Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  He should never have been allowed to come to this point. No doubt they found it simpler to abandon the man to drink himself to death, rather than contend with him for his own good. If I had been here, Dyan thought painfully, looking at the wreck of the father he once had loved. But as he says, I was eager to get away from the problem, and so it is as much my fault as his. I am no better than Rian.

  “I’ll get you a drink, Father,” he said.

  He went down to the foot of the stairs and found wine and told the coridom to bring food. His father drank with haste and eagerness, slopping the wine on his shirtfront, and after, when the shakes had subsided, Dyan managed to persuade him to drink some soup.

  The shivering and trembling slowly stopped. Now, when he had had a drink, Dyan thought, his father seemed more sober than when his system was free of the drink. It was true that he could no longer function normally without it.

  “Now let us talk sensibly,” said Dyan, when the man who faced him had been restored at least to a semblance of the man he had once known. “Do you know what you have done?”

  “They were angry with me,” Dom Kyril said, “Elorie and her mother—damn all puling womenfolk—I shut her up, that’s all,” he said craftily. “Never was a woman didn’t deserve a lick or two. Won’t hurt them. Does them good, and they like it really. Has she been bawling to you because I hit her?”

  But Dyan heard the craftiness in his father’s voice; he was still pretending to be drunker than he was, and madder.

  “You wretch, you killed her,” he exploded. “Your own wife!”

  “Well,” murmured the drunken man, staring at his knuckles. “I didn’t go for to do it, I di’n mean any harm.”

  “All the same—no, Father, look at me, listen to me—” Dyan insisted. “All the same, you are no longer fit to rule the Domain, and after this—”

  “Dyan—” His father tugged at his arm, “I was drunk; I di’n know what I was doing. Don’t let them hang me!”

  Dyan brushed off his grip with distaste. “There’s no question of that,” he said. “The question is what’s to be done with you so you won’t kill the next person who crosses your path. I think the best thing for you to do is to turn the Domain over, formally, to me or to Rian, and confine yourself to these rooms except when you’re in your senses.”

  “So that’s what this is all about,” his father said furiously. “Trying again to get the Domain away from me? I thought as much. Never, hear me? It’s my Domain and my rule and I should give it over to an upstart boy?”

  “Father, I beg you; no one shall harm you, but when you are incapacitated, I can care for the Domain safely in your place.”

  “Never!”

  “Or if you do not trust me, give it over to Rian, and I will stand by him faithfully—”

  “Rian!” His father made an inexpressible sound of contempt. “Oh, no, I know what you’re up to. Look at me. Gods—” he spread his hands and began, drunkenly, to weep. “My brother, my children—all my enemies, trying to get the Domain out of my hands—lock me up—”

  Dyan never knew when he had made the decision he made now, but perhaps at first it was only a desire to silence the drunken whining. He reached out with the new strength of his laran—it was the first time he had used it since training began at Arilinn—and gripped his father with the force of it. The words trailed off into incoherence; Dyan gripped harder and harder, knowing what he must do if this was ever to be settled and the Domain of Ardais free of a madman’s rule.

  When he stopped he was white and shaking, stopping himself with force before he killed the man. He knew, shamed, that this was what he had wanted. His father was slumped on the floor, having slid, during that monstrous battle, from his chair.

  Dom Kyril mumbled, “Of course . . . only rational thing to do. Call the wardens an’ we’ll have it done.”

  Silently, without a word, Dyan went and summoned the coridom. All he said was, “Summon the Wardens of the Domain; he is rational now and ready to do what must be done.”

  Within the hour they came, the council of old men of the Domain, who had been notified of the emergency days ago, by whose counsel and agreement the Ruler of Ardais held his power.

  “Kinsmen,” Dyan said, facing them; he had gone to his room and changed into a sober suit of the formal colors of the Domain. He had also summoned his father’s body-servant and had him washed and shaved and made presentable. “You know what sorry urgency brings us all here. Even before the Lady of Ardais is laid to rest, the Domain must be made secure.”

  “Has he agreed to turn the Domain over to you? We tried to persuade him, but—has he agreed to this of his own free will?”

  “Of his free will,” said Dyan. Even if he had not, what other choice have we? he wondered, but did not speak the question aloud.

  “Then,” said the oldest of them, “we are ready to witness it.”

  And so they all stood by as Kyril Ardais, calm now and evidently in his right mind, went through the brief ceremony where he formally and irrevocably laid down the wardenship of the Domain in favor of his eldest son Dyan.

  When it was over and the Council of Ardais had given Dyan their allegiance, Dyan relaxed the stern grip he had kept on his father’s mind through the ceremony. The man slid to the floor, whining incoherently and retching. Dyan told himself, this had had to be done; there was no other way; but it left a bad taste in his mouth. This he knew to be a misuse of his laran. They should have kept him at Arilinn . . . .

  What was the alternative? he asked himself grimly. Put his father into the hands of healers—for a year perhaps—until he came entirely to himself? No time for that. No, he had done what he must. No man can keep another’s conscience. No, nor any woman either, he thought, scalded by the memory of Fiora and the monitor’s Oath. This was, no doubt, why he had been reluctant to take it. Well. he could not cede the right to do what his own conscience bade him, not for many oaths. But it should never have happened. He would not even see Elorie; she was among those who had forced him to this.

  ~o0o~

  Fiora of Arilinn had been informed of the arrival of the men from Ardais; she sensed some tension in each of them not consonant with only settling family affairs. Rian seemed calm; yet, reading in his mind what had befallen she was angry. No, Rian was not on the surface the kind of man to rule a Domain; yet it was not right either, that he should have been passed over. Given the responsibility, he might have grown into it; now he would always accept his own weakness and unfitness. It was wrong that he should be allowed to hide here forever, unable to grow to his own strength, forever immature. Her hands went out to him, impulsively. “Welcome back, my old friend,” she said, clasping his hands. “I had feared you were lost to us.” Feared? She had hoped he would achieve the strength to take his brother’s place, but in the test he had not done it.

  And turning her attention to Dyan, she realized that he seemed weary, but calm, and the barrier had dropped; he was not opaque to her; he had arrived at some inner strength, achieved some unknown potential.

  “Dyan, I am glad to see you again,” she said, truthfully if inaccurately, and she touched his hand lightly; and at the touch he was transparent to her. He no longer even wished to hide what he had done, or why and in that moment she was shocked. She said, “Dyan, I am sorry to see what has happened to you.”

  “I have done what I must, and if you know what I have done, you know why. Hypocrites, all; none of them had the courage to do what must be done. I did, and now you, too, will censure me?”

  “Censure you? No. I am the Keeper of Arilinn but not the keeper of any man’s conscience,” she said, knowing it was not true; she had sought to bind his conscience and had failed. “I say only that now you may not return to us, and you know why. Recall the words of the monitor’s Oath: to enter no mind save to help or heal and never to force the conscience of any . . . .”

  “Lady, if you know how I forced my father’s assent, you know well why I did so, and what alternat
ives I had.” Dyan said, his face carefully impassive, denying her touch. Fiora bent her head.

  This was wrong, what she must do. Now they could have no control over him, no link to right whatever wrong had been done; he was forever beyond even a Keeper’s help or touch.

  “I do not judge you. I only say that having violated that Oath you have no place here.” But where, then, she thought wildly, could he go, having stepped beyond her judgment, gone further than he had ever wanted to go. Already his life was to be led outside the laws laid down for them all. Must he be an outlaw before he was out of his teens? Desperately, she realized that he had put himself outside even her help. She said slowly, “Will you take my blessing, Dyan?”

  “Willingly, Lady.” His voice shook, and she thought, with deep pity, he is only a boy, he needs our help more now than ever. Damn our laws and rules! He had the courage to break them; he did what he must. I wish I dared as much.

  She said, slowly, holding out her fingertips to him, “You have courage. If you always act in accordance with your own conscience, even when it violates the standards of others, I do not censure you. Yet if you will let me counsel you, I would say you have embarked on a dangerous path. Perhaps it is right for you; I cannot say.”

  “I have come to a place in my life, Lady, where I cannot think of right or otherwise, but only of necessity.”

  “Then may all the Gods walk with you, Dyan, for you will need their aid more than any of us.” Her voice broke, and he looked down at her—she felt it—with pain and pity. For the first time and maybe the last in his life he is reaching out for help, and I am bound by my own oaths and laws not to help him. She said quietly “You may send Elorie here when you will.”

  Dyan bent over Fiora’s hand and touched his lips to the corpse-pale fingers; he said “If there are any Gods, Lady, I ask their help and understanding, but why came they not to my aid when I needed it most?” He straightened with a bleak smile, and Fiora knew he had barricaded himself again; he was forever beyond their reach

  Then he rode away from Arilinn without looking back.

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  The Hawkmaster’s Son

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Dyan Ardais laid down his pack on the narrow cot, covered with a single rough blanket, which would be his in the cadet barracks, and started to transfer his gear into the wooden chest standing at the foot of the bed.

  Third year, the final year as a cadet. He was just enough older than the others to put him out of step; he had spent his first two cadet years here before his father’s inexplicable decision—and all of his father’s decisions were inexplicable to Dyan—that he should spend several years in Nevarsin Monastery. Now, an equally inexplicable whim had brought him back here.

  He thought, with resignation so deep that he did not fully realize how bitter it was, that his family did not seem to care where he was—Nevarsin, the cadet corps, in one of Zandru’s nine hells—so long as he was not at Ardais.

  He had been glad to leave Nevarsin, however. He had learned much there, including the mastery of laran denied him when the Keeper of Dalereuth Tower had refused to admit him to a Tower circle. He had seriously wished to study the healing arts and medicine, and he had been given ample opportunity at Nevarsin to study these things normally denied to a son of the Comyn. More than this, he had been able to forget himself there, giving himself up to his first love, music and singing in the great Nevarsin choir. The Father Cantor had admired his clear treble voice and gone to some trouble to have it trained; the saddest day of Dyan’s life had been the day his voice broke, and his mature singing voice turned out to be a clear, tuneful but undistinguished baritone.

  But it was not really suitable that a Comyn heir should live among cristoforos. He had accepted their discipline with calm, cynical obedience, as a means to an end, without the slightest intent of taking their rules of life into his personal world-view; and when the time came, he had left them without much regret. Tempting as it might be to give his life to music and healing, he had always known that his real vocation, the path laid out for every Comyn son, was here—to serve, and later to rule, among the Comyn. There was a Council seat awaiting him, as soon as he was old enough to take it.

  And as soon as he completed this mandatory third year in the cadet corps there would be an officer’s post in the Guard. The Commander of the Thendara City Guard, Valdir Alton, had only one son of an age to command; Lewis-Valentine Lanart was nineteen. Valdir’s younger son, Kennard, had been sent to Terra, a few years ago, as an exchange student for the young Terran, Lerrys Montray. Dyan had known Lerrys, a little, during his own second cadet year; Lerrys had been allowed to serve a single year in the cadets, in token that he was taking up the obligation of a Comyn son. Dyan had heard his superiors say that the young Terran had been a credit to his people, but Dyan felt cynical about that. They could hardly expel or harry a political guest, so they would find tactful praise for whatever he did right and ignore his blunders, and it would make for excellent diplomatic relations.

  Dyan wondered why the Comyn bothered. It would be better to send all of those damned Terrans yelping back to whatever godsforgotten world had spawned them!

  Dyan remembered Lerrys Montray as a pleasant-looking, amiable young nonentity, but he could have been a dozen times as capable and competent, and Dyan would still have loathed him. For Lerrys had taken Kennard Alton’s place—and for Dyan, no man alive, not the legendary Son of Aldones, could have done that. Dyan had fiercely resolved that this Terran intruder get no joy of his usurped place; he flattered himself that he had made things damned difficult for the presumptuous Terran who thought he could stand in Kennard Alton’s boots!

  As if some trace of precognition had sent the thought of Kennard to his mind moments before the reality, a voice behind Dyan said softly, “You’re here before me, cousin? I had hoped to find you here, Janu . . . .”

  Only one person living, since Dyan’s mother had died ten years before, had ever dared to use that childish pet-name. Dyan’s breath caught in his throat, then he was swept into a familiar kinsman’s embrace.

  “Kennard!”

  Kennard hugged him tight, then held him off at arm’s length. “Now I really know I am home again, bredu . . . so you interrupted your time in the Cadets, too? Third year?”

  “Yes. And you?”

  “I finished my third year before I left, remember? But Lewis has gone to Arilinn Tower, so Father wants me as his seconde this year. I’ll be your officer, Dyan. How old are you now?”

  “Seventeen. Just one year younger than you, Kennard—or had you forgotten, we have the same birthday?”

  Kennard chuckled. “Why, so I had. But you remembered?”

  “There isn’t much I don’t remember about you, Ken,” Dyan said, with an intensity that made the older lad frown. Dyan saw the frown and quickly went back to lightness. “When did you come back?”

  “Only a few days ago, just time enough to pay my respects to my foster sister and my mother. Cleindori is at Arilinn now, and of course, there is talk of marriage, or at least handfasting, for all of us. And what about you, Dyan? You’re at the age when they start talking about such things.”

  Dyan shrugged. “There was some talk of marrying me to Maellen Castamir,” he said, “but there is time enough for that; she is still playing with dolls; there might be a handfasting, but certainly not a wedding, not for ten years and more. Which suits me well enough. And you?”

  “Talk,” Kennard said. “There’s always talk. Time enough to listen when it’s something more than talk. Meanwhile I can renew my old friendships—and speaking of old friendships,” he said, and broke off as two young men came into the barracks.

  “Rafael!” he said, then laughed, looking at the second youth. “I mean, of course, both of you!”

  Rafael Hastur, Heir to Hastur, a slight, handsome youngster, with eyes nearer to blue than the true Comyn gray, smiled merrily and held out both hands to Kennard. “It is good
to see you again, cousin! And you, Dyan—do you know Rafael-Felix Syrtis, my paxman and sworn man?”

  Kennard smiled at him, “We probably met as boys, before I was sent to Terra. But I know your family, of course; the Syrtis hawks are famous.”

  “As famous as the Armida horses,” young Syrtis said, smiling. “I heard you were to be one of our officers, Captain Alton.”

  “Kennard will do,” Kennard said genially. “There’s no need for formality here, kinsman. You know my cousin Dyan, don’t you?”

  Dyan frowned and gave Rafael Syrtis the most distant of nods, his frown reproving Kennard’s effusive friendliness. A Syrtis, the son of the hawkmaster, and a cristoforo, too, as the Syrtis folk had been for generations, was no suitable paxman or companion for a Hastur heir, and, to look at the two of them, Dyan sensed they were not paxman and master alone, but bredin as well! Young Syrtis addressed his master in the familiar inflection, and he saw that the young Syrtis, though he was only a minor noble, wore in his sheath a dagger with the fine Hastur crest. Well, Rafael Hastur might have a taste for low company, but he could not force his commoner friend on other Comyn! He began talking to Rafael Hastur, pointedly ignoring young Syrtis’ sycophantic efforts to be friendly. Young Hastur tried to include his friend in the conversation, but Dyan gave him only brief, frigidly courteous replies.

  After a time Kennard went to attend on his father, and one of the armsmasters sent for Dyan; Rafael Hastur and Rafael Syrtis remained in the barracks, helping each other put away their possessions.

  Rafael Hastur said, in apology, “You must not mind Dyan, my friend. The Ardais are proud . . . he was disgustingly rude to you, Rafe; I regard that as an insult to myself, and I shall tell him so!”

  Rafael Syrtis laughed and shrugged. “He is very young for his age,” he said. “He has always been a bit like that, acting as if he thought himself far above everyone else, probably because he is self-conscious . . . his father, you know. I should not say so about a Comyn Lord, but old Lord Kyril is a disgusting old sot, the most unpleasant drunk I have ever met.”