Exile's Song (67 page)

“We are agreed on that,” Margaret answered. “If I am going to have a premonition, I do wish it would be clear and precise, not this vague feeling of a headache coming on. That is a really fine metaphor! It is exactly what I feel!”

“I suppose we will discover what it is when we get to Comyn Castle.” He sounded impatient and worried. “And I certainly hope it is not something of my mother’s doing!”

“How could she be doing anything? By now, she is miles away, at Arilinn, with Liriel and poor little Domenic.”

Mikhail gave her a look of surprise. “You really haven’t grasped what it means to live in a telepathic community, have you?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I know my mother, and believe me, I do, she has been burning up the relays sending messages to Regis. She doesn’t need to be present, physically, though that is preferable. She can manage quite nicely without coming anywhere near Thendara!”

Margaret was near despair at this. What could she do? Nothing! It was frustrating and frightening. There were people who were going to decide her life, and she would have no say in the matter.

Chiya,
stop fussing!

Beneath these comforting words, Margaret sensed Lew Alton’s concern about his wife, and she felt terrible for worrying about herself. Why couldn’t she just think about Dio, and force her mind away from the man riding beside her. Where was her discipline? If only she did not sense how well she and Mikhail suited each other! It was not fair.

Mikhail shook his head. “Tell me, cousin, if you can, about that niggling worry you have at the back of your mind.”

“Why?”

“Well, I know you have some of the Aldaran Gift. There is something in the past that is disturbing you, and I would like to know what it is.”

“I never wanted any of this. Why couldn’t I be like Ariel and not have telepathy or anything else! I don’t really understand why I have it and, say, Rafaella does not, since her sister had enough to end up in a Tower.”

Mikhail became thoughtful. “That is something we have wondered about for years—centuries, probably. You know that we have, to a degree, bred to preserve the Gifts.”

“Yes, I know, and I think it is a sad thing, because it reduces human beings to animals, like horses or cattle.”

“But you have no objection to Terranan genetic engineering for the purpose of healthy teeth or good eyesight?”

“Ouch! You have me there. No, I don’t because, I suppose, those sorts of things are good for the entire species, not just a few.”

He gave a little chuckle. “I see—we of the Domains are selfish. Well, it is not the first time that charge has been leveled against us, and will not be the last. But, despite our knowledge and our efforts, we have never been able to be certain how the process works. It seems that the tendency is a return to an untalented individual, so that those with the Gifts have become prized, perhaps overmuch, as we have seen in Ariel’s misery.”

“Poor woman. She must have felt like a tone-deaf woman in a family of superb musicians.” Margaret shook her head. “But except for that sudden vision about Domenic, and the other one . . .”

“What other one?”

“About Alanna Alar, your niece to be.”

“Ah—and here I thought you were just being kind to my sister, and telling her what she wanted to hear, based on Liri’s knowledge that she was carrying a girl at last. I did not realize that you got a strong impression of her future.”

“I did, and I do not like it, because . . . well, I would rather not say. I don’t like the idea of knowing the future because I think we always imagine it in terms of what we know, and then when we get to the real future, we try to make it fit into our interpretation of the idea, instead of dealing with the reality. I have read a good many things that various prophets wrote down, and they are full of ambiguities and subject to the sort of beliefs that lead to wars. I don’t want the Alton Gift, but I really, really don’t want the ability to pierce the veil of the future!”

Mikhail shook his head. “But, you were ready to rush up to the door of Hali Tower just yesterday, and you know, in your heart, that someday you will enter it.”

“That’s different!” she tried to explain. “That is my future, and only I will have to cope with it—if it ever comes to be. But I refuse to make predictions about the life of an unborn child! It’s wrong! It’s cruel!”

“This has nothing to do with Ariel’s daughter, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I believe Ashara Alton foresaw me, not me particularly, but the possibility of Marguerida Alton in some hazy future. At least, when Istvana told me she had overshadowed other women, I leaped to the premise that she was anticipating my existence—which she somehow knew was a threat to her own.” She shuddered at the mention of the name, but refused to let her fears overwhelm her. The bulk of the Castle was much closer now, visible above the houses along the street, and she had a much clearer view of the tower where Ashara had continued to reside long after her death.

Now she realized what had been bothering her as they rode closer. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Margaret remembered how the Tower had looked, and how it had given her the shivers when she saw it on her first visit. It had been a fine building of white stones, like the rest of Comyn Castle.
Now
what stood there was a blackened ruin, the top blasted off as if by lightning. None of the roofs nearby showed any sign of having been burned or damaged. What had happened?

Mikhail followed her eyes, and his mouth sagged for a second. “Ashara’s Tower . . .”

“It looks like it was burned in a fire. I wonder how it . . .”

“I don’t. Wonder, I mean. I think when you pulled the keystone out of the Tower in the overworld, you also seared the physical one on Darkover. And a good thing, too!”

“But, Mikhail—someone could have been killed! If I had ever guessed the kind of damage I could do, I don’t know if I would have been so willing to . . .”

“Dear cousin, you did what you had to do. No one blames you for it.” He smiled at her, and her heart warmed. “Now, you were saying something a moment ago, before we observed the ruins of the Old Tower, about Ashara. About interpreting the future. Please, go on.”

Margaret clenched the reins a little tighter in her hand. “Her name still makes me feel helpless, you know. Sometimes I am not really sure she is gone for good, no matter what anyone says.” She forced herself to breathe slowly, to become calm again. “I still don’t know exactly what happened, but I am sure she made Dyan Ardais bring me to her. It is all rather vague and misty in my mind. When she saw me, I think she knew I was the one that she feared. And she moved to make sure I would never realize the Alton Gift. She must have been a remarkable woman—not admirable, but so powerful.”

He nodded. “By all accounts, she was that and a great deal more. I understand your objections to the Aldaran Gift a little better now. They make sense. But you have enough of it that you are getting hints or something.”

“What I have is the same feeling of foreboding that I had when I was on my way to Darkover. This is stronger, perhaps—it is all so subjective, and I have a lively imagination. I think maybe that you can’t ever really see your own future clearly, and that is what causes problems—when you try to manipulate it for your own purposes.”

“But, Marguerida, everyone tries to manipulate things to their own advantage!”

“I don’t!”

“Of course you do! Otherwise you and my mother would not be at loggerheads! I know what you want—I want it, too. And both of us are going to do everything we can to make certain that it comes out our way. You can’t deny that!”

Caught again, Margaret smiled at him. “No, I can’t. Or, rather, I could, but it would be disingenuous. And while there are plenty of people I would gladly dissemble for, you are not one of them.”

“I know. From the first time we met, I knew that we could never lie to each other, not really.” His voice was warm and tender, and she knew he had spoken rather than used telepathy because that was too intimate now. She was grateful for his politeness, but also touched by his checked passion.

“What sort of ability do you have?”

“I have
laran,
of course, but I do not have any of the Gifts. I am just an ordinary telepath, good enough to sit on the Telepathic Council which has been our ruling body for most of my life. Liriel has the greatest ability, which is why she is a good technician, and Mother has it, and Rafael and Gabe, though theirs, like my father’s, is very modest.”

“Oh. When we went into the overworld to find Donal, it seemed to me that you were quite able, but I just don’t know enough to judge. Everyone has made such a fuss over the Alton Gift that I haven’t paid attention to any others. I know there is a Hastur Gift—Lady Marilla tried to explain it to me, but it didn’t make much sense at the time. Don’t you have it?”

“Lord, no!” He seemed shocked and rather upset. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I admit I rather expected to have it when I got older, and I was really disappointed when it failed to materialize. The Hastur Gift is that of the living matrix—the full gift lets one work without a physical matrix.”

Margaret stared at him, then looked at her left hand for a moment. “But I haven’t used a crystal, and I don’t think I even could.”

“Yes, I know. Liriel tried to explain it to me—your shadow matrix—but it just gave me a headache, since the description was extremely technical. She did say it was different from the Hastur Gift, though. She and Jeff sent word to Arilinn about it, and the Archivist there is apparently going slightly mad trying to find any reference to such a thing in the past.”

“Tell me more about this Telepathic Council, will you? Uncle Rafe mentioned it, but somehow it never got explained, or else I didn’t understand.”

“For centuries Darkover was governed by the Comyn Council, which was made up of one member, male except for the Aillard representative, from each of the Domains, plus
leroni
from the Towers. The Aldaran were originally part of it, and then we threw them out. It is a long, involved story, full of betrayal, and I will tell it to you some other time. The Council sat in summer, and made decisions about trade with the Terranan and a great many other things. But when your grandfather, Kennard, left and took your father with him, the Council ceased to function, and a few years after the Sharra Rebellion, it ceased to exist. Regis created the Telepathic Council to take its place, but, truthfully, no one has ever been happy with it. It is less exclusive than the Comyn Council was, but because there are now many voices where there had been few, it accomplishes less. More, the people are not happy with it.”

“The people?” Margaret glanced at craftsmen in their shops along the street, and saw women and men who were involved with the daily business of living. She hadn’t thought about them a great deal, for those she had encountered had seemed both content and able-bodied. There were no beggars in Thendara to be seen, and no obvious evidence of aristocratic abuse, though she was sure there were instances of it. Human nature was still a long way from perfection. “How do you know what they think?”

“By listening. As Dyan Ardais’ paxman, I hear things which would never come to his ears, and as the least son of my father, I have heard more than you might imagine from farmers and craftsmen and others. Many of them have no interest in anything beyond their own lives, of course, but those who do feel that the Telepathic Council does not serve Darkover well any longer.”

“What do they want instead?”

“That I cannot answer. There are a few, with Terranan educations, among the Domain families who think that something like the Federation government would be good, but what I have heard from the ordinary folk is that they would prefer to restore the Comyn Council.”

“Isn’t that trying to turn back time, Mikhail?”

“Perhaps. But we are not Terra, and we have no tradition of anything like a democratic system here. Elections would be very difficult with a populace that is unlettered, don’t you think?”

“I had not considered the problem, but I can see you have given it a great deal of thought, Mik.”

“Yes, I have. At first I did it because, as Regis’ titular heir, it was my duty. Now I do it because it interests me greatly. And I have had a lot of time to think about it, about the future of Darkover, even if I cannot see into it.”

“Perhaps it is just as well, don’t you think? Not to see into the future?”

“I think I do not need to see into it—because, as Uncle Jeff said, I am riding into it, whether I want to or not.”