Stormqueen! (59 page)

Allart smiled fiercely. He said, “Then I can inconvenience you somewhat in coming to the throne, if only by my death!”

“I do not understand this,” Damon-Rafael said. “You asked me to spare you this marriage to the Aillard woman, and now you speak romantically of love. You swore to support me for the throne, and now you refuse your support and strive to hinder me! What has happened, Allart? Is that what love for a woman can do to a man? If so, I am glad I have never known such love!”

“When I pledged my support to you,” Allart said, “I did not know what would befall if you were to be king. Now I have pledged myself to support Prince Felix.”

“An
emmasca
cannot be king,” Damon-Rafael said. “That is one of our oldest laws.”

“If you were fit to be king,” Allart retorted, “you would not be on the road with an army, trying to extend your reign to the northlands! You would wait until the Council offered you the throne, and seek their advice.”

“How could I better serve my kingdom, than by extending its might and power across the Hellers as well?” Damon-Rafael said. “Come, Allart, there is no reason we should quarrel… Cassandra has a
nedestro
sister, as like to Cassandra as twin to twin. You shall have her for your wife, and be my chief councillor. I shall need someone with your foresight and strength.
Bare is back without brother
… that is what they say, and believe me, it is true. Let us amend our differences, embrace and be friends.”

Then it is hopeless
, Allart thought. Even as Damon-Rafael held out his arms for the offered embrace, Allart was aware of the dagger concealed by stealth in his brother’s hand.

So he would not even face me openly, but would embrace me and stab me to the heart even while I went to his arms
, he mourned.
Oh, my brother
. … As he moved into Damon-Rafael’s embrace, he reached out with his
laran
, trained and honed to skill in the Tower and at Nevarsin, and held Damon-Rafael motionless, the dagger revealed now in his hand.

Damon-Rafael struggled, held motionless, but Allart shook his head sadly.

“So you seek to embrace and stab at once, brother? Is this the kind of statecraft you think will make you king? No, Damon-Rafael,” he said sorrowfully, and reaching out into Damon-Rafael’s mind, made contact. “See what kind of king you would make, my brother who has renounced the tie of brotherhood.”

He felt his
laran
flooding the future through Damon-Rafael’s mind; conquest, blood and rapine, the relentless rise to power, laying waste the Domains to wilderness and a stunned conquest they called peace by default… men’s minds burned into blind obedience, the land shattered and torn with war waged with greater and greater weapons, all men bowing down before a king who had become not the just ruler and protector of his people, but their tyrant, despot, hated as no man had ever been hated within the realm…

“No, no,” Damon-Rafael whispered, struggling with the dagger in his hand. “Show me no more. I would not be like that.”

“No, my brother? You have the Hastur
laran
which sees all choices; see for yourself what manner of king you would be,” Allart said, releasing his hold on his brother’s mind but holding him motionless. “Face no man’s judgment but your own. Look within.”

He watched Damon-Rafael, saw the look of dread and horror spreading over his face, slow dawning of awareness, conviction. Then, with a maddened effort, Damon-Rafael freed himself from Allart’s hold and raised the dagger. Allart stood his ground, knowing that within a moment he might lie at his brother’s feet - or had Damon-Rafael seen himself clearly enough to take warning?

“I will not be such a king,” Damon-Rafael whispered, just loud enough for Allart to hear. “I tell you I will not,” and with one swift movement he raised the dagger and plunged it deep into his own breast.

He crumpled to the ground, whispered, “Even your foresight cannot see all ends, little brother,” and coughed out a stream of bright red blood. Allart felt his brother’s dying mind fade into silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The armies in the valley below had departed, but thunder still rolled and crunched around the heights, and stray bolts of lightning ripped across the mountains. As she went into the lower hall of Castle Aldaran, Cassandra gave Allart a quick, frightened look.

“It has not stopped thundering - not once, not for a moment - since she struck Scathfell down. And you know she will not let Renata near her.”

Donal sat with Dorilys’s head in his lap; the girl looked ill and feverish. She held Donal’s hand tightly clasped in hers and would not release it. The blue eyes were closed, but she opened them, painfully, as Cassandra came to her side.

“The thunder hurts my head so,” she whispered. “I can’t make it stop. Can’t you help me turn off the lightning, Cassandra?”

Cassandra bent over her. “I will try. But I think it is only that you are overwearied,
chiya
.” She took the lax fingers in hers, fell back with a cry of pain, and Dorilys burst into violent crying.

“I didn’t mean to do that, I didn’t! It keeps happening and I cannot stop it! I hurt Margali; I did it to Kathya while she was dressing me. Oh, Cassandra, make it stop, make it stop! Can’t anybody make the thundering go away?”

Dom Mikhail came and bent over her. His face was drawn and troubled. “Hush, hush, my precious, no one is blaming you!” He turned a look of agony on Cassandra. “Can you help her? Donal, you have that kind of
laran
, too; can you do nothing for her?”

“I wish indeed that there was something I could do,” Donal said, cradling the girl in his arms. She relaxed against him, and Cassandra, steadying herself, braced and took the girl’s hand in her own again. This time nothing happened, but she felt frightened, even while she tried to relax herself into the calm detachment of a monitor. She looked once at Renata, over Dorilys’s head, and Renata picked up her thought:
I wish she would let you do this; you have so much more experience than I
.

“I will give you something to make you sleep,” she said at last. “Perhaps all you need is rest, chiya.”

When Renata brought the sleeping draft, Donal held the vial to her lips. Dorilys swallowed it obediently, but her voice was plaintive when she said, “I am so afraid to sleep now. My dreams are so dreadful, and I hear the tower falling, and the thunder is inside me. The storms are all inside my head now…”

Donal stood up, Dorilys in his arms. “Let me carry you to your bed, sister,” he said, but she clung to him.

“No, no! Oh, please, please, I’m afraid to be alone. I’m so afraid. Please stay with me, Donal! Don’t leave me!”

“I will stay with you until you are asleep,” Donal promised, sighing, and signaled to Cassandra to come with them.

She followed as he carried Dorilys along the hall and up the long staircase. At the end of the hallway the roofing had been roughly repaired, but a great pile of stone and fallen plaster and debris still blocked the hall. Cassandra thought,
It is no great wonder she hears it in her nightmares
!

Donal carried Dorilys into her room, laying her on the bed and summoning her women to loosen her clothing, remove her shoes. But even when she was tucked under her quilts she would not release his hand. She murmured something Cassandra did not hear. Donal stroked her forehead gently, with his free hand.

“This is no time to speak of that, chiya. You are ill. When you are well and strong again, and wholly free of threshold sickness - then, yes, if you wish it. I have promised you.” He bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead, but she pulled at his head with both hands so that their lips met, and the kiss she gave him was not a child’s kiss or a sister’s. Donal drew away, looking troubled and embarrassed.

“Sleep, child, sleep. You are wearied; you must be strong and well tonight for the victory feast in the Great Hall.”

She lay back on her pillow, smiling.

“Yes,” she said drowsily. “For the first time I shall sit in the high seat as Lady of Aldaran… and you beside me… my husband…”

The drowsiness of the strong sleeping medicine was already taking her. She let her eyes fall shut, but she did not loosen her grip on Donal’s hand, and even when she slept it was some time before her fingers relaxed enough so that he could draw his hand free. Cassandra, watching, was embarrassed at having witnessed this, even though she knew perfectly well that this was one reason Donal had wanted her there.

She is not herself. We should not blame her for what happens when she is under such stress, poor child
. But inside herself Cassandra knew that Dorilys was perfectly well aware what she was doing, and why.

She is too old for her years…

When they returned to the hall, Renata raised questioning eyes to them, and Donal said, “Yes, she sleeps. But in the name of all the gods, cousin, what did you give her to work so quickly?”

Renata told him, and he stared at her in consternation.

“
That
? To a child?”

Dom Mikhail said, “That would be a dose overlarge for a grown man dying of the black rot! Was that not dangerous?”

“I dared give her nothing less,” Renata said. “Listen.” She held up a hand for silence and overhead they could hear the crackle and crumble of thunder in the cloudless sky. “Even now she dreams.”

“Blessed Cassilda, have mercy!” Dom Mikhail said. “What ails her?”

Renata said soberly, “Her
laran
is out of control. You should never have allowed her to use it in the war, my lord. Her control was broken down when she loosed it against the armies. I first saw it in the fire station, when she played with the storms, and became overexcited and dizzy. You remember, Donal! But she had not then come to her full strength or womanhood. Now - all the control I taught her has faded from her mind. I do not know what we can do for her.” She turned, made a deep reverence to Aldaran.

“My lord, I asked you this once before, and you refused. Now, I think, there is no choice. I implore you. Let me burn out her psi centers. Perhaps now, while she sleeps, it could still be done.”

Aldaran looked at Renata in horror.

“When her
laran
has saved us all? What would that do to her?”

“I think - I
hope
,” Renata said, “that it would do no more than take away the lightnings that torment her so. She would be without
laran
, but she wishes for that now. You heard her beg Cassandra to take away the thundering. She would perhaps be no more, and no less, than an ordinary woman of her caste, ungifted with
laran
, yes, but having her beauty, still, and her talents, and her superb voice. She could still - ” She hesitated, choked over the words, and went on, looking straight at Donal, “She could still give an heir of Aldaran blood to your clan, gifted with the
laran
in her genes. She should never bear a daughter, but she could give Aldaran a son, if need be.”

Donal had told her of the promise he had made to Dorilys, during the siege of Castle Aldaran.

“It is no more than fair,” Renata had said then.
If Dorilys must be bound all her life by the
catenas
in a marriage forced on her before she is old enough to know anything of marriage or of love, where she will have the name and dignity of a wife but never a husband’s love, it is only fair that she should have something of her very own, something to love and cherish. I do not grudge her a child for Aldaran. It would be better if she would choose some other than Donal for the fathering, but as her life must be ordered, it is not likely she will come to know any man well enough for such a purpose. And it is Lord Aldaran’s will that Donal’s son should reign here when he is gone. I do not begrudge Dorilys a child of Donal’s. It is I who am his wife, and we all know it, or will know it, in time to come
.

Now Renata looked at Lord Aldaran, pleading, and Allart remembered the moment when he had seen with his
laran
, in this very hall, the vassals of Aldaran acclaiming a child whom he held up before them, proclaiming the new heir of Aldaran blood. Why, Allart wondered, should his foresight show him only this one moment? It seemed that all else was blurred into nightmare and thundercloud. But they saw it in Allart’s mind, all the telepaths there assembled, and Aldaran said “I told you so!” with that fierce, hawklike glance.