The Fall of Neskaya (29 page)

The sun rose with Tani on the third morning, bright and clear. When Coryn returned from feeding the horses, he found her dressed, her hair plaited neatly in a single long braid, and in the process of burning the porridge. Laughing, he took the spoon from her hand and added more water.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook,” she said.

“Neither am I, but it’s necessary if you’re traveling,” he said. The bottom of the pot would take a bit of soaking, that was all.

When the porridge was ready, he divided it and added the last of his honey. She sat cross-legged on the cot, cradling her bowl in her hands. After a time of eating in silence, she cleared her throat.

“Coryn, I’m grateful for all the help you’ve given me.” Now she sounded hesitant, about to say she had no way to repay him.

“My Keeper believes we have an obligation to use our
laran
in service to others. I’m glad that I had the skills to heal the fever.” It struck him that in an odd way, he was evening the score for Kristlin’s death.

“I—I have to keep moving,” she said.

“Because whoever’s looking for you might find you?”

Her eyes widened, then shifted as she realized how many ways she must have given herself away. “There is no safety here, and none for you if they catch me with you. My only hope is to reach Thendara. But I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings.”

“Thendara! Oh,” seeing her look of dismay. “Yes, you have. This road leads to Neskaya Tower. Would—would that not be safe enough?”

Her lips tightened, but she shook her head. “If it were only myself—No, I have kin in Thendara who must be told, who—I must reach.”

Some ways back, Coryn had passed a crossroads with a slender path, little more than a goat trail, which joined the main road to Thendara. It would take Tani perhaps two days in clear weather to get there, if she did not get lost again. Of course, he could go with her and then continue on down toward the lowlands . . . and the perfection of the meeting would dribble away, an hour or a day at time, in useless longing.

He described the road to Thendara and its distance, adding, “I could go with you—”

“No,” she said with a firmness that spoke of years of command, “although I thank you once again. Please—you would be putting yourself in needless danger. I would not see your kindness repaid by harm. Even knowing my destination . . . Well, all Zandru’s smiths can’t put that chick back into its egg. But I can read a map, if you can draw one.”

He had maps, wrapped carefully in oiled silk against the damp, although nothing to copy them to. She bent over them, spread out on the hearth, her lips moving as she studied the landscape contours. “Ah yes, this is where I went wrong . . .” Murmuring, she traced a path with one finger.

“There are trading villages here and here,” he said, pointing. “I can give you food enough to reach there and a little money to pay for lodging.” He grinned wryly. “It isn’t much.”

“I have no way to repay you. What little I had, the river took.”

“I’m not asking for anything in return.”

“What do you want?” Her eyes searched his.

The firelight burnished her features, turning her into a woman of gold and ebony. All he had to do was lean forward and kiss her.

He lowered his gaze. “To have you safe and well.”

“We none of us can be sure of safety in these dreadful times.”

He thought of little Kristlin, dead by
laran
-spawned lungrot in her father’s own house. “No, that’s true enough.”

Coryn packed up the food and insisted she take his second set of knitted cap, scarf, and mittens, though the mittens were too big for her. To these he added a sleeveless woolen jacket. When she protested, he said, quite truthfully, that he could wear only one at a time. He was no longer the boy who set off for Tramontana with packs bulging with extra comforts.

Once all the preparations were complete, Tani settled herself in the saddle and gathered up the reins. The air had already begun to warm in the rising sun, promising a fair day. The old horse looked rested, no longer limping as he brought it out to be saddled. Coryn stood beside the stirrup, looking up at Tani, remembering how Kristlin had looked up at him the day he’d ridden away to Tramontana.

Tani’s brows drew together and for a moment, her eyes took on that slightly distracted expression. She looked as if she were about to say something.

No,
he decided.
Let it end here.
He would carry her memory like his mother’s handkerchief, folded close to his heart.

“Adelandeyo,”
he said, stepping back to slap her horse on the rump.
Go with the gods.
Then he turned and went back into the shelter to gather up his own gear.

Coryn came over the last hill and caught his first view of Neskaya Tower, rising beyond the ancient yet thriving city of the same name. It was late in the day and the gathering dusk cast an opalescent sheen over the vast, open sky. His heart rose up and caught in his throat at the sight. He wondered if he were dreaming the turrets of pale translucent blue stone that glowed softly like moonlight in the distance.

The city of Neskaya was by far the largest collection of human habitations he’d ever seen. As he rode through it, he marveled at the different styles of architecture, stone and brick as well as timber, so much precious glass, the bright colors of plaids and painted signs, the blended strains of music, street sellers’ cries, chatter, and animals.

His horse, tired and footsore, picked up the pace as it scented hay and a dry stall ahead. The details of the Tower became clear as he approached, the grace of its lines, the superb
laran
workmanship of the fitting of the stones, the arched entrance, the windows set to catch winter sun.

The front doors, ashleaf wood polished to a high golden gloss, had been thrown open and a group of adolescent children were playing a game with sticks and balls in the courtyard. A man in plain warm clothing, tunic over trousers tucked mountain-style into laced boots, came forward to greet Coryn.

“Ah, we’ve been looking for you these past three days,” the man said, after introducing himself as a mechanic. He had a broad, open face, seamed with laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, and rust-red hair worn in a dozen slender braids past his shoulders. He did not ask the reason for the delay, only expressed his relief at Coryn’s safe arrival.

Others came to welcome him, including the Keeper under whom he was to train. After dinner, Bernardo Alton invited Coryn for cups of
jaco
flavored with sweet spicebark. Unlike Kieran, whose inner stillness imbued his austere quarters, Bernardo was always in action, his rooms reflecting a richness of interests. Brightly colored sketches of mountains and eagles, candles sculpted into the form of trees, a chest of beautifully carved black wood with rows of tiny drawers in a style Coryn had never seen before, a contraption of leather and metal springs and a bale of unspun wool in shades of orange, caught Coryn’s eye. Like the room itself, Bernardo sizzled with energy and invention; thin and whip-strong, he was rarely at rest.

“I am sorry to welcome you with sad news, but last night we received a message from Tramontana along the relays,” Bernardo said. “Kieran has died after a bout of fever.”

Coryn lowered his eyes, bracing for a lash of pain. None came, as if the Keeper’s last gift had been a peaceful heart. He remembered the gray light in Kieran’s eyes as they parted, how tired and frail the old man had looked.

“I thank you for telling me,” Coryn said formally.

“He will be sorely missed among us. He was a great Keeper.”

“And a good friend.”

“And a friend,” Bernardo nodded. “If you wish, you may speak with Tramontana in the relays tonight.”

“Again, I thank you.”

For a long moment, the two sat in silence, broken only by the soft hush of embers falling and the tapping of Bernardo’s fingers on the arm of his chair, a complicated mathematical pattern.

There will be time enough to mourn,
Coryn thought, remembering Kieran’s patient compassion after the death of his father and sister. Kieran’s parting gift had been his freedom and this new life.

Bernardo said in a lighter tone, “When we sent word to Tramontana, asking if they had anyone suitable for training as an under-Keeper, Kieran told us that you are not afraid to take the initiative and try something new.”

“Is there some particular project you have in mind?” Coryn asked, rousing to the question.

Bernardo laughed, which seemed to be his usual response to questions, from the few short hours Coryn had known him. “Not yet, anyway. However, I’d like your view of an idea I’ve been working on, a way to make
clingfire
more stable, less explosive. If we succeed, we’ll need to devise a separate detonator device . . .”

He went on, but Coryn’s thoughts remained on the subject of
clingfire.
It seemed that even Neskaya was making the stuff. There was, he reflected with a bitterness that surprised him, no place on Darkover safe from the ravages of war. Maybe Bronwyn was right when she said that the only way to security was to make the cost of aggression too high.

T
hendara at last
.

Taniquel peered over the top of the farmer’s cart in which she’d ridden those last painful miles, in exchange or perhaps in pity for the horse who clearly could go no farther. With her cloak hanging loose about her shoulders against the mildness of the morning, she perched between heaped sacks of spring rye, bushel baskets of cherries and early carrots, mesh bags of potatoes and redroots. The cart turned a corner, and she craned her neck for a better look at the city of her birth.

From a distance, the city resembled a sprawling marketplace at the foot of an immense cluster of fortifications and towers. It assailed her senses: the size and depth of the walls; the rows and rows of noble houses; the stables and warehouses; the clattering of armed cavalry; the shouts of tradesmen; the chants of the
cristoforos
wending their way along the streets; the smells of dust and cabbage and refuse.

The cart lurched over the unpaved roads, jostling against wagons of hay, droves of sheep, and an immense dray of rough-cut lumber pulled laboriously by two dun horses with feet the size of dinner plates. The farmer hauled his team of
chervines
to a halt and held out his arms to help Taniquel get down. “Yon’s the gate to the inner city,
d’msela.
I must be off to sell me wares.”

He had already made himself late for the market opening by taking her on and tempering his speed for her comfort. Taniquel slipped to the ground, fishing in the folds of her makeshift sash for the last of the copper hair clasps. She was almost ashamed to offer it to him, so battered and poor-looking, although a richer thing than he could ever afford to buy.

The farmer lowered his head and refused at first to take it, saying he needed no payment—meaning he would not wring the last belongings from someone in such pitiful need. But she pressed it into his callused palm, saying it was not for him, but a dowry for his daughter, a bright-eyed child he had spoken of.

Easing the empty saddlebags across one shoulder, she approached the gates to the inner city. Two City Guards in smart uniforms, sheathed swords in plain view, barred her way. The older bore the bright red hair of his caste, probably a cadet son of one of the great houses, on a tour with the Guards to fulfill his civic duty.

Expressionlessly, with a flick of the eyes, the Guards assessed and as quickly dismissed her. She must look like an outlaw’s doxy or worse, disheveled, filthy, and travel-worn. But she lifted her head, with all the pride of a
comynara,
and asked admittance.

“What business have you in the city?” Red-hair asked, omitting any more polite form of address.

She gave him a short bow of the head, one suitable for an indispensable but recalcitrant servant. “I bear an urgent message for King Rafael Hastur, second of that name. Pray escort me to him without delay.”

The younger Guard snorted in derision. “Give us the message, then.”

“It is for his ears, not yours,” Taniquel said. “He will not thank for you delaying me.”

“Now see, Missy, we can’t let just any riffraff go wandering about the streets,” the older one said. “Anyone can claim what you’re claiming and lie, or worse, be up to no good. How can we be sure His Majesty knows you from a sack of redroots?”

Taniquel suppressed the impulse to strike the guard with the empty saddlebag across his grinning, mocking face. “You can only believe—from my speech and bearing—that I am not as I appear. I have been long on the road and under difficult circumstances. Pray take me to someone who
can
make a decision, if you cannot.”