The Forbidden Circle Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  THE SPELL SWORD

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE FORBIDDEN TOWER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  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

  EPILOGUE

  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 the Novels of 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

  A 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 HAMMERFELL

  THE FALL OF NESKAYA

  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 restricted 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

  THE 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

  HERITAGE OF HASTUR

  THE PLANET SAVERS

  SHARRA’S EXILE

  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

  RENUNCIATES 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 RENUNCIATES

  omnibus:

  The Shattered Chain / Thendara House / City of Sorcery

  THE FORBIDDEN CIRCLE

  omnibus:

  The Spell Sword / The Forbidden Tower

  THE SPELL SWORD

  Copyright © 1974 by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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sp; eISBN : 978-1-101-15750-3

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  The Spell Sword

  This one is for Caradoc.

  The Forbidden Tower

  For Diana L. Paxson who asked the question which

  directly touched off this book;

  And for Theodore Sturgeon, who first explored the

  questions which, directly or indirectly, underlie

  almost everything I have written.

  Author’s Note On Chronology

  I am always being asked by those who have read anywhere from three to nine of the Darkover books to tell them exactly when and where any given book fits, chronologically, into the series. While I am always grateful for the interest of my readers, usually the only answer I can give is a shrug. I have always tried to make each of the Darkover books so complete that each one can be read by itself, even if the reader has never seen any of the other books before.

  I do not really think of them as a “series” but rather of Darkover as a familiar world about which I like writing novels, and to which the readers seem to like returning. Where absolute consistency might damage the self-sufficiency of any given book, I have quite frankly sacrificed consistency. I make no apologies for this.

  Nothing is more frustrating to me than to read the second, or fourth, or sixth book of a series, and to have the author blandly assume that I have read all his other books and know the whole background. When readers start nitpicking, demanding to know (for instance) why two locations are a day’s journey apart in one book, and three days’ ride in another, I begin to understand why Conan Doyle attempted to throw Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach falls, and why Sax Rohmer repeatedly tried to burn, drown, or dismember Fu Manchu so thoroughly that even the publishers could not resurrect him for another book.

  But for those who have followed, or tried to follow, the chronology of the Terrans on Darkover, I think of this book as coming perhaps thirty years before STAR OF DANGER while Lorill Hastur still ruled Comyn Council and while Valdir Alton, a younger brother of Ellemir and Callista, was away at Council. Readers of the earlier books will remember that Valdir’s adolescent son, Kennard, played an important part in STAR OF DANGER; that Valdir and his Terran foster-son Larry Montray reappeared in WINDS OF DARKOVER, about four years after the previous book. Kennard, grown to manhood, was an important character in THE BLOODY SUN.

  Lerrys Ridenow—a grandson, perhaps, of the Damon in this book—appeared, with Regis Hastur, in THE PLANET SAVERS. Regis Hastur appeared again, with Lew Alton, son of Kennard, in THE SWORD OF ALDONES; and yet again, as a major character, in WORLD WRECKERS which was, so far, the last in chronology of the novels. Some general sense of the elapsed time may be gained by the knowledge that De sideria, who appears in WINDS OF DARKOVER as a girl of sixteen, appears (as a minor character) in WORLD WRECKERS as a woman of great age, possibly over a hundred years old.

  The books were not written in chronological order. SWORD OF ALDONES, late in the series, was actually written first. DARKOVER LANDFALL, which dealt with how the planet was colonized, long before the coming of the Terran Empire, was actually written after WORLD WRECKERS, which otherwise was the last in the series. I prefer to think of it as a loosely interrelated group of novels with a common background—the Terran Empire against the world and culture of Darkover—and a common theme: the clash of two warring cultures, apparently irreconcilable and in spite of all, closely akin. If the books have any message at all, which I personally doubt, it is simply that for a man nothing of mankind is alien.

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  THE SPELL SWORD

  CHAPTER ONE

  He had followed a dream, and it had brought him here to die.

  Half conscious, he lay on the rocks and thin moss of the mountain crevasse, and in his dazed state it seemed to him that the girl he had seen in that earlier dream stood before him. You ought to be laughing, Andrew Carr said to her imagined face. If it weren’t for you I’d be halfway across the galaxy by now.

  Not lying here half dead on a frozen lump of dust at the edge of nowhere.

  But she was not laughing. It seemed that she was standing at the very edge of the lip of rock, the bitter mountain wind blowing her thin blue draperies about her slender body, her hair bright red and gleaming, long about her delicate features. Just as he had seen her before, in the dream, but she was not laughing. Her delicate face looked pale and stern.

  And it seemed that she spoke, although the dying man knew—knew—that her voice could not be anything but the echo of the wind in his fevered brain.

  “Stranger, stranger, I did not mean you harm; it was none of my calling or my doing that brought you to this pass! True, I called you—or rather I called to anyone who could hear me, and it was you. But those above us both know that I meant you no ill! The winds, the storms, these are not under my command. I will do what I may to save you, but I have no power in these mountains.”

  It seemed to Andrew Carr that he flung angry words back at her. I’m mad, he thought, or maybe already dead, lying here exchanging insults with a ghost-girl.

  “You say you called me? But what of the others in my ship? You called them too, perhaps? And brought them here to die in the crosswinds of the Hellers? Does death by wholesale give you any pleasure, you ghoul-girl?”

  “That isn’t fair!” Her imagined words were like a cry of anguish and her ghost-face on the wind twisted as if she were about to weep. “I did not call them; they came in the path where their work and their destiny led. Only you had the choice to come, or not to come, because of my call; you chose to come, and to share whatever fate their destiny held for them. I will save you if I can; for them, their time is ended and their destiny was never at my disposal. You I can save, if you will hear me, but you must rouse yourself. Rouse yourself!” It was like a wild cry of despair. “You will die if you lie here longer! Rouse yourself and take shelter, for the winds and the storms are not mine to command. . . .”

  Andrew Carr opened his eyes and blinked. As he had known all along, he was alone, lying battered on the mountain ledges in the wreckage of the mapping plane. The girl—if she had ever been there at all—was gone.

  Rouse yourself and take shelter, for the winds and the storms are not mine to command. That was, of course, a damn good idea, if he could manage it. Shelter. Where he lay, under a fragment of the smashed cabin of the mapping plane, was no place to meet the bitter night of this strange planet. He’d been warned about the weather here when he first came to Cottman IV—only a lunatic would stay out in the nights during the storm season.

  He fought again, with a last desperate effort, to free the ankle which was caught, like the leg of a trapped animal, in twisted metal. This time he felt the metal crumple and give a little, and, although the ripping pain grew greater, tearing skin and flesh, he wrenched grimly at the caught foot in the darkness. Now he could move enough to bend over and move the leg with his hands. Torn clothing and torn flesh were slippery with blood which was already beginning to stiffen in the icy cold. When he touched the jagged metal his bare hands burned like fire, but now he could guide the wounded leg upward, avoiding the worst jagged edges of metal. Now, with a gasp of mingled agony and relief, his foot was free; blood-covered, boot and clothing torn, cut to the bone, but free; he was trapped no longer. He struggled to his feet, to be beaten again to his knees by a gust of the icy, sleet-laden wind that whipped around a corner of the rock-ledge.

  Crawling, to present less body surface to the wind, he crept inside the cabin of the mapping plane. It was swaying dangerously in the battering wind, and he immediately abandoned any thought of taking shelter in here. If the wind got any worse, the whole damn thing would catapult down at least a thousand feet into the invisible valley below. Part of it, he thought, had already gone with the first crash. B
ut finding himself still alive, beyond all expectations, he had to be sure there was no other survivor.

  Stanforth was dead, of course. He must have been killed in the very first shock; nothing could survive with that gaping hole in its forehead. Andrew shut his eyes against the ghastly sight of the man’s brains frozen and spilled all over his face. The two mappers—one was called Mattingly; he had never known the other’s name—were twisted limp on the floor, and when he cautiously crawled across the jiggling balance of the cabin to find if any spark of life remained in either, it was only to feel the bodies already cold and stiffened in rigor. There was no sign of the pilot. He must have gone down with the nose of the plane, into that awful chasm below them.

  So he was alone. Cautiously, Andrew backed out of the cabin; then, steeling himself, reentered it again. There was food in the plane—not much, a day’s rations, lunches, Mattingly’s hoard of sweets and candies, which he had so generously passed around and which they had all laughingly refused; emergency supplies in a marked panel behind the door. He dragged them all out, and, shaking with terror, set himself to wrench Mattingly’s huge topcoat off the stiffening corpse. It made his stomach turn—robbing the dead!—but Mattingly’s topcoat, a great expensive fur thing, was of no use to its owner and it might mean the difference between life and death in the terrible oncoming night.

  When he edged out of the hideously shaking cabin for the last time, he was trembling and sick, and his torn, cut leg, no longer mercifully numb, was beginning to tear at him with claws of pain. He carefully backed away against the inner edge of the cliff, piling his hard-won provisions close to the rock-face.

  It occurred to him that he should make one final essay inside the plane. Stanforth, Mattingly, and the nameless other man had carried identification, their disks from the Terran Empire Service. If he lived, if he came again to the Port, this would serve as proof of their death and mean something to their kinfolk. Wearily, he dragged himself forward.