The Fall of Neskaya (46 page)

Caitlin, with her orderly, squared-off patterns, she was the rock on which they all stood. If she could not weave or bind, she could anchor them in any storm.

Minute by minute, the bubble grew stronger. It shifted and flexed minutely under the battering of the energy motes, but where it gave way in one place, it drew closer in another. It held, containing the polluted land and air.

Rapt in the unity of the circle, Coryn felt a distant tug at his mind, a resonance which seemed muffled by a powerful barrier as well. Could it be that out there in that wasteland of a battlefield, someone still lived, someone with enough
laran
to reach out, if feebly, to the circle’s protective field?

Coryn flinched involuntarily at the thought. It took all his Tower discipline to instantly regain his focus, to hold and not to waver. Too much and too many lives depended upon his steadfastness.

Coryn, what is it?
Caitlin had sensed his instant of distress.

Drawing upon her steadiness, he sent a thought questing out into the darkened fields. The life spark was dim, but not dying. It had been deliberately lowered, as the monks at Nevarsin did during the killing winters and as he himself had learned to do to conserve precious energy during the most demanding Tower work. He probed deeper.

An insulating blanket of
laran
. . .

An island of refuge in the midst of rampant poison . . .

Pain . . . A wound, no longer bleeding, but unhealed, enough to cripple any attempt at travel . . .

But no sense of identity.

The mind bore some resemblance to Rumail’s, what Coryn remembered from his first contact as a boy. If it were one of the others, someone Rumail had trained and worked with, he might well bear the stamp of his teacher’s personality. Should Coryn condemn him for that?

There is someone out there,
he thought to Caitlin.
But I can’t tell who.

One of our own,
she asked,
a latent talent?

Mentally, he sent her a negative reply. Faint though the presence was, it could not have come from an untrained mind.

It is your decision,
she said telepathically.
You are our Keeper.

Should he risk letting an innocent man die for fear he might be the banished
laranzu
? And if it was Rumail, how could he let even such a man perish as he had seen so many others do, when he had the means to save him? Years ago, Rumail had been judged by his own Keeper at Neskaya. He had been punished according to that verdict. The fate of his soul was in the hands of the gods and not for any man to say.

Even if it was Rumail out there, even if there had been some bad feeling between them, it all lay in the past. And whatever else Rumail might have done, he had saved Verdanta during that terrible fire. He had tried to serve his brother-king and had dealt honorably with Coryn’s family.

Deftly, Coryn shaped the
laran
of the circle to set up a resonant field around the injured man, sending the psychic energy he would need to pass, undamaged, from the field.

Grayness seeped across Coryn’s vision, so that for an instant he thought they had taken their force bubble into the Overworld. He blinked. The pale light disappeared and then returned, so that he knew he sensed it with his fleshly eyes.

He became aware of the chill running along his bones, the ache in joint and tendon from standing immobile for so long. Working as they did, they had no monitor to guard them against physical exhaustion. His clothing was damp on the inside with sweat and on the outside with moisture.

Dawn had come, and with it the gentle fall of rain. Water would wash the rest of the dust from the air. The earth was already contaminated; only time and Avarra’s blessing could cleanse it now.

Coryn opened his hands, where he had clasped those of his circle, but he did not release the joining of their minds. The bubble still held, and must continue for a little while longer. He tested it, shaped it. Gently he thinned it overhead so that it opened to the heavens.

As he did so, he reached out his mind to the valley floor, to the surrounding hills. Where the earth glowed an unnatural shade of green, men and beasts huddled, dead or dying, beyond any human help. He could not tell which side they had fought for, nor did that matter. Every living thing which could escape already had. There was no trace of the dim
laran
presence from last night, but no residue of death either.

We must go, too,
he sent to his circle. He felt a pulse of stony endurance from Edric, shuddering exhaustion from the girl. Caitlin, who had endured years of Tower training and nights of work as exacting as this one, assented wearily.

Coryn knew he must go carefully, for an abrupt rupture of the circle might create a damaging backlash. Caitlin, sensing his caution, held the anchor point as they dropped out one by one.

Graciela whimpered, and her knees folded beneath her. She would have fallen, had not Edric caught her in his arms. “We must get her out of here,” he said, scooping her up as if she weighed no more than Taniquel’s toddler son.

Caitlin met Coryn’s eyes for a moment. The gray dawn bleached all color from her hair and face, yet softened the lines of age. She looked beautiful and eldritch as a
chieri.

“You did not tell me you were a Keeper,” she said.

He started to say,
I am not a Keeper, not yet.
Instead, he made a comment about what a pleasure it was to work with her. She brushed it aside, descending the hill with stiff dignity toward where their horses were tethered. Before they reached Rafael’s camp, moved back another five miles, she swayed in the saddle, but never uttered a word of complaint.

Someone took Coryn’s horse and someone else brought him food. Numbly, he spooned it into his mouth. He was too drained to feel hunger, but he knew the danger of not replenishing his physical energy. At one point, Rafael appeared. Coryn remembered saying something about the bubble shield, but wasn’t sure he made sense. He was even more exhausted than when he’d fought fires across the Verdanta hills as a boy.

The day had been a victory of sorts for Hastur, for when their scouts returned from surveying the battlefield, they brought news of the numbers of Ambervale dead. Terror snaked through the Hastur camp along with the news of the virulence of the bonewater dust. The King and as many men as could travel, whole or wounded or sick with fever, withdrew even further. Even so, the tents for those exposed to the dust were set up some distance from the rest of the camp, and few of the unaffected soldiers ventured very close.

Coryn and the Hali workers spent long hours in the infirmary tents, doing what they could to help the men exposed to the dust. Injury to skin and gut, if not too great, could be stemmed until the normal healing processes took place, but they all sensed how much deeper the damage ran, right down to the very germ stuff of cells.

More men died every day, first on march and in the encampment, and then fewer died, and then none. Many of those who had been sick began to recover their appetites. They’d all lost weight as well as the hair from their heads and beards, giving them the appearance of wizened, emaciated babies.

“None of these men ought to sire children,” Coryn said quietly to Caitlin when he was sure none of their patients could overhear. They had gone walking along the perimeter of the camp in the cool of twilight.

Her eyes went gray and opaque. “I do not believe they still can.”

“Why—how could any man use such a weapon?” Coryn cried. “It is not like attacking an enemy soldier with sword or even arrows. He is a fellow fighter, he can defend himself or attack you in return. The risk is equal, or almost so. They have each
chosen
to fight. Their unborn children have no part in it. But Deslucido or any other tyrant can give orders from some safe place and this land will be taboo for generations. Who knows how many innocents will suffer? How? How can he do such a thing?”

Caitlin looked away, her expression desolate beyond words. “Because he
can.
Because he gets what he wants—and there is no one to stop him. The Hasturs have tried for years now to contain the worst of these weapons. Sometimes I wonder if it has done any good at all.” She gestured back in the direction of the contaminated valley.

“And yet,” Caitlin went on, “perhaps without that restraint, this would be commonplace. Men would become inured to horror and no longer shrink from it. Who is to say?”

“Or perhaps war has not been horrible enough,” Coryn said with sudden heat. “Perhaps the only way to end it is to make the price beyond bearing.”

“What do you mean?”

“A friend of mine once argued that the only way for two small warring kingdoms to be safe was to arm each of them with a weapon the other dared not risk. In this case, it was
clingfire.
What if Deslucido had known that any use of
laran
weapons would be met with devastating retaliation? Would he have so readily spread this obscenity we see before us if the result would be the same on his own land?”

“I cannot believe any man would risk it,” Caitlin answered. “There would be nothing left to fight over for either side. I cannot—I do not want to believe this is the only way, to arm every small kingdom with such terrible things. Sooner or later, some fool would release them upon his neighbor, perhaps for some imagined offense. Who is to say it would end there? Does
clingfire
or bonewater dust care whether it lands on friend or foe? Would the madness spread from one realm to another until all of Darkover is consumed? Is there no alternative?”

Coryn stared into the gathering night and prayed to whatever god would listen that there was some other way.

B
elisar arrived at Acosta well in advance of the bulk of his retreating army, along with the handful of cavalry. Men who’d seen him ride from the border as if all of Zandru’s scorpions were on his tail had followed and become his personal bodyguard. As they passed through the encampment outside the castle gates, dogs ran barking in their path. Soldiers stopped their preparations to stare at the panting horses flecked with yellow lather, legs coated with mud from the recent rainfall.

“Belisar! Belisar has returned!”

Bells rang out from the castle and cries echoed from the battlements. Belisar lifted his head, pleased at his reception. When one or two of the soldiers stepped forward to ask their fellows,
What has happened? Where is the army?
he waved them away. They would learn what they needed to when the time came.

Within the gates, servants ran forward to greet the prince and his guards. Ostlers led away the horses. Belisar mounted the steps leading to the stronghold. He recognized Gavriel, the old counselor, now serving as
coridom
, who ran the place with impeccable efficiency. The old man bowed.

“Where’s my father?” Belisar strode past the opened doorway, his spurs jangling on the scrubbed stone.

“He is in his presence chamber, Your Highness. Your own is being readied for you.” Gavriel’s tone was in every way respectful. He turned, as if to lead the way.

“Later,” Belisar said, and hurried on. He waved a dismissal.

The guard bowed and made no attempt to interfere as Belisar entered without knocking. Inside, he passed through the little anteroom and burst into his father’s presence chamber. With its unlit fireplace, the place looked very much as it had in the first days at Acosta. King Damian sat at a table with two officers Belisar didn’t recognize. He looked up, and the room fell still.

“Father, I’m here. I made it back alive.”

“I see that you did.” Damian, who had been leaning over an unrolled map, straightened up. His hair was freshly trimmed, his clothing neat, his hands clean. He nodded to the officers. “Leave us.”