Stormqueen! (11 page)

He spoke with such conviction and enthusiasm that Allart doubted his own rising vision of dreadful warfare with weapons ever more dreadful. Karinn must be right. Such weapons would surely restrain sane men from making war at all, and so he who invented the most terrible weapens worked the harder for peace.

Taking his seat, Allart said, “Aldones, Lord of Light, grant you speak with true vision, Karinn. And now let us see this miracle.”

I have seen many possible futures which never came to pass. I have found this morning that I love my father well, and I will cling to the belief that I will never lay hands upon him, no more than I would wring the neck of that poor harmless little
riyachiya
in the night past. I will not fear attack, either, but I will guard against it, while I take pleasure in this new means of travel
. He let Karinn show him how to fasten the straps that would hold him in his seat if the air became turbulent, and the device that swiveled his seat behind a magnified pane of glass, giving him instant view of any attackers or menace.

He listened closely as the
laranzu
, taking his own seat and fastening himself into place, bent his head in alert concentration and the battery-powered turbine began to roar. He had practiced enough in boyhood, in the tiny gliders levitated by small matrixes and soaring on the air currents around the Lake of Hali, to be aware of the elementary principles of heavier-than-air flight, but it was incredible to him that a matrix circle, a group of close-linked telepath minds, could charge a battery strongly enough to power such enormous turbines. Yet
laran
could be powerful, and a matrix could amplify the electric currents of the brain and body enormously, a hundredfold, a thousandfold. He wondered how many minds with
laran
it took, operating for how long, to charge such batteries with the tremendous humming power of those roaring turbines. He would have liked to ask Karinn - but would not disturb the
laranzu’s
concentration - why such a vehicle could not be adapted to ground transit, but quickly realized that for any ground vehicle roads and highways were needed. Someday, perhaps, roads would be practical, but on the rough terrain from the Kilghard Hills north, ground transit would probably always be limited to the feet of men and animals.

Quickly, with the humming power, they skimmed along a level runway surfaced with glassy material which must have been poured there by matrix-power, too; then they were airborne, rising swiftly over treetops and forests, moving into the very clouds with an exhilarating speed that took Allart’s breath away. It was as far beyond the soaring he had done on gliders, as the gliders were above the slow plodding of a
chervine
! Karinn motioned, and the air-car turned its vast wings southward and flew over the forests to the south.

They had flown for a considerable time. Allart was beginning to feel the straps constricting his body, and wished he might loosen them for a little, when he felt within himself, with a spurt of sudden excitement, alertness and fear.

We are seen, pursued
-
we will be attacked
!

Look to the west, Allart
-

Allart squinted his eyes into the light. Small shapes appeared there, one, two, three - were they gliders? If they were, such an air-car could outrun them swiftly. And, indeed, Karinn, with swift motions of his hands, was turning the air-car to evade the pursuers. For a moment it seemed they would not be followed; one of the gliding forms -
These are not gliders! Are they hawks
? - soared up, up, above them, higher and higher. It was indeed a hawk, but Allart could feel human intelligence, human, awareness, watching them with malevolent will. No natural hawk had ever had eyes which glittered so, like great jewels!
No, this is no normal bird
! Restless with unease, he watched the soaring flight of the bird as it went higher and higher, winging with long, swift flapping strokes into the sky above them…

Suddenly a narrow, gleaming shape detached itself from the bird and fell down, plummeting, arrowlike, toward the car. Allart’s vision, even before thought, provided him with the knowledge of what would happen if that long, deadly shape, gleaming like glass, should strike the air-car: they would explode into fragments, each fragment coated with the terrible
clingfire
, which clung to what it touched and went on burning and burning, through metal and glass and flesh and bone.

Allart grasped the matrix he wore about his neck, jerked it with shaking fingers from the protecting silks.
There is so little time
… Focusing into the depths of the jewel, he altered his awareness of time so that now the glassy shape fell ever more slowly, and he could focus on it, as if taking it between invisible fingers of force… Slowly, slowly, carefully… he must not risk having it break while it could fall into the air-car and fragments of
clingfire
destroy flesh and car. His slowed awareness spun accelerated futures through his mind - he saw the air-car exploding in fragments, his father slumping over and blazing up with
clingfire
in his hair, Karinn going up like a torch, and the air-car falling out of control, heavier than a stone… but none of those things would be allowed to happen!

With infinite delicacy, his mind focused into the pulsing lights of his matrix, and his eyes closed, Allart manipulated the glassy shape away from the air-car. He sensed resistance, knew the one guiding the device was fighting him for control of it. He struggled silently, feeling as if his physical hands were trying to keep hold of a greased and wriggling live thing while
other
hands fought to wrest it away, to fling it at him.

Karinn, quickly, get us higher if you can so that it will break below us…

He felt his body slump against the straps as the air-car angled sharply upward; saw, with a fragment of his mind, his father collapse in his seat, thinking with swift contrition,
He is old, frail, his heart cannot take much of this
… but the main part of his mind was still in those fingers of force that struggled with the now-writhing device, which seemed to squirm under the control of his mind. They were nearly free of it now -

It exploded with a wild crash that seemed to rock all space and time, and Allart felt sharp burning pain in his hands; swiftly he withdrew his consciousness from the vicinity of the exploded device, but the burning still resonated in his physical hands. Now he opened his eyes and saw that the device had indeed exploded well below them, and fragments of
clingfire
were falling in a molten shower to set ablaze the forests below. But one fragment of the glassy shell had been flung upward, over the rim of the air-car, and the thin fire was spreading along the edge of the cockpit, reaching fingers of flame toward where his father lay slumped and unconscious.

Allart fought against his first impulse - to lean over and beat out the fire with his hands.
Clingfire
could not be extinguished that way; any fragment that touched his hands would burn through his clothing and his flesh and through to the bone, as long as there was anything left to be consumed. He focused again into the matrix - there was no time to take out the fire-talisman Karinn had given him, he should have had it ready! - calling his own fire and flaring it out toward the
clingfire
. Briefly it flamed high, then with a last gutter of light, the
clingfire
died and was gone.

“Father - ” he cried, “are you hurt?”

His father held out shaking hands. The outer edge and the littlest finger were seared, blackened, but there was, as far as Allart could see, no greater hurt. Dom Stephen said in a weak voice, “The gods forgive me that I called your courage into question, Allart. You saved us all. I fear I am too old for such a struggle. But you mastered the fire at once.”

“Is the
vai dom
wounded?” Karinn called from the controls. “Look! They have fled.” Indeed, low on the horizon, Allart could see the small retreating shapes. Did they put real birds under spell by matrix to carry their vicious weapons? Or were they some monstrous, mutant-bred things, no more birds than the
cralmacs
were human; or some dreadful matrix-powered mechanical device that had been brought to deliver their deadly weapon? Allart could not guess, and his father’s plight was such that he did not feel free to pursue their attackers even in thought.

“He is shocked and a little burned,” he called anxiously to Karinn. “How long will it be before we are there?”

“But a moment or two, Dom Allart. I can see the gleam of the lake. There, below - “

The air-car circled, and Allart could see the shoreline and the glimmering sands, like jewels, along the shores of Hali…
Legend says that the sands where Hastur, son of Light, walked, were jeweled from that day
… And there the curious lighter-than-water waves that broke incessantly along the shore. To the north were shining towers, the Great House of Elhalyn, and at the far end of the lake, the Tower of Hali, gleaming faintly blue. As Karinn glided downward, Allart unfastened his restraining straps and clambered to his father’s side, taking the burned hands in his own, focusing into the matrix to look with the eyes of his mind and assess the damage. The wound was minor indeed; his father was only shocked, his heart racing, more frightened than hurt.

Below them, Allart could see servants in the Hastur colors running out on the landing field as the air-car descended, but he held his father’s hands in his own, trying to blot out all that he could foresee.
Visions, none of them true… the air-car did not explode in flame… what I see need not come
-
it is only what may come, borne of my fears
….

The air-car touched the ground. Allart called, “Bring my lord’s body-servants! He is hurt; you must carry him within!” He lifted his father in his arms, and lowered him into the waiting arms of the servants, then followed as they carried the frail figure within.

From somewhere a familiar voice, hateful from years ago, said, “What has come to him, Allart? Were you attacked in the air?” and he recognized the voice of his elder brother, Damon-Rafael.

Briefly he described the encounter, and Damon-Rafael said, nodding, “That is the only way to handle such weapons. They used the hawk-things, then? They have sent them upon us only once or twice before, but once they burned an orchard of trees, and nuts were scarce that year.”

“In the name of all the gods, brother, who are these Ridenow? Are they of the blood of Hastur and Cassilda, that they can send such
laran
weapons upon us?”

“They are upstarts,” Damon-Rafael said. “They were Dry-towns bandits in the beginning, and they moved into Serrais and forced or bullied the old families of Serrais to give them their women as wives. The Serrais had strong
laran
, some of them, and now you can see the result - they grow stronger. They talk truce, and I think we must make truce with them, for this fighting cannot go on much longer. But their terms will not compromise. They want unquestioned ownership of the Domain of Serrais, and they claim that with their
laran
they have a right to it… But this is no time to speak of war and politics, brother. How does our father? He seemed not much hurt, but we must get a healer-woman to him at once, come - “

In the Great Hall, Dom Stephen had been laid on a padded bench and a healer-woman was kneeling at his side, smearing ointments on the seared fingers, bandaging them in soft cloths. Another woman held a wine cup to the old lord’s lips. He stretched a hand to his sons as they hurried toward him, and Damon-Rafael knelt at his side. Looking at his brother, Allart thought it was a little like looking into a blurred mirror; seven years his senior, Damon-Rafael was a little taller, a little heavier, like himself fair-haired and gray-eyed as were all the Hasturs of Elhalyn, his face beginning to show signs of the passing years.

“The gods be praised that you are spared to us now, Father!”

“For that you must thank your brother, Damon; it was he who saved us.”

“If only for that, I give him welcome home,” Damon-Rafael said, turning and drawing his brother into a kinsman’s embrace. “Welcome, Allart. I hope you have come back to us in health, and without the sick fancies you had as a boy.”