A Flame in Hali Read online

  Set on top was a disk of fired clay, a token to one of the local bathhouses. Gathering up the clean clothes and token, Eduin pulled on his jacket and slipped into the street. He recognized the establishment by the stylized rabbit-horn on its sign, twin to the one stamped on the reverse of the token.

  The woman who guarded the door inspected the token. “This one includes soap, towels, and shave. Haircut’s extra.” She squinted at him.

  He thought of telling her he hadn’t stolen the token, as she so clearly suspected. He had spent too much of his life creating trouble where there was none. The last thing he wanted was to be hauled before the cortes for trying to steal a bath. “That will be fine,” he said meekly.

  The tub was barely an arm’s length across. Its wooden walls had gone velvety with age and stank of sulfur, but he didn’t care. The water was deep enough to cover his shoulders. Looking down, he scarcely recognized the body as his own. When had he become so wasted, his skin so sickly pale and pocked with the small red bites of body lice? Where had the scars over his ribs come from—some altercation with a man who had even less reason to live than he had?

  Sighing, he rested his head against the rim of the tub as the heat sank deep into his muscles. His hair trailed into the water.

  How long he lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, he could not tell. The water grew cool. He roused himself, noticing the puckered skin on his hands, and reached for the soap. By the time he had lathered his body twice and his hair three times, the water was scummy with grime. A bucket of rinse water stood in the corner. He hauled himself out and doused himself, though it left him shivering. He dried himself on the coarse towels left for his use and wadded his old clothes into a bundle. Filthy as they were, they might be worth a reis or two for rags.

  Dressed now in the clean clothes, he folded a small bundle into the waist of his pants. His fingers lingered upon it for a moment. Within its wrapping of grime-stiffened silk lay the one possession he could never sell, no matter how desperate. Although its discovery would surely betray him as an outlaw laranzu, he dared not let it leave his person. The pale blue starstone had been given to him upon his arrival at Arilinn Tower. Throughout his training, he had used it to concentrate and amplify his laran, so that it had become a crystalline extension of his own mind. Were it to be lost or stolen, or fall into the hands of anyone but a Keeper, the shock might well stop his heart.

  Eduin couldn’t remember the last time he had been shaved by someone else. The barber, a wiry old man with more hairs jutting from the warts on his chin than from his head, hummed as he worked. When he reached for Eduin’s still-damp hair, Eduin protested that he had not paid for a haircut.

  “Ah, but it would be a crime to let you go, so clean and fine, with locks like these. You couldn’t pick out those tangles, not even with a horse comb. Besides, a man likes to take pride in his work.”

  Eduin mumbled his gratitude, for it was not merely the haircut that deserved thanks, but the man’s kindness. It had been a long time since his life had included such luxuries.

  He spent the next few hours wandering the streets. The neighborhood was familiar, yet it seemed he had never seen anything above the gutters. When he returned to the room, he found the door ajar.

  A man, tall and thin, looked up from where he was bending over the table. He wore a short cloak with a hood pulled snugly about his face. Eduin had no doubt this was his mysterious rescuer.

  “I am glad you came back,” he said, “so that I might thank you for all you have done for me.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” came the reply. The voice sounded familiar, as if he had heard it in his sodden dreams. “For like has called to like, and mind answered mind.”

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eduin stammered, suddenly alarmed.

  “But you do. For who else but a fellow laranzu would recognize what you truly are?”

  The man reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing an angular, weathered face and a head of the bright red hair of the psychically Gifted Comyn.

  2

  Adrenaline shot along Eduin’s nerves, terror born of years of hiding. Only a member of the Comyn, Darkover’s telepathic caste, would have such flaming red hair or be able to pick up Eduin’s own laran. Eduin could hardly remember half the things he’d done during the past year, yet he would have staked his life—for what little that was worth—that his psychic shields had not slipped. They were as much a part of him as his own breath or the sound of his heart in the stillness before the dawn. From the earliest stirrings of his powers, he had been drilled in keeping his innermost secrets. And so he had, even from his own Keepers at Arilinn and Hali. If those men, the most powerful and highly trained telepaths on Darkover, had not been able to penetrate his barriers, then surely this bedraggled stranger could not, regardless of his bold words or the color of his hair.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eduin repeated.

  “Let us not descend to petty games,” the stranger said. “We hold each other’s fate in our hands. I am called Saravio.”

  Eduin’s glance flickered once more to the man’s flame-colored hair and to the hood now lying about his shoulders. I am called, he’d said. Not, I am or My name is. What was he hiding? Could he also be a renegade from a Tower with a price on his head? Did he guess that Eduin was in a similar position?

  “You can call me Eduin,” he said, keeping his voice mild.

  Saravio had not offered his family name, which need not have any devious intent. Many illegitimate offspring of great Comyn lords found a home in the laran circles. There, at least, a man’s ability counted more than his titles.

  After a pause, Eduin asked, “By the way, which Tower did you train at?”

  “Truth for truth, my friend. I will name my Tower if you name yours.”

  “What makes you think I trained at a Tower?” Eduin snapped. “You found me in a gutter, hardly a fitting place for a mighty laranzu.”

  Saravio laughed. “And your hair is the color of mud and not of fire, but what of that? Keep your secrets, then, and drink yourself to death or freeze because you have not the wit to come in from the storm. If, on the other hand—” In a quicksilver shift of mood, his eyes narrowed. “—if you have been sent to spy on me, you will wish you had given yourself to the snow.”

  Without warning, Eduin felt a burst of psychic power from the other man’s mind. He recoiled. Telepathic contact meant discovery, and discovery meant death. Instinctively, he parried the probe, reaching for skills he had not used since he left Hestral Tower.

  Ah! Then you are an exile, like myself. Saravio’s mental touch was gentler this time, compassionate.

  This is not safe, Eduin muttered silently. There was no escape. He had already revealed himself. Yet what had the other man said about each of them holding the other’s fate? Curiosity stirred.

  “Are you a fugitive, too?” He spoke aloud, for the ingrained fear of mental communication was still strong. If Saravio had picked up his unguarded thought, he gave no outward sign.

  “In a sense,” Saravio replied. “There is no price upon my head, if that’s what you mean. I am an outcast by my own conscience.” He glanced at the paper-covered windows and the city beyond.

  “My Tower, Cedestri, cast me out,” he added in a voice low and poignant. “For they had become agents of evil.”

  Eduin frowned. Cedestri Tower was, he believed, some two or three days’ journey from Thendara in the direction of the Dry Towns. During the brief time he was at Hali, he had heard it mentioned as researching the extraction of trace minerals from sand, hardly dangerous or controversial.

  Saravio’s eyes went unfocused. “When the rebuilt Towers of Neskaya and Tramontana signed the Hastur’s accursed Compact, many who could not abide by it found a welcome at Cedestri Tower. But in the end, Cedestri proved no more enlightened than any other. They dismissed me.”

  “The reach of the Hasturs is long,” Eduin said, choosing hi
s words carefully, probing for a response. “I fear there will come a time when all Darkover bows under the yoke of their rule and the Towers will become their pawns.” He lowered himself to the pallet. “I am no friend to the Hasturs or their Compact.”

  Once he might have been, for he had known Carolin Hastur when they were boys together at Arilinn Tower, where the young Prince spent a season during the time Eduin received his first training. Despite himself, he had liked Carolin, with his easy generous ways. He wondered if that was why he had never succeeded in ending Carolin’s life, or if that had been a combination of bad luck and the infernal meddling of Carolin’s other friend, Varzil Ridenow.

  Saravio sat down. “What is your story, friend? Why do you hate the Hasturs?”

  Where could he possibly begin? Better to keep to the latest incident, Eduin decided. His outlawry was more than sufficient reason to harbor a grudge against the Hastur family.

  “In the days of King Carolin’s exile,” Eduin began, “Rakhal the Usurper sent an army to force Hestral Tower, where I had lately come, to make clingfire for his wars.”

  Briefly, Eduin told what happened next. The Keeper of Hestral Tower had refused, saying the old stockpiles of the caustic incendiary had been destroyed and he would make no more. Neither would he use the immense psychic force of his trained circle to actively defend the Tower. He was content to merely nullify each attack and hope that with time, Rakhal’s men would go on to easier prey. Remembering, Eduin felt an echo of his outrage.

  Days of siege had followed one another, with starvation drawing ever nearer. Finally, made desperate by the Keeper’s inaction, Eduin seized the opportunity to defeat Rakhal’s army. In secret, he assembled a circle of the strongest workers. Together, they sent spells of terror and madness into the minds of the enemy. He would have succeeded if he had not been discovered and taken prisoner by Varzil Ridenow.

  Eduin made no effort to keep the bitterness from his voice as he related this part of the story. In retaliation, Hastur had ordered Hali Tower into the battle. With the very foundations of Hestral Tower crumbling beneath him, Eduin had escaped his imprisonment.

  As Eduin concluded his story, Saravio nodded, his lips pressed together. In that moment, Eduin recognized a sort of kinship.

  We are like brothers, he thought, made unfit for the ordinary world by our talents and training, cast out by those very Towers that made us, forced into a life of hiding.

  It had been so very long since another human being had understood what it was like. Even his father—

  Eduin broke off the thought. One hand went unconsciously to his temple. “I thank you for your help last night. Now I will be on my way.”

  He dared not linger. The risk of discovery was too great, for even another fugitive might be tempted by the rewards of betrayal. Zandru knew, there had been enough times when Eduin would have sold himself for the price of another drink.

  Keep moving, stay out of sight, had been his watch-words since that desperate flight from Hestral Tower.

  He closed the door behind him. With any luck, they would never meet again.

  Outside, the brightness of the day stung Eduin’s eyes. Otherwise, he felt remarkably well. How long that would last, he could not tell. He would use the time to scrabble together some money, perhaps rent a room such as this, lie low for as long as he could.

  For the next two days, he found work hauling water and charcoal for a smith whose apprentice was laid up with lung fever, earning a meal and a room for the night. The urge to drink gnawed at him from time to time, but he forced himself to ignore it. Instead, he curled up on the straw pallet in the shed behind the smithy, hugging himself, holding on. As long as the pressure in his head did not return, he repeated to himself, he would be all right. He could think, begin to plan.

  Hours crept by. At night, he roused to gulp water from the ice-crusted bucket and crawl shivering back to bed. Lying there, waiting for sleep to return, he thought of the dream of light and song. Already, the memory was fading. He could not quite remember where he had been or with whom he had danced, why he had felt such soaring joy. His heart ached with a longing he had no desire to drown in drink. Instead, he clasped it to him like a precious thing, that half-remembered beauty.

  Midway through the third day, the smith had no further need for him. Eduin decided to try one of the livery stables, where he had found work mucking out stalls when he was not too drunk. A couple of them might still hire him. As he made his way to that district, something shifted within him, like a cloud passing before the sun. Pressure brushed his temples and his belly tightened.

  Kill the Hasturs . . . Kill them all . . .

  No, it could not be. Not after so many days.

  Failed . . . whispered the familiar, relentless voice. You have failed.

  His stomach knotted. Bile filled his mouth. He shook like a palsied man. Gods, he wanted a drink. He needed a drink.

  Before he could reach the nearest tavern, the compulsion struck again in full force. He staggered, falling against the side of the building. The edges of rock and mortar jabbed his side through the layers of his clothing. His thoughts cleared, pain pushing back the craving for an instant. The desire for drink receded a fraction and an even deeper craving came roaring up in his belly, the crushing urgency to find—to destroy—

  Kill . . . K-k-kill ... The syllable fractured like the clacking pincers of a Dry Towns scorpion.

  Crying out, he crumpled against the wall. Though he tore at his face with his hands or covered his ears or drank an ocean of ale, he could not shut out the silent, insistent demand.

  Escape was impossible. It always had been. What a fool he had been, to think it might be otherwise.

  Despair raced through him, wave after wave so deep he could not contain it. How long he lay there, half propped against the crude wall, half sprawled in the muck of the gutter, he could not tell.

  Eventually, his thoughts began to stir, along with renewed thirst.

  Drink—drink would ease the noose around his soul. Just this once. Not enough to get stinking drunk, just to take the edge off so he could think straight.

  A couple of hours mucking out stalls at one of the poorer stables and the sale of his bundle of filthy clothes brought him enough to buy a pitcher of ale, the cheapest he could find.

  In the ale house, Eduin found a rickety table jammed against a corner that smelled of mildew. At the bar, men quaffed their drinks and laughed, telling coarse stories. He was content to be left alone.

  He drank quickly at first, as he usually did. The first gulps scoured his throat as they went down. He closed his eyes, waiting for the familiar warmth to seep into his belly. Another gulp, and then another. Soon he no longer tasted the stuff; his throat seemed to open up and draw it in. Relief spread through him, a softening of the driving need. Sighing, he poured the last of the pitcher into his tankard and downed it.

  He staggered only a little as he went up to the bar for another. One of the men was telling a story about a drunken farmer and his long-suffering chervine. Eduin found himself laughing, a chuckle that shook his body, rolling through him. Someone slapped him on the back. “Another round for this fine fellow.”

  Eduin accepted another full tankard and lifted it in salute. It flowed down his throat like honey. Someone began a song, others stamping or clapping their hands with the beat.

  “Here’s to the man who drinks good ale

  And treats his friends as well, oh!

  Here’s to the man who drinks good ale

  For he’s a carefree fellow . . .”

  Eduin slapped down the last of his earnings for another pitcher. One song rolled into the next. He retreated to his corner, content to hum along from the shadows. The world went swimmy except for the blessed stillness inside. Slumping against the wall, he cradled the pitcher. It sloshed reassuringly and then it did not slosh at all. He tipped it over. In his doubling sight, it seemed to be empty.

  That did not matter, it was enough to simply
sit here . . . to lie here, on the floor, wedged in between table leg and wall, his body curled around a knot of blissful silence.

  Voices reached him, but he waved them away, Let me sleep. They went away for a time, then returned, more annoying and insistent than before.

  “On your feet, friend . . .” The voice—voices—had a peculiar echoing quality. “Closing time. Do you have a place to go?”

  Then he was upright, hard hands digging into his armpits, the world tilting and whirling about him. His legs moved beneath him as if they belonged to someone else.

  “Lea’ me alone . . .” So warm, so still.

  “I’ll take care of him.” The voice was ale-roughened but familiar—the man who’d bought the round of drinks.

  “How ’bout another?” Eduin asked.

  “Better take him to the King’s shelters,” the man said, placing a hand on Eduin’s shoulder. “Out of the cold, just the place—”

  No! There would be Comyn youth serving as cadets, City Guard everywhere. He’d be recognized—

  Eduin jerked away. “Don’ need no charity. Not from you, not from no stink—no king!”

  “Easy there, friend. We’re just trying to help—”

  “I can get home—jus’ fine—on my own.” Eduin rushed for the door before they could stop him.

  A blast of cold, damp air shocked across his face. He fought to keep on his feet, staggered a handful of steps, then collapsed in a tangle. He hauled himself upright, twisting back toward the ale house. A man stood silhouetted against the brightness inside.

  Then the rectangle of yellow light winked into shadow.

  Eduin saw only a few lights, the faint flickering of candles from windows high above, a single torch burning low in the next block. No moons shone, nor any stars. A wind, ice-tipped, sprang up, threatening worse to come.

  Find someplace dry and out of the wind, he urged himself. Then sleep, just sleep . . .

  Half-crawling, half-stumbling, he worked his way toward the guttering torch. The few doors he passed were shut tight. He searched for an archway, an alcove, anything that would provide a little shelter. None appeared, but now it did not really matter. The night was not so very cold. The wind was no more than a little breeze. His body came to rest, all of its own, under an overhanging eave. From the edge of his vision, he watched the torchlight sputter and go out.