.
Yes, I must live. And make sure that next time,
you
do not fail me.

Eduin had cringed under the mental onslaught. His weakness, his guilt shone through. Rumail stormed through each memory, each moment of betrayal. When Carolin spent a season training at Arilinn Tower, Eduin had a dozen chances to strike—a slip of the knife, a fall from a balcony, a heart suddenly stopped as his fingers closed around Carolin’s starstone. . . . At each crucial moment, however, something had stayed his hand.

It wasn’t my fault!
Eduin had cried.
Always, Varzil Ridenow interfered, suspected me, protected Carolin. . . .

No excuses!
With all the force of his Tower-trained mind, Rumail struck. Eduin, caught between desperation and hope, was without defense. Rumail penetrated his son’s mind, deep into the core of his
laran
talent, grasped and
twisted. . . .

When the deed was done, Rumail had opened his eyes to see his two remaining sons, Eduin the
laranzu
and Gwynn the assassin. Eduin had become his instrument, wedded utterly to his purpose.

Rumail sent his sons back into the world.
“Find the child of Taniquel! Kill Carolin Hastur and anyone who stands in your way!

Fragments of
laran
memories rose in Rumail’s memory, things he had sensed from afar, linked to the minds of his sons. Gwynn struggled on a muddy riverbank with Carolin, then locked in a psychic battle with Varzil Ridenow, who had foiled the assassination attempt. Varzil’s mind pressed against his:
Who sent you? Who?

Even now, Rumail heard the echoes of Gwynn’s final, anguished thoughts:
WE WILL BE AVENGED!

From afar, Eduin surged with triumph as he uncovered the identity of Felicia Hastur-Acosta; his hands moved, setting a deadly trap-matrix; he fled the ruins of Hestral Tower, hunted . . . outlawed . . . Rumail could no longer tell whether these memories were Eduin’s or his own—the cold, the fear, the constant need to hide, to keep moving. . . .

Rumail blinked, as one vision overlapped another. Gwynn beckoned to him, and behind that ghostly form stood another, the sons he had lost in his quest for vengeance. In each face, he saw the light of recognition and welcome. There his brother stood, golden and kingly, beside his own son and heir . . . there the general who had led them . . . there the men fallen under the bonewater dust. Waiting, all waiting for him to join them.

Eduin’s shadowy form shimmered in the old man’s sight.

With the dregs of his strength, Rumail struggled for speech, but could not form the words. His vocal cords, like his body, had gone numb. Grayness lapped at him, hungering.

“Sir, you must rest.” A light voice, girlish.

Rest. Soon enough. Rumail closed his eyes, summoning the
laran
that had once been his in full measure. He had trained at Neskaya Tower before its fall, before Varzil the Good had rebuilt it with the help of Carolin Hastur. He could have been a Keeper in his own right. Should have.

No time for that now. His thoughts were becoming disjointed, falling into rust.

The Hasturs. Must be destroyed,
he sent.
Kill them . . . kill them all!
Across the leagues, he sensed Eduin’s response.

Varzil Ridenow,
Rumail insisted, even as his thoughts frayed into tatters.
He is the key to Carolin’s power. Without his strength . . . Hastur will fall. . . .

Yes,
Eduin replied, with a hatred that mirrored Rumail’s own.

Avenge us . . .
the ghostly figures pressed even closer now, their voices growing as strong as if they stood before him.
Join us . . .

“Swear—” Rumail could not be sure whether he projected the command mentally or spoke it aloud. His breath whispered through his throat, the faintest of sighs. “Swear it will be done!”

The grayness rose about him and the faces grew clearer, their skin and clothing as colorless as the landscape beyond. The Overworld closed its jaws about him, and this time there would be no return.

T
hat year, the long Darkovan winter seemed to last forever. Month after month, ice clouds masked the swollen Bloody Sun. Snow fell, hardened like glass, and then fell again, until the compacted layers encased the land in armor. The passes through the Venza Hills above Thendara closed. Even traders, whose livelihood depended upon travel, lost all desire to venture beyond the city walls.
Comyn
lords and commoners alike barricaded themselves behind their doors, hunkering down for the season.

Midwinter Festival came, and with it, a flurry of merrymaking. King Carolin Hastur threw open the doors of his great hall for a tenday, with music and feasting enough to lift the heart of the meanest street beggar. He had but lately moved his seat from Hali, where his grandfather had ruled, to the larger metropolis of Thendara. Hastur Kings had lived here, too, the last being Rafael II at the time of the Hastur Rebellion. By moving his court to Thendara, Carolin let the people know that he meant to rule all of Hastur. He was no longer Hastur of Carcosa or Hastur of Hali, but High King in Thendara. To celebrate his new seat, he distributed holiday largesse with a generosity that inspired thanksgiving in some quarters and suspicion in others. When he appeared in public, whether addressing
Comyn
lords or commoners, he spoke of the Compact that would bring about a new age of peace and honor for all of Darkover.

The traffic of carts and wagons through the traders’ gates dwindled. Grain merchants raised their prices, hoarding their shrinking supplies. One bleak gray tenday followed another, and the festivities blurred into memory, pale against the unrelenting cold. King Carolin established a series of shelters, much like those maintained along mountain trails for travelers, where poor people might find refuge in the bitter nights.

Distributions from the royal granaries to the poor continued for a time. On those days, people gathered in the darkness before dawn, shivering in their layers of woolen cloaks and shawls, jackets and much-patched blankets, clutching their jars and baskets. Their breath rose like plumes of mist. On some mornings, each was given a portion of grain, dried beans, and a measure of cooking oil or sometimes honey. Lately, there had not been enough for everyone.

Thick dark clouds hung low above the city, as if the sky itself were frowning. The King’s guards, warmly clad in Hastur blue and silver, cleared the area in front of the doors and funneled the people forward, one by one. They gave preference to the weakest, the women and the elderly. More than one man was turned away, especially those wearing thick, fur-lined wool over their ample bellies.

“Why throw away good food on the likes of them?” shouted a man who had been pushed to the side. He pointed to a woman clutching a pottery jar now filled with grain. Her skirts and shawls were so threadbare that several layers showed through in patches. She looked like an overdressed doll, except for the pinched thinness of her cheeks; clearly, she wore every tattered garment she owned.

“She’ll only waste it—”

“And
you’ll
only sell it to some wretch who’s even poorer or more desperate,” the guard at his elbow replied. “The King means this food to go to those who truly need it. You don’t look to me like you’ve ever gone hungry.”

“Zandru’s scorpions upon you!” Cursing, the man jerked his arm free from the guard’s grasp.

“Not so long ago,” one of them grumbled, meaning the reign of King Carolin’s cousin, Rakhal, “things were different. There were avenues open to a sufficiently resourceful man, bargains to be made, favors exchanged. More than one of us had a friend in the castle. But those times are gone. There’s no doing business with Carolin’s bunch.” He shrugged philosophically. “As soon as the roads open in the spring, I’m off for Temora. There’s nothing here for the likes of us.”

“You mean we’ll have to turn honest to earn our bread!” a third man joked. Waving to the others, he disappeared down one of the side streets.

“
They
don’t go hungry. Or cold, or in want of any comfort.” A stranger who had been standing a little apart from the others moved forward. He glanced toward Hastur Castle and then the rich residences of the
Comyn
lords. The sun was not yet full up and shadows lay in frigid pools along the streets. Tower and Castle blazed with light, powered by
laran
-charged batteries.

“They throw us a bit of bread and expect us to be grateful. All the while they sit up there with their satin cushions and their heated rooms and their matrix screens. Poison and plague and spells of torment, they care nothing—nothing—”

“Come, friend,” the man bound for Temora said, holding out his arm. “Come. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“A drink will not cure what ails this city.” The hooded man pulled away, lips drawn back in a snarl. The hood of his shabby cloak partly masked his face, revealing only the line of an angular, cold-roughened chin.

The other man paused, eyes narrowing in appraisal. The stranger’s clothes, though stained and torn, had once been of good quality, and he did not hold himself like a man accustomed to the gutters.

“Then let me see you home, away from—”

“Home?” The hooded man’s voice rasped, dark and bitter. “It is
their
doing that I have none. But the time is coming when it is
they
who will beg for bread and sleep on cold stones—”

“Hold your tongue, man!” the man hissed. “Or if you cannot, then go your way alone, for I’ll not be a party to your seditious talk. It’s one thing to take the King’s largesse or strike a bargain with his men, and quite another to stand here in the open, courting treason with such words. Any one of those guards could hear us, and they’re Carolin’s to a man.” He strode away without a backward glance, as if eager to distance himself from any troublemakers.

The first man, the one who had been so angry, gave the hooded man a coin. “Best get out of the cold.” Then he, too, departed without waiting for thanks.

The hooded man stared at the coin in his palm, while the people who’d been given food hurried away and those who had come too late turned back with sagging shoulders. His hood concealed his expression, but something in his carriage kept even the grumblers at a distance.

“You there!” one of the guards called as he locked the granary doors. “We’re done for today.” He added, in a more kindly tone, “Come back tomorrow, earlier next time, and we’ll try to give you something.”

“I don’t need anything from the likes of
you,
” the man snarled. “You and your accursed sorcerer masters—”

The guard’s face hardened and he took a step forward. The hooded man whirled with surprising quickness, spat out a curse, and scurried away. The guard turned to his partner, who still wore the sash of a cadet.

“Keep an eye out for that one. I’ve seen his kind before. They make trouble wherever they go.”

“We have enough of that this winter without some madman drumming up more,” the boy replied, shaking his head. “Should we tell the captain?”

“What should we say, there’s yet another malcontent on the streets? We’d as well inform him the sun came up, or there is an excess of mice in the granary!” The first guard barked out a laugh. “Come on, let’s get back to the barracks. A drop of hot spiced wine sounds good to me.”