The Fall of Neskaya (65 page)

Later that morning, as she sat with her uncle in his tent, one of the Tower workers approached, looking uncomfortable. No, she decided with a glance at his impassive face,
feeling
uncomfortable. The skin over her spine prickled.

“
Vai dom.
” The man bobbed his head to Rafael as if he were unused to speaking in the presence of a king. What was wrong with him? He was a trained
laranzu.

“Word has come from Hali.
Damisela
Graciela reached them through her starstone. They have lost all—all contact with Neskaya.” The slight stumble betrayed him. Taniquel heard the shudder of fear behind his throat, felt the effort it took to keep his voice and eyes steady. “We fear something dreadful has happened.”

“What? What has happened?” She stepped forward, halfway afraid to see the answer in his eyes.

“Perhaps
you
could tell us.” His eyes flashed and his mouth went tight. “You were the one who bade us bring them into this fight. You were the one who said they had found a way to block the
laran
spells from Tramontana.”

“Thank you for your message,” Rafael said in a voice that brooked no protest. “Your concern for your fellows is most laudable. Let me know if you receive any further word.”

The
laranzu
bowed again and retreated. When he was out of earshot, Taniquel said, “Will you send to Neskaya?”

Rafael looked thoughtful, but he shook his head. “I have only so many men, and we are already split with one group to Ambervale, another with me back to Thendara, and yet another to hold Acosta for you. We do not know what we will find at Ambervale, so I must divide my
laranzu’in
. I cannot weaken my forces any further on a fool’s mission.”

“Why a fool’s mission?” she demanded hotly. “Do you not owe Neskaya protection?”

He turned to her, eyes hooded like a falcon’s. “It is a fool’s mission because the thing which is mostly likely to have befallen them is confrontation with Tramontana, so there is nothing we can do with ordinary means to help them. Thus, we would diminish ourselves for no good purpose.”

It would be no use arguing further. She had seen the look on his face before, gauging whether a horse was strong enough to run the distance, whether a sword might break in the heat of battle, whether a messenger might be trusted. Whether she were truly worthy of being
comynara
and Queen.

She inclined her head. “Uncle, I am deeply grateful for everything you have done in my behalf and Acosta’s. As always, you speak with wisdom and act with generosity. You know far more of military strategy than I, so I will be guided by you.”

“You have been an apt student,” he said, a bit stiffly, then softened. “And I am pleased to be able to help you. I have done what was needful for the future of all Darkover. If any of us is to survive this terrible time, we must curtail the worst abuses of
laran
warfare, find our way to a less destructive way of settling differences and . . . preserve the basis of integrity in our dealings with one another. In this, our purposes are one.
Adelandeyo
,” he added, giving her a short bow. Go with the gods.

As Taniquel took her leave of him, she realized how true this was. Rafael Hastur could well have stayed safe and secure in Thendara. He could have compelled her to remain with him, dependent and powerless. Deslucido’s territorial expansion might eventually have provoked Rafael to forcibly defend his own boundaries.

It was the misuse of
laran
which had spurred Rafael into immediate action. Releasing bonewater dust at the borderlands was bad enough, though others before had done so and would probably do so again. But to lie under truthspell . . . that had shaken him to the point where he would hazard everything, even his own Domain, to eliminate it.

As he had said to her one night at Arilinn’s Hidden City, “
If a man’s oath cannot be trusted, then there is nothing left but force, and men will use any weapon available. Then there will be no consideration or holding back, for words and reason will become as dust. The only defense will be even more powerful weapons. Zandru alone knows when that will stop, perhaps when there is no one left to fight and nothing left to fight over.
”

For that cause alone, Rafael would set aside everything—his own life, his kingdom, his honor. He would expect Taniquel to do the same.

Taniquel’s blood ran cold, and she remembered the way her voice had rung all through her when she questioned Belisar. Her duty called her to leave Coryn to his fate, as if he were no more to her than any other useful tool. She wondered what she had become, that she could even think this way. The answer came, a blending of a dozen voices—her uncle’s, Lady Caitlin’s, Padrik’s father’s.

If the gods had set that as your fate, you would not have been born
comynara.

At the back of her mind came a faint, wild keening, a cry of pain beyond words, beyond bearing.

So it had come this, she thought, that as Queen she must tend only to her duties, thinking only of bringing her son safely to his majority and the throne. Eventually, of course, she would learn what happened at Neskaya. News would come to Hali and then to her uncle and finally to Acosta. It was doubtless some consequence of their intervention, for they had succeeded in blocking Tramontana’s spells. Perhaps some temporary drain of psychic energy kept them silent for a time.

Within the coiled chambers of her heart, she knew this was not true. Coryn would not have called out to her like that—would not have reached her with her paltry insignificant
laran
—if there had not been the direst need. What was perhaps the worst uncertainty was that she did not know if he had reached out to her for help or in farewell.

A Queen such as she had been raised to be would not even think of riding to Neskaya with Ambervale and Acosta uncertain. But she had already paid that price over and again.

Taniquel paused, her feet tangling in her now-ragged skirts. Esteban, shadowing her half a pace behind, looked around, startled. He slipped his sword from its scabbard and glanced around as if he had missed some oncoming threat. Absently, she laid her hand on his arm and then walked on, relying on him to guide her. His back straightened.

She felt like a blind woman, as if she had already left some essential part of herself behind in Rafael’s tent. The body which walked slowly, proudly, fingertips resting lightly on the muscled arm of her paxman, was that of a stranger. On some cell-deep level she realized that if she rode to Acosta now, if she abandoned Neskaya, she would indeed become only a blinded shell of herself.

Was she fooling herself, telling lies at the urging of her heart? Coryn had stirred her with dreams and longings she had never imagined. They were for characters out of song and legend, for Hastur and his beloved, Cassilda, for whose love he put off his godhood and took on mortal flesh.
She
was not meant for any such love.
She
had been born for something else, for the duty of her blood.

The
cristoforos
might pray to the Holy Bearer of Burdens to ease their own sorrows, but they took up their tasks of their own free will. None were promised from before their births to follow that path. Nor were there, as far as she had ever heard, any women monks among them. She had heard of women pledged to serve the Dark Lady, Avarra, but knew little of them save that they had no dealings with men.

Coryn might die, and with him such passion and tenderness that came but once in a lifetime. If she held back now, she closed her heart forever.

He might already be dead, she told herself. She might sacrifice everything she had struggled for in vain.

I will not know. I cannot know until I go and see for myself.
Going to Neskaya meant looking within herself.

It seemed that for this moment, her life parted like a crossroads. She knew the path she had followed all her life.

She came to a halt outside her own camping place, the sleeping pallet which was little more than a pile of blankets, many of them none too clean. Esteban looked at her, a question in his eyes.

“If you would be so kind,” she said, “pack food and my clothing into saddlebags and ready the sorrel mare.”

He faced her full on. “May I know where we are going,
vai domna?
”

“Not
we
, my loyal Esteban. I do not—cannot—ask anyone to come with me.”

Esteban’s expression turned stubborn. “The camp is safe enough, but not the roads. There are stragglers from the Oathbreaker’s army, not to mention the less savory sort of person you’d come across in troubled times where a lord’s reach is short and coin scarce.”

Taniquel raised her hands in a little gesture of surrender. He was coming with her, whether she wanted him to or not, and the only graceful thing to do at this point was to accept his help. Rafael was also less apt to send a party after her if she had her own personal bodyguards.

“We ride to Neskaya,” she said, “to see why the Tower has fallen silent. To offer what aid we can, if need be.”

“We ride in honor, then.”

Taniquel thought about that for a moment, then nodded gravely. She said the word
honor
, mostly to herself, as if she had never truly spoken it before and now knew its meaning for the first time.

In the end, it was not just Esteban who accompanied Taniquel, but about thirty mounted Acosta men, a miniature army emerging from the larger force with its own colors and allegiances. She sent the rest, along with Rafael’s and an experienced captain, on to Acosta.

Pennants bearing the eagle emblem appeared and supplies were packed, including a tent for Taniquel. Graciela somewhat diffidently offered herself as chaperone, for it was not proper for a woman, even a Queen guarded by her own sworn men, to travel unaccompanied. Taniquel accepted, not only for the sake of a propriety she no longer cared about, but because Graciela’s skills might be useful once they arrived at Neskaya.

The miles passed with infuriating slowness, for the larger force moved slowly on their battle-weary horses. One night they camped beneath the stars and Taniquel fell asleep almost as soon as she stretched out. The next day, they came upon a little trading village by a river. Taniquel went with Esteban to bargain with a farmer for bread and grain for their mounts. She asked news of the road ahead.

“I wouldn’t go in that direction,” the farmer said, eyeing them with escalating suspicion. He’d refused to speak directly with Taniquel and clearly regarded her as an immodest woman and Esteban a sandal-wearing fool for not beating her properly. “M’cousin two farms over said a tinker came through, told him there’d been witchy wars out Neskaya way. Stone buildings set afire, like they had over to Valeron in olden days. My grandsire, he told of it, how the wizards can make rocks bleed and rivers speak. Me, I think it’s likely Aldaran doings, and I won’t have none of it.”

Esteban thanked the man, paid him, and they went on.

Stone buildings set afire
. . . The words echoed in Taniquel’s mind as she nibbled the bread, laced generously with coarse-ground nuts and tiny sweet seeds. Esteban sat on his own mount, staring fixedly ahead, giving her what measure of privacy he could.

Had he tried, and called out, and failed because she could not answer? She wanted to dig her heels in the sorrel mare’s sides and ride headlong for Neskaya.

T
he cloudy day muffled the town of Neskaya and its environs in a strange blue-gray haze. Although small compared to Thendara, the town was far older. It was said to be one of the very first human habitations, its origins shrouded by time and legend.