“. . . refuse me then, Lady Storn?”
We could even see the room where he was standing, a high-arched old hall with the blue glass windows of almost unbelievable antiquity. Directly before his eyes was a tall old woman, proudly erect, with gray eyes and dazzling white hair. She sounded deeply troubled.
“Refuse you, dom? I have no authority to give or refuse. The Sharra matrix was given into the keeping of the forge-folk after the siege of Storn. It had been taken from them without authority, generations ago, and now it is safe in their keeping, not mine. It is theirs to give.”
Kadarin’s deep exasperation could be felt by all of us—stubborn, superstitious old beldame!—as he said, “It is Kermiac of Aldaran who bids me remind you that you took Sharra’s matrix from Aldaran without leave—”
“I do not recognize his right.”
“Desideria,” he said, “let’s not quarrel or quibble. Kermiac sent me to bring the Sharra matrix back to Aldaran; Aldaran is liege-lord to Storn and there’s an end to it.”
“Kermiac does not know what I know, sir. The Sharra matrix is well where it is; let it lie there. There are no Keepers today powerful enough to handle it. I myself called it up only with the aid of a hundred of the forge-folk, and it would be ill done of me to deprive them of their goddess. I beg you say to Kermiac that by my best judgment, which he trusted always, it should stay where it is.”
“I am sick of this superstitious talk of goddesses and talismans, lady. A matrix is a machine, no more.”
“Is it? So I thought when I was a maiden,” the old woman said. “I knew more of the art of a matrix at fifteen, sir, than you know now, and I know how old you really are.” I felt the man flinch from her sharp, steady gaze. “I know this matrix, you do not. Be advised by me. You could not handle it. Nor could Kermiac. Nor could I, at my age. Let it lie, man! Don’t wake it! If you do not like the talk of goddesses, call it a force basically beyond human control in these days, and evil.”
Kadarin paced the floor and I paced with him, sharing a restlessness so strong it was pain. “Lady, a matrix can be no more good or evil in itself than the mind of the man who wields it. Do you think me evil, then?”
She waved that away with an impatient gesture. “I think you honest, but you will not believe there are some powers so strong, so far from ordinary human purpose, that they warp all things to evil. Or to evil in ordinary human terms, at least. And what would you know of that? Let it be, Kadarin.”
“I cannot. There is no other force strong enough for my purposes, and these are honest. I have safeguarded all, and I have a circle ready to my hand.”
“You do not mean to use it alone, then, or with the Darriell woman?”
“That foolhardy I am not. I tell you, I have safeguarded all. I have won a Comyn telepath to aid me. He is cautious and skilled,” Kadarin said persuasively, “and trained at Arilinn.”
“Arilinn,” said Desideria at last. “I know how they were trained at Arilinn. I did not believe that knowledge still survived. That should be safe, then. Promise me, Kadarin, to place it in his hands and leave all things to his judgment, and I will give you the matrix.”
“I promise you,” Kadarin said. We were so deeply in rapport that it seemed it was I myself, Lew Alton, who bowed before the old Keeper, feeling her gray eyes search my very soul rather than his.
It is in the memory of that moment that I will swear, even after all the nightmare that came later, that Kadarin was honest, that he meant no evil. . . .
Desideria said, “Be it so, then, I will entrust it to you.” Again the sharp gray eyes met his. “But I tell you, Robert Kadarin, or whatever you call yourself now, beware! If you have any flaw, it will expose it brutally; if you seek only power, it will turn your purposes to such ruin as you cannot even guess; and if you kindle its fires recklessly, they will turn on you, and consume you and all you love! I know, Kadarin! I have stood in Sharra’s flame and though I emerged unburnt, I was not unscarred. I have long put aside my power, I am old, but this much I can still say—beware!”
And suddenly the identity swirled and dissolved. Thyra sighed, the circle dropped like strands of cobweb and we stood, staring at one another dazed, in the darkening hallway. Thyra was white with exhaustion and I felt Marjorie’s hands trembling on mine.
“Enough,” I said firmly, knowing that until it was certain who was to take the centerpolar place, until we knew which of us was Keeper, it was my responsibility to safeguard them all. I motioned to the others to separate, draw apart physically, to break the last clinging strands of rapport. I let Marjorie’s hands go with regret. “Enough. We all need rest and food. You must learn never to overtax your physical strength.” I spoke deliberately, in a firm, didactic manner, to minimize any emotional contact or concern. “Selfdiscipline is just as important as talent, and far more important than skill.”
But I was not nearly as detached as I sounded, and I suspected they knew it.
Three days later, at dinner in the great lighted hall, I spoke of my original mission to Kermiac. Beltran, I knew, felt that I had wholly turned my back on Comyn. It was true that I no longer felt bound to my father’s will. He had lied to me, used me ruthlessly. Kadarin had spoken of Compact as just another Comyn plot to disarm Darkover, to keep the Council’s rule intact. Now I wondered how my elderly kinsman felt about it. He had ruled many years in the mountains, with the Terrans ever at hand. It was reasonable he should see everything differently from the Comyn lords. I had heard their side; I had never been given opportunity to know the other view.
When I spoke to him of Hastur’s disquiet about the violations of Compact and told him I had been sent to find out the truth, he nodded and frowned, thinking deeply. At last he said, “Danvan Hastur and I have crossed words over this before. I doubt we will ever really agree. I have a good bit of respect for that man: down there between the Dry Towns and the Terrans he has no bed of roses, and all things considered he’s managed well. But his choices aren’t mine, and fortunately I’m not oath-bound to abide by them. Myself, I believe the Compact has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any, which I’m no longer sure of.”
I had known he felt this way, yet I felt shocked. From childhood I had been taught to think of Compact as the first ethical code of civilized men.
“Stop and think,” he said. “Do you realize that we are a part of a great galactic civilization? The days when any single planet could live in isolation are over forever. Swords and shields belong to that day and must be abandoned with it. Do you realize what an anachronism we are?”
“No, I don’t realize that, sir. I don’t know that much about any world but this one.”
“And not too much even about this one, it seems. Let me ask you this, Lew, when did you learn the use of weapons?”
“At seven or eight, more or less.” I had always been proud that I need fear no swordsman in the Domains—or out of them.
“I, too,” said the old man. “And when I came to rule in my father’s high seat, I took it for granted that I would have bodyguards following me everywhere but my marriage-bed! Halfway through my life I realized I was living inside a dead past, gone for centuries. I sent my bodyguards home to their farms, except for a few old men who had no other skills and no livelihood. I let them walk around looking important, more for their own usefulness than mine, and yet I sit here, untroubled and free in my own house, my rule unquestioned.”
I felt horrified. “At the mercy of any malcontent—”
He shrugged. “I am here, alive and well. By and large, those who give allegiance to Aldaran want me here. If they did not, I would persuade them peacefully or step aside and let them try to rule better. Do you honestly believe Hastur keeps authority over the Domains only because he has a bigger and better bodyguard than his rivals?”
“Of course not. I never heard him seriously challenged.”
“So. My people too are content with my rule, I need no private army to enforce it.”
“But sti
ll . . . some malcontent, some madman—”
“Some slip on a broken stair, some lightning-bolt, some misstep by a frightened or half-broken horse, some blunder by my cook with a deadly mushroom for a wholesome one . . . Lew, every man alive is divided from death by that narrow a line. That’s as true at your age as mine. If I put down rebellion with armed men, does it prove me the better man, or only the man who can pay the better swordsmen or build the bigger weapons? The long reign of Compact has meant only that every man is expected to settle his affairs with his sword instead of his brains or the rightness of his cause.”
“Just the same, it has kept peace in the Domains for generations.”
“Flummery!” the old man said rudely. “You have peace in the Domains because, by and large, most of you down there are content to obey Comyn law and no longer put every little matter to the sword. Your celebrated Castle Guard is a police force keeping drunks off the streets! I’m not insulting it, I think that’s what it should be. When did you last draw your sword in earnest, son?”
I had to stop and think. “Four years ago bandits in the Kilghard hills broke into Armida, stealing horses. We chased them back across the hills and hanged a few of them.”
“When did you last fight a duel?”
“Why, never.”
“And you last drew your sword against common horse-thieves. No rebellions, wars, invasions from nonhumans?”
“Not in my time.” I began to see what he was driving at.
“Then,” he said, “why risk law-abiding men, good men and loyal, against horse-thieves, bandits, rabble who have no right to the protection given men of honor? Why not develop really effective protection against the lawless and let your sons learn something more useful than the arts of the sword? I am a peaceful man and Beltran will, I think, have no reason to force himself on my people by armed force. The law in the Hellers states that no man given to breach of the peace may own any weapon, even a sword, and there are laws about how long a pocketknife he may carry. As for the men who keep my laws, they are welcome to any weapon they can get. An honest man is less threat to our world with a Terran’s nerve-blaster than a lawless one with my cook’s paring knife or a stonemason’s hammer. I don’t believe in matching good honest men against rogues, both armed with the same weapons. When I left off fairy tales I left off believing that an honest man must always be a better swordsman than a horse-thief or a bandit. The Compact, which allows unlimited handweapons and training in their use to good men and criminals alike, has simply meant that honest men must struggle day and night to make themselves stronger than brutes.”
There was certainly some truth in what he said. Now that my father was so lame, Dyan was certainly the best swordsman in the Domains. Did that mean if Dyan fought a duel, and won, that his cause was therefore just? If the horse-thieves had been better swordsmen than ours at Armida, would they have had a right to our horses? Yet there was a flaw in his logic too. Perhaps there was no flawless logic anywhere.
“What you say is true, Uncle, as far as it goes. Yet ever since the Ages of Chaos, it’s been known that if an unjust man gets a weapon he can do great damage. With the Compact, and such a weapon as he can get under the Compact, he can do only one man’s worth of damage.”
Kermiac nodded, acknowledging the truth of what I said. “True. Yet if weapons are outlawed, soon only outlaws can get them—and they always do. Old Hastur’s heir so died. The Compact is only workable as long as everybody is willing to keep it. In today’s world, with Darkover on the very edge of becoming part of the Empire, it’s unenforceable. Completely unenforceable. And if you try to make an unworkable law work and fail, it encourages other men to break laws. I have no love for futile gestures, so I enforce only such laws as I can. I suspect the only answer is the one that Hastur, even though he pays lip service to Compact, is trying to spread in the Domains: make the land so safe that no man seriously needs to defend himself, and let weapons become toys of honor and tokens of manhood.”
Uneasily I touched the hilt of the sword I had worn every day of my adult life.
Kermiac patted my wrist affectionately. “Don’t trouble yourself, nephew. The world will go as it will, not as you or I would have it. Leave tomorrow’s troubles for tomorrow’s men to solve. I’ll leave Beltran the best world I can, but if he wants a better one he can always build it himself. I’d like to think that some day Beltran and the heir to Hastur could sit down together and build a better world, instead of spitting venom at one another between Thendara and Caer Donn. And I’d like to think that when that day comes you’ll be there to help, whether you’re standing behind Beltran or young Hastur. Just that you’ll be there.”
He picked up a nut and cracked it with his strong old teeth. I wondered what he knew of Beltran’s plans, wondered too how much of what he said was straightforward, how much meant to reach Hastur’s ears. I was beginning to love the old man, yet unease nagged at my mind. Most of the crowd at dinner had dispersed; Thyra and Marjorie were gathered with Beltran and Rafe near one of the windows. Kermiac saw the direction of my eyes and laughed.
“Don’t sit here among the old men, nephew, take yourself along to the young folk.”
“A moment,” I said. “Beltran calls them foster-sisters; are they your kinswomen too?”
“Thyra and Marguerida? That’s an odd story,” Kermiac said. “Some years ago I had a bodyguard in my house, a Terran named Zeb Scott, while I still indulged in such foolishness, and I gave him Felicia Darriell to wife—Does this long tale weary you, Lew?”
“By no means.” I was eager to know all I could about Marjorie’s parentage.
“Well, then. The Darriells are an old, old family in these hills, and the last of them, old Rakhal—Rafe’s true name is Rakhal, you know, but my Terrans find that hard to say—old Rakhal Darriell dwelt as a hermit, half mad and all drunk, in his family mansion, which was falling to ruins even then. And now and then, when he was maddened with wine or when the Ghost Wind blew—the kireseth still grows in some of the far valleys—he would wander crazed in the forests. He’d tell strange tales, afterward, of women astray in the forests, dancing naked in the winds and taking him to their arms—such a tale as any madman might tell. But a long time ago, a very long time now, old Rakhal, they say, came to Storn Castle bearing a girl-child in his arms, saying he had found her like this, naked in the snow at his doorway. He told them the babe was his child by one of the forest-folk, cast out to die by her kin. So the lady of Storn took her in for, whatever the babe was, human or of the forest-folk, old Rakhal could not rear her. She fostered her with her own daughters. And many years after, when I was married to Lauretta Storn-Lanart, Felicia Darriell, as she was called, came with Lauretta among her ladies and companions. Felicia’s oldest child—Thyra there—may well be my daughter. When Lauretta was heavy with child it was Felicia, by her wish, that I took to my bed. Lauretta’s first child was stillborn and she took Thyra as a fosterling. I have always treated her as Beltran’s sister, although nothing is certain. Later, Felicia married Zeb Scott, and these two, Rafe and Marguerida, are half-Terran and none of your kin. But Thyra may well be your cousin.”
He added, musing, “Old Rakhal’s tale may well have been true. Felicia was a strange woman; her eyes were very strange. I always thought such tales mere drunken babble. Yet, having known Felicia . . .” He was silent, lost in memories of time long past. I looked at Marjorie, wondering. I had never believed such tales, either. Yet those eyes . . .
Kermiac laughed and dismissed me. “Nephew, since your eyes and heart are over there with Marguerida, take the rest of yourself along over there too!”
Thyra was gazing intently out into the storm; I could feel the questing tendrils of her thought and knew she was searching, through the gathering darkness, for her lover. Now Thyra, I could well believe, was not all human.
But Marjorie? She reached her hands to me and I caught them in one of mine, circled her waist with my free arm. Beltran said, joining us, “He’ll be
here soon. What then, Lew?”
“It’s your plan,” I said, “and Kadarin is certainly enough of a telepath to fit into a circle. You know what we want to do, though there are limits to what can be done with a group this size. There are certainly technologies we can demonstrate. Road-building and surfacing, for instance. It should convince the Terrans we are worth watching. Powered aircraft may be more difficult. There may be records of that at Arilinn. But it won’t be fast or easy.”
“You still feel I’m not fit to take a place in the matrix circle.”
“There’s no question of fitness, you’re not able. I’m sorry, Beltran. Some powers may develop. But without a catalyst . . .”
He set his mouth and for a moment he looked ugly. Then he laughed. “Maybe some day we can persuade the young one at Syrtis to join us, since you say he does not love the Comyn.”
There had been no sound I could hear, but Thyra turned from the window and went out of the hall. A few moments later she came back with Kadarin. He held in his arms a long, heavily wrapped bundle, waving away the servants who would have taken it.
Kermiac had risen to leave the table; he waited for Kadarin at the edge of the dais while the other people in the hall were leaving. Kadarin said, “I have it, kinsman, and a fine struggle I had with the old lady, too. Desideria sends you her compliments.” He made a wry face. Kermiac said, with a bleak smile, “Aye, Desideria ever had a mind of her own. You didn’t have to use strong persuasion?”
There was sarcasm in Kadarin’s grin. “You know Lady Storn better than I. Do you really think it would have availed much? Fortunately, it was not needed. I have small talent for bullying womenfolk.”
Kermiac held out his hand to take it, but Kadarin shook his head. “No, I made her a pledge and I must keep it, kinsman, to place it only in the hands of the Arilinn telepath and be guided by his judgment.”
Heritage and Exile Page 25
