The Fall of Neskaya (39 page)

After a moment of silence, Rafael said, “I ask the Council to take no further action in this matter.”

The old lord shook his head. “It is already out of our hands. I do not know if we, in our attempt at a peaceful resolution, have only made the situation worse.
Adelandayo,
Rafael Hastur. Go with the gods, and may their wisdom guide you.”

W
inter was no time for warfare, Coryn reflected, even if Neskaya Tower were not snowbound like Tramontana at this season. And yet war had come.

He drew back from the casement into the warmth of the room. Even from inside, the translucent stone of Neskaya Tower caught the light of the slanting late afternoon winter sun. He remembered the first glimpse he had of the Tower, rising above the city of Neskaya like a pillar of glimmering sky-tinted ice, and how his heart had risen in delight.

Within, Neskaya Tower was organized somewhat differently from Tramontana. Without Kieran to exert such a dominant influence, decisions and power were spread more broadly over the Keepers and senior technicians. This was, Coryn suspected, in part due to the personalities of the last few generations of Keepers. Bernardo Alton was no exception in his willingness to listen to other ideas, and his innate respect for the people he regarded as his colleagues, not his subordinates.

“A Keeper’s work is like any other,” he had told Coryn when they first began to work together.
Work together
was Bernardo’s phrase. “More glamorous to the public, perhaps, and certainly more demanding at times, but of no greater value. A Keeper without a circle is merely another technician. Never forget that the instrument with which you create your music is your circle, not yourself.”

The second reason for the more democratic flavor of Neskaya Tower became apparent only after Coryn had been there some months, through the fall harvest and the beginning of winter. Unlike Tramontana, which had seemed a world unto itself, Neskaya owed clear obligations to its lawful lords, the Hasturs. For centuries it had been in Ridenow hands, until the peace forged by Allart Hastur between those two Domains. Bernardo once referred to Neskaya’s present allegiances as having been forged by a peace treaty.

Neskaya had been asked, no,
commanded
, to make
clingfire
for the Hastur lords. Until now, Bernardo’s experiments with a safer, more stable form had been the only active work with the corrosive stuff, and only the Keeper and a few of the more senior technicians were involved. Once, Bernardo had told Coryn, there was not a Tower from one end of settled Darkover to the other which was not making
clingfire
. Once, he said, it was used as readily as arrows in warfare. But in recent times, the Domains lords had often held their hands, relying on plain steel instead.

“Oh,
laran
still has a vital role in warfare and it always will,” Bernardo said. “How else can generals communicate quickly with one another, or spy out the land with their sentry-birds, if not with our help?”

Now Coryn was to learn the creation and use of
clingfire
. He began by separating out minute particles of the flammable stuff and bringing it, bit by bit, to the surface. Once refined, the elements had to be kept separate in fields generated by great artificial matrix screens, or they would ignite. It was very much like the process of refining chemicals for fire fighting, only with far more disastrous results if an accident were to occur. Before long, he, and every other Tower worker who made
clingfire
, bore scars from momentary lapses in concentration.

From those few accidents, Coryn tried to imagine what it would be like to have the deadly liquid fire dropping on him from aircars or shot over castle walls on the tips of arrows. He wondered what it would be like to pilot an aircar, to look down on the lands and fortifications of an enemy, to see them burst into unquenchable flame. The Hastur lord had not yet asked for the
clingfire
to be delivered, only made ready. Coryn found himself grateful for the respite.

The light drained from the sky with the suddenness of winter. Dark settled over Neskaya’s walls, softening the shadows into velvet. Only Kyrrdis swung through the blackness overhead, and the Tower’s walls gave off a faint blue shimmer in its light.

Coryn robed himself warmly for the night’s work. Neskaya was not nearly as cold as Tramontana, but the long motionless hours left everyone stiff. Constructing the huge artificial matrix screens for Bernardo’s experimental
clingfire
required even more concentration than other
laran
work. He could not afford the distraction of aching fingers or shivering muscles.

He came down the staircase from the living quarters, on his way past the kitchen for a hot drink before joining his circle.

“Coryn! There you are!” Amalie called to him. Slender and almost androgynous, she trotted toward him, pushing back an unruly cloud of pale-straw hair. “Come up to the relay room. You’re wanted.”

He raised one eyebrow in question, a gesture he’d half-unconsciously adopted from his new friend Cormac, the matrix technician who’d first welcomed him and then dubbed him
the other Cor of Neskaya.
Coryn, in retaliation, had dubbed the older man
Mac
and the nickname stuck.

Like everyone else in the Tower, Coryn took his turn at the
laran
relays, sending and receiving messages from other Towers. He could not think what difficulty could not be as capably dealt with by Mac or even Amalie herself. “What’s going on?”

She gestured for him to follow her up the stairs. At Neskaya, the chamber housing the relay screens was set apart in its own tower to isolate communications from the stray mental energies generated by other projects. Chill radiated from the walls, for this section was part of the original Tower, old beyond imagining, constructed of fine-grained granite rather than the translucent blue stone of the central Tower. Amalie, swathed in the thick soft robe of a monitor, hugged her arms to her body as she climbed.

“It is a personal message,” she said once they were well out of hearing of the lower common room.

Coryn could not imagine who would send to him in particular, unless it were bad news, another death at Tramontana perhaps. Lady Bronwyn—

No, surely he would have known. Their minds had been too closely linked for him not to sense her death.

They came to a halt outside the relay chamber. White light from the glows mingled with the blue radiance of the screens to cast eerie shadows across the girl’s face. He thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes, or perhaps it was the white flash of fear.

At Neskaya, the relay screens sat on low tables, so that the workers did not need to crouch, but could sit on padded benches. A small coal brazier, its smoke contained by a heat-permeable
laran
shield, filled the room with gentle warmth.

Amalie went to the bench covered by a rumpled shawl. Coryn recognized it as her favorite, thick
chervine
wool knitted in a ferny design with threads of green and brown. He picked it up and draped it over her shoulders. With a fingertip gesture, she motioned for him to sit.

Coryn did so, bringing his mind to focus on the screen before him. It was active, the lattices tuned to Amalie’s clear, almost geometric thought pattern. Subtly, he shifted them to his own and felt himself rise into the moony radiance. He always thought of contact along the relays as swimming through a sea of light. Ripples of brilliance and shadow passed over him. Elongating himself like a sea creature, he plunged through cross currents of shivery cold, moving ever deeper. Music vibrated through him, the deepthroated resonant calls of mythic beasts. Light faded, colors muting to blues and purples, finally to inky shadows. Vision dimmed as he dropped into rapport.

Coryn, are you there?
Words touched him like the brush of a falcon’s wings. The sea fell away, and Coryn floated in a crystalline sky, surrounded by the mental presence of his friend.

A rush of warmth and pleasure answered him. For a long moment, he savored the sense of loving union, of acceptance. A loneliness he had not known was there lifted from him. All was right, perfect, complete.

I have missed you more than I knew,
he thought.

And I, you.
A pause, an awkward pulling away into separateness.
Lady Bronwyn is well, and sends her love. She asked leave to return to her family, but was refused.

Coryn startled.
What is it? What is going on? Why would she wish to leave?

Coryn had not known that. Bronwyn had so clearly been highly born, she of the silvery bells. She had never referred to her rank.

This will be our last relay to Neskaya.
Sadness weighed every syllable.
We are to cease contact, least we betray some secret. . . .

The clear skies darkened and Coryn struggled to keep the connection. Neskaya was making
clingfire
for the Hastur lord, but he had not thought of its target. Since coming here, he had thought little of the politics of the outer world beyond distaste at their intrusion.

Without saying so, Aran had made his meaning clear. Tramontana and Neskaya were to join in the conflicts between their respective lords.

“Yes, that is always a possibility,” Bernardo said in answer to Coryn’s question about friends or even kinsmen finding themselves on opposing sides in a conflict, once Towers became involved. “It has happened in the past and will again.”

“But surely it is not right, especially when the quarrel is none of our making,” Coryn said, sitting forward on the chair in the Keeper’s study. He’d had to move a stack of diagrams for a new scheme of interlocking matrix screens, a stuffed owl, and three crumb-laden platters in order to make room to sit down.

“The world goes as it will, not as you or I would have it.” Although Bernardo’s voice was neutral, fear and sadness resonated behind his words.

Coryn was struck by how thin Bernardo looked, as if life’s struggles had pared him to the very bone. Coryn then remembered Bernardo was an Alton, and not immune to divided loyalties. As far as he knew, there was peace between Hastur and Alton, but in these uncertain times, that might not always be true.

“If we are to serve Hastur in this campaign against Deslucido,” Coryn said slowly, “then we might be ordered to drop
clingfire
on any of the lands which he holds.”

And Coryn himself in an aircar, looking down on the scene, wishing with all his heart it was he himself down there, burning, dying in agony, instead of his loved ones.

Bernardo reached out to brush Coryn’s wrist with a featherlight touch of the fingers. It was meant as reassurance, but both of them knew that even though Bernardo might try, he could not lighten Coryn’s duties. Coryn still had a few years to complete his Keeper’s training, but there was no doubt that he would; his abilities and talent for the work had shown themselves clearly. He would be Keeper of Neskaya after Bernardo; his would be the responsibility.

“There must be a way to remain neutral, to do all the constructive, peaceful work we may do and yet stay apart from the conflict,” Coryn said.

“Are we wise enough, then, to decide what quarrels we will join and which we will pass by?” Bernardo asked. “It is said that power clouds judgment. And with such power as we wield, can we be trusted to use it wisely? Or is it better to leave such decisions to those trained to it, just as we are trained to the use of our
laran
?”

“You speak in questions, as if we can not know the answers,” Coryn said. He had heard these questions, or those very like them, too many times already. It was no use asking Bernardo to refuse to make
clingfire
for this brewing war, or to ignore a command from the Hastur lord, no matter how hateful. But perhaps, if their case were to be put directly to the King . . .

Bernardo listened gravely as Coryn outlined his idea. “Hastur can call upon Hali Tower,” Coryn said, “which surely is closer to hand and has fewer conflicts of loyalty than we do. Let us use our talents to heal instead of harm, make chemicals to fight fires instead of ignite them, promote peace through communication and the solid trust of truthspell.”

“I cannot say whether the Hastur King will agree,” Bernardo said.

“But we must try!” Coryn sat even farther forward on his chair, so that he perched on its very edge. “Let me go, let me speak to him, plead our case.”

“Oh, you make an eloquent spokesman, indeed,” said Bernardo, his familiar smile flashing like summer lightning across his features. “And I think you are right. Asked respectfully, and whatever answer accepted in good grace—”