A FLAME IN HALI.

The Clingfire Trilogy.

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY AND.

DEBORAH J. ROSS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Special thanks, once again, to my editor, Betsy Wollheim, to Ann Sharp of The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Trust, to Sherwood Smith, and to a multitude of others who have shown me how life can be lived with dignity, respect, and serenity.

DISCLAIMER.

The observant reader may note discrepancies in some details from more contemporary tales. This is undoubtedly due to the fragmentary histories which survive to the present day. Many records were lost during the years following the Ages of Chaos and Hundred Kingdoms and others distorted by oral tradition.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

Immensely generous with "her special world" of Darkover, Marion loved encouraging new writers. We were already friends when she began editing the DARKOVER and SWORD & SORCERESS anthologies. The match between my natural literary "voice" and what she was looking for was extraordinary. She loved to read what I loved to write, and she often cited "The Death of Brendan Ensolare" (FOUR MOONS OFDARKOVER, DAW, 1988) as one of her favorites.

As Marion's health declined, I was invited to work with her on one or more Darkover novels. We -decided that rather than extend the story of "modern"

Darkover, we would return to the Ages of Chaos. Marion envisioned a trilogy beginning with the Hastur Rebellion and A FLAME IN HALI, the enduring friendship between Varzil the Good and Carolin Hastur, culminating in the signing of the Compact. While I scribbled notes as fast as I could, she would sit back, eyes alight, and begin a story with, "Now, the Hasturs tried to control the worst excesses of laran weapons, but there were always others under development . . ." or "Of course, Varzil and Carolin had been brought up on tales of star-crossed lovers who perished in the destruction of Neskaya ..."

Here is that tale.

Deborah J. Ross

PROLOGUE

Rumail Deslucido had cheated death before, but now it had come for him at last. He lay on a cot, as sagging and creaking as his failing body, in the dingy room that had been his refuge and his prison, and waited. Each breath had become a battle to suck air into his scarred lungs. With each passing moment, his heart stuttered as if it, too, trembled with the exhaustion of having lived too long.

The door opened and the girl from the village stepped in, carrying a basket of bread and an earthenware jar. He sipped the broth as she spooned it for him, then lay back. She spoke to him, things of little consequence, not worth the effort of listening. Her voice faded, mingling with the memories of other voices. Sometimes he spoke with men long dead-his royal brother ...

Ah! There was the unbowed golden head, the eyes brimming with fire and victory. Once again, they stood together on a balcony while below them, the white-and-black-diamond-patterned banners of Deslucido rippled in the breeze. The morning sun burnished the King's hair to a natural crown. He spoke, and his words painted visions in Rumail's mind, hope for a time when these Hundred Kingdoms might be united into a single harmonious realm. No more incessant warfare, no more petty bickering while men bled out their lives upon the ruined fields. Rumail's laran talents would be celebrated, his place as Keeper of his own Tower, so long denied by those head-blind purists, secure___ The bright sky darkened, the vision blew away like winter-dried leaves, and now Rumail stood on the battlefield at Drycreek, where his brother's army had clashed with that of King Rafael Hastur. His brother's soldiers paused to gaze skyward. Hovering above the enemy, Rumail's mechanical birds released showers of glowing green particles, as eerily beautiful as they were deadly: bonewater dust, forged by the concentrated power of Gifted minds, bought at great cost from a renegade circle.

Even as Rumail watched the luminous poison drift toward the unsuspecting enemy, he wished there had been some other way to stop the Hastur King and his witch-born niece, Taniquel Hastur-Acosta. By treachery and psi- wielding servants of their own, they had turned the tide of battle.

I had no choice. None of us had a choice.

Rumail had relived the scene a thousand times, from the first moment victory slipped away with the sudden shift of the wind that blew the bonewater dust back upon their own forces. As if it were yesterday, he remembered that mad scramble of retreat, men and beasts perishing within a heartbeat, with thousands more doomed to a lingering death. He himself had narrowly escaped. Wounded, barely able to maintain a psychic shield against the toxic dust, he had clung to the merest shred of hope.

He should have perished there, immobilized and helpless. But he did not.

He had escaped death then, as he had before, as he would again. The gods had another destiny for him, not as one more nameless body on a field no one dared cross for a generation or more.

Now, in his memory, he stood high upon a Tower balcony, wrapped in the crimson robes of a Keeper. At last, he commanded a circle of his own, and no matter how its workers might despise him, they would obey. Their Tower was sworn to his brother the King, and it was by his orders they now mounted their attack upon a Hastur Tower.

Screams echoed through the caverns of Rumail's mind. Around him, walls shuddered under blasts of psychic lightning as each Tower unleashed its terrible weapons upon the other. Stones burst into unnatural flame. He sensed the dying minds of his own workers and, echoed from afar, those of their enemies. Blue flames shot skyward, rocking the foundations.

Rumail remembered stumbling from the ruined Tower, wandering in a daze, now a disembodied spirit in the Overworld, now ragged and half- starved, through the wild lands where none knew him.

Now the memories flickered through his mind like candles guttering in a winter wind. He looked upon the homely village woman he had taken to wife, gazed down upon the rounded face of a newborn son, then another and another. The years blurred together. He looked upon the bright eyes of his sons and his own vengeance mirrored in them. Felt a distant wrench as his oldest son's mind flared and fell into silence. Saw the weathered face of a traveling tinker, bringing news that King Rafael Hastur had died under mysterious circumstances.

Heard the voice of his second son: "Father, Felix Hastur of Carcosa has claimed the throne and he has a healthy heir, his nephew Carolin."

"Then Carolin, too, must die," Rumail had said, "so that their line be obliterated. I will send my youngest son, my Eduin, to Arilinn Tower, there to train as a laranzu, the perfect weapon against this Hastur Prince."

Eduin...

"La! There!" said the village girl, smoothing the hair back from Rumail's forehead. "Feeling better, are we?" He had no energy to favor her with a response, for the past pressed even closer now.

The face of his youngest son drifted behind Rumail's closed eyelids and it seemed that once more he wandered in delirium, his body racked to the core with lung fever, his lungs weakened by his battlefield ordeal. When word reached Arilinn of his illness, Eduin had rushed to his side. Rumail felt the touch of his son's trained laran.

Father, please! You must live, if only to see yourself avenged upon the Hasturs!

Live ... he heard his own mental voice, dim and far off. Yes, I must live. And make sure that next time, you do not fail me.

Eduin had cringed under the mental onslaught. His weakness, his guilt shone through. Rumail stormed through each memory, each moment of betrayal. When Carolin spent a season training at Arilinn Tower, Eduin had a dozen chances to strike-a slip of the knife, a fall from a balcony, a heart suddenly stopped as his fingers closed around Carolin's starstone. ... At each crucial moment, however, something had stayed his hand.

It wasn't my fault! Eduin had cried. Always, Varzil Ridenow interfered, suspected me, protected Carolin___ No excuses!With all the force of his Tower-trained mind, Rumail struck.

Eduin, caught between desperation and hope, was without defense. Rumail penetrated his son's mind, deep into the core of his laran talent, grasped and twisted....

You will know no rest or joy until Carolin Hastur and everyone who aided him is dead.

When the deed was done, Rumail had opened his eyes to see his two remaining sons, Eduin the laranzu and Gwynn the assassin. Eduin had become his instrument, wedded utterly to his purpose.

Rumail sent his sons back into the world. "Find the child of Taniquel! Kill Carolin Hastur and anyone who stands in your way!

Fragments of laranmemories rose in Rumail's memory, things he had sensed from afar, linked to the minds of his sons. Gwynn struggled on a muddy riverbank with Carolin, then locked in a psychic battle with Varzil Ridenow, who had foiled the assassination attempt. Varzil's mind pressed against his:Who sent you?

Who?

Even now, Rumail heard the echoes of Gwynn's final, anguished thoughts: WE WILL BE AVENGED!.

From afar, Eduin surged with triumph as he uncovered the identity of Felicia Hastur-Acosta; his hands moved, setting a deadly trap-matrix; he fled the ruins of Hestral Tower, hunted ... outlawed ... Rumail could no longer tell whether these memories were Eduin's or his own-the cold, the fear, the constant need to hide, to keep moving....

Father, I am here ... waiting for you....

Rumail blinked, as one vision overlapped another. Gwynn beckoned to him, and behind that ghostly form stood another, the sons he had lost in his quest for vengeance. In each face, he saw the light of recognition and welcome.

There his brother stood, golden and kingly, beside his own son and heir ...

there the general who had led them . . . there the men fallen under the bonewater dust. Waiting, all waiting for him to join them.

I cannot die, not yet, not while Carolin Hastur still sits on his throne! What accursed sorcery guards him?

Eduin's shadowy form shimmered in the old man's sight.

You were right, my son. Without Varzil Ridenow, you would have succeeded.

With the dregs of his strength, Rumail struggled for speech, but could not form the words. His vocal cords, like his body, had gone numb. Grayness lapped at him, hungering.

We are waiting for you....

"Sir, you must rest." A light voice, girlish.

Rest. Soon enough. Rumail closed his eyes, summoning the laran that had once been his in full measure. He had trained at Neskaya Tower before its fall, before Varzil the Good had rebuilt it with the help of Carolin Hastur. He could have been a Keeper in his own right. Should have.

No time for that now. His thoughts were becoming disjointed, falling into rust.

The Hasturs. Must be destroyed, he sent. Kill them ... kill them all! Across the leagues, he sensed Eduin's response.

Varzil Ridenow, Rumail insisted, even as his thoughts frayed into tatters.

He is the key to Carolin's power. Without his strength ... Hastur will fall....

Yes, Eduin replied, with a hatred that mirrored Rumail's own.

Avenge us ... the ghostly figures pressed even closer now, their voices growing as strong as if they stood before him. Join us ...

"Swear-" Rumail could not be sure whether he projected the command mentally or spoke it aloud. His breath whispered through his throat, the faintest of sighs. "Swear it will be done!"

The grayness rose about him and the faces grew clearer, their skin and clothing as colorless as the landscape beyond. The Overworld closed its jaws about him, and this time there would be no return.

I... swear...

BOOK I.

1

That year, the long Darkovan winter seemed to last forever. Month after month, ice clouds masked the swollen Bloody Sun. Snow fell, hardened like glass, and then fell again, until the compacted layers encased the land in armor. The passes through the Venza Hills above Thendara closed. Even traders, whose livelihood depended upon travel, lost all desire to venture beyond the city walls. Comyn lords and commoners alike barricaded themselves behind their doors, hunkering down for the season.

Midwinter Festival came, and with it, a flurry of merrymaking. King Carolin Hastur threw open the doors of his great hall for a tenday, with music and feasting enough to lift the heart of the meanest street beggar. He had but lately moved his seat from Hali, where his grandfather had ruled, to the larger metropolis of Thendara. Hastur Kings had lived here, too, the last being Rafael II at the time of the Hastur Rebellion. By moving his court to Thendara, Carolin let the people know that he meant to rule all of Hastur.

He was no longer Hastur of Carcosa or Hastur of Hali, but High King in Thendara. To celebrate his new seat, he distributed holiday largesse with a generosity that inspired thanksgiving in some quarters and suspicion in others. When he appeared in public, whether addressing Comyn lords or commoners, he spoke of the Compact that would bring about a new age of peace and honor for all of Darkover.

The traffic of carts and wagons through the traders' gates dwindled. Grain merchants raised their prices, hoarding their shrinking supplies. One bleak gray tenday followed another, and the festivities blurred into memory, pale against the unrelenting cold. King Carolin established a series of shelters, much like those maintained along mountain trails for travelers, where poor people might find refuge in the bitter nights.

Distributions from the royal granaries to the poor continued for a time. On those days, people gathered in the darkness before dawn, shivering in their layers of woolen cloaks and shawls, jackets and much-patched blankets, clutching their jars and baskets. Their breath rose like plumes of mist. On some mornings, each was given a portion of grain, dried beans, and a measure of cooking oil or sometimes honey. Lately, there had not been enough for everyone.

Thick dark clouds hung low above the city, as if the sky itself were frowning.

The King's guards, warmly clad in Hastur blue and silver, cleared the area in front of the doors and tunneled the people forward, one by one. They gave preference to the weakest, the women and the elderly. More than one man was turned away, especially those wearing thick, fur-lined wool over their ample bellies.

"Why throw away good food on the likes of them?" shouted a man who had been pushed to the side. He pointed to a woman clutching a pottery jar now filled with grain. Her skirts and shawls were so threadbare that several layers showed through in patches. She looked like an overdressed doll, except for the pinched thinness of her cheeks; clearly, she wore every tattered garment she owned.

"She'll only waste it-"

"And you'll only sell it to some wretch who's even poorer or more desperate," the guard at his elbow replied. "The King means this food to go to those who truly need it. You don't look to me like you've ever gone hungry."

"Zandru's scorpions upon you!" Cursing, the man jerked his arm free from the guard's grasp.

"Not so long ago," one of them grumbled, meaning the reign of King Carolin's cousin, Rakhal, "things were different. There were avenues open to a sufficiently resourceful man, bargains to be made, favors exchanged.

More than one of us had a friend in the castle. But those times are gone.

There's no doing business with Carolin's bunch." He shrugged philosophically. "As soon as the roads open in the spring, I'm off for Temora. There's nothing here for the likes of us."

"You mean we'll have to turn honest to earn our bread!" a third man joked.

Waving to the others, he disappeared down one of the side streets.

"They don't go hungry. Or cold, or in want of any comfort." A stranger who had been standing a little apart from the others moved forward. He glanced toward Hastur Castle and then the rich residences of the Comyn lords. The sun was not yet full up and shadows lay in frigid pools along the streets.

Tower and Castle blazed with light, powered by laran-charged batteries.

"They throw us a bit of bread and expect us to be grateful. All the while they sit up there with their satin cushions and their heated rooms and their matrix screens. Poison and plague and spells of torment, they care nothing- nothing-"

"Come, friend," the man bound for Temora said, holding out his arm.

"Come. I'll buy you a drink."

"A drink will not cure what ails this city." The hooded man pulled away, lips drawn back in a snarl. The hood of his shabby cloak partly masked his face, revealing only the line of an angular, cold-roughened chin.

The other man paused, eyes narrowing in appraisal. The stranger's clothes, though stained and torn, had once been of good quality, and he did not hold himself like a man accustomed to the gutters.