Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Darkover - Stormqueen

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STORMQUEEN!

Marion Zimmer Bradley

AGES OF CHAOS 01 - A NOVEL OF

DARKOVER

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digital back-up edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

valid XHTML 1.0 strict

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Contents

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DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER

1301 Avenue of the Americas

ew York, N. Y. 10019

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BRADLEY

Cover art by Michael Whelan

FIRST PRINTING, JUNE 1978

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

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DEDICATION

To Catherine L. Moore

First Lady of Science Fiction

I have ceased, I hope, the imitation which is said to be the

sincerest form of flattery. I shall never outgrow, I hope, the

desire to emulate; nor the admiration, the affection, and the

inspiration which she has created in every woman who writes

science fiction and fantasy—and in most of the men, too!

—

MZB

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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Ever since the third or fourth of the Darkover novels, my

surprisingly faithful readers have been writing in to me, asking,

in essence, “Why don’t you write a novel about the Ages of

Chaos?”

For a long time I demurred, hesitating to do this; to me the

essence of the Darkover novels seemed to be just this—the

clash of cultures between Darkovan and Terran. If I had

acceded to their request to write about a time “before the

coming of the Terrans,” it seemed to me, the very essence of

the Darkover novels would have been removed, and what

remained would be very much like any of a thousand other

science-fantasy novels dealing with alien worlds where people

have alien powers and alien concerns.

It was my readers who finally persuaded me to attempt this.

If every reader who actually writes to an author represents only

a hundred who do not (and I am told the figure is higher than

this) there must be, by now, several thousand readers out there

who are interested and curious about the time known as the

Ages of Chaos; the time before the Comyn had firmly

established an alliance of their seven Great Houses to rule over

the Domains; and also the height of the Towers, and of that

curious technology known then as “starstone” and later

becoming the science of matrix mechanics.

Readers of The Forbidden Tower will want to know that

Stormqueen deals with a time before Varzil, Keeper of

Neskaya, known as “the Good,” perfected the techniques

allowing women to serve as Keepers in the Towers of the

Comyn.

In The Shattered Chain, Lady Rohana says;

“There was a time in the history of the Comyn when we did

selective breeding to fix these gifts in our racial heritage; it was

a time of great tyranny, and not a time we are very proud to

remember.”

This is a story of the men and women who lived under that

tyranny, and how it affected their lives, and the lives of those

who came after them on Darkover.

—

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

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STORMQUEEN!

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CHAPTER ONE

^ »

The storm was wrong somehow.

That was the only way Donal could think of it… wrong

somehow. It was high summer in the mountains called the

Hellers, and there should have been no storms except for the

never-ending snow flurries on the far heights above the

timberline, and the rare savage thunderstorms that swooped

down across the valleys, bouncing from peak to peak and

leaving flattened trees and sometimes fire in the path of their

lightnings.

Yet, though the sky was blue and cloudless, thunder

crackled low in the distance, and the very air seemed filled with

the tension of a storm. Donal crouched on the heights of the

battlement, stroking with one finger the hawk cradled in the

curve of his arm, crooning half-absently to the restless bird. It

was the storm in the air, the electric tension, he knew, which

was frightening the hawk. He should never have taken it from

the mews today—it would serve him right if the old

hawkmaster beat him, and a year ago he would probably have

done so without much thought. But now things were different.

Donal was only ten, but there had been many changes in his

short life. And this was one of the most drastic, that within the

change of a few moons hawkmaster and tutors and grooms now

called him—not that-brat-Donal, with cuffs and pinches and

even blows, merited and unmerited, but, with new and fawning

respect—young-master-Donal.

Certainly life was easier for Donal now, but the very change

made him uneasy; for it had not come about from anything he

had done. It had something to do with the fact that his mother,

Aliciane of Rockraven, now shared the bed of Dom Mikhail,

Lord of Aldaran, and was soon to bear him a child.

Only once, a long time ago (two midsummer festivals had

come and gone), had Aliciane spoken of these things to her son.

“Listen carefully to me, Donal, for I shall say this once only

and never again. Life is not easy for a woman unprotected.”

Donal’s father had died in one of the small wars, which raged

among the vassals of the mountain lords, before Donal could

remember him; their lives had been s

ent as unre

arded

oor

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relations in the home of one kinsman after another, Donal

wearing castoffs of this cousin and that, riding always the worst

horse in the stables, hanging around unseen when cousins and

kinsmen learned the skills of arms, trying to pick up what he

could by listening.

“I could put you to fosterage; your father had kinsmen in

these hills, and you could grow up to take service with one of

them. Only for me there would be nothing but to be drudge or

sewing-woman, or at best minstrel in a stranger’s household,

and I am too young to find that endurable. So I have taken

service as singing-woman to Lady Deonara; she is frail, and

aging, and has borne no living children. Lord Aldaran is said to

have an eye for beauty in women. And I am beautiful, Donal.”

Donal had hugged Aliciane fiercely; indeed she was

beautiful, a slight girlish woman, with flame-bright hair and

gray eyes, who looked too young to be the mother of a boy

eight years old.

“What I am about to do, I do it at least partly for you, Donal.

My kin have cast me off for it; do not condemn me if I am ill-

spoken by those who do not understand.”

Indeed it seemed, at first, that Aliciane had done this more

for her son’s good than her own: Lady Deonara was kind but

had the irritability of all chronic invalids, and Aliciane had been

quenched and quiet, enduring Deonara’s sharpness and the

shrewish envy of the other women with goodwill and

cheerfulness. But Donal for the first time in his life had whole

clothing made to his measure, horse and hawk of his own,

shared the tutor and the arms-master of Lord Aldaran’s

fosterlings and pages. That summer Lady Deonara had borne

the last of a series of stillborn sons; and Mikhail, Lord of

Aldaran, had taken Aliciane of Rockraven as barragana and

sworn to her that her child, male or female, should be

legitimated, and be heir to his line, unless he might someday

father a legitimate son. She was Lord Aldaran’s acknowledged

favorite—even Deonara loved her and had chosen her for her

lord’s bed—and Donal shared her eminence. Once, even, Lord

Mikhail, gray and terrifying, had called Donal to him, saying he

had good reports from tutor and arms-master, and had drawn

him into a kindly embrace. “I would indeed you were mine by

blood, foster-son. If your mother bears me such a son I will be

well content, my boy.”

Donal had stammered, “I thank you, kinsman,” without the

courage, yet, to call the old man “foster-father.” Young as he

was, he knew that if his mother should bear Lord Aldaran his

onl

livin

child, son or dau

hter, then he would be hal

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