Varzil held himself steady as Harald lurched past him and into the arms of his people. Varzil’s eyes never left those of the catman. In the back of his mind, he tasted iron once again. The catman were watching to see if he kept his promise.
Eiric’s men retreated down the tunnel, supporting Harald. They’d taken the torch; only an unsteady glimmer lit the little cave. The eyes of the catman flashed red and then vanished. Even as Varzil turned to follow the men, he knew that he was alone in the cave.
He caught up with them in a few turnings, for Eiric had called a halt to wait for him. Harald was still on his feet, but wavering. Despite the fever from his wound, his dark eyes were clear.
“What—what happened?” Harald asked.
“A sorcerer, your brother is,” one of the men said.
“Varzil?”
Varzil took one of Harald’s arms and Eiric took the other. “Let’s get out of here. That bunch is no longer our concern.”
“Now we know where they’ve laired, or nearabouts, we can come after them as it suits us,” Eiric said.
“No. ” Varzil spoke the word quietly, but he sensed its effect upon the men. “That you must not do. I made a bargain with them. The sheep and immunity in exchange for Harald.”
“Bargain?” Eiric said, but his voice betrayed him. He was ready to believe anything, for there was no other explanation for what he himself had witnessed. “I... I saw no bargain.”
“I have given the word of the Ridenow, as close as these creatures can understand. You will not dishonor that oath.”
They spoke no more until they had come out on the ledge and gazed down upon the hillside in the full morning sun. Once they’d reached the horses, with food and water in the saddlebags, they halted to wash and dress Harald’s wounds.
Varzil knelt at Harald’s side and took the fevered hands within his own. With a tug, Harald indicated he should bend down for private speech.
“At first, I thought you were just another dream,” Harald said in a half-whisper. “A raving born from my poisoned wound. But you were calling to me, weren’t you? And you somehow touched the mind of that cat-monster, near enough to get it to back off.”
“I offered it the sheep, free and clear, if it would let you go.”
“They would as like have had the sheep anyway.” Harald coughed, shifted. “We’ll have to get moving soon. Father will be half beside himself.”
“Oh, he’s already that,” Varzil replied.
“How—how did you know to do that? We’ve had the same lessons and I know I could never have communicated with that creature. Yet... you’ve never been to a Tower.”
“No, but I want to.”
Something happened to me at Arilinn—an awakening, an opening—or I would not have been able to do what I did here.
No, Arilinn was behind him, no matter what Auster said. He had made his choice—to be his father’s son.
Varzil’s fingers clenched around his brother‘s, loosening only at the reflexive wince. “Father thinks—” the words came tumbling out with all the pent-up intensity of the last few hours, “he thinks I have not enough laran to be worth training.” He broke off. He would not beg, not from his father, not from anyone in the Ridenow clan.
Harald’s brow furrowed, his eyes darkening. “Not enough laran—only enough to do what no one has ever done before, forge a bargain with a catman!” His gaze flickered to Varzil’s. “I would not be alive without this laran of yours. Such a Gift must not be lost. Arilinn it shall be, if I have to storm their walls myself. I will speak with Father. You will have your chance.”
By the time the rescue party stumbled into the yard at Sweetwater, Harald’s fever had broken. He swayed in the saddle, his face pasty with weakness, but he refused a makeshift litter. In that, Varzil thought he was very like their father. As soon as they were spotted, a group of men came galloping to meet them. Dom Felix rode at their head.
Varzil watched his father take his oldest son and heir into his arms, the old eyes reddening with tears. For an instant, he wished his father could embrace him with the same unabashed love. He knew, with a strange new certainty that had grown upon him since his visit to Arilinn, that his father did love him, and that love underlay his resistance in sending a frail and undersized child into such a den of wizardry. Like the Keeper at Arilinn, he worried what might happen to Varzil’s health.
Unlike Varzil, who wanted peculiar and unheard-of things, Harald was an uncomplicated son, his desires as clear and straightforward to Dom Felix as his own. They were of a mind; they understood one another. Dom Felix could never comprehend a temperament like Varzil‘s, and no amount of paternal love could overcome such an absence of sympathy.
Once they’d come up to the main house at Sweetwater, Varzil went to help put the horses away. He fully expected that Harald’s fever would sweep away his promise, and he held out small hope of his brother being able to persuade Lord Felix.
So Varzil was a little surprised when, the next morning, his father summoned him to a private conversation. The old man stood before him, cheeks dusky, shifting minutely from one foot to the other.
“Harald has told me of the circumstances of his rescue. He said that you negotiated with the catmen for his release. How were you able to do that? They have no language a man can speak.”
Either he will believe me or he will not, but I will speak the truth. “I was able to reach their leader with my thoughts.”
“By laran?”
Varzil nodded. By that very laran you say is not worth training. Without meaning to, he projected the thought.
Dom Felix drew in a breath and his eyes, rheumy with the intense emotions of the last few days, brightened.
“I—I may have been mistaken. You were a dreamstruck, idle youngster, but you have always been truthful. If you say you communicated with the catman by laran, then that is what happened. Such a Gift cannot be ignored or discarded. You must have proper training—if not at Arilinn, then somewhere else.”
Varzil lifted his chin, unable to speak.
“If you wish it, my son, to Arilinn you shall go this very morning, with not only my blessing but my humble request for your admittance.” At Varzil’s astonished expression, he hastened to add, “I have done you wrong in thinking you less than you are, and I would make things right.”
Your brother lives because of your Gift; it would be as ill-done to keep you here as to chain a dragon to roast my meat.
Varzil could not speak, only move into the circle of his father’s arms. When he could finally draw away and gather up the few possessions he cared to take, the aircar was waiting to take him back to Arilinn.
7
Varzil paused beneath the arches leading to the central chamber of Arilinn Tower. It was hard to believe he was really here to stay. Even as the aircar returned him to the city of Arilinn, he’d braced himself for some last-minute disappointment. Perhaps the Keeper would stand by his first refusal or his father would summon him back home on some pretext. But nothing he feared had come to pass. The Keeper offered no explanation for his change of heart, only conveyed his willingness to give Varzil a place as a probationary novice. Bewildered by the rapidity of recent events and their unexpected reversals, Varzil asked no questions. It was enough to be here, to belong here.
Tapestries and floor mosaics glowed in gemstone hues. A fire danced in the hearth, casting a friendly orange light on the faces of the people seated in a rough semicircle on the chairs and cushioned benches. He had not realized how many lived and worked at Arilinn.
To one side, a young woman with hair so intensely red it ri valed the flames plucked a small harp known as a rryl. Varzil didn’t know her, although he’d been introduced to the man accompanying her on lap drum—Fidelis, who had taken him inside the Tower on that very first morning and would teach him monitoring. The middle-aged woman warbling her way through ballad verses in an obscure dialect of cahuenga was Lunilla, house mother and matrix mechanic. He’d met her and several
of the others during his first visit here and could still remember how she’d bossed him about like his aunt Ysabet.
In that instant, he knew she was aware of him, though she went right on with the next verse. She, and everyone else in the room. The sense of being stranded in a foreign country intensified. More than firelight bound these people to one another. Something in the air... a humming along his nerves.
Varzil? Fidelis turned to look directly at him, a smile crinkling the comers of his eyes. He was the same age as Dom Felix, with only a trace of chestnut left in his white hair.
Varzil wondered uneasily whether he should reply aloud.
It’s quite all right. I just wanted to see if you heard me. We don’t read each other’s minds casually or without permission. But even Durraman’s donkey, blind as the hills and twice as deaf, could tell how awkward you feel, standing there alone. Come over and join us.
Varzil lifted his chin and walked into the room. He was too shy to join in, for his singing voice, never very good, would probably come out like the croak of the frog hidden in Fra’ Domenic’s infamous pockets. He hesitated to join the older people’s conversations, not before he’d sorted out the lines of influence, who had opposed his admission and who had taken his part. Then he spotted Carlo and the other youth from the balcony, sitting over a board game. Carlo’s height and fiery hair were unmistakable.
Carlo gestured him closer. “Do you play castles? We need a fresh challenger.”
Varzil dipped his head. “Yes, I used to play with my grandfather. But I don’t want to interrupt your game.”
“Oh, this one’s dead anyway.” Carlo indicated the pieces spread across the board. “We’ve worn the play to exhaustion, just like a bad war. Now there’s nothing left but to thwack away at each other until the bitter end. What’s the fun in that?”
“That’s the point of the entire game,” said the other boy, “to persevere until victory.”
Now that he saw the other boy close up, Varzil was struck by how serious, almost grim, he looked. Unlike most of the others, his hair was brown rather than red, his arched brows dark against pale, unblemished skin. His features were thin, the deep blue eyes stark, the mouth small above a pointed chin. Yet there was no delicacy about him, rather a steely strength.
“I rather thought,” Carlo said dryly, “that the point was to exercise one’s mind. Not to mention an amusing way of passing the hours on long winter nights. Stubborn endurance has nothing to do with it.”
Endurance—the very word which had sprung to Varzil’s mind as he’d steeled himself for the long wait outside Arilinn Tower on that first frosty morning.
“I think endurance has everything to do with it,” he said, clearly startling the others. “Sometimes the board is very tidy and full of possibilities. But sometimes,” he copied Carlo’s gesture, encompassing the board with its assortment of lackluster pieces, “it’s like this, and you just have to keep trying. That’s the real challenge, isn’t it? To create something of meaning when all seems lost.”
Eduin gave him a surprised look, but Carlo laughed. “You remind me of my riding master, who said the true test of a horseman was not what he could do on a spirited horse, for any ham-handed dolt could look good on a beast that’s prancing and eager to go. To take a worn-out stable drudge with a mouth like saddle leather and bring it to life—that requires real skill.”
“He’s mocking us, Carlo,” Eduin said, glaring at Varzil.
“You have little grounds to object,” Carlo replied with good humor. “After all, he’s taking your part.”
Varzil did not know what he had done to provoke Eduin, but clearly the dark-haired boy disliked him. In another circumstance, he would have apologized, but he sensed that nothing he said would appease Eduin. So he pulled the third stool back a little from the table and sat down, murmuring, “Please go on.”
Eduin turned away, but before Carlo could comment, an older man in formal green robes rose. There was a general bustle as most of the others put away books or musical instruments. One woman tucked away her sewing in a basket and got to her feet.
“Well, that settles it,” Eduin said with an obvious attempt at better humor. “You two can thwack away at each other all night.” Some of us have work to do.
Carlo shrugged and turned back to the board. In a few minutes, only the red-haired girl and another younger one, with a mass of strawberry-blonde ringlets pulled back with a ribbon, and the two boys were left in the room.
The red-haired girl began singing a ballad in a low, sweet voice. Varzil could not make out all the words, but he recognized the melody. The song told the story of the fall of Neskaya and Tramontana, how the folk in one Tower had been forced to rain psychic lightnings upon their kinfolk in the other. Torn between love and duty, sworn brothers had chosen to immolate themselves rather than commit such an atrocity. It was a stirring melody, one which sent blood pounding and toes tapping.
Carlo hummed along, his body swaying unself-consciously. Finally, the last refrain came to an end and the girls headed off toward their chambers.
After they had gone, Varzil could not have said what part of the song moved him. He had heard it many times in different versions over the years. Nor was the girl’s performance, while pleasant enough, especially compelling. He only knew that the boy beside him had felt the same stirring of emotion. Perhaps, he told himself, it was being here in Arilinn, a place very much like the Towers of the song, among people very like those same heroes, and knowing himself to be one of them. Would he come to value them as ardently? Auster and Fidelis, even Lunilla, already had his respect and admiration, In time, Carlo would, too—but Eduin?
Varzil took a breath and let it out in a sigh. “I’m afraid I’ve already made an enemy,” he said. “And I don’t know why.”
“You mean Eduin? I’m glad you don’t consider me one.” Carlo said with an engaging grin. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a good enough sort once you get to know him. He is a bit serious, I suppose. He’s been here four years and is already training at the higher levels. He has a right to feel a bit superior to those of us who don’t have work in the circles.”
“You don’t?”
“Oh, sometimes, when the work’s not too technically demanding. I do whatever I’m allowed to, but everyone knows I’m not here to stay. I suppose you could say I’m on sojourn, training for the throne and not the Tower.”
“The—? Who—who are you, Carlo?”
Carlo dipped his head, showing the first hint of diffidence. “I thought you knew.” Eyes filled with gray light met Varzil’s. “I’m Carolin Hastur.”
Carolin Hastur. Hastur of Hastur, nephew and heir to King Felix. The death of Rafael II made Carolin the next ruler of the most powerful branch of the Hastur Kingdom.
It had been over two centuries since the Peace of Allart Hastur, which had brought an end to the long, bloody conflict between Ridenow and Hastur. Yet war still smoldered in the Hundred Kingdoms, breaking out in a dozen smaller conflicts. Hastur and Ridenow had not found themselves on opposing sides... yet.
On impulse, Varzil reached out and placed his fingers between Carolin’s loosely folded hands. It was not quite a gesture of fealty, and it would not have been fitting in any case.
Whatever happens, we two will be as brothers.
We must, came Carolin’s thought. Then, aloud, “I do not know why, but you belong here in this Tower, just as I belong in the world, and that for the sake of our world, we must build a bridge between the two.”
Like the bredini of the song. Embarrassed by his own romantic sentiment, Varzil pulled away. Without the physical contact, they dropped out of rapport. Something remained, as if they had indeed sworn themselves in that brief moment.
Everyone at Arilinn worked, not only at study and the discipline of laran, but the physical labor of maintaining the Tower. Lunilla was a masterful organizer, so within a week of Varzil’s arrival, he was taking his turns at pot scrubbing, floor sweeping, onion peeling, bu
ndling linens into the town for laundry, and other errands.
“The kyrri are useful in their fashion,” she said, forestalling objections she’d heard a hundred times, “but they don’t think the way humans do. We’ve learned never to let them near a dirty plate or a basket of apples.”
One frosty morning about a month after he’d arrived at Arilinn, Varzil went out with Carolin, Eduin, Cerriana, and young Valentina, the girl with the ringlets, to pick apples. A small orchard of tart green fruit, perfect for pies and sauces, had been donated to the Tower by a grateful merchant whose wife and son had been saved in childbirth by the Tower monitors.
They made a festive caravan with Carolin mounted on his fine horse, Eduin on a mule, and the rest trotting along on pannier-laden stag ponies. Varzil had to cross his legs over the beast’s withers because of the huge wicker baskets. He jounced along the road, his rump getting ever more bruised.
By the time the young people arrived at the orchard, the sun had already melted the frost, although white still laced the shadows. The orchard lay on the lowest slopes of the western Twin Peak. Many of the trees were old, misshapen by decades of neglect. Someone with more enthusiasm than skill had taken a pruning saw to them, Varzil saw. Heavily knotted branches stretched out in unbalanced array, giving the trees the appearance of dancers in a tipsy Midsummer revel. The branches bowed under the glossy emerald-toned fruit.
They hobbled the horse and mule, leaving the chervines to graze. Eduin and Cerriana, who had worked in this orchard in seasons past, drew out the wooden ladders and aprons from the little shed. In her enormous canvas apron, Valentina looked like a doll dressed by a seaman.
Cerriana had no head for heights, so she and Valentina took the lowest branches, those which could be reached on foot. Eduin and Carolin started on the biggest tree, at the end of the row. Within a few minutes, they’d left the ladder behind to perch on the twisted branches.
Varzil placed his ladder in his usual careful way, studying the branches. Applewood wasn’t supple like willow. Those limbs, as heavily laden as they were, could snap in a rough wind. As he climbed, the tree creaked under his weight.