Marion Zimmer Bradley - Clingfire Trilogy 02 - 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.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER
375 Hudson Street,New York ,NY10014
ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM
SHEILA E. GILBERT
PUBLISHERS
http://www.dowboolts.com
Copyright © 2003 by The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
All Rights Reserved.
Cover Art by Romas Kukalis.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1257.
DAW Books are distributed by the Penguin Group (USA).
Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics, Inc.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen
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publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
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First paperback printing, June 2004 123456789 10
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S.PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA TEGISTRADA
HECHO ENU.S.A.
PRrNTED IN THEU.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 andHundredKingdoms 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.
AsMarion '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 toArilinnTower 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 theHiddenCity 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
摘要:

ZANDRU'SFORGE BOOKTWOOF TheClingfireTrilogy  MARIONZIMMERBRADLEYANDDEBORAHJ.ROSSDAWBOOKS,INC.DONALDA. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER375HudsonStreet,NewYork,NY10014ELIZABETHR.WOLLHEIMSHEILAE.GILBERTPUBLISHERShttp://www.dowboolts.com Copyright©2003byTheMarionZimmerBradleyLiteraryWorksTrustAllRightsReserved.CoverAr...

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