Heritage and Exile (110 page)

 

Red sunlight woke me, and the closing of a door somewhere in the Alton suite. Dio—had she really been there? I was not sure; but the curtains she had opened to the moonlight were open to the sun, and there was a fine red-gold hair lying on my pillow. The pain in head and wounded arm had subsided to the dullest of aches; I sat up, knowing that it was time to act.

While I dressed for riding, I considered. Surely, this day or the next, what was left of the Comyn would ride to Hali for the state funeral for Linnell—and for Derik. Perhaps it would be better to ride with them, not to attract attention, and then to slip away toward the
rhu fead . . .

No. There was no time for that. I had loved Linnell and she had been my foster-sister, but I could not wait to speak words of tenderness and regret over her grave. I could not help her now, and either way, she had gone too far to care whether or not I was there to speak at her burying. For Linnell I could only try to ensure that the land she had loved was not ravaged by Sharra's fires. It might be that we could do something for Callina too; surely Beltran, who had been part of the original circle who had tried to raise Sharra, would die with us when we closed that gateway for the last time. And then Callina too would be freed.

I went in search of Callina, and found her in the room where I had seen Linnell playing her
rryl
, that night before we had gone to Ashara's Tower. Callina was sitting before the harp, her hands lax in her lap, so white and still that I had to speak to her twice before she heard me; and then she turned a dead face to me, a face so cold and distant, so like Ashara's, that I was shocked and horrified. I shook her, hard, and finally slapped her face; at that she came back, life and anger in her pale cheeks.

“How dare you!”

“Callina, I'm sorry—you were so far away, I couldn't make you hear me—you were in a trance—”

“Oh, no—” she gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth in consternation, “Oh, no, it can't be. . . .” She swallowed and swallowed again, fighting tears. She said, “I felt I could not bear my grief, and it seemed to me that Ashara could give me peace, take away grief . . . grief and guilt, because if I had not—not used the screen with you, not found that—that Kathie girl, Linnell would have been alive. . . .”

“You don't know that,” I said harshly. “There's no way of telling what might have happened when Kadarin drew—that sword. Kathie might have died instead of Linnell; or they might both have died. Either way, don't blame yourself. Where is Kathie?”

“I don't want to see her,” Callina said shakily. “She is like—it's like seeing Linnell's ghost, and I cannot bear it—” and for a moment I thought she would go far away into the trance state again.

“There's no time for that, Callina! We don't know what Beltran, or Kadarin, may be planning,” I said. “We don't have much time; things could start up again at any moment.” How had I been able to sleep last night, with this hanging over us? But at least now I was strong enough for what I must do. “Where is Kathie?”

At last Callina sighed and showed me the way to where Kathie slept. She was lying on a couch, awake, half naked, scanning a set of tiles, but she started as I came in, and caught a blanket around her. “Get out! Oh—it's you again! What do you want?”

“Not what you seem to be expecting,” I said dryly. “I want you to dress and ride with us. Can you ride?”

“Yes, certainly. But why—”

I rummaged behind a panel, finding some clothes I had seen Linnell wear. It suddenly outraged me that these lengths of cloth, these embroideries, should still be intact, with Linnell's perfume still in their folds, when my foster-sister lay cold in the chapel at the side of her dead lover. I flung them, almost angrily, across the couch.

“These will do for riding. Put them on.” I sank down to wait for her, was recalled, by her angry stare, to memory of Terran taboos. I rose, actually reddening; how could Terran women be so immodest out of doors and so prudish within? “I forgot. Call me when you're ready.”

A peculiar choked sound made me turn back. She was staring helplessly at the armful of clothing, turning the pieces this way and that. “I haven't the faintest notion how to get into these things.”

“After what you were just
thinking
at me,” I said stiffly, “I'm certainly not going to offer to help you.”

She blushed too. “And anyway, how could I ride in a long skirt?”

“Zandru's hells, girl, what else would you wear? They are Linnell's riding-clothes; if she rode in them, you certainly can.” Linnell had worn them to ride to Marius's funeral.

“I've never worn anything like this for riding, and I'm certainly not going to start now,” she blazed. “If you want me to ride somewhere on a horse, you're going to have to get me some decent clothes!”

“These clothes belonged to my foster-sister; they are perfectly decent.”

“Damn it, get me some
indecent
ones, then!”

I laughed. I had to. “I'll see what I can do, Kathie.”

The Ridenow apartments were almost deserted this early, except for a servant mopping the stone floor, and I was glad; I had no desire to walk in upon Lord Edric. It occurred to me that Dio and I had married without the permission of her Domain Lord.

But that was Darkovan law. Dio and I had married by the law of the Empire . . . why was I thinking this, as if there were still time to go back and mend what had gone astray between us? At least I would see her once more. I asked the servant if
Domna
Diotima would see me, and after a moment, Dio, in a long woolly dressing-gown, came sleepily out into the main room. Her face lighted when she saw me; but there was no time for that. I explained my predicament, and she must have read the rest in my face and manner.

“Kathie? Yes, I remember her from—from the hospital,” she said, “I still have my Terran riding things, the ones I wore on Vainwal; she should be able to wear them.” She giggled, then broke off. “I know it's not really funny. I just can't help it, thinking—never mind; I'll go and help her with them.”

“And I'll go down and see if I can find horses for us,” I said, and went down, swiftly, by an old and little-known stairway, to the Guard hall. Fortunately there was a Guardsman there who had known me when I was a cadet.

“Hjalmar, can you find horses? I must ride to Hali.”

“Certainly, sir. How many horses?”

“Three,” I said after a moment, “one with a lady's saddle.” Kathie might ride like Dio, astride and in breeches like some Free Amazon, but Callina certainly would not. I told him where to bring them, and went back to find Kathie neatly dressed in the tunic and breeches I had seen Dio wear.

Some Terran poet said that—that the saddest words in any language are always
too late.

The door thrust suddenly open and Regis came in. He said, “Where are you going? I'd better come with you.”

I shook my head. “No. If anything happens—if we don't make it—you're the only one with any strength against Sharra.”

“That is exactly why I must come with you,” Regis said. “No, leave the women here—”

“Kathie at least must come,” I said. “We are going to Hali, to the
rhu fead
,” and added, when he still looked confused, “It's possible that Kathie may be the only person on this world who can reach the Sword of Aldones.”

His eyes widened. He said, “There's something I should know . . . Grandfather told me once—no, I can't remember.” His brow ridged in angry concentration. “It could be important, Lew!”

It could, indeed. The Sword of Aldones was the ultimate weapon against Sharra. And Regis seemed, of late, to have some curious power over Sharra.
But whatever it was, we had no time to waste while he tried to remember.

Regis warned, “If Dyan sees you, you'll be stopped. And Beltran has a legal right—if no other—to stop Callina. How are you going to get out of the Castle?”

I led them to the Alton rooms. The Altons, generations and generations ago, had designed this part of the castle, and they had left themselves a couple of escape routes. It occurred to me to wonder why they had guarded themselves against their fellow Comyn, in those days; then I grinned with mirth. This was certainly not the first time, in the long history of the Comyn, that powerful clan had warred against clan.

I forced my mind away from that, searching out certain elegant designs in the parquetry flooring. My father had once shown me this escape route, but he had not troubled to teach me the pattern. I frowned, tried to sound, delicately, the matrix lock that led to the secret stairway.

Fourth level, at least! I began to wonder if I would need to hunt up my old matrix mechanic's kit and perform the mental equivalent of picking the lock. I shifted my concentration, just a little . . .

My father's voice; yet for the first time I did not resent it. In that final, unknowing rapport he had forced on me, I was sure there had been some of his memories—how else could I account for the sudden, emotional way I had reacted to Dyan? Now I stood with my toes in the proper pattern, and, not stopping to think how to do it,
pushed
against something invisible.

My mind sought out the patterns; halfway through the flickering memory that was not mine faded into nonsense, evaporated with the sting of lemon-scent in the air, but I was deeply into the pattern now and I could unravel the final twist of the lock. Beneath me the floor tilted; I jumped, scrabbled for safety as a section of the flooring moved downward on invisible machinery, revealing a hidden stair, dark and dusty, that led away downward.

“Stay close to me,” I warned, “I've never been down here before, though I saw it opened once.” I gestured them downward on the dusty stair; Kathie wrinkled her nose at the musty smell, and Callina held her skirts fastidiously close to her body, but they went. Regis and Dio followed us. Behind us the square of light folded itself, disappeared.

“I wish my old great-great-whatever-great grandfather had provided a light,” I fretted, “it's as dark in here as Zandru's—” I cut off the guard-room obscenity, substituted weakly “pockets.” I heard Dio snicker softly and knew she had been in rapport with me.

Callina said softly, “I can make light, if you need it.”

Kathie cried out in sudden fright as a green ball of pallid fire grew in Callina's palm, spread like phosphorscence over her slender six-fingered hands. I was familiar with the over-light, but it was an uncanny sight to see, as the Keeper spread out her hands, the pallid glow leading us downward. The extended fingers broke through sticky webs, and once I fancied that gleaming little eyes followed us in the darkness, but I closed my eyes and mind to them, watching for every step under my feet. We crowded so hard on Callina's heels that she had to warn us, in a soft, preoccupied voice, “Be careful not to touch me.” Once Kathie slipped on the strangely sticky surfaces, fell a step or two, jarringly, before I could catch and steady her. I felt with my good hand along the wall, ignoring what might be clinging there, and once the stair jogged sharply to the right, a sharp turn; without Callina's pale light we would have stepped off into nothingness and fallen—who knows into what depths? As it was, one of us jarred a pebble loose and we heard it strike below, after a long time, very far away. We went on, and I felt my blood pounding hard in my temples. Damn it, I hoped I would never have to come down here again, I would rather face Sharra and half of Zandru's demons!

Down, and down, and endlessly down, so that I felt half the day must be passing as we threaded the staircase and the maze into which it led; but Callina led the way, with dainty fastidious steps, as if she were treading a ballroom floor.

At last the passageway ended in a solid, heavy door. The light faded from Callina's hands as she touched it, and I had to wrestle with the wooden bar which closed it. I could not draw it back one-handed, and Dio threw her weight against the bar; it creaked open, and light assaulted eyes dilated by the darkness of that godforgotten tunnel. I squinted through it and discovered that we were standing in the Street of Coppersmiths, exactly where I had told Hjalmar to bring the horses. At the corner of the street, through the small sound of many tiny hammers tapping on metal, there was a place where horses were shod and iron tools mended, and I saw Hjalmar standing there with the horses.

He recognized Callina, though she was folded in an ordinary thick dark cloak—I wondered if she had borrowed the coarse garment from one of her servants, or simply gone into the servants' quarters and taken the first one she found?

“
Vai domna
, let me assist you to mount . . .”

She ignored him, turning to me, and awkwardly, one-handed, I extended my arm to help her into the saddle. Kathie scrambled up without help, and I turned to Dio.

“Do you know where you are? How are you going to get back?”

“Not
that
way,” she said fervently. “Never mind, I can find my way.” She gestured at the castle, which seemed to be very high above us on the slopes of the city; we had indeed come a long way. “I still feel I ought to come with you—”

I shook my head. I would not drag Dio into this, too.