A World Divided (62 page)

“God, help us all,” Jeff said. “No wonder Auster thought he recognized Ragan! They’re twin brothers! They don’t look all that much alike, but they are twins—”

“And the Terrans used Ragan to spy upon the Comyn,” Elorie said. “For the telepath bond between the twin-born is the strongest known! It was Auster, not you, who was the time-bomb planted by the Terrans! They knew about the telepath link between twins. So they let them have Auster back—and kept Ragan, linked to him in mind, to spy on Auster. Even after he went to Arilinn!”

“And Jeff Kerwin took me to the Spacemen’s Orphanage, and registered me there as his son,” Jeff said. “And then—God knows; he must have been killed, too.”

“Strange,” Elorie said, “and sad, that when children were in danger, both factions should have realized that they’d be safer with the Terrans. Our laws of blood-feud are relentless; and the fanatics felt they must exterminate the Forbidden Tower even to the unborn children and the babies.”

“I lived on Terra,” Jeff said. “Most of them are good people. And it’s true that they’re a little less likely to drag children into adult affairs, or blame the sins of the fathers on the heads of the children.”

He fell silent. Always, the knowledge that he was a Terran, an exile, had become part of his existence. And now, legally, he
was Terran;
and under sentence of deportation by the Terran Empire!”

“But I’m not Terran,” he said. “I’m no relation to Jeff Kerwin, I haven’t any Terran blood at all. My name isn’t even Kerwin; it’s—what would it be?”

“Damon,” she said. “Damon Aillard, since the child takes the name of the parent of higher rank, and the Aillard rank higher in the Comyn than the Altons’ just as our children, if we ever had any, would be Ardais instead of Aillard. ... Only if you married a Ridenow, or a commoner, would your children be Altons. But by Terran custom, you’d call yourself Damon Lanart-Alton, wouldn’t you? They take the father’s name, and you were brought up to that.”

Her face suddenly whitened. “Jeff! We have to warn them at Arilinn!”

“I don’t understand, Elorie.”

“They may try the mining operation—though I think they’d be mad to try it without a Keeper—and Auster is still in mental link with Ragan, the spy—and doesn’t know it!”

Cold struck at Jeff’s heart. But he said, “My love, how can we warn them? Even if we owed them anything—and they cast us out, calling you filthy names—that’s there, and we’re
here
. Even if we could get out of the Terran Zone—and I’m under house arrest, remember—I doubt if we could
reach
Arilinn. Except, perhaps, telepathically; you can try that, if you want to.”

She shook her head. “Reach Arilinn from Thendara, unaided? Not without one of the special relay screens,” she said. “Not with my matrix alone. Not—” she hesitated, colored, and said—“not now. At one time—as Keeper of Arilinn—I might have done so. But not now.”

“Then don’t worry about them! Let them take their own risks!”

Elorie shook her head.

“Arilinn trained me; Arilinn made me what I am; I cannot stop caring what will happen to my circle,” she said. “And there is a relay screen in Comyn Castle in Thendara. I could reach them through
that
.”

“Fine,” said Kerwin, with a sardonic smile. “I can just see it. You, the Keeper who was cast out of Arilinn, and I, the Terran under sentence of deportation, walking up to the Comyn Castle and asking politely for the use of the relay screen there.”

Elorie bent her head. “Don’t be cruel, Jeff,” she said. “I know, well enough, that we are under the ban. But Council will not meet till summer. No one will be resident in Comyn Castle at this season except the Regent, Lord Hastur. Lady Cassilda was my mother’s friend. And my half-brother, Lord Dyan, is an officer in the City Guard. I think—I think he will help me to gain audience with Lord Hastur.”

“If he’s that good a friend to Kennard,” Jeff said, “he’d probably be glad to see me dead.”

“He loves Kennard, yes. But he does not approve of his second marriage, nor of his Terran wife nor his half-Terran sons; and you are pure Darkovan,” Elorie said. “Dyan wanted to serve at Arilinn; the Comyn means much to him. He would have gone there with Kennard when they were lads, I heard, but he was tested, and found—unsuitable. I think—I hope I can prevail upon him for audience with Hastur.” She added, her mouth tight, “If all else fails I will appeal to Lord Alton; Valdir Alton loved his older son, too, and you are, after all, his elder son’s only son.”

Jeff still could not take it in. Lord Alton, the old man who had embraced him as a kinsman, was actually his grandfather.

But it went against the grain for Elorie to go begging on his account. “Arilinn has turned against us. Forget them, Elorie!”

“Oh, Jeff, no,” she begged. “Do you want the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate to turn to Terra, and Darkover to become no more than a second-rate Terran colony?”

And that touched him. Darkover had been his home, even when he thought himself a son of Terra and a citizen of the Empire. Now he knew himself
really
Darkovan; he had not a scrap of legal right to call himself Terran. He was Comyn through and through, a true son of the Domains.

“Can’t you see? Oh, I know failure is almost certain, especially if they try it with a mechanic’s circle with Rannirl in charge, or if they’re mad enough to try it with a half-trained Keeper,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s what they’ll do. They’ll bring little Callina from Neskaya, and make
her
try to hold the matrix ring; and she’s only twelve years old or so. I’ve spoken to her in the relays. She’s gifted, but she’s not Arilinn-trained, and Neskaya doesn’t have the tradition of great Keepers anyway; the best ones were always from Arilinn. But,” she added, “now that they know you’re not Terran,
you
could go back, and the circle would be that much stronger!” Her face was pale and eager. “Oh, Jeff, it means so much to our world!”

“Darling,” he said, wrung, “I’d try anything. I’d even go back into the matrix circle, if they’d have me; but that notice I got says we’re prisoners! If we try to go more than a kilometer from the hotel, they’ll arrest us. Just because we’re not behind bars doesn’t mean I’m not under arrest. I can appeal against the deportation, and if I can prove I’m not Kerwin’s son by blood I may be able to stay here, but for the moment we’re as much prisoners as if we were in the brig!”

“What right have they—” The arrogance of the princess, the sheltered, pampered, worshipped Lady of Arilinn, was in her voice now. She caught up her hooded cape—Jeff had bought it for her in Port Chicago to conceal her red hair, which marked her out as Comyn—and flung it over her shoulders. “If you will not come with me, Jeff, I will go alone!”

“Elorie—you’re serious about this?” Her eyes answered for her, and he made up his mind. “Then I’ll come with you.”

In the streets of Thendara she moved so swiftly he could hardly keep up with her. It was late afternoon; the light lay blood-red along the streets and shadows crept, long and purple, between the houses. As they neared the edge of the Terran Zone, Kerwin wondered if this was insanity; they’d certainly be stopped at the gates. But Elorie moved so quickly that all he could do was to follow at her heels.

The great square was empty, and the gates of the Terran Zone were guarded desultorily by a single uniformed Spaceforce man. Across the square he could see little clusters of Darkovan restaurants and shops, including the one where he had bought his cloak. As they approached the gate, the Spaceforce man barred their way briefly.

“Sorry. I have to see your identification.”

Kerwin started to speak, but Elorie prevented him; swiftly she flung back the grey hood over her red hair, and the light of the Bloody Sun, setting, turned it to fire, as Elorie sent a high, clear cry ringing across the square.

And all through the square Darkovans turned round, startled and shocked at what Kerwin knew, somehow, was an ancient rallying-cry; someone shouted “Hai! A Comyn
vai leronis
, and in the hands of the Terrans!”

Elorie seized Jeff’s arm; the guard stepped forward, threatening, but a crowd was already materialized, as if by magic, all through the square; the sheer weight of it rolled over the Terran guard—Jeff knew they had orders not to fire on unarmed people—and Elorie and Jeff were borne along on it, a way opening for them through the crowd, with deferential cries and murmurs following them. Breathless, startled, Jeff found himself in the mouth of a street opening on the square; Elorie caught his hand and dragged him away down the street, the sounds of riot dying away behind them.

“Quick, Jeff! This way or they’ll be all around us wanting to know what it’s all about!”

He was startled, and a little shocked. There could be repercussions; the Terrans would not be happy about a riot right on their doorstep. But, after all, no one had been hurt. He would trust Elorie, as she had trusted him with her life.

“Where are we going?”

She pointed. High above the city, Comyn Castle rose, vast, alien and indifferent. Except for a few of the highest dignitaries, no Terran had ever set foot there; and then only by invitation.

Only he wasn’t a Terran, and he would have to remember it.

He followed her through the darkening streets, the steep climb to Comyn Castle, wondering what would happen when they got there, and if Elorie had any specific plan. The Castle looked both big and well-guarded, and he didn’t suppose that two strangers could walk in and ask to speak to Lord Hastur without any formalities or so much as an appointment!

But he had reckoned without the enormous personal prestige of the Comyn themselves. There were guards, in the green and black of the Altons who had, so Kerwin had heard from Kennard, founded the Guard and commanded it from time out of mind. But at the sight of Elorie, even afoot and humbly clad, the Guard fell back in reverence.

“
Comynara
—” The guard looked at Jeff’s red head, then at his Terran clothes, but decided to play it safe and amended, “
Vai Comynari
, you lend us grace. How may we best serve the
vai domna
?”

“Is Commander Alton within the castle?”

“I regret,
vai domna
, the Lord Valdir is away at Armida these ten days.”

Elorie frowned, but hesitated only a moment. “Then say to Captain Ardais that his sister, Elorie of Arilinn, would speak with him at once.”

“At once,
vai domna.
” The guard still looked askance at Jeff’s Terran clothes; but he did not question. He went.

It was not more than a few minutes before the guard came back; and with him was a tall, spare man in dark clothing—Kerwin supposed he was somewhere in his forties, though he looked younger—with a keen, hawklike face.

“Elorie,
chiya
,” he said, lifting his eyebrows, and Kerwin flinched. He had heard before that harsh, musical, and melancholy voice; heard it as a frightened child, battered and left to die, crouching unseen under a table. But after all, Dyan Ardais had meant him no harm; would have certainly, if he had been appealed to, taken him under his protection as he had taken those other children, overlooked by the assassins. He knew Elorie’s brother for a harsh man, but kindly, even soft-hearted toward young children, cruel as he could be to his peers.

“I heard you had fled from Arilinn,” he said, looking at her humble garments and coarse cloak with distaste, “and with a Terran. Sorrow upon Arilinn, that twice within forty years this must happen to them. Is this the Terran?”

“He is no Terran, my brother,” she said, “but the true son of Lewis-Arnad Lanart-Alton, elder son of Valdir, Lord Alton, by Cleindori; who laid down her office, though un-permitted, by the laws of Arilinn, to take a consort of her own rank and station; and this is her son. A Keeper, Dyan, is responsible only to her own conscience. Cleindori did only what the law would have permitted; she is not responsible for those who denied the right of the Lady of Arilinn to declare just laws for her circle.”

He looked at her, frowning. His eyes, Kerwin thought, were colorless as cold metal, grey steel. He said, “Some of this I had from Kennard, who tried to tell me of Cleindori’s innocence; though I called it folly. Lewis, too, was a foolish idealist. But he was Kennard’s brother; and I owe to his son a kinsman’s dues.” His thin lips moved into a sarcastic grin. “So we have here a rabbithorn in the fur of a catman; Comyn in Terran garb, which is a change after the ranks of spies and imposters we have had to face from time to time. Well, what did they name you, then, Cleindori’s son? Lewis, for your father, and with a better right to that name than Kennard’s bastard?”

Kerwin had the uncomfortable feeling that Dyan was amused—no, that he took a positive pleasure—in his discomfiture. In years to come, knowing Dyan better, he knew that Dyan seldom missed an opportunity to twist a knife of malice. He said sharply, “I am not ashamed of bearing the name of my Terran foster-father; it would hardly be honorable to disown him at this stage of my life; but my mother called me Damon.”

Dyan threw back his head and laughed, a long shrill laugh like the screaming of a falcon. “The name of one renegade for another! I had never suspected that Cleindori had such a sense of the right thing,” he said, when he had done laughing. “Well, what do you want from me, Elorie? I don’t suppose you want to take your husband—” actually the word he used was
freemate
; if he had shaded the word to make it mean
paramour
, Jeff would have struck him—“to our mad father at Ardais?”

“I need to see Lord Hastur, Dyan. You can arrange it, as
seconde
for Valdir!”

“In the name of all nine of Zandru’s hells, Lori! Doesn’t the Lord Danvan have enough troubles? Will you bring down the shadow of the Forbidden Tower on him again, after a quarter of a century?”