Stormqueen! (63 page)

No. This is madness! It is forbidden. I must return before it is too late
. She had known this from her first years in the Tower, that there could not be,
must
not be, any intrusion by the living into whatever realms belonged to the dead, and she knew why. But caution was almost gone in her now. In the despair of grief, she thought,
I must see him once more, only once, must kiss him, must say good-bye… I must or I cannot live! Surely it cannot be forbidden, only to say goodbye. I am a trained matrix worker. I know what I am doing, and it will give me the strength to go on living without him…

A final touch of intruding sanity made her wonder if it were truly Donal there on the horizon, leading her away. Or was it an illusion, born of grief and longing, unwillingness to accept the irrevocability of death? Here in the realms of thought, her mind could build an illusion of Donal and follow it till she joined him in those realms.

I do not care! I do not care
! It seemed that she was running, running after the retreating form, then more slowly, more despairing, her pace slackening. Unable to move, she sent out a final despairing cry:
Donal! Wait
-

Suddenly the grayness lightened, thinned, a shadowy form barred her way, and a voice spoke her name; a familiar, gentle voice.

“Renata. Kinswoman, cousin - Renata, no.”

She saw Dorilys standing before her, not the terrifying inhuman lightning flare, not the queen of storms, but the old Dorilys, the little Dorilys of that summer of her love. In this fluid world where all things were as the mind pictured them, Dorilys was the little girl she had been, her hair in a long plait, one of her old childish dresses barely reaching her ankles.

“No, Renata, love, it is not Donal. It is an illusion born of your longing, an illusion you would follow forever. Go back, dear. They need you,
there
- “

Suddenly Renata saw the hall in Castle Aldaran, where her lifeless body lay, watched by Cassandra.

Renata stopped, looking at Dorilys before her.

She had killed. Killed Donal…

“Not I, but my gift,” Dorilys said, and the childish face was tragic. “I will kill no more, Renata. In my pride and willfulness I would not listen, and now it is too late. You must go back and tell them; I must never wake again.”

Renata bowed her head, knowing the child spoke truth.

“They need you, Renata. Go back. Donal is not here,” Dorilys said. “I, too, could have followed him forever over that horizon. Only, perhaps, now, when there is no pride or desire to blind me, I can see clearly. All my life, I never saw more of Donal than
that
, an illusion, my own willful belief that he would be what I wanted him to be. I - ” Renata saw her face flicker and move and she saw the child Dorilys might have been, the woman she was becoming, would now never be. “I knew he was given to you; I was too selfish to accept it. Now I have not even what he would have given me, willingly. I wanted what he could give only to you.”

She gestured. “Go back, Renata. It is too late for me.”

“But what will become of you, child?”

“You must use your matrix,” Dorilys said, “to isolate me behind a force-field like the ones at Hali… you told me of them, shielding things too dangerous to use. You cannot even kill me, Renata. The gift in my brain works independent now of the real
me
- I do not understand it, either - but
it
will strike to protect my body if I am attacked. Even though I no longer desire to live. Renata, cousin, promise me you will not let me destroy any more of those I love!”

It could be done
, Renata thought.
Dorilys could not be killed. But she could be isolated, her life-forces suspended, behind a force-field
.

“Let me sleep so, safe, until it is safe for me to wake,” Dorilys said, and Renata trembled. This would isolate Dorilys in the overworld, alone, behind the force-field which would barricade even her mind.

“Darling, what of you, then?”

Her smile was childish and wise.

“Why, with such a long time - although time, I know, does not exist
out here
- I shall perhaps learn wisdom, at last, if I continue to live. And if I do not” - a curious, distant smile - “there are others who have gone before me. I do not believe wisdom is ever wasted. Go back, Renata. Do not let me destroy anyone else. Donal is gone beyond my reach, or yours. But you must go back, and you must live, because of his child. He deserves some chance at life.”

With those words Renata found herself lying in the chair in the Great Hall at Castle Aldaran, with the storms breaking above the castle heights…

“It can be done,” Allart said at last quietly. “Among the three of us, it can be done. Her life-forces can be lowered to where she is no danger. Perhaps she will die; perhaps, only, they will be in abeyance and someday she may wake in safety, in control. But more likely she will sink and sink, and finally, perhaps many years or centuries from now, she will die. In either case she is free, and we are safe…”

So it was done, and she lay as Allart had foreseen with his
laran
, motionless on the bier in the great vaulted room which was the chapel of Castle Aldaran.

“We shall bear her to Hali,” Allart said, “and there lay her within the chapel, forever.”

Lord Aldaran took Renata’s hand. “I have no heir; I am alone and old. It is my will that Donal’s son shall reign here when I am gone. It will not be long. Kinswoman,” he added, looking into her eyes, “will you wed me by the
catenas
? I have nothing to offer you save this: that if I acknowledge your child my son and heir, there is none alive who can gainsay me.”

Renata bowed her head. “For the sake of Donal’s son. Let it be as you will, kinsman,” and Aldaran held out his arms and folded her in them. He kissed her, tenderly and without passion, on the forehead; and with that the floodgates broke, and for the first time since Donal had been stricken down before her, Renata began to weep, crying and crying as if she would never cease.

Allart knew at last that this death would not strike down Renata also. She would live, and someday she would even recover. A day would come when Aldaran would proclaim Donal’s son heir to Aldaran in this very room, as Allart’s
laran
had foreseen…

They rode forth the next morning at daybreak, Dorilys’s body sealed in her force-field within its casket, to bear her to Hali, there to lie forever. Allart and Cassandra rode beside her. Above them, on the highest balcony of Aldaran, Renata and old Dom Mikhail watched them go, silent, motionless, bowed with mourning.

Allart thought, as they rode down the pathway, that he could never cease to mourn - for Donal, struck low in the midst of victory; for Dorilys, in her beauty and willfulness and pride; for the proud old man who stood above them, broken; and for Renata at his side, broken by grief.

I, too, am broken. I will be a king, and I do not want to reign. Yet I alone can save this realm from disaster, and I have no choice
. He rode, head bowed, hardly seeing Cassandra at his side, until at last she reached to him and closed her slender six-fingered hand over his as they rode.

“A time will come, my dear love,” she said, “when at last we may make songs, not war. My
laran
is not as yours. But I foresee it.”

Allart thought,
I am not alone… and for her sake I must not grieve
. He raised his head, setting his face firmly against the future, and threw up a hand in final farewell to Castle Aldaran, which he would never see again, and in parting from Renata, from whom, he knew, he parted only for a little while.

As he rode down the path from Aldaran, following the cortege that bore the stormqueen to her last resting place, he prepared himself to meet on the road the men who were, even now, riding toward him to offer him the unwanted crown. Overhead the sky was gray and still, and it seemed that no thunder had ever troubled those quiet spaces.

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[27 August, 2003 - v1 html proofed and formatted by Agent99 for the 3S group]