Zandru's Forge

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Varzil accepted a plate of the familiar, heavily-sweetened food suitable for strenuous laran work, nut candies and honey-laced dried fruit. His body responded with a rush of mental clarity.

  “What need prompted you to travel at such risk?” Oranna asked.

  “Not that we are unhappy to see you, but our own Keeper, Loryn Ardais, cannot welcome you properly or, I am afraid, give you any immediate aid. We have a crisis of our own—”

  Varzil found his voice. “Where is Felicia? What has happened to her?”

  “Oh, Varzil, it was such a terrible accident!” Oranna replied. “Come, if you are able to walk now, and you will see for yourself.”

  Varzil was still weak enough to appreciate a shoulder to lean upon, especially when negotiating the stairs. The matrix laboratory had clearly been constructed for some other purpose and later remodeled. Panels of oiled wood partly covered the red stone walls. A worktable dominated the center of the room, and on it sat the shattered ruin of a matrix lattice. Parts of it remained intact, the crystals catching the light like tiny bits of stars. Blackened powder covered one side. A few robed workers stood just inside the door and in one corner a youth scarcely out of boyhood huddled on the floor, weeping. Beyond him—

  Felicia!

  She lay on the floor beside the worktable, covered by a blanket. A man in the crimson robes of a Keeper crouched at her head, his back to Varzil.

  For a heart-stopping moment, Varzil feared he had come too late, that she was already dead. He could not sense her mind and her body appeared as inert as clay.

  The Keeper looked up. In the light of the glows, his hair looked black, his eyes pools of shadow. The lineaments of his features conveyed a quick mind, a deep and abiding curiosity.

  “Varzil of Arilinn?”

  “Vai tenerézu.” Varzil replied, bowing. To his surprise, his voice did not tremble. “What happened here?”

  “I have stablized her as best I can. We will bring her down to the infirmary for a more thorough examination.”

  You must prepare yourself for the worst.

  Varzil flinched. But she still lives!

  There is life and then there is life.

  Varzil, despite his fatigue, insisted upon helping to carry Felicia. Her flesh felt warm and resilient. She was lighter than he’d expected, as if the greater part of her substance had been burned away. Her face was very pale except for the faintest brush of rose across her cheeks, yet her lips curled softly. There was no terror in her expression. The few faint lines that marked her skin only added to her character.

  From the placement of its windows, the infirmary had once been a solarium, which now looked out upon darkness. Oranna arrived before them, arranging a cot in the center of the room with ample space for a circle to gather. Around her stood a group of workers, some robed for laran work. One of them was Eduin.

  Varzil lowered Felicia to the table. “I will take care of her.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” Loryn said. “You are not yet recovered from your own transit through the screens.”

  Loryn had the least invasive psychic presence Varzil had ever experienced, an extraordinary self-sufficiency and flexibility without any apparent need to impose his will on any other. Varzil liked him immediately. He lowered his laran barriers, just as if Loryn were his own Keeper.

  Ah! Loryn replied telepathically. Such is the bond you and Felicia shared. We, too, hold her dear. You did well to come to us. No one who loves her so deeply should be deprived of the chance to bid her farewell.

  “She still lives,” Varzil repeated aloud, conscious of how stubborn he sounded. “There must yet be hope.”

  “There is always hope,” Loryn agreed. “Come now, let our monitor do her work. I will assist her, but you must not interfere. You are much too close emotionally to Felicia to be objective.”

  Reluctantly, Varzil agreed. He himself had said very much the same thing upon occasion. Powerful emotions, love or hate, jealousy or anger, garbled perceptions and warped judgment. Married couples were not allowed to work in the same circle at Arilinn. The demands of celibacy from the intense psychic work were too great for most relationships. He and Felicia had both been Tower-trained before they met; they understood the physical limitations as the natural price of the use of their talents.

  As he looked down at Felicia’s tranquil face, Varzil realized that the core of their relationship was neither romantic nor sexual, although these aspects, when they could be enjoyed, were certainly pleasurable. They shared a sympathy of spirit that transcended the flesh.

  I will never know anyone like her again, he found himself thinking, and then recoiled. Surely, she would recover with such competent care. She must.

  He stepped back even as Eduin moved to his side. “Varzil, I am sorry to see you again under these circumstances. You are most welcome, though you have come to Hestral at a dark hour.”

  Varzil had not expected such kindness. “I did not know you were here at Hestral. We heard only that you had gone to Hali after your visit home. How does your father?”

  “He has recovered, thank you. During my time at Hali, I had the chance to consider my own future. Arilinn trained me well, but left me with little room to develop myself. Here at Hestral, there are no such limitations.”

  Eduin smiled at Varzil, his eyes steady, his psychic aura unblemished. Perhaps, Varzil thought, he had at last found the place where he no longer needed to hold himself apart, to conceal who he truly was.

  Varzil was weaving with exhaustion when, a short time later, an elderly man entered, introduced himself as coridom of the Tower, and said that a guest room had been prepared. Hestral Tower had no wards such as Arilinn with its Veil that forbade the entry of non-Comyn. Men and women from the village came in daily to clean and cook.

  The coridom shuffled along the hallways, leading Varzil past the rest of the living quarters to a narrow, poorly lit chamber. Mustiness tinged the air, as if it had been little used, although the bedding was quite clean and the meal laid out on a tray set on the chest of drawers steamed with appetizing aromas. Varzil gulped down the food, scarcely tasting it, and tumbled into bed.

  He woke some hours later, ravenously hungry. From the light sifting through the single window, he guessed the time to be an hour or two past sunrise, not more. After several wrong turns, he made his way to the infirmary, where he found Loryn and Oranna beside Felicia’s bed.

  “Varzil, I am so sorry.” Oranna’s voice was as thin and gray as her cheeks. “We tried everything we could.”

  A shimmering field of laran energy surrounded Felicia’s still form. Up close, it was fully transparent, with only a hint of scintillation to betray its presence. All color had drained from her cheeks, leaving only a waxen mask. Varzil watched the shallow, hesitant rise and fall of her chest.

  “Yes,” Loryn said, “her heart beats, her lungs breathe. This much we have been able to do, but for how long, we cannot say. She took an immensely powerful stream of energy through her body. Not even her spinal reflexes survived intact. Worst of all, her laran centers have been badly damaged.”

  So even if she recovered—Varzil reined in his thoughts. “Surely with time and skilled laran healing—” he began.

  Oranna shook her head. “I have seen several such cases, and have never found any documentation in the medical records of a true recovery. Certainly not from this severe an injury.” She went on, a little defensively, for she looked much too young to have any depth of experience, “I was fostered near Temora, where there have been a number of outlaw circles over the years. They work without the safeguards of a Tower and take all manner of risks. And too often pay the price. There was one woman—I cringe to name her leronis—who was able to keep working. I don’t know how she did it, but I was never part of her Nest and so not privy to the details. I suspect—and Loryn agrees—that her injuries were not as severe as she put about, that she used the circumstance of the accident to her own advantage.”

  “That is
no justification,” Varzil said tightly, “to abandon Felicia without trying.”

  “I have already done my best for her,” the healer responded in a pale, taut voice. She pressed her lips together, holding back tears, wavering on the edge of exhaustion.

  “We will have no dissension among ourselves,” Loryn said. The gentleness of his voice masked his sorrow.

  To him, she is gone already.

  She is indeed gone, my friend, came Loryn’s telepathic voice. Believe me, we have done all that could be done. Do you think you were the only one who loved her, who would do whatever was necessary to have her back in our midst? We must face reality. Her brain is damaged past repair. All we have been able to do is to keep her body alive.

  Varzil closed his eyes as grief washed over him. It came as a wave, built to a peak that left him shivering, and then subsided. Loryn asked his permission to release the energy fields that maintained Felicia’s life.

  How can I let her go?

  She is gone. Now is the time for acceptance, and for mourning.

  Passing one hand across his eyes, Varzil turned away. Loryn withdrew the telepathic contact in respect for his privacy. On Varzil’s finger, the white stone pulsed gently. She had given it to him on a night of passion and hope. Would it be all he had left of her? He cupped it in both hands.

  As his lips touched the gem, warmth surged through him. For an instant he felt Felicia’s presence. Not her thoughts, nothing so clear as that, but the unmistakable stamp of her personality. His first thought was that, against all evidence and everything Loryn and Oranna had said, she herself still lived in her body.

  But no, that was not possible. He knew the truth of their words.

  Memory came in a flash—Felicia calling to him, driven by such desperation she was able to cross leagues and formidable Tower barriers. The darkness of his room at Arilinn—the flash of the crystal—

  Somehow, she had transferred her mind, or some part of it, to the ring.

  If that were so—his thoughts careened on like beasts driven mad by a storm—and some way might be found to restore her body—if enough of her mind survived—if the crystal were complex enough to sustain her—

  if—if—if!

  With a cry, Varzil covered his face with both hands. He needed time to think, to calm himself. Hope and despair clashed within him, jumbling all reason.

  Time—

  Time also to discover exactly what had happened, so that he might find the key to her recovery. If he understood what and how, he might also discover the way to reverse it.

  Varzil gentled his voice as he turned back to Loryn. They were all distraught by the suddenness of the events, he said. No one wanted to take premature action that they would later regret. Surely, there was no harm in maintaining Felicia’s body in its present state. For a time, at least, until more could be learned about what had happened.

  Loryn listened, nodding compassionately. In the normal course of events, without the extraordinary resources of a Tower, Felicia would already be dead.

  “You are right,” he said. “We all need time to accept this terrible tragedy.”

  “I would like to investigate,” Varzil said. “There are many things I do not understand.”

  Loryn regarded him calmly. “If it will ease your mind, you have my leave.”

  Oranna came over and laid her fingertips on the back of Varzil’s wrist, a telepath’s light contact, a world of sympathy in a single gesture. “We can create a stasis field which will isolate and protect her. Her life forces are already very low, but within such a field, time would lose all meaning. An hour, a day, or even a century might pass without any decay.”

  “I thank you,” Varzil said. “I—I have heard of such a technique at Hali, at the rhu fead. In ages past, things too dangerous to be handled or destroyed have been safely kept in this manner. I did not think the knowledge still remained.” He smiled, half-bitter. “Perhaps we at Arilinn, with our pride in our traditions, have much to learn from other Towers.”

  “Perhaps,” Loryn agreed. “And perhaps you also have much to teach. We have become strangers to one another, each hoarding our own knowledge and skills, each terrified that the other will make some discovery leading to a tactical military advantage.”

  “This much is true,” Varzil replied with feeling, “and it must stop. Perhaps we cannot bring an end to all disputes, armed or verbal. But we can at least attempt to contain them within the sphere of physical conflict.”

  “Ah!” Loryn said. “Even here at Hestral, we have heard of Varzil’s Compact of Honor. I had hoped for the opportunity to sit and discuss it with you.”

  “Compact of Honor? Carolin Hastur and I just called it our Pact, but I like the sound of that.”

  Loryn was about to say more, but paused. Someone had approached the infirmary door and sent a telepathic query instead of the usual knock. The Keeper excused himself and went to the door. Varzil caught a glimpse of a young woman, her face troubled. Either she had not yet learned to mask her feelings or else something had disturbed her deeply.

  “I will be with them presently,” Loryn said. “They can wait outside the gates. We do not permit armed men to enter Hestral Tower, and certainly not before breakfast.”

  Varzil caught the slight lift of the other man’s shoulders, the ring of authority in his voice.

  “What was I saying? Ah, yes. Your Compact. Throughout Darkover, there is a longing for peace, for justice. We of the Towers cannot sit by, complacent in our seclusion, while kings and lordlings set the very land ablaze. Once we made clingfire at the command of the Hastur Lords, and to this day still hold a stock of it, hopefully forgotten. Perhaps one day, not only will the stuff be forgotten, but the very word will have lost all meaning. Can you imagine that? A time when no one knows what clingfire is?”

  “I, too, hope for a day when such words are but empty sounds.” Varzil followed Loryn into the corridor. “It is not my Compact, as you call it, but rather a dream I share with Carolin Hastur, who has been my friend since we were boys together at Arilinn. I fear that it will be many years before there is hope of persuading men to follow it.”

  “Do not lose heart,” Loryn said, “for here is one man—and one Tower—ready to listen. We will speak more of this later. For now, the hospitality of Hestral is yours, and I hope you will stay with us for a time, at least long enough for resolution of this incident. Go with Oranna. Rest and eat.”

  Varzil bowed and, thanking Loryn for his graciousness, headed back toward the laboratory. He had arrived in the middle of the night, uninvited, in the middle of a crisis, and had found an unexpected welcome. These armed men Loryn spoke of, whoever they were, would get a far cooler reception.

  38

  Oranna led Varzil down a wide staircase and into Hestral’s common room, part dining area, part meeting place, and part sanctuary. Like the rest of the Tower, this room had once served another purpose. The walls were rich red-brown brick flecked with bits of mica that winked softly in the morning light. The windows had been thrown open, so that the breeze carried the faint scent of rosalys. Instead of a central divan, wooden chairs sat arranged in small groups. They were of unfamiliar design, with curved backs and armrests, covered with cushions in bright orange and yellow.

  Eduin looked up from where he was sitting alone by the empty fireplace. After a moment of hesitation, he came toward them. “What news?”

  “It is as we feared,” Oranna said in a voice strained with fatigue.

  She went to the table that ran the length of one wall underneath the opened windows, took up a plate, and filled it with the food arrayed there. Most was familiar to Varzil, but a few dishes, such as the stewed mushrooms dotted with pea-sized balls of fresh cheese, surprised him.

  Eduin sat with them as they ate. After he and Oranna had exchanged a few pleasantries, he said, “Did you hear the ruckus at the gates earlier?”

  “I fear it bodes nothing but trouble,” Oranna said, in between mouthfuls of crumbled ch
eese and honey-glazed apple. “Until now, we have had an overly easy time-of it here at Hestral. But we cannot remain apart from the world’s sorrows forever.”

  Excusing himself, Varzil walked over to the window nearest the corner. From this vantage, the gates themselves were obscured, but he had a fair view of the men and horses arranged outside. The sun reflected off their shields and lances. Even knowing little of military matters, Varzil recognized the groupings, the banners of blue and silver bearing the badge of Lyondri Hastur. This was no simple escort but a show of rank by numbers. This was a party armed for war.

  Hestral’s layout was simple and central, the commons having once been the great hall of its original design. The working areas comprised one wing, with living quarters diametrically opposite. The matrix laboratory was very much as Varzil remembered it from his arrival, only now the full morning sun streamed through the eastward facing windows. It had been a pleasant space, well proportioned and comfortable.

  No one had yet come to set right the overturned benches or clear away the pulverized crystal which made a halo around the central worktable, broken by a swathe where Felicia had fallen.

  A young man, still robed for circle work, huddled on a bench beside the table, gazing down at the ruined lattice. Shadows hid his face. By his posture, he looked to have not moved for some hours. He had probably been there all night.

  “I still can’t believe it,” he stammered, flinching at Varzil’s approach. “It worked so well the last time we tested it. It was designed to prevent this kind of power surge.”

  “Felicia told me a little about the project,” Varzil said, “but I’d like to know more.”

  “It’s all my fault!” The lad turned and Varzil saw him clearly for the first time, a rawboned, gangly youth not yet at peace with his growth. Fading acne reddened his face. Varzil recognized him as Marius, the Rockraven boy whose talent was the focus of Felicia’s research.