Below them a quiet mountainous countryside stretched out, slope after slope of hills covered with dark forest, now and then the thickness giving way to slanted rows of trees, marching mechanically up and down a hillside—nut-farms, or plantations of edible fungus in the forest. Hillsides had been cleared for grasses where herds grazed, dotted with small huts where the herd-keepers lived, and now and again, beside the course of a racing mountain stream, a waterwheel set up for the making of cheeses, or the fibers which, matrix-enhanced, could be extracted from the bulk of the milk after whey and curds had been pressed out. He smelled the odd reek of a felt-ing-mill, and another of a mill where the scraps left after timbering were pressed into paper. On a rocky slope, he saw the entrance to a network of caves where the forge-folk lived and saw the glow of their fires, where flying sparks could not endanger forests or populated areas.
As they flew on, the hills became higher and more deserted. He felt Donal’s touch on his thoughts—the boy was developing into a skilled telepath who could attract his attention without troubling it— and Allart followed him down a long draft between two hills, to where the white glareless stone of Tramontana Tower gleamed in the noonlight. He saw a sentry on the heights raise his hand in greeting, and followed as Donal swooped down, folding the wings of his glider as he landed on his feet, sinking gracefully to his knees and rising in a single controlled movement, whipping off the glider wings in a long trail behind him; but Allart, less skilled at this game, found himself knocked off his feet, in a disorderly tangle of struts and ropes. Donal, laughing, came to help him disentangle himself.
“Never mind, cousin, I have landed that way many times myself,” he said, though Allart wondered how many years it had been since he had done so. “Come, Arzi will take your glider and keep it safe against our return,” he added, gesturing to the bent old man who stood beside him.
“Master Donal,” said the old man, in a dialect so thick that even Allart, who knew most of the Hellers dialects, found it hard to follow. “A joy, as ever, to welcome ye back among us. Y’ lend us grace, dom’yn,” he added, including Allart in his rude bow.
Donal said, “This is my old friend Arzi, who has served the Tower since before I was born, and welcomed me here three or four times a year since I was ten years old. Arzi— my cousin, Dom Allart Hastur of Elhalyn.”
“Vai dom.” Arzi’s bow was almost comical in its depth and deference. “Lord Hastur lends us grace. Ah, it’s a happy day—the vai leronyn will be glad indeed to welcome ye, Lord Hastur.”
“Not Lord Hastur,” Allart said gently, “only Lord Allart, my good man, but I thank you for your welcome.”
“Ah, it’s been many, many years since a Hastur came among us,” Arzi said. “Be pleased’t’ follow me, vai domyn.”
“Look what the winds have brought us,” called a merry voice, and a young girl, tall, slender, with hair as pale as snow on the distant peak, came running toward Donal, holding out her hands to him in welcome. “Donal, how glad we all are to see you again! But you have brought a guest to us!”
“I am glad to return, Rosaura,” Donal said, embracing the girl as if they were long-lost kin. The girl stretched out her hands to welcome Allart, with the swift touch of telepaths to whom this was more natural than the touch of fingertips. Allart, of course, had known who she was even before Donal spoke the name, but as they brushed against one another her face lighted again with a quick smile.
“Oh, but you are Allart, who was at Hali for half a year. I had heard you were in the Hellers, of course, but I had no notion fortune would bring you here to us, kinsman. Have you come to work with Tramontana Tower?”
Donal was watching with amazement at this meeting. “But you have not been here before, cousin,” he said to Allart.
“That is true,” Rosaura said. “Until this hour, none of us have looked upon our kinsman’s face, but we have touched him in the relays. This is a glad day for Tramontana, kinsman! Come and meet the rest of us.” Rosaura took them inside, and quickly they were surrounded by more than a dozen young men and women—some of the others were at work in the relays, others asleep after a night of work—all of whom welcomed Donal almost as one of themselves.
Allart’s emotions were mixed. He had managed not to think too much about what he had left behind at Hali Tower, and now he was meeting, face to face, minds he had touched in the relays there, putting faces and voices and personalities to people he had known only in the elusive, bodiless touch of mind to mind.
“Are you coming to Tramontana to stay, cousin? We can use a good technician.”
Regretfully, Allart shook his head. “I am committed elsewhere, though nothing would please me more, I think. But I have been long at Aldaran, without much news from the outside world. How goes the war?”
“Much as before,” said Ian-Mikhail of Storn, a slight, dark young man with curling hair. “There was a rumor that Alaric Ridenow, him they call the Red Fox, had been slain, but it was false. King Regis lies gravely ill, and Prince Felix has summoned the Council. If he should die, may his reign be long, there will be need for another truce while Felix is crowned, should he ever be crowned. And among your own kinsmen, Allart, word came through the relays that a son was born to your brother’s lady in the first tenday of the rose month. The boy does well, though the lady Cassilde has not recovered her strength and could not suckle him herself. There is some fear that she will not recover. But the boy has been proclaimed your brother’s heir.”
“The gods be thanked, and Evanda the merciful smile on the child.” Allart spoke the formula with real relief.
Now Damon-Rafael had a legitimate son; there was no question whether the Council would choose a legitimate brother over a nedestro son.
Yet, among the crowding futures, Allart saw himself crowned at Thendara. Angrily he tried to slam the door on his laran and the unwelcome possibilities. Have I some taint of my brother’s kind of ambition, after all?
“And,” said Rosaura, “I spoke with your lady but three days ago, in the relays.”
Allart’s heart seemed to clutch painfully and knock against his ribs. Cassandra! How long had it been since he had called her image to mind? “How does my lady?”
“She seems well and content,” Rosaura said. “You knew, did you not, that she has now been appointed full monitor for Coryn’s circle at Hali?”
“No, I had not heard.”
“She is a powerful telepath in the relay-nets. I wonder you could bring yourself to leave her behind. You have not been long married, have you?”
“Not yet a year,” Allart said. No, not long, a painfully short time to leave a beloved wife… He had forgotten that he was among trained telepaths, a Tower circle; for a moment he had dropped his barriers, saw the pain in his thoughts reflected all around him.
He said, “The fortunes of war, I suppose. The world will go as it will and not as you or I would have it.” He felt sententious, prim, as he mouthed the cliché, but they displayed the bland unrevealing non-contact, the mental turning-away which is the courtesy among telepaths when truths too revealing have been shown. He recovered his composure while Donal spoke of their errand.
“My father sent me for the first of the fire-chemicals to be taken to the station at the heart of the resin-tree forest; the others can be sent more slowly, with pack-animals. We are building a new fire station on the peak.” The talk became general, of fire-fighting, of the season and the early storms. One of the leronyn took Donal to make up a packet of the chemicals which could be carried back on the gliders, and Rosaura drew Allart aside.
“I regret the necessities which parted you so soon from your bride, kinsman; but if you like, and if Cassandra is in the relays, you can speak with her.”
Faced with the possibility, Allart felt his heart clench. He had resigned himself, told himself that if he never saw Cassandra again, at least they avoided the grimmest of the futures he had seen. Yet he knew he could not forbear this chance to speak with her.
The
matrix chamber was like any other, the vaulted roof and blue window-lights below it admitting soft radiance, the monitor screen, the great relay lattice. A young woman in the soft loose robe of a matrix worker knelt before it, her face blank and calm with the distant look of a matrix technician with the mind attuned elsewhere, thoughts caught up in the relay-nets that linked all the telepaths in all the Towers of Darkover.
Allart took his place beside the girl in the relays, the inner part of his thoughts still troubled.
What shall I say to her? How can I meet her again, even this way?
But the old discipline held, the ritual breaths to calm his mind, his body locking itself in one of the effortless postures which could be maintained indefinitely without too much fatigue.
He cast himself into the vast spinning darkness, like the swoop of the glider over the great gulf. Thoughts whirled and spun past him like distant conversation in a crowded room, meaningless because he was unaware of their origin or context. Slowly, as he became more aware of the structure of the relay-net tonight, he felt a more definite touch, Rosaura’s voice.
Hali…
We are here, what would you have?
If the lady Cassandra Aillard-Hastur is among you, her husband is with us at Tramontana and begs a word with her…
Allart, is it you? As recognizable as her bright hair, her gay girlish smile, he touched Arielle. I think Cassandra is sleeping, but for this she will be glad to be wakened. Bear my greetings to my cousin Renata; I think of her often with love and blessings. I will waken Cassandra for you.
Arielle was gone. Allart was back in the floating silence, messages slipping past him without impinging on any part of his mind which could remember or register them. Then, without warning, she was there, beside him, around him, a presence almost physical… Cassandra!
Allart, my beloved….
The texture of tears, of amazement, disbelief, reunion; an instant, timeless (three seconds? three hours?), of absolute, ecstatic joining, like an embrace. It was like nothing except the moment when he had first possessed her and in that moment felt the barriers drop, felt her mind yield and blend into his, a joining more complete, a mutual surrender more total than the union of their bodies. Wordless, but complete; he was lost in it, felt her lose herself in it.
It could not be sustained for long at such a level; he felt it drop away, recede into ordinary thought, ordinary contact
Allart, how came you to Tramontana?
With the foster-son of Aldaran, to collect the first of the fire-fighting chemicals for the high fire season; it is upon us in the Hellers. He flashed to her a picture of the long, ecstatic flight here, the swoop of the glider, the wind racing past head and body.
We have had fires here, too. The Hali Tower was attacked with air-cars and incendiaries. He saw ravening flames on the shore, explosions, an air-car struck down and burning like a meteor as it fell, exploded by the linked minds of eleven at Hali, the dying shrieks of the flyer who had brought it in, drugged and suicidal…
But you are safe, my beloved?
I am safe, although we are all weary, working day and night… Many things have happened to me, my husband. I shall have much to tell you. When will you return to me?
That must be as the gods will, Cassandra, but I shall not delay any longer than I must. … As he formed the word-thoughts he knew they were true. The part of wisdom might be never to see her again. But even now he could foresee a day when he would hold her in his arms again, and he knew abruptly that even if death were the penalty, he would not turn away… nor would she.
Allart, are we to fear the entrance of the Aldarans into this war? Since you left us for the Hellers, we have all feared that more than anything else.
No, Aldaran is much beset by strife with his kin; he bears neither loyalty nor grudge to either side. I am here to teach laran to Lord Aldaran’s foster-son while Renata cares for his daughter… .
Is she very beautiful? In her thoughts, wordless yet unmistakable, he sensed rancor, jealousy. Was it for Renata or the unknown daughter? He heard her unspoken answer: both….
Very beautiful, yes… . Allart kept his thoughts light, amused. She is eleven years old… and no woman on the face of this world, not the Blessed Cassilda within her shrine, is half so beautiful as you, my beloved… Then another moment of the wholly blissful, ecstatic merging, joining, as if they were clasped together, with everything that they were, bodies, minds, souls… He must break it. Cassandra could not long sustain this, not if she was working as a monitor. Slowly, reluctantly, he let the contact drop away, disappear, fade into nothingness, but his whole mind and body were still full of her as if he could feel the print of her kiss on his mouth.
Dazed, weary, Allart let himself come back to awareness of the matrix chamber, cold and blue, around him, of his own cramped and shivering body. Slowly, after a long time, he moved, rose, quietly tiptoed out of the matrix chamber, leaving the workers in the relay-nets undisturbed. As he made his way down the long twisting stairs, he did not know whether or not he was grateful for the chance to speak with her.
It has forged anew a bond which it would have been better to break. In that long joining he had picked up many things which he had not, with his conscious mind, really understood, but he sensed that Cassandra, too, had tried in her own way to break that bond. He was not resentful. They were still bound, more strongly than ever, with the bonds of desire and frustration.
And love? And love?
What is love, anyway? Allart was not sure whether the thought was his own, or one he had somehow picked up from the confused mind of his young wife.
Rosaura met him at the bottom of the stairs. If she noted his dazed face, the traces of tears around his eyes, she said nothing; there were certain courtesies among Tower telepaths, where no strong emotion could ever be concealed. She only said, quietly matter-of-fact, “After a contact across so much space, you will be drained and weary. Come, cousin, and refresh yourself.”
Donal joined them at the meal, and half a dozen of the workers in the Tower who were not at their duties or resting. They were all a little manic with the relaxation of strain, the rare treat of company in their isolated place. Allart’s sorrow and revived longing for Cassandra were swept away on a tide of jesting and laughter. The food was strange to Allart, though good; a sweet white mountain wine he had never tasted, mushrooms and fungus cooked in a dozen different ways, a soft white boiled tuber or root of some kind mashed into little cakes and fried in fragrant oil, but there was no meat. Rosaura told him that they had resolved to experiment here with a diet of no animal flesh and see if it sensitized their awarenesses. This seemed strange and a little silly to Allart, but he had lived for years with such a diet at Nevarsin.
“Before you go, we have a message for your foster-father, Donal,” Ian-Mikhail said. “Scathfell has sent embassies to Sain Scarp, to Storn, to Ardais and Scaravel, and to the Castamirs. I do not know what it is all about, but as overlord to Scathfell he should be told. Scathfell would not trust it to the relays, so I fear it is some secret conspiracy, and we had heard rumors of a breach between your father and Lord Scathfell. Lord Aldaran should be warned.”
Donal looked troubled. “I thank you on my foster-father’s behalf. Of course we knew some such things must be happening, but our household leronis is old, and has been much occupied with the care of my sister, so we had heard nothing by way of the overworld.”
“Is your sister well?” Rosaura asked. “We should have liked to have her here with us at Tramontana for her testing.”
“Renata Leynier has come from Hali to care for her during adolescence,” Donal said, and Rosaura smiled.
“Renata from Hali; I know her well in the relays. Your sister will be well with her, Donal.”
Then it was time to make ready and go. One of the monitors brought them neatly made-up packets of the chemicals which, mixed with water or other fluids, would expand enormously into a white foam that would cover an incredible expanse of fire
. More would be sent as soon as land convoy could be arranged. Donal went up to the high walk behind the tower and stood there scanning the skies. When he descended, he looked grave.
“There may be storms before sunset,” he said. “We should lose no time, cousin.”
This time Allart felt no hesitation about stepping off, drifting on a rising current of air, using the power of his matrix to carry him up and up, soaring. Yet he could not wholly give himself to the enjoyment of the experience.
The contact with Cassandra, blissful as it had been, had left him drained and troubled. He tried to put aside all these thoughts, flying demanded concentration on his matrix; preoccupation with outside thoughts was a luxury he could not afford. Yet again and again he saw faces cast before him by his laran: a big hearty man who oddly resembled Dom Mikhail of Aldaran; Cassandra weeping alone in her room at Hali, then rising and composing herself to work in the relays; Renata facing Dorilys with angry challenge… He brought himself back by force of will to the heights, the soaring rush of air past the glider, the air currents tingling painfully in his outstretched fingertips as if each finger were the pinion of a soaring hawk, himself neither man nor bird, swooping on the air. He knew that in this moment he shared Donal’s inner fantasy.
“There are storms ahead,” said Donal. “I am sorry to take you so far from our way when you are not used to flying, but we must go around them. It is not safe to fly so near a storm. Follow me, cousin.” He caught a handy air current and let himself drift, matrix-aided, away from the straight line to Aldaran.
Stormqueen! Page 22
