E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 16 - Haven of Darkness

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Haven of Darkness
#16 in the Dumarest series
E. C Tubb
Chapter One
Delusia came unexpectedly so that she continued riding
towards the north, forgetting the passage of time in the
stimulating conversation with Charles. He looked well as he rode
easily at her side, his clothes the same as she remembered him
wearing when, shortly after they had first met, he had attended
her on a hunt. The bag had been negligible; some vermin tossed
aside on the homeward journey, but the pleasure had been great.
They had wandered, hands touching, talking of a variety of
things with a irresistible torrent of words. Normally shy she had
found a release in his presence while he, perhaps amused at her
young eager attention, had relaxed the guard he usually wore.
Now, riding close to her side, he was the same suave,
charming man she had known when little more than a girl. A
long time ago now and she had known him when he looked other
than he did at the moment. There had been lines tracing the
smooth curve of his cheek and a sagging of the flesh beneath the
chin. The old, familiar manner had become crusted with
accumulated layers of distrust and, when he had finally died,
killed in some stupid quarrel, he had resembled an old and tired
man rather than the youth she chose to remember.
"Charles!" She lifted her whip and pointed ahead to where a
narrow cleft showed in the bleak wall of the Iron Mountains.
"That gulley, you see it? The first to reach it claims a forfeit. Go!"
A childish game and one she hadn't played for years now and
she had a moment's wonder as to why she should choose to play
it now. A return to her youth, perhaps, her childhood? The
fiction of a happier time? If so she knew better, for her childhood
had not been happy and the things it contained were best
forgotten.
Leaning forward, heels drumming, she concentrated on the
race. Beneath her she could feel the surge and pulse of muscle as
her mount sent iron-shod hooves against the bare rock of the
foothills. In her nostrils she could smell the odors of sweat and
hair, of leather and oil, catch too the sensual scent of the beast; a
mare close to seasonal heat—had that scent triggered her own
femininity?
The drumming of the hooves softened as they hit a film of
drifted soil; grains carried by the winds and trapped in the
shelter of the cleft. Dull echoes rose to be caught and reflected by
the soaring walls of either side. Before them shadows lay dense,
sombre banks of thickening darkness which hid what lay beyond
and seemed to hide the hint of movement.
Abruptly the mare came to a halt, raring, forelegs rising, eyes
rolling, foam dropping from bared teeth and muzzle. A move
which almost threw her, would have thrown her had she not
been about to check the forward motion of the animal.
"Steady, girl! Steady!"
Charles, of course, had vanished, but she thought nothing of
him as she ran her hands over the head and muzzle of the
frightened beast, soothing the animal with words and touch. And
the mare had reason to be afraid. She had ridden too long and
wandered too far and now it was dangerously close to night.
Looking up she saw the edges of the gulley framing a strip of
purple sky palely flecked with the ghosts of stars. The suns were
invisible, coming into view only when she had left the mountains
and begun the journey home.
They were lower than she had thought and she cursed the
delusia which had robbed her of elementary caution. Already the
day was dying, the light diffused, the air holding a metallic taint,
but with luck, she decided, she could just about make it. If it
hadn't been for the stupid race with Charles she would have had
no doubt but now, literally, it was a matter of life and death.
"Go!" She snapped to the mare. "Run for your life now, girl.
Run!"
She helped, easing the stirrups, loosening the reins, placing
her weight so as to help and not to hamper the rhythm of the
animal. There was little more she could do. To have halted and
removed the saddle would have lost time and the saving of
weight was not as important as it would seem. The beast was
accustomed to the saddle and she was not skilled in bare-backed
riding.
"Move, girl! Move!"
It was no time to be gentle. The spurs she wore more for
decoration than for actual use dug into the heaving flanks, the
sting of the whip accentuating their message of urgency. Beneath
her she felt the animal bound, fresh life sent to tiring muscles,
the stride lengthening a little now they had reached flatter
ground. Behind them the bulk of the mountains began to shrink
as the ground streamed past around and below. The speed of
their passage created a wind which thrummed against her face
and caught her hair, tearing it free from the golden clasps which
held it, fanning the thick, black tresses and sending them to
stream like a silken pennant from the rounded contour of her
head.
"On!" she urged. "On, girl! On!"
The sound of her voice acted as had the whip and spurs. Foam
flew from the muzzle and the lungs strained in the barrel of the
chest. A machine, bred and trained for strength, speed and
obedience, the animal raced through the thickening darkness
towards the haven which alone could save it. On its back the
woman, sensing its fear and terror, conscious of her own, bit at
her lower lip until blood stained her chin, the gleaming white
perfection of her teeth.
Ellman's Rest, a gnarled and oddly shaped mass of wood and
stone, the great tree surrounded by the rock which it had
shattered by the relentless fury of its growth, appeared on her
right. Wisps of night-mist wreathed it, tattered veils which
blurred detail so that for a moment she thought it was a creature
of the unknown standing with outstretched arms to snatch her
from the back of her mount, to crush her, to rend the limbs from
her body and to tear free her internal organs. A moment of
illusion, then the thing was behind and now only a few miles lay
between her and the castle.
"We're winning," she said to the laboring animal. "Keep it up,
girl. We're winning!"
The suns were behind her, the magenta and violet, their discs
blended, now both below the horizon. Night was closing in,
limiting her vision so that it was impossible to make out detail
more than a few feet to either side, a little more ahead. Before
her the trail wound like a snake, the narrow path curving
between boulders, around looming mounds, straightening only
to twist again. A bad road to take at speed even in the full light
of day. One suicidal to attempt at a gallop on the edge of night.
"On, girl! On!"
The crest lay ahead, beyond it the curve, then the slope and, at
last, a clear view of the castle. Once past the crest the road ran
downhill and, beyond the curve, it was wide and evenly smooth.
A place maintained for racing but never before had she raced
with such determination to win. She would, she thought as they
neared it, set a new record. Certainly it would be one which she
never intended to break under similar circumstances.
Then, as something moved in the dimness, the animal shied.
There had been no warning, no intimation and, lulled by the
nearing safety, she had relaxed a little. Too late she grabbed at
the reins, felt the animal rear, and then was falling, hurtling
through the air to land with a bone-jarring thud, her vision laced
with darting flashes. As they cleared she rose and looked around.
The animal had fallen and lay, screaming, on the dirt.
"It's hurt," said Charles. He stood at her side and looked at the
stricken beast. "A broken leg, see?"
She didn't need the guidance of his pointing finger to discover
the injury.
"Something frightened it. An animal of some kind crossing
the trail." His voice was soft, even. "Nothing you need worry
about. But the animal—you'll have to kill it."
The mare was young, healthy, a magnificent specimen of her
species. She could be drugged, the leg mended with internal
splints.
"You'll have to kill her," insisted Charles. "It's too dark to do
anything else. You know that. You have no choice. At least be
kind."
To the animal and then, perhaps, to herself. She looked
around, shivering, feeling the skin crawl on her back and
shoulders. The pull and drag of her loose tresses felt like hands
tugging at her scalp. Their touch rasped dust and dirt over her
tunic, little scraping sounds which, because near, rose above the
screaming of the beast.
"Steady, girl!" She took small steps forward, talking, smiling
as she spoke, one hand behind her, the fingers lifting the
compact laser from her belt. "Steady, girl! Steady!"
The animal looked at her, eyes rolling, ears pricked, teeth
bared in fright and pain. She stepped closer, kneeled beside the
head, lifted the laser to rest its muzzle within the confines of an
ear.
"Now," said Charles firmly. "Now!"
A click and it was done, the beam drilling through flesh and
bone into the mass of the brain bringing quick and merciful
peace.
Rising she looked down at the dead animal. It would be
waiting for her and, should she follow it, they could ride again.
As Charles would be waiting and so many others. A touch and it
would be done.
"Lavinia! Lavinia, don't!"
She heard the shout and the thud of racing hooves, turned to
see the dim figure in the dying light. Roland with a spare mount
at his side.
"Up, girl!" he said urgently as he drew to a halt at her side.
"Mount and ride!"
Delusia? The animals were real and Roland was alive as far as
she knew. Quickly she mounted and felt the pound of hooves as
the beast carried her down the road. Ahead loomed the bulk of
the castle, the gates wide, closing as they rode past them,
slamming shut as the great curfew-bell sent throbbing echoes
into the air.
"My lady, you are safe!" Old Giacomo, his face creased and
seamed like the skin of a dried fruit, helped her to dismount.
"The Old Ones heard my prayers!"
"And mine, my lady." A younger man, his son, she thought,
touched a finger to his brow with due respect for her rank.
Already he had presumed too far. "I also begged for the Old Ones
to protect you."
"And I, my lady! And I!"
A sussuration, a chorus of voices, muttering, blending into a
drone, turning words into things without meaning. For a
moment she swayed, seeing the great courtyard filled with a
great assembly, the host dotted with familiar faces. Fan de
Turah, Ser M'tolah, Chun Chue, Tianark L'ouck— uncles and
cousins and forebears whose portraits now hung in the galleries.
Nobles who had come to stay and fight and die for the Family.
Strangers whom she had never known but who now filled her
castle. Generations which had lived and died before her own
parents had been conceived.
"Lavinia!" Roland was at her side, his hand on her arm, his
face anxious. "My dear, are you ill?"
"No."
"You look so pale." Gently he pushed back the thick strands of
hair which had fallen over her cheek. "And your tunic is soiled.
Did you fall?"
"Yes." She anticipated his concern. "It was nothing. Some
bruises, perhaps, but nothing more."
"Even so a physician should examine you. Tomorrow I will
send for one or, better, accompany you into town."
"No!" Always the tone of authority irritated her and yet she
realized her sharpness had been uncalled for. He meant well and,
of them all, he alone had ridden out for her. "No, Roland," she
said more gently. "I'm not hurt. A hot bath and some massage is
all I need."
He said, stiffly, "As you wish, my lady. I have no right to order,
and yet I think you are being unwise."
"My lady?" She smiled and shook her head. "Roland you are
my cousin and my friend. What need of such stiff formality? And
where would I be now if you had not come to rescue me?"
A question he chose not to answer. Instead, as they walked
from the courtyard towards the inner chambers, he said, "You
were late, Lavinia. I was worried. What happened? Delusia?"
"Yes." She threw back her hair as they entered the corridor
leading to her apartment. "Charles came to ride with me. He
looked as I remembered him when we first met. Do you
remember?"
"I was off world at the time," he said. "A business trip to
Olmeyha."
"But you remember Charles, surely?"
"Yes." He looked down at his hands. They were thin, the
knuckles prominent, the fingers too long for perfect symmetry.
Only the nails, carefully polished and filed, revealed the
fastidiousness of his nature. "Yes," he said again. "I remember
him."
"The way he talked," she mused. "He opened doors for me
which I didn't even know existed. The things he had done and
intended to do. Had he lived I think I would have shared them."
"As the consort of an aging degenerate?" His tone was sharp,
savagely dry. "Charles was older than you suspected, Lavinia.
You were young then, little more than a child, trusting,
impressionable, a little—"
"Foolish?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you meant it." Anger glowed in her eyes and turned the
dark orbs into pools of smouldering fire. "Is that what you think
of me?"
"No. Lavinia, don't jump to conclusions."
"Young," she said. "Little more than a child. Trusting.
Impressionable. Well, perhaps all that is true, even though I was
more than a child. But foolish? No. Not unless it is foolish to
ache to learn. Stupid to want to be a woman. Do you still think I
was a fool?"
"To be charmed by Charles, yes." Stubbornly he refused to
yield. "I knew him, perhaps not too well, but better than you did.
He was a lecher, a gambler, a degenerate. Think, girl, it was
written on his face. You saw him at the last."
"He'd been ill!"
"Yes." Roland looked again at his hands. "Yes, he'd been ill."
Wasting from the effects of a corrosive poison fed to him by
an outraged husband, but what need to explain that? The girl
was enamored of a dream, the slave to memory.
She said, gently, "Roland, my friend, we have been quarreling
and that is wrong. I owe you my life. Between us should be
nothing but harmony. If I have offended you I beg your
forgiveness. You will give it?"
He took her extended hands into his own, feeling their soft
firmness, their grace, their warmth. Tilting his head he looked
into her eyes, deep-set under high-arched brows, studying the
glow of light reflected from her cheekbones, the line of her jaw.
The mouth was full, the lower lip, swollen from the impact of her
teeth, a ruby pout. Her ears were small and tight against the
curve of her skull. The hair, disheveled now, was an ebon mane
streaked with a band of silver.
"My lady!" He stooped so as to hide the worship in his eyes.
"Roland!" Her hands freed themselves from his grasp, one
touching his hair, running over the thinning strands. "My friend!
My very good friend!"
"Lavinia!"
"I must bathe and change." She turned from him, seeing a
figure standing beside her door, waiting. "We shall meet again at
dinner. And, Roland, once again my thanks."
Charles accompanied her through the portal and stood
watching as she stripped. The bath was hot, the scented water
easing aches and pains, a cloud of steam rising to dim the lines
of the chamber, the figure of her maid.
"A dreadful thing, my lady," she said. She had heard the news
as servants always did. Often Lavinia had wondered just how
they knew all that was going on. "To think of you being shut
outside! Lord Acrae insisted the curfew shouldn't be rung until
he'd brought you safe inside and he set men to enforce his
orders. But what if something had happened, my lady? Suppose
his mount had fallen? What if night had fallen before you were
back inside?"
"If you had wings, girl, you'd be a bird."
"My lady?"
"Forget it." It was cruel to talk in ways the girl couldn't
understand. "True night falls when the curfew is sounded," she
explained. "Or, to put it another way, only when the curfew bell
is rung has true night fallen. Do you understand?"
"I—I think so, my lady."
She didn't and Lavinia waved her away. She was too ignorant
to understand the subtle difference between night falling and a
bell sounding the failing of night. A bell could be delayed and
Roland had done just that. He had been shrewder than she'd
known. The difference could only have been in minutes, perhaps,
but those minutes would or could have made all the difference.
At least the Pact had not been obviously flaunted and the
Sungari had no grounds for complaint.
"Charles?" She looked through the drifting steam but the
figure had vanished. Delusia had passed. It would return but she
missed him.
Would they have married had he lived?
Lying in the steaming, scented water she ran her hands over
the curves and silken skin of her body. It was a good one, she
knew, even though not as young as once it had been. The time for
marriage had come and gone with her father failing in his duty,
her uncle more concerned with his own affairs, her mother
turning to the past and finally swallowing poison to be with the
object of an early passion.
Alone she had worked to maintain the Family estates, the
castle, the house in town. Retainers needed money for food and
clothing, dowries had to be provided for the female servants,
homes and work for the men. Some of the young had become
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ScannedbyHighroller.ProofedbythebestELFproofer.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.HavenofDarkness#16intheDumarestseriesE.CTubbChapterOneDelusiacameunexpectedlysothatshecontinuedridingtowardsthenorth,forgettingthepassageoftimeinthestimulatingconversationwithCharles.Helookedwellasherodeeasi...

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