Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover 34 - Zandru's Forge

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ZANDRU'S FORGE
BOOK TWO OF The Clingfire Trilogy
MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
AND DEBORAH J. ROSS
DAW BOOKS, INC.
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Copyright © 2003 by The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
All Rights Reserved.
Cover Art by Romas Kukalis.
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First paperback printing, June 2004 123456789 10
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S.PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA TEGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
PRrNTED IN THE U.S.A.
For Sarah Holdfast to your dreams!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude to those who have graced my life with their com-passion, kindness, courage, and hope. You know who
you are. DISCLAIMER
The observant reader may note discrepancies in some details from more contemporary tales. This is undoubtedly due
to the fragmentary histories which survive to the present day. Many records were lost during the years following the
Ages of Chaos and Hundred Kingdoms and others distorted by oral tradition.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Immensely generous with "her special world" of Darkover, Marion loved encouraging new writers. We were already
friends when she began editing the DARKOVER and SWORD & SORCERESS anthologies. The match between my
natural literary "voice" and what she was looking for was ex-traordinary. She loved to read what I loved to write, and
she often cited "The Death of Brendan Ensolare" (FOUR MOONS of DARKOVER, DAW, 1988) as one of her
favorites.
As Marion's health declined, I was invited to work with her on one or more Darkover novels. We decided that rather
than extend the story of "modern" Darkover, we would return to the Ages of Chaos. Marion envisioned a trilogy
beginning with the Hastur Rebellion and Zandru's Forge, the enduring friend-ship between Varzil the Good and Carolin
Hastur, and extend-ing to the fire-bombing of Hali and the signing of the Compact. While I scribbled notes as fast as I
could, she would sit back, eyes alight, and begin a story with, "Now, the Hasturs tried to control the worst excesses of
laran weapons, but there were always others under development..." or "Of course, Varzil and Carolin had been brought
up on tales of star-crossed lovers who perished in the destruction of Neskaya ..."
Here is that tale.
Deborah J. Ross March 2001
"It is not lily days which shape our souls, but the frozen winter nights, when we find ourselves in the pit of Zandru's
Forge and discover who we truly are."
—Felicia Leynier
PROLOGUE
The boy came to bid farewell to his father as the light of dying embers flickered across the fieldstone hearth. He
shivered, thinking of the night outside and the horseman who would come to take him away. With a patience beyond
his twelve years, he waited for his father to speak the words that would send him away, perhaps forever.
For a long moment, the man swathed in tattered blankets did not move. Only the slow, stuttering rise and fall of his
chest and the glitter of his eyes indicated he still lived. The old injury to his lungs, from a time he would never speak
of, had brought him to the brink of death before, and each time, he had recovered.
Father, please don't die, the boy thought, and wondered again if this were why he was being sent away. To Arilinn,
so far, to live among beasts and wizards.
"Eduin." A whisper, like a fall of ashes. "My son."
Tears stung the boy's eyes, but he fought the longing to throw himself into his father's arms, to bury his face in the
wiry gray beard, to feel the iron-thin arms around him.
"I do not know if I shall ever see you again. You are my last hope."
"I won't fail you, Father."
The man's shoulders lifted and fell under the layers of blan-kets. "And what is it you are to do?"
'To go to Arilinn. To become a—" the child stumbled over the unfamiliar word, "—a laranzu. The most powerful
wizard on all Darkover."
"Like your father before you."
Eduin nodded, brow furrowing. If his father was the mighti-est laranzu in the world, why did they live so far from
every-one? Why did they go hungry and cold in the winter, and wear patched clothing? He knew the Hasturs had
something to do with it. His mother, while she still lived, had taught him never to ask. But if he did not, he might never
have another chance.
As if sensing his questions, the boy's father gestured him closer and drew him into the shelter of one arm. "You are
so young to carry such a burden, yet you are all I have left. Your brothers ..." His voice trailed off.
They failed.
"Who are you?" his father asked in a different tone.
"Why, Eduin MacEarn, as you named me, Father."
"Listen carefully. Your mother knew nothing of what I am about to tell you. She knew only that I had been wounded
in war and that I sought peace and forgetfulness. So I took her name and began a new life here. But the past must be made right."
Eduin shivered on the brink of an enormous mystery.
"Your true name, my son, is Eduin Deslucido and you are the sole heir to what was once a vast kingdom. Your uncle
was King Damian Deslucido, a man of surpassing vision, ruler of Ambervale and Linn—" the names rolled off his
tongue like incantations, "—and High Kinally and Verdanta and Hawks-flight and then Acosta. But it's all gone now,
even the memory of that great man. Destroyed by the treacherous Hasturs, may their punishment last a thousand
years! In their lust for power, they slaughtered your uncle and your cousin Belisar, who would have been king after
him. They rained fire from the heavens and brought two Towers down in ruins. They thought I had perished, too."
"No, Father, not you!"
"But Zandru smiled upon me and I escaped. I came here, took your mother's name, and waited. I thought if I
regained my strength, I could go back into the world and bring the Has-
tur fiends to justice. But," gesturing toward his chest with his free hand, "this body has suffered too much at their
hands."
Breath rasped in the old man's lungs. "When your brothers came of age, I began to hope again, that I might send
them out in my place. They were good boys, loving sons. They tried their best. I realized then that the Hasturs are too
powerful for any ordinary assassin, no matter how just the cause."
Eduin shivered again. He barely remembered his brothers, only that they were tall and strong. How could he
possibly succeed where they had failed?
"There is a great sense of justice in all this," the old man said with a wry grin. "That you, the child of Rumail
Deslucido, will bring to destruction the children of the accursed witch, Taniquel Hastur-Acosta, and everyone else in
that mis-erable Nest who aided her!"
He broke off into a cascade of racking coughs. The boy scurried to the table across the room and brought back a
bat-tered wooden cup of herbal infusion,
"You must never oppose the Hasturs by force of arms," the old man said, "for that way leads only to disaster.
Instead, cul-tivate your talent. Earn your place in the Towers. Watch and learn. Wait. The right time will come. You will
meet Hasturs there, of that I am sure. Laran talent runs deep in that family, as it does in ours. Make friends with them,
gain their trust, ob-tain entrance into their homes. But never fear their strength. You have a Gift far beyond any of
theirs. When the time is right, I will show you how to use it."
The old man paused, but the boy knew there was still more. "Do not betray yourself by striking out at lesser
members of that House. Save your efforts for your true targets—the guilty and their descendants. The ghosts of
Damian Deslucido, of Prince Belisar, and all those who died in their glorious cause are counting on you. I am counting
on you!"
Hoofbeats sounded in the yard outside. The boy glanced at the folded cloak laid atop the bundle beside the door.
He threw his arms around his father and whispered once more—perhaps for the last time—
"I won't fail you. Father. I won't fail!"
BOOK I 1
The great red sun of Darkover slanted across the courtyard at the entrance to Arilinn Tower on a morning in early
autumn. Polished granite interspersed with translucent blue stone formed the floor and two walls. They were shaped
and pieced together so artfully that not a blade of grass or tendril of ivy rooted there. Rising sharply, the walls framed
a canyon where the chill of the night lingered. At the far end, the graceful sweep of arch enclosed the rainbow-hued
Veil through which only those of pure Comyn blood, the caste of Darkovan aris-tocracy Gifted with psychic powers,
could pass. In the dawn's oblique light, the Veil resembled a waterfall of coruscating rainbow colors.
When he'd crept into the courtyard in the darkest hour of the night, Varzil Ridenow had not dared to approach the
Veil too closely. Even here, in this corner where he'd curled up to doze fitfully until dawn, he felt its power dancing
along his nerves.
If there had been any other way...
The words echoed in his mind like the refrain of a ballad. He was a Ridenow and he had the gift of laran, the true
donas. He had known this since he first heard the Ya-men singing their laments in the far hills under the four
Midsummer moons. He'd been eight, old enough to realize there was something
beyond what could be seen or touched, and old enough to know he should keep quiet about it. He'd seen the way his
fa-ther, Dom Felix Ridenow, grew silent and tight-jawed on the subject. Now he was sixteen, older than most when
they began their Tower training, and his father would like nothing better than to forget the whole matter and pretend
his youngest son was normal.
Varzil had journeyed all the long leagues from his home to Arilinn, along with his father and kinsmen, to be formally
pre-sented to the Comyn Council. His older brother, Harald, who was heir to Sweetwater, had passed a similar
inspection three years ago, but Varzil had been too young to come along then. His present recognition was clearly a
political maneuver to bolster the status of the Ridenow. Many of the other great Houses still regarded them as
upstarts, barely more civilized than their Dry Towns ancestors. It galled them to accord any Ridenow the respect of a
true equal.
The peace that Allart Hastur had forged between his own kingdom and that of Ridenow was neither so long nor so
deep to blur the memory of the bloody conflict that had come be-fore. Dom Felix was never anything but scrupulously
polite to the Hasturs, but Varzil sensed their doubt—their fear.
If there had been any other way...
He would not have had to creep from the Hidden City at this scandalous hour, to wait half-frozen for someone inside
the Tower to let him in. He hoped that would happen soon, before his absence was discovered and a hunt mounted.
The Council session was all but over, with little further business to conduct. Dom Felix would not tarry, not with
catmen sighted in the hills near the sheep pastures.
Varzil drew his cloak more tightly and set his teeth to keep them from chattering. The finely woven garment was
meant for courtly show instead of protection against the elements.
Praise Aldones, it had been a clear night.
Through the long hours, Varzil felt the swirl and dance of psychic forces behind the Tower walls. The harsh bright
en-ergy of the Veil scoured every nerve raw, leaving him sensitive to the slightest telepathic whisper.
Much of the work of a Tower was done during the hours when ordinary men slept, to minimize the psychic static of
so many untrained minds. This close to the city, even the occa-sional stray thought or burst of emotion, hardly worth
calling laran, became cumulative, low-grade interference, or so he'd been told. For this reason, Towers like Hali and the
now-ruined Tramontana stood apart from other human habitation. In the long quiet hours of darkness, Gifted workers
sent mes-sages across hundreds of leagues through the relays, and charged immense laran batteries, used for a
myriad of pur-poses, including powering aircars, lighting the palaces of Kings and mining precious minerals, even
performing the deli-cate healing of minds and bodies.
Varzil had drowsed and woken a dozen times that night, each time resonating to a different pattern. Whenever he
roused, it seemed that his senses had grown keener. With his mind, he felt colors and music he had never known
existed. He heard voices, a word here and there, phrases shimmering with secret meaning that left him hungry for more.
The rainbow Veil no longer glinted from a distance, it reverberated through the marrow of his bones.
Movement caught Varzil's attention, a shadow among shad-ows. Slender, gray-furred, bent over like a little wizened
man, a figure slipped through the Veil. It halted, an empty basket clutched in its prehensile fingers, and stared at him.
Varzil sat straighter, pulling his thin cloak more tightly around his shoulders. He recognized the creature as a kyrri,
al-though Serrais, seat of the Ridenow, had few of them as ser-vants. They were said to be highly telepathic, but
dangerous to approach. His father, in preparing him for the visit to Arilinn, warned him about their protective electrical
fields. Neverthe-less, he reached out one hand.
"It's all right," he murmured. "I won't hurt you."
Something brushed against the back of Varzil's skull, at once feathersoft and grating, as if sand were being rubbed
into his skin. But no, it was inside his head. Suddenly, a sensation of curiosity flickered through him and vanished as
quickly.
The creature was studying him. Did it want something? He
had no food—and then he realized he thought of it as an ani-mal, instead of an intelligent, if nonhuman, being.
Without a sound, the kyrri hurried away. Varzil watched as it crossed the outer courtyard and turned aside at the
street. He felt as if he had been tested in some mysterious fashion, and he did not know if he had passed.
"Look down there!" a voice cried from above. "Some ne'er-do-well rascal has camped upon our doorstep!"
Varzil craned his neck back to stare up at a balcony running alongside the Tower to either side of the arch of the
Veil. Two older boys leaned over, pointing. They looked to be in their late teens, their voices already deepened, waists
and hips slen-der but with the shoulders of young manhood.
"You there! Boy! What are you doing here?"
Something in the voice rankled Varzil's nerves, or perhaps lingering irritability from the encounter with the kyrri
drove him to snap back, "What business is it of yours? I have come to see the Keeper of Arilinn Tower, and that isn't
you!"
"How dare you speak to us in such a manner!" The youth in the Tower leaned over. "You impudent
good-for-nothing!"
The second boy pulled his friend back. "Eduin, you gain nothing in taunting him this way. He can do us no harm
where he is, and he is clearly no street beggar. These words are unwor-thy of you." He spoke with the accent of a
lowland aristocrat.
Varzil scrambled to his feet, heartpounding. A dozen retorts leaped to his mind. His hands curled into fists. He kept
his teeth clamped tightly together, though the breath hissed through them. He had not spent the better part of his
years shrugging off far worse insults, only to lose his temper now.
What was he doing, to provoke a confrontation this way? What was wrong with him? Courtesy cost nothing, but
insults might well create future enemies. If he succeeded, these boys would become his fellow students. Beside, the
only person whose opinion mattered was, after all, the Keeper himself.
Not trusting himself to say anything further, Varzil simply bowed to them. It was the only thing he could think of
which would not make matters worse.
The boy named Eduin retreated from the balcony, muttering
something about proper respect for the dignity of the Tower. Varzil was concentrating too hard on holding his tongue
to catch all the words. But the other youth, the one who had cau-tioned restraint, remained.
Varzil raised his eyes. The sun caught the brilliant red of the other boy's hair, the luminous gray eyes, the regular
features. Both Tower lads wore simple clothing, tunics with wide leather belts, with no clue as to clan or rank.
"Boy," he called down, and this time the word carried no in-sult. His voice was strong and clear, as if he'd trained as
a singer. "What do you want with the Keeper of Arilinn Tower?"
"I've come to—I want to join the Tower." There it was.
For a long moment, the youth continued to study him. With a nod and, "Wait here," he disappeared back into the
Tower.
Varzil let out the breath he did not know he had been hold-ing. While he tried to calm himself, the Veil shimmered
and parted like an iridescent waterfall. A man in a loose white monitor's robe stepped through. Gray dominated his
chestnut-red hair and lines framed his mouth and underscored his eyes. A few paces behind came the youth from the
balcony. This close, Varzil was struck by the other boy's commanding sense of presence.
The man in the white robe paused, his gaze flickering over the colors of Varzil's cloak, the gold and green of his clan.
"Vai Dom ..." Varzil broke the silence. "I am Varzil Ride-now, younger son of Dom Felix of Sweetwater. I have come
to seek training here. Will you be so kind as to escort me to the Keeper?"
The taut mouth softened into a glimmer of a smile. "Young sir, I can imagine nothing more appropriate. I certainly
wouldn't presume to decide what to do with you."
Varzil approached the Veil, as the white-robed man indi-cated. He'd never been so close to such a powerful matrix
de-vice before, only personal starstones or the telepathic damper the Ridenow household leronis had used when his
mother had one of her fainting spells.
He held up one hand, fingers extended but not daring yet to touch the Veil. Besides a thing of beauty, what was it?
Two
people—three if he counted the kyrri—had passed through it as if it had been a tissue of gauze.
He turned his head to see the monitor watching him intently. Another test, then. He set his jaw and strode ahead.
The Veil looked like a thin rainbow mist, and he had ex-pected it to feel cool and perhaps damp. The instant it
touched him, it shifted, engulfing him. He gasped, drawing in breath tainted with the metallic taste of a thunderstorm.
The skin of his entire body tingled, each hair erect. The small muscles around his eyes twitched. He could not feel his
fingertips.
The next instant, he stood trembling in a windowless cubi-cle. Although he was no longer directly within a matrix
field, he sensed the power in the little room, as if it were itself a laran device. Turning to look behind him, he made out
shapes, blurred and shadowy. Was this some kind of trap? Another test?
Then the white-robed monitor stepped through the rainbow shimmer. The youth followed him, grinning.
"I told you so," the youth said.
Told him what? Varzil wondered.
The man moved his hands as if manipulating something and Varzil's stomach plummeted to his feet. No, he still
stood upon a solid floor, but the room itself was rising. It stopped a mo-ment later and they stepped through an
arched doorway that appeared in one wall. The lighted room beyond it opened onto a broad terrace.
Surely not even the ballroom of the greatest castle on Dark-over could be so grand, Varzil thought. Tapestries
covered the walls, glowing with rich colors, depicting scenes of hunting parties, chieri dancing in the forest beneath
the four moons, eagles soaring over the Hellers. The floor tiles formed an intri-cate mosaic pattern that was at once
lavish and soothing to the eye. At the far end of the room, a fire filled the air with warmth and a touch of incense.
Armchairs and a long bench piled with cushions formed a rough half circle around the fireplace. A woman and two
men sat there, talking in low tones. The woman met Varzil's gaze. She was about the age of Varzil's favorite aunt, short
and com-
pact without being fat, the wrinkles around her eyes giving her the appearance of being perpetually on the edge of
laughter. She got to her feet and dismissed the men with a gesture, something no woman in Varzil's family would ever
dare to do.
"Off with you, too, Carlo," she told the red-haired youth.
"But—" he protested.
She folded her arms across her ample, shawl-wrapped chest, silencing him. "What happens now is not your affair."
The youth delivered an impeccably polite bow arid left the room through the archway at the far end, but not without
a quick wink at Varzil.
Varzil's breath caught in his throat. After the years of long-ing, the months of planning, the night's escape, and the
long hours of waiting, things were happening much too fast.
Once, while climbing the craggy hills near Serrais in search of eagle feathers, Varzil had lost his footing and tumbled
down a pebbled slope. Rock and sky had whirled together as stones pelted his body from a dozen different directions
at once. He'd slid to a stop and lain there for a long time, panting and bruised, gazing up at the cloudless sky with
amazement that he was still alive.
He felt that way now, although his body was unhurt. Dimly, he heard the woman's voice talking about a hot
breakfast. He felt her hands on his shoulders, guiding him to a chair beside the fire.
"Sweet Evanda, you're half frozen!" she exclaimed. "Not to mention—" Varzil could not follow her next words,
"—energon channels—just as if you've been working two solid nights without a break!"
The next moment she pressed a cup of steaming jaco into his hands. He felt the heat through the heavy ceramic
with its intricate incised pattern, the smoothness of the glaze. The jaco had been sweetened with honey and laced with
some herb he did not recognize. He swallowed it obediently, though it burned his tongue. Only then did he realize how
badly he was shivering.
"Here, get this into you," the woman said, handing him a
bowl heaped with some kind of nut porridge and topped with cream. "Can you hold the spoon?"
Varzil's fingers curled around the handle. His hand shook, but he managed a mouthful of the stuff. Whatever
happened, he was not going to be fed like a baby.
The porridge turned out to be a mixture of oats, hazelnuts, and dried apples, seasoned with cinnabark. It tasted
wonderful, blending the earthiness of the grain, the crunchiness of the nuts, and the chewiness of the fruit.
Varzil's vision returned to focus and his hands steadied. He thanked the women, adding, 'This is very good."
"It should be," she said, again reminding him of his aunt. "Eat it all up. Lord of Light, boy, you look as if you haven't
had a decent meal in a tenday!"
Varzil lowered the spoon. "I'm grateful, vai domna, but I didn't come here to beg a meal." He handed her back the
bowl.
"I won't hear such prideful nonsense," she retorted, shoving it back at him. "I'm house mother to all the novices here
and when I say eat, they eat. Even the royal ones. Is that clear?"
Varzil had not taken more than another two or three spoons-ful when the door at the far end swung open and a tall,
heavy-shouldered man strode into the room.
Rust and silver mingled in his neatly trimmed beard and hair. His features were too irregular to be conventionally
hand-some, with his overlarge ears and crooked mouth. Eyes blue and dark as lapis regarded Varzil. An aura of steely
power hung about the man like a mantle.
Yet he wore ordinary clothing, comfortable and warm, a leather vest trimmed with bright embroidery over a belted
linex tunic, and loose pants tucked into laced calf-high boots. A chain of dark gray metal hung about his neck,
disappearing beneath his shirt.
Two other men entered the room from a door at the opposite end. One was the white-robed man who had taken
Varzil into the Tower. The other was robed, too, but in a soft deep green. Yet there was no doubt in Varzil's mind who
held the power here.
Varzil got to his feet and bowed deeply to the heavy-shouldered man.
So you are the Ridenow boy who wants to train at Arilinn Tower? The voice rang out like a sword on the anvil.
Never had anyone spoken so directly to Varzil's mind, or with such crystalline clarity. Even the household leronis,
who had given him rudimentary training in the use of his starstone, had sounded muffled, as if in another room, when
she used her laran to speak with him. Varzil realized that of all the tests he might face, this was the basic and most
crucial one of all. He bowed again.
"Vai dom, I am."
"Sit down, then, and let us get to know you a little. Do you know who I am?"
"Sir, you are Auster Syrtis, Keeper of Arilinn Tower."
"One of them, anyway." A smile flickered at the corner of the man's mouth. "What makes you think I am he? How
can you be sure?" With one hand, he gestured to his clothing, as if to indicate the absence of the traditional crimson
robes.
Does he think I'm such a head-blind fool? Varzil wondered. His indignation evaporated as the man tilted his head
back in laughter.
For the next hour, Varzil sat before the fragrant fire, answer-ing questions from the three men. The woman, whose
name was Lunilla, alternated between sitting quietly in her own chair and offering the men jaco and Varzil food, on
some schedule of her own devising. Nobody argued with her.
Varzil showed them the starstone he had been given by the household leronis, a light blue crystal the size of his
thumb-nail. As he had been taught, he kept it wrapped in layers of silk. When he took it out and held it in his bare
fingers, the rib-bons of twisting brightness in its heart flared to life. The pat-terns first appeared when he had keyed
into the stone. Now, with the prolonged exposure to the psychic energies of Veil and circle, he sensed it as a living
thing, responding to his touch. The stone sang to him, danced with him.
Varzil answered questions and performed a few simple laran exercises very much like those the Ridenow leronis had
taught him. Without his starstone, he had very little psychoki-nesis, although by focusing, he could cause a small
feather to
quiver. He had no difficulty hearing questions in thought form, rather than spoken aloud. The shifts in mood and
emotion ap-peared to him as clear and distinct as musical phrases played on different instruments.
Even as the examination continued, Varzil sensed an under-current beneath the innocent-sounding questions. On
one or two occasions, he caught the edge of a quickly-guarded thought, and knew it had nothing to do with the
quality of his laran.
Again and again, the questions skirted the issue of how he had come, and whether his father knew of this visit and
had given his blessing. The Keeper never asked directly, yet suspi-cion shadowed his words. Perhaps they feared he
had come on some purpose other than his own—to penetrate their company, learn their secrets, or somehow weaken
them.
But surely they would read the truth in his mind....
Realization dawned slowly. Yes, they were suspicious, but it was because they saw him as sickly and feared he
might fall ill under the rigors of training. Since Varzil was a son of Ridenow, there might be serious repercussions if he
died. His family might act in retaliation against Hastur or Asturias, destabilizing the balance of power. Political
relations continued to be precar-ious since the last wars. Arilinn itself might be drawn into the conflict....
I will not be a pawn in any lordling 's game!
In the middle of a question from the green-robed man, Varzil got to his feet and bowed.
"Vai dom'yn" he said in such a serious tone that the man stopped in midsentence. "I am happy to answer any
questions about my background or fitness for Tower work. You have a right to know these things. But—" and here his
composure wavered, "—but you must either admit or refuse me based on my talent. I am here on my own behalf, not
anyone else's. Oth-ers may use their laran to plot and spy, but I do not," he said glaring pointedly at Auster.
"Children do not address a Keeper of Arilinn Tower in that manner!" Lunilla gasped. The green-robed man scowled,
but Auster bent to look at Varzil even more carefully with those intense blue eyes.
"No, it's all right," said Auster. "He has spoken like a man, so he deserves a man's answer. Young Ridenow, you
have undeni-able talent, but you have also come here, by your own admission, without your father's permission and against his
wishes. We are not prepared to offer you a place here under those circumstances. In these troubled times, it is not a simple
matter of accepting any-one with laran. We of the Towers must do everything we can to hold ourselves apart from the
greater events of the world."
With a sinking heart, Varzil realized that he'd guessed rightly. His admission to Arilinn Tower involved much more
than his own desires and abilities. Nothing he could say now would change that fact.
"You seem untroubled by the illnesses which so often ac-company the awakening of laran," the white-robed
monitor said, "so there is no compassionate need for training to save your life or sanity, no emergency which might
justify overrid-ing your father's wishes. The training you have already re-ceived from your family leronis should
suffice."
Auster rose, signaling that the interview was over. Stunned, Varzil stood as the leronyn left the room, all except the
white-robed man. He gestured Varzil to follow him. They retraced their steps, descending in the strange
matrix-powered chute as before, guided by ritual hand motions.
In parting, the monitor spoke to Varzil in a kindly tone. "It has been a pleasure to breakfast with you. With the
blessing of the gods, you will prosper, sire many sons, and be a credit to your family."
But the waste of talent— Abruptly, the man's mental barri-ers slammed shut.
Regardless of his private feelings, the laranzu would never speak out against his Keeper's verdict.
Varzil thought wildly that in another moment, he would be gone from the Tower. He must find a way back. There
was so much he wanted to ask, wanted to know! Words clogged his throat as the seconds slipped by. He found
himself standing at the entrance to Arilinn Tower with morning sun filling the streets of the city. When he turned back,
the gate had closed. 2
From his turret window, Carolin Hastur, called Carlo after his boyhood nickname, watched the strange boy standing
outside the gates of Arilinn. Fists clenched at his sides, back rigid, the boy drew in one heaving breath after another.
Carolin himself did not have a vocation in Tower work, but he could recognize it in others. Never before had he seen
such passion, such inten-sity as in that slender form below.
Carolin had only a modest amount of laran and no particular interest in closeting himself inside a Tower. He was
here for a short time only, for his destiny had been fixed on the day of his birth. He'd been sent to Arilinn last spring,
at the age of seven-teen, as part of the training suitable for a young man of his caste.
Looking down at the boy below, seeing the bony shoulders rise and fall, the tension in each muscle, Carolin could
well be-lieve the boy was born to the Tower, even as he, Carolin, was born to the throne. He remembered how the boy
had spoken to the kyrri, not only in words, but with a gentle mental touch that even Carolin could sense.
Had he been turned away summarily? Any prospective stu-dent applying to the Tower was given hospitality as he
was evaluated. Once or twice in Carolin's knowledge, the Keepers sent a likely boy to another Tower. Each circle
maintained a balance of different skills and gifts.
The Keeper must have a good reason for what he did, he told himself. And would tell me to keep out of things
which are none of my concern. He slumped in the window seat, wishing it were so simple to banish that slender,
ardent figure from his thoughts.
The outer wall of his room was rounded like the turret out-side, with a bed built into the single straight wall. Set
between the two windows, a rack of hooks held cloaks and ordinary clothing. A small chest of carved blackthorn
wood was more than enough room for his few personal possessions. Because he was Hastur, he also had a small
heating brazier and a desk. Unlike most of the other novices, he could read and was being tutored in other things a
prince must know. He had an aircar at his disposal, a horse stabled below in the town, and many other privileges of his
rank.
A copy of Roald Mclnery's Military Tactics lay open on the desk. Carolin strode over and flipped the book closed,
impa-tient with its ponderous style. The material, once he waded through the antiquated language, was interesting
enough. Mclnery wrote sensibly about fortifications, supply lines, and positioning of troops. But he also discussed
laran weaponry as a natural and inevitable extension of force of arms. Some of the weapons were unknown to Carolin,
but others were all too familiar to a royal heir in these chaotic times. Linked telepathically to their trainers, sentry birds
could spy out an army's po-sition, clingfire could turn man and beast into living torches, relays could send messages
faster than horse or aircar, and small circles of leronyn could control the very minds of the enemy.
Yet even the powerful Towers of Neskaya and Tramontana could not protect themselves from the strife and chaos
of the world outside. Drawn into war a generation ago by the com-mand of their respective liege lords, the two Towers
had ended by destroying each other. Most of their highly trained and Gifted workers had been killed or mentally
crippled.
No one was sure exactly how it happened, but the ballads suggested that Neskaya had been engaged in the
development of a new, fearsome weapon that was accidentally deployed
during a crucial confrontation, It was said that deep within the rubble, eerie blue flames still smoldered, feeding on the
very substance of the stones.
Once Carolin had met a survivor of that horrendous battle, a distant Hastur cousin who had been leronis at
Tramontana. Old Lady Bronwyn had escaped the worst of the conflagration, but when he asked her about it, she had
turned to him with a look of such desolation that his small boy's heart faltered in his chest. She had not answered; her
expression had been enough.
Stories of how the Towers had been drawn into the war be-tween Hastur and a ruthlessly ambitious neighbor,
Deslucido of Ambervale, still circulated in the boys' dormitories. It was said that the Keeper of Neskaya, in love with a
leronis at Tra-montana, had sacrificed himself in defiance of his lord's orders in order to save her, but in vain, for both
had gone up in flames. He still didn't know if that was true, or any of the other tales whispered around the fireplace
during the long win-ter nights, but he wished they were.
With the defeat of Ambervale and all its conquered provinces, Darkover had achieved only an uneasy peace. A
hundred king-doms still dotted the landscape. Larger ones preyed on the small and then fractured in succession
disputes and insurrec-tions. From his earliest boyhood, Carolin had heard the lords of his own family arguing,
debating, struggling to restrain the worst abuses of laran weaponry. He remembered his uncle Rafael saying, over and
over again, "There must be a way."
The ruins of the Towers and the desolation of the Lake of Hali, the result of an ancient disaster known as the
Cataclysm, remained as mute witnesses to their failure.
Carolin snapped out of his reverie. He stood before his own door, fingers brushing the wooden latch, as if he'd been
caught in a waking dream. When he returned to his window, the Ride-now boy was gone. Carolin knew, with that
atavistic certainty, that they would meet again.
Carolin made his way down the stairs and across the central room to the smaller chamber where his afternoon session,
practicing the basics of monitoring with the other beginning students, met. He caught a snatch of conversation
between the older workers as they sat together before the cold fireplace.
"... Ridenow ..." "... who sent him? ..."
As he crossed the room, the two broke off their conversa-tion. Darkeyed Marella looked up at Carolin and smiled.
Only a few years his senior, she had flirted with him at Midsummer Festival, a tenday after he'd arrived at Arilinn.
Despite his ef-forts to behave properly, she'd figured prominently in his dreams for a while. Carolin knew she was
aware of the effect she had on him, for at his grandfather's court, he'd been the target of many feminine wiles. The
combination of youth, good looks, and a crown attracted eligible ladies like a honey-comb attracted scorpion-ants.
Only with his kinswoman, Maura Elhalyn, and Jandria, the cousin of his foster-brother Orain, did he feel fully at ease,
but they were back at Carcosa.
Marella's companion, a slab-faced older man named Richardo, who never seemed to smile at anything, got to his
feet. He nodded to Carolin and hurried away. Color rising to her cheeks, Marella followed him, so that Carolin had no
chance to ask questions.
It was just as well. He had been at Arilinn long enough to know that telepaths operated under a different set of
social proprieties than ordinary people did. Some kinds of privacy were impossible, such as sexual attraction. Casual
physical contact could be as offensive as an outright assault when peo-ple lived in such intimacy. Yet no code of
Tower etiquette could overcome Carolin's inborn curiosity. It was a fault he'd long struggled to overcome.
Although Carolin's family, the Hasturs of Carcosa, wor-shiped the Lord of Light, as was proper for the Comyn caste,
he had also studied the teachings of the cristoforos. One prayer, in particular, had struck him as appropriate to his own
character, Grant me, O Bearer of the World's Burdens, to know what Thou givest me to know . . . Sometimes that
meant to keep his nose out of affairs which might cause him to lose it, and his entire head as well. At other times, such
as this one, the prayer suggested that it was his right and responsibility to
find out what was going on, although it did not imply how or when.
At his uncle's court, there was hardly a moment when some plot or scheme was not simmering. Political
undercurrents were as numerous and changing as motes of dust in the air. Carolin had learned patience and the
usefulness of a blankly innocent expression. In due time, he would find out.
?
Carolin focused his thoughts on the task at hand, starstone practice with the other beginners. The class took place in
a small, airy room that had been pleasant when he arrived at Arilinn in the summer, but now felt drafty. In another
month or so, they would all be bundled in outdoor clothing against the chill.
He took his place around the worktable with the other stu-dents, three boys he didn't know well. Their teacher was
Cerriana, an older girl with fiery red hair who had little interest in socializing with boys the age of her baby brother. She
worked as a monitor while she continued her own training.
Valentina, youngest of the novices, was absent, probably be-cause she was ill again. Like many of her family, the
Aillards, she was in frail health and had been sent to Arilinn in the hope that, with skilled help, she might survive the
turmoil of thresh-old sickness. Carolin had developed a light case of it himself, a few months of queasiness and quick
temper. He'd been told that it was often severe, even life-threatening, in those with ex-ceptional talent. The
combination of the awakening of laran and adolescent sexual energy, which were carried by the same energon
channels in the body, could create fatal overloads. Fidelis, the senior monitor, had mentioned that rarely, perhaps once
or twice in a generation, laran of extraordinary power arose earlier, in childhood, so smoothly and completely there
was never any difficulty.
With her usual methodical care, Cerriana directed the stu-dents through the morning's routine. Together, they took
out their starstones and began as usual by simply gazing into them, watching the patterns of blue light.
Like all the members of his family, Carolin had been given a stone of superior quality, medium-sized but beautifully
cut, clear and faintly luminescent. Now as he cupped it in his bare hand, the stone warmed against his skin. His
starstone had grown noticeably brighter since his arrival at Arilinn, the flashes of brilliance more intense. Sometimes
he sensed the crystalline structure that would focus and amplify his own nat-ural psychic abilities. Cerriana had said
that the more he worked with the stone, the more it would become attuned to him.
After the preliminary exercises, Cerriana brought out a col-lection of objects—feathers, thin silver coins, small cubes
and dowels of wood—and distributed them to the students. Using their starstones, the students were to focus their
minds upon the object with the goal of either lifting or sliding it across the table.
Carolin, as a beginner, was still working with feathers. The task, which had seemed all but impossible when he first
at-tempted it, now began to make sense, although he had not as yet had any luck in producing so much as a quiver in
the feather. He'd made the mistake of looking directly at it, as if by sheer force of will he could cause it to rise. Now he
gazed at it only long enough to fix its features in his mind, its size and color, the curve of the quill, the curl of the
down. Then he looked deep into his starstone, building a mental picture of the feather. He tried to imagine the air
beneath it rising like the waves of heat above a summer field.
The feather quivered, tilted. He sensed tiny currents of air pressing against its weight. This time, he decided to keep
his attention on the air as it swirled upward.
Let the feather go where it wills, he told himself.
The air felt hot, exciting. He thought of storm clouds, moun-tains of gray-white, billowing to fill the sky. A taste and
flash like lightning flickered across his senses.
"Carolin!"
He jumped, his vision leaping into focus. The feather sat on the table just as before. Then it burst into flame.
Lord of Light!
Without thinking, Carolin grabbed the feather. The fire went out immediately, but not before it had singed his
fingers. He yelped and clutched his hand. His starstone went rolling across the table. Cerriana caught it just before it
tumbled off the edge.
Fire erupted inside Carolin's skull. He could no longer feel his burned hand. For an awful moment, his lungs locked,
un-able to draw in air. He heard confused voices in the distance.
The next instant, something small and cool was pressed into his hand. He could breathe again. His vision seeped
back and he looked into Cerriana's eyes. They were dark with concern. Her hand overlaid his, curling his fingers
around his starstone.
"What—" What happened to me?
"I touched your starstone. I must now monitor you to make sure you have taken no harm from it."
Carolin's eyes stung and he felt shaken to his bones. He was grateful when Cerriana dismissed the class. All he
wanted was to be left alone. He clenched the starstone, pressing it to his heart. His fingers throbbed where he'd
touched the burning feather. The muscles of his belly quivered. But he was Hastur, heir to the throne, and it was not
proper that he behave like a whimpering child.
Only a moment had passed. Cerriana still waited for the an-swer to her request. As an Arilinn-trained monitor, she
scrupu-lously observed the formalities of permission. This was not an emergency; she would not enter the energy
fields of his body against his will. Finally, he lifted his head and gestured to Cer-riana that he was ready.
As she worked, relief and a sense of well-being spread throughout his body. Frayed nerves relaxed and the burns
on his fingers cooled. His heartbeat steadied and his breathing came more freely.
A short time later, she announced with a smile that he had not been damaged by either the fire or the accidental
contact with his starstone.
"I don't understand," Carolin said. Although he felt physi-cally well enough, except for the fading heat on his palms,
he couldn't think straight. His skull seemed to be packed with feathers. "Other people have handled my stone
before—Hanna
at home, you and Fidelis and Auster here. I've never had a re-action like this."
"It's usually safe enough at this stage," Cerriana answered. "Few of the novices have keyed into their stones
strongly enough to carry any risk in a trained monitor handling them. You certainly hadn't, not at the beginning of our
session. Whatever you were doing must have accelerated the process." She looked thoughtful. "Sometimes there's a
plateau in laran development and then a cascading effect. Contact with a cata-lyst telepath will do it, too."
She sat back, still studying him with renewed composure. "Listen, Carolin. This is very important. Now that you
have attuned with your matrix, you must never let anyone touch it except a Keeper, and then it should be only your
own Keeper. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. Even though I am trained to oversee the physical and psychic
well-being of those entrusted to my care, I am only a monitor. With all the best intentions, I could have seriously
injured you. The only reason I did not is that I held your stone for only a moment. Do you understand?"
"Oh," he said with a wry smile, "I have no intention of re-peating that experience." With hands that still trembled a
little, he folded the starstone back into its pouch of insulating silk.
She nodded gravely. "I don't think you have the aptitude for psychokinesis. The question remains whether you
have a sepa-rate talent for creating fire or whether this—" she gestured at the few bits of charred feather on the table,
"—was due simply to the energies generated by keying into your starstone."
"Well," Carolin said with his usual levity, "at least it'll be better than staring at those damned feathers."
The next morning, Carolin and Eduin passed beneath the arch-ways of the Tower on their way into Arilinn City,
headed for the morning marketplace accompanied by one of the kyrri. Since only nonhumans and Comyn could pass
the Veil, every-one took turns with daily household tasks, even the youngest novices. The autumn day was crisp. Last
night's rain had
washed any hint of dust from the air and the city sparkled. Be-yond it loomed the Twin Peaks, their pinnacles
shimmering.
Carolin paused at the place where the Ridenow boy had stood. Although no visible trace remained, no stain or mark
on the age-smoothed stone, Carolin felt a sense of lingering presence so strong he could have sworn there was indeed
someone there. Images flashed through his mind, half mem-ory, half something else. He pictured the boy, not as
young as he'd first supposed, only thin and undersized, his face pale and very serious.
As Carolin watched, Varzil's features shifted into those of an older boy, then to a mature man. He was still slender,
but held himself with a quiet confidence Carolin had seen in ex-pert swordsmen. Silver glinted in his hair and lines
bracketed his eyes and mouth. An expression of compassion touched with sadness lay upon his face. He wore a dark,
loosely belted robe, but Carolin could not make out the color, red or brown, as the vision began to fade. Varzil raised
one hand in greeting and a gemset ring flashed white.
The sense of prescience lifted, and Carolin stood with his market basket in hand.
"Let's get on with it, Carlo," Eduin said. He used the famil-iar nickname, although they didn't know each other well.
Car-olin had only been at Arilinn a few months, whereas Eduin had begun his training there four years ago. That had
been long enough for Eduin to know his own worth. He had a life in the Towers and would certainly make a skillful
matrix mechanic or technician, perhaps even a Keeper if he could accept the discipline.
Carolin hung back. He had no doubt of what he'd seen. He was no laranzu, but he was of the true Comyn blood.
The pow-ers of the mind were every bit as real as what he could lift and handle. And he himself could not go on with
the mundane tasks of the morning, as if nothing had happened.
"Go on," he said absently. "I'll be along shortly."
"But, Carlo, we're already late—the best sweet-gourds will be gone—"
"Not if we get them first!"
Eduin sauntered off, the kyrri scurrying in his wake. A few minutes later, Carolin strode down the corridor to the
Keeper's chambers. Two of the senior technicians were just about to enter. One was Gavin Elhalyn, second only to
Auster in posi-tion in the Tower. He was also Carolin's distant kinsman.
"I must speak with Auster," Carolin said. "It's important."
Gavin frowned, clearly torn between his responsibility and his blood relationship to Carolin. He was Comyn and
laranzu, but Carolin would someday be King.
Lerrys moved into the breach. "Whatever it is can wait, lad. Auster himself summoned us."
Carolin held back a retort, realizing too late how useless that was. This was, after all, a Tower, where people spoke
with their minds as freely as they did with their mouths. He was coming to understand why he had been sent here to
Arilinn. It was not just to cultivate his modest laran, but to groom him for the exacting demands of kingship. At home,
he had learned to speak with care; here in the Tower, he would learn to guard his very thoughts.
"It's all right." Auster swung the door open. His face looked drained, but not the light in his eyes. "Carlo will only
pester us until he has his say. It's a family trait. The Hasturs have never backed down easily. Come in, all of you, and
in a moment I'll hear the boy out."
Auster returned to his usual place, a padded armchair. The two other men took up positions inside the door, as if
awaiting orders.
As long as he'd thought of Auster as the second cousin of his aunt Ramona Castamir, Carolin had no doubts of
success. But now, Auster's formal crimson robes glowed in the re-flected firelight, the remains of a small blaze laid in
against the autumn night chill. Carolin remembered this was one of the most powerful men on Darkover, and within
these walls, his word was absolute.
There is more than one kind of power, Carolin told himself, just as there is more than one kind of truth.
A fourth man waited inside the chambers, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. Carolin did not recognize
him, only
the subtle richness of his garb, a padded velvet jacket edged with fur, thick woolen breeches above boots of
buttery-soft leather, the fine lace at his cuffs and throat, the chain of gold-and-copper links about his neck. Carolin
摘要：

ZANDRU'SFORGEBOOKTWOOFTheClingfireTrilogyMARIONZIMMERBRADLEYANDDEBORAHJ.ROSSDAWBOOKS,INC.DONALDA.WOLLHEIM,FOUNDER375HudsonStreet,NewYork,NY10014ELIZABETHR.WOLLHEIMSHEILAE.GILBERTPUBLISHERShttp://www.dowboolts.comCopyright©2003byTheMarionZimmerBradleyLiteraryWorksTrustAllRightsReserved.CoverArtbyRoma...

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