Zandru's Forge (61 page)

“You speak of the Ages of Chaos,” Varzil said gravely, “and of the abuses of power which ended them. The genetic breeding programs, designed to produce even stranger and more potent forms of
laran,
left us a legacy of horrors. Today we must still contend with the sicknesses that sprang from inbreeding. I fear it will be many generations before we can recover.”

“I spoke of an Age of Opportunity, of freedom from the narrow vision of the head-blind,” Eduin rushed on, but Loryn silenced him with a gesture.

“Some day we may have the pleasure of debating the morality of our ancestors and whether their world was indeed superior to ours. For now, we—like every generation before us—must face our own test. I cannot in all conscience accede to Rakhal Hastur’s demands, and as Keeper, I am responsible for every person within these walls. If there are any who cannot abide my decisions,” and here his gaze lingered first on Eduin, then Oranna, and finally Varzil, “I will attempt to arrange a truce under which you may leave Hestral for your own homes.”

“Leave Hestral!” Oranna cried. “Abandon my home to that—that debauched
oudrakhi!
”

“You mistake me, Loryn,” Eduin broke in, tight-lipped. “My intent was that we must resist not only this order, but
all
orders from usurpers! I will stay and fight with you. I beg you, give me command of Felicia’s circle, so that I may smash Rakhal’s army into bits!”

One of Loryn’s eyebrows twitched upward, but his features remained otherwise composed.

Oranna said, “Are you mad, Eduin! You may be an excellent technician, but you cannot simply step into such a role, especially at a time like this. Besides, we already have two Keepers.”

“Varzil?” Eduin cast him a sidelong glance. “He is only here because of Felicia’s accident. He is not one of us.”

“Let us hear from you, Varzil,” Loryn said. “Eduin is right in this much, for our quarrel with Rakhal Hastur is none of yours. Arilinn is neutral in this affair.”

“But I am not,” Varzil said. “Carolin Hastur is my dearest friend and Rakhal, his enemy. Moreover, I have sworn to oppose all abuses of
laran.
In that sense, this quarrel is very much mine, not because I have sought it out but because I cannot turn away, not when it is within my power to resist.”

Loryn nodded, his features lightening with relief. “Then together we will defend ourselves and our principles. Go and get something to eat, all of you. We must be ready when the Hastur forces make their first move.

The next moment, however, there came the faint, unmistakable clangor of bells from the village below. From his vantage point in the Tower, Varzil saw the soldiers swarming up the hill, the ranks on horseback and on foot. Blue-and-silver pennants rippled in the wind of their passing. The afternoon sun set their swords and spear points ablaze.

“Sweet gods!” one of the workers exclaimed. “He’s sent an army!”

“He means to make a quick victory here,” someone else said.

“The gates are spelled against any who bear arms,” Loryn said, “but they are not the only way into the Tower. These men may bring grappling hooks and ladders. The walls must be reinforced. For this, I will need all your strength.”

Varzil hurried after Loryn and a hastily assembled circle. He had not worked with these people before, excepting Eduin, and that had been many years ago at Arilinn.

They used the laboratory which had been Felicia‘s, for it overlooked the road leading from the village. The chamber had been cleaned and the worktable replaced so that no trace of the ruined matrix remained. Sweet herbs freshened the air and the residue of a cleansing spell still hung about the corners.

Loryn did not so much gather up the separate minds of his circle as open a space between them. Varzil found himself gazing into a well of clear light. It reflected the faces of the men and women of the circle, not as they appeared in the flesh, but with a timeless sense of presence.

Look,
Loryn’s mental voice resonated like the slow sweet tolling of an immense bell.
Look there.

Varzil gazed into the chasm of light, and for an instant saw only a swirling of clouds. This quickly dissipated and in the clear space, he seemed to be everywhere at once. He saw the Hastur soldiers rushing the gates and felt the energon flows of the matrix locks rise and tighten at the approach of steel weapons. Drawn swords flashed into shafts of brilliance, as if catching the glare of the sun. Light and heat, as intense as any smithy’s fire, burst from blade and spear point. A dozen or more blazed as if ignited from within.

The foremost soldiers hurled their weapons to the ground. A few fell to their knees, clutching their hands, while behind them, others hesitated, glancing from their wounded comrades to the Tower before them.

Sorcery ...
The whispers spread through the ranks.

“Forward! Attack!” screamed the captain.

Horns blared. A few of the men who had dropped their weapons turned and ran, but most of them held their ground. The bravest formed a wedge and hurled themselves bodily against the gates. At the first touch, the gates turned as hard as rock. Matrix-spelled, the wood could not be split by any ax or bent beneath any weight. With that preternatural clarity of vision, Varzil saw the forces binding each fiber glowing blue.

At the same time, Varzil realized the walls were of ordinary stone. They had been masterfully placed, but the passing centuries had weathered the rock and cracked the mortar. No spells bound them together. They could not withstand a determined laran assault.

The walls!
he cried.

Watch,
Loryn answered.

Smoothly, Loryn directed the linked minds of the circle into a river of power that flowed over the old fortress. In the clear light of their united minds, the walls now glowed faintly blue.

The Hastur men retreated from the gates. Many of the foremost had thrown down their swords and knives during the first onslaught. Some reached down with visible hesitancy, and then gathered up the weapons.

Loryn made no attempt to launch a counterattack, although the enemy was clearly demoralized and vulnerable. He allowed the soldiers to retreat back to the village.

Eduin scrambled to his feet, hands curling into fists. “Are we going to sit up here, doing nothing but deflecting one attack after another? Those filthy
ombredin
will not stop there. You know what will come next—fields and crops set ablaze, starvation next winter, hostages taken and executed, Zandru knows what other outrages.”

“They will do these things whether we retaliate or not,” Loryn said. “We cannot stop them by giving in.”

“We
must.
Loryn, surely you see that! We can do far more than simply stand against them. We have the
laran
power to smash that army and send the Hastur captain running back to Thendara with his tail between his legs like a craven dog!”

Loryn shook his head. “Eduin, have you learned nothing in your time among us? I know very well what you mean to do, and it is not to shower those men with flower petals. If we use our
laran
against them, we may indeed prevail for a few days or even weeks. Sooner or later, they will come against us with a force we cannot match, whether
laran
or some terrible machine of war. We may not rain down
clingfire
or bonewater dust upon them, but that will not prevent them from doing the same, or worse, to us. Instead, let us keep this battle small and insignificant. Our best hope lies in persuading them that we have nothing they want.”

Varzil did not think Rakhal Hastur would be swayed by this reasoning. A mouse might escape the notice of a hunting banshee by making itself very small, but only for a time. Sooner or later, the carnivorous bird would scent its prey and strike. So, too, would the men outside.

Eduin’s posture clearly expressed his opinion that Loryn was a fool, but he had the sense not to say it. Tight-jawed, he excused himself and stalked from the room.

Varzil watched him go. Eduin’s words filled him with apprehension. “He was ambitious when we trained together at Arilinn,” he commented to Loryn, once they were alone in the chamber, “and I fear his disappointments and my own advancement have festered in his mind. He so clearly expected to be selected as Keeper, for he certainly has the innate strength.”

“Eduin, like each of us, must find his own way. As for the other, you are right. He has powerful Gifts. I think eventually he might make a Keeper, but I have never seen in him that sympathy of mind to bring together the disparate personalities in a circle and make of them a single, harmonious whole. In another man, one less talented, I might say the fault lies in his own nature, but Eduin ... there is something, some part of himself which he keeps apart and hidden. Yet,” he continued, “Eduin has served Hestral well. His loyalty is above question.”

“You have created a Tower of individuals who follow the dictates of their own conscience,” Varzil said, “and now it is too late to instill blind obedience.”

“I believe you are right,” Loryn replied. “Even if I had known what would happen, I would not have chosen otherwise.” A smile, like summer sun on water, flickered across his weary features. He took Varzil’s proffered arm and leaned upon it, though such close physical touch was not the custom of telepaths. “Do you think our brothers down below have chosen this day’s work as freely as we have?”

“I suspect few of them are here of their own accord,” Varzil agreed, “but only by the command of their masters. And that is both their strength and their weakness.”

“Yes, exactly so. Should we do as Eduin suggests and rain down destruction upon them because they are too loyal or too frightened to rebel against their lawful masters?”

“You already know my answer,” Varzil replied.

“Ah yes, Varzil the idealist.”

Loryn moved toward the door. “Now I must finish this day’s business. You should rest as well, for we will need all our strength against whatever they throw at us tomorrow.

M
ounted men rushed the gates of Hestral Tower in volleys, only to be repulsed. They had learned from their earlier failures, for this time few of them carried metal weapons. Instead, they brought up a battering ram, a solid old tree from along the river, many of its branches still intact.

Varzil joined the circle to reinforce the gates. Hour after hour passed as the thumping and pounding reverberated throughout the Tower. The men below worked in relays, so that as each group tired, another came to take their place. They broke off only as the light faded from the sky.

No sooner had Varzil eaten the food laid out for him in the commons hall and returned to his chamber, aching with weariness in every joint, than a cry went out from the watchers posted high in the Tower. The attack had resumed.

The three
leronyn
in Lyondri’s army came forward, barely discernible in the gathering dusk. They gathered together near the base of the hill, well out of reach of any physical coun terassault, and spun their own circle. To Varzil, on watch, it had the semblance of a spider’s web.

And they will have as little power over us as the silk they
spin, came Serena’s mental voice.

Varzil was not so sure. What did any of them truly know of
laran
warfare, which pitted one Tower against another, save for ballad and whispered tale? The Peace of Allart Hastur brought a time in which those horrors were all but forgotten.

The spells came snaking up the hill like threads of darkness. Moment by moment, they gathered substance. They darted at the walls, as if seeking to insinuate their slender tips between the particles of mortar and enter through the very pores of the stone.

With every contact, Varzil felt the glitter of clashing energies as the
laran
shields held. The blue glow intensified. He bent all his trained power to the pattern that Loryn had set into the walls below.

Hold... hold ... hold...
pulsed through the circle, each syllable a separate heartbeat. Varzil had no other thought than the energon flows binding each mote of stone and mortar. In his mind, he saw the walls as a patterning of elemental forces.

Hours slipped away in a numbing trance. From time to time, he became aware of the touch of Oranna’s mind as she monitored the condition of his body. It was a flicker only, for he had long ago learned the proper posture and breathing for strenuous
laran
work. All she could do was ease and support, for there was no question of dissolving the bonds that unified them. The Hestral circle dared not falter. Any break in their concentration might give the
leronyn
below the opening they needed. They could only endure and hold fast until the psychic battering ceased.

Eventually, in the darkest hours, Varzil felt an emptiness in place of the relentless pressure of the Hastur circle.

Loryn dissolved the circle. One of the workers gasped for air before collapsing forward on the table. Oranna rushed to his side. Her face, too, was so pale as to appear bloodless. Numb and drained, Varzil made his way to his chamber, where he fell across his bed, still in his working robes.