“Can’t you see? Oh, I know failure is almost certain, especially if they try it with a mechanic’s circle with Rannirl in charge, or if they’re mad enough to try it with a half-trained Keeper,” she said. “And I’m afraid that’s what they’ll do. They’ll bring little Callina from Neskaya, and make her try to hold the matrix ring; and she’s only twelve years old or so. I’ve spoken to her in the relays. She’s gifted, but she’s not Arilinn-trained, and Neskaya doesn’t have the tradition of great Keepers anyway; the best ones were always from Arilinn. But,” she added, “now that they know you’re not Terran, you could go back, and the circle would be that much stronger!” Her face was pale and eager. “Oh, Jeff, it means so much to our world!”
“Darling,” he said, wrung, “I’d try anything. I’d even go back into the matrix circle, if they’d have me; but that notice I got says we’re prisoners! If we try to go more than a kilometer from the hotel, they’ll arrest us. Just because we’re not behind bars doesn’t mean I’m not under arrest. I can appeal against the deportation, and if I can prove I’m not Kerwin’s son by blood I may be able to stay here, but for the moment we’re as much prisoners as if we were in the brig!”
“What right have they—” The arrogance of the princess, the sheltered, pampered, worshipped Lady of Arilinn, was in her voice now. She caught up her hooded cape—Jeff had bought it for her in Port Chicago to conceal her red hair, which marked her out as Comyn—and flung it over her shoulders. “If you will not come with me, Jeff, I will go alone!”
“Elorie—you’re serious about this?” Her eyes answered for her, and he made up his mind. “Then I’ll come with you.”
In the streets of Thendara she moved so swiftly he could hardly keep up with her. It was late afternoon; the light lay blood-red along the streets and shadows crept, long and purple, between the houses. As they neared the edge of the Terran Zone, Kerwin wondered if this was insanity; they’d certainly be stopped at the gates. But Elorie moved so quickly that all he could do was to follow at her heels.
The great square was empty, and the gates of the Terran Zone were guarded desultorily by a single uniformed Spaceforce man. Across the square he could see little clusters of Darkovan restaurants and shops, including the one where he had bought his cloak. As they approached the gate, the Spaceforce man barred their way briefly.
“Sorry. I have to see your identification.”
Kerwin started to speak, but Elorie prevented him; swiftly she flung back the grey hood over her red hair, and the light of the Bloody Sun, setting, turned it to fire, as Elorie sent a high, clear cry ringing across the square.
And all through the square Darkovans turned round, startled and shocked at what Kerwin knew, somehow, was an ancient rallying-cry; someone shouted “Hai! A Comyn vai leronis, and in the hands of the Terrans!”
Elorie seized Jeff’s arm; the guard stepped forward, threatening, but a crowd was already materialized, as if by magic, all through the square; the sheer weight of it rolled over the Terran guard—Jeff knew they had orders not to fire on unarmed people—and Elorie and Jeff were borne along on it, a way opening for them through the crowd, with deferential cries and murmurs following them. Breathless, startled, Jeff found himself in the mouth of a street opening on the square; Elorie caught his hand and dragged him away down the street, the sounds of riot dying away behind them.
“Quick, Jeff! This way or they’ll be all around us wanting to know what it’s all about!”
He was startled, and a little shocked. There could be repercussions; the Terrans would not be happy about a riot right on their doorstep. But, after all, no one had been hurt. He would trust Elorie, as she had trusted him with her life.
“Where are we going?”
She pointed. High above the city, Comyn Castle rose, vast, alien and indifferent. Except for a few of the highest dignitaries, no Terran had ever set foot there; and then only by invitation.
Only he wasn’t a Terran, and he would have to remember it.
Funny. Ten days ago that would have made me very happy. Now I’m not so sure.
He followed her through the darkening streets, the steep climb to Comyn Castle, wondering what would happen when they got there, and if Elorie had any specific plan. The Castle looked both big and well-guarded, and he didn’t suppose that two strangers could walk in and ask to speak to Lord Hastur without any formalities or so much as an appointment!
But he had reckoned without the enormous personal prestige of the Comyn themselves. There were guards, in the green and black of the Altons who had, so Kerwin had heard from Kennard, founded the Guard and commanded it from time out of mind. But at the sight of Elorie, even afoot and humbly clad, the Guard fell back in reverence.
“Comynara—” The guard looked at Jeff’s red head, then at his Terran clothes, but decided to play it safe and amended, “ Vai Comynari, you lend us grace. How many we best serve the vai domna?”
“Is Commander Alton within the castle?”
“I regret, vai domna, the Lord Valdir is away at Armida these ten days.”
Elorie frowned, but hesitated only a moment. “Then say to Captain Ardais that his sister, Elorie of Arilinn, would speak with him at once.”
“At once, vai domna.” The guard still looked askance at Jeff’s Terran clothes; but he did not question. He went.
* * *
Chapter Sixteen: The Broken Tower
« ^ »
It was not more than a few minutes before the guard came back; and with him was a tall, spare man in dark clothing—Kerwin supposed he was somewhere in his forties, though he looked younger —with a keen, hawklike face.
“Elorie, chiya,” he said, lifting his eyebrows, and Kerwin flinched. He had heard before that harsh, musical, and melancholy voice; heard it as a frightened child, battered and left to die, crouching unseen under a table. But after all, Dyan Ardais had meant him no harm; would have certainly, if he had been appealed to, taken him under his protection as he had taken those other children, overlooked by the assassins. He knew Elorie’s brother for a harsh man, but kindly, even soft-hearted toward young children, cruel as he could be to his peers.
“I heard you had fled from Arilinn,” he said, looking at her humble garments and coarse cloak with distaste, “and with a Terran. Sorrow upon Arilinn, that twice within forty years this must happen to them. Is this the Terran?”
“He is no Terran, my brother,” she said, “but the true son of Lewis-Arnad Lanart-Alton, elder son of Valdir, Lord Alton, by Cleindori; who laid down her office, though unpermitted, by the laws of Arilinn, to take a consort of her own rank and station; and this is her son. A Keeper, Dyan, is responsible only to her own conscience. Cleindori did only what the law would have permitted; she is not responsible for those who denied the right of the Lady of Arilinn to declare just laws for her circle.”
He looked at her, frowning. His eyes, Kerwin thought, were colorless as cold metal, grey steel. He said, “Some of this I had from Kennard, who tried to tell me of Cleindori’s innocence; though I called it folly. Lewis, too, was a foolish idealist. But he was Kennard’s brother; and I owe to his son a kinsman’s dues.” His thin lips moved into a sarcastic grin. “So we have here a rabbithorn in the fur of a catman; Comyn in Terran garb, which is a change after the ranks of spies and imposters we have had to face from time to time. Well, what did they name you, then, Cleindori’s son? Lewis, for your father, and with a better right to that name than Kennard’s bastard?”
Kerwin had the uncomfortable feeling that Dyan was amused—no, that he took a positive pleasure— in his discomfiture. In years to come, knowing Dyan better, he knew that Dyan seldom missed an opportunity to twist a knife of malice. He said sharply, “I am not ashamed of bearing the name of my Terran foster-father; it would hardly be honorable to disown him at this stage of my life; but my mother called me Damon.”
Dyan threw back his head and laughed, a long shrill laugh like the screaming of a falcon. “The name of one renegade for another! I
had never suspected that Cleindori had such a sense of the right thing,” he said, when he had done laughing. “Well, what do you want from me. Elorie? I don’t suppose you want to take your husband—” actually the word he used was freemate; if he had shaded the word to make it mean paramour, Jeff would have struck him— “to our mad father at Ardais?”
“I need to see Lord Hastur, Dyan. You can arrange it, as seconde for Valdir!”
“In the name of all nine of Zandru’s hells, Lori! Doesn’t the Lord Danvan have enough troubles? Will you bring down the shadow of the Forbidden Tower on him again, after a quarter of a century?”
“I must see him,” Elorie insisted, and her face crumpled. “Dyan, I beg you. You were always kind to me when I was a child; and my mother loved you. You saved me from Father’s drunken friends. I swear to you—”
Dyan’s mouth twisted and he said cruelly, “The standard oath is, Elorie, I swear it by the virginity of the Keeper of Arilinn. I doubt even you would have the insolence to take that oath now.”
Elorie flared at him: “That is the kind of stupid madness and fanaticism that has kept the Keepers of Arilinn as ritual dolls, priestesses, sorceresses. I thought better of you than to think you would throw it at me! Do you want the Tower of Arilinn to be the laughingstock of all our people, because they are more concerned with a Keeper’s virginity than her powers as Keeper? You have a good mind, Dyan, and you are not a fool or a fanatic! Dyan, I beg of you,” she said, her anger suddenly vanishing into seriousness. “I swear to you, by the memory of my mother, who loved you when you were a motherless boy, that I will not abuse the Lord Hastur’s kindness, and that it is not a trivial or a frivolous request. Won’t you take me to him?”
His face softened. “As you will, breda,” he said with unusual gentleness. “A Keeper of Arilinn is responsible only to her own conscience. I will show respect to yours until I learn otherwise, little sister. Come with me. Hastur is in his presence-chamber, and he should be finished now with the last delegation for today.”
He led them into the Castle, through broad corridors and into a long pillared passageway; Jeff stiffened, shaking, again a child, carried through this long corridor. One of the strange and colorful dreams that had haunted him in the Spacemen’s Orphanage…
Dyan ushered them into a small anteroom; gestured to them to wait. After a little while he came back, saying, “He’ll see you. But Avarra protect you if you waste his time or try his patience, Lori, for I won’t.” He motioned them into a small presence-chamber, where Danvan Hastur sat on his high seat; bowed and went away.
Lord Hastur bowed to Elorie; his brows ridged briefly in displeasure as he saw Kerwin, but immediately the frown vanished; he was reserving judgment. He gave Kerwin the briefest possible polite nod of acknowledgment, and said, “Well, Elorie?”
“It is kind of you to see me, kinsman,” Elorie said. Then, and Jeff could hear her voice shake, she said, “Or—don’t you know—”
Danvan Hastur’s voice was courteous and grave.
“Many, many years ago,” he said, “I refused to listen when a kinsman begged for my understanding. And as result, Damon Ridenow and all his household were burned by a fire whose origin I refused to question, telling myself that it was the hand of the Gods that burned their household to cinders. And I stood by and raised no hand to help, and I have never felt guiltless of Cleindori’s death. At the time I thought it the just vengeance of the Gods, even though I did not sanction, and I knew nothing of the fanatical assassins who had actually compassed her death. I thought, may all the Gods forgive me, that the breaking of the Forbidden Tower, cruel as the deaths were, would restore our land and our Towers to the old, righteous ways. Oh, I had no hand in any of the deaths, and if the murderers had come into my hands I would have delivered them into the hands of vengeance; but I did not stretch out my hand to prevent the murders, either, or to discredit the fanatics who were responsible for the death of so many of the Comyn whom we could spare so ill. I told myself, when she appealed to me, that Cleindori had forfeited all right to my protection. I don’t intend to make that mistake twice; if I can prevent it, there will be no more deaths in Comyn. Nor will I visit the sins of men long dead on the heads of their descendants. What do you want from me, Elorie Ardais?”
“Now just a minute here,” said Kerwin, before Elorie could open her mouth, “let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t come here to ask for anybody’s protection. The Arilinn Tower threw me out, and when Elorie stuck by me, they threw her out too. But coming here wasn’t my idea, and we don’t need any favors.”
Hastur blinked; then, over his stern and austere face, an unmistakable smile spread. “I stand reproved, son. Tell it your way.”
“To start with,” Elorie said, “he isn’t a Terran. He isn’t Jeff Kerwin’s son.” She explained what she had found out.
Hastur looked startled. He said softly, “Yes. Yes, I should have known. You have a look of the Altons; but Cleindori’s father had Alton blood, and so I never thought anything of it.” Gravely, he bowed to Elorie. “I have done you a grave injustice,” he said. “Any Keeper may, at the promptings of her own conscience, lay down her holy office and take a consort of her own rank and station. We wronged Cleindori; and now we have wronged you. The status of your Comyn husband shall be regularized, kinswoman; may all your sons and daughters be gifted with laran…”
“Oh, the hell with that,” Jeff said, in a sudden rage. “I haven’t changed one damn bit from what I was four days ago, when they thought I wasn’t good enough for Elorie to spit on! So if I marry her while they think I’m Jeff Kerwin, Junior, she’s a bitch and a whore, but if I marry her after I find my father was one of your high-and-mighty Comyn, who couldn’t even be bothered to notify his family that I existed, all of a sudden it’s all right again—”
“Jeff, Jeff, please—” Elorie begged, and he heard her frightened thoughts, nobody dares speak like this to the Lord Hastur—
“I dare,” he said curtly. “Tell him what you came to tell him, Elorie, and then let’s get the hell out of this place! You married me thinking I was a Terran, remember? I’m not ashamed of my name or the man who gave it to me when my own father wasn’t around to protect me!”
He broke off, suddenly abashed before the old man’s steady blue eyes. Hastur smiled at him.
“There speaks the Alton pride—and the pride of the Terrans, which is different, but very real,” he said. “Take pride in your Terran fostering as well as your heritage of blood, my son; my words were to ease Elorie’s heart, not to cast disparagement on your Terran foster-father. By all accounts he was a good and brave man, and I would have saved his life if I could. But now tell me, both of you, why you came here.”
His face grew graver as he listened.
“I knew Auster had been in the hands of the Terrans,” he said, “but it never occurred to me that they could use him in any way; he was so very young. Nor did I know that Cassilde had borne twins. We did the other child a grave injustice; and you say, Kerwin—” he stumbled a little over the name, making it nearer to the Darkovan name Kieran, “that he is embittered, and a Terran spy. Something must be done for him. Why, I wonder, did not Dyan tell me?”
Elorie said, shaking her head, “Dyan knew from Kennard something of the ways of the Forbidden Tower. The children were unlike; perhaps he thought one of them, being dark-haired and dark-eyed, was the son of the Terran; and he helped you only to reclaim the one he believed to be Arnad Ridenow’s son.”
“It is true that we acknowledged Auster as son to Arnad Ridenow,” Hastur said. “He had the Ridenow gift; but he could have had it through Cassilde, who was Callista Lanart-Carr’s daughter by Damon Ridenow.” He shook his head with a sigh.
“The thing is, Lord Hastur,” Jeff said, “that I thought I was the time-bomb the Terrans had planted; and it’s Auster. And he is still in the matrix circle at Arilinn!”
“But he has laran! He grew up among us! He is Comyn!” Hastur said in dismay, and Ke
rwin shook his head.
“No. He is Jeff Kerwin’s son,” Kerwin said, “and I’m not.” Auster, then, had been his foster-brother; they had played together as children. He did not like Auster; but he owed him loyalty. Yes, and love—for Auster was the son of the man who had given him name and place in the Terran Empire. Auster was his brother, and more, his friend within the matrix circle. He did not want Auster used to break the Arilinn Tower.
“But—a Terran? In Arilinn?”
“He thought he was Comyn,” Kerwin said, a curious yeasting excitement boiling within him as he began to understand. “He believed he was Comyn, he expected to have laran—and so he had it, he never developed any mental block against believing in his own psi powers!”
“But don’t you see,” Elorie interrupted. “We have to warn them at Arilinn! They may try the mining operation—and Auster is still linked to Ragan—and it will fail!”
Hastur looked pale. “Yes,” he said. “They sent the little Keeper from Neskaya there—and they were going to try it tonight.”
“Tonight,” Elorie gasped. “We’ve got to warn them! It’s their only chance!”
Kerwin’s thoughts were bitter as they flew through the night. Rain beat and battered at the little airship; a strange young Comyn knelt in the front of the machine, controlling it, but Kerwin had neither eyes nor thought for him.
They had tried to warn Arilinn through the relay screen high in Comyn Castle; but Arilinn had already been taken out of the relay net. Neskaya Tower had told them that they had closed the relays to Arilinn three days ago, when they had sent for Callina Lindir.
So he was going back to Arilinn. Going, after all, to warn them, perhaps to save them—for there was no question that this, the greatest of the Tower operations, was the primary target of the Terrans who wanted Arilinn to fail; fail, so that the Domains would fall into the hands of the Terran advisers, engineers, industrialists.