Zandru's Forge (57 page)

The boy moved back to the table. “I hardly see how. Eduin worked on the design with Felicia and then constructed it. He—”

“
Eduin
constructed this? And was he—”
O, Dark Lady Avarra!
—“was he part of the circle?”

“No. He was working in Loryn’s circle.”

Varzil forced himself to breathe slowly, to think. His heart pounded in his chest and his hands threatened to shake. “Isn’t that unusual? For a technician to build something this complicated and then leave its operation to others?”

“Why, yes, I thought so, too.” The boy blinked rapidly and the red haloes around his acne lesions darkened. He wavered on his feet.

Varzil recognized the danger signs of exhaustion. Clearly, the boy was too overwrought, too tormented with guilt to see reason. Varzil wanted to examine the ruined lattice undisturbed, to ponder Eduin’s part in the disaster.

“Varzil?” a girl’s voice, light and pleasant, interrupted him. She stood in the doorway and Varzil recognized her at once as Serena, whose mind he had touched many times over the relays. She smiled back at him. “Loryn asks if you would join him in his chambers.”

Varzil put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Marius,” he said gently, “you must get some food, then go to bed. You aren’t going to do anyone any good if you become ill.”

Some of the brittleness seeped from the boy’s muscles. He nodded and led the way from the laboratory.

Loryn Ardais was one of those men who by their constitution showed little outward trace of fatigue, yet Varzil noticed the slight sag of his shoulders. The man had worked through the rest of the night and then met with an envoy and his armed escort.

Do not admire me for a trait that is none of my choosing,
Loryn said telepathically.
I owe my constitution to the gods; it is no credit of mine.

He went on aloud, “I asked you here to consult with you as a fellow Keeper. Most of the time, I rule Hestral with an easy hand. My people are skilled professionals and perfectly capable of their own reasoned decisions. But in the world at large, only one voice may speak for the Tower, and that is mine.”

Varzil thought a moment. “So you sent Hastur’s men on their way without whatever they came for. Do you need my blessing for that? I give it freely.”

“Do you remember my mention of a stockpile of
clingfire,
made by one of my predecessors and all but forgotten?”

“I remember that we spoke of a future when not only the stuff itself, but the secrets of its making and its very name would vanish with time,” Varzil said.

Did Rakhal Hastur find out about it?
he added mentally.

Varzil shuddered inwardly at the notion of handing over a supply of
clingfire
to Rakhal Hastur.

“Did Rakhal say why he wanted it? Or shall I guess it was to pursue his war against Carolin and his allies?”

Loryn raised one hand in a dismissive gesture. “I do not care why he wanted it. I wish I had destroyed the stuff the very hour I learned of its existence. I told the Hastur captain that is what I had done.”

“You lied?”

“I
anticipated
,” Loryn replied with such an expression that Varzil almost smiled. “Now I need—I ask your help in bringing truth to my words. I would have this thing done in secret, so that if any of my people are questioned under truthspell—an eventuality I pray will never happen—they can all swear they knew nothing of it. It is much to put upon you, Varzil. This is not your problem. I thought you might feel some kinship of spirit with us, if only for Felicia’s sake.”

“I am not protesting,” Varzil said quickly. “I heartily agree with what you have done. I am honored you would look to me for this.”

Loryn looked at him with a curious expression, half in wonder, half in appraisal. “Your reputation has preceded you, Varzil of Arilinn, as a man of honor and vision.”

“Please, do not flatter me,” Varzil said, cutting Loryn off before he could utter more praise. “I have already said I will do it. You need not cozen me with sweet and improbable words to enlist my help.”

I have done nothing so praiseworthy,
Varzil thought.
Not yet, at any rate. I have done my work as best I can, and on occasion shared the dreams of others.

“I fear we have not seen the last of Rakhal’s soldiers,” Loryn said aloud.

Varzil realized with a pang that his investigation into Felicia’s accident would have to wait. The
clingfire
must be dealt with as soon as possible. A time of rest and grieving would give him a plausible public reason to remain at Hestral without arousing anyone’s curiosity.

“The welfare of the Tower and all who dwell herein must take precedence over any individual desires,” Varzil said, though each word turned in his heart like a dagger.

“Do not regret that you are a man with a man’s heart,” Loryn said gently. “All things happen in their proper season.”

Loryn had fitted out a small stone cellar for their work in dismantling the
clingfire.
The windowless space was set below ground level and had been cleared of all combustible material. Even the makeshift benches and worktable were of brick, the vessels of glass.

The cellar, hidden from the sun and shielded by the earth itself, struck Varzil as the worst possible place for their mission. Destroying
clingfire
ought to be an act of public conscience, not a secret. Perhaps one day, it would be.

Varzil lowered himself to his seat. The cold edge bit into his flesh. There were only a handful of vessels, begrimed with dust and cobwebs. Even so, their contents glowed slightly like banked embers.

Loryn, wearing padded gloves, set aside all the vessels but one, which he placed in the center of the table.

It was not enough to simply isolate the
clingfire,
setting it apart from anything combustible. So far as Varzil knew,
clingfire
did not degenerate with age, but would stay potent for years, perhaps even centuries. It must be rendered into its component parts. These would then be teleported to widely separated locations deep within the earth. Fortunately, none of the processes involved the most dangerous step of its original manufacture, the distillation under high heat. Working together, two Keepers should be able to handle the material safely.

“I have not done this before,” Varzil said, “although I am familiar with the theory. I look to you for instruction in the practice.”

Loryn’s mouth twisted in a rueful half-smile. “Sadly, I
have
done this before. My earliest training was at Dalereuth, where making
clingfire
was an everyday event. So much so, in fact, that from time to time a contamination would not be discovered until afterward and then the product could not be used or even safely stored. Once—” Loryn rolled up his sleeve to display a pitted scar running the length of his forearm, “a batch corroded through its container. We had used glass, as we do here and everywhere else, I suppose, because it is chemically inert, but this stuff—”

He jerked the sleeve down. “This stuff not only ate through the glass, it seemed have an intelligence of its own, the way it sought out human flesh.”

“That would be horrendous indeed,” Varzil said. “Ordinary
clingfire
is deadly enough.”

Loryn projected the image of the steps they must follow and the two set to work. It was simple, but not easy. Each slow, meticulous step required unwavering concentration. Without a circle, they must generate their own psychic power.

By the time Loryn called a halt, Varzil was near the limits of his own endurance, so soon after his transit through the relay screens. Sweat filmed his face and trickled down his sides. His mouth felt dry and pasty.

He rose, noting the faint unsteadiness of his knees, and looked down at the first vessel. They had been working for two or three hours, and had finished only a quarter of it.

“True,” Loryn said, catching his unvoiced thought. “But that small portion is gone forever.”

Varzil nodded. “To move slowly and thoroughly is perhaps the wisest course of all. When faced with an evil, it is tempting to want to obliterate it instantly. I fear this is what leads good men to adopt rash solutions which only create worse problems.”

“Even good men can be driven past patience and reason,” Loryn agreed.

Gray with fatigue, Varzil headed for the infirmary. He did not consider the wisdom of sitting there, rather than attending to his own physical care. All he knew was that he
needed
to be near Felicia, as a drowning man needed air or a Dry Towner needed rain.

Stiff joints protested as he climbed the stairs from the stone cellar. He paused several times to gather the strength to take the next step. At the portal to the commons, the mingled aromas of hot apple and meat pastry assaulted him. His mouth watered and his leg muscles quivered.

You must eat,
he told himself, listening to the rumble of his stomach.
Or you will make yourself ill. You are responsible for more than your own welfare. Would you let your willfulness expose Loryn to the dangers of
clingfire?

The voices in his mind were a mingling of many—old Lunilla, back at Arilinn, Fidelis, Oranna, even Felicia herself. It had ever been a failing of his, to push himself, deny himself, as if his passions could eliminate all more mundane concerns.

Serena, who had been working the relays, came rushing into the room just as Varzil began his second pastry.

“Everyone! There is such news!” she exclaimed.

“What has happened?” Eduin asked from across the room.

“I have had word from our fellow
leronyn
at Tramontana!” she rushed on, her features flushed with excitement. “They will make no more
laran
weapons for King Rakhal, nor will they be a party to his wars against Carolin Hastur, who they now hail as the rightful king. In short, the entire Tower has declared its independence. Several of its workers have already gone to offer their aid to Carolin—I should say King Carolin.”

“At last,” Eduin said, “a Tower has the courage to stand for itself instead of toadying to some arrogant Lowland
Hali‘imyn!”

“Carolin has sworn he will use neither
clingfire
or any other
laran-
made weapon,” Varzil said.

“The more fool he,” one of the men said, shaking his head, “for Rakhal will not hesitate to use whatever is in his grasp.”

Loryn appeared in the doorway. He and Varzil exchanged glances. “Then it is just as well,” the Hestral Keeper said, “that we have none to give him. He must be desperate indeed to send to us for it.”