A Flame in Hali (49 page)

“I need
kirian!
” Dyannis cried. “The blue bottle—still house—near the rosmarin.
NOW!
”

A sudden shift in the boy’s energy riveted her attention once more. She dimly heard receding footsteps and the chatter of feminine voices. Lerrys still breathed and his heart still beat, but deep within his psychic form, another upheaval was building. It would burst forth into a physical convulsion in a matter of moments. His muscles would lock in spasm, his heart would falter, and the very cells of his brain might burn out from the overload. What was she to do? There was no one to turn to, no one else to act.

Dyannis could think of only one course of action, so desperate that had the boy’s very life not been at risk, she would never have considered it. She must take his starstone into her own hands. The risk was extreme; from her very first days as a novice, she had been warned of the dire consequences of even casual contact with another person’s starstone. It might throw him into the very crisis she hoped to prevent. Yet if, by the physical connection, she could somehow reach his mind, she might have a chance of saving him.

Lerrys had curled into a tight ball, his muscles quivering. Dyannis let her starstone locket swing free on its chain. She needed both hands to loosen the boy’s shirt around his waist. Bless all the gods, he still wore the strip of fabric as a sash beneath his clothing. She felt a lump within its folds. Her fingers trembled as she tugged at the folds. For an infuriating moment, it resisted her. Everything she did tangled it further.

The matrix crystal, afire with inner light, dropped into the palm of her hand. She sensed the answering rush of energy as a burst of heat from her own stone. Closing her eyes, she felt herself suspended in an ocean of brilliance. Like twin suns, the two starstones filled the psychic firmament. Rays of blue-white clashed and fractured. They warred with one another in overlapping patterns. She became a mote within the storm, torn by invisible gales of radiance, at any moment on the verge of being ripped loose from her moorings. If she gave in, if she failed to hold fast, then Lerrys would surely perish, and she along with him.

In a flash of understanding, she saw the light not as two separate sources but a single entity out of phase with itself. Using the power of her mind, amplified through both starstones, she began to shift the light within them, to guide and reshape it. Slowly, order emerged. Color attuned into harmony. Overlapping images resolved into a single, stellate focus.

Carefully, Dyannis allowed the two patterns to separate. One remained as she had always known it, the faceted brilliance that was her own starstone. The second, belonging to Lerrys, immediately began to drift, dimming and assuming a darker shade of blue. The configuration was more a twist of muted color than the star-shaped a energy pattern of her own matrix. This was a crucial moment, she knew, for once freed of the order imposed by her own stone, his might revert to chaos. But it did not. Not yet, anyway.

Dyannis shifted her awareness now to the boy’s body. He was breathing slowly but regularly. His heart beat steadily, blood circulating and organs functioning normally. The dusky red of congested
laran
nodes had lightened. Flow returned to his channels.

His mind, however . . . how had it fared?

An answer came like the clangor of a distant bell, fading quickly. This time, the silence carried no deadly emptiness. Dyannis sensed, rather, the boy had slipped beyond her hearing. With each passing moment, his starstone grew darker and more muted. In some ways, it resembled an unkeyed stone, one that had never been in resonance with a Gifted mind.

How was that possible? Lerrys had keyed into his starstone so strongly that the same storms of light and power had raged through its crystalline structure and the fabric of his own mind. Dyannis had little experience with such things, but she wondered if the convulsions had damaged the
laran
centers of his brain. Raimon, back at Hali, would be able to tell.

She opened her eyes and studied the stone in her hand. It looked subdued, almost quenched, with only a glimmer of blue light in its core. She did not trust that quietness, not until she proved to herself no invisible storm still lurked within its faceted confines, a mirror to the boy’s mind.

Trembling rippled through her, bone-deep weariness and hunger. She had not felt this depleted since she had raised the stones to rebuild Cedestri Tower.

Someone cried, “He’s awake! He lives!”

“Oh, my baby!” Rohanne sobbed.

“No, my lady, leave them be. See, he rouses.”

Lerrys moaned, opening his eyes. Dyannis steadied herself enough to lift his head.

Someone, the same servant who had restrained Rohanne, thrust the glass bottle of
kirian
into her hands. Dyannis yanked out the stopper and held the bottle to the boy’s lips. The faint lemony tang of the psychoactive distillation filled her head. Her own body revived, drawing nourishment from the aroma.

Lerrys swallowed the two mouthfuls she provided. He sighed, murmured something, and fell into a deep, natural sleep. Dyannis caught an image from his mind of a young man, face flushed with excitement, galloping away on a chestnut horse with three white legs.

“Take him,” Dyannis said, lifting her head to the circle of worried faces. Hands reached down to lift him. “Take him to his bed. The best thing for him now is rest. I will check on him in a short while. I must—”

She meant to say,
I must speak with his father,
but got no further, for as she attempted to rise, another wave of weariness swept through her. The brief surge of energy from the
kirian
had vanished, leaving her even more drained than before.

“Vai domna.”
It was the servant who had handed her the
kirian,
an old woman with a face carved from granite. Dyannis remembered her from her childhood, although Nialla had worked in the kitchen then. She’d run into Nialla a few times since her return. Now they were alone in the solarium. Lerrys had been carried away by his mother in a flurry of exclamations. “How may I serve you?”

By not asking me to stand up,
Dyannis thought. She accepted the old woman’s surprisingly powerful support, enough to seat herself in a chair. She felt the urge to simply fall asleep where she was. Then nausea clutched her belly. Years of experience had taught her that was a sign of how dangerously depleted she was. “Bring me something sweet—candy or dried fruit or spiral buns. And a goblet of honeyed water, not wine.”

Dyannis startled awake as the old woman set a plate of sugared nuts, spicebread smeared with apple compote, and dried honey-glazed pears on her lap. Despite her aversion, Dyannis forced herself to eat. The food was delicious enough to tempt even a recalcitrant appetite, and her trembling subsided as it replenished her spent energies.

“It was ever so with Master Varzil,” Nialla said, nodding. “Always wanting sweets after he’d been out dreaming.”

Dyannis nodded, unexpectedly moved. Intense
laran
work sometimes left her feeling emotional, but this was something more, this kind-hearted woman who remembered her brother as a child.

Dyannis felt the uproar of Harald’s arrival even before she heard his booming voice, calling out for his son. Although she still ached with weariness in every joint and muscle, the food had restored her enough to speak with him.

“You sit there, m’lady,” the old woman said. “Let
him
come to you.”

Harald burst into the solarium a short time later. His spurs jangled as he strode across the room. He smelled of horse sweat, wild herbs, and leather. His fear filled the room, a rank undertone.

“Lerrys—”

“He’s all right,” Dyannis cut him off.
For the time being.
“Even as I feared, he suffered a threshold crisis, an intense initial episode of
laran-
awakened sickness. I don’t know what precipitated it, but it was by Cassilda’s own mercy I was nearby. Otherwise, I do not think he would have survived.”

She paused to let her words sink in. Harald paled as the realization shook him. He ran one hand over his reddened, sweating face. “I—I am grateful, sister.”

Dyannis brushed his words aside. She had warned Harald and urged him to send Lerrys to Hali, but had she really done everything in her power? Had she failed because she was preoccupied with her own unanswered questions? She felt as if a mist had lifted from her eyes with her own decision. Yes, she had contributed to the boy’s danger by not acting upon her best judgment. And yes, he ought to have had proper training before this, but in all truth, that might not have averted the crisis.

“He is stable enough for the moment,” she said. “I will examine him while he sleeps, and again when he is awake. Meanwhile, we must make preparations for his further care.”

“I thought you said—he was all right.”

“I meant that he is alive. I do not know if his mind and body have taken any permanent damage. How his
laran
centers fared, I cannot tell yet, either. And he may suffer another episode, as bad or worse.”

“Holy Aldones, Lord of Light, have mercy on us!” In a couple of long strides, Harald flung himself into a chair. “What am I to do?”

Dyannis sensed Harald’s memories of Anndra and Sylvie, who had died at the same age, despite the best efforts of the household
leronis.
It was said that during the heights of the Ages of Chaos, when the great houses enforced selective inbreeding programs to fix genetic traits for
laran,
such deaths were common.

What if such a thing had happened to Varzil as a child?
she wondered.
Or Raimon, or herself?
The fate of their world turned upon such a fragile axis.

Lerrys remained unconscious for two days. Rohanne fussed and wrung her hands and Harald looked taut and anxious. Dyannis, once she had rested, examined the boy several more times, and was able to offer the reassurance that for the time being, he appeared to be out of danger.

Lerrys had always been an active, healthy boy. He was soon well enough to get out of bed. His appetite returned and he quickly grew restless in the house. His
laran
remained clouded, his starstone infused with dull blue light. Dyannis judged it unsafe to try any psychic contact for the present, except within the safety of a Tower.

Dyannis thought of urging Harald again to send Lerrys to Hali. The boy would soon be fit to travel. She herself would be returning to the Tower, although she had not yet found the time or a way to tell her family. At first, she was too weary, and Harald clearly too distressed to discuss anything as emotional as sending the boy away. She decided to wait until they were both rested and clear of thought.

Just when Dyannis was about to broach the subject to Harald, a rider arrived from Serrais, his horse lathered to exhaustion. He remained closeted with Harald for half a day. Then Harald gathered the entire household and the leaders of his men, both on the home estate and outlying farms.

“Evil tidings have come from Asturias,” he announced. “That
nedestro
offspring of King Rafael, may Zandru scourge him with scorpions, whom men call the Kilghard Wolf, has taken to the field. Serrais is thrown back, the entire army in disarray, and
Dom
Eiric now lies in the Asturias dungeon.”

“No!” one of the men cried, and a ripple of dismay passed through the assembly. “The scoundrels! How dare they!” “Witchery, it must have been, damnable witchery!”

Rohanne gave a little shriek and looked as if she were going to faint. Lerrys, standing beside Dyannis, flinched.

“When did this come to pass?” Dyannis raised her voice. When Harald told her, her heart clenched. It was the exact time Lerrys had suffered his attack. She turned to him and saw the echoes of a horror too great for his young mind to bear. With his awakening
laran,
he had somehow linked to his friend Siann, the one who’d gone with the Serrais levies. This had been no ordinary battle. She caught fragmentary images from the boy’s mind—Men and horses thrashing in pools of blood . . . the stench of
clingfire . . .
spell-cast terror shredding men’s minds . . . swords . . . arrows . . .

Dyannis saw the Ridenow army lying cut to pieces, the remnant fleeing in confusion; the heart had gone out of them with the first charge, slashing through their rear guard.
Clingfire
shells burst into flame, stampeding the horses. Men blazed, their flesh on fire, and died screaming. Then it was all over but the slaughter and the final surrender. The armed men inside the castle covered their foes with bowmen from the walls, and at the end, the Asturias
leronyn
spread terror among the Ridenow army, so they fled shrieking as if all the demons in all of Zandru’s frozen hells were after them.

Through the boy’s mind, Dyannis felt each death, each scream, each drop of molten fire. These were her own people, her kinsmen and their vassals, now scattered on the blood-drenched field as the
kyorebni
circled silently overhead. Horses lay among them, some thrashing in agony, others still. Because she saw through the mental eyes of Lerrys, she recognized the chestnut horse with three white socks that had been his favorite, now a lump of inert, gore-encrusted flesh. Beneath the horse lay the trampled form of a man in Ridenow colors crossed by the insignia of Sweetwater. Lerrys, linked through his awakening telepathic Gift, had felt them both die.

No wonder Lerrys had gone half mad. This was no simple case of threshold sickness, to be treated with
kirian
and a little basic training. The boy desperately needed skilled help. If he were not to be scarred in mind and spirit by what he had seen, he must make his peace with it. She knew of no place he could find that solace and healing except in a Tower.