Citadels of Darkover

by Deborah J. Ross

“I believe you, bredilla,” Martina replied. “Some men think it an invitation if you do no more than meet their gaze. Now you understand why we hire out in pairs.”

  Gali remembered how she had resented the other woman’s authority, as if she wasn’t considered good enough to go out alone. “Is it always like this when we take outside employment?”

  Martina shook her head. “There are always some who assume any Renunciate pair are lovers and will joke about it, but if we do our share of the work and seek no special treatment, most men will leave us alone.”

  “I suppose so,” Gali admitted after awhile. “They were polite enough until we got stuck in here. We’re all on edge, and afraid...”

  “And frightened men do crazy things—” the other woman agreed. The day before, one of the merchants had snapped and made a run for the gate, getting most of the way over the barricade before outlaw arrows pinned him to its timbers. His body was still there.

  Gali gazed out across the quiet landscape. The smallest of the moons, pearly Mormallor, rode high, and mauve Idriel was just lifting above the trees.

  “Do you think Wrong-Hand will attack tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Martina sighed. “But do I think they will really try to get in?” She shook her head. “They’ve had time enough to fetch a log from the mountains and ram it through our barrier. But why should they risk their skins? No, I think they are doing just enough to keep us pinned down here, waiting for desperation to deliver us into their hands.”

  “Like poor Mestre Niccolo.” Gali replied. The merchant who ran had gotten too far for the defenders to help him without getting skewered themselves, and he took a long time to die.

  The thought was enough to stifle conversation, and they sat in silence until Mormallor had set and it was time for the watch to change.

  Gali had expected to be too tired for dreaming, but in the darkest hour she found herself underground once more, in the room that was lit by the stone casket’s glow.

  “Take me...” sang the voice she had heard before. “Set me free...”

  Was this some spell from the Ages of Chaos, like the thing that had cursed the outlaw chieftain’s hand?

  She was still wondering when she began to hear men’s voices. As she opened her eyes, the glow coming from the box was replaced by orange sunlight shafting through the slatted shutters of the room in which she lay.

  Her dream chilled her soul. But could it be worse, she wondered, than what she faced in the waking world?

  ~o0o~

  “We’ve lost another chervine,” said Rafael, gnarled hand furrowing his white hair. The pack-animals had eaten all the fodder they had carried, and every sprig of green within the walls. Their moaning complaint was almost constant now.

  “Then we know what tonight’s dinner will be...” one of the men replied. He was echoed by a bitter laugh. Everyone knew that the supplies of human food were getting low as well.

  That morning the reivers had made a half-hearted attempt to force the gate and then withdrawn, leaving a token watcher to trade insults with the caravan guard stationed on the other side, and Mestre Andres had called a meeting.

  “We can live on our animals ‘till Liriel wanes and swells to full once more,” said Kyril. “But when we finish gnawing the bones of Captain MacAran’s horse, we’ll be no better off than we are now.”

  By that time they might be ready to eat each other, thought Gali, remembering some of Rafael’s tales. The waistband of her breeches was looser now. That thought put the events of the night before in a different perspective. She and Karlo were not the only ones who were fighting. Morale was ebbing even faster than their store of food.

  “Worse.” The captain looked at Mestre Andres. “We have protected the goods entrusted to us, but I think we have reached a point when we must think of ourselves. The outlaws offered us our lives. It’s time to find out if that offer still holds.”

  “And lose all our goods?” exclaimed someone.

  “Can we trust their word?” said another.

  “And will they look on us as merchants or merchandise,” murmured Martina into Gali’s ear, “to be raped and then taken to the Dry Towns to be sold?”

  The meeting broke up shortly thereafter, debate still sparking between the hold-outs and those who wanted to surrender. Gali didn’t much like either choice, but even if there was nothing to eat someone needed to bring water to the animals, and it was her turn.

  She had passed the first ruined building when she sensed movement behind her and whirled, water from her brimming pail splashing the ground.

  Karlo stepped out from the shadows, his cloak draped over his arm. “Saw your name for this duty on the roster,” he said smugly. “Thought I might catch ye here!”

  “Really? I didn’t know you could read...” She saw his face go red and smiled.

  She took an inadvertent step back as he moved closer, stopped as her shoulder brushed stone. He had chosen his ground cleverly, trapping her in the angle formed by two walls. Beyond the shorter one were more ruins, and the dark opening she had seen from the tower.

  “Read, and think!” he spat. “I’ve a cloak to trap that toothpick you’re carrying, and the others are yelling at each other so loud no one will hear ye scream, so why don’t ye just set down that pail an’ we’ll both have a little fun?”

  “I would rather,” she snarled, “lie down with a cralmac!”

  “Or a reiver?” Surprisingly, he laughed. “I expect ye’ll be doin’ that soon. But I’ll be dead, an’ I want a memory to cheer me as I go.”

  For a moment, Gali almost pitied him. But what memories will go with me? she thought then. No...

  “Let me do something with this pail,” she answered, and saw a tell-tale easing in his stance.

  Water sprayed in a glistening arc as she threw. The pail clanged at his feet, tripping him as she shoved past. Sputtering, he charged after her, but she was already rounding the corner and stumbling down into the dark.

  ~o0o~

  Gali stopped, chest heaving, and leaned against the smooth wall. It was cool here, and quiet, even Karlo’s ravings only a faint vibration in the stone. Most of the men had been made wary by Rafael’s stories, and she did not think that even his lust would drive him follow her here. She looked around her, using the faint illumination that cracks in the ceiling admitted from the world above.

  I am not afraid, she thought, recognizing an image of interlaced kireseth blooms carved into the wall, because I have been here before...

  Gali moved carefully onward, guided by memories from her dreams, spiraling downward until the dimming daylight was replaced by a colder illumination that came from below. Here is the tapestry of Hastur and Cassilda that I saw, and here, the niche with the statue of a standing warrior. Around this bend I will find the room with the columns... She slowed, her heart thudding in her breast, though she could not tell if it was with anticipation or fear.

  She recognized, cool beneath her feet, the polished jasper floor. And there on the stone table was the box, its glowing surface carved with inscriptions in a language she did not know.

  “Help me...” It was the voice she had heard in her dreams.

  “And what will happen if I do?” Even in Thendara there had been stories about what happened to people who meddled with artifacts from the ancient days. A trained matrix mechanic might be able to handle such things, but she was only a Free Amazon, and half a Terran at that.

  “Listen!” the voice replied. “Move to the corner, and tell me what you hear—”

  That was not what she had expected. Frowning, Gali took a few steps and halted as a trick of the room’s acoustics brought her a babble of angry voices from above. She heard Captain MacAran giving orders, and then the clash of swords.

  “The merchants are fighting each other,” said the voice. “Half of them are trying to get over the barricade, and the reivers are attacking it from the other side. When they meet, what do you think will happen? Help me, and I will he
lp you.”

  Slowly, Gali turned. “What—” She swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Open the box...”

  Gali touched the top. The carved stone was cool beneath her hand. It did not feel evil, but how would she know?

  “Ranald Wrong-Hand sought the power to harm, and harm is what he received. What do you seek?” The voice answered her unspoken question.

  Gali shook her head. “I don’t know!”

  “I think you do.”

  As the light from the box grew brighter, thought grew clear.

  “I want to know who I am and where I belong!”

  “Open the box and take me out into the light of day.”

  She was shaking. She could not do it. But from that carven surface flowed a compelling appeal. Gali pressed, and the top sprang open, releasing a flood of light into the room. Within lay a diadem fashioned of some white metal, set with a single stone big enough to rest in the palm of one’s hand. In its depths she recognized the intense blue flicker of a matrix crystal, though she had never seen one so large.

  With trembling fingers she lifted out the diadem. The metal tingled slightly against her skin.

  “Put me on...and save your friend!”

  Gali could not resist the compulsion. She felt pressure as the cool metal bound her brow, followed by a tickling sensation in her head that triggered a cascade of memories. Then came a moment of dizzying descent that severed her physical senses from her will. But even as she felt her limbs obeying the command to leave the room, a part of her mind remained apart, observing as she made her way up through the passageways and out into the light of day.

  ~o0o~

  Pain! Fury! Fear!

  In the courtyard, unleashed emotions raged as men fought and fell. Gali observed without feeling them, shielded by a white blaze that challenged the rosy light of day.

  The reivers, attacking, were the first to see. “The White Lady! The White Lady comes!” they cried, as swords flashed back that light and dropped from nerveless hands.

  Ranald Wrong-Hand, raising his gauntlet to guard, screamed as the bright metal flared to incandescence. For a moment the warped bones of the limb within were visible, then they too were consumed. Still screaming, the outlaw chieftain fell, and the scar-faced lieutenant shouted to the survivors to flee.

  By then, the men of the caravan who still lived had seen as well. They dropped to their knees or stood swaying as their remaining enemies scrambled up the hill and away. Captain MacAran began to look for his guardsmen. Mestre Andres sat weeping. Gali, still a passenger in her own body, noted Karlo, a great wound across his breast, lying lifeless on the ground. But he was not the one she wanted to see.

  “Gali! You’re alive!” Martina was hobbling toward her, leaning on a broken spear. “Merciful Avarra!” She stopped short, staring.

  Gali tried to answer, but her lips would not obey. She felt a rush of sensation as the Other within her took a deep breath of clean air.

  “It has been so long, so long,” came that thought that was not her own. “This body is young, healthy. I could rule this land as I did before!”

  “No.” As Gali replied, she felt something trying to invade the space that held her soul.

  “I’m half Terran, not one of your red-haired Comyn girls,” she thought, “and this body belongs to me!”

  Her awareness reeled beneath a blast of rage, but she resisted until it faded through grief to acceptance. Gali sensed the other woman’s sadness as for the last time she contemplated the lovely shape of the hills against the sky.

  “Now, set me free.”

  It was time to stop being a passenger. As Gali bent her whole mind to the task she found the power to move her arm. Then Martina’s hand was beneath hers, lifting it to the diadem. As it touched, the older woman yelped and let go, but Gali’s spasming fingers had closed on the metal band, jerking it off to spin free.

  As it hit the ground Gali’s legs gave way. Swearing, Martina caught and eased her down.

  “Get me a hammer, a rock, something hard,” Gali whispered as the light grew. From the diadem she felt an unstable pulse of power.

  Martina’s eyes widened. She stared wildly around her and seized a cobblestone.

  “Go free!” breathed Gali, raising the rock and smashing it down on the shimmering stone. As it shattered, vision was extinguished by a blinding glare. For a moment the world whirled in a maelstrom of mingled grief and joy. Then light and emotion together vanished away.

  But the earth was still shaking. She put out a hand for balance as a tremor passed through the ground. Then she heard a rumble from the tower. One stone popped out, then another. The walls crumbled, stones arching outward to bounce across the courtyard in a thunder of falling rock until with a last shudder, all was still.

  The pack-animals, bellowing, were dashing around their pen. The tower was a heap of rubble. All the walls were down. The humans found themselves the only upright figures in a devastation of scattered stone.

  “Thank the gods you are still alive!” Martina exclaimed, looking at the distorted tangle of metal surrounded by glittering shards.

  “Maybe my Terran blood protected me,” whispered Gali. “She took over my body, but I was still there, riding along inside.”

  “She?” Martina struggled to her feet and offered Gali her hand.

  “The White Lady—” Gali looked down at her own brown arm and laughed. “Imprisoned by her own sorceries.”

  “And now she is free,” said Martina. Her rugged features creased in a smile.

  And I can go where I want to go, thought Gali, and be what I want to be.

  SEA-CASTLE

  by Leslie Fish

  Leslie Fish fell in love with science fiction at the age of eight, mostly through EC Comics and the movie “Destination Moon.” Born and raised in a boring, respectable suburb of Newark, New Jersey, she swore that she would lead an adventurous life or die trying. As a result, she became a war-protester, a folksinger, an industrial pirate, a union organizer, a go-go dancer, a dominatrix, and a science fiction writer. She’s best known for her several albums of science fiction folk-music, or filk, which are available from Amazon or in the dealers’ rooms of science fiction conventions. She currently lives in a farming town in Arizona, along with her husband Rasty, an orchard of exotic fruit-trees, and her experimental breed of super-smart Silverdust cats. About “Sea-Castle,” she writes, “This story deals with yet another of Darkover’s non-human intelligent species, this time a rare one that’s almost never been studied before.”

  Unlike some of the other stories in this anthology, “Sea-Castle” is remarkable for not focusing on violent conflict but the gradual nourishing of understanding, trust, and ultimately, love.

  The net was heavy and hard to manage alone, but Ian dragged it into the skiff without snagging or tearing a single strand. Only as he untied the line from the short dock did he pause to look back at the house.

  It stood as it always had, a little round tower of hand-laid mortarless flat stones, with narrow wood-shuttered windows and a central chimney on top—the chimney that stood on the hand-built fireplace in the middle of the interior dividing wall, but with no smoke emerging now, and only a resting shorebird perched on its rim. Even in the light of the first warm day of spring, the house looked so sad, small, and empty...

  ...And why not? he thought bitterly. There’s no one left but me...

  That brought up sour memories of Anndra and Stefan, arguing with him even as they packed up to leave, snapping that with Mother now dead—and Father long dead—there was no reason to stay any longer, dragging up fish out of the Bay of Dalereuth day after day, carting them off to the market-dock or the smoke-house in town for the variable—and usually poor—prices they earned.

  Anndra had only said, bluntly, that he was sick of the life of a small-boat fisherman and wanted to see the greater world and make a better living. Stefan’s complaint had been longer and more telling; that he meant to go inland
or down the sea-coast road and take service at some great lord’s house, or army, and eat more than fish and sea-bird and sea-weed every day—which really wasn’t fair, because they could have kept Mother’s kitchen-garden growing if they’d bothered. Worse had been their scorn for their little brother, that he was content to live as their ancestors had lived for time out of mind.

  By now Ian’s outrage had faded to a distant sorrow and bewilderment. How could his brothers not feel any love for the old stone house that, as his father had described in great detail, their MacRae ancestors had built centuries ago? How could they not feel the pull and majesty of the sea, where their family had made their living for more generations than anyone could remember? How could they so easily forget Mother as soon as she was buried, turn their backs on all the tales she’d told and the warnings she’d given, and hurry off to the cities chasing rumors of wealth and supposed wonders? Had they no sense of family, or history? Did they have no love?

  With a sigh, Ian pulled in the hitch-line and coiled it in the bow. He took up the oars and steered away from the dock, out into the open water, letting himself feel the mood of the sea.

  There was calm water above, but beneath lay a churning restlessness: a crossing of deep tides that grumbled against the shore and drove the fish further out, into the safer waters. Out there, no less than five kilometers, were a string of sea-mounts that drew close enough to the surface for sunlight to penetrate and feed the growth of broadweed, which in turn fed and sheltered fish of several breeds. Ian knew, as surely as he recognized the taste of the seaward wind, that the fish would be there. He knew he could fill the net quickly, and the water-box, and return in time to row down to the market-dock in town. Ian set his attention to straightening the net and securing its line. A familiar caw drew his eyes upward, where a lone shorebird circled.

  As he watched, it settled neatly at the bow-post and folded its wings, showing all intent to stay there. Odd, Ian puzzled. Except when migrating, shorebirds never fared very far out to sea. From the bandings on its tail-feathers, he could swear it was the same bird that he’d seen perched on the chimney back home. Perhaps it was a regular visitor, used to picking up reliable meals from the MacRae household and expecting that the family boat would provide food this morning, too. “Well, come along, then,” he chuckled. “Fish you’ll have, soon enough—and any companion is welcome.”