A Flame in Hali

  34

  Lord Brynon Aillard’s entourage descended from the gentle slopes of Kirella into the heart of the Plains of Valeron. Winds swept down upon them, edged with the dust that arose from the vast fields of wheat and tall-grass. When they stopped to rest their horses, Eduin stood in the stirrups, looking in every direction at the endless rippling gold. Valeron was unlike any place he had ever seen. Without mountain or forest to delineate the horizon, the sky seemed enormous. He felt as if he were suspended between heaven and earth.

  Sometimes they saw dry lightning in the distance. The wind shifted, bearing the acrid taste of ozone. Eduin glanced north, toward the far Hellers and Aldaran, whose wizards were reputed to summon storms from a clear sky. He remembered the strange weather that had afflicted Thendara in the days before the riot at Hali Lake. How long ago that seemed, he thought, and how many things had happened since. Here, in the vast flatness of the Valeron Plains, nature held sway, dwarfing petty human concerns.

  He felt a change in the air some days before the city of Valeron came into view. The height and texture of the grasses altered, more gray-tinged green than the dull gold of the Plains. The horses mouthed their bits and picked up their pace. The air seemed fresher, moister, tinged with the aromatic scents of growing things he could not name but which evoked a subtle resonance.

  Eduin first spied the city of Valeron toward sundown, when for a moment, the light of the great Bloody Sun bathed its towers. On the far horizon, in the bend of the distant river, the city glowed like copper and brass, silver and steel. He held his breath, straining against the brightness. It hurt his eyes to gaze directly at it.

  Saravio, riding just behind him, spoke, but Eduin scarcely heard the words. When he looked back at the city, the light had shifted, leaving only ordinary stone in the setting sun.

  The following day, they reached the city walls and Castle Aillard. Behind them lay the Plains and before them, an expanse of salt marshes cut by the River Valeron. They passed army encampments and a field where three aircars sat, their sides scored with lines of greasy smoke.

  At the gates, guards demanded their names and bade them wait while word was taken up to the castle. They proceeded through a city filled with preparations for the festival of Midsummer. Garlands and bright pennons, many in the Aillard colors of scarlet and gray, hung from every doorway and balcony. Peddlers and merchants thronged the streets, selling flowers, fruit, and the gaily-beribboned baskets that were traditional gifts for female relatives.

  The castle itself was set on the only high place for leagues around. Its battlements, also bedecked in holiday finery, commanded a view in all directions. One turret in particular rose above the others, separated from the main structure. It was, Eduin learned from one of the Kirella guards, the home of a small Tower.

  Eduin lowered his laran barriers minutely, listening for any mental activity from the Tower. He sensed several matrix lattices of the sort used to charge batteries for the aircars, apparatus for making clingfire as well as the more ordinary sort of fire-bombs, and relay screens to send messages to other Towers. The few minds he sensed were either deep in slumber or else so focused on other matters as to be unaware of his presence. The rulers of Valeron were clearly confident of their invulnerability to attack. He must persuade them that they did, indeed, have an enemy.

  Once within the castle walls, a steward came forth to give directions for the stowing of baggage, the feeding and stabling of their animals, and the housing for both the noble family and their attendants. The Kirella guards were directed to the barracks in another area of the city, all except those few Lord Brynon kept for his personal use.

  “We will attend the Lady tonight,” Lord Brynon told Eduin just before they separated. “Be ready to come with me. Even though it is Midsummer Festival, we have sterner business to conduct.”

  Eduin nodded, satisfied that Lord Brynon was prepared to introduce the issue of Varzil’s conspiracy at the first opportunity. With the might of Valeron aimed at his destruction, not even the legendary Keeper of Neskaya could long escape. Sooner or later, Varzil must leave his Tower fortress, perhaps on some mission for Carolin.

  And then . . . then I will have him and with his death, Carolin Hastur will fall. My father’s ghost will be appeased and I will at last be free.

  The Aillards were a matrilineal clan, and Queen Julianna held full rights in the Comyn Council, as much as any lord. Eduin had known great ladies before, although most of them derived their status from important kinsmen. In his years at Arilinn, and then at Hali and Hestral, he had been introduced to Lady Liriel Hastur and Maura Elhalyn, who was now Carolin’s Queen.

  The presence chamber was a small one, austere in its furnishings. The style was unfamiliar, the wooden chairs gray or gold, simply shaped with clean soaring lines, the cushions and tapestries in pale, muted colors, unlike the dark, rich ornamentation of the court at Hali.

  This evening, only a few counselors stood in attendance. Eduin sensed the trained laran of one of them, a woman who appeared to be only a few years older than Romilla. She held herself apart from the others with the composure and slightly distracted air he remembered in Maura Elhalyn when he first met her. He had best be on his guard.

  Eduin turned his attention back to Julianna Aillard. With her thick body, unadorned black gown, and taut mouth, she conceded little to the softness of a courtly lady. Chestnut hair frosted with white was coiled low on her neck in a severe, old-fashioned style. Her throne was tall and high-backed, carved from wood polished to a faintly iridescent sheen. Behind her and to one side stood a younger woman, alike but for the untouched brightness of her hair and the steel-slim figure.

  Lord Brynon stepped forward as the herald announced him, halted a respectful distance before Queen Julianna, and bowed. She watched him, her expression unreadable. Then she gestured for him to rise and, coming forward, held out her hands in a kinswoman’s greeting.

  “I am sorry you could not be with us last Midwinter, as has been our custom,” Julianna said. Her voice had an odd, husky quality, lower in pitch than most women’s. “A joy lessened at one time is increased at another. You are most welcome to Valeron.”

  “I am honored to be here, kinswoman,” he replied, “yet our joy must be tempered with consideration of recent events. I have come not only to celebrate, but to take counsel with you.”

  “If you mean the dreadful events at Isoldir, rest assured that at the proper time, we will speak of them. For tonight, however, be at your ease.” The Lady of Valeron shifted her focus from the single man standing before her to encompass his entire retinue. “May the season lighten all your hearts. Let us feast together and, in due time, hear your concerns.”

  Lord Brynon bowed and made ready to withdraw. He had clearly been dismissed and must bide the Queen’s pleasure. Any objection might well jeopardize his welcome.

  The next days passed with preparations for the festivities, rest for Romilla and her ladies, and care of the men and beasts. Although Eduin chafed at the delay, he was powerless to hurry an audience with the Queen.

  Eduin used the time to become acquainted with the household staff. He had not realized before the advantages of an inferior position. Maids and underlings were willing to speak to him with a frankness they would never have shown to either a courtier or a laranzu.

  Eduin’s experience working in the stables at Thendara gave him an ease born of familiarity with those who tended the horses. He soon found a groom eager to exchange news and gossip.

  “A little over a year ago,” the man said, leaning on his pitchfork as he paused in mucking out the stall for Romilla’s fine palfrey, “the folk at Isoldir sent an aircar at us, carrying all manner of vile sorcery. Now, we hadn’t been exactly friendly, but there weren’t no call to do such a thing. Sneaking cowards, the lot of them. Zandru’s own luck were with us, though, for the Lady sent out our own and shot it down. Story was, they blew it to bits, scattered for leagues around and all its poison with it.”


  Eduin agreed this was indeed a stroke of luck.

  “Then what was we to do? Let them have another shot at us?” The stableman shook his head, digging the tines of the fork deep into the hay to scatter it over the wooden floor.

  “How could you?” Eduin said, coarsening his own accent. “Let a nest of scorpion-ants grow, and next thing you know, they’ll be coming up under your house.”

  “Exactly what I think. But the Lady, she held off. She sent to fire-bomb their Tower, all right, so they could make no more terrible weapons, but she left the castle and villages and all.”

  “Why would she hold back? Is she not afeared that Isoldir will rise against her once more?”

  “Ah, but any who’d think that don’t know our Lady. Tough as salt, she is. Besides, there’s many a man, both here and there, who’s asleep nights in his own home with his own family that would otherwise be meat for kyorebni.” The man spat in the corner and bent once more to his work.

  That very night, Julianna Aillard held an informal council with Lord Brynon, Lady Romilla, and her most trusted councillors. Her brother and general, Marzan of Valeron, attended, along with two of his lieutenants. They sat around a table in a chamber that was clearly a working office, perhaps the very same from which the counterattack upon Isoldir had been planned. The Queen’s daughter, Marelie, stood behind her chair, watching and listening, following every gesture and nuance with a touch of laran.

  Upon their arrival at Valeron, Saravio had sunk into a lethargy and was not yet sufficiently recovered to attend. Eduin found himself relegated to standing behind Lord Brynon, like a common attendant. Other than Marelie, who used her untrained laran without any awareness of what she was doing and probably thought of it as intuition, none of the council had any psychic abilities. Queen Julianna and her heir both had enough latent talent to be accepted by the Comyn Council, but neither had spent any time at a Tower. Valentina Aillard, whom Eduin had known in his years at Arilinn, was the daughter of a collateral branch; he had also met her cousin, Ellimara, at Hali. The talent ran deep in the Aillard bloodline, but in this generation, at least, all energies had been turned to the ruling of the land.

  Julianna, Queen of Valeron, was no innocent and weak-minded soul, but a shrewd woman accustomed to the intrigues and uses of power. She listened to Lord Brynon’s information with quiet calculation. Eduin sensed the workings of her mind, evaluating, weighing each point.

  As the discussion progressed, a picture emerged of two lands, one mighty, the other small but proud. Valeron and Isoldir had been at each other’s throats many times over the last three generations. The aircar attack from Cedestri Tower may have been unprovoked, but it was hardly without cause. Faced with Julianna’s political ambitions, the Isoldir lords must surely have seized upon whatever weapons came within their reach. It was only through Valeron’s prompt interception that an even greater devastation was averted, for the Cedestri aircar carried a particularly virulent form of bonewater dust.

  Lord Brynon responded to this news with a gesture of abhorrence and Romilla looked visibly shaken.

  “We had not believed Cedestri capable of such a thing,” Julianna commented.

  Eduin did not think that Julliana herself would have any scruples about using whatever weapon came to hand. Her concern was solely that a previously weak neighbor had gained control of such a weapon.

  Even as the groom had described, the Cedestri aircar had been destroyed, but not before its cargo had been scattered over hundreds of leagues, rendering the land uninhabitable for generations. From Julianna’s description, Eduin realized that the troupe of musicians from Robardin’s Fort must have passed through one of the contaminated regions before the roads could be marked. He remembered the kernels of poisonous blackness in the bodies of his friends.

  Raynita’s voice hummed softly at the back of his mind, rising and falling like the flight of some wild bird. She had not cared for his parentage or credentials in offering the simple comfort of her friendship.

  I traveled with them, ate their bread, sang their songs, Eduin thought.

  Outrage and pity whispered through him. The echo of his father’s voice urged him to discard such thoughts as weak and useless. If a few insignificant minstrels perished because they ventured where they should not, it made no difference in the overriding need for revenge.

  “Isoldir has been a thorn in our side for longer than we can remember,” General Marzan said, “but it is not wise to turn a thorn into a sword. Therefore, we did not destroy them, for it is not possible to kill every last one of them, and any that remained after an overpowering strike would nurse their vengeance to the grave.”

  Aye, and beyond. Eduin shuddered inwardly, as if touched by a knife so chill and hard, it came straight from Zandru’s coldest Forge. He felt as if he were two people listening to the council. One, the son of his father, kept searching for any opening, any leverage he might use to shape the fears and hatreds of these people into a weapon against Varzil Ridenow and through him, Carolin Hastur.

  At the same time, another part of him understood what had been done to him, yet was unable to free himself from his destiny.

  Injustice had begotten vengeance, and vengeance fed upon itself until there was nothing left—not his brothers, not his dreams of a life in the Tower, not his friendship with Carolin Hastur, not his love for Dyannis . . . nothing. In that instant, he saw, as if in a waking dream, the figure of a woman cloaked in shadow, with eyes like burning ice, turning toward him, reaching skeletal fingers toward his heart . . .

  “We chose instead to render them incapable of a second such attack,” Julianna continued. “We left them strength enough to maintain order within their own boundaries, for a land racked by chaos quickly becomes a danger to all of its neighbors, breeding outlaws and malcontents of every sort.”

  What if Rafael Hastur and his accursed niece, Queen Taniquel, had thought in this manner? What if his father had not been forced into exile? What if his uncle and cousin had been left with their lives and a shred of dignity? What if he himself had been free to follow the dictates of his heart and his talent?

  “However,” Julianna said, her voice edged, “we did not consider the intervention of outside aid. Cedestri Tower has already been rebuilt with the help of Varzil of Neskaya.”

  “Varzil!” Lord Brynon exclaimed, as if echoing Eduin’s thought. “Why should such a powerful Keeper bestir himself for an inconsequential little kingdom as Isoldir?”

  Marelie bent to her mother’s ear. Eduin could not catch her words, but understood their sense. Because Cedestri was somehow able to make a major laran weapon, and that is against King Carolin’s precious Compact.

  “Carolin Hastur would make certain that Cedestri is rebuilt as he wills it,” Julianna said, “even as he rebuilt Neskaya Tower. To that end, he has sent his emissary, Varzil of Neskaya, knowing that whatever remained of the Tower circle would welcome their help without asking the price.”

  “The reach of the Hasturs grows long,” Lord Brynon said. “The shadow of his ambition lies upon every land. Why else would he seek to disarm everyone who can stand against him?”

  Queen Julianna’s face turned hard, her eyes glittering like chips of obsidian. “Carolin sent an emissary here two summers ago, urging me to sign his Compact. I told him I would have none of it. During the last Council season, it was all anyone could talk about, for or against. It is easy to indulge in such idle talk when no aircars bearing clingfire are threatening you. Only then, too late, do you realize your sole protection is the threat of an overwhelming retaliation.”

  Good, Eduin thought as his father’s ghost roused as if scenting blood. The Lady of Valeron was already disposed to distrust Carolin and his lackey, Varzil. Now to turn that suspicion into open hostility . . .

  Julianna nodded, as if secretly agreeing with herself. “In time, this madness will pass. The great lords will return to the eternal truth that the only way to peace is through the balance of power.”


  Eduin felt even more estranged from the conversation. Once he would have argued that not only were powerful weapons like clingfire and bonewater dust necessary, but they should be controlled by the people who created them—the Towers. Now those arguments seemed as insubstantial as dayflies. It no longer mattered whether Arilinn or Hali or Cedestri remained standing and who ruled there. He stood alone in the ashes of his dreams.

  Julianna deftly turned the conversation toward those courtesies that brought the meeting to a close. Eduin felt a sense of frustration, of unfulfilled expectation, for Lord Brynon had not put forth his own accusations against Varzil Ridenow.

  Instead, Lord Brynon had seemed content to yield to Queen Julianna. Perhaps, Eduin reassured himself, he was only waiting for a suitable opportunity. They were new-come to Valeron, and there was much other business to attend to, not the least of which were the festivities of Midsummer.

  35

  Eduin and Saravio, as well as the other servants accompanying Lord Brynon, had been given quarters in the wing reserved for the men of the household staff in one of the older parts of the castle, a row of small rooms lining a drafty corridor. Their chamber was usually reserved for the personal servants of visiting nobility, and was a shade better quality than the others. Although it was cramped and had only a single slit window, there was a small brazier for warmth and a thick carpet, not Ardcarran but some local weaving. Best of all, they had the chamber to themselves, instead of sharing it with two or three others.

  The Tower at Valeron stood apart from the rest of the castle, both physically and psychically. None of the household staff with whom Eduin had become friendly had ever seen the Keeper. The laranzu’in who tended the aircars went about their business silently; only the young leronis who served the court, Callina Mallory, had any public presence.

  Callina had visited Romilla on their first night at Castle Aillard, as a courtesy and to inquire if she needed any care. They quickly fell into a routine of spending most of their daily hours together. When Eduin brought Saravio to Romilla’s quarters the next morning, he found the two girls giggling together.