Zandru's Forge (27 page)

The bitterness of Eduin’s thoughts shivered through Varzil’s mind. He remembered what he had seen in the lake—the two Towers, Hali and Aldaran, with no focus but each other’s destruction, and no limits on what they would do to achieve it. By chance or warning, the devastation had been channeled into the lake. He dared not think what might have happened if the confrontation had progressed, with each weapon fully deployed. Darkover might not fare so well the next time.

Carefully he gathered his words.
The Towers must withdraw from armed conflict, be exempt—

No!
Eduin shot back.
The Towers must rule! We alone possess the power. We alone should decide how it is to be used!

What was he talking about? The
Comyn
with their telepathic gifts were already the ruling caste on Darkover. But only a few were capable, let alone disciplined enough, to perform the demanding work of the Towers. With a renewed shudder, Varzil realized that Eduin was talking about replacing the
Comyn
with all their traditions of leadership, of Council, of compromise, with a much smaller ruling body—the Keepers of the Towers.

“I cannot agree with you,” he said aloud. “The fewer men who hold the reins of power, the greater the chance for tyranny. For all the faults of the Hundred Kingdoms, there are limits to the harm done by a single bad king.”

“And limits to the good which could be accomplished by a single great one,” Rakhal said. “I foresee a day when whoever sits in the throne of the Hasturs will hold sway over half the world. This interminable squabbling over every stray cow or unhappy bridegroom will come to an end.”

“I share your vision, Cousin,” Carolin said with quiet authority. “But I see in it a cause for caution. Perhaps the answer is not to rely solely upon the goodness of any one man, whether he be king or Keeper. It is often our ideals and the honor upon which they are based, not the whims of our nature, which leads us to wise decisions.”

“Ideals! Honor!” Eduin said. “Look where they have gotten us!”

Varzil thought of the King who currently warmed the Hastur throne, old beyond the years of ordinary men, because custom and law gave him the right.

“Then we need new ones,” Carolin said patiently. “Laws and pacts based upon the best of our nature—upon honor rather than fear.”

Rakhal laughed. “You always were too optimistic for your own good, Carlo. You may love honor above all earthly things, but that won’t keep you warm at night. Nor will it keep this Kingdom in one piece the next time we go to war. For that, you need
clingfire
and sharp steel, not empty words.”

“May the gods grant that such a time not come for many years,” Carolin said. “And when it does, would it not be better to have men of honor to stand beside us?”

Varzil looked at Rakhal, as if seeing him for the first time. He wants the throne.
He loves Carlo and wishes him no harm, but in his heart, he believes he is the better king.

He wondered how long that love would last once Felix Hastur was cold in his grave.

Varzil saw little of Carolin for the rest of the day. Instead, he took his midday meal with Eduin. They found each other in the kitchen, where one of the under-cooks set out bowls of thick bean soup laced with winter greens and accompanied by chunks of yesterday’s bread, toasted until crisp and then smeared with fragrant soft cheese. It was the sort of hearty food Lunilla might have plied them with if they’d appeared in her kitchen on a blustery winter afternoon. They sat together at a wooden table, its surface satiny with many scrubbings.

Eduin had set aside his borrowed courtier’s garb for the warm, serviceable clothing he usually wore. He looked simpler, more honest, and Varzil found himself warming to him.

As they exchanged their comments over the meal, it seemed that Eduin was exerting himself to be friendly, and Varzil wasn’t sure whether it was because he was besotted with Dyannis or wanted Varzil’s support on the issue of Tower dominance. This was a dangerous idea, as they both well knew. A Keeper might be above any law but his own, but a lesser worker, even an under-Keeper, was as subject as any man to the king’s justice. What Eduin had proposed could easily be interpreted as treason ...

“I’ll be glad when we’re back home,” Varzil said. “Banquets are all very well, but I miss Lunilla’s cooking.”

“It will be good to have real work to do,” replied Eduin, blowing across a steaming spoonful. “I’ve had my holiday among the great and wealthy. I’ve seen the court in all its grandeur. Frankly, I prefer Arilinn, where I don’t have to worry about how fancy my clothes are. Still,” he gestured with his spoon, “I’m glad to have seen it once.”

They separated after the meal, each to his own activities. With the morning’s storm still muttering outside, there was little to do beyond the amusements provided by the court. Varzil, who had little taste for dancing lessons or ladies singing endless ballads about star-crossed lovers, wished he could ride out again to Hali.

Eduin had been right about the value of being useful. Besides the work done in circles and the healing of those sick and injured brought to the Tower, there were the archives. Hali was in constant need of librarians to tend to the ancient documents or transcribe those damaged by age and elements. However, the weather would not permit him to travel to Hali.

In the end, Varzil made his way back to the kitchen and from there, the still room, where a harried herbalist and her assistant welcomed an extra pair of willing hands. He spent a cheerful afternoon with them, trading stories of livestock and folk cures.

That evening, Varzil excused himself early from the evening’s modest entertainment to pack the few belongings he had brought. His little bag was heavier than when he’d arrived. The night before, Carolin had given him a parting gift, a cloak pin of silver fashioned in the shape of a running deer. The artisan had shaped the beast’s antlers into a semicircle ending at its tail and then filled in the space with a filigree of leafy branches. A tiny ruby glinted in the animal’s single visible eye. As a gift from Carolin, the piece was doubly precious. It was just—

Just too much.
Too costly, too beautifully wrought, for a simple
laranzu.

As Varzil held the brooch in his hand, sitting on the edge of the bed in the richly ornamented rooms which had been his, he felt as he had that first night—apart, a stranger. Not even Carolin‘s love or the easy friendship of Jandria could change the fact that he did not and never would belong here.

I am a
laranzu,
not a courtier. I have never wanted to be anything else.

Meanwhile, he would have to talk to Carolin about the silver pin and find a graceful way of refusing it without giving offense. He wrapped it back up in the lace-trimmed brocade square of Hastur blue and silver in which it had come. Then he opened the door and headed down the hallway in the direction of Carolin’s chambers.

Since the morning at the lake, he and Carolin had often been in rapport, sometimes no more than a tenuous awareness of the other’s presence somewhere in the castle. Carolin was a weak telepath at best, and his duties, both official and unofficial, dancing attendance upon his uncle and sitting judgment at the
cortes,
occupied the greater portion of his attention. Knowing this could be the last private moments between them for many years at least, Varzil sent out a questing thought.

Carlo? Are you finished with
—

The answering jolt of pain ripped through his body and stopped the breath in his lungs. The hallway vanished in the wash of searing fire that blasted through him, obliterating even his awareness of himself.

Varzil doubled over, hands clutching his chest. His vision swam and his throat closed up. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out all other sound.

A second wave of agony swept through him. The world twisted sickeningly. He felt his body, his mind, his very self turn to ashes until only an empty husk remained.

Denial rushed up from some deep, stubborn core. This pain was not his own.

Even as the thought echoed through his mind, he reached out for the image of a wall, the barrier Auster had drilled into him for so many hours. With the first outlines of the stones came a lessening of the tearing pain in his chest.

The wall slammed into place, every seam and gritty mote of dust. He straightened up, grateful for the steadiness of his legs and the air rushing into his lungs. A surge of warmth replaced the pain, except for a lingering throb in his right hand. Looking down at the wrapped pin, he saw that the cloth had somehow come loose and the sharpened tongue of the brooch dug into the flesh of his palm. There was only a drop or two of blood.

With his uninjured hand, he rubbed his chest where only a few moments ago, pain fiercer than a red-hot brand had bored into him. Not over his heart, but where his wrapped starstone hung. The braided cord was longer than most, for he preferred to keep his matrix jewel hidden from not only the casual touch, but the very sight of strangers. His fingers closed around the pouch of insulating silk, felt the hard edges of the stone. On impulse, he slipped it out, cupped it in his palm. The blue jewel instantly came alive, as it always did in direct contact with his flesh. Deep within its faceted heart, blue fire sprang up, flashing in eye-searing brilliance. As it subsided, a feeling of warmth remained. The edges of the cut from the brooch tongue sealed together, as if a week or more had passed. Varzil hadn’t deliberately focused his
laran
for healing, but he had used the stone in that manner many times.

Varzil gazed into the gem, caught as always in the play and dance of blue light. He felt himself slip into the crystalline pattern that would enhance his own natural talent.

An image flashed into his mind—Carolin’s face, contorted, eyes rolled up in his skull, fingers hooked into claws, limbs shaking as in unnatural palsy—

He bolted down the corridor. The guard outside Carolin’s door looked up, his face awash in surprise and then alarm.

“Halt! Stand where you are!” Steel whispered as the guard drew his sword.

“Sean! It’s me, Varzil!”

The guard raised his sword. “Come slowly into the light, so I can see you. What’s your business here?”

Damned explanations!
Varzil touched his starstone and sent a burst of
laran
through the gem. It flared, searing blue-white across the whole section of corridor.

The guard pawed at his eyes, momentarily blinded. Varzil moved him aside, murmuring, “It’s all right, you know who I am.”

He jerked the latch and hurried inside. There was no one in the outer chamber, where they had all spent so many hours together.

Carlo!
He sent out a mental call even as he rushed for the inner door, leading to the bedroom. Light from a single candle filled the room with a dim orange haze. A huge bed on a dais dominated the center. Shadows clung to the dark velvet hangings. The bedclothes were mussed, sheets like tangled ghosts. A small table lay on its side, with a second candle, visible as no more than an ember-tipped wick, spilled over the carpet. Beside it, half-hidden in the clotted darkness, a man crouched. His back was to Varzil, but he lifted his head.

Carolin lay there, his body contorted and quivering, fingers like claws moving in odd jerks as if trying to grasp something, hold it to his chest. He wore a shirt of fine white cloth, gathered around the sleeves and yoke. The ties had been loosened so that the neckline fell open halfway down his belly. And his starstone, which he had always worn in a pouch of Hastur-blue silk, lay bare on his chest.

“What’s going on?” Varzil demanded. “What have you done to him?”

“I—I—”

“Never mind!” Varzil pushed Eduin aside with more roughness than he’d ever used against another Tower worker.

Varzil took Carolin’s hands in his own. Carolin was in shock, clearly psychic in origin. His fingers were stiff and cold. They twitched under his touch. Through them, Varzil felt the deep shudders racking Carolin’s entire body. Another convulsion was already building.

Varzil wrapped his arms around Carolin. He wasn’t prepared for the reaction. It was like trying to hold a dying fish as it bucked and fought. The muscles of Carolin’s body had locked in spasm, so that Varzil had to lift the other man’s inert weight. They fell over sideways against the chair.

“Carlo!” Varzil cried, praying that somehow he’d get through. “Carlo!”

Varzil strained to reach his friend’s mind but met only roiling blackness, as if all coherent thought, all sense of Carolin’s personality, had been swallowed up in a mountain storm.