Zandru's Forge (32 page)

The letter had been handled by so many people that no psychic trace of its writer remained, not in the outer wrapping anyway. He knew that to open it would change his world.

Shaking, he ran his thumbnail under the plain wax seal, no more than a drop to hold the edges of the letter closed, devoid of any signet. Then he unfolded the paper and began to read.

The hand seemed childish, the letters ill-formed and lines slanting as if drunken. He realized after a word or two that the writer was barely literate.

The letter wasn’t long, three or four unembellished sentences. It was enough.

Esteban, cowman at Keycroft. I learnt to writ from the
cristoforos. “

Eduin closed his eyes to suspend the present moment, that breath of numbness before realization descended upon him. There was only one reason his father would send such a message, only one cause desperate enough to entrust to writing.

His father was dying.

The letter was undated. He had no idea how long it might have lain at some waypost, waiting for a traveler going in the direction of Arilinn to carry it. As he reread it, he dared to hope. This cowman, this Esteban, mentioned last winter and it was now barely spring. Assuming it had not been a year ago, not too much time had elapsed. His father had weathered bouts of lung sickness before; he might well hold on for months, until Eduin arrived. If it were possible for any man to cling to life for the sake of a greater purpose, his father would.

As Eduin made his way along the corridor toward Auster’s chambers, he gathered his thoughts. He prepared a speech, including the mental impressions that would convey the urgency of his request without leading to any deeper questions. The social rules of the Tower would work in his favor; part of living closely with other telepaths was knowing when not to pry.

Auster, however, was not in his quarters. In the course of searching for the Keeper, Eduin passed through the common room, where trays of the concentrated foods needed for matrix work had been laid out. The faint, enticing smell reached him across the room. His stomach grumbled; he had not eaten that day. As he started toward the table, he realized the room was not empty. He had kept his own mental barriers raised, so he had not sensed the two people sitting on the divan. They sat in wordless stillness, but immediately he sensed the communion of their minds.

The new leronis, Felicia of Nevarsin, sat beside the person Eduin wanted least to encounter—Varzil Ridenow.

Varzil broke the silence, half rising. “Eduin! Please come, talk with us.”

“Yes,” Felicia added. “I’ve had two words with just about everyone else. In a few minutes, Fidelis is going to appear and order me off to bed, so quickly, say something amusing about life at Arilinn.”

Eduin hesitated. “I’ve got to find Auster.”

“You might as well eat something first,” Varzil said. “He’s in private session with Valentina and Ruthelle.”

“Valentina?” Felicia said, raising one slender eyebrow. “The Aillard girl you told me about?”

Varzil nodded, and Eduin sensed the light, easy rapport between them. They spoke aloud from courtesy and to maintain the personal distance necessary in the Towers. “She’s still fragile,” Varzil said, “as are many of her line, but Auster thinks she has great potential: ‘

Eduin, lulled by the innocent-sounding chatter, took a plateful of pickled fish and carrots, finger cakes, and sugared nuts. He ate quickly, hardly tasting the food. If he were to make any distance today, he could not wait for Auster’s permission before he began packing. But he had no horse, nor any funds to rent one, and Arilinn kept none of its own.

“Excuse me,” Felicia broke in. “I truly don’t intend any rudeness, but is there anything I can do for you?”

Eduin’s head jerked up, facial muscles tightening. He knew he was not as good at masking his expressions as he was at hiding his thoughts. Now Varzil was looking intently at him, too, with those knowing eyes, and he could not talk his way out of this one. Ever since their season at Hali, Varzil had treated him with impeccable courtesy, yet Eduin did not believe his suspicions had abated.

He’d been a fool to try stopping Carolin’s heart by taking his starstone from him. Only the looming fact that the next day they must follow separate paths, putting Carolin beyond his reach, had spurred him into such precipitous action. Even then, he had planned badly, choosing a time when Carolin was alert and able to resist. At the fateful moment, he had paused and then Varzil had burst into the room.

Perhaps ... he had wanted to fail.

Tell the truth,
he urged himself silently. Tell them what they
want to hear.

He let his face reflect the emotions that roiled inside him. Pain, loss, anxiety ...

“There was a letter for me—in the packet you brought His words stumbled of their own accord.

“Bad news?”

“I’m afraid so.” He paused, swallowed hard. The sympathy on their faces deepened. “My father’s been taken seriously ill. I must go home. As soon as possible.”

“It’s a shame there’s no aircar available.”

Eduin shook his head. “My father lives in a small village across the Kadarin. It’s too rugged up there for aircar travel.”

“The Hellers are like that, too, particularly around Nevarsin,” Felicia said, nodding. “The cars can’t navigate in the air currents. People say they’re too unreliable, anyway.”

“What can I do to help?” Varzil said, getting to his feet. “Shall I arrange for a horse?”

Looking now at Varzil’s face, relaxed and eager to help, Eduin wondered how they had each misjudged the other. True, he’d felt a spasm of jealousy when Varzil had been chosen for a Keeper’s training before he had. But there was no hint of malice or triumph in Varzil.

With as much courtesy as he could manage, he accepted Varzil’s offer of help.

Eduin’s borrowed horse was stumbling with fatigue, its breath hoarse and ragged, by the time he reached the little village where he had passed his early years. He had not been home since he had been taken away as a child to begin his training as laranzu and instrument of revenge. Since leaving the open fields, he had been obliged to ask directions several times. The road was often little more than a goat trail through the ragged hills. The pastureland was broken and poor, the hillsides marked by erosion gullies, jumbled stones, and the skeletons of lightning-struck trees. Even the sheep looked tattered.

Yet memories stirred, more powerful the closer he came. He was struck by how familiar and yet how altered the huddle of buildings looked. Had the village fallen on hard times, to look so gray and bleak, or had it always been that way? A child’s memory could paint even the most desolate scene in glowing colors.

He brushed away the thought, as well as the disgust that rose with each new sight and smell. Heads emerged from the doorways, and two boys and a puppy ran out to stare at him. Smiling, he allowed his horse to slow its pace so they could get a good look at him. Few strangers found business this far along the Kadarin, certainly none so finely-dressed as he. His cloak was of fine wool, thick and warm, the brooch real copper; his boots and saddle gleamed with polish. His horse was far better than anything these villagers could afford.

A woman rushed out after the boys and gathered them against her patched skirts. Fear radiated from her. Worry and exhaustion muddied her thoughts, but Eduin caught a memory of men with knives and of blood spattered across the muddy street.

At this hour, the men were still out in the fields, but the woman drew herself up, a mother defending her children. She looked to be Lunilla’s age, but in an instant he recognized her.

Fiona, that was her name. She was two or three years older than he. He remembered her as a sweet-natured girl, always happy to follow his lead. They had been playfellows, and she was to have his dog when he left. Had he stayed in the village, they might well have married. He hardly knew her now, nor did he want to. Poverty and early motherhood had bled the color from her cheeks, turned her breasts flat and pendulous, her body a shapeless bulk under layers of homespun.

She glared at him before hurrying her children inside. Happy to avoid an awkward conversation, Eduin clapped his heels to the horse’s sides. The beast lurched forward.

It took only a few minutes to traverse the village that had once comprised his entire world. His father’s cottage was tucked behind a hedge that had grown wild and then died off around the trunks, leaving a core of dead branches. A mule and an elderly, antler-cropped chervine shared the split-rail corral with two cows. The mule pricked its long ears at his approach. He looped his horse’s reins around the rails and went up to the house.

The thatched roof had seen better days, as had the walls, but some repairs had recently been made. The garden, which he remembered as a strip of flowers and, beyond them, onions, redroot, and summer greens had degenerated into a tangle of dry weeds. The rough-cut threshold creaked under his weight. He put one hand on the wooden latch and the door swung open.

The first thing he saw was the knife, its point inches from his throat. The man who held it glared at him. Tangled black hair and beard framed blue eyes, a crooked nose, and lips full and ruddy.

The stranger wore a leather vest, stained and worn, but thick enough to turn a casual blow. Eduin had no doubt that he knew exactly how to use the knife and the other weapons which were doubtless ready to hand.

Eduin was a Tower-trained laranzu. He had little to fear from mere steel. Without bothering to deflect the knife point, he reached out to the other man’s mind—and found a kernel of laran.

The beard and belligerent expression masked a face that was hauntingly familiar. He had not seen his older brother since he was a child and Gwynn already a grown man.

“What—” Gwynn drew back, clearly stung by the unexpected mental contact.

Eduin opened his arms. “It’s me, Eduin! Don’t you know your own baby brother?”

The blue eyes narrowed. With an expert flip, Gwynn reversed the knife and slipped it into a sheath at his belt. He caught Eduin in a rough embrace.

“Little Eduin! Now a grown man—I’d never have known you!”

Gwynn pounded Eduin’s back hard enough to start a coughing fit. The leather vest rasped Eduin’s face and the stench of a body too long on the trail brought bile to his mouth. Eduin pushed himself away as soon as he decently could.

“Father sent word to me at Arilinn. Is he—”

“He’s still with us, lad.” Gwynn drew Eduin into the cottage. The closeness of the central room enfolded them. The little fire which danced in the grate could not dispel the dank, oppressive atmosphere.

“I just arrived myself two nights ago—” Gwynn said.

“—the lass from the village had been nursing him and at least doing no harm. He roused after I’d gotten some decent ale into him, but I still fear—Arilinn, you say?” The blue eyes, shadowed now in the subdued light, shifted. “The Tower there? You—a sorcerer?”

“Yes, I am a laranzu, a matrix technician,” Eduin cut him off. “And I also trained as a monitor, a healer. I must see him at once.”

He pushed past Gwynn and into the room his father used. It was scarcely large enough for a bed and a clothes chest, but a stool had been drawn up alongside. The window on the opposite side, old and thick, admitted a watery light.

The old man lay with one hand at his side, the other on his chest. The bedding, worn though it was, had been smoothed and tucked neatly about him, and several layers of thin pillows supported his head. His beard had been recently combed, for it lay like a fall of snow over his chest. On the floor, a cup held some dark liquid, still steaming lightly, and a wooden spoon.

Eduin, lowering himself to the stool, felt a pang of regret for his judgment of his brother. Hard though Gwynn might be, he had tended their father lovingly. If he had not bathed himself, clearly it was because he had devoted himself to the old man’s welfare.

Gently, Eduin laid one hand on top of his father’s. There was no response. The skin felt hot and brittle, although not dehydrated. The chest rose and fell in stutters. He slipped his fingertips around the bony wrist to feel the pulse. It was thready, but regular.

Smoke from the fire must have gotten into his eyes, for they stung as he turned to look up at his brother. “Tend to my horse and bring my saddlebags inside. I will do what I can for him.”

Without a word, Gwynn departed. Eduin arranged himself so that he could skim his hands over his father’s body. He closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths. Each one took him deeper into the state of proper mental sensitivity. It had been some years since he had done a monitor’s work; he had never been particularly interested in healing. But he had mastered the basics, if only to learn how laran could be used to stop a man’s heart.

Now that he was sitting very still, he could hear the rasp and wheeze of the old man’s breathing. After a cursory scan, he settled his attention upon the lungs.

The old injuries had left extensive scarring. In many areas, the delicate air sacs were torn, but that had happened long ago. The body had adapted as best it could to the compromised air flow. Now, fluid choked most of one lung and the lower lobes of the other. Gwynn’s care, excellent though it had been, was too little and too late. Eduin was not sure that even laran healing would be enough.

He must go deep into the lung tissue, right down to the cellular level. Drop by drop, molecule by molecule, he must relieve the congestion and increase the blood flow.