Exile's Song (50 page)

“Marguerida, do you know what happens when you put water in a closed vessel and set it on the fire?”

“What? I know enough physics to know that if there isn’t somewhere for the steam to go, the pot is going to explode, most likely.”

“I wouldn’t have called you a pot, myself. You are more like a finely made alembic, clear and fragile but also strong. But if you stop up the opening on an alembic, it will shatter.”

“Yes, and to continue your metaphor, it will cut hell out of anyone in the neighborhood. I wish I had never come to Darkover.”

“But, as you said, it was your destiny. You like it here, even though you find us very odd.”

Margaret sighed and was silent for a long time. “That is true. I’ve always wanted something that I couldn’t name, and when I saw the sun setting behind the city and smelled food cooking, it had a name. It was Darkover. I have been an exile most of my life, and now I’ve come home. If I had known, I might have come here long ago, but . . . but, Liriel, I don’t want to be a telepath!”

“That is no longer a thing you can want or not. It is what you are. And for your own sake, and that of others, you will need frequent monitoring. Because now that the Gift has been awakened, it will grow and increase and change. And
you
will change. I am sorry, but that is just how it is.”

“You aren’t half so sorry as I am! Very well—do whatever you need to. I’ll be a good girl.” She didn’t feel like a good girl at all, but more like a storm about to break.

“Let’s go to my study. Mother keeps it for me, rather grudgingly, so I can be alone. No one will interrupt us there.”

“They don’t need to. They can just poke their noses in without . . .”

“Marguerida, don’t be foolish.” The big woman rose with a flutter of green cloth. “My father, who is very strict and correct, won’t even remain within doors while we work, and Jeff is not at all snoopy.”

“What about your mother?” Margaret was repelled by the idea of Javanne being aware of her thoughts.

Liriel grinned. “She will be curious, because that is her nature, but she will not intrude.”

“Why not? Good manners?”

“Partially. But it is more like good sense. You are so strong you could knock almost anyone into the next tenday if you felt threatened.”

“I could?” Margaret followed her cousin down the hall, considering this. The idea that she had the power to injure people without lifting a finger was even more terrifying than that of being a telepath.

The room they entered was modest in size. It had one window overlooking an open court which was different than the one in the front of the house—the stones were laid out in a circular rather than a rectangular pattern. Before she could really have a good look, Liriel drew the curtain across it. Margaret looked around then, and saw plump cushions piled on a thick green rug, and along two walls, shelves of books. The paneled walls reflected the light of lampions and she moved toward the shelves.

“Is this your personal library?”

“Yes, it is. I started it from books that were left in the house, some of your father’s, and of Grandfather Kennard’s, though he was not really much of a reader.

There are books here that Ann’dra Carr had imported when he lived here, in Terran, and others I ordered from Thendara. Mother always told me I would ruin my eyes with reading, but so far I have not.”

It was an eclectic collection, from volumes of children’s stories to works on mapping and surveying, and novels from all over the Federation. Margaret saw a collection of poetry dating from pre-space Terra, the work of Rupert Brooke, and another by Gala Montaral who had lived and died on Tau Ceti V two hundred years before. Since she loved Gala’s verse, she thought well of Liriel for giving it a place in her library. From the shininess of the spine, it had been read often and, from the lack of dust on it, recently, too. “I was starting to think no one on Darkover read.”

“Well, as a general thing, it is not so common a pastime as singing or sewing or hunting, but we are not all illiterate bumpkins.”

“I never imagined you were, but I was rather surprised by how little reading matter I have seen. There were some books at Ardais Castle, but these are more interesting. That’s all.”

“Come, sit here by the brazier.”

Margaret did as she was told, ignoring her unease. She felt as if she were visiting the doctor, where she would be probed and measured and tested, and she did not like the sensation at all. She tucked herself onto one of the large pillows and watched Liriel toss a handful of what looked like weeds into the tiny brazier. They hit the glowing charcoal and burst into flame, sending up a cloud of pale smoke. A sweet smell arose, a drowsy scent, like herbs under a hot summer sun.

She noticed that some of her uneasiness seemed to be fading. “What is that you are burning?” she asked Liriel.

“Just some dried flowers. They have a calming effect, rather like incense. It is my own creation, and I admit I am a little proud of it. One of the books there is an old herbal—Koolpipper—and it gave me the idea, so I went out and gathered things, and consulted some of the local old wives who use herbs, and experimented until I got the effect I wanted.”

“Koolpipper? Oh, you mean Culpepper.”

“Is that how you say it? Do you know the book?” The technician looked pleased as she smiled at Marguerida.

Margaret was rather startled. Her cousin was a continuous source of surprises. She had never expected to find anyone like her on Darkover. “I know of it. I took an exotic botany class while I was at University, to fill part of my science requirement, and Culpepper was part of the optional reading list. That’s an old book, you know, from long before the Terrans went into space, but for some reason it keeps being reprinted and translated. Am I supposed to feel as if my body is light as a feather?”

“Well, you should feel relaxed,” Liriel answered, looking a little concerned.

Margaret gave a little laugh. “If I were any more relaxed, I would be asleep. I
am
a little sleepy, but not too much. I just feel as if nothing in the world matters. Is that relaxed enough for you?”

“That’s good. You are a very tense person, Marguerida.” Liriel paused. “Watchful is perhaps the best word. Overalert? Do you know why that is?”

“I can guess. When I was Marguerida Kadarin . . .”

“When you were
what
?” Liriel looked startled, then a little peculiar.

She did not answer at once, filled with strange feelings, all a little removed and not immediate. “In the orphanage, that is what I was called. Funny. I didn’t remember until you asked me why I am always anxious. There was a girl there, my age but bigger, and she liked to pinch and scratch and bite. And she seemed to enjoy pinching me a great deal. And then, when I went from the orphanage, and I was with . . . with my mother, she was cheerful one minute, and screaming the next. I would try to make myself very small, so she wouldn’t see me.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I used to believe I could make myself invisible, if I just tried hard enough.”
And he was both kind and uncaring—Robert Kadarin.

“I see. You did some of that at dinner last night, didn’t you? Becoming invisible.”

“I suppose I did. Your family is rather overwhelming, all at once.”

“Our family, Marguerida. And, yes, they are, particularly when Ariel has all the children about. She cannot bear to have them from her sight. I don’t know what she will do when they are grown and want to leave home. She and Piedro Alar watch those brats as if a hawk were going to carry them off. We are twins, but we are most unlike in disposition. She is always droopy and worried, and I am generally cheerful. It has always been like that.”

“I know you have a high infant mortality on Darkover. Did Ariel lose children—is that why she is so fussy?”

Liriel shook her head and set her long hair flying. “My sister has been extremely fortunate, and all her children have survived and are as healthy a pack of brats as I have ever seen. But she sees no value for herself, I believe, except as a mother. I don’t think she knows how Piedro adores her. My mother may have made that match, but she chose well for Ariel. She is pregnant again, though you can’t see it yet. A daughter, at last. I hope she will stop when this one is born, because she is killing herself having a child every two years.”

“How do you know it is a girl?”

“I’m a technician, Marguerida, and Ariel and I spent months together in Mother’s belly before we breathed the air of Darkover. I always know when Ariel has conceived, and I know the sex of the child as well. It’s part of my
laran.
”

“I guess I don’t really understand all this
laran
business. It’s more than just telepathy, isn’t it? Istvana Ridenow told me her gift was that of empathy, and while I think I understand that intellectually, I don’t have any emotional grasp of it. And I was too sick and upset to really pay attention to anything she said, unless it was about me. How selfish!” She would have wanted to sink with shame, but the incense made all her emotions seem vague and distant.

“Yes, it is more than telepathy, cousin. Each family of the Domains has a Gift, which is to say a talent that runs in the blood. The Alton Gift is that of forced rapport, which means the ability to enter the mind of anyone, whether they are telepaths or not. For that reason we have always been suspect by the other Domains. Forced rapport can kill, which is why Jeff and I feel it is so important to monitor you. The Ardais are catalysts, and can awaken the
laran
of another. The Aldaran have the Gift of precognition, and you may possess that as well.”

“Oh, great. It isn’t enough I can poke into people’s minds whether they want it or not, now I am able to foresee the future. Wait a minute—why would I have the Aldaran Gift anyhow? Lady Marilla thought something when I asked her about the Gifts. She didn’t tell me much, and she got very agitated when I asked about the Aldarans.”

“Thyra Darriell’s father was Kermiac Aldaran, and your father’s mother was Yllana Aldaran, who was half Terranan. So, you have Aldaran bloodlines not once but twice.”

“I see. Well, I guess the Aldaran Gift missed me, anyhow. If I had had any precognition, I would never have come to Darkover.” Even as she said this, Margaret realized it was not quite true.

“The ability to see the future is not the same thing as being able to avoid it, Marguerida. Now, let us start.” Liriel drew a cord from beneath her robe and Margaret saw a small pouch similar to the one Istvana had worn. She pulled something out, and removed several layers of wrapping until a crystal was revealed.

Margaret held back her impulse to stand up and bolt from the room, so great was her terror of the shining stone in her cousin’s hands. She tensed her shoulders and clenched her teeth, waiting for the hated and familiar voice which had possessed her at Ardais to speak. When, after several minutes, it did not come, she relaxed slightly. “I have to tell you, Liriel, I don’t like those things.”

“Yes, I know. But just look at it calmly. Don’t try to touch it. You must never touch the keyed matrix of another person. It can throw them into deep shock, and even cause death.”

Instead of looking at the crystal, Margaret opened her left hand and slowly removed the glove she was wearing. Then she studied her palm. She could sense Liriel’s surprise at her action, surprise but no alarm.

The blue lines that had traced themselves on her skin seemed a little faded now, but she could still make out the pattern. If only she could understand what the lines meant. She felt a faint pulsing beneath her skin, as if some energy was moving that was not entirely from her body. Margaret shivered as the lines seemed to darken, to become bluer and bluer.

The room around her became vague, a place of shadows, and the technician seated across from her seemed not Liriel, but an image of faint light, lines of energy without any flesh around them. Then, abruptly, even that vanished, and she was plunged into her own mind, into a dark vision.

Abruptly, the darkness of her mind vanished, and she was back in the cozy room, sweet smelling and book-lined, with her cousin Liriel. Her skull pounded for a minute, and then the headache disappeared, as if it had never been. She discovered she was panting a little, as if she had been running, and she deliberately slowed her breath, her singer’s training coming to her rescue once again.

The question of madness lingered in her mind, and it was even more frightening than her fear of Ashara’s ghost. She shuddered and hunched her shoulders, looking down at her ungloved hand with hatred and rage. If only she had not wrested the keystone from the Tower of Mirrors! None of this would be happening if she had left it alone. But if she had not, then Ashara would still be there, commanding her to keep herself apart, preventing her from being touched or touching others.

When she finally looked toward Liriel, she found the technician was putting away the matrix. She could see a sheen of sweat across Liriel’s broad forehead, and the sag of wide shoulders spoke of great weariness. “You are too strong for me, Marguerida.”

“I didn’t mean to wear you out.” Margaret felt ashamed, but still so brimming with conflicting emotions that her sorrow was more a grace note than anything else. She wanted to run away, to hide, to die. Anything to escape the oppression of so many feelings, none of them good, and all of them opposing each other. It was a terrible sensation, to be caught in the trap of feelings that she could neither control nor suppress.