Stormqueen! (44 page)

Once airborne, as always, the troubles of the world slipped away from Allart’s thoughts; he gave himself up to it without thought, riding the achingly cold air in a kind of ecstasy, matrix-borne, hawk-free. He was almost regretful when he came in sight of Tramontana Tower, but not quite. There lay his path to Cassandra.

As he turned the glider over to Arzi he pondered that. Perhaps, rather than bringing her here to a cowardly safety, he should return to Hali and face his brother. No, he knew with that cold new inner knowledge; if he should venture anywhere within Damon-Rafael’s grasp his life would not be worth the smallest coin.

Inside himself he mourned.
How have we come to this, my brother and I
? Yet he put his grief aside, steadying himself to face the
tenerezu
of the Tower with his request.

Ian-Mikhail frowned, and Allart thought he would refuse out of hand. “The power is there,” he said, “or can be summoned. Yet I am very reluctant to entangle Tramontana in the affairs of the Lowlands. Are you very sure there is danger to your wife, Allart?”

Allart found in his mind only the certain knowledge that Damon-Rafael would not hesitate to seize her, as he had seized Donal. Donal, close by, reading his thoughts, flushed with anger.

“
That
I had never known until this moment. It is well for Lord Elhalyn that my foster-father did not know!”

Ian-Mikhail sighed. “Here we are at peace; we make no weapons and take part in no wars. But you are one of us, Allart. We must safeguard your lady from harm. I cannot imagine it. I, too, was schooled at Nevarsin, and I would rather lie with a corpse or a
cralmac
than an unwilling woman. But I have heard that your brother is a ruthless man, and ambitious beyond measure. Go, Allart. Communicate with Cassandra through the relays. I will summon the circle for tonight.”

Allart went to the matrix chamber, calming himself for the work, casting himself into the spinning darkness of the relays, riding the web of electrical energies as earlier that day he had ridden the air drafts of the winter sky. Then, without warning, he felt the intimate touch on his mind. He had not hoped for such luck; Cassandra herself was in the relays.

Allart? Is it you, love?

Surprise and wonder, an amazement that was near to tears…
You are at Tramontana? You know we are all in mourning here for the old king
?

Allart had seen, though no one had thought to tell him formally here.

Allart, a moment before you begin whatever business brought you to Tramontana. I am
-
I do not want to trouble you, but I am afraid of your brother. He paid me a courtesy call, saying marriage-kin should know one another; and when I spoke my sympathy at Cassilde’s death and the death of his young son, he spoke of a time gone by when brothers and sisters held all their wives in common, and he looked at me so strangely. I asked what he meant and he said a time would come when I would understand, but I could not read his thoughts…

Until this moment Allart had hoped it was fantasy born of his fear. Now he knew his foresight had been true.

It was for this I came here, beloved. You must leave Hali and come to me in the mountains.

Ride there at this season? In the Hellers?

He could feel her fear. Nevarsin-trained, Allart had no fear of the killing weather of the Hellers, but he knew her fright was genuine.
No. Even now the circle is gathering, to bring you here through the screens. You do not fear that, do you, love
?

No
… But the faraway denial did not sound quite sure.

It will not be long. But go and ask the others to come.

Ian-Mikhail came into the matrix chamber, now wearing the crimson robe of a Keeper. Behind him Allart could see the girl Rosaura whom he had met here before, and half a dozen of the others. The white-robed monitor was working with the dampers, adjusting them to compensate for the presence of an outsider, setting up the force-lock which made it impossible for any outsider to intrude, body or mind, into the space or time where they were working. Then Allart felt the familiar body-mind touch and knew he was being monitored for his presence in the circle. He felt grateful to them, not knowing how to express it, that they were willing to tolerate the presence of someone outside their closed and intimate circle. Yet he was not wholly an outsider; he had touched them more than once when he worked in the relay-nets. He was
known
to them, and he felt obscurely comforted.

I have lost my brother. Damon-Rafael is my enemy. Yet will I nevermore be wholly brotherless, having worked in the relays which touch mind to mind all over this world. I have sisters and brothers in Hali and Tramontana, and at Arilinn and Dalereuth and all of the Towers…

Damon-Rafael and I were never brothers in that sense.

Ian-Mikhail of Storn was gathering the circle now, motioning each of them to his or her place. Allart counted nine in the circle, and he came and sat in the ring of joined bodies, not touching anywhere but close enough to feel one another as electrical fields. He saw the inner swirlings within force-fields that were the others in the circle; saw the field begin to build around Ian-Mikhail as the Keeper seized the tremendous energies of the linked matrices and began to twist and direct them into a cone of power on the screen before them. Having worked only with Coryn as Keeper, whose mental touch was light and almost imperceptible, by contrast Allart felt that Ian-Mikhail caught him, wrenched at him, almost brutally, placing him within the circle, but there was nothing of malice in the strength. It was simply the distinct way he worked; everyone used his or her psi powers in a particular way.

Once in the circle, locked into the ring of minds, individual thought faded, gave way to a humming awareness of joined, concentrated
purpose
. Allart could sense the force building inside the screen, a vast enormous singing silence. Dimly in the distance he touched other familiar minds: Coryn, like a brief handclasp; Arielle a riffle of air, wavering, perceptible; Cassandra… They were
there
, they were
here
- then he went blind and deaf with the searing overload, the sting of ozone in his nostrils, the enormous flaring, searing energies like lightning crashing on the heights.

Abruptly the pattern broke, and they were separate individuals again, and Cassandra, dazed and white, was kneeling on the stones before the circle.

She reeled, about to fall, but Rosaura reached out and steadied her; then Allart was there, lifting her in his arms. She looked up at him in exhaustion and terror.

Ian-Mikhail said with a faint laugh, “You are as wearied as by the ten days’ ride, kinswoman. There has been a certain amount of energy expended, however it was done. Come with us, then. We must eat and rebuild our forces. Tell us all the news from Hali, if you will.”

Allart was faint with the terrible hunger of the energy-drain. For once, he found himself eating the heavily sweetened reserve foods in the matrix chamber without nausea or distaste. He was not enough of a technician to understand the process which had teleported Cassandra through space across the ten days’ ride between the Towers, but she was here, her hand clasped tight in his, and that was enough for him.

The white-robed monitor came and insisted on monitoring them both. They didn’t protest.

As they ate, Cassandra told the news from Hali. The death and burial of the old king; the Council summoned to test Prince Felix - not yet crowned, probably never to be crowned; the upheaval in Thendara among the people who supported the gentle young prince. There had been a renewed truce with the Ridenow which Hali Tower had been forced to use for the stockpiling of
clingfire
. Cassandra showed Allart one of the characteristic burns on her hand.

Allart listened with amazement and wonder. His wife. Yet he felt he had never seen this woman before. When last he had seen her she had been childlike, submissive, still sick with the recoil of her suicidal despair. Now, after a scant half year, she seemed years older; her very voice and gestures stronger, more definite. This was no timid girl but a woman, poised, confident, sure of herself, talking casually and competently with the other monitors about the professional requirements of their exacting work.

What have I to give to a woman like this
? Allart wondered.
She clung to me, then, because I was stronger and she needed my strength. But now that she does not need me, will she love me
?

“Come, cousin,” Rosaura said. “I must find you some clothes; you cannot travel in what you wear now.”

Cassandra laughed, looking down at the loose, warm white monitor’s robe which was her only garment.

“Thank you, kinswoman. I came away in haste without leisure to pack my belongings!”

“I will find you travel clothing, and a change or so of underlinen,” Rosaura said. “We are much of a size. And when you reach Castle Aldaran, I am sure they can find you suitable garments.”

“Am I going with you to Aldaran, Allart?”

Ian-Mikhail said, “Unless you would rather stay here with us… we are always in need of competent monitors and technicians.”

There was something of the old childlike Cassandra in the way she clasped his hand.

“I thank you, kinsman. But I will go with my husband.”

The night was far advanced, snow beating furiously around the heights of the Tower. Rosaura showed them to a room made ready on the lower floor.

Allart wondered again, when they were alone.
What have I to give a woman like this? A woman, and no longer in need of my strength
! But as he turned to her, he felt the barriers going down, one after another, so that their minds merged before he even touched her. He knew nothing was gone between them that could make a difference.

In gray dawnlight they were roused by a sudden knocking at the door. It was not really very loud, but somehow had a frantic sound, a commotion that made Allart sit up and stare wildly around him for some cause, some reason behind the violent disturbance. Cassandra sat up and looked at him in the dim light, frightened.

“What is it? Oh, what is it?”

“Damon-Rafael,” Allart said, before realizing that this was madness. Damon-Rafael was ten days away in the Lowlands and there was no way he could intrude here. Yet, as he opened the door, the sight of Rosaura’s pale, frightened face was a shock. Had he
really
expected to see his brother, armed for combat or kill, ready to break into the room where he slept, reunited with his wife?

“I am sorry to disturb you,” Rosaura said, “but Coryn of Hali is in the relays and he says he must speak with you at once, Allart.”

“At this hour?” Allart said, wondering who had suddenly gone mad, for the dawn was just beginning to merge into pink at the edge of the sky. Nevertheless he dressed in haste, and hurried up the long stairs to the matrix chamber because he felt too confused to trust himself to the rising-shaft.

A young technician Allart did not know was in the relays.

“You are Allart Hastur of Elhalyn? Coryn of Hali has insisted we waken you.”

Allart took his place inside the relay circle, and reaching out, felt Coryn’s light touch on his mind.

Kinsman? At such an hour? What can be happening at Hali?

I do not like it any better than you do. But a few hours past, Damon-Rafael, Lord Elhalyn, came raging to the doors of Hali, demanding that we turn your wife over to him, as hostage against your treachery. I knew not that there was madness in our kindred, Allart!

Not madness, but a touch of
laran
, and a very little of my own foresight
, Allart sent back in answer.
Did you tell him you had sent her here
?

I had no choice
, Coryn replied.
Now he has demanded that we attack Tramontana Tower with our powers, unless they agree quickly to send her back, and preferably you, too
. …