The Fall of Neskaya (14 page)

“Next time, I suppose it will be me,” Liane sighed, tucking her feet under her and cupping her hands around a mug of steaming
jaco
. She and Coryn had settled in a cushioned window seat overlooking the road to the Tower. They’d been working all night, he on the relays and she charging
laran
batteries, and had sat up to watch the dawn. At Coryn’s shocked expression, she added, “You didn’t think I could stay here forever, did you?”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I thought.”

She sank back, just out of reach. “And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Dom
Kieran . . . and Lady Bronwyn . . . and Aran, and you—”

“Don’t get sentimental on me now!”

Liane stuck her lower lip out at him, reminding him once more of Kristlin. She was, after all, a gently reared young woman of good family and marriageable age, capable of bringing her family a powerful alliance. Even as Kristlin was.

Liane’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I wish there were some magic to capture this morning forever.” Her gaze went again to the road, where the last dust from Bettina’s cortege hung like a gossamer veil. The little muscles around her eyes tensed, as if she could peer into her own future.

Back at Verdanta, it would someday be Kristlin’s time to leave home, encrusted with jewels that were gifts from her bridegroom and his family, perhaps accompanied by her nurse Ruella, if the old woman could still ride that far. It would be good to have someone from her childhood, someone who loved her for herself only, and also someone whom she’d still listen to once she was Queen.

Queen!
Coryn shook his head. He hadn’t been home in two years, but she’d still been a child in pigtails and boy’s breeches then. She’d be thirteen now. . . .

He suddenly became aware of Liane’s intent gaze. Aran or Lady Bronwyn or even Cathal could have followed his thoughts, but Liane’s talents ran elsewhere. “Yes?” she said, tilting her head quizzically. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said for the past five minutes!”

“I—I was thinking of my youngest sister. Kristlin, the one you remind me of.”

“The one who’s promised to Prince Belisar Deslucido, you mean,” she pointed out.

“Are you—are you promised to someone?” he asked awkwardly, for such things were rarely spoken of.

“Why, would you ask for my hand to spare me a stranger’s bed?” The slightest edge of bitterness touched her voice. More than once in their years together, he had reached out to her and she’d gladly responded, but it had been no more than comfort and a night’s pleasure shared between friends. Connected by their
laran
sensitivity, they were easy and honest with one another, with no pretense of ever having been in love.

“You know what my brother would say to that,” she went on, “you being the landless third son of a neighbor he cannot say anything good about. No, my dear brother-of-the-heart, your place in life is here, as is your true talent. And mine—”

“Yours is here also. You are a talented monitor, or do you think Kieran was flattering you?” Only this last winter, Kieran had granted Liane the responsibilities of a fully qualified monitor in his circle. She was one of the youngest within recent memory to qualify.

“Please.” Liane blinked back tears and turned away, chin lifted.

Coryn instantly regretted his thoughtlessness. She
wanted
to stay, to do the work she loved. He was free to follow his vocation here, to make his own life on his own terms within the Tower, an unexpected benefit of being an extra son unlikely to inherit anything but his father’s name. But Liane, no matter how many older sisters she might have, could still bring her family a powerful son-in-law.

Closing his eyes, he felt her pain as a shivering of tiny knives over his skin. He reached out to her with his
laran
. Whereas Bronwyn had always seemed to him to be a chiming of silvery bells and Kieran a rocky tor brushed with snow, Liane appeared as thick, sun-warmed silk. She was a natural monitor, for no matter how absorbed he was in the work in relay or matrix circle, no matter how far from his chilled, stiff body he had gone, she could steady his heart or warm his belly without the slightest hint of intrusion. And all this glorious talent, her quick mind, her independent spirit, all this would be thrown away to breed sons for some fat lord who’d probably already buried three wives.

Coryn pushed away the thought and focused instead on the image of spider silk blown by a breeze. He saw the fabric pulled one way, wrung into wrinkles in another. His hand stroked the silk, smoothing the creases.

With a barely audible sigh, Liane welcomed his mental touch. Under his caress, the crinkles gradually eased into unbroken billows, gently swelling in the warm, rain-scented air. The color shifted from dull gray to blue, darkening to violet along the edges.

Encouraged, Coryn went deeper. Through the outlines of her body, he saw streams of light, channels which carried her
laran
energies. Most were gold-white with health, but there, near the region of her heart, strands crossed and darkened to orange, almost red. To his relief, these were not the centers which carried sexual energy, for as a monitor she knew too well the dangers of letting those stagnate. Whatever her feelings for Aran, she had accepted that they would never be returned. Aran loved her according to his nature, no more. Now she was simply heartsick at the idea of leaving Tramontana.

As gently as he’d smoothed the silk, he untangled the orange-red energy streams, teasing one after the other free until each shone with a pale-yellow glow. After he finished, he rested before withdrawing to his own body. In this place, linked by a
laran
bond far more intimate than any sexual union, they knew and trusted one another without hesitation.

He opened his eyes to see Liane looking at him with a curious expression. “Thank you,” she said. “That was well done.” She got up, covering a yawn with one hand. “You could be a Keeper, you know.” She headed off toward her quarters, leaving him too startled to reply.

Night lay like a shawl of ebony velvet over Tramontana Tower and the surrounding peaks. The last light of pearly Mormallor had long since faded, leaving only the faint milky band of stars to break the blackness, for this was one of the few seasons when none of Darkover’s four moons shone. At the center of the largest laboratory, huge matrix screens glowed, touching the face of each worker with an eerie blue radiance like that of truthspell. Before them, stoppered glass vessels held powders and simmering fluids, the raw materials for the night’s work, and empty containers awaited the final product.

Coryn felt the energy pulsing from the screens, dozens of individual starstones held in a crystalline lattice and linked in such a way to guide and amplify the
laran
of the circle. He closed his eyes to better focus on the task at hand. From time to time, he felt Kieran’s sure cool direction or the touch of Gareth, who was monitor this night, Liane being temporarily unable to work because of her woman’s cycles.

Power surged from his depths and into the circle, to be blended with that of the other workers, shaped and focused by the Keeper. It was early yet in the evening, and Coryn’s energy was high. He felt fit and rested, almost exhilarated.

Their task tonight was one he could give himself over to without reservation—the refining of fire-fighting chemicals. During the last few months, the circle had mined some of the elements from deep within the earth, carried mote by mote through
laran
to the surface, a tedious and exhausting job. Other elements came by conventional transport from the caves not far from Tramontana. Now, with the raw materials at hand, the most difficult part of the work began. It was not as dangerous as making
clingfire
, where the particles must be refined by distilling under intense heat and the glass vessels could explode, scattering bits of the corrosive material, but accidents could still happen.

Under Kieran’s command, the circle worked to refine each bit of material to its purest state. The separation process was demanding and more so, the need to keep each type of particle separate and shielded from air and moisture. The glass vessels were not enough; the process required a continuous stream of
laran
power for the protective layers. The materials must be held apart until ready for the delicate process that combined them.

Coryn floated in the unity of the circle, reveling in the swirls and ripples of the mental energy which joined them. Sometimes he felt it as a spiral whirlpool, lifting them ever higher, other times a ring dance or even a choir with each voice blending to a glorious harmony. On one side sat Kieran, deftly weaving them together, on the other, Aran. Across the circle, Bronwyn sang like silvery bells. He had rarely felt so open, so safe, not since his boyhood.

Coryn, bring the fields closer.
Kieran spoke within his mind.
Carefully
. . .

This was Keeper’s work, and Coryn knew it. He also knew that Kieran would not have given him this responsibility if he were not ready for it. He had come to accept that sometimes Kieran knew him better than he knew himself, and within the circle, his trust in his Keeper was absolute.

With his mind, he reached for the spheres containing the refined materials, two pulsing, hugely swollen orbs and two smaller ones.

Carefully
. . .

The larger spheres were easier to handle, but the danger came from the volatile matter in the smaller ones. Coryn concentrated harder. He dimly felt Bronwyn’s flicker of approval, Aran’s surge of pride. Gareth eased a tight muscle in his upper back and the next breath came more freely.

Now take one particle from here . . . and here . . . and join them thus.
As if placing his physical hands over Coryn’s, Kieran guided him through the next step. Together they formed a miniature separation field around each mote. Drawing on the
laran
of the circle, Coryn mentally moved the particles into an empty glass vessel.

Yes!
The particles, drawn by their complementary affinity, leaped toward one another as soon as Coryn released the protective fields. Dark red and orange, white and muddy brown flared into a ball of yellow-white, then cooled to tiny wrinkled seeds the gray of ashes.

Elation surged through Coryn. For an instant, he pictured this very kernel which he had created dusting the air above a blazing forest. Perhaps even one on Verdanta lands. The familiar mountain slopes appeared in his memory, smoke and leaping embers, Eddard’s soot-grimed face and his father’s, little Kristlin in boy’s breeches—

Coryn.
Kieran’s mental voice broke through the reverie. Coryn gathered his concentration to return to the task at hand—

And between one heartbeat and the next, he was drowning, suffocating, fighting for breath. His chest heaved, laboring to draw air into sodden lungs. The wheeze and rattle of congested breathing passages filled his ears. Fire raced through his veins.

Dimly he felt hands clutching at sweat-soaked sheets, a cool cloth laid upon his forehead, voices shouting a name he could not understand.

He struggled to sit up. Images smeared into a blur of delirium, then faded to gray. He was falling, falling . . .

His own name reverberated through his mind, Kieran’s stony thunder echoed by Aran’s cry of alarm and the jangle of silvery bells from Bronwyn. About him, the circle was breaking up, their unity shattered.

Coryn’s physical eyes lit upon the stoppered vessels containing the separated particles for the fire retardant chemicals. They glowed with the backlash of psychic energy. His had been the responsibility to hold the elements separate and inert within their
laran
generated fields. Now one rocked as if on the brink of explosion. He leaped from his bench and lunged for it.

Coryn’s fingers curled around a smooth-sided inferno. He smelled singed flesh and for a nightmare moment, saw blue flames leaping from his hands up his arms. Reflexively, he dropped the vessel. It smashed on the stone floor. His body arched and spasmed, half in physical agony, half in mental. Someone caught him under the armpits and gently lowered him to the ground. He blinked, looking up into Aran’s eyes, dark with concern.

“Aldones!” Gareth cried. “What happened?” Swiftly, he ran his hands scant inches over Coryn’s body, monitoring him.

Lungrot
. . . Gareth’s thoughts ran in Coryn’s mind.
How can that be? Only a moment ago, he was healthy and strong
. . .

“It was not him.” Kieran rose from where he and Bronwyn had knelt together over the spilled chemicals, stabilizing them until they could be contained once more.

He bent over Coryn in silent question.

“Something—I don’t know,” Coryn stammered. Yet he did know.

Shivers began deep within his body, rippling outward. His teeth chattered, and he could not control his hands. He held them aloft, gazing at the reddened flesh as if it were not his.