Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Truly, his shadow lies heavy on us both. I cannot bear that he should still come between us this way.” He turned a little, and Danilo felt cold, aching at the distance between them. But it was better this way.

  “Well, you should rest, Danilo,” Regis said quietly, “but if you do not want to stay here alone, I will stay with you, or you can come and share the guest-room with me. Look, your father kept your picture here beside . . . I suppose that is your mother?”

  Danilo picked up the two small paintings; he had seen them here beside this bed ever since he could remember.

  “This is my mother,” he said, “but this cannot be my picture; it has been here since I was old enough to remember.”

  “But surely it is you,” said Regis, studying the painted face. Two young men stared at one another, their hands clasped, and Danilo realized, bewildered, who it must be.

  “It is my brother Rafael,” he said, “Rakhal, they called him.”

  Regis said in a whisper, “Then this must be my father. His name was Rafael too, and if they had their pictures painted together, this way, they, too, must have sworn the oath of bredin . . .”

  They were both named Rafael; they were sworn to one another and they died trying to shield one another, and they are buried in one grave on the field of Kilghairlie.

  The old story had brought them together as children; for a moment they stood together beneath the old shifting lights of the Guard-hall barracks, children in their first Cadet year, caught up for a moment in the old tragedy. Time seemed to fold in upon itself and return, and Regis remembered the father whose face he had never seen, the moment when Danilo had somehow touched him, awakening the laran he had never believed he had.

  “I never saw my father’s face,” he said at last, “Grandfather had a picture . . . I never thought, it must have been the other copy of this; but he could never bring himself to show it to me, but my sister had seen it. She, of course, can remember our father and our mother, and she said, once, that Dom Rakhal Syrtis had been kind to her . . . .”

  “Strange,” Danilo said in a whisper, turning the little portrait in his hand, “that my father, who so much resented the Hasturs, since they had taken from him first my brother, then myself, should keep this here at his side for all these years, so that both their faces were before him always . . . .”

  “Not so surprising,” Regis said gently. “No doubt all he remembered at the end was that they had loved each other. It might even be, at the last, that he was glad you, too, had found a friend . . .” He looked again, with an abstracted smile, at his father’s face. “No, I am not really much like him, but there is a resemblance, after all; I wonder if that was why my grandfather could hardly bear to look on my face for so many years.” He laid the picture gently back on the table. “Perhaps, Danilo, when it has been for years beside you, you will understand . . . Come, my brother, you must rest; it is late and you are weary. You waited upon me like a body-servant at Aldaran; let me do as much for you.”

  He pushed Danilo into a chair and bent to tug off his boots. Danilo, embarrassed, made a gesture to prevent him.

  “My lord, it is not fitting!”

  “A paxman’s oath goes both ways, my brother,” Regis said, kneeling and looking into his face. He moved his head slightly to indicate the picture, and Danilo could see the face of the first Regis-Rafael smiling into the eyes of Rafael-Felix Syrtis. “I doubt it not . . . if he had lived, your brother would have been a second father to me as well . . . and I should have had a different life altogether, even if my father had died.”

  “If he had lived,” Danilo said, with a bitterness he had never known was in him, “I should never have been born. My father took a second wife when most men are content to rock their grandchildren on their knees, because he would not leave his House without an Heir.”

  “I am not so sure.” Regis’ hands closed over his again, “The Gods might have sent you to your brother as a son, to grow up beside my father’s son . . . and we should have been bredin as it was foreordained. Do you not see the hand of destiny in this, Dani, that we should be bredin as they were?”

  “I know not whether I can believe that,” Danilo said, but he let his hand remain in his friend’s.

  “It seems to me that they are smiling at us,” Regis said, and then he reached forward, holding out his arms to Danilo. He burst out, “Oh, Dani, all the Gods forbid I should try to persuade you to anything you felt was wrong, but are we to live in the shadow of Dyan forever? I know he wronged you, but that is past, and will you always make me suffer for what he tried to do? Why, then, your fear of him is stronger than your oath to me . . . .”

  Danilo wanted to cry. He said, shaking, “I am a cristoforo. You know what they believe. My father believed, and that is enough for me, and before he is cold in his grave you would have me here, even in that very bed where he slept alone all these years . . . .”

  “I do not think it would matter to him,” Regis said very softly. “Because for all these years he kept beside him the faces of his son and the one to whom his son had given his heart. Would he do so if he hated the very face of a Hastur? There are portrait painters enough who could have copied his own son’s picture so that he could have consigned the face of the Hastur prince who had taken his son from him, to the fires of this chamber, or to those of Hell! As for what he believed . . . I would not care for a God who spent his powers in trying to take away joy and love from a world where there is such a lack of either. Of my Divine forefather I know nothing, save that he lived and loved as other men, and it is written that when he lost the one he loved, then he grieved as do other men. But nowhere in my sacred books is it written that he feared to love . . . .”

  I said myself that I could never fear Regis. What, then, has cast this long shadow between us? Is it truly Dyan, after all? Our hearts are given to one another; I hated Dyan then because he sought to impose his will on me. Yet am I not also hurting Regis this way? Am I free, then, of Dyan’s taint? Or is it only that I wish to think that what I feel for Regis is pure and without taint, that I am somehow better than Dyan and that what I feel for Regis has no shadow of what he flaunts with Julian?

  I have hurt Regis. And worse . . . the knowledge flooded suddenly into him. I have hurt Dyan because I do not trust him; he has accepted me as a son and found another lover, and I have been unwilling to trust him enough to accept a father’s kindness from him. I have kept feeling myself superior, accepting what Dyan gives grudgingly, as if I were a better man and conferred a favor upon him by accepting it, as if I wished him to court my favors . . . .

  And as I cannot accept Dyan when he wishes to show me a father’s love, so I have refused to accept Regis for what he is, to accept the need in him for love . . . he is not the kind of man who could ever seek for that love casually. It would require trust, and affection . . . something that leapt from my heart to his when I touched him, and wakened his laran. But giving with one hand I took back with the other; I accepted his devotion and his love, but for fear of idle tongues I would give no more of myself.

  Regis was still holding his hand; Danilo leaned forward and embraced him again, not formally this time. He felt overwhelmingly humble. I have been given so much and I am willing to give so little.

  “If my father kept their pictures all these years beside him, then,” he said, “and if he let me go from his own hands into yours, my brother . . . why, then, the Law of Life is that we should share one another’s burdens. All that I am and all that is mine is forever yours, my brother. Stay here with me tonight . . .” he smiled deliberately at Regis and spoke the word for the first time with the inflection used only between lovers, “bredu.”

  Regis reached out to him, whispering, “Who knows? Perhaps they have truly returned in us, that one day we may renew their oath . . .” and as he pulled Danilo close, the picture overturned and fell rattling to the floor. Regis reached for it; so did Danilo, and their hands met on the frame. It seemed to Danilo that Regis’ smil
e tore at his heart, there was so much in it of acceptance and love and joy. There was, for an instant, something like a struggle as each tried to take the picture and set it aside; then Regis laughed and let Danilo set it on the little table next to the bed.

  “Tomorrow,” Danilo said, “I must go through my father’s personal things; who knows what else we shall find?”

  “If we find nothing else,” Regis said, holding Danilo’s hands tightly, his words coming breathless, “we have found already the greatest treasure, bredhyu.”

  ~o0o~

  “The Master had your message,” said Dyan’s steward, “and he asks, if the journey was not too fatiguing, you would join him for a little in the Music room.”

  Why, he, too, is glad to see me home. I have made a place for myself here. Danilo thanked the man and let him take his traveling cloak, and went toward the Music room. Inside he could hear the small sound of a rryl, and then Dyan’s deep and musical voice.

  “No, my dear, try fingering it like this . . .” and as he stepped inside he saw Lord Ardais, his hands laid over Julian’s, arranging his fingers on the strings. “See, you can strike the chord and go on at once to pick out the melody . . .” he broke off, and they both looked up; the light was on Dyan’s face, but Julian’s face was still in shadow, and Danilo thought, He is content to be in Dyan’s shadow. I never understood that. I thought that he sought favors from Dyan as a barragana gives her body for rich presents . . . but now I know it is more than this. Dyan nodded at Danilo, but his attention was still on Julian. He said, “Let me hear you play it again properly this time,” and as the boy repeated the phrase, he smiled, his rare smile, and said, “You see, that is better; one can hear both melody and harmony so. We need both.” He stood up and came to Danilo in the entrance of the library.

  Danilo thought, with a curious intuition, he knows. But it was no secret, nor did he shrink from it now in shame or fear. What he and Regis had shared, what they would, he knew now, continue to share for most of their lives to come—it was not after all so different from what Dyan and Julian shared, but now he was not ashamed of the similarity.

  If I am no better than he, I am no worse. And that is not . . . he thought, remembering Dyan’s hand gently guiding Julian’s on the strings of the harp, entirely a bad thing. I thought because I would never acknowledge that likeness, that somehow I was a better man than Dyan. Or Julian. It is a strange brotherhood we share. But nevertheless it is brotherhood.

  He took Dyan into a kinsman’s embrace. “Greetings, foster-father,” he said, and even managed to smile hesitantly at Julian. “Good evening, kinsman.”

  “I trust you have set everything in order at your home?”

  “Yes,” said Danilo, “I have indeed set everything in order. There was . . . a great deal of unfinished business. And the Lord Hastur sent you his respects and greetings.”

  Dyan bowed, formally acknowledging the words. “I am grateful. And I am glad to see you returned safely, foster-son.”

  “I am glad to be here, foster-father,” he said. And for the first time the words were spoken unguarded. I have lost my father; but losing him, I found I had another father, and he means me well. I never believed that before nor trusted him.

  “Julian,” Dyan said, “pour our kinsman a drink. There is hot wine; it will be good after long riding in the cold.”

  Danilo took the mug between his fingers, warming his hands on it, and sipped. “Thank you.”

  “Chiyu,” Dyan said to Julian, in that tone which was half deprecating, half affectionate, “play for us on the rryl while I talk to Danilo . . . .”

  Julian’s face was sullen. “Dani plays better than I do.”

  “But my hands are cold with riding,” said Danilo, “and I cannot play at all. So please go on.” He smiled at Julian. They were both young. Each had his own place in Dyan’s home and affections. And there is another brotherhood, too. My heart is given wholly to my lord.

  And so is his. “I would be grateful to you, kinsman, if you would play for us.”

  As the notes of the rryl rose in the room, he took a seat beside his foster-father, preparing to catch up with his neglected duties. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would show Dyan the painting he had brought from Syrtis; Dyan had known Regis’ father, when they were boys together. Perhaps he had known Danilo’s elder brother, too and perhaps Dyan could talk of him without pain as his own father had never been able to do.

  He relaxed in the heat of the fire, knowing that he was home again, that he had stepped out of Dyan’s shadow and taken his rightful place at his side.

  Return to Table of Contents

  Darkover® Anthologies

  The Keeper’s Price, 1980

  Sword of Chaos, 1982

  Free Amazons of Darkover, 1985

  Other Side of the Mirror, 1987

  Red Sun of Darkover, 1987

  Four Moons of Darkover, 1988

  Domains of Darkover, 1990

  Renunciates of Darkover, 1991

  Leroni of Darkover, 1991

  Towers of Darkover, 1993

  Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover, 1993

  Snows of Darkover, 1994

  Music of Darkover, 2013

  Stars of Darkover, 2014

  Copyright & Credits

  Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover

  Marion Zimmer Bradley, Editor

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative Edition February 25, 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-355-3

  Copyright © 1993 Marion Zimmer Bradley

  All Rights Reserved

  Darkover® is a registered trademark of the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  PO Box 193473

  San Francisco, CA 94119

  www.mzbworks.com

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First published: 1997

  Cover illustration by David Cherry

  Cover design by Dave Smeds

  Production team: Proofreader: Pat Rice; Ebook Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  PO Box 1624

  Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  v20140128

  About the Author

  Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, New York, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.

  She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens and made her first professional sale to Vortex Science Fiction in 1952. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels. In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called Sword and Sorceress for DAW Books.

  Over the years she turned more to fantasy. She wrote a novel of the women in the Arthurian legends—Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and others—entitled The Mists of Avalon, which made the New York Times bestseller list both in hardcover and trade paperback, and she also wrote The Firebrand, a novel about the women of the Trojan War.

  She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack. For more information, see her website: www.mzbworks.com

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  The Incompetent Magician

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  A Sample Story from

  The Complete Lythande

  Elisabeth Waters, Editor

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  November 5, 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-326-3

  Copyright © 2013 by The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  and Elisabeth Waters

  The Incompetent Magician

  Throughout the length and breadth of the world of the Twin Suns, from the Great Salt Desert in the south to the Ice Mountains of the north, no one seeks out a mercenary-magician unless he wants something; and it’s usually trouble. It’s never the same thing twice, but whatever it is, it’s always trouble.

  Lythande the Magician looked out from under the hood of the dark, flowing mage-robe; and under the hood, the blue star that proclaimed Lythande to be Pilgrim Adept began to sparkle and give off blue flashes of fire as the magician studied the fat, wheezing little stranger, wondering what kind of trouble this client would be.