Best of all, in a place like that, no one would ask questions.

12

Carolin would not permit Varzil to travel outside the bounds of Hastur lands undefended, even on a diplomatic mission. Their party, therefore, was heavily armed. Varzil seemed to know all of the men within a few hours, quickly putting them at their ease. Clearly, he was no stranger to armies, adapting himself to their routine without complaint.

Dyannis, for her part, had traveled very little beyond the family estate of Sweetwater and Hali, so the journey to Cedestri offered an unexpected adventure. Despite her lingering moments of doubt, her spirits rose along with her curiosity once they were on the road. Even the necessity of a proper chaperone, a lady of unimpeachable rectitude from Carolin's own court, could not diminish her pleasure at seeing new territory. Everything, from the fields and hills to the tents and picket lines, presented a novelty. Barley and wheat rippled in the breeze. Dyannis passed orchards of nut trees and crabbed apple, spied rabbithorns scurrying for shelter in the hedgerows.

She passed low walls of tumbled stone, fish ponds, and streams. Here, under the protection of King Carolin, the land seemed to dream of its own riches. She caught Varzil's prayer that some day all of Darkover might know such peace.

From the first night on the road, she and Varzil dined together, sitting within the comfort of his tent and talking through the evening. In slow steps, they resumed the easy intimacy of their childhood. Watching him pause with his spoon in midair, eyes blank with some inner fancy, she recognized the odd, dreamy boy he had been, still hidden within the legendary Keeper.

In his company, the guilt that had gnawed at her eased, and she found herself laughing at her own jokes. Lady Helaina looked up from where she sat, a proper distance removed, on her backless stool, her body as straight and poised as if a wooden rod had been placed through her spine, and smiled.

They went on in this manner for a tenday, as farms grew scarcer and pastures gave way to rocky slopes. Dyannis realized that Varzil was waiting for the right moment to bring up some serious topic. She sat with him in his tent, the flaps lifted to admit the evening breeze while, in the camp beyond them, men and horses settled down for the night.

Twilight still hung upon the air, a milky swath across the western horizon.

Beyond the camp, hills rose like jagged teeth; tomorrow would bring a hard climb, but for this hour, they sat at ease, sipping the last of their measured wine. Lady Helaina had set aside her embroidery and clasped her hands tightly in her lap, her eyes fixed upon the horizon.

In the camp outside, horses nickered on the picket line, men joked with one another and someone began singing a ballad in a rumbly bass voice, accompanied by a reed flute.

Varzil had been wise to wait, Dyannis thought, and keep his thoughts from her. Any earlier, and she would have seized upon any hint of a serious conversation with a renewed spasm of self-recrimination. Now she sat back, feeling the leather straps of her camp chair flex under the movement, and gently asked what was troubling him.

Varzil smiled. "It is no trouble to me, little sister, although there are many who would find it exceedingly vexing."

"Oh, my!" She laughed despite herself at the image from his mind, a covey of old men and women, trying to hide their scandalized expressions and maintain their dignity.

Lady Helaina took the occasion to excuse herself. Picking up her stool, she withdrew to the edge of light cast from the tent lanterns.

"It is no secret," Varzil said, leaning toward Dyannis, "though many would like to keep it so. For the past five years, I have been quietly looking for a way to begin training women as Keepers."

"Oh, surely that's not possible!" burst from her lips.

"Yes, that's what I was taught, as were you. But why should it be so? With a little care to her cycles, a leronismay do any work as well as a laranzu. Is Ellimara not as competent a monitor as any man? Are you not as strong a telepath as Alderic or Lewis-Mikhail?"

"Certainly she is, and so am I," Dyannis protested in a furious whisper, "but Varzil, you're talking about becoming a Keeper!"

"How is that different from any other work if one is qualified for it?" he demanded. "I did not take on the mantle of godhood when I completed my training, nor did Raimon, nor any of us! It is a skill that any Comyn,man or woman, can learn if they have the aptitude and the dedication. For that matter, any one with the talent, regardless of lineage."

Dyannis downed the rest of her wine in a single gulp. "Now that is something that really will stir up the guardians of propriety-training commoners? Varzil, you will turn the entire world upon its head!"

"I mean to," he replied with the impish grin she remembered so well, "but not all at once. The time for new ideas is fast approaching-our Towers are at a fraction of their former strength and in another generation, many will stand empty if we cannot overcome our prejudices. You know as well as I that many a nedestro carries a full measure of talent. How can we afford to let that go to waste just because its bearer is never legitimated, or the bloodline forgotten for a generation? Never mind, let it go. The more pressing issue is one of replacing those Keepers who are aging or lost for other reasons."

She nodded, thinking of the empty Keepers' quarters at Hali. Only a generation ago, there had been three Keepers, with apprentices in training.

After the death of Dougal DiAsturian, only Raimon remained. He was from a long-lived family and was relatively young. He might serve Hali for decades to come. But he was human, of mortal flesh and bone. He could have been killed in the riot like any other man. If the stone had struck his head just a fraction lower- Varzil had caught her thought. "There is no under-Keeper to follow Raimon at Hali. And why is that?"

"Because-" she frowned, "because there is no one he deems suitable to teach."

"No man who is suitable."

Dyannis stared open-mouthed at her brother. The noises of the camp muted, suddenly distant. A chill wind whispered through the tent. When she found her voice, she said, "Are you saying that there is some woman at Hali whom he would train?"

"Not exactly." Varzil swirled the remains of his wine in his cup. "One of my reasons for coming to Hali was to discuss this very matter with him. While Raimon is sympathetic to the general concept, he is not yet ready to undertake the training himself. He will not, however, oppose my offer to bring a suitable woman candidate to Neskaya."

Lord of Light, does he mean me?

"You. Or Ellimara."

"Ellimara?"

"She is a powerful telepath, and young enough to endure the rigors of discipline. That is a factor against you, though you not only have the strength but the initiative and the self-reliance, as you so ably demonstrated at the lake shore riot-"

"Ellimara cannot possibly be a Keeper! She has hysterics-she's far too emotional, she-"

"She has never been given the chance to use her passions instead of being at their mercy," Varzil said, now darkly serious. "And you are evading the issue. Both Raimon and I believe you have the ability to become a Keeper.

The work is not easy, but I do not believe anyone with the talent can be truly content with anything less. It would allow you to use all your abilities to their fullest, as well as serving Darkover in a way few others can. You would have to leave Hali and come to Neskaya. Will you consider it?"

"Varzil, you must be joking!" Dyannis scrambled to her feet, shaking with emotions she could not name. At the periphery of the tent lights, Lady Helaina looked up.

"All I ask at this time is that you consider it," Varzil said quietly. "Nothing need be decided quickly, certainly not at the end of a long day of travel. I ask only that you think about it in the privacy of your own conscience."

"You are completely demented!" Dyannis cried. Then she continued in a quieter voice, "Out of respect, I will think about what we have discussed before I tell you so again. My answer must remain the same. Meanwhile, I wish you good night, and dreams of sanity."

With that, Dyannis swept off to her own tent, Lady Helaina following with a puzzled expression and tightly closed lips.

"Go away," Dyannis cried. She could not bear the company of the other woman, so calm and sure of herself.

Helaina murmured that she would wait outside for a time, for the night was still mild, but would remain within hearing, should Dyannis need her.

Dyannis raged across the narrow space of the tent.

Nameless emotions boiled up inside her, a tumult of jumbled thoughts.

Varzil was insane-the experience on the lake bed, contact with the laran- charged pillars, the turbulence of the day-must have warped his judgment.

There was no other explanation. Training nedestro commoners was one thing-there had been a number of brilliant leronyn without proper family names in the past-and maybe-maybe some day, there might be a woman with the temper and strength to do a Keeper's work- But herself? After what she had done?

She was exactly as worthy to direct a circle, holding the minds and sanity of its workers in her grasp, as she was to sit on Carolin's throne! She had no doubt of herxown ability-the talent was there, she knew herself to be a powerful telepath, or she could never have controlled the minds of so many.

Above all things, a Keeper needed self-restraint, judgment, discipline. She had never had those things in abundance-whenever she thought she had finally mastered herself, some wild impulse would seize her-she would go hawking, or run off to the lake-or in a moment of fury, heedless of the consequences, create the illusion of a dragon___ No matter what Raimon said, she would never be free of the guilt of those three deaths, and the nightmares that haunted the survivors. She, she alone had done this thing. If her Keeper insisted she must continue to work, must go on this mission with Varzil, then in atonement, she would do her best.

But she must never allow herself to be put in a position where she could do so much harm again.

True to his word, Varzil did not bring up the subject of training women as Keepers again. Instead, they talked of their mission at Cedestri and what they knew of the folk there, what strategies might be used to enlist their cooperation. Varzil had never met any of them, but Dyannis knew the Keeper, Francisco Gervais, for he had begun his training at Hali and had still been there when she first came.

"I dare say I will remember him better than he remembers me," she said with a wry grin.

"Even then, you were hardly inconspicuous," he said.

She laughed at that, and the tension from their previous discussion lifted.

There was little enough to laugh about. Cedestri had surely been alerted to their coming, having withdrawn their Overwork! edifice for draining the energy from the lake rift. They must be expecting some reaction. Varzil was not, strictly speaking, an emissary of Hali Tower, but of King Carolin. His objective was to convince Cedestri to sign the Compact or, at very least, re- frain from using the bonewater and any other laran weapons they had created. Dyannis did not think Varzil's chance of success was very good, even with Francisco's old ties to Hali Tower. Varzil himself was un- remittingly optimistic.

"If the Compact does not reach all of Darkover within my lifetime," he told her, "then others will take up the cause after me, and others after them, until there is no place from the farthest reaches of the Hellers to the shores of Temora, where an honorable man will use any weapon that does not bring him within equal risk."

He will not give up, she thought, not until he is dead or we all are.

Varzil's unswerving belief in the Compact brought Dyannis unexpected solace. The events of the riot had shaken her to her bones. It must never happen again. Laran was far too dangerous to be used, except in the most carefully controlled circumstances.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that the Compact was necessary. Not only necessary, but a form of salvation. If she could not rely upon her own self-control, she could help to change the world so that such abuses would become impossible. At times, Varzil's patience exasperated her. He thought only in terms of weapons to be used in war-clingfire and bonewater dust, lungrot and root blight, which scoured the land sterile. He refused to see that any laran work carried the potential for harm. At times, she thought that even work in a monitored circle, under the supervision of a Keeper, was too risky.

They came down from the jagged hills toward the rolling countryside surrounding Cedestri Tower and, beyond it, the tiny kingdom of Isoldir. The land softened, as if weary of holding up the bowl of the sky. The hills were bare, bereft, and something in their treeless bareness struck a chord of sadness in Dyannis. She felt a kind of mourning, a destitution in the gray curling grasses and the sun-parched heights. A harsh land, she thought, and not one to foster any hopefulness of spirit. She hoped that the folk of Cedestri Tower were immune to its influence.

The road led them down from the hills and across a plain of hard-baked earth laced with cracks as deep as her forearm. There was no water beyond what they carried. The hooves of their horses stirred up dust as they slowed from a ground-eating trot to a walk. Once, they spotted a pair of kyorebni circling the heights.

Dyannis nudged her mount next to Varzil's. "I do not know the history of this place, but I fear something terrible happened here." Or will happen.

"Yes, I feel it, too."

For the past generation, Isoldir had been at war with a branch of the powerful Aillard family. Perhaps battles had been fought on the very terrain over which they now rode. Perhaps other, more terrible weapons had transformed lush pasture or grain fields into this near desert.

It must end. It must end now.

Varzil shifted his weight onto his stirrups, half-rising in his saddle, and pointed ahead. "Cedestri lies beyond. Another day or so should see us there."

Dyannis shaded her eyes with one hand, as if she could penetrate the dust that cloaked the horizon. She glanced aloft, searching for the huge carrion birds they spotted earlier. Two dots hovered in the brightness. She squinted, her eyes watering.

Varzil- Dyannis unconsciously dropped into mind-speech. She felt her brother open his mind, reach out with his laran senses. The land stretched around them, sere and gray as ash, pierced by motes of radiance, the seeds that lay dormant even now, awaiting the return of rain. Above, the sweep of wind and sky brought the kiss of moisture, freshening.

The first two dots had grown visibly larger now, and they did not circle the way natural birds did. As Dyannis watched, a third joined them. She tasted metal, the concentrated heat of charged laran batteries and shielded human minds. Deep within them, layered in insulation and fragile glass vessels, pellets glowed unnatural green.

Crystalline bonewater!

Varzil signaled silent acknowledgment. Aircars out of Isoldir. They must be bound for Aillard.

We have come too late! she cried.

Varzil did not respond, and she felt his attention shift, leaping ahead to the pilot of the foremost craft. Dyannis had ridden in an aircar only once, for in these times, the cost of their manufacture and operation had become prohibitive except for military uses. The pilot, a trained laranzu, bent over his instruments, using his talent to guide the teardrop-shaped craft.

She sensed the pilot come alert, jarred from his concentration. In an instant, Varzil established rapport, Dyannis caught only the periphery of the link, a flash of the pilot's temperament, the desperation lashing at him.

We of Isoldir are poor and few. With each round, mighty Aillard harries us closer to ruin. The fields that grow our food, the rivers that meet our thirst, the trees that shield us against the winter's cold, they leave us nothing. Now even our children grow sick and die under their foul spells. We have only one chance, with surprise as our ally.

The aircars seemed to move faster as they approached. Dyannis had no doubt that the sentiments of the lead pilot were shared by all. In a short time, they would pass overhead and be beyond reach. If only Varzil could convince them in time!

Abruptly, and with a force that rocked Dyannis in her saddle, the pilot broke off the rapport with Varzil.

Spies! Enemy spies out of Aillard! The naked hatred of the man's mental scream gripped her heart for an awful moment. She gasped, and only the fact that she was already gripping the pommel of her saddle kept her from falling.

But we're not- She cut off the thought, realizing how their party must appear to the Isoldir pilots. Surrounded by armed men, deployed along the road in military fashion, what else could they be but a small, elite strike force, traveling swiftly to avoid detection?

The leronyn of Cedestri Tower might recognize Varzil or Dyannis, having exchanged messages by the telepathic relays, but to these pilots, they would be strangers. Varzil's overture, his attempt at a peaceful greeting, would be seen as a subterfuge to lower their guard.

The foremost aircar, almost upon them now, began descending. Dyannis clapped one hand over her mouth, her stomach roiling.

They do not mean to pass us by.

Beside her, Carolin's captain shouted out orders to his men. Quickly, they took up a defensive formation, lifting their shields overhead. What protection would that afford against bonewater, she wondered, which poi- soned the very earth they stood upon?

For an instant, hope stirred. If the Isoldir aircars discharged their deadly burden, here upon their own lands, then none-or less, at any rate-would be left to reach Aillard. But she would not survive to see the result.

"Here it comes!" shouted one of the men.

In the blink of an eye, a handful of tiny glass spheres, no more than points of light at this distance, spilled from the belly of the nearest aircar.

Link with me! Varzil called. At the edge of her vision, she saw him, sitting erect in the saddle, reins loose upon his horse's neck, eyes closed, hands cupping his star-stone. She shut out the visual world and launched herself into rapport with him, as if the two of them composed an entire circle.

Varzil seized upon their joined mental force and shaped it into a barrier like an invisible dome between the glittering spheres and the assembled men.

Dyannis felt the first sphere break open upon contact, as if it were meant to hold together for only the briefest transit. Its contents splashed out, acrid and familiar.

Clingflre!

In her early years at Hali, Dyannis worked in a circle separating out each component element, combining and distilling the mixture, then pouring it into vessels of flawless glass,for it would eat through any lesser material.

She knew its color, like clotted flame, its smell, the screams when a single droplet had spattered on the bare skin of a worker, a knife slicing through living flesh, cutting away every affected fiber, lest it continue burning through bone and sinew, nerve and organ, until nothing remained to be consumed.

She threw the full force of her laran into the shield, pouring forth every bit of psychic energy at her command. The torrent burned as it flooded her channels, at a speed and intensity she would once have considered suicidal.

She gave no care to the pain, only to the utter determination to hold-hold- against the onslaught.

The first volley broke and splashed harmlessly to the barren earth. Men and horses escaped untouched. A wave of dismay and relief swept through her; un-barriered as she was, she caught the depth of their emotions.

Within her own body, nerves and laran channels ached with the strain.

Varzil's mind was like a rock. She held on, afraid that if she loosened her focus for an instant, she would break like a twig in a spring flood.

She felt the first aircar veer off, a second come into position for its own attack. Varzil held the shield firm, as if he commanded an entire working circle. She could not imagine the scope of his talent, that he could do such a thing. She thought only of sending him strength and more strength, emptying herself into the psychic link between them. She must be his circle.

The second aircar discharged its cargo. This time, the angle of attack caused the clingfire to disperse in a different pattern. Most of the liquid particles followed the course of the first, but a few went wild. They landed upon the outer edge of one of the baggage carts. The woven fabric and leather burst into flame. Dyannis felt this much before her ordinary senses were jarred by the screams of a panicked horse and the shouting of the men. She could not tell if any of them had been touched by the caustic fire, only that the discipline that had held them all beneath the psychic shield had broken.

In the fraction of an instant in which her own concentration had wavered, the entire burden of the shield fell upon Varzil. Dyannis blinked, seeing the psychic and material worlds as overlapping images. Men rushed to put out the fire, some of them using their bare hands or cloaks, heedless of the danger, for the clingfire would spread to anything it could burn. A grizzled veteran struggled with a younger soldier, trying to force him away from the burning cart. Another clung to the reins of a rearing horse as it dragged him beyond the shelter of Varzil's shield. Beneath her, her own mount skittered, pulling at the bit. Only Varzil's horse remained still, though its eyes rolled nervously. His will held the beast under control.