The Fall of Neskaya

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Don’t move!” Her voice lashed out, imperious enough to stop him in his tracks. She ran her fingers through tendrils of still-damp hair. “They must have been washed away in the river . . . How did I get here . . . like this?”

  “Damisela—”

  She glared at him.

  “Damisela, if I meant you harm, you would not be alive to scold me now. Your clothes were drenched and you half-dead from cold. I’d been out in the storm searching for you—”

  “Why? Who sent you?”

  “Let’s begin again. I am Coryn of Tramontana, matrix technician of the Third Circle and on my way to train as under-Keeper at Neskaya. And you?”

  “Tani—just Tani.”

  Coryn sat on the edge of the bed, although she shifted away from him. “You have nothing to fear from me, Just Tani. I knew you were out there because you called to me—” he gestured to his forehead, “—here. Surely you know of such things among the laran workers of the Towers.”

  She nodded, an oddly pensive expression flickering over her features. “I’m afraid I’ve been . . . ungracious. You were already here, at the shelter. I stumbled in, ate your soup, you put me in your own bed, and I’m treating you no better than an outlaw.” She gave him a half-smile like a flash of sun on the first spring morning. He thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  “I—” For some reason, his voice wouldn’t work right. “I’ll make breakfast.”

  Tani sat quietly while Coryn stoked the fire, melted the snow in the little iron pot and brought the water to a boil. Then he added the mixture of rolled grain, ground nuts, and chopped dried fruit sweetened from his precious store of honey, the staple breakfast at the Towers. She swayed, struggling to stay upright as she accepted a bowl. He talked of the horses, of the weather, inconsequential things.

  “You are . . . very kind,” she said, laying aside her half-eaten breakfast and slumping back amid the covers. Within moments, she slipped into a drowse.

  When Coryn returned to check on her a short while later, she still slept, now coughing fitfully. His heart sank when he saw how fragile she looked, the delicate bones showing beneath the fine-grained skin, the hectic flush of color, the huge dark shadows around her eyes.

  “Tani.” He touched the back of his hand to one cheek. Her skin burned. “Tani!” She murmured and rolled away from him. Nor did her delirium lighten when he lay damp compresses across her forehead.

  Coryn stood for a long moment, irresolute. Kieran and his Tower teachers had emphasized over and over again that he must never intrude into another person’s energy body without their consent. He found the very idea repugnant. Yet to monitor her, to descend into the cell-deep level to fight the fever, he must do just that. Or let her die.

  He knelt beside the cot and took one of her hands in his. How frail the bones felt, the skin so thin and soft. A lady’s hand, that not even days of neglect on the trail could disguise. Farther up on the wrist was a mostly-healed sore, just where an archer’s leather guard would rub. A lady, indeed. A warrior queen. He held the hand to his face, the slender fingers cupping his cheek. All he had to do was turn his head slightly to kiss the palm.

  Awake. Awake.

  Bruise-dark lids fluttered open. For a moment, she stared at him . . . pupils dilated . . . lips moved soundlessly. Then the startled look faded.

  “Cor—Coryn? I’m so cold.”

  He lay her hand on the blanket and patted it. “You have a fever. From exposure, most certainly. Listen to me, Tani. In the Tower, I first trained as a monitor, learning to use my mind to heal. I can help you fight off the fever. May I do so?”

  “Your . . . mind. Oh, laran.” Her gaze slipped, and he thought she had drifted back into sleep. A spasm of coughing shook her and he saw how weak she was. “I had that done once, when I was a child.” There was an odd inflection to her words. Had something . . . happened to her?

  “I will examine your body, not pry into any secret thoughts,” he hastened to say. “It will not hurt. In fact, it would help if you slept.”

  “You have brought me nothing but good,” she murmured. “In every way, you have been a blessing. . . .”

  Silence lengthened, until he realized that she slept once more.

  A blessing . . . That was all the consent he would get.

  He composed himself and went to work, first skimming the outer energy levels of her body, then sinking deeper into the structure of tissues. Tramontana had its share of injuries from cold, so he recognized the frostbite damage in her feet. It was a simple matter to stabilize damaged cell membranes, to increase the flow of blood to bring in added nutrients and carry away the waste of dead cells. She might lose a toenail or two as well as some skin, but these would heal with time. At this level, he also found bruises and a cracked rib, all of which would resolve on their own.

  Still deeper, he followed the stream of air through her parted lips, down the breathing passages to the airy sacs of her lungs. Fluid choked the lower lobes, where the channels glowed red darkening to brown. The defenses of her body, weakened by hunger and exposure, responded only sluggishly. He searched for any sign of spore or poison, such as those responsible for lungrot, and to his relief found none. It was a natural illness, one which rarely struck a healthy young adult. Could she have some other, underlying disease?

  Calming his own thoughts, Coryn sank even deeper. He checked the channels carrying life force through the glands in her throat, her heart, her liver and spleen . . . kidneys . . . womb.

  She was with child, he realized with surprise. Only a few weeks, but there it was, that soft golden glow.

  Who would send a pregnant woman out in weather like this? What would drive her to risk it?

  Pregnant . . . alone . . . and very desperate . . .

  And brave. And heartrendingly beautiful. If he had not been half in love with her already, her plight alone would have brought him to it.

  Gently, gradually, he began shifting the fluid in her lungs, reabsorbing it through the membranes which lined the air sacs. Here and there, he found minute pockets of infection, blots of darkness which her body’s weakened defenses could not resist. Into them, he sent pulses of energy, which he visualized as white light. Some dissolved immediately in bursts of rainbow colors, others more slowly. As her lungs began to clear, he sensed the warmth of rising oxygen levels, a pastel iridescence like the inside of a pearl shell. The glowing light drew him, and he paused on his way back to the surface. Music surrounded him, filled him, the rippling arpeggios of harp and woman singing together without words. Without meaning to, against all his intentions, he had brushed against her mind.

  For a moment out of time, he saw her, the form of a woman bathed in shimmering radiance. Hair like spun black glass floated like an aureole around her face. Her eyes were open, her mouth laughing. She stretched out her arms to him and then in a flicker was gone.

  Coryn returned to his own body, stiff from prolonged motionlessness. The fire had died down, leaving the shelter chilly. Outside, winds battered the shuttered windows with renewed force. He stretched, suddenly aware of the energy drain which accompanied laran work. He had thought Marisela overly protective when she insisted on packing extra supplies of concentrated food. Now, shaking with hunger, he gratefully brought out the bars of honeyed nuts.

  Tani slept all the rest of the day, while the storm blustered and swept the hills with another few feet of snow. Coryn tended her, tended the horses, and rested to replenish his own energy reserves. He thought a little of what might happen if they were storm-bound for long. His food stores would stretch for himself, but not for two people, even eked out with what had been left in the shelter.

  None of this seemed terribly important. He had only to glance in her direction to see the slow, easy rise of her chest, the profile of her face, the contours of shoulder and hip under the blankets. Once she rolled over and stretched one arm above her head in artless grace. In a few hours, in a few days, the storm would break, she would be strong e
nough to travel, and he would never see her again.

  The sun rose with Tani on the third morning, bright and clear. When Coryn returned from feeding the horses, he found her dressed, her hair plaited neatly in a single long braid, and in the process of burning the porridge. Laughing, he took the spoon from her hand and added more water.

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook,” she said.

  “Neither am I, but it’s necessary if you’re traveling,” he said. The bottom of the pot would take a bit of soaking, that was all.

  When the porridge was ready, he divided it and added the last of his honey. She sat cross-legged on the cot, cradling her bowl in her hands. After a time of eating in silence, she cleared her throat.

  “Coryn, I’m grateful for all the help you’ve given me.” Now she sounded hesitant, about to say she had no way to repay him.

  “My Keeper believes we have an obligation to use our laran in service to others. I’m glad that I had the skills to heal the fever.” It struck him that in an odd way, he was evening the score for Kristlin’s death.

  “I—I have to keep moving,” she said.

  “Because whoever’s looking for you might find you?”

  Her eyes widened, then shifted as she realized how many ways she must have given herself away. “There is no safety here, and none for you if they catch me with you. My only hope is to reach Thendara. But I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings.”

  “Thendara! Oh,” seeing her look of dismay. “Yes, you have. This road leads to Neskaya Tower. Would—would that not be safe enough?”

  Her lips tightened, but she shook her head. “If it were only myself—No, I have kin in Thendara who must be told, who—I must reach.”

  Some ways back, Coryn had passed a crossroads with a slender path, little more than a goat trail, which joined the main road to Thendara. It would take Tani perhaps two days in clear weather to get there, if she did not get lost again. Of course, he could go with her and then continue on down toward the lowlands . . . and the perfection of the meeting would dribble away, an hour or a day at time, in useless longing.

  He described the road to Thendara and its distance, adding, “I could go with you—”

  “No,” she said with a firmness that spoke of years of command, “although I thank you once again. Please—you would be putting yourself in needless danger. I would not see your kindness repaid by harm. Even knowing my destination . . . Well, all Zandru’s smiths can’t put that chick back into its egg. But I can read a map, if you can draw one.”

  He had maps, wrapped carefully in oiled silk against the damp, although nothing to copy them to. She bent over them, spread out on the hearth, her lips moving as she studied the landscape contours. “Ah yes, this is where I went wrong . . .” Murmuring, she traced a path with one finger.

  “There are trading villages here and here,” he said, pointing. “I can give you food enough to reach there and a little money to pay for lodging.” He grinned wryly. “It isn’t much.”

  “I have no way to repay you. What little I had, the river took.”

  “I’m not asking for anything in return.”

  “What do you want?” Her eyes searched his.

  The firelight burnished her features, turning her into a woman of gold and ebony. All he had to do was lean forward and kiss her.

  He lowered his gaze. “To have you safe and well.”

  “We none of us can be sure of safety in these dreadful times.”

  He thought of little Kristlin, dead by laran-spawned lungrot in her father’s own house. “No, that’s true enough.”

  Coryn packed up the food and insisted she take his second set of knitted cap, scarf, and mittens, though the mittens were too big for her. To these he added a sleeveless woolen jacket. When she protested, he said, quite truthfully, that he could wear only one at a time. He was no longer the boy who set off for Tramontana with packs bulging with extra comforts.

  Once all the preparations were complete, Tani settled herself in the saddle and gathered up the reins. The air had already begun to warm in the rising sun, promising a fair day. The old horse looked rested, no longer limping as he brought it out to be saddled. Coryn stood beside the stirrup, looking up at Tani, remembering how Kristlin had looked up at him the day he’d ridden away to Tramontana.

  Tani’s brows drew together and for a moment, her eyes took on that slightly distracted expression. She looked as if she were about to say something.

  No, he decided. Let it end here. He would carry her memory like his mother’s handkerchief, folded close to his heart.

  “Adelandeyo,” he said, stepping back to slap her horse on the rump. Go with the gods. Then he turned and went back into the shelter to gather up his own gear.

  Coryn came over the last hill and caught his first view of Neskaya Tower, rising beyond the ancient yet thriving city of the same name. It was late in the day and the gathering dusk cast an opalescent sheen over the vast, open sky. His heart rose up and caught in his throat at the sight. He wondered if he were dreaming the turrets of pale translucent blue stone that glowed softly like moonlight in the distance.

  The city of Neskaya was by far the largest collection of human habitations he’d ever seen. As he rode through it, he marveled at the different styles of architecture, stone and brick as well as timber, so much precious glass, the bright colors of plaids and painted signs, the blended strains of music, street sellers’ cries, chatter, and animals.

  His horse, tired and footsore, picked up the pace as it scented hay and a dry stall ahead. The details of the Tower became clear as he approached, the grace of its lines, the superb laran workmanship of the fitting of the stones, the arched entrance, the windows set to catch winter sun.

  The front doors, ashleaf wood polished to a high golden gloss, had been thrown open and a group of adolescent children were playing a game with sticks and balls in the courtyard. A man in plain warm clothing, tunic over trousers tucked mountain-style into laced boots, came forward to greet Coryn.

  “Ah, we’ve been looking for you these past three days,” the man said, after introducing himself as a mechanic. He had a broad, open face, seamed with laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, and rust-red hair worn in a dozen slender braids past his shoulders. He did not ask the reason for the delay, only expressed his relief at Coryn’s safe arrival.

  Others came to welcome him, including the Keeper under whom he was to train. After dinner, Bernardo Alton invited Coryn for cups of jaco flavored with sweet spicebark. Unlike Kieran, whose inner stillness imbued his austere quarters, Bernardo was always in action, his rooms reflecting a richness of interests. Brightly colored sketches of mountains and eagles, candles sculpted into the form of trees, a chest of beautifully carved black wood with rows of tiny drawers in a style Coryn had never seen before, a contraption of leather and metal springs and a bale of unspun wool in shades of orange, caught Coryn’s eye. Like the room itself, Bernardo sizzled with energy and invention; thin and whip-strong, he was rarely at rest.

  “I am sorry to welcome you with sad news, but last night we received a message from Tramontana along the relays,” Bernardo said. “Kieran has died after a bout of fever.”

  Coryn lowered his eyes, bracing for a lash of pain. None came, as if the Keeper’s last gift had been a peaceful heart. He remembered the gray light in Kieran’s eyes as they parted, how tired and frail the old man had looked.

  He knew that as soon as he left us, Tramontana would be forced to meet Ambervale’s demands and I would be at risk. He hung on until I was safely free.

  “I thank you for telling me,” Coryn said formally.

  “He will be sorely missed among us. He was a great Keeper.”

  “And a good friend.”

  “And a friend,” Bernardo nodded. “If you wish, you may speak with Tramontana in the relays tonight.”

  “Again, I thank you.”

  For a long moment, the two sat in silence, broken only by the soft hush of embers falling and the tap
ping of Bernardo’s fingers on the arm of his chair, a complicated mathematical pattern.

  There will be time enough to mourn, Coryn thought, remembering Kieran’s patient compassion after the death of his father and sister. Kieran’s parting gift had been his freedom and this new life.

  Bernardo said in a lighter tone, “When we sent word to Tramontana, asking if they had anyone suitable for training as an under-Keeper, Kieran told us that you are not afraid to take the initiative and try something new.”

  “Is there some particular project you have in mind?” Coryn asked, rousing to the question.

  Bernardo laughed, which seemed to be his usual response to questions, from the few short hours Coryn had known him. “Not yet, anyway. However, I’d like your view of an idea I’ve been working on, a way to make clingfire more stable, less explosive. If we succeed, we’ll need to devise a separate detonator device . . .”

  He went on, but Coryn’s thoughts remained on the subject of clingfire. It seemed that even Neskaya was making the stuff. There was, he reflected with a bitterness that surprised him, no place on Darkover safe from the ravages of war. Maybe Bronwyn was right when she said that the only way to security was to make the cost of aggression too high.

  19

  Thendara at last.

  Taniquel peered over the top of the farmer’s cart in which she’d ridden those last painful miles, in exchange or perhaps in pity for the horse who clearly could go no farther. With her cloak hanging loose about her shoulders against the mildness of the morning, she perched between heaped sacks of spring rye, bushel baskets of cherries and early carrots, mesh bags of potatoes and redroots. The cart turned a corner, and she craned her neck for a better look at the city of her birth.

  From a distance, the city resembled a sprawling marketplace at the foot of an immense cluster of fortifications and towers. It assailed her senses: the size and depth of the walls; the rows and rows of noble houses; the stables and warehouses; the clattering of armed cavalry; the shouts of tradesmen; the chants of the cristoforos wending their way along the streets; the smells of dust and cabbage and refuse.