“We will indeed be diminished in strength, with many tasks ahead of us,” Francisco said gently.
Dyannis flushed, realizing that he must have picked up her unvoiced thought. “Please forgive me, vai tenerézu. Truly, I meant no insult to you.”
“I have taken none, vai leronis,” he replied with a playful echo of the honorific. “Indeed, I and all of Cedestri would be deeply in your debt if you remain with us for a time, for you are the strongest of the remaining leronyn and the only one capable of acting as under-Keeper.”
A—what?
She blinked. “Forgive me, I believe I have just suffered a momentary lapse in consciousness. I must be more fatigued than I realized. I thought you referred to me as an under-Keeper, but that is impossible. I have no such training.”
My dear sister, you have been functioning as my under-Keeper for this past tenday. Varzil’s mental voice bore a touch of amusement.
Dyannis remembered the way she seemed to lift the stones that formed the very same walls that now surrounded them. At the time, she had been lost in the floating bliss of the circle. Now she realized that instead of being one strand in an interwoven whole, she had been the one to channel and guide the combined mental energies of the circle. Somehow, with a touch so smooth as to be unnoticeable, Varzil had eased her into the centripolar position.
If you do not cease gaping at me as if I were a three-headed rabbit-horn, Varzil said, you will surely disgrace us both.
She closed her mouth, promising herself that at the first opportunity, she would make Varzil regret he’d done such a thing without her permission. To Francisco she said, with all the dignity she could muster, “If my Keeper at Hali allows it, I will remain as long as there is need of my services.”
25
Dyannis followed Varzil from the little chamber. Varzil stopped to speak with Earnan, who was supervising a crew of laborers from the town. They were sorting through a pile of rubble for salvageable bits of metal and starstone. She waited patiently, pretending to be interested. News of Isoldir’s adoption of the Compact had already spread through the Tower community, and probably to the town as well. Earnan’s eyes shone and he looked as if he wanted to kiss Varzil’s feet.
“Some of the others, they are still suspicious, but we all agree that we cannot go on as we have before. You have brought us great good, Dom Varzil, and I most fervently believe this Compact will, even more so.”
Varzil excused himself as quickly as he could without being rude. He hurried up the road toward the town before anyone else could approach him on the subject. Dyannis caught his discomfort, his reluctance to accept personal credit for something that went so far beyond any one man’s creation. Her own outrage seemed petty and fleeting by comparison.
But, she fumed, she had been maneuvered into a role for which she felt so unworthy. As soon as they were out of hearing from the Tower, she turned on Varzil. “How dare you! How dare you do that to me!”
“And how dare you act like a spiteful child, holding back your Gift when it is so sorely needed?” he shot back. “You cannot say that you are incapable or untrustworthy, for you have already demonstrated otherwise.”
“Without my knowledge!”
“You know it now,” he said, refusing to be drawn in.
“You tricked me!”
Varzil smiled. “In no way did I violate my Keeper’s oath. I merely exercised a Keeper’s prerogative, which was to shape the circle in the manner I deemed best. If you object to the truth that was then revealed, you had best examine your own motives.”
“You would have me undertake a Keeper’s training, whether I will it or not—whether I am fit or not!”
“On the contrary. I would have you make a free choice, with reasoned judgment instead of misguided guilt.”
Dyannis fell silent, her next retort dying on her tongue. She felt like a petulant child, hurling one angry accusation after another. His responses had been unfailingly kind.
She bowed her head. “Forgive me. I have been perverse and bad-tempered. I beg you, do not press me further, at least until I know my own heart. Let us not mar all the good work we have done together by quarreling.”
To her surprise, he smiled. “When we first came to Cedestri, you would never have accepted my censure with such grace. You have learned much about self-control through your work here.”
“I have had little choice,” she retorted. Then, as if a wall within her gave way suddenly, she went on. “I have never had to work so hard in my life, not even when I was a novice at Hali. Everything came too easily for me then. Even when I gave way to this accursed temper of mine, I escaped with only the lightest punishments because I had also accomplished something brilliant.”
She remembered how she’d discovered the power source at the bottom of the lake, and she flushed at how reckless, how undisciplined she had been. “Brilliance has its limits,” she added wryly.
“Yes, I think so, too.” He gave a little chuckle. “On the other hand, when pushed to it, you accepted the consequences of your actions, as well as obedience to your Keeper. This has led to greater maturity on your part.”
“Don’t mock me,” she said. “I know what I am.”
“Do you?” His gaze bore down on her. He repeated in a softer, even more penetrating tone. “Do you?”
In a flash, she saw the direction of his thoughts.
Perhaps when we first came here to Cedestri, you were too impulsive, too rash to be considered for Keeper training. The people around you have always indulged your fits of rebellion and, as you said, success came too easily to you. Rebuilding Cedestri required you to dig more deeply into yourself, and you have proven yourself capable of humility as well as initiative.
She lowered her eyes. I know my limits.
Exactly. The training of a Keeper requires just that kind of honesty. You already knew how to act, how to rely upon your own resources. Here you have also learned to control those impulses for a greater good. I tell you, there is no better proof of your fitness as a Keeper candidate. Will you not reconsider?
For a long moment, she stared at him, letting the full import of his thoughts sink into her mind. All her life, there had been some important piece missing, like a stew without salt. Without realizing it, she had thrown herself headlong into each new possibility, as if she were searching for something. Always, she had come up short, dissatisfied without being able to say why. The only real challenge had been to escape the inevitable consequences of her recklessness.
Was that the problem? That she had never found any task too difficult, too daunting? Was she meant to be a Keeper, with all the discipline and demands of the post?
“I will consider it,” she said, bowing her head.
The eve of Varzil’s departure was exceptionally clear, the last of the smoke having long since blown away. A cool night breeze ruffled the ripening grain, laden with its musty sweetness. Dyannis climbed the little rise beyond the barley fields, looking for Varzil.
She found him sitting cross-legged upon a folded cloak. The light of three moons and the milky sweep of stars limned his features in silver. His hands lay loosely upon his thighs, one cradling a ring. The stone glimmered as if lit from within. It reminded her of a starstone, but of unusual size and shape, lacking the characteristic blue tint. He held the ring as if it were a living thing, precious and yet not to be grasped too tightly, an odd way to treat a thing of metal and crystal.
He turned his head slightly as she lowered herself beside him, at once her familiar elder brother and a stranger. From his stillness, she knew he had been meditating.
“I’m sorry to disturb you. There’s little enough peace for any of us these days,” she said.
He said nothing, only covered the ring with his other hand. Its light remained like an after-image. Sensitized as she was from overlong hours of laran work, Dyannis slipped into rapport with him. She realized he was lonely, that he welcomed her company, a familiar presence to ease some unspoken heartache.
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A shiver ran through him, of spirit rather than body.
“Did you ever meet Felicia Leynier?” he asked her, his voice roughened with hidden emotion. “She worked for a time at Arilinn before going Hestral Tower.” A pause followed, like the stillness between one heartbeat and the next. “She trained there as under-Keeper.”
Dyannis sat very still. There was more beneath her brother’s words than his scheme to train women as Keepers. Listening to the resonance of his voice, she heard love—and loss.
“I knew of her,” she said gently.
“She was at Hestral Tower when Rakhal Hastur attacked. When he ordered Hali to destroy them.”
And she died there, Dyannis thought, carefully shielding. “You could not save her, as you saved Harald when he was captured by the catmen so long ago, as you saved so many others.” She laid her fingertips on the back of his wrist in the fashion of one telepath to another.
Bredu, she spoke telepathically, I did not take part in that battle, although I was at Hali then.
“I would not blame you if you had,” he said aloud. “I blame no man—or woman—for following the lawful orders of his king. Felicia herself would never want that. She—she would have been pleased to see Hali Tower as it is today, bound in honor by the Compact. She believed in it. She—”
He broke off, clenching the ring. Dyannis laid her hand over his fist, thinking to ease the knot of anguish. His hand opened beneath hers and she brushed the smooth faceted surface of the crystal. To her surprise, it was warm, warmer than it should have been from mere contact with Varzil’s skin. And alive—a sweet fragrance like sun on wildflowers . . .
She jerked her hand back. “What—what is it?”
“Felicia placed her consciousness, her personality into this stone. At least, I feel her presence there from time to time.”
“How is that possible?” Dyannis asked. “A starstone focuses and amplifies the laran of its owner, but has no power of its own.”
“During the Ages of Chaos, there was some research in using psychoactive crystals to preserve a personality separate from the fleshly body. Perhaps this stone is a relic from those early experiments, waiting to be imprinted by a dying mind.”
Dyannis shivered. Images rose unbidden to her mind, for she had seen the desperation of power-mad men—Rakhal the Usurper and, before her time, the outlaw laranzu, Rumail Deslucido. What if some Keeper, crazed by fear of his impending death, found a way to place his consciousness—and his psychic power—into a starstone? What if he found a way to control others—direct a circle—overshadow vulnerable minds—
Calm your fears. Varzil sent a wave of reassurance. I know of no such abomination, and those times are behind us now. “As for Felicia,” he continued aloud, “she would gladly have chosen oblivion rather than use her Gift to harm anyone. What I feel from the ring is comfort and memory.” He shrugged, straightened his shoulders, put the ring back on.
“You loved her very much,” Dyannis said.
“I never thought to find another human being who was so much the other half of my soul. Dyannis—I have held back from saying something to you, because of your . . . feelings. Now I am to leave Cedestri, and I do not know when we will see one another again. I would not leave it unsaid.”
“We are brother and sister, fellow leronyn,” she said with an assurance she did not feel. Something was coming, she knew not what, and she trembled inside. “Surely, we should have no secrets from one another.”
“Very well, then. Felicia’s death was not the result of Hali’s attack. She was already mortally wounded, preserved only in a laran stasis field. I am afraid—no, I am certain the person responsible for that attack was Eduin MacEarn.”
Dyannis flinched. No, it could not be, not her Eduin. Not the sweet boy who had won her heart that Midwinter Festival when she was newly come to Hali. Misguided, rejected—even outlawed after his flagrant disobedience to his Keeper during the Hestral battles—
And yet—years ago, before Hestral fell, he had come to Hali Tower for a short time, and he had been strange, withdrawn, secretive. Changed.
A conspirator, perhaps. An outcast, certainly. But a murderer? She could not believe it.
Varzil lifted one hand, as if to forestall her objections. “I would never have brought this up if he had not been present that day at Hali Lake.” His mind brushed against hers. As you yourself know full well.
“Dyannis.” He turned to face her squarely, taking her hands in his, a gesture that was practically a confrontation among telepaths, shocking in its directness. “There is a link between the Hali Lake riot and Felicia’s death. I don’t know what it is, I don’t even know how to proceed in finding out. I just know it is there.”
Dyannis found her voice. “You say this only because you dislike Eduin, as you have from the very beginning!”
“I tried not to hate him when we were boys at Arilinn,” Varzil said in a low voice. “I tried hard. Carolin always took his part, because Eduin was poor and talented and had no other friends. I could always see the better part of other people, but not Eduin. I never understood why. I suspected him, rightly or wrongly I will never know, of intending harm to Carolin.”
“Harm Carolin?” Dyannis asked, startled. “How?”
Varzil swept his hair back from his face with one hand. “There were a number of . . . accidents during those years, before Carolin came to the throne. He refused to take them seriously, saying he couldn’t live in a silken cage. One incident, though, was an outright attempt at assassination. We were on our way to Blue Lake for a holiday.” He paused as images flashed across his mind.
Dyannis, in light rapport with her brother, watched two youths ride carefree through a sunlit forest—
—a sliver of deadly metal burst from the underbrush to streak through the air—
—Varzil twisting it within the muffling folds of his cloak—
—Carolin struggling with a bearded man on the muddy banks of a river—
—a voice ringing through her mind, raw with urgency—“Death to Hastur! We will be avenged!”
“What does it mean?” she wondered aloud. “Who will be avenged? Surely this proves there is some other agent at work, some festering resentment responsible for your conspiracy, if in fact that exists. Even a king who is loved must make enemies. None of this proves anything against Eduin.”
“The whole story makes no sense unless you know who Felicia is—was,” Varzil said. “Although she did her best to keep it secret, she was the nedestra daughter of Taniquel Hastur-Acosta and therefore, kin to Carolin.”
“How would Eduin have known that?” she snapped.
How, indeed? She was shaking inside, remembering how Eduin had searched the archives at Hali Tower, especially the genealogy records, how he had startled as if guilty when she found him there . . . She’d assumed he pursued some task for the Keepers. Was he using legitimate work to mask a personal search of the Hastur bloodlines?
Something hovered at the edge of her memory, dark as kyorebni wings.
Irritably, she said, “You’re just looking for an excuse to blame Eduin for things that have nothing to do with him.”
“You’re not thinking clearly,” Varzil said with exasperating patience. “Felicia was Hastur; Eduin tried to kill her—did kill her. Eduin tried to kill Carolin, another Hastur, and failed, for which he probably hates me even more. What the Blue Lake assassin has to do with Eduin, I don’t know. But when Eduin shows up with an armed mob in Hali, in the heart of Hastur territory, I am suspicious. I am very suspicious.”
“You are very wrong! ” Dyannis cried. “You have some boyhood grudge against Eduin and you’ve concocted a pack of wild guesses to convince yourself he’s guilty! Isn’t the world difficult enough without creating imaginary conspiracies and blaming those less fortunate?”
With an effort, she reined her tongue under control. They were both exhausted, mentally as well as physically. He had been working for days without a rest, giving unstint
ingly of himself. Any other man would have stayed at Neskaya, safe and comfortable behind its rebuilt walls. If old insecurities preyed upon him, he might be forgiven.
“I am sorry I said those things,” she said. “I always did have a temper. This won’t be the first time I’ve rattled off without thinking things through. But I do believe you speak without any proof in the matter. Eduin’s life was broken at Hestral. I don’t know where he is now or how he fares, but it cannot be well. He deserves your compassion, not your censure.”
“That is true enough,” Varzil said after a pause. “Some things we will never know, and that is as it should be. For now, a path lies clear before me, the quest to which I have already sworn myself. I thank you for your help, and I wish each of us—even your poor Eduin—peace in our souls when all is done.”
With that, he rose and left her, striding back toward the Tower, preparing the way for the night’s work. Dyannis watched him go, feeling regret and admiration. He had suffered far more in his life than she had, and yet he took on the mantle of his duty with a quiet clarity of mind she could not help but envy.
A shiver ran through her. I am a better person when I am with him.
She would simply have to take what he had taught her and urge herself to improvement, just as if she were her own Keeper. The thought frightened her.
Winter came and left, with only the briefest interruption of the work. The Isoldir Lord sent the promised masons and carpenters, along with wagons of supplies to help the Tower and its townspeople through the long dark months.
By Midwinter Festival, it was clear that Francisco would never recover sufficiently to resume full duties as Keeper. He could manage small circles of two or three, enough for simple tasks. Several of the workers had died of their lingering injuries. Dyannis knew she had not the training to take over the entire circle of five on a permanent basis, and Francisco did not ask it of her.
With the spring thaw, travel became possible once again. With some trepidation, Dyannis made plans to return to Hali. The contingent of soldiers who had accompanied her and Varzil had departed when he did, providing for Carolin’s emissary. It was unthinkable for Dyannis to travel unescorted, even with Lady Helaina as chaperone. The Lord of Isoldir offered to take her to Arilinn for the meeting of the Comyn Council, and from there she could travel to Hali along with Carolin Hastur’s contingent. The meeting, she noticed, would not be held until that autumn. She suspected Isoldir’s generosity was tempered by his desire to retain her services for as long as possible.