The Alton Gift (27 page)

"I am not surprised." Sadly, the monk shook his head. "This fever has resisted all our remedies. Anything you can do for him will be appreciated."

Illona rose slowly. "I will search our medical archives, and with your permission, either I or Fiona, who is our most skilled healer, will return later today to tend him."

When the infirmarian hesitated, she said, "This cannot be easy for you, to be set apart so long from women and then to admit not one but two of us. However, as long as the patient remains stable, I can send Sammel or Domenic instead."

Relief flickered behind the old monk's eyes. "That would be better, at least for a time,
vat leronis
. As you have rightly surmised, we are set in our ways and accept change but slowly."

With that, the Tower party took their leave.

Domenic returned to the monastery later that same day to check on Garin. He went alone because Sammel was clearly exhausted, although the older man had made no complaint. Fiona mentioned that Sammel had already worked all night in Silvana's circle. "He thinks he can keep going without rest, as if he were one of those
Terranan
machines," she whispered.

Domenic was happy to be of use. He was not especially tired, for a meal had restored him. More than that, he now found Illona's nearness disturbing. She had slept much of the afternoon, but he could feel her presence, as if he had taken the iridescent mist, the stuff of stars, into his soul. He needed to think, to concentrate on something else, to gain some small clarity of thought. He did not want to examine the possibility that he was in love with her. Truly in love, utterly and without reservation, from the very core of his being, as he had never been with Alanna.

The improvement in Garin's condition that resulted from the work of the circle that morning had almost completely disappeared. No faint color touched the sick man's cheeks, although he roused as Domenic settled himself on the bedside stool. A pottery pitcher of honeyed

cider, still warm, had been left by the bedside. Domenic lifted Garin's head and held a cup to his lips.

Sighing, Garin licked his lips and rested back on the thin pillow. The sweet drink seemed to give him a little strength, for he was able to answer Domenic's questions.

As Garin talked, a picture formed in Domenic's mind. This man and his family were exactly the kind of people who had been left rudderless by the failure of the Comyn leadership, those to whom Domenic—and every other lord in Thendara—owed a particular loyalty. Honest and hard-working, they were the heart of Darkover, as much as the
laran
magic of the Towers or the sword strength of the Comyn.

If we had been there to help, they might not have been forced on to the road
…
they might have made it through the winter
…

He told himself there was nothing he himself could have done to prevent their tragedy. But he was no ordinary man; he was heir to Hastur and the Regency of the Comyn.

Garin fell into a restless slumber, unresponsive when Domenic touched his forehead. Domenic swore softly. The man's body was like a furnace.

He took out his starstone and tried to concentrate on the psychoactive gem. Like every other Tower novice, he had first been taught monitoring, using his amplified
laran
to sense life energies. He could even apply it to himself, enough to keep his
laran
channels clear.

Entering Garin's psychic body was like walking into the heart of a volcano, engulfed by fire. The man's strength was being drained at an astonishing rate as his flesh, muscle and sinew, nerve and organ, consumed itself. He had been a strong, active man, but his resources were almost exhausted, and when that happened, his life would go out like a guttering torch.

As he had been taught, Domenic narrowed his focus, descending through the level of organs and tissues to individual cells and the fluids that bathed them. He sensed a subtle wrongness, a taste he had never encountered in a healthy body. It could not be any of the more common contagious ailments or even those restricted to the Hellers, or surely the monastery infirmarian would have recognized it. Neither II-lona nor her circle were strangers to the various illnesses. Domenic

himself had more scientific training than most Darkovans, for Mar-guerida had made sure all her children could pass the University entrance exams.

Could this be some new disease? Something left over from the time of the World Wreckers? Their agents had not hesitated to use soil-destroying organisms in their quest to bring Darkover as a supplicant into the Federation. Why not a human disease as well, like the one that had killed Grandmother Javanne? How could it have lain dormant for so long?

The questions resonated through Domenic's mind as he dropped out of the trance state into ordinary consciousness. Garin had sunk into a restless slumber. Domenic felt the heat from the sick man's body on his face. There was nothing more to be done here. He informed the monk in attendance that the patient had deteriorated and then went in search of his grandfather.

He expected to find Lew resting, but the old man was working in the garden, wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat and humming as he plied his hoe between rows of tomatoes, marrow squashes, and salad greens. Bees buzzed through the companion-planted strawflowers. The smells of honey, pollen, and moist earth tinged the air.

Lew looked up as Domenic approached, and Domenic thought he had never seen his grandfather so content. The lines of suffering that marked his face had eased, and a new brightness lit his eyes.

They sat on the bench to talk. Domenic poured out his concerns about Garin's fever being a delayed-onset Terran weapon.

"No, I don't think so, not after so long a time." Lew wiped his brow with a scrap of cloth.

Domenic's worry eased, for his grandfather was no stranger to off-world technology. He must have seen the Federation at its worst when he served as Darkovan Senator.

"As I understand it," Lew went on, "this poor fellow and his family have been on the road, and last winter had been harsh on all his folk. Perhaps his strength held out only long enough to get his people to safety in Nevarsin."

"I fear he is approaching a crisis point," Domenic said.

"Then you should not linger here, but take word to Illona and the others at the Tower. If anyone can bring him safely through, they will."

Domenic said nothing, for the thought was in his mind that Garin would likely die. This was not an isolated case, he remembered. The woman and child who had come to Nevarsin with Garin had died also. How many more would follow?

Domenic found Fiona still awake and told her of Garin's deteriorating condition. "I will go to him immediately," the young monitor said. "You must eat now and rest, or you risk endangering your own health.
Laran
work, particularly when you are not accustomed to it, is exhausting."

Bone-deep weariness swept through Domenic. He knew she was right, but he had grown up with parents who demanded much of themselves, who would not rest while there was urgent work to be done.

"First, I must speak with Illona," he insisted.

"Be brief, then. I do not want another patient on my hands, particularly one who brought his misfortune upon himself from an overin-flated sense of responsibility!"

Fiona directed Domenic to the archives, a small room high in the tower. Bookshelves and cabinets fitted with slots for scrolls lined every available wall. A small desk occupied the center, and here Illona sat, paging through a book. Age discolored the parchment pages. Dust motes glimmered in the light pouring through the windows.

Illona was so absorbed in her reading that she did not notice Domenic's presence at first. She wore a loose smock, faded and patched, and had tied her hair back under an equally worn scarf. A few unruly tendrils had escaped, tumbling like copper lace over her shoulders.

She glanced up, her color deepening, and he saw in her eyes a simple acceptance of the state between them. There could be few secrets between telepaths, certainly not something as intense as his feelings for her.

Illona closed the book, went to Domenic, and took his hands in hers. Catalyzed through the physical touch, the heady sweetness of her
laran
rushed through him. The edges of his vision turned iridescent. His breath caught in his throat. He wanted the moment to go on forever, that edge of exquisite agony.

You are my dearest childhood friend
, she said mentally, and his heart plummeted.

No
, she went on, I
am not about to tell you that we are
only
friends. The boy who changed my life forever has grown into a man, a man with the most amazing gifts
— and here, he felt the trained discipline of her Keeper's mind and knew her assessment was no mere flattery —
a man I have come to love in a very different way
.

For a long moment, he could not trust that he had understood her.

"Nico," she said, her voice softly resonant. "What happened between us on the mountain meant as much to me as it did to you. We were created for one another, I think, and no matter where we go, our hearts will always be calling, each to each, drawing us back again."

He drew her close, and her arms went around him as if they had always belonged there. He dropped his
laran
barriers; his mind was open to hers as hers was to him.

Without warning, Domenic's heart pounded like a caged bird against his ribs. His head whirled with a renewed surge of weakness. The next instant, he felt Illona's strong hands upon him, guiding him to a chair. It was still warm from her own body. A mental touch like a rippling melody played across the back of his mind. Cool energy surged through him.

"Domenic, my dear, I am sorry I did not realize you were in such a state! You are drained from your
laran
work."

She knelt before him, still grasping his arms, her eyes liquid with concern. Her breath on his face was like honey. He drank it in, drew strength from her closeness. She lent him her own energy through their linked minds. It would not last long, but it was enough so that he could follow her downstairs with reasonable steadiness.

A short time later, Domenic watched Illona bustle about the kitchen, a tidy, scrupulously clean room with an old-fashioned brick oven for baking, a huge stone sink, and bins for storing spices, nuts, and flour. A small cauldron of some kind of soup, fragrant with herbs and green onions, hung just above the banked embers.

Quietly competent, Illona prepared a plate of fruit-studded spiral buns, sticky candy, and sugared nuts. She set the meal in front of him, along with a mug of
jaco
from the kettle on the hearth, and sat facing him across the battered work table. The smell of the food turned his

stomach, but he forced himself to eat. After the first few bites, he finished the rest ravenously, yielding to his body's craving for fuel.

In between mouthfuls and gulps of
jaco
, Domenic told Illona about Garin and his own fears of some Terran-born disease, a weapon gone astray.

"I have heard of such things," Illona said with an expression of disgust. "I think Lew is right. Surely too much time has gone by for one of the World Wreckers plagues to now come to life. On the other hand, there is a possibility—and it is only a remote one, with very little evidence to support it—that this may be the recurrence of an indigenous Darkovan disease."

"Then why did the monastery infirmarian not recognize it?" Domenic asked.

"Because none of us have seen trailmen's fever for a generation."

"Trailmen's fever?" Domenic searched his memory. Some time after the destruction of Caer Donn, Regis Hastur had led an expedition into trailmen territory to discover a cure. It was one of the first cooperative ventures between Comyn and
Terranan
. "Wasn't that eradicated over forty years ago?"

"That's what the records say," Illona said. "The fever was, and I suppose still is, endemic among the trailmen, but in that species, it's very mild. It used to spread to human populations living near their territory every forty-eight years or so. People superstitiously attributed it to the conjunction of the four moons. According to my research, it starts with a few cases in the mountains, the next month a hundred or so, more widely spread. Then—and this seems to be the defining characteristic— exactly three months later, there are thousands of cases."

Her eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. She drew in a breath. "And three months after
that
…"

"But we don't have any evidence that Garin's illness is indeed trail-men's fever and not something else."

Illona shook her head. "No, I'm probably conjuring dragons with smoke and mirrors, the way we used to do in the Travelers' shows. Besides, this isn't trailmen's territory. Their home forests lie some distance toward the Kadarin, although no one's reported seeing them in years."

"Too often, our fears drive us to imagine the worst," he said.

She smiled, and the sun shone once more behind her eyes. "Yes, that

must be it. We will send word to Neskaya, and if there are no more cases anywhere in the Hellers, that will be the end of my theory. Now, if you are finished stuffing yourself, I will see if Fiona needs my help."

She got to her feet, and so did Domenic. His muscles no longer quivered on the edge of exhaustion, but he would soon have to surrender to sleep.

"Will you come to my bed tonight?" she asked.

Longing flooded him, sudden heat pulsing through his groin. He imagined the silken strength of her body, her skin bare against his, her cries of pleasure. His heart thundered in his ears.

"I have forgotten my manners," she said, blushing a little. "Should I have waited for
you
to ask
me
?"

He sobered. Tower manners and morals were far different from those of the Comyn court. He could make love with her and take away the memory, folded into his heart like a secret treasure. She would never demand anything more.