A Flame in Hali

  “As you will be in mine.”

  On impulse, Dyannis pressed herself against him, hugging him as if she could not bear to let him go. He was one of the few people she could embrace without distress. Their bond, as sister and brother, as fellow telepaths, made the physical contact especially close.

  She did not know if the sickness in her heart came from the emotions stirred by their conversation, or some dreadful premonition. Even disguised, even guarded as he would be, the roads could be perilous. Yet, there was nothing to be done. She could not hold him here, not if Darkover were to be freed from the horrors of clingfire, lungrot, and bonewater dust.

  She pushed herself away. “On with you, then. Walk with the gods, and return to us in their good time.”

  “Adelandeyo,” he answered, and slipped away into the fading night.

  Several days later, Dyannis sat at the window of her outer chamber, cradling a mug and watching the first light creep into the eastern sky. She should be resting, she knew, instead of sipping jaco that would surely keep her awake half the morning. A sense of unease, of imminence, had been growing in her ever since she dissolved the circle last night. The work, recharging laran batteries, had gone smoothly, uneventfully. What, then, troubled her?

  She wondered if Varzil had met with some difficulty along the road. Ever since their parting, a light rapport had remained between them. The connection ran deeper than that of brother and sister. It was more akin to a twin-bond, strengthened and deepened by their shared work as Keepers.

  No, she would surely have sensed it if Varzil had met with some harm. She was overtired, and the general anxiety of the world outside had seeped through her laran shields. She must take greater care.

  A knock at her door startled her from her inner musings.

  Rorie.

  Pleasure and sadness rose up in her. She had once told herself she could not be sure of her feelings for him until she had resolved her relationship with Eduin. Now that was no longer a question. Other Keepers might take lovers when they were not actively working, remaining loving but celibate companions the rest of the time. They were all men, and perhaps men’s hearts and bodies worked differently from women’s. Whatever the cause, she knew she was not capable of it. Her entire life had narrowed to a single focus. If she were to be a Keeper—and now she was, irrevocably—she could be nothing else to any man.

  She did not want to hurt him, and she greatly feared she would. So she took her time, setting down the mug of jaco before she bid him enter.

  He knew. His awareness radiated throughout his psychic aura, the way he held himself, the expression in his eyes.

  Dyannis managed a small smile and gestured for him to sit. The two chairs had been drawn up beside a small, high table that bore the tray upon which the pitcher of jaco and a second mug had been set.

  When Rorie looked as if he would refuse, she said aloud, “Please, let us sit together as friends.”

  “As friends.” He lowered himself into the other chair as if his joints hurt.

  I had hoped we might become more, his thought brushed her mind.

  I know.

  She watched him quietly, thinking that the world and the times they had lived through had changed them both. She was not the same girl who had run away in a servant’s clothing to dance along the shores of Hali Lake, nor was he the carefree boy who had been her companion since she had first come to the Tower. So much had happened, from the discovery of the treachery of Cedestri Tower to its rebuilding.

  Their world was changing, the role of the Towers, the spread of the Compact, the ending of an era. The time of the Hundred Kingdoms was almost over, and no one knew what the new world would look like. In place of scores of tiny realms, powerful new Domains, Hastur the chief among them, were emerging. It was the nature of such things to alter with time. There was no way she could have foreseen how she herself would be transformed.

  I did not know, she spoke silently, mind to his mind. When I set my foot upon this path, I had no idea where it would lead, what it would truly mean to become a Keeper.

  The cost, he said.

  Dyannis nodded. Her eyes ached; her heart ached. Then she saw how those unshed tears touched him. She had given him that much, at least.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Rorie said simply. “Can we go on as if I had never had any feelings for you?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s possible.” A sigh rose up in her. She let it go, like freeing a captive bird. “The practical question is whether we can work together in a circle. Whether such intimacy of mind would be difficult for you.”

  “For me? What about for you?”

  She shook her head, again feeling a ripple of sadness, of the weight of isolation. It passed, leaving dispassionate calm. “I am a Keeper. Each member of my circle is unique and precious to me, but no one more than any other.”

  “I see.” He lowered his gaze. Moments passed.

  “If there is any doubt, it would be better if you worked only with Raimon,” she said, hearing the hardness in her voice.

  “You have changed,” he said tightly. “I will grieve the loss of what might have been, but not the woman just beyond my reach. She no longer exists.”

  Dyannis regarded him steadily. It was true, she had been cruel. She did not know any other way to be.

  “I do not want to hurt you,” she said.

  “I know,” he replied, more gently. “It was only a dream, anyway. I could as well have lost you to some head-blind fool in a marriage your brother arranged.”

  That almost happened. She reached out to brush the back of his hand with her fingertips, a telepath’s contact, the only way she would ever touch him. “We always were friends, Rorie.”

  He nodded. “This much is true. I think it would actually help to work in your circle, for that will make it all the more real to me that the girl I once knew has grown into something else. If you were another man’s wife, or a pledged virgin, then I would also turn my thoughts away from you.”

  Dyannis rose as he took his leave of her. The encounter had gone better than she had dared hope, yet the feeling of disquiet remained, just beyond reach. She thought again of Varzil, this time deliberately searching the psychic firmament for any trace of his presence. A pulse of response, like the faint ripple from a beating heart, distant but bright, answered her. He was well, then, but beyond the reach of ordinary telepathy.

  The memory of Eduin rose to her thoughts and the sense of unease intensified. Perhaps she had been right in thinking she must resolve her feelings about him before she was truly free to go on with her life. She picked up her mug, realized the jaco had now gone cold, and put it down.

  It was all so annoying. She’d known Eduin for only a short time, when she was still a child in many ways. The luminosity that surrounded her memories came from her own inexperience with love—if it were love after all. Here Dyannis got up and began to pace. She had loved him, with that intense, never-to-be-repeated exhilaration of first awakening. What might have happened, had the relationship been allowed to run its natural course, she would never know. In all likelihood, they would have passed from infatuation to disillusionment and thence perhaps to a lingering affection.

  When he had come to Hali Tower, years later, he had changed. A shadow lay upon him, masking the heart that had once seemed so transparent, so infinitely tender.

  And then again, at the lake at Hali . . .

  Of course, he had become a different man by then. He’d been outlawed, hiding, in the company of other desperate men. She thought, with the ruthless self-honesty of a Keeper, that she did not want to surrender those first memories, to admit that the boy she had once cherished to distraction had become a criminal, possibly even, if Varzil were right, the worst kind of murderer. That must be why he haunted her, like a basso harmony hovering beyond the reach of her senses. Had she been wrong about him all along, remembering only who she wanted him to be and not who he truly was?

  Let him go, she told hers
elf. Let the past rest.

  Resolving to do just that, she fortified her laran barriers and tried to go back to sleep. She hovered on the edge for what seemed like hours, marking the passage of time by the beating of her own heart. Eventually, she slipped into an uneasy jumble of dreams, half-formed and restless. She could not shake the feeling that someone was talking, saying things of importance just beyond her hearing. Though she pushed and twisted through the shifting landscape, she could not make out the words.

  The sense of dread intensified as her dreams shifted. Smoking blood dripped from the sky, rocks cried aloud in agony, people she ought to know but could not name ran shrieking past her, trailing snakes instead of hair. She seemed to be in some bizarre version of the Overworld, bounded on every side by walls of fire that grew ever closer.

  Dyannis awoke, sitting upright in her bed, shaking. It was full day now and unseasonably warm, yet she had broken into a cold sweat. She shivered as if gripped by a fever. Wrapping her arms around herself, she rocked back and forth until at last the trembling subsided. She wished Varzil were still at Hali so she could talk things over with him, but he had departed on his latest mission several days ago.

  Eventually, she was able to get out of bed, wash her face and hands, and call for a servant to help her comb her hair and to dress.

  As soon as she had composed herself, Dyannis sought out Raimon. She might be functioning on a daily basis as a full-fledged Keeper, but she was still under his care and command.

  When I am truly a Keeper, what then? she wondered as she waited in his sitting chamber. Who will be the Keeper’s Keeper?

  He listened gravely as she described her nightmares. “I am sorry it has come to this,” he sighed. “I have seen a similar increase in sensitivity in other Keepers as they progress through their training. Of course, none of them was as hard on himself, as ruthless I should say, as you have been.”

  They were all men.

  “What of that?” he answered her unspoken thought. “If Varzil is correct, there are as many differences between one male Keeper and the next as there are between men as a whole and women. Each of us comes to our own understanding and acceptance of the discipline, just as no two of us join the minds of our circle together in the same way.”

  Dyannis admitted he was correct. “So you think what happened to me is the result of overwork and worry?”

  “That is my first presumption, yes.” He sat back in his chair to regard her with that level, pellucid gaze, and refrained from reminding her how he had urged her to rest, not to push herself so hard.

  “It is all very well to tell me to take some time off!” she said. Her voice resonated with a heat that surprised her. “Your circle will continue to do the most necessary work. But what if there were not two of us? What if I were alone, the only Keeper of Hali Tower? What would I do then?”

  Raimon’s eyes darkened. “I understand what you fear, that the time may indeed come when there are so few of us, each Tower has only one Keeper. It is this very fate Varzil is hoping to avert by training women as well as men. For the time being, we shall let the matter rest. There are few things less productive than worrying about a future that may or may not come about. I know you, Dyannis, and I will not allow you to distract me from telling you what you do not wish to hear. If you will not take a suggestion, then I must give you an order. You must have rest and quiet. These nightmares are but a warning. If you do not heed it, they will only get worse. Will you risk your circle as well as yourself by continuing to work when you are unfit?”

  “I will not work if I am not able to do so properly,” she said stubbornly. Even as she said the words, she knew he was right. “I won’t go home again, if that’s what you mean. This is my home, the place I belong.”

  “You could spend a tenday or so at Thendara with King Carolin and Queen Maura,” he suggested. “I believe you and Maura were friends when she was here at Hali.”

  That was true enough. Maura had always been kind to her, and she would understand the demands of responsibility. Yet something held her back from leaving Hali Tower. The best she could manage was to agree to think about it.

  Raimon knew better than to press the issue. “In the meantime, you might consider the use of a telepathic damper while you sleep. It’s not comfortable, but it will shield you from the thoughts and emotions of those around you. You might sleep better for it.”

  Dyannis frowned. She’d worked with dampers as part of her training and never liked them. “It feels like stuffing my head with wool and wrapping my eyes and ears in gauze. But,” she sighed, “at least I’d get some sleep.”

  Raimon sent a servant to search for one. “It’s been a long time since any of us needed such a device. Years ago, when Eduin MacEarn worked among us, he requested the use of one.”

  Eduin needed a telepathic damper? A shiver ran across her shoulders. Of course, he needed to guard his sleeping thoughts, lest some stray thought betray him. She did not know whether to feel anger, sorrow, or pity.

  All of them, I think. Raimon answered her with unexpected gentleness. How else can any of us respond to such a tragedy?

  You call what Eduin did, how he betrayed our trust in him, a tragedy?

  I do. And so should you, and so should anyone who saw the potential in him. Do not embitter your memory of him with recriminations, Dyannis. Let the past rest, but let it rest with all the joy and faith you once felt.

  But—

  You were not deceived. The good you saw in him existed. And if what he has become is not a tragedy, I do not know the meaning of the word.

  43

  Rap! Rap! Rap!

  The knocking would not go away, although Dyannis muttered curses at it. She curled into a ball with her back to the door and drew the pillow over her ears. Her body felt thick and heavy, as if her flesh had turned to clay. Something high-pitched, like the whirr of insects, buzzed along her nerves. She had slept, how long she could not tell. Her body still craved rest, but the racket from the other side of the room continued, louder and faster than before.

  Rap! Rap! Rap!

  “Gods,” she muttered, shoving the pillow aside. The room around her was as dark as her dreamless sleep. No light came from the direction of the window, but she might have drawn the curtains tight before falling into bed. She could not remember.

  “I’m coming.” Her voice sounded like the croak of a frog.

  Rap! Rap! Rap!

  Forcing her stiff muscles to move, Dyannis got to her feet. She made the gesture to summon the blue light with her laran but none came. Was she so sluggish, then, that she could not perform even this simple beginner’s spell? Her temples throbbed, and her head felt like a bag full of curdled cheese.

  The telepathic damper was still on. Ah, that explained everything. She stumbled toward it, feeling her way. Her fingers brushed over the control mechanism. The next instant, the barely audible whine vanished.

  She felt the dense, unmoving mineral hardness of the walls, the brightness of the pale translucent stone panels, the intense concentration of a working circle, their minds like flares of inner-lit jewels, the distant murmur of cloud-water from Hali Lake, the vast sweep of night above.

  It was almost dawn; she could taste the rising light, the shift in temperature and moisture. She had slept only a few hours under the influence of the damper.

  Moving confidently now through her darkened room, Dyannis went to the door and opened it. One of the young novices, an Elhalyn boy, stood with his fist raised to knock again. He held an ordinary candlestick in the other hand, and his eyes bulged slightly, ringed with white.

  “Domna, I don’t know what to do!” The child was trembling visibly. “Raimon is still working in the circle with the others and I dare not disturb him.”

  Dyannis knew that the night’s work involved the synthesis of fire-fighting chemicals, destined for Verdanta and High Kinally. There were a number of steps in the process when the elements became unstable, handled safely only through unwaver
ing concentration of laran. As kindly as she could, she said, “There is nothing to fear. Whatever is the matter?”

  “Three aircars—coming in fast—they won’t answer us, not even Dom Rorie. He sent me to ask you to come.”

  Dyannis frowned. Rorie was a strong telepath, skilled and experienced, and only trained leronyn could guide an aircar. If Rorie could not reach them with his mind, something terrible must have happened. Were the pilots all dead, then, or rendered unconscious by some spell or disease? That didn’t seem likely. The aircars, cut off from motive power and guidance, would surely have dropped from the sky and not continued on their course.

  “Where is he?”

  “In the second laboratory, along with everyone else who is not working in Raimon’s circle tonight.”

  Rorie?

  Dyannis sensed Rorie’s mind, bent in concentration upon the incoming aircars, but did not press him for a response. They must make preparations in case the aircar pilots were injured.

  “Summon everyone with monitor’s training and meet me there.”

  The boy scurried away, visibly relieved to have some definite task.

  I will do no one any good if I rush off, thoughts scattered from here to the Hellers, emotions every which way, and still in my nightgown!

  Hurriedly, Dyannis pulled on a shift and loosely belted working robe. She shoved her bare feet into a pair of worn suede sandals, using the time to put her thoughts in order. The discipline and calm she had practiced every waking hour since beginning her Keeper’s training returned quickly.

  She drew out her starstone to see what she could perceive directly about the aircars. Close by, Raimon’s circle blazed with energy like a ring of blue fire. She sensed Rorie and several others, their minds also alight. The Tower, which was not merely a physical structure but a psychic one as well, surrounded them all. She swept through its walls and upwards.

  Sweet gods, the aircars were almost upon them!