Zandru's Forge (58 page)

“I think he must be,” Varzil said thoughtfully, “for did he not use
clingfire
against
Dom
Valdrin Castamir? The stuff is so difficult to make, he cannot have much remaining to him.”

“Aye, perhaps he now regrets squandering it so early in his reign, when now he has greatest need of it,” someone else said.

“All the better for Carolin’s poor men,” Serena said.

“One day, men will go to war without such weapons, if they go to war at all,” Varzil said.

“You are such a dreamer,” Eduin said, “for what man would throw away his sharpest sword and fight only with his bare hands—especially when his enemy still goes armed with steel? I say, let Carolin and Rakhal fight it out on the battlefield, one king is as bad as another. Our only real hope is that we of the Towers make our own decisions about how to use our talents. We choose to make
clingfire.
We choose the ones we give it to.”

Varzil, pondering Eduin’s words as he continued to the infirmary, thought that despite their differences, Eduin was right. In the end, in order for the Compact of Honor to succeed, the Towers themselves must choose.

W
hen the last particle of
clingfire
had been separated into its component parts and sent into the bowels of the earth, when the stone cellar had been cleansed of every remaining trace of their task, Varzil ventured back to the matrix laboratory. He did so with some trepidation, for the destruction of the
clingfire
had required all his concentration. Now, the powerful emotions he had held at bay returned.

His thoughts kept returning to the last conversation he had with Felicia over the relays. He’d asked if her earlier fears had been laid to rest. From the first, she’d sensed something dark, ominous. He’d persuaded her to go against her own best instincts.

Do not trouble yourself,
came a thought, framed by the mental voice he knew so well.
The choice was mine alone, and mine alone the risk.

The piercing guilt subsided, but only for a time: He sat beside her, hands clasped around her ring, searching her face for any impossible sign of life.

Loryn had ordered the laboratory chamber sealed, and no one had disturbed it. Varzil stood for a long moment, studying the matrix lattice. It sat like a misshapen lump in the center of the table, half charred, half fallen in upon itself. Enough of the structure remained intact to make out its original shape.

It had been a thing of beauty, crystals mounted on struts of glass, held with wires of copper and other metals, some of them braided. Even mangled, it caught the light of the glows and fractured it into tiny rainbows. The colored light reminded Varzil of the Veil at Arilinn, mysterious in its beauty, yet disturbing.

Stepping closer, Varzil bent to inspect the damaged section. Here, metal and glass had fused and blackened. He closed his eyes and shaped his thoughts into a probe.

To his surprise, the lattice hummed in response to his
laran,
as it had been designed to do. He followed the resonance from stone to stone, studying how the device amplified certain mental vibrations and damped others. Many pathways no longer functioned, but he seized upon what remained.

The design was brilliant, the execution subtle and elegant. Yet even as he admired Eduin’s work, Varzil searched for some imperfection, some flaw.

But he could find none. The intact portion of the lattice was perfect. The fault, then, must be Felicia’s.

No!
Varzil stormed.
I will not believe it!

At his sides, his hands curled unconsciously into fists. The muscles of his back and shoulders tensed as if for combat. His thoughts twisted as if straining at invisible chains.

His fists slammed down on the table and sent the lattice trembling. Powder sifted through the openwork structure and over his feet. A shard of crystal bit into the heel of one hand. The pain drew him back to himself, to the mental cry that still echoed in the room.

With a series of ragged breaths, Varzil struggled to rein his emotions under control. His mind cleared—

—just in time to sense the faint spark of energy from
within the blackened area.

Realization shocked through him. He’d assumed that section of the device utterly destroyed, and to appearances, it was. Something in his agonized outburst woke a lingering resonance there ...

Heart pounding, he circled the table for a closer look. Heat and
laran
overload had twisted and melted the delicate framework. Blackened bits that had once been glittering crystals stared sullenly back at him. He knew better than to physically touch them. Once again, he sent out a mental probe, this time aimed at the heart of the ruin.

Silence answered him, a muffling of psychic energy so dense and complete, he might as well have tried to communicate with an operating telepathic damper.

Even charcoal would have been more sensitive to his thoughts, Varzil fumed. The very absence of any answering vibration only aroused his suspicions further.

There had been
something
in that section of the matrix, something whose remains, even warped and broken, still operated to keep it hidden. Only one type of device Varzil knew could produce such an effect. He had seen one before in the bird-thing which had almost claimed Carolin’s life at Blue Lake.

A trap-matrix.
But such a device required a single, specific target ...

Could Felicia herself have been the intended victim? Felicia, who had not an enemy in the world?

Mouth dry, Varzil lowered himself to the nearest bench. He slipped the ring off his finger, clasped it between both hands, and closed his eyes. Clear light pulsed gently from it. Something faint and far-off stirred across the surface of his mind, like birdsong on a frosty spring dawn.

Felicia
...

He wanted nothing more than to rush toward that voice, no matter where it might lead him.

Are you really there?
he asked.
Or is it my own heart that answers me?

I cannot tell.
Her voice sounded small and forlorn, lost in some unimaginably vast space.
I can barely sense you, and the Overworld pulls me more strongly with every passing moment...

“My love, what happened in the circle? How came you to this state, half in one world and half in the other?” Varzil spoke aloud to help focus his thoughts.

I remember... gathering up the circle... I was so excited... to be able to focus Marius’ Gift...
She trailed off and for a long moment, Varzil feared he had lost her.

The next instant, he sat in this room, only in a different position. Around him, he felt the warmth and movement of other people. His own mind linked to those of the circle, weaving their psychic energies into a single flow, like a braided river. Oranna’s mind moved from one person to the next, easing tight muscles, keeping heartbeats regular. Though his eyes were still closed, he knew the matrix glowed with light. It seemed to have a life of its own, amplifying and redirecting the energies which he fed into it.

Gladly, he poured the united energies of the circle into the lattice. It sang with power.

At the very border between mind eneregy and crystal, something flared, only a minute spark. Suddenly, the lattice did not resonate with the energy he fed it.

It pulled. It took.

It
demanded.

He tried to resist, to slow the flow of
laran
power that now threatened to cascade beyond his control. The device should not be beyond the ability of a circle of six to control. Should he call for help? No, he could—he
would
master it!

The
laran
streams bucked and fought, swelling to torrential dimensions. Rivulets broke off like frayed threads, snapping and crackling. He held on, held on ...

Pain shrieked through him, not along his physical nerves, but the channels carrying his psychic power. Needles of fire like grappling hooks pierced him, held him. He twisted this way and that, trying to break free.

Horrified, he realized that his struggles only tightened the hold of the thing upon his mind. He threw all his power into a single leap, a single name hurled into the night—

And then, silence.

Slowly, Varzil got to his feet. He felt sickened by what he had seen and felt, but even more by what he must do now. The trap-matrix had been carefully planned, placed in secret and with great skill. No outsider could have done it. Only someone intimately acquainted with Hestral Tower and Felicia’s own psychic signature could have constructed and triggered such a device. That meant the assailant must be a member of the Tower ... in all probability one of Felicia’s own circle.

“Truthspell?” Loryn repeated, one eyebrow lifting in surprise. “Surely that is an extreme action, when we have no proof there actually was a trap-matrix.”

Loryn had been unable to elicit the same reaction from the fused lattice array, and Felicia’s ring seemed to be attuned to Varzil’s mind alone. It was only Varzil’s word that the lattice had been sabotaged in a way that targeted its Keeper.

“Absent that hard proof, we must use what tools we have to discover the truth,” Varzil countered. “If I am wrong, I will most humbly apologize—”

“No, that won’t be necessary—”

“If I am right and we do not do this thing, then you harbor a scorpion in your midst. Once a man has plotted a death, executed it, and survived unpunished,
he will kill again.
He will find reasons to eliminate those who stand in his way.”

Whether they be kings or commoners... or fellow
leronyn.

Loryn ran one hand over the side of his face, drawing the skin taut. Clearly, he did not want to think ill of his own people. The intimacy between a Keeper and his circle was of mind and spirit.

“I am sorry to have brought this crisis to Hestral, which has offered me the hospitality of a second home,” Varzil said gently, “In the short time I have been here, I have come to love you as my own kin. Yet to remain silent, to keep what I know to myself, would be a far greater betrayal of your trust.”

After a long pause, Loryn said, “You have done right. If I hesitate, it is not from any anger at you. If your suspicions prove right, you will have done us a great service. I will convene the entire Tower and question every one of us as you have asked. Truthspell will resolve the matter in a way which will leave no doubt.”