Heritage and Exile

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Kennard met his eyes, not angry now, but very serious. He said, “Dyan is not in the city tonight. Regis, tell me, how do you know this?”

  “From Danilo’s own lips, and from rapport with his mind,” Regis said quietly. “You of all men know there is no way to lie to the mind.”

  Kennard did not release his eyes. “I did not know you had laran.”

  Regis held out his hand to Kennard, palm upward, a gesture he had never seen before, yet instinct guided him to it. He said, “You have. You will know. See for yourself, sir.”

  He saw dawning respect in the older man’s gaunt, feverish face in the instant before he felt, with a thrill of fear, the touch on his mind. He heard Lew saying in Kennard’s memory, I’ve known grown men who dared not face that test. Then he felt Kennard’s touch, the shock of rapport . . . the moment he had stood before Danilo in the orchard, reeling with the shock of Danilo’s anger and shame . . . his own liking for Dyan, the moment of half-shamed response to him . . . Kennard’s own memories of Dyan blurring his own, a younger Dyan, a slender, eager boy, to be loved and protected and cherished . . . Danilo’s sick, stunned terror, the flood of nightmarish dreams and cruelties he had shared with Danilo, the weeping in the dark, the harsh hawklike laughter. . . .

  The blur of memories and impressions was gone. Kennard had covered his eyes with his hands. His eyes were dry and blazing, but just the same Regis got the impression that the older man was weeping in dismay. He said in a whisper, “Zandru’s hells, Dyan!” Regis could feel the knifing anguish in the words. Kennard sank down on the bench again and Regis knew that he would have fallen if he had not, but for the first time Regis felt the iron strength and control with which a tower-trained telepath can control himself when he must. He had a frightening flash of agony, as if Kennard were holding his hand steadily in a fire, but Kennard only drew a deep breath and said, “So Danilo has laran. Lew did not tell me, nor did he tell me Dani had awakened you.” A long silence. “That is a crime, and a terrible one—to use laran to force the will. I trusted Dyan; I never thought to question him. We were bredin. It is my responsibility and I will bear the guilt.”

  He looked shattered, dazed. “Aldones, Son of Light! I trusted him with my cadets! And Lew tried to warn me and I would not hear. I sent my own son from me in wrath because he tried to make me hear. . . . Hastur, what shall we do?”

  Hastur looked grieved. “All the Ardais are unstable,” he said. “Dom Kyril has been mad these twenty years. But you know the law as well as I do. You forced us to name Lew your heir with that same law. There must be one in the direct line, male and healthy, to represent every Domain, and Dyan has appointed no heir. We cannot even dismiss him from Comyn Council, as we did with Kyril when he began to rave. I do not know how we can send him from Council even long enough to heal his mind, if he is truly mad. Is he sane enough even to choose an heir?”

  Regis felt angry and bruised. They seemed to care only about Dyan. Dani was nothing to them, no more than he was to Dyan. He said aggressively, “What of Danilo? What of his disgrace and his suffering? He has the rarest of the Comyn gifts, and the way he has been treated dishonors us all!”

  Both men turned to look at him as if they had forgotten him. He felt like a noisy rude child intruding on the counsels of his elders, but he stood his ground, watching the torchlight make flickering patterns on the antique swords over the fire, saw Dyan, the sharp foil in hand, plunging it into his breast. . . .

  “Amends shall be made,” Hastur said quietly, “but you must leave it to us.”

  “I’ll leave Dyan to you. But Dani is my responsibility! I pledged him my sworn word. I am a Hastur, and the heir to a Domain, and I demand—”

  “You demand, do you?” said his grandfather, swinging around to face him. “I deny your right to demand anything! You have told me you wish to renounce that right, to go offworld. It took all I had even to extract your promise to give the minimum duty to the cadets! You have refused, even as Dyan refused, to give an heir to your Domain. By what right do you dare criticize him? You have renounced your heirship to Hastur; by what right do you stand here in front of us and make demands? Sit down and behave yourself or go back to your room and leave these things to your betters!”

  “Don’t you treat me like a child!”

  “You are a child,” said Hastur, his lips pressed tightly together, “a sick, silly child.”

  The room was flickering in and out of focus with the firelight. Regis clenched his fists, fighting for words. “An injury to anyone with laran . . . dishonors us all.” He turned to Kennard, pleading. “For the honor of the Guards . . . for your own honor . . .”

  Kennard’s crippled hands touched him gently; Regis could feel pain ripping through those swollen hands as he wrenched them away. He felt himself sliding in and out of his body, unable to bear the jangle and confusion of all their thoughts. He thought with wild longing of being aboard a starship outward bound, free, leaving this little world behind with all its intrigue. He stood for a moment in Kennard’s memory on the faraway surface of Terra, struggling with the pull of honor and duty against all he longed for, back to the heritage laid out for him before he was born, a path he must walk whether he would or not . . . felt his grandfather’s anguish, Rafael, Rafael, you would not have deserted me like this . . . heard Dyan’s slow cynical voice, a very special stud animal whose fees are paid to Comyn . . .

  It forced him physically to his knees with the weight of it. Past, present, future spun together, whirling, he saw Dani’s hand meet his on the hilt of a gleaming sword, felt it rip his mind open, overshadowing him. Son of Hastur who is the Son of Light! He was crying like a child. He whispered, “To the House of Hastur . . . I swear . . .”

  Kennard’s hands, hot and swollen, touched his temples; he felt for an instant that Kennard was holding him upright. Gradually the seething flood of emotion, foreknowledge, memory, receded. He heard Kennard say, “Threshold sickness. Not crisis, but he’s pretty sick. Speak to him, sir.”

  “Regis . . .”

  Regis struggled, whispered, “Grandfather, Lord Hastur . . . I swear, I will swear . . .”

  His grandfather’s arms enfolded him gently. “Regis, Regis, I know. But I cannot accept any pledge from you now. Not in your present state. The Gods know I want to, but I cannot. You must leave this to us. You must, child. We will deal with Dyan. You have done all you need to do. Just now your task is to go, as Kennard says, to Neskaya, to teach yourself to control your gift.”

  He tried again to fight his way upright . . . kneeling on cold stones, crystal lights around him. Words came slowly, painfully, yet he could not escape them: I pledge my life and honor . . . to Hastur, forever . . . and terrible pain, knowing he spoke into a closing door, he gave away his life and his freedom. He could not get a word out, not a syllable, and he felt his body and brain would explode with the words bursting in him. He whispered and knew no one could hear him, as his senses slipped away, “. . . swear . . . honor . . .”

  His grandfather’s eyes met his briefly, a momentary anchor over a swaying darkness where he hung. He heard his grandfather’s voice, deep and compassionate, saying firmly,

  “The honor of the Comyn has been safe in my hands for ninety years, Regis. You can leave it to me now.”

  Regis let them lay him, nearly senseless, on the stone bench.

  He let himself slip away into unconsciousness like a little death.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  (Lew Alton’s narrative)

  For three days a blizzard had raged in the Hellers. On the fourth day I woke to sunshine and the peaks behind Castle Aldaran gleaming under their burden of snow. I dressed and went down into the gardens behind the castle, standing atop the terraces and looking down on the spaceport below where great machines were already moving about, as tiny at this distance as creeping bugs, to shift the heavy layers of snow. No wonder the Terrans didn’t want to move their main port here!

  Yet, unlike Thendara, here spaceport and castle seemed part of
a single conjoined whole, not warring giants, striding toward battle.

  “You’re out early, cousin,” said a light voice behind me. I turned to see Marjorie Scott, warmly wrapped in a hooded cloak with fur framing her face. I made her a formal bow.

  “Damisela.”

  She smiled and stretched her hand to me. “I like to be out early when the sun’s shining. It was so dark during the storm!”

  As we walked down the terraces she grasped my cold hand and drew it under her cloak. I had to tell myself that this freedom did not imply what it would mean in the lowlands, but was innocent and unaware. It was hard to remember that with my hand lying between her warm breasts. But damn it, the girl was a telepath, she had to know.

  As we went along the path, she pointed out the hardy winter flowers, already thrusting their stalks up through the snow, seeking the sun, and the sheltered fruits casting their snow-pods. We came to a marble-railed space where a waterfall tumbled, storm-swollen, away into the valley.

  “This stream carries water from the highest peaks down into Caer Donn, for their drinking water. The dam above here, which makes the waterfall, serves to generate power for the lights, here and down in the spaceport, too.”

  “Indeed, damisela? We have nothing like this in Thendara.” I found it hard to keep my attention on the stream. Suddenly she turned to face me, swift as a cat, her eyes flashing gold. Her cheeks were flushed and she snatched her hand away from mine. She said, with a stiffness that concealed anger, “Forgive me, Dom Lewis. I presumed on our kinship,” and turned to go. My hand, in the cold again, felt as chilled and icy as my heart at her sudden wrath.

  Without thinking, I reached out and clasped her wrist.

  “Lady, how have I offended you? Please don’t go!”

  She stood quite still with my hand clasping her wrist. She said in a small voice, “Are all you valley men so queer and formal? I am not used to being called damisela, except by servants. Do you . . . dislike me . . . Lew?”

  Our hands were still clasped. Suddenly she colored and tried to withdraw her wrist from my fingers. I tightened them, saying, “I feared to be burned . . . too near the fire. I am very ignorant of your mountain ways. How should I address you, cousin?”

  “Would a woman of your valley lands be thought too bold if she called you by name, Lew?”

  “Marjorie,” I said, caressing the name with my voice. “Marjorie.” Her small fingers felt fragile and live, like some small quivering animal that had taken refuge with me. Never, not even at Arilinn, had I known such warmth, such acceptance. She said my hands were cold and drew them under her cloak again. All she was telling me seemed wonderful. I knew something of electric power generators—in the Kilghard Hills great windmills harnessed the steady winds—but her voice made it all new to me, and I pretended less knowledge so she would go on speaking.

  She said, “At one time matrix-powered generators provided lights for the castle. That technique is lost.”

  “It is known at Arilinn,” I said, “but we rarely use it; the cost is high in human terms and there is some danger.” Just the same, I thought, in the mountains they must need more energy against the crueler climate. Easy enough to give up a luxury, but here it might make the difference between civilized life and a brutal struggle for existence.

  “Have you been taught to use a matrix, Marjorie?”

  “Only a little. Kermiac is too old to show us the techniques. Thyra is stronger than I because she and Kadarin can link together a little, but not for long. The techniques of making the links are what we do not know.”

  “That is simple enough,” I said, hesitating because I did not like to think of working in linked circles outside the safety of the tower force-fields. “Marjorie, who is Kadarin, where does he come from?”

  “I know no more than he told you,” she said. “He has traveled on many worlds. There are times when he speaks as if he were older than my guardian, yet he seems no older than Thyra. Even she knows not much more than I, yet they have been together for a long time. He is a strange man, Lew, but I love him and I want you to love him too.”

  I had warmed to Kadarin, sensing the sincerity behind his angry intensity. Here was a man who met life without self-deception, without the lies and compromises I had lived with so long. I had not seen him for days; he had gone away before the blizzard on unexplained business.

  I glanced at the strengthening sun. “The morning’s well on. Will anyone be expecting us?”

  “I’m usually expected at breakfast, but Thyra likes to sleep late and no one else will care.” She looked shyly up into my face and said, “I’d rather stay with you.”

  I said, with a leaping joy, “Who needs breakfast?”

  “We could walk into Caer Donn and find something at a food-stall. The food will not be as good as at my guardian’s table. . . .”

  She led the way down a side path, going by a flight of steep steps that were roofed against the spray from the waterfall. There was frost underfoot, but the roofing had kept the stairway free of ice. The roaring of the waterfall made so much noise that we left off trying to talk and let our clasped hands speak for us. At last the steps came out on a lower terrace leading gently downslope to the city. I looked up and said, “I don’t relish the thought of climbing back!”

  “Well, we can go around by the horse-path,” she said. “You came up that way with your escort. Or there’s a lift on the far side of the waterfall; the Terrans built it for us, with chains and pulleys, in return for the use of our water power.”

  A little way inside the city gates Marjorie led the way to a food-stall. We ate freshly baked bread and drank hot spiced cider, while I pondered what she had said about matrices for generating power. Yes, they had been used in the past, and misused, too, so that now it was illegal to construct them. Most of them had been destroyed, not all. If Kadarin wanted to try reviving one there was, in theory at least, no limit to what he could do with it.

  If, that was, he wasn’t afraid of the risks. Fear seemed to have no part in that curious enigmatic personality. But ordinary prudence?

  “You’re lost somewhere again, Lew. What is it?”

  “If Kadarin wants to do these things he must know of a matrix capable of handling that kind of power. What and where?”

  “I can only tell you that it’s not on any of the monitor screens in the towers. It was used in the old days by the forge-folk to bring their metals from the ground. Then it was kept at Aldaran for centuries, until one of Kermiac’s wards, trained by him, used it to break the siege of Storn Castle.”

  I whistled. The matrix had been outlawed as a weapon centuries ago. The Compact had not been made to keep us away from such simple toys as the guns and blasters of the Terrans, but against the terrifying weapons devised in our Ages of Chaos. I wasn’t happy about trying to key a group of inexperienced telepaths into a really large matrix, either. Some could be harnessed and used safely and easily. Others had darker histories, and the name of Sharra, Goddess of the forge-folk, was linked in old tales with more than one matrix. This one might, or might not, be possible to bring under control.

  She said, looking incredulous, “Are you afraid?”

  “Damn right,” I said. “I thought most of the talismans of Sharra-worship had been destroyed before the time of Regis Fourth. I know some of them were destroyed.”

  “This one was hidden by the forge-folk and given back for their worship after the siege of Storn.” Her lip curled. “I have no patience with that kind of superstition.”

  “Just the same, a matrix is no toy for the ignorant.” I stretched my hand out, palm upward over the table, to show her the coin-sized white scar, the puckered seam running up my wrist. “In my first year of training at Arilinn I lost control for a split second. Three of us had burns like this. I’m not joking when I speak of risks.”

  For a moment her face contracted as she touched the puckered scar tissue with a delicate fingertip. Then she lifted her firm little chin and said, “All the sam
e, what one human mind can build, another human mind can master. And a matrix is no use to anyone lying on an altar for ignorant folk to worship.” She pushed aside the cold remnants of the bread and said, “Let me show you the city.”

  Our hands came irresistibly together again as we walked, side by side, through the streets. Caer Donn was a beautiful city. Even now, when it lies beneath tons of rubble and I can never go back, it stands in my memory as a city in a dream, a city that for a little while was a dream. A dream we shared.

  The houses were laid out along wide, spacious streets and squares, each with plots of fruit trees and its own small glass-roofed greenhouse for vegetables and herbs seldom seen in the hills because of the short growing season and weakened sunlight. There were solar collectors on the roofs to collect and focus the dim winter sun on the indoor gardens.

  “Do these work even in winter?”

  “Yes, by a Terran trick, prisms to concentrate and reflect more sunlight from the snow.”

  I thought of the darkness at Armida during the snow-season. There was so much we could learn from the Terrans!

  Marjorie said, “Every time I see what the Terrans have made of Caer Donn I am proud to be Terran. I suppose Thendara is even more advanced.”

  I shook my head. “You’d be disappointed. Part of it is all Terran, part of it all Darkovan. Caer Donn . . . Caer Donn is like you, Marjorie, the best of each world, blended into a single harmonious whole . . .”

  This was what our world could be. Should be. This was Beltran’s dream. And I felt, with my hands locked tight in Marjorie’s, in a closeness deeper than a kiss, that I would risk anything to bring that dream alive and spread it over the face of Darkover.

  I said something about how I felt as we climbed together upward again. We had elected to take the longer way, reluctant to end this magical interlude. We must have known even then that nothing to match this morning would ever come again, when we shared a dream and saw it all bright and new-edged and too beautiful to be real.