The Fall of Neskaya (52 page)

One of the younger novices called out, “Coryn’s home!” and ran to spread the news.

Yes,
he thought,
home.
More than Verdanta, more even than Tramontana, this place was now his home. He had earned his place here.

Within minutes, those workers who were awake and not sleeping off a night on the relays came out to welcome him. Few did more than touch his sleeve, yet the warmth of their welcome washed through him. As he greeted each one, his mind brushed theirs with the lightest touch. Had he not been bound by hard-won Tower discipline, he would have taken them in his arms. As it was, his eyes stung with tears. He knew these people as he did not, could not, had never known his own family. Their respect and love for him was evident in each gesture, even their restraint. In that vision behind his eyes, he felt them all clasp invisible hands.

Bernardo, eyes tinged with red, came hurrying down after a few minutes. His face had shrunken in on itself, although his step was as firm as ever, his voice as certain.

“Do you bring us news from Thendara? Were you successful?”

“Yes, there is news, and whether I was successful remains to be judged,” Coryn answered somberly.

“Come, then, and let us hear it.” Bernardo led the way to his private quarters. Mac, as senior technician, and Demiana, the slender gray-eyed woman who was the Tower’s most skilled monitor, attended the conference.

They sat for hours, listening to Coryn’s story. Because he was lightly linked to Bernardo and the others, their shock rippled through his own body as he told of the battle with Belisar Deslucido’s forces.

“Bonewater dust . . .”
Demiana whispered, so low and tremulous that Coryn felt it as a quivering along his spine. He could not be sure if he had heard the words spoken aloud or who had said them. She sat before him, head bowed so that shadows hid her face, shoulders rigid with tension.

“We thought—” Mac stumbled, then burst forth. “
Clingfire
is horrible enough, but it is akin to natural fire. We make it from elements which we find deep in the earth. It burns through flesh and bone, eating away until there is nothing left to consume. But then, once it has done its worst, it goes out like any other fire. The ground is safe to walk upon.
Clingfire
will not spring up anew to torment the innocent in years to come. When it is over, it is over. Not so this bonewater plague, or so those who have dealt with it tell us.”

“They do not lie,” Coryn said. “For so Caitlin of Hali, one I have every reason to trust, has told me.”

“She would know,” Bernardo said. “For if there were a woman anywhere capable of a Keeper’s work, it is Caitlin Elhalyn. Bonewater dust poisons the land itself, so that for generations afterward, no man may travel there in safety or eat anything which has grown or grazed on it. There may be more horrors in years to come. We can only pray we never find out what they are.”

“But this Deslucido used it . . . on his own men, on land he claimed as his own . . .” Demiana said in a small, thin voice. She lifted her head, eyes swimming with tears. “Why? How could he do such a thing?”

“Because,” Coryn found himself repeating Caitlin’s words with unexpected vehemence, “because
he can.
Because there is no one to stop him, and no consequence beyond the loss of troops which can be replaced.”

“Surely his own people will rise up against him once they learn of this,” she said. “A king is sworn to protect those who serve him, is he not?”

Coryn, who had never thought of himself as particularly knowledgeable in the ways of the world, was struck by her naivete. He had grown up believing the same, for his father had been a just ruler, acutely aware of his responsibilities. Since then, he had learned that power too often came without accountability.

“Who knows if the truth will be told in lands which Deslucido controls?” Coryn said. “He may well place the blame on the Hastur lord, with none to gainsay him.”

“But Verdanta is independent once again,” Mac said, looking at Coryn. “And other conquered kingdoms may follow.”

“They will have to sort out their own fates,” Bernardo said with an air of finality.

“I disagree,” Coryn said. “We will be drawn into the conflict one way or another. I went to Thendara to plead for neutrality, and I learned that was neither possible nor desirable. For how can we sit up here in our Tower while Darkover burns? Even if we were not bound to Hastur, I would urge us to join his cause. The only way to stop Deslucido and others like him is to make the price of using such terrible weapons so high that not even a madman will risk it.”

“What?” Demiana asked in a voice whispery as paper. “Would you have us make worse things?”

“Not a weapon to be used for attack, no.” Coryn raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. “What if we could make a weapon—no, let’s not call it a weapon, but a shield. Something which, when triggered by an attack would annihilate the attacker. What if we could do that?”

All through the journey back to Neskaya, he had pondered the idea. The only way to stop Deslucido or others like him from using whatever horrible weapon they liked with impunity was to create an immediate and overwhelming backlash. He kept thinking of Bernardo’s idea of modifying
clingfire
so that it would require detonation. What if it could made to burn only when triggered by an attack, perhaps incorporated into a covering for a shield or castle wall? But that type of defense would react only to physical impact.
Laran
weapons came in many forms, from compulsion spells to poisoned dust. Their only common element was the use of
laran
, either in their manufacture or delivery. Even if there was no longer any direct
laran
involved, such as the case of ordinary men shooting arrows tipped with
clingfire,
there always remained a residue, a vibration signature.

He explained his ideas to the others, adding, “Those
laran
traces could then become our detonator, as well as the target our defense will focus on.”

Bernardo stared at him for a long moment. “Before you came to us, Kieran of Tramontana said you were not afraid to try something new, that vision and courage were your particular strengths. I thought I was taking on an apprentice, someone with whom I could share my innovations. I had no idea how quickly you would take the lead.”

Coryn bowed his head. “I do not know if it is even possible. I only know that we must do something, before all of us are drawn into the maelstrom.”

Mac stirred, his brows drawn together. “I wonder if the principles underlying a trap-matrix might not be used for the trigger.”

“I don’t understand,” Demiana said. “A trap-matrix is keyed to the mental signature of a specific individual, which is why they have so few usages which are not illegal.”

“But it’s activated by whatever it’s keyed to,” Mac said. “The Veil at Arilinn involves a trap-matrix attuned to the presence of
laran
, not any one particular person. We could design one to be so broad as to respond to any trace of
laran
or so narrow that only a certain weapon or a certain origin would set it off.”

“Even if we could make the detonator or trigger or whatever it is,” Demiana said, heat rising in her voice. “What happens then? How will we avoid destroying ourselves as well as our enemy?”

Coryn hesitated. He had tried several approaches as he had ridden along, all with the idea of taking the energy of the incoming attack and reflecting it back to the sender. But so far, no specific plan had come clear.

“These are worthy questions and call for discussion by the entire Tower,” Bernardo said, getting to his feet. “Let us take our time in consideration, not only how to proceed but whether we
should.
We will need the wisdom and talents of everyone here if we are to make wise decisions in this matter.”

Demiana shook her head. “I only hope we are doing the right thing, if we do choose to build such a thing. I fear we may be creating what we most wish to avoid, an even more terrible weapon.”

“May Aldones light our path,” Bernardo murmured. “We can only do our best. The rest is in the hands of the gods.”

Sitting in the center of the laboratory, the matrix glittered in shades of blue from the palest aqua to a deep azure that sent up a peculiar buzzing behind Coryn’s eyes. He’d worked with artificial matrices before, first at Tramontana and now here at Neskaya, but he had never seen one constructed like this. The dark blue tint, he knew, resulted from a series of channels within the linked stones, designed to redirect incoming energy. This was the third of five layers, Mac explained. The first was the activation device, the “trigger” they had spoken of so many weeks ago. The second concentrated and harmonized energy. The fourth and fifth layers connected the device to banks of
laran
batteries which would amplify the counterattack and target its origin.

“It’s something like a ninth-order matrix in complexity, although not in usage,” Mac said, and went on into a technical explanation. Normally, it took a complete circle to safely use anything above a fourth- or fifth-level stone, but this one had been designed to be inert until triggered.

“How long before it’s finished?” Coryn asked. He’d been working as Keeper in a healing team for the past tenday. Several families from Hastur lands had been exposed to the bonewater dust contamination blown by the winds, and King Rafael had sent them to Neskaya for treatment. Coryn had not slept for more than a few hours every day, struggling to repair the damage to the children’s bone marrow cells.

“We’ve just finished the linkages between the first and second layers,” the technician replied. “We’ll need the full circle for the next step. Bernardo wants us to wait until things quiet down.” He pulled the three layers of insulating silk over the matrix. The light in the laboratory dimmed, and the nagging ache in Coryn’s temples eased.

Mac met Coryn’s gaze, as if catching the flare of concern for the long period of secrecy. If word of their shield reached Deslucido or any other enemy of Hastur, it might provoke a pre-emptive strike. Deslucido might well decide it was better to destroy the thing now, before it was completed. Coryn had not thought how vulnerable they would be, especially with the influx of strangers.

Coryn’s stomach growled, reminding him that he had been working all night. He’d have to replenish the energy he used, and soon. He bade good morning to Mac and went downstairs, where everyone on a regular schedule was enjoying breakfast. The tables were laden with the kind of food Tower workers most needed, dried fruits and honey for a quick lift, nuts and hearty wholemeal porridge, eggs and soft creamy cheeses for sustaining protein. There was no meat for this meal and he wondered if that were because the cooks were once again experimenting or the disorder of the region had made cattle harder to come by. He stirred thick cream into his porridge and poured himself a mug of
jaco.
Across the table, Amalie was spreading her third slice of nut bread with cheese. She ate with a child’s appetite, although she was actually a few years older than he.

“I’ll be glad when this war is over,” she said in between tiny bites. “I can’t remember when I’ve been so tired.”

“You never fought on the fire-lines,” Coryn said.

She shook her head, tossing back her frothy halo of straw-pale hair. “No. Have you?”

He grinned. “I grew up in Verdanta. Of course I did. Now, that’s
really
tired.”

“Well . . .” She stretched, her spine popping audibly. “It always seems that whatever crisis of the moment is the worst. That is, until the next one comes along.”

Coryn shivered in the sudden thought that the time of war would never end, that the Ages of Chaos would return again and again, no matter what any man did. The only hope was to hold the worst at bay, even as the Hasturs tried to do. An image sprang unbidden to his mind, the flash of Tani’s mind in the garden. Whoever she had been, the spirited young girl with all her life before her, would never be again. Even if peace could be hammered out, it might be too late for her—for them both.

His fingers closed around the copper hair pin which he carried in the inner pocket of his robe, in place of his mother’s handkerchief.

I had never hoped to see her again,
he told himself, echoing her words.
That time was a gift, something to remember. Nothing more.

T
aniquel bent over her desk, with the morning sun slanting through the mullioned windows of her sitting room in Hastur Castle, and ran one hand through her hair in exasperation. Two hair pins went flying and a tightly-wound curl dangled free. She’d spent the better part of an hour trying to make sense of her uncle’s battered copy of Roald McInery’s
Military Tactics,
and her eyes burned with the effort. Unlike most gently-reared young women, she’d been taught to read, although with difficulty. Whoever had written this copy, though, must have had yardfowl scratchings for a model. In a moment of temper, she’d ordered all her ladies to be about their tasks, except one, a demure soul who sat stitching pillow cases with the silver tree emblem of the Hasturs.