Zandru's Forge (40 page)

When Varzil returned, he found Felicia wrapped in the Tree-of-Life quilt. She’d brought out a small folding table and placed it within easy reach. He set down the tray with its beaker of steaming
jaco,
honeyed nut rolls, and covered dishes of soup and barn fowl stewed with fruit. She lifted the cover of the tureen and sniffed appreciatively.

“Ah, Lunilla’s good bean soup. I feel better already.” She moved over, making room for him on the bed.

With the first spoonful, Varzil’s hunger awoke in force. For a time they ate in companionable silence, each bent on replenishing the energies drained during the last hours. The warm food filled his body. Lassitude filled his muscles. His head seemed to weigh as much as a mountain. Varzil was acutely aware of Felicia’s nearness, both her body sitting beside him and her mind, still in rapport with his. There was much to say, and even more that needed no words. This was a good thing, he thought, because he wasn’t sure he could form a coherent sentence. Getting back to his own chambers would be a monumental task. He gathered himself, taking a breath to fuel the effort.

Felicia laid one hand upon his shoulder, no more than a feather’s weight. He felt it as a shimmering bolt down the center of his body, through. all the depleted
laran
channels. She slipped her arms around him and he felt himself sinking slowly, as if moving through honey. The bed seemed to rise up to greet him. She pulled the Tree-of-Life quilt over them both. Warmth surrounded him, seeped into him.

He brushed his lips against hers and she sighed in pleasure. Her breath was sweet against his face. Neither of them could do more, between exhaustion and the lack of sexual desire that accompanied active matrix work. Lying in each other’s arms, still in their working robes, slipping into sleep, Varzil felt an intimacy he had not dreamed possible. They were part of one another, as much as the breath they shared.

When he awoke, she was standing at the window. The night was almost over. Pale light illuminated her features, taut and still. He slid from the bed, using the quilt like a cape, and wrapped them both in it. Her posture softened, but only a little.

“What is it,
preciosa?”

She pulled away, turning so that her eyes caught the gray light. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not—”

“We must think of what to say.” She began pacing, absently pushing back her coppery curls. “If we convince them you were responsible, that I was only a member of the circle, just a technician doing my own work—”

“Felicia! What are you talking about?” His voice rose in pitch without his intention. “Are you suggesting we should try to hide what happened—that you held the circle—that
you
acted as Keeper? I will not—I cannot—claim credit for what you accomplished last night ”

Now she faced him full on, her face such a mixture of warring emotions as to wring his heart. In that brief time when she had seized control of the circle, remaking it to the pattern of her mind, some part of her had leaped to life, as hot and eager as any flame. And yet—

It was not modesty which held her back, nor any ingrained belief that she as a woman could not do what she had done.

It was fear.

There will be opposition, of course,
he said reassuringly.
People will believe only what they want to. But there are enough open-minded Keepers and matrix workers,
people
willing to defy the structures of tradition.
And if the world could change enough for a woman could become a Keeper, then Carolin’s pact might also come into reality.
In the end, the Towers will stand with you.

She waved him silent. Her voice came thick, as if each word were torn from her heart. “But at what cost? Varzil, I have spent my whole life hiding who I am. The only reason I
have
a life is that I have succeeded. I am Felicia of Arilinn—only that. But if I become Felicia the Keeper, Felicia the Freak, if every scheming busybody in the entire
Comyn
focuses on me because of this, how long will I be able to live as myself? How long before I become
Taniquel’s daughter? Coryn’s daughter?
A thing of legend instead of flesh?” She broke off, smearing tears from her eyes with the back of one hand.

“I think you cannot be any less than you are,” he answered. “Neither falsehood nor silence can change what has already happened.”

Felicia gazed out the window, rocking with her silent tears.

Even if he lied for her, which he would not do, it would be no use. Everyone in the circle knew what she had done. Despite attempts to keep it secret, word would leak out. It wouldn’t be the first time such rumors had been passed along the relays. If she herself denied what she had done, the matter might well go no further. But at what price to her integrity? To women in Towers everywhere? To Darkover?

She must decide for herself. If he tried to tell her what to do, he would become her adversary instead of her ally. She would make the right choice, in her own way and time. He had no doubt of her courage or her ability to face the truth.

He went to her, put the quilt around her shoulders, and kissed her brow.

“It is for you alone to decide.” He closed the door softly and headed for his own chamber.

Varzil did not have another occasion to speak privately with Felicia for almost a tenday. Barak’s circle took over the completion of the
clingfire
processing, and Varzil and the others from Auster’s circle assumed their less dangerous tasks. It was not the first time Varzil had worked as Keeper. Always before, Auster had been there, sometimes actively advising, sometimes only lending his silent encouragement. Although the projects were not exacting, Varzil executed each one with meticulous care. Sometimes he was so drained afterward, he barely had the energy to haul himself upstairs to his chamber.

Felicia did her share as soon as Fidelis released her back to work. “I’m no more tired than anyone else in the circle,” she told Varzil as they sat before the fire in the common room, each with a mug of Lunilla’s steaming herbal tonic. “Fidelis had to satisfy Barak I’d taken no harm from what I did. If I were a man, the question wouldn’t have arisen. If I go on with this, every busybody from here to Temora will be watching over my shoulder, probing my channels, probably clucking like old hens over my laundry.”

“Have I told you what happened the first time I tried to get into Arilinn?” Varzil said with a smile. “They wouldn’t have me.”

“You? I can’t believe it!”

“Oh, indeed. It didn’t help that my father was dead set against it. I think their real fear is that I’d die on them—I was that sickly-looking—and start a war.”

Felicia lowered her mug. “You’re not exactly a farmer—
strong as an ox and half as smart
—but, Varzil, you have such a powerful Gift. How could they miss it?”

“Auster didn‘t, but my father had to be convinced first. To do that, I had to rescue my brother Harald from, catmen. You’ve probably heard the story. The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey.”

She looked away, biting her lower lip. He’d rarely seen her this troubled.

“What troubles you? It cannot be these petty annoyances. You are not a person to shrink from doing what is right for mere personal convenience, even risking the loss of your anonymity. What truly holds you back?”

She was silent for a long moment. “I—I am not sure. I have been trying to reason things out. I tell myself how difficult it is to go against tradition and everything I have been taught to expect from myself. A certain amount of anxiety is to be expected whenever anything new is attempted. I think what it was like for my mother. She rode with the army to take back Acosta, you know, and that was unheard of. I have this feeling—I don’t know—that once I start upon this road, there will be no turning back. I cannot see the end. I do not have the prescient talent of Allart Hastur. All I can see is darkness, darkness and fire.”

Varzil had dropped into rapport with her, so that her dread shivered through them both. He saw that he had been right. Felicia would not let fear stop her.

He set aside his own mug, now grown cold, and took her hands in his. “I have said that it is your choice, and I stand by that. I believe your ‘darkness and fire’ is no more than what we all worry about in these times. War and its companions, famine and plague, haunt all our dreams. Were we not engaged in making
clingfire,
surely one of the most terrible weapons imaginable, when Auster suffered his stroke? If we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by all the disasters which
could
happen, if we turn away from the chance to make a real change, then we are as guilty of those horrors as if we had committed them ourselves.”

Felicia’s chin lifted. “Do you lay that responsibility on me? I did not ask for this, only to live a private life.”

“Is that possible for any of us?” he countered.

Her shoulders sagged. “You are right. Had I been born a head-blind fool, I,would never have known the difference. But I am as the gods made me, even as my mother was, and I have seen the path which has been set before me.”

For a moment, Felicia looked so desolate, so fragile and vulnerable that Varzil wished he could take back his harsh words. She would never give in for the sake of peace, but would consider her decision carefully, weighing what she would lose against what she—and Darkover—would gain.

Later that day, Felicia presented herself to the remaining Keeper of Arilinn and requested to be trained as one of them.

“It is impossible for a woman to become a Keeper,” Barak repeated. He swept the air with his hands to emphasize his point.

The entire population of Arilinn, down to the lowliest novice, had gathered in the common room. Auster sat in front of the empty fireplace, facing the assembly. A month had passed since the fateful incident, and his voice still carried a faint slur. A tiny bubble of spittle had formed at the right corner of his mouth.

The events of the last month—Auster’s stroke, the immediate intervention by Cerriana and Varzil, and most of all, Felicia’s astonishing feat of maintaining the circle and stabilizing the
clingfire
had been told and retold, with the same question,
Was it true? Had a woman functioned as a Keeper?

“Barak,” Lunilla said with the respect due his rank. “We accept that there has never been a woman Keeper at Arilinn, or one acknowledged at any other Tower within recorded history. But the fact is that something
did
happen on that night, something which demands an explanation. If not for our community here, then for our fellow circles at the other Towers.”