A Flame in Hali (42 page)

Would I have done so without Varzil’s interference?
She could not be sure. In all honesty, she knew her own reaction to being ordered about by anyone. Regardless of the instigation, she had ended up in Eduin’s bed, and it was a good thing the monitors at Hali had already taught her how to prevent conception, for she had come away without any permanent entanglements.

In due time, Eduin had returned to Arilinn and she to her life at Hali. She had studied and mastered and worked. And loved, but never with that feverish intensity of her time with Eduin.

It is a good thing that first love comes but once, or none of us would get anything done.
So her first Keeper, Dougal DiAsturian, had said.

Before her, Hali Tower rose like glimmering alabaster reaching for the sky above the shifting currents of the lake. Its beauty caught at her heart. Her vision blurred. She knew every room, every stair, every window ledge, every corner of the kitchens, every viewpoint, and yet now she stood outside.

It was all nonsense, of course. Hali was her home. They were waiting for her. She had missed Midwinter, but that was of no great matter.

What was she waiting for? Why the odd thoughts, the hesitation? There was plenty of work to be done.

The riot at the lake had taken its toll in more ways than one. She had changed, and never again could she stand beside the lake or walk the halls, sit in a matrix laboratory or bend her mind to the relay screens, as if nothing had happened. Events had brought her to a crisis in her own mind, and brought Eduin back into her life.

Eduin had come to Hali some years back, before he went to Hestral Tower. Before Felicia Leynier had died under mysterious circumstances, and before he had led an unlawful circle in a brutal counterattack against Rakhal’s besieging army. She set that thought aside and returned to their brief reunion.

He had been distant, almost cold. She might have sworn he had never loved her, except for the memories. He had come to Hali, he said, to serve as archivist and do genealogical research. She had assumed it was either for Dougal or Barak, who was Keeper at Arilinn. It had never occurred to her that he might have been searching for some reason of his own.

What had he been looking for in the Hastur lineages? Had he found it—acted upon it?

That way, Dyannis told herself sternly, lay madness. The past was beyond amendment, and Varzil was right in that there were some things she might never know.

They rode up the last stretch of road, almost to the Tower gates. Rorie and Alderic came out to greet her. She urged her weary horse forward.

I am home,
Dyannis thought, but she did not truly believe it.

Dyannis settled back into her old quarters, unpacked her belongings and sent her travel clothing to be cleaned. She spent the evening gossiping with her old friends and then soaking in a steaming tub, something she had not enjoyed since leaving Hali. Certainly, Cedestri had not been able to offer such luxuries, and she had grown weary of bathing with a sponge and a basin of cold water.

Raimon suggested that she rest a while before resuming her usual duties, but Dyannis would not hear of it. She insisted on joining the circle that very evening. “I am not some pampered plaything who cannot travel a few leagues without collapsing for a tenday,” she told him with more tartness than she intended.

That sounds like our Dyannis,
he replied mentally. Aloud, he said, “We are most heartily glad to have you back among us.”

She composed herself upon her usual bench in the laboratory that was as familiar as her own chamber. The task tonight was straightforward, making medicines for the muscle fever ravaging the lake district. It struck children, and those it did not kill were left crippled, sometimes mute as well. The circle at Neskaya had devised a method of using
laran
to enhance the potency of herbal remedies, and Carolin had asked Hali to produce a supply.

Dyannis glanced across the table, spread with flasks and beakers of tinctures. Once this chamber, like so many others, had seen the manufacture of
clingfire
and worse, but now was given over to the making of medicine to heal children.

Without thinking, she reached out her hands to either side, then quickly drew them back. The circle at Hali did not make physical contact. After the initial feeling of strangeness, she had become accustomed to it at Cedestri.

Dyannis lowered her barriers, focusing on the matrix lattice in the center of the table. Deftly, Raimon wove their minds together. The process felt at once familiar and strange. She found herself out of step, resisting his control.

I have become accustomed to having my own way,
she thought.

It is of no great matter,
Raimon answered her with unexpected kindness.
We will accommodate one another. Varzil told us you had been working as under-Keeper at Cedestri.

Indeed,
she agreed ruefully.
Not all the smiths in Zandru’s Forge can put that chick back into its egg.

Dyannis bent her will to submerging her thoughts in the unity of the circle. Being unfamiliar with the method, she took the plan from Raimon’s mind and concentrated on each step. Although the work was not difficult, she approached it with care. The ingredients, herbal tinctures, distilled wine, honey, extracts of flowers and powdered bone, felt fresh and clean, still bearing the energetic signatures of living things. The work refreshed rather than drained her.

Dyannis was surprised when Raimon dissolved the bonds of the circle. She realized from the stiffness of her joints that some hours had passed, and yet she felt little fatigue. Knowing better than to trust her sense of well-being, she went with the others to eat and rest.

“Aldones, you’ve grown strong!” Rorie commented when she spoke her thought aloud. “What have you been doing, drinking banshee milk?”

She shook her head. “Building stone walls.”

“That’ll do it every time.” He eased himself into a chair and she realized that he was still favoring the shoulder that had been shot by an arrow at the lake shore riot. How easy it was to forget events when she did not have to live with their consequences.

Seeing her pensive, he reached out and touched her lightly across the back of her hand, tracing a line from wrist to fingertip. “It is good to have you back.”

She knew then that he meant it for himself, and not just as a member of the community.

Blessed Cassilda!
She cut off the thought and, as gracefully as she could, hurried away toward the women’s quarters. Only when she was within the confines of her own room did she let herself finish the thought.
He is in love with me. How could I not have known?

Dyannis lowered herself to the edge of her bed. Perhaps Rorie himself had not known until now. Sometimes when people met again after an absence, they saw each another differently.

When
and
how
were fruitless questions whose answers changed nothing. Of far greater importance was how
she
felt about
him.
A dozen images rose to her mind . . . Rorie laughing at some joke, teasing her, calling her
Pest,
rushing to meet her . . . his mind like fine-grained steel, strong and flexible, welcoming her mental touch—

Overlapping each of these memories came a series of far more disturbing thoughts.

She’d sought him out in the end, for he had avoided her. He had gestured to the pile of scrolls, some of them in such fragile condition that they would not survive more than another winter or two. “The work—”

“Has lain here for longer than Durraman owned that old donkey of his, and is not about to sprout legs or go anywhere,” she’d said, adding, “you must please yourself.” When he started to turn away, she pulled up a stool so that, short of unspeakable rudeness, he had no choice but to sit with her. “What have you been excavating?”

“Genealogy records.”

That much was obvious. “Whose?”

“Obscure branches of the Hasturs,” he’d answered and then added that he was researching lethal recessive genetic traits from the Ages of Chaos.

Dyannis shuddered, for like most modern young people, she found the thought of inbreeding to manipulate
laran
traits utterly repugnant. “I think we are living in an age of progress. You should hear my brother talk! He’s full of new ideas.”

Varzil had last visited Hali some time ago, for a funeral. At the time, Dyannis had little interest in it, small and private. She was saddened to hear of the death of Queen Taniquel Hastur-Acosta, of whom so many ballads were sung, but she had never known the legendary heroine. Queen Taniquel had ridden at the side of her uncle, Rafael Hastur II, he who held the throne at Thendara before it passed to Carolin’s uncle, and even defied the might of the assembled
Comyn
Council. If half the stories were true, Taniquel had been instrumental in Hastur’s victory over the power-mad tyrant, Damian Deslucido. Without her determination, the present world would have taken a very different shape. There would be no Hastur ascendancy, no bloody wars of succession, no King Carolin, no rebuilding of Neskaya and Tramontana Towers . . . no Compact.

After the funeral, Dyannis had been pleased to see her brother again, and intrigued by his unvoiced but obvious love for Arilinn’s new
leronis,
Felicia, newly come from Nevarsin Tower.

How young they had all been then, Dyannis thought with a trace of nostalgia. She had eagerly picked up Varzil’s unguarded emotions and spun them into a tale of romance. He had no intention of being indiscreet, of course, but their closeness of blood and sympathy granted her an exceptional sensitivity to his thoughts. When she realized that the woman he was so smitten with, this Felicia of Arilinn, was actually the
nedestra
daughter of that same legendary Queen Taniquel, she thought it the most wonderful thing imaginable.

But Felicia had died in the wreckage of Hestral Tower, and Dyannis could not help wondering if some part of Varzil’s heart had died with her. She was still naive enough to think that such love, such passion came only once in a lifetime.

That explanation, although reasonable, brought little comfort. If it were true, why did the suggestion of Eduin’s guilt gnaw away at her like some dreadful cancer? Why could she not set it aside and let the past rest? She could not shake the feeling that she had forgotten something crucial.

She would have no future here at Hali, nor any chance of resolving her feelings for Rorie, until she discovered the truth.

Raimon had directed the circle to rest for several days, although various members had other tasks. Dyannis pleaded continuing fatigue from her journey, and went to that part of the Tower devoted to the storage of ancient records. She found the room in which she had spoken to Eduin without any difficulty. It was one of several set aside for the study and copying of manuscripts.

She lowered herself on the bench drawn up at a reading desk beside a tall window. It was early in the afternoon, for she had slept long and fitfully. The bar of brightness across the desk glowed, strong enough to read or write by. She placed her hands in it as if conjuring a spell that would burn away all falsehood, all confusion, leaving only the starkness of truth.

She closed her eyes and the image of brilliance remained for a time behind her eyes. Memory answered her. The light had been grayer then, the sky outside overcast. Perhaps she remembered it that way because then her life had been painted in such vivid colors, the heat of her impetuosity, her innocence, her unshakable self-confidence.