The Ages of Chaos Read online

  The Critics Hail Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover Novels:

  “A rich and highly colored tale of politics and magic, courage and pressure . . . Topflight adventure in every way!”

  —Lester Del Rey in Analog (for The Heritage of Hastur)

  “May well be [Bradley’s] masterpiece.”

  —New York Newsday (for The Heritage of Hastur)

  “Literate and exciting.”

  —New York Times Book Review (for City of Sorcery)

  “Suspenseful, powerfully written, and deeply moving.”

  —Library Journal (for Stormqueen!)

  “A warm, shrewd portrait of women from different backgrounds working together under adverse conditions.”

  —Publishers Weekly (for City of Sorcery)

  “I don’t think any series novels have succeeded for me the way Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels did.”

  —Locus (general)

  “Delightful . . . a fascinating world and a great read.”

  —Locus (for Exile’s Song)

  “Darkover is the essence, the quintessence, my most personal and best-loved work.”

  —Marion Zimmer Bradley

  A Reader’s Guide to DARKOVER

  THE FOUNDING:

  A “lost ship” of Terran origin, in the pre-empire colonizing days, lands on a planet with a dim red star, later to be called Darkover.

  DARKOVER LANDFALL

  THE AGES OF CHAOS:

  One thousand years after the original landfall settlement, society has returned to the feudal level. The Darkovans, their Terran technology renounced or forgotten, have turned instead to freewheeling, out-of-control matrix technology, psi powers, and terrible psi weapons. The populace lives under the domination of the Towers and a tyrannical breeding program to staff the Towers with unnaturally powerful, inbred gifts of laran.

  STORMQUEEN!

  HAWKMISTRESS!

  THE HUNDRED KINGDOMS:

  An age of war and strife retaining many of the decimating and disastrous effects of the Ages of Chaos. The lands which are later to become the Seven Domains are divided by continuous border conflicts into a multitude of small, belligerent kingdoms, named for convenience “The Hundred Kingdoms.” The close of this era is heralded by the adoption of the Compact, instituted by Varzil the Good. A landmark and turning point in the history of Darkover, the Compact bans all distance weapons, making it a matter of honor that one who seeks to kill must himself face equal risk of death.

  TWO TO CONQUER

  THE HEIRS OF THE HAMMERFELL

  THE FALL OF NESKAYA

  ZANDRU’S FORGE

  THE RENUNCIATES:

  During the Ages of Chaos and the time of the Hundred Kingdoms, there were two orders of women who set themselves apart from the patriarchal nature of Darkovan feudal society: the priestesses of Avarra and the warriors of the Sisterhood of the Sword. Eventually these two independent groups merged to form the powerful and legally chartered Order of Renunciates or Free Amazons, a guild of women bound only by oath as a sisterhood of mutual responsibility. Their primary allegiance is to each other rather than to family, clan, caste, or any man save a temporary employer. Alone among Darkovan women, they are exempt from the usual legal restrictions and protections. Their reason for existence is to provide the women of Darkover an alternative to their socially restrictive lives.

  THE SHATTERED CHAIN

  THENDARA HOUSE

  CITY OF SORCERY

  AGAINST THE TERRANS

  —THE FIRST AGE (Recontact):

  After the Hastur Wars, the Hundred Kingdoms are consolidated into the Seven Domains, and ruled by a hereditary aristocracy of seven families, called the Comyn, allegedly descended from the legendary Hastur, Lord of Light. It is during this era that the Terran Empire, really a form of confederacy, rediscovers Darkover, which they know as the fourth planet of the Cottman star system. The fact that Darkover is a lost colony of the Empire is not easily or readily acknowledged by Darkovans and their Comyn overlords.

  REDISCOVERY (with Mercedes Lackey)

  THE SPELL SWORD

  THE FORBIDDEN TOWER

  STAR OF DANGER

  WINDS OF DARKOVER

  AGAINST THE TERRANS

  —THE SECOND AGE (After the Comyn):

  With the initial shock of recontact beginning to wear off, and the Terran spaceport a permanent establishment on the outskirts of the city of Thendara, the younger and less traditional elements of Darkovan society begin the first real exchange of knowledge with the Terrans—learning Terran science and technology and teaching Darkovan matrix technology in turn. Eventually Regis Hastur, the young Comyn lord most active in these exchanges, becomes Regent in a provisional government allied to the Terrans. Darkover is once again reunited with its founding Empire.

  THE BLOODY SUN

  THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR

  THE PLANET SAVERS

  SHARRA’S EXILE

  THE WORLD WRECKERS

  EXILE’S SONG

  THE SHADOW MATRIX

  TRAITOR’S SUN

  THE DARKOVER ANTHOLOGIES:

  These volumes of stories edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, strive to “fill in the blanks” of Darkovan history, and elaborate on the eras, tales, and characters which have captured readers’ imaginations.

  THE KEEPER’S PRICE

  SWORD OF CHAOS

  FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR

  RED SUN OF DARKOVER

  FOUR MOONS OF DARKOVER

  DOMAINS OF DARKOVER

  RENUNICATES OF DARKOVER

  LERONI OF DARKOVER

  TOWERS OF DARKOVER

  MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY’S DARKOVER

  SNOWS OF DARKOVER

  DARKOVER NOVELS IN OMNIBUS EDITIONS

  HERITAGE AND EXILE

  omnibus:

  The Heritage of Hastur | Sharra’s Exile

  THE AGES OF CHAOS

  omnibus:

  Stormqueen! | Hawkmistress!

  THE SAGA OF THE RENUNICATES

  omnibus:

  The Shattered Chain | Thendara House | City of Sorcery

  THE FORBIDDEN CIRCLE

  omnibus:

  The Spell Sword | The Forbidden Tower

  A WORLD DIVIDED

  omnibus:

  Star of Danger | The Bloody Sun | The Winds of Darkover

  DARKOVER: FIRST CONTACT

  omnibus:

  Darkover Landfall | Two to Conquer

  Contents

  Titlepage

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  STORMQUEEN! Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three Eleven Years Later

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  HAWKMISTRESS! Book One: FALCONSWARD, in the Kilghard Hills Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

>   Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Book Two: THE FUGITIVE Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Book Three: SWORDSWOMAN Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  DEDICATION

  To Catherine L. Moore

  First Lady of Science Fiction

  I have ceased, I hope, the imitation which is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. I shall never outgrow, I hope, the desire to emulate; nor the admiration, the affection, and the inspiration which she has created in every woman who writes science fiction and fantasy—and in most of the men, too!

  —MZB

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The soldier's drinking song in Part III was suggested by the Ballad of Arilinn Tower, a "folk song" written by Bettina Helms and copyright 1979. The song Aldones Bless the Human Elbow was suggested by a folk song by that most prolific of authors, Anonymous; with a bow to the Berkeley-based folk-song trio OAK, ASH AND THORN and their manager Sharon Green.

  Although Hawkmistress!, like most of the Darkover novels, is complete in itself, requiring no knowledge of the other books in the series, those who follow the chronicles of Darkover may wish to know that it comes during the time of the Hundred Kingdoms, between Stormqueen and Two to Conquer.

  -M.z.B.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Ever since the third or fourth of the Darkover novels, my surprisingly faithful readers have been writing in to me, asking, in essence, “Why don’t you write a novel about the Ages of Chaos?”

  For a long time I demurred, hesitating to do this; to me the essence of the Darkover novels seemed to be just this—the clash of cultures between Darkovan and Terran. If I had acceded to their request to write about a time “before the coming of the Terrans,” it seemed to me, the very essence of the Darkover novels would have been removed, and what remained would be very much like any of a thousand other science-fantasy novels dealing with alien worlds where people have alien powers and alien concerns.

  It was my readers who finally persuaded me to attempt this. If every reader who actually writes to an author represents only a hundred who do not (and I am told the figure is higher than this) there must be, by now, several thousand readers out there who are interested and curious about the time known as the Ages of Chaos; the time before the Comyn had firmly established an alliance of their seven Great Houses to rule over the Domains; and also the height of the Towers, and of that curious technology known then as “starstone” and later becoming the science of matrix mechanics.

  Readers of The Forbidden Tower will want to know that Stormqueen deals with a time before Varzil, Keeper of Neskaya, known as “the Good,” perfected the techniques allowing women to serve as Keepers in the Towers of the Comyn.

  In The Shattered Chain, Lady Rohana says;

  “There was a time in the history of the Comyn when we did selective breeding to fix these gifts in our racial heritage; it was a time of great tyranny, and not a time we are very proud to remember.”

  This is a story of the men and women who lived under that tyranny, and how it affected their lives, and the lives of those who came after them on Darkover.

  —MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

  STORMQUEEN!

  Chapter One

  The storm was wrong somehow.

  That was the only way Donal could think of it… wrong somehow. It was high summer in the mountains called the Hellers, and there should have been no storms except for the never-ending snow flurries on the far heights above the timberline, and the rare savage thunderstorms that swooped down across the valleys, bouncing from peak to peak and leaving flattened trees and sometimes fire in the path of their lightnings.

  Yet, though the sky was blue and cloudless, thunder crackled low in the distance, and the very air seemed filled with the tension of a storm. Donal crouched on the heights of the battlement, stroking with one finger the hawk cradled in the curve of his arm, crooning half-absently to the restless bird. It was the storm in the air, the electric tension, he knew, which was frightening the hawk. He should never have taken it from the mews today—it would serve him right if the old hawkmaster beat him, and a year ago he would probably have done so without much thought. But now things were different. Donal was only ten, but there had been many changes in his short life. And this was one of the most drastic, that within the change of a few moons hawkmaster and tutors and grooms now called him—not that-brat-Donal, with cuffs and pinches and even blows, merited and unmerited, but, with new and fawning respect—young-master-Donal.

  Certainly life was easier for Donal now, but the very change made him uneasy; for it had not come about from anything he had done. It had something to do with the fact that his mother, Aliciane of Rockraven, now shared the bed of Dom Mikhail, Lord of Aldaran, and was soon to bear him a child.

  Only once, a long time ago (two midsummer festivals had come and gone), had Aliciane spoken of these things to her son.

  “Listen carefully to me, Donal, for I shall say this once only and never again. Life is not easy for a woman unprotected.” Donal’s father had died in one of the small wars, which raged among the vassals of the mountain lords, before Donal could remember him; their lives had been spent as unregarded poor relations in the home of one kinsman after another, Donal wearing castoffs of this cousin and that, riding always the worst horse in the stables, hanging around unseen when cousins and kinsmen learned the skills of arms, trying to pick up what he could by listening.

  “I could put you to fosterage; your father had kinsmen in these hills, and you could grow up to take service with one of them. Only for me there would be nothing but to be drudge or sewing-woman, or at best minstrel in a stranger’s household, and I am too young to find that endurable. So I have taken service as singing-woman to Lady Deonara; she is frail, and aging, and has borne no living children. Lord Aldaran is said to have an eye for beauty in women. And I am beautiful, Donal.”

  Donal had hugged Aliciane fiercely; indeed she was beautiful, a slight girlish woman, with flame-bright hair and gray eyes, who looked too young to be the mother of a boy eight years old.

  “What I am about to do, I do it at least partly for you, Donal. My kin have cast me off for it; do not condemn me if I am ill-spoken by those who do not understand.”

  Indeed it seemed, at first, that Aliciane had done this more for her son’s good than her own: Lady Deonara was kind but had the irritability of all chronic invalids, and Aliciane had been quenched and quiet, enduring Deonara’s sharpness and the shrewish envy of the other women with goodwill and cheerfulness. But Donal for the first time in his life had whole clothing made to his measure, horse and hawk of his own, shared the tutor and the arms-master of Lord Aldaran’s fosterlings and pages. That summer Lady Deonara had borne the last of a series of stillborn sons; and Mikhail, Lord of Aldaran, had taken Aliciane of Rockraven as barragana and sworn to her that her child, male or female, should be legitimated, and be heir to his line, unless he might someday father a legitimate son. She was Lord Aldaran’s acknowledged favorite—even Deonara loved her and had chosen her for her lord’s bed—and Donal shared her eminence. Once, even, Lord Mikhail, gray and terrifying, had called Donal to him, saying he had good reports from tutor and arms-master, and had drawn him into a kindly embrace. “I would indeed you were mine by blood, foster-son. If your mother bears me such a son I will be well content, my boy.”

  Donal had stammered, “I thank you, kinsman,” without the courage, yet, to call the old man “foster-father.” Young as he was, he knew that if his mother should bear Lord Aldaran his only living child, son or daughter, then he would be half-brother to Aldaran’s heir. Already the change in his status had been extreme and marked.

/>   But the impending storm… it seemed to Donal an evil omen for the coming birth. He shivered; this had been a summer of strange storms, lightning bolts from nowhere, ever-present rumblings and crashes. Without knowing why, Donal associated these storms with anger—the anger of his grandsire, Aliciane’s father, when Lord Rockraven had heard of his daughter’s choice. Donal, cowering forgotten in a corner, had heard Lord Rockraven calling her bitch, and whore, and names Donal had understood even less. The old man’s voice had been nearly drowned, that day, by thunder outside, and there had been a crackle of angry lightnings in his mother’s voice, too, as she had shouted back, “What am I to do, then, Father? Bide here at home, mending my own shifts, feeding myself and my son upon your shabby honor? Shall I see Donal grow up to be a mercenary soldier, a hired sword, or dig in your garden for his porridge? You scorn Lady Aldaran’s offer—”

  “It is not Lady Aldaran I scorn,” her father snorted, “but it is not she whom you will serve and you know it as well as I!”

  “And have you found a better offer for me? Am I to marry a blacksmith or charcoal-burner? Better barragana to Aldaran than wife to a tinker or ragpicker!”

  Donal had known he could expect nothing from his grandsire. Rockraven had never been a rich or powerful estate; and it was impoverished because Rockraven had four sons to provide for, and three daughters, of whom Aliciane was the youngest. Aliciane had once said, bitterly, that if a man has no sons, that is tragedy; but if he has too many, then worse for him, for he must see them struggle for his estate.

  Last of his children, Aliciane had been married to a younger son without a title, and he had died within a year of their marriage, leaving Aliciane and the newborn Donal to be reared in strangers’ houses.