Zandru's Forge (23 page)

“We are friends, yes,” Eduin replied with such an eagerness that Carolin knew whatever lingering resentment he might have harbored toward Varzil had just been erased.

“Oh!” she said, releasing Carolin and slipping her hand into Eduin’s. “Perhaps I have been too bold and should have waited for
you
to ask
me.
I have never been to court before, or even in the lowlands, and manners seem to be quite different here. You will think me no better-bred than a banshee!”

Eduin laughed, the happiest sound Carolin had ever heard from him. “I can think of no more delightful fate than to be asked to dance by you!”

As he withdrew to attend to his next duty, Carolin felt immensely pleased with himself to have brought a bit of harmless pleasantry to his friends. They would dance and flirt a little, enjoy themselves much, and in a tenday return to their respective Towers. The only thing that was lacking to complete his sense of contentment was that Varzil was not there to share it with him.

Varzil arrived two days later, looking no worse the wear for his strange adventure. That afternoon, Carolin sat with his friends in the outer chamber of his suite, which had become their accustomed meeting place. He’d been all morning at the
cortes,
taking his uncle’s place at the judgment bench.

A knock sounded at the door and then it swung open to admit the guard Sean and Varzil. Varzil wore dark, close-fitting clothing that emphasized both his slenderness and his fair skin. He caught Carolin’s gaze and grinned.

Dyannis, who had been bent over a game of castles with Eduin, sprang up and threw her arms around her brother’s neck with a whoop of joy. In that instant, she went from demure young
leronis
to ebullient child. He wrapped her in a hug and lifted her off her feet.

“Oooof! Put me down!” She squirmed free and dropped to the floor. “Or I’ll tell everyone what you looked like the last time I saw you!”

“Come now, don’t tease,” Jandria said, eyebrows lifting. “He’s put you down, but you must tell us anyway!”

Varzil laughed. “A drowned rat, most likely. Or a frozen drowned rat.”

“Or a half-plucked, wall-eyed, drunk-on-Midwinter-mead frozen drowned rat!” Dyannis chimed in.

“Whatever he looked like then, he’s back with us now,” Carolin said warmly. “And we are glad to have him.”

Even Eduin greeted Varzil with unusual warmth. It was as if, Carolin thought, the company had been incomplete without Varzil, only none of them realized it until his return.

It was not until later that Carolin found time for a private word with Varzil. Carolin put in the expected appearance for the royal evening meal and dancing, but slipped away as early as he could do so, unremarked. Varzil excused himself from the dancing, for the Hali monitors forbade such exertion for a few more days.

Carolin made his way to Varzil’s rooms and shortly, both of them sat cross-legged on the big bed by the light of a branched candelabrum, talking the way they had back in Arilinn. Their laughter and gestures stirred air currents that sent the flames dancing. For as much as they said to one another, there was even more they didn’t say.

Varzil hugged a pillow to his chest, his eyes shadowed. “Carlo—what happened to me down there—”

“What
did
happen? You touched that stone column and went into convulsions. You scared us half to death.”
And you look just as scared right now.

“Yes, I do,” Varzil said absently. “I am.” He drew a deep breath. “You know that objects can become psychically charged. They can carry mental impressions, particularly of strong emotions. This is especially true if they are used as part of a
laran
spell. Stone and wood and earth don’t have channels to carry the energy the way living bodies do, but they have their own patterns of energy, each according to its own nature.”

“Just as water carries lightning in a storm,” Carolin nodded.

“Yes, that’s it. When the energy of the lightning passes through the water, it leaves a faint trace. It’s not discernible by ordinary means and it dissipates quickly. But the stone column at the bottom of the Lake had been constructed specifically to draw certain energies to it,
through
it. When I touched it, my own energon fields came into physical contact with it. The pattern of how it had been used entered into me. I saw—” Varzil lowered his eyes, “—I
was
back there, like a ghost with eyes and ears but no voice—and I saw how the lake we know came to be.”

Carolin let his breath out. Eyes dark with emotion met his own. “You witnessed the Cataclysm?”

“The beginning of it, anyway. It was no natural catastrophe.”

“No, I didn’t think it was. It happened during the height of the Ages of Chaos, didn’t it?”

“Two Towers made war upon each other, just like in the stories of Tramontana and Neskaya.” Varzil hugged the pillow even harder. The knuckles of his hands gleamed white. “Only this time it was Hali—and Aldaran.”

“Ahdaran!”

In hushed tones, Varzil described how each Tower had prepared to do battle against the other, tapping into the elemental forces of the planet and ancient fears.

“If either side had been truly successful, I don’t know whether Darkover would have survived,” Varzil said, his voice a shaken whisper. “They were dealing with powers beyond their control. Distance meant nothing, nor did time. No one was safe from these weapons, not even halfway around the world. If Aldaran had time to complete its attack—Carlo, I saw what they were attempting. They would have split open the planetary crust clear to the molten core. Hali, for their part, counted on an even older, more primal force. I didn’t get a clear look at its final form, and for that I am grateful.” His voice turned inky, hypnotic, and his eyes no longer focused.

And what I did see
...

“Demon—” Varzil stammered, reeling visibly with the memory, “—from the darkest, coldest hell—the power behind the coming of night—ashes in the black of space—”

“Varzil! What’s going on?” Seeing his friend sway, eyes rolling up to show white crescents between half-closed lids, Carolin grabbed his shoulders.

“But Hali was warned—in time—they acted—diverted the attack into the lake—column like a magnet—changed water and air—”

“Varzil! Can you hear me?”

Varzil shuddered and, to Carolin’s relief, drew back, once more in command of himself.

“Carlo, this is important. It was no accident that I,
I
was given this vision from the past. It’s happening again, don’t you see? Maybe not with those particular weapons, but the conflict is the same. To each age comes its own madness. But the lesson of the Cataclysm was lost.”

“What we can’t remember, we can’t learn from,” Carolin said grimly. He thought of the destruction of the two Towers only a few decades ago, of Liriel’s dream of rebuilding Tramontana under Hastur control—and for what purpose? For yet another Tower as a tool of warfare?

Carolin sat back, slumping. All his life, he had seen the men of his clan struggle to contain
laran
weapons, only to have new ones spring up like poisonous weeds in a garden of rosalys. If Felix in his prime, and the great King Rafael Hastur and even Allart Hastur could not put an end to the madness, what hope had he? What hope had any of them?

He looked to Varzil, this slender pale lad who had looked upon a disaster which would drive most grown men mad. “Are we doomed to repeat the whole thing again and again until we finally destroy ourselves?”

“As long as men can conceive of such weapons and are willing to use them,” Varzil said, “I believe we are.”

Carolin had never heard such desolation as now, in the voice of his dearest friend. Something hot and fierce boiled up inside him. “Then we must make it so that men
cannot
conceive of such things!”

“How?” Varzil shook his head. “As long as men are men and time endures, there will be those who must settle their differences with a sword instead of words.”

“Then let them use swords on each other, until they have hacked each other into bloody pulp!” Carolin flamed. “At least, he who lands the first blow may well fall beneath the next! Let there be an end to
clingfire
and bonewater dust and matrix spells which strike from afar.”

“Aye,” Varzil said, inflecting the word in the country style, “that’s the problem, isn’t it? Lords can sit in their castles and order their Towers to attack their enemies. For each new weapon, another even more terrible must be devised to counter it.
They
risk nothing. If I were king of the world—did you play that game as a child?—I would decree that anyone with a dispute must enter the arena himself and place his own body as surety against his cause.”

“Trial by single combat?”

Varzil grinned, a wolfish stretching of the lips.

“No, men will never return to those days, if they ever existed,” Carolin said. The heat within him had fallen away, leaving his thoughts preternaturally clear. “I don’t believe we will ever do away with armed combat or excuses to engage in it. If I were king of the world, I would forbid any weapon which does not place the user’s life in equal jeopardy. I would force all the other kings—indeed, every lordling from the Wall Around the World to the Dry Towns deserts—to sign my pact.”

Carolin noticed then that Varzil was staring at him like a blind man gazing at the sun. He gave a little, self-deprecating laugh. “Did I say something stupid?”

“No,” Varzil replied, shaking his head, still with that expression of awe. “You said something—I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Not merely a pact based on men’s consent, a thing which can be as easily taken back as offered, but a true covenant of honor.”

“Even if I could enforce such a thing over Hastur lands, I can’t see any other lords pledging away their
laran
arsenals,” Carolin said practically. He grinned, despite himself. “Still, it’s a grand dream, isn’t it?”

“One that’s worth keeping, even if it may not come about in this lifetime or the next,” Varzil said.

Carolin got up and laid one hand upon the door frame. As if touched by some prescience, he shivered. Not because he was afraid; although he knew he would be if he ever tried to put his pact into action, but because the world had
already
changed. Whatever happened now, neither he nor Varzil could return to who they were before those words passed between them.

Carolin arrived early at the King’s presence chamber for the first audience to be held since his return. The guard admitted him through the private side entrance with a bow. He paused inside the door, studying the room that was to be his one day. It was a pleasantly proportioned, if formal, chamber with a bank of eastward-facing windows, bright and warm enough in the late morning for even a frail old man. Here the king heard pleadings, received written petitions, and decided other issues presented to him by his advisers. Once these audiences had been frequent, sometimes daily, but in the last decade, they had become irregular as more and more matters were left to subordinates.

Carolin remembered coming here as a boy, when he and Rakhal sat with the other nobles in order to learn statecraft. The mingled smells of dust and furniture polish sharpened his memories.

In those days, everything seemed simple—his place in the world, his uncle’s reasoned decisions, his notions of what was just and right, what was wrong and how it must be punished. Rakhal was his cousin and playfellow, and would some day be his faithful counselor. If there, were darker undercurrents, hidden maneuverings, Carolin had been happily unaware of them. But he could never return to those uncomplicated times. He was a man now, a prince ready to take his place in the world. He must learn to think and act like one. The holiday of Arilinn was over

The page who followed him everywhere stirred at the doorway. Carolin started to wave the boy about his business, then recovered himself. How quickly he had lost the habit of ever-present servants. He went to the half circle of chairs behind the polished tables and stood behind his usual place at the right side of the king’s elevated seat.

Minutes later, petitioners, courtiers, and audience filed into the chamber and took their places according to rank.
Comyn
might sit in their own railed-off section, as Lady Liriel Hastur had, taking the most privileged position. Ordinary people stood. Among them were a judge from the
cortes
and representatives from the city elders of both Hali and Thendara.

A few minutes later, the old Elhalyn lord who had been Felix’s chief adviser since before Carolin was born shuffled in and took the place to the king’s left. The single remaining seat then was to Carolin’s right, one place removed from the King.

With a bustle and tramping footsteps of guards, King Felix entered. He moved stiffly, but with dignity. Rakhal followed a pace behind, trailed by a clerk laden with parchment scrolls and papers. Rakhal placed a hand beneath the King’s elbow to help him into his seat. When Felix was comfortably arranged, everyone bowed ceremoniously.

Rakhal’s gaze flickered to Carolin, his expression unreadable. Carolin caught the instant of hesitation before his cousin stepped to the vacant place.

“My boy,” Felix said, patting Carolin’s hand. “So good to have you back with us.”

Good,
Carolin thought. The king was alert this morning. The vagueness of the other night must have been a passing thing. “It’s good to be home.”

The remaining introductory pleasantries were soon concluded. Rakhal said, “We must finish in a timely manner so that we do not overtax His Majesty.” He motioned for the clerk to set the pile of documents before him.

Carolin glanced at Lord Elhalyn, who as senior counselor had always presented the day’s agenda to King Felix. The old lord looked vaguely uncomfortable. Had something happened, some scandal which had cost him the King’s special favor?