Zandru's Forge (6 page)

“You, a Hastur, say this?”

Anger sparked in Carolin.
Am I never to forget who I am? Am I to choose my friends by their parentage instead of their character?
“I speak of what is right, not necessarily of what is expedient. Is it not better to take a longer perspective on this matter? After all, it is said the only way to truly eliminate an enemy is to turn him into a friend.”

Auster leaned back in his chair, the slightest transfer of weight. “It is also said that it is better to leave a sleeping banshee alone. In this case, the boy’s own father has forbidden his son to come here, and we dare not take any contrary action.”

“What about Varzil’s own desires—what about his destiny? Are you, the Keeper of Arilinn Tower, intimidated by a minor Ridenow lord?”

“Carlo, now it is I who remind you to take the longer view. Going against the father’s expressed wishes could cause incalculable harm to every faction involved. Leave it. Let the hot feelings die down. Practice the discipline of the work. In a few years, the boy will have made his peace with his father’s decision, and no harm will have been done.”

“A great deal of harm will have been done!” Carolin shook his head. How could Auster and the others riot see it? If Varzil were an ordinary lad, he might well forget his childhood dream, but he was not ordinary. Carolin had sensed the strength of his
laran
and the passion that could be so easily turned for good or for ill.

The shift in Auster’s eyes told Carolin he had picked up the thought.

Some Hasturs have the gift of prescience.
Auster spoke mind to mind.
It is said that Allart Hastur, who forged the peace between your clan and the Ridenow, could see into the future. There is more at stake here than one undersized boy.

Yes!
Carolin shot back at him.
Yes, there is!
He took a breath.
And I will use all the power of my rank to make sure he gets his chance.

Auster shook his head again. “I advise you to stay out of it. It is best for everyone to let these things run their natural course.”

“And allow the grudges of generations long past to dictate everything we do now?” Carolin shot back.

“You are not a private person, to think only of yourself,” Auster reminded him. “In some things, not even the King of the Hasturs can have his way. The world will go as it wills, and not as you or I—or even this Ridenow boy—will have it.”

“I understand your meaning plain enough, Auster. I know very well what is at stake here and I have no wish to set the whole countryside aflame in war. But there must be another way!”
And I will find it!

“Consider the consequences. For if you take any action, Carolin Hastur, you will be responsible for whatever comes of it, for good or for ill.”

“Then that is my choice and my burden.” Carolin lifted his chin. “Is there nothing I can say to convince you?”

“Oh,” Auster said, a ghost of a smile flitting across his mouth. “You have already done that. If this lad returns to us with his father’s blessing, we will of course welcome him, whether he be Ridenow or not. Rest content with that.”

Carolin knew when he was dismissed. At least, Auster had given him a germ of hope. If he could not directly change the minds of Auster and
Dom
Felix, then at least he could seize upon whatever opening chance presented him with. He felt certain there would be one.

I
n the Ridenow quarters of Arilinn’s Hidden City, Varzil waited for his father’s return. Each major house had access to private apartments, clean and warm but austere. Despite the banners of green and gold, these were only slightly more luxurious than trail shelters, and maintained under the same conditions of truce.

Not two hours ago,
Dom
Felix had been summoned, with a great show of politeness but absolute command, to the Keeper of Arilinn Tower. Then he would learn that Varzil had slipped away from the evening gathering of the
Comyn
Council, where his presence would have served his family, and stayed out all night without permission or letting anyone know where he was.
Dom
Felix would never have approved of his plan, so in essence he had done what would surely have been forbidden. Now Varzil had been found out, his act of disobedience made public. If only Arilinn had taken him in—but it had not, and now he would pay doubly, for trying and for failing. The result would not be pleasant.

Varzil awaited his father’s return with equanimity, for he had always borne the punishments meted out for childhood mischief with patience. No action, whether grand or trivial, was without consequence. At Sweetwater, the family estate, he saw this on a daily basis. A seed planted with care became a vine laden with sweet-gourds in the fall. A hand raised in temper against a half-broken colt gave rise to a sullen, unreliable mount. A cat whose tail was pulled would turn and scratch. A kind word and smile to the cook resulted in a treat at bedtime. A dreamy summer afternoon in the orchards, playing the flute and watching the patterns of clouds, was followed by extra hours with wooden practice swords.

As he sensed his father’s approach, Varzil prepared himself for the usual litany. He could recite it himself: “When will you get your head out of the clouds and pay attention? I bring you all the way to Arilinn for a most solemn occasion and you go running off on some irresponsible lark! You know how important the
Comyn
Council is—its influence, its politics. We Ridenow need powerful alliances, whether by treaty or marriage, and it is here they will be forged! You’ve made us a laughing-stock with your reckless prank!”

Dom Felix threw open the door to the central sitting room. Varzil scrambled to his feet and braced himself. With a rapid glance, he took in his father’s flushed complexion, the dark brows drawn together and bracketed by incised lines. His father’s agitation swept over Varzil in a turbulence of sound and color.

Dom
Felix unclasped his cloak and draped it over the nearest chairs. No servant came forward to put the garment away, for like the Tower itself, only those of pure
Comyn
blood could enter the Hidden City.

“You know I don’t approve of what you did, running off to the Tower like that,”
Dom
Felix began without preamble. Pacing, he pounded one fist into the open palm of his other hand. “But those—nine-fathered sandal-wearers had the effrontery to question me—
me!
—as if I were a landless nobody! I refused to give them any satisfaction, of course. They can take their suspicions and shove them up Zandru’s icy arse!”

Dom
Felix came to the end of the room and his breath at the same time. He paused, visibly collecting himself, and turned to his son.

“Ah well, all that no longer matters. We’re well done with them. Come now, we have preparations to make. I mean to be on the road home before first light tomorrow.” Slinging his cloak over one shoulder, he started torward the sleeping chambers.

Varzil remained where he was. His heart hammered against the cage of his bony chest. Sweat sprang up on his brow. His knees quivered. If he gave in now, he might never have another chance. Even the slim hope he might be able to persuade the Keeper through sheer persistence and endurance was better than nothing.

“No, Father.”

Dom
Felix paused at the inner doorway. It took him an instant to understand. Dark brows furrowed. “What do you mean,
no?”

“I mean—” Varzil rushed on, afraid that if he once faltered in his resolve, his courage would utterly desert him. “—I’m not going home with you. I must stay until they let me in.”

“Arilinn?”
His father paused. “That is a hopeless cause. Even if I had given you my permission, you could not associate with anyone who holds the honor of our family in such contempt. The way they treated me speaks for itself.”

Varzil took a step backward. “Truly, they should have offered you proper respect, but that is their offense against you alone. For myself, I belong there. If they will not admit me today, then I will sit at their gates until they do.”

“You’ll have a long wait.”

Varzil lifted his chin. “Waiting will not change my mind.”

“There is nothing to change. You are coming home tomorrow.”

“No, I am not.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Whatever were you thinking of, to have any dealings whatsoever with those—those
Hali‘imyn?
Have they poisoned your mind with their sorcery? I would not have thought it possible in so short a time.”

“They did nothing to me,” Varzil replied with a touch of temper. He suppressed it and continued, as calmly and reasonably as he could. “Asking for admission there was my own idea. I’m sorry I didn’t discuss it with you first. I know it was wrong to sneak away in the middle of the night and I apologize for the worry I caused you. If I’d seen any other way, I would have much preferred to do this openly, with your blessing. I was afraid you’d disapprove without even listening to me, and that’s exactly what has happened.”

“Where did you get such ideas? Neither your brother nor your sisters can be a tenth as stubborn as you!” Dom Felix raised his hands in mock exasperation. “Was it a fever of the brain that left you willful as well as puny? Was it something I ate on the night I fathered you? Did the forgefolk leave you in place of a human baby when your nurse wasn’t looking?”

Varzil almost laughed aloud. “Whatever it was, Father, I am as the gods made me.”

“And what you are is a
laranzu
of Arilinn, is that what you mean to say? What a ridiculous notion! Wipe it from your mind. The matter is settled. There is nothing more to say.”

“You are right,” Varzil replied, though his belly trembled. “There is nothing more to discuss. I do not expect you to agree with me, only to accept this is what I must do.”

“Why
must?”
Dom Felix’s voice roughened. “Who holds a sword to your throat and forces you do this thing? And since when have you earned the right to tell your father what you will and will not do? I assure you, being sealed to the Comyn Council has granted you no such privilege.”

Fighting the sting of tears, Varzil said, “Father, please. I’ve always tried to be a good son, but I can‘t—I can’t follow your wishes in this. I beg you—try to understand.” He lifted one hand to his heart. “It
is
in me. I—”

“This foolish notion will result in nothing but embarrassment for your entire family. If you cannot behave with proper dignity, then at least think of the rest of us. Nothing good will come of this.”

“I tried—Father, I tried—”

Varzil’s voice broke as he remembered the nights he’d lain awake, watching the pattern of colored light from Darkover’s four moons slowly shift across the stone walls of his room. He had struggled not to feel, not to hear, not to respond to the surges of inexpressible energy that left him quivering like the strings of a lute. Some mornings he would awaken with blood on his lips where he had bitten them, his hands aching from clenching into fists. Finally, he understood. It was no use. There was nothing he could do to give back his Gift. He could no more escape his
laran
than he could tear out his own tongue or put out his eyes.

For a year now, he’d hoped that the training he received from the Ridenow household
leronis
would be enough. He tried his best to be the son his father wanted, or a close enough counterfeit. It had quickly become obvious this would never work.

Varzil had lived in two worlds—the ordinary one of daily work as unofficial assistant
coridom
and unsworn paxman to his older brother, Harald—and the one which became stronger and more vivid every day. He felt as if he were a single droplet in a vast living river, so that each time the Ya-men howled their secret laments, or the scullery maid stirred awake with a nightmare, or a stallion sensed the rising heat in a nearby mare, the hot, raw sensations ripped though him.

In his bones, he knew that to go on like this would only drive him mad. He sensed, too, that without his conscious control, his Gift might prove to be far deadlier to those he loved than to himself. The only solution was to master it, to swim as a fish in that surging tide. But how?

The
leronis
who had taught him as a child had clearly reached the limit of her ability. He must go to a Tower. And what better Tower than fabled Arilinn?

If only he could find some way to make father understand!

“You and your hopeless dreams!”
Dom
Felix brushed aside Varzil’s explanations. “You always were one for mooning around when there was work to be done, or ranting about chieri singing.”

“They weren’t
chieri.
No man has seen or heard of them since the Ages of Chaos. They were Ya-men. And I really heard them.”

“Ya-men, fairies, demons from Zandru’s seventh hell! It’s all the same. Your whole life has been devoted to one romantic notion after another. This is just the latest one. I’ve indulged you in the past, perhaps more than was good for you. Now I must correct that. It’s one thing to bring shame upon yourself by behaving in such an undignified manner, begging for admission where you’re not wanted. I will not allow you to besmirch the honor of your house, not after the way they treated me. And all for what? Do you really believe you’re worth training? Even if you weren’t a Ridenow, they’d never waste their time on you. Of course you have some degree of
laran
—the Council placed its seal on you in attestation to that fact. But a
laranzu?
You’ve been inhaling ghostweed to think such a thing. You never had threshold sickness worth noticing, and everyone knows that’s what indicates strong
laran.”

Varzil hung his head. He didn’t know what to say. His father had calmed down, but he knew that tone of voice. It would be easier to move the Kadarin River from its banks than to get his father to change his mind when he was in one of these moods.