“I am cursed,” said Aldaran, softly and bitterly. “I was cursed the day she was born, and I did not know it. You tried to warn me, and I did not hear. It is I who deserve death, and it took only my children, my innocent children.”
“Let me go and consult my colleagues in the Towers, Lord Aldaran.”
“And spread far and wide the news of the shame of Aldaran? No, Lady Renata. It was I who brought this awful curse to our world; without malice, and in love, but still it was I. Now I shall destroy it.”
He drew his dagger, raised it above Dorilys, and brought it suddenly striking down. But from the prostrate form there came a blue flash and Aldaran fell back, knocked half across the room, the breath gone from his body. When Allart picked him up he struggled for breath and for a moment Allart feared he was dying.
Renata shook her head sadly.
“Had you forgotten, my lord? She is a telepath, too. Even in her sleep, she can sense your intent. Although I do not think she would want to live if she knew, there is something in that brain that will protect itself. I do not think we can kill her. I must go to Hali or to Tramontana, my lord.”
Lord Aldaran bowed his head.
“As you will, kinswoman. Will you make ready to ride?”
“There is no time for that—and no need. I will go through the overworld.”
Drawing out her matrix, Renata composed herself for the journey. With one part of herself she was grateful for this disturbance, this desperate need; it deferred the moment when she must face the unendurable fact of Donal’s death. Unasked, Cassandra came to keep watch beside Renata’s body while she made the journey through the intangible realms of the mind.
It was like stepping out of a garment suddenly grown unimaginably too large. For an instant, in the grayness of the shadow-world overlaying the solid and tangible world, Renata could see her body, looking as lifeless as Dorilys’s, wearing the elaborate gown she had put on for the victory feast which had turned to defeat, and Cassandra motionless beside her. Then, moving with the swiftness of thought, she stood on the high peak of Tramontana Tower, wondering why she had been drawn here… then, in the crimson garment of a Keeper, she saw Ian-Mikhail of Tramontana.
He said gently, “So Donal is dead, suddenly and by violence? I was his friend, and his teacher. I must seek him out in the Realms Beyond, Renata. If he died suddenly, and by violence, he may not know he is dead; his mind may be trapped near to his body and he may be helplessly trying to reenter it again. I was uneasy about him; yet I did not know what had befallen him until I saw you, cousin.”
In the intangible spaces of the overworld, where a physical touch could register only as an idea, he gently touched her hand.
“We share your grief, Renata. We all loved him; he should have been one of us in Tramontana. I must go to him.” She saw the small premonitory stirring of the gray spaces which presaged Ian-Mikhail’s withdrawing of his thoughts and presence from her, and caught at his presence with a despairing thought that disturbed the overworld like a cry.
“What of Dorilys, kinsman? What shall we do for her?”
“Alas, I do not know, Renata. Her father would not entrust her to us, and we do not know her. It is a pity; we might have found a way to help her control her laran. But the records of the breeding programs are at Hali and Arilinn. Perhaps they have had some experience, or some advice. Delay me no more, sister; I must go to Donal.”
Renata watched his image in the overworld recede, grow distant. He was going to seek out Donal, dead so suddenly by violence, make certain he did not linger, trapped, near his useless body. Dully Renata envied him. She knew that contact between the dead and the living was perilous for both, and thus forbidden. The dead must not be encouraged to remain too near the grief of the bereaved; the living must not be drawn into realms where, as yet, they had no business. Ian-Mikhail, trained from adolescence to the detachment of a Keeper’s vows, could safely perform this office for his friend without being drawn into overmuch concern. Even so, Renata knew, had Donal been a member of his immediate family, Ian-Mikhail would have ceded this task to another, less personally concerned.
Weary, uncertain, remembering only Donal and her loss, Renata turned her thoughts toward Hali. She struggled for calm, knowing that too much emotion would force her off this plane altogether, but it threatened to overcome her. She knew that if she did not banish the tormenting memories she would break altogether, retreat in to the dream-stuff of the overworld, and never return.
But the grayness of the overworld seemed unending, and while she could see the dimness of the Tower of Hali in the distance, it seemed that although she tried to move toward the Tower, her limbs would not obey her, nor her unruly thoughts. She moved forever in gray uninhabited mental wastelands…
Then, very far away, in the distance, it seemed that she saw a familiar figure, young, laughing, very far away, too far to reach… Donal! Donal, so very far from her! In this realm where thoughts were pliable, something survived… She began to hurry after the retreating figure, sending out a cry of joy.
Donal! Donal, I am here! Wait for me, beloved….
But he was very far away. He did not turn or look at her. She thought, with a last moment of rationality, No; it is forbidden. He has gone into a realm still denied, still inaccessible. This could draw me after him… too far…
I will not go too far. But I must see him again. I must see him only this once, say the good-byes of which we were so cruelly cheated … only this once, and then nevermore…
She hurried after the retreating figure, her thoughts seeming to bear her along swiftly through the grayness of the overworld. When she looked around all the familiar landmarks, the last sight of Hali Tower, had vanished, and she was wholly alone in grayness, with nothing but the small, retreating figure of Donal just at the horizon, drawing her on…
No. This is madness! It is forbidden. I must return before it is too late. She had known this from her first years in the Tower, that there could not be, must not be, any intrusion by the living into whatever realms belonged to the dead, and she knew why. But caution was almost gone in her now. In the despair of grief, she thought, I must see him once more, only once, must kiss him, must say good-bye… I must or I cannot live! Surely it cannot be forbidden, only to say goodbye. I am a trained matrix worker. I know what I am doing, and it will give me the strength to go on living without him…
A final touch of intruding sanity made her wonder if it were truly Donal there on the horizon, leading her away. Or was it an illusion, born of grief and longing, unwillingness to accept the irrevocability of death? Here in the realms of thought, her mind could build an illusion of Donal and follow it till she joined him in those realms.
I do not care! I do not care! It seemed that she was running, running after the retreating form, then more slowly, more despairing, her pace slackening. Unable to move, she sent out a final despairing cry: Donal! Wait—
Suddenly the grayness lightened, thinned, a shadowy form barred her way, and a voice spoke her name; a familiar, gentle voice.
“Renata. Kinswoman, cousin—Renata, no.”
She saw Dorilys standing before her, not the terrifying inhuman lightning flare, not the queen of storms, but the old Dorilys, the little Dorilys of that summer of her love. In this fluid world where all things were as the mind pictured them, Dorilys was the little girl she had been, her hair in a long plait, one of her old childish dresses barely reaching her ankles.
“No, Renata, love, it is not Donal. It is an illusion born of your longing, an illusion you would follow forever. Go back, dear. They need you, there—”
Suddenly Renata saw the hall in Castle Aldaran, where her lifeless body lay, watched by Cassandra.
Renata stopped, looking at Dorilys before her.
She had killed. Killed Donal…
“Not I, but my gift,” Dorilys said, and the childish face was tragic. “I will kill no more, Renata. In my pride and willfulness I would not listen, and now it is too l
ate. You must go back and tell them; I must never wake again.”
Renata bowed her head, knowing the child spoke truth.
“They need you, Renata. Go back. Donal is not here,” Dorilys said. “I, too, could have followed him forever over that horizon. Only, perhaps, now, when there is no pride or desire to blind me, I can see clearly. All my life, I never saw more of Donal than that, an illusion, my own willful belief that he would be what I wanted him to be. I—” Renata saw her face flicker and move and she saw the child Dorilys might have been, the woman she was becoming, would now never be. “I knew he was given to you; I was too selfish to accept it. Now I have not even what he would have given me, willingly. I wanted what he could give only to you.”
She gestured. “Go back, Renata. It is too late for me.”
“But what will become of you, child?”
“You must use your matrix,” Dorilys said, “to isolate me behind a force-field like the ones at Hali… you told me of them, shielding things too dangerous to use. You cannot even kill me, Renata. The gift in my brain works independent now of the real me—I do not understand it, either—but it will strike to protect my body if I am attacked. Even though I no longer desire to live. Renata, cousin, promise me you will not let me destroy any more of those I love!”
It could be done, Renata thought. Dorilys could not be killed. But she could be isolated, her life-forces suspended, behind a force-field.
“Let me sleep so, safe, until it is safe for me to wake,” Dorilys said, and Renata trembled. This would isolate Dorilys in the overworld, alone, behind the force-field which would barricade even her mind.
“Darling, what of you, then?”
Her smile was childish and wise.
“Why, with such a long time—although time, I know, does not exist out here—I shall perhaps learn wisdom, at last, if I continue to live. And if I do not”—a curious, distant smile— “there are others who have gone before me. I do not believe wisdom is ever wasted. Go back, Renata. Do not let me destroy anyone else. Donal is gone beyond my reach, or yours. But you must go back, and you must live, because of his child. He deserves some chance at life.”
With those words Renata found herself lying in the chair in the Great Hall at Castle Aldaran, with the storms breaking above the castle heights…
“It can be done,” Allart said at last quietly. “Among the three of us, it can be done. Her life-forces can be lowered to where she is no danger. Perhaps she will die; perhaps, only, they will be in abeyance and someday she may wake in safety, in control. But more likely she will sink and sink, and finally, perhaps many years or centuries from now, she will die. In either case she is free, and we are safe…”
So it was done, and she lay as Allart had foreseen with his laran, motionless on the bier in the great vaulted room which was the chapel of Castle Aldaran.
“We shall bear her to Hali,” Allart said, “and there lay her within the chapel, forever.”
Lord Aldaran took Renata’s hand. “I have no heir; I am alone and old. It is my will that Donal’s son shall reign here when I am gone. It will not be long. Kinswoman,” he added, looking into her eyes, “will you wed me by the catenas? I have nothing to offer you save this: that if I acknowledge your child my son and heir, there is none alive who can gainsay me.”
Renata bowed her head. “For the sake of Donal’s son. Let it be as you will, kinsman,” and Aldaran held out his arms and folded her in them. He kissed her, tenderly and without passion, on the forehead; and with that the floodgates broke, and for the first time since Donal had been stricken down before her, Renata began to weep, crying and crying as if she would never cease.
Allart knew at last that this death would not strike down Renata also. She would live, and someday she would even recover. A day would come when Aldaran would proclaim Donal’s son heir to Aldaran in this very room, as Allart’s laran had foreseen…
They rode forth the next morning at daybreak, Dorilys’s body sealed in her force-field within its casket, to bear her to Hali, there to lie forever. Allart and Cassandra rode beside her. Above them, on the highest balcony of Aldaran, Renata and old Dom Mikhail watched them go, silent, motionless, bowed with mourning.
Allart thought, as they rode down the pathway, that he could never cease to mourn—for Donal, struck low in the midst of victory; for Dorilys, in her beauty and willfulness and pride; for the proud old man who stood above them, broken; and for Renata at his side, broken by grief.
I, too, am broken. I will be a king, and I do not want to reign. Yet I alone can save this realm from disaster, and I have no choice. He rode, head bowed, hardly seeing Cassandra at his side, until at last she reached to him and closed her slender six-fingered hand over his as they rode.
“A time will come, my dear love,” she said, “when at last we may make songs, not war. My laran is not as yours. But I foresee it.”
Allart thought, I am not alone… and for her sake I must not grieve. He raised his head, setting his face firmly against the future, and threw up a hand in final farewell to Castle Aldaran, which he would never see again, and in parting from Renata, from whom, he knew, he parted only for a little while.
As he rode down the path from Aldaran, following the cortege that bore the stormqueen to her last resting place, he prepared himself to meet on the road the men who were, even now, riding toward him to offer him the unwanted crown. Overhead the sky was gray and still, and it seemed that no thunder had ever troubled those quiet spaces.
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[scanned anonymously]
[27 August, 2003—v1 html proofed and formatted by Agent99 for the 3S group]
Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stormqueen!
(Series: Darkover # 12)
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