“Liane Storn?” he repeated, feeling muddle-headed. This girl was one of that pack of brigands who refused to help during the fire, not even to let Petro through to Tramontana! He thought of the days of desperate, bone-breaking labor, the choking smoke, the loss of so many nut trees, the hunger in winters to come. How could they have just sat back and let the fire burn? What kind of monsters were they?
“No, just plain Liane—”
“Storn?” And yet, she didn’t look like a monster, even if she was too stuck up for her own good . . .
“We’re not supposed to brag about our families,” she replied tartly, getting to her feet. “And if you don’t stop harping on this name nonsense, I won’t come back and visit you tomorrow!” She picked up the tray and, with a toss of her flaxen-red braids, headed for the door.
“Don’t!” Coryn exploded. “I never want to see a single one of the whole cralmac-brained, self-serving Storn Nest again!”
She whirled, cheeks flushing at the insult. “You! You nobody out of nowhere! You were nothing more than a half-drowned rat when we rescued you! How dare you say that about my family!”
“Get out!”
Liane jerked the curtain aside and slammed the door behind her. Her quick, light footsteps receded and Coryn was left alone, feeling more miserable than ever.
Coryn stayed in bed for another day, growing increasingly bored and restless. Meals were brought by Marisela, a cheerful motherly woman who kept smoothing the covers and tucking them around him. Gareth came to monitor him every morning and evening.
“Laran is carried through the body in special channels,” Gareth explained. “But these channels also carry sexual energy. In some people, laran is awakened at adolescence, when such feelings begin to stir, so the channels are particularly vulnerable to overload. That’s one of the causes of threshold sickness. With care and training, this need not be a continuing problem. You will learn to monitor yourself, to learn what is safe for you to do.”
“You mean I did something to cause this?” Coryn asked, shuddering.
“Not at all,” Gareth shook his head. “Except possibly to grow up. You . . . you seem to be past the worst of it now.”
The monitor rose as a figure in flowing red robes entered the room. Although the movements were quiet and spare, the room seemed to vibrate with a sense of presence. For an instant, Coryn didn’t know if this was a man or a woman, for the face was beardless, the jaw delicate. A faint tracery of lines covered pale skin. Moonlight-colored hair spilled over slender shoulders.
“Gareth, please,” the newcomer said, gesturing to the monitor to sit again, then smiled at Coryn. “I am Kieran, Keeper of the Third Circle here at Tramontana, and your kinsman.”
This must be the Aillard cousin Lord Leynier had spoken of. At the sound of the voice, Coryn decided it must be a man, possibly one of those sandal-wearers who had never participated in any manly activity. Coryn had himself come in for a bit of teasing from the stable hands when it was known he was to go to a Tower. But there was nothing weak in the fiery eyes sweeping over him, nothing effeminate in the sure way those slim six-fingered hands gestured.
“Forgive me, young Coryn, for not welcoming you earlier. It was not from lack of concern for you, for Gareth assured me you were recovering well and he is our most skillful monitor.”
Coryn felt he ought to say something. Despite Kieran Aillard’s small physical stature, his energy filled the room. His faintly distracted air, as if part of his mind were on other, greater matters, only added to his aura of power.
“M—my father sends you greetings,” Coryn stammered, “and thanks for your help during the fire.”
“So your man Rafael said. We have not yet come to the point, we here at Tramontana, when we can do nothing more useful than to create weapons for other men’s wars. Now, young Coryn, may I examine your laran channels, as Gareth has done?”
Coryn gave his assent, wondering a little that a personage as important as a Keeper must ask his permission. Perhaps this was how things were done in a Tower. He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes and composed himself. When Gareth monitored him, Coryn had not felt anything, except perhaps a faint warmth from the other man’s hands. Now something airy as a feather whispered over his skin, cool and not at all unpleasant. It warmed, sinking ever deeper until it became a part of him.
Soft, gray-blue light filled him as if he were made of glass. His body relaxed, and his mind began to drift. Dimly, he became aware of a lightless blot deep within his body. When he tried to focus on it, panic rose. He turned away quickly, fleeing to the soothing warmth.
From afar, he heard Kieran say in a soft voice, “Yes, I see what you mean, Gareth. I don’t think even an Alton could force his way past that barricade. It doesn’t seem to be linked to any of the essential channels. Perhaps as he learns to master his talent and to trust us, he will be able to lower his guard. . . .”
I’m not doing it on purpose, Coryn thought.
I know, lad. Had Kieran spoken aloud, or only inside Coryn’s head? Rest for a moment now, and then come back to us.
A few minutes later, Coryn sat upright once more, to hear Kieran say, “Gareth, is it your opinion this boy is recovered enough to join the other novices in their lessons tomorrow?”
“Yes, I think he’s more than ready,” Gareth said with an easy smile. “In fact, I think he’s going to start tearing the infirmary apart if we try to keep him any longer.”
With a sweep of red robes, Kieran left the room. Coryn stared after him. “So that’s Grandmama’s cousin. He doesn’t look that old.”
“Oh, he is close to a hundred years now,” Gareth said. “Not all the Aillards are so long-lived, but it’s said there is a strong strain of chieri blood in that family. Knowing Kieran, I can well believe it.”
“And he has six fingers!”
“And he is emmasca, but what of any of it?” Now Gareth sounded angry. “When we enter the Tower, we leave behind rank and family, as well as petty prejudices. This is the one place where we are judged by what we make of our own lives, not by the number of our toes or the color of our hair or what lies our fathers told. Or if we have six fathers or none at all! Our bodies are as the gods have made us, but what is in our hearts, that is who we truly are!”
Gareth finished with gentler words, encouraging Coryn to sleep well because lessons would begin the next morning. Thoroughly awake, Coryn lay back, thinking about what the monitor had said and wondering about the new world he had entered.
The next morning, Coryn said good-bye to Rafe, who had waited until he could witness Coryn’s recovery with his own eyes before returning to Verdanta. The Keepers supplied Rafe with a sound riding horse and trail food enough to take him on the circuitous trip. “There should be no more storms like the last one,” Mikhail-Esteban, a matrix mechanic who had good weather-sense, said with a hint of disapproval. Rafe gave Coryn a gruff, silent hug and left with his usual lack of words.
Coryn went down to the dining hall, where the other young people had gathered for breakfast. There were six novices at Tramontana at this time, three close to his own age and three older, one of whom was shortly to leave for Hali, to work as a monitor there before leaving the Towers for an arranged marriage. Coryn’s two age-mates were Liane and a tall, dark-eyed boy named Aran MacAran.
Liane glared at Coryn when he sat down, then tossed her head and pretended to be interested in the conversation on her other side, something about layering energon rings along a crystalline lattice. Coryn had no idea what they were talking about.
“Is it true,” Aran asked shyly, “that you were caught without shelter by the Aldaran storm? And that you had to kill your horses and climb inside their bodies to stay warm?”
Coryn stared at the other boy, mouth open. “Well, yes, there was a storm, but—”
“But they’d never have made it if we hadn’t come along and rescued them!” Liane snapped her head around.
“We were doing just fine, minding our
own business, when you came along and picked a fight! Almost got us killed. Some help!”
“Picked a fight? We weren’t the ones trespassing—spying—”
“That will be quite enough.” The quiet voice came from the other end of the table. Coryn recognized it instantly as Kieran’s. He flushed. What was he thinking, to let Liane goad him into such behavior and on his first real morning at Tramontana? He was not surprised when Kieran, in a voice just as calmly authoritative, commanded him for a private word after breakfast. Liane’s smirk quickly disappeared when she in turn was ordered to see Bronwyn.
Coryn got up from the table, his breakfast untouched. Aran touched him gently on the back of the wrist, a gesture Coryn now understood was common among telepaths.
“I never believed the story about the horses,” Aran said. “But it did sound as if something exciting had happened. Maybe you can tell me later. I’m sorry if I got you into trouble.”
“It wasn’t you, it was that—that—” Coryn managed to stop himself before he said anything else he’d regret.
A short time later, he stood before Kieran in the Keeper’s small, stone-walled sitting room. Despite the morning’s chill, no fire warmed the fieldstone hearth. Kieran sat at ease in his simple chair, his six-fingered hands quiet in his lap. The austerity of the scene, as much as the temperature, set Coryn shivering.
“It won’t happen again,” Coryn began.
“Perhaps, instead of making promises you have no idea if you can keep, you might explain to me why Liane irritates you so. Is it merely the feud between your two families?”
Need there be more? Coryn wondered, but did not say so aloud. Under Kieran’s gentle prodding, he stumbled through the story of the fire, the storm, the rescue. He realized how unfair he was being. Liane wasn’t to blame for her father’s decisions and she had tried hard to be friendly that first time in the infirmary.
“Yet there is more that troubles you, young Coryn. Liane is a spirited young woman, perhaps a bit unmannerly, but without malice.”
Coryn thought suddenly that if Liane had not reminded him so much of Kristlin, he might not have felt such a sense of—was it betrayal?
“Listen to me,” Kieran said, leaning forward, his ageless features alight with intensity. “Out there in the world, a man’s family name counts more than the quality of his character. Women—and men, too—are judged and sold for nothing more than their bloodlines or the alliances they can bring.”
Coryn shivered, thinking of Kristlin’s marriage, of Tessa’s impassioned words, I will not be barragana . . . “But here in the Tower, while we are in service, we leave all that behind. It is who you are, what you make of your life, your honor and dedication, not your rank or clan connections that determine your future. You were born gifted with laran. All that grants you is the chance to know yourself and your fellows in ways you never dreamed possible. You can speak across miles, you can delve into the bowels of the earth for precious minerals, you can penetrate the very fabric of the world. None of this comes easily or without a price. And none of it will come unless you can leave the petty squabbles of the world behind.”
Kieran’s voice shifted, so resonant that tears sprang to Coryn’s eyes and he suddenly understood the passion with which Gareth had spoken of his Keeper.
“You are no longer Coryn Leynier of Verdanta and Liane is not Liane Storn of High Kinnally. You are Coryn and she is Liane. Nothing more. Someday, if you both have the talent and dedication to earn your places here, you may well hold each other’s lives in your hands. There is no room for a childish quarrel which is none of your affair. Do you understand me?”
Coryn, swallowing dryly, nodded. He vowed in his heart to take Liane as she was, chattering and all. In that assent, he passed some invisible barrier, some unspoken test, although he had only the roughest idea of what it meant to him. He only knew that he wanted what the Tower offered more than he’d ever wanted anything before.
A moment later, doubt curled like greasy smoke through his thoughts. Kieran spoke of a singleness of purpose, of leaving the outer world and all its concerns behind. But Rumail Dom served two masters, King as well as Tower. . . .
“Something troubles you?”
Coryn frowned, searching for words. “Dom Rumail, who tested me—” He found it suddenly difficult to breathe.
You will say nothing of this. Nothing.
“—he—he came to Verdanta—not as laranzu—but as his brother’s—King Damian’s—agent—” Coryn broke off, gasping for air.
Kieran nodded gravely. “Yes, some of us are not entirely free of family allegiances, would that it were so. And there is always the fear that we may be pulled to different sides in an outside conflict, though the Hasturs at least have promised never to set kin against kin in Tower warfare.” The old emmasca paused. “As for that one . . .” The colorless eyes flickered, missing nothing. “He is not your concern. Go now and join the others.”
Oddly reassured, Coryn made his way to the big, sunlit room on the south side of the Tower where Gareth instructed the novices in elementary monitoring. They sat in pairs on the ubiquitous low benches around a cot, where one of the older boys lay. Gareth stopped to repeat his explanation of the proper distance of the hand from the body to “feel” the energon channels.
Liane came in a few minutes later, eyes red and puffy as if she had been crying. Coryn decided that however awkward his interview with Kieran had been, hers with Bronwyn must have been worse. He went up to her after the session, wanting to say something but not knowing what. He didn’t want to prolong the quarrel, but half of it had been his doing. At least half.
Just as Coryn caught up to Liane, Aran joined both of them, eyes dancing with adventure. “We’re to have an hour outdoors after lunch. Anyone interested in getting out of here? Can we take your horse, Liane?”
“Oh!” Her color heightened, but not in embarrassment. “Yes! Can we all three go?”
“You mean go out riding?” Coryn asked. He’d no idea that Tower life could be so normal. In the hours of his recuperation, he’d thought of his lost Dancer.
“Of course!” Aran said. “Once Tramontana kept no mounts, before the days of King Allart Hastur. Now there are always a couple of horses in the Tower stables. We’re permitted to use these for our own exercise.” He winked at Coryn. “They’re always telling us we need to keep strong to do all this matrix work.”
An image sprang to Coryn’s mind, the three of them laughing as they galloped across the hills, the wind singing in his ears, the sweet warm joy of the horse beneath him flooding up so that he was one with the beast, with the hawk overhead like a speck against the sun, and the singing grass. Green and gold and blue shimmered around him, inside him—
In that instant, too, he knew this was what Aran felt, the excitement rising in his new friend’s mind.
As they moved down the corridor, Liane caught one foot on an uneven stone and stumbled. Coryn reached to steady her. Her hand brushed his, a fleeting touch. He turned to her with eyes newly opened by the momentary rapport with Aran. It was as if he saw her for the very first time, not just an infuriating child, but a young woman—the woman she would grow to be—proud and loyal. He sensed the struggle within her, mirror to his own, the stories she’d grown up with about Leynier greed and treachery, the rages of her father, her love for family, the big brother who’d died in a Leynier cattle raid, all of this pitted against the boy who stood before her. He saw himself reflected in her mind, neither demon nor coward nor spy, not any more than she was.
Kieran was right. The Tower is the one place we can leave behind all this hatred and start anew.
He held out his hand and, with a timid smile now brightening into an outright grin, she took it.
8
Four years later, the three friends rode together through the hills surrounding Tramontana. The bounty of a morning’s hawking, a brace of forest grouse for the Midsummer Festival feast, hung from their saddles. The men also had baskets filled
with mountain daisies, skyflowers, and even a stalk or two of creamy white bellisma, to be arranged into gift packets for the women of the Tower. Neither had kinswomen to honor according to Midsummer tradition, as Hastur Lord of Light had honored Blessed Cassilda with fruit and flowers. Yet Coryn thought with anticipation of the expression on Liane’s face at the river-opals he had found for her, the sort of gift he would have presented Kristlin with.
Now Coryn and Liane rode easily together as brother and sister, watching Aran ride ahead, body moving fluidly with the horse’s swinging stride. On this morning, Coryn had lent Aran his fine Armida black, a gift from his father last winter. It was the same horse Petro had ridden on his ill-fated mission to Storn during that terrible fire.
Aran, still lanky and possessed of such dark-lashed eyes as to make most maidens envious, rode with his hands on his thighs, reins loose on the horse’s neck. The black arched her neck and broke into a canter, feet lifted high and tail bannered in the wind.
Coryn laughed. “She wants to run!”
“What have you been feeding her, dragon bones?” Aran called back. The horse, released from invisible reins, lengthened her stride. Aran lifted his gloved hand and the verrin hawk, which had been hovering at the limit of sight, circled down to meet him. Like many of his clan, Aran had the Gift, the donas, of rapport with animals.
Coryn slowed his own mount, closing his eyes to more easily follow the meld of animal, bird, and man. One hand crept to the starstone on its silver chain around his neck. Even insulated in heavy silk, it pulsed with energy as he focused his mind on his friend’s.
Wind streamed through his mane, lifted his wings, swept joyful tears from his eyes. Power surged through him, as if he could run or fly or ride forever. Of all the gifts of Aran’s friendship, this was the most precious.
The Fall of Neskaya Page 8
