The Fall of Neskaya (11 page)

Coryn’s stomach rumbled at the smell of the food—some kind of honeyed fruit, he thought, and fresh-baked bread touched with cardamom. He thought wryly that this scene was becoming all too familiar.

“No, please don’t sit up. This will be brief.” The man sat on the bed beside him, but did not touch him. Instead, he ran his hands over Coryn’s body, following the contours but never touching. Above his closed eyes, lines of concentration furrowed his brow. His hair was clipped even with the back of his skull as no
Comyn
lord or warrior would wear it. He shook his head slightly.

“Eat now, as much as you can, and you can join the others later today or tomorrow.” With those words, Gareth rose and departed, leaving the girl standing awkwardly, still holding the tray.

As she looked around for a place to set it down, Coryn, propping himself up on one elbow, got a good look at her. Straw-pale hair tinged with red hung in neat braids to her waist. Thick, colorless eyelashes fringed eyes of startling green. Freckles dusted her cheeks. She wore a simple robe of spring-green wool, belted with a sash of the same fabric around her slender waist. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Here,” Coryn said, moving to make room on the bed. She set the tray down and sat behind it, tucking her legs under her. He lifted the domed covers to discover a small feast—honey-stewed fruit, as he had suspected, sliced bread, white and yellow cheeses, turnovers with some kind of spiced meat filling, a flagon of water and one of apple cider.

“I can’t eat all this!” He made a face. “Do you want some?”

“I’m always hungry. Auster—he’s one of my teachers—says it’s because I’m growing so fast. The food here is really good. Lots of meat pastries and no bean porridge for breakfast!” Her chatter reminded him of Kristlin.

Coryn spread a thick slice of nutbread with soft yellow cheese and ate it with a mug of the cider. At his urging, the girl took one of the turnovers. She ate quickly and neatly, leaving no crumbs.

“You’re being awfully nice to me,” she said, “considering how mean I was to you.”

Coryn swallowed a mouthful of the honeyed fruit and blinked at her. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember having met you before. I’ve been—ill, I guess.”

“
I’ll
say you’ve been sick. Threshold sick. Auster says he’s never seen such a bad case, not in anyone who lived. Oh!” One hand flew to her mouth. “That wasn’t very nice to say, was it? I’m always saying whatever pops into my mind, whether I mean it or not. I mean, you really were very sick, you had convulsions and everything. You nearly scared the wits out of me. I’m glad you’re not going to die, ’cause then I’d feel awful. Marisela—she’s the housemistress—says I must learn tact and something else, I’m not sure what.”

Now the girl sounded so exactly like Kristlin that Coryn burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, too,” he managed to say. “But I truly don’t remember who you are. Should I?”

Bright color shot across the girl’s cheeks. She looked down at her hands, fingers laced together. “Yes, the night you—we—Lady Bronwyn was escorting me here, and our guards found your camp.” She met his gaze, her green eyes somber. “You were sick, and you wouldn’t hold still when Lady Bronwyn tried to help you. I’m afraid I behaved very badly.”

The voice, the petulant child’s voice in the darkness. “Oh. I didn’t exactly—I mean, I had other things on my mind.”

A smile flashed across her face, quickly disappearing. “You’re nice, do you know that? But I had no right to be so rude just because you’re a Leynier and were on our lands. Alain—the guards captain—thought you and your man were spies. You can never tell with Verdanta folk.”

“Liane—Liane
Storn?
”

“Yes, but we’re not supposed to use our family names here. Every day since we arrived, I’ve been given a lecture on how none of that matters, only ourselves—‘our
laran,
our character, our discipline, our work’. On and on like that.” She wrinkled her nose so that the freckles stood out. “Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? But the lessons are interesting. You’ll see when you can get up.”

“Liane
Storn?
” he repeated, feeling muddle-headed. This girl was one of that pack of brigands who refused to help during the fire, not even to let Petro through to Tramontana! He thought of the days of desperate, bone-breaking labor, the choking smoke, the loss of so many nut trees, the hunger in winters to come. How could they have just sat back and let the fire burn? What kind of monsters were they?

“No, just plain Liane—”

“Storn?”
And yet, she didn’t look like a monster, even if she was too stuck up for her own good . . .

“We’re not supposed to brag about our families,” she replied tartly, getting to her feet. “And if you don’t stop harping on this name nonsense, I won’t come back and visit you tomorrow!” She picked up the tray and, with a toss of her flaxen-red braids, headed for the door.

“Don’t!” Coryn exploded. “I never want to see a single one of the whole
cralmac
-brained, self-serving Storn Nest again!”

She whirled, cheeks flushing at the insult. “You! You nobody out of nowhere! You were nothing more than a half-drowned rat when we rescued you! How dare you say that about my family!”

“Get out!”

Liane jerked the curtain aside and slammed the door behind her. Her quick, light footsteps receded and Coryn was left alone, feeling more miserable than ever.

Coryn stayed in bed for another day, growing increasingly bored and restless. Meals were brought by Marisela, a cheerful motherly woman who kept smoothing the covers and tucking them around him. Gareth came to monitor him every morning and evening.

“
Laran
is carried through the body in special channels,” Gareth explained. “But these channels also carry sexual energy. In some people,
laran
is awakened at adolescence, when such feelings begin to stir, so the channels are particularly vulnerable to overload. That’s one of the causes of threshold sickness. With care and training, this need not be a continuing problem. You will learn to monitor yourself, to learn what is safe for you to do.”

“You mean I did something to cause this?” Coryn asked, shuddering.

“Not at all,” Gareth shook his head. “Except possibly to grow up. You . . . you seem to be past the worst of it now.”

The monitor rose as a figure in flowing red robes entered the room. Although the movements were quiet and spare, the room seemed to vibrate with a sense of presence. For an instant, Coryn didn’t know if this was a man or a woman, for the face was beardless, the jaw delicate. A faint tracery of lines covered pale skin. Moonlight-colored hair spilled over slender shoulders.

“Gareth, please,” the newcomer said, gesturing to the monitor to sit again, then smiled at Coryn. “I am Kieran, Keeper of the Third Circle here at Tramontana, and your kinsman.”

This must be the Aillard cousin Lord Leynier had spoken of. At the sound of the voice, Coryn decided it must be a man, possibly one of those sandal-wearers who had never participated in any manly activity. Coryn had himself come in for a bit of teasing from the stable hands when it was known he was to go to a Tower. But there was nothing weak in the fiery eyes sweeping over him, nothing effeminate in the sure way those slim six-fingered hands gestured.

“Forgive me, young Coryn, for not welcoming you earlier. It was not from lack of concern for you, for Gareth assured me you were recovering well and he is our most skillful monitor.”

Coryn felt he ought to say something. Despite Kieran Aillard’s small physical stature, his energy filled the room. His faintly distracted air, as if part of his mind were on other, greater matters, only added to his aura of power.

“M—my father sends you greetings,” Coryn stammered, “and thanks for your help during the fire.”

“So your man Rafael said. We have not yet come to the point, we here at Tramontana, when we can do nothing more useful than to create weapons for other men’s wars. Now, young Coryn, may I examine your
laran
channels, as Gareth has done?”

Coryn gave his assent, wondering a little that a personage as important as a Keeper must ask his permission. Perhaps this was how things were done in a Tower. He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes and composed himself. When Gareth monitored him, Coryn had not felt anything, except perhaps a faint warmth from the other man’s hands. Now something airy as a feather whispered over his skin, cool and not at all unpleasant. It warmed, sinking ever deeper until it became a part of him.

Soft, gray-blue light filled him as if he were made of glass. His body relaxed, and his mind began to drift. Dimly, he became aware of a lightless blot deep within his body. When he tried to focus on it, panic rose. He turned away quickly, fleeing to the soothing warmth.

From afar, he heard Kieran say in a soft voice, “Yes, I see what you mean, Gareth. I don’t think even an Alton could force his way past that barricade. It doesn’t seem to be linked to any of the essential channels. Perhaps as he learns to master his talent and to trust us, he will be able to lower his guard. . . .”

I’m not doing it on purpose,
Coryn thought.

I know, lad.
Had Kieran spoken aloud, or only inside Coryn’s head?
Rest for a moment now, and then come back to us.

A few minutes later, Coryn sat upright once more, to hear Kieran say, “Gareth, is it your opinion this boy is recovered enough to join the other novices in their lessons tomorrow?”

“Yes, I think he’s more than ready,” Gareth said with an easy smile. “In fact, I think he’s going to start tearing the infirmary apart if we try to keep him any longer.”

With a sweep of red robes, Kieran left the room. Coryn stared after him. “So that’s Grandmama’s cousin. He doesn’t look that old.”

“Oh, he is close to a hundred years now,” Gareth said. “Not all the Aillards are so long-lived, but it’s said there is a strong strain of
chieri
blood in that family. Knowing Kieran, I can well believe it.”

“And he has six fingers!”

“And he is
emmasca
, but what of any of it?” Now Gareth sounded angry. “When we enter the Tower, we leave behind rank and family, as well as petty prejudices. This is the one place where we are judged by what we make of our own lives, not by the number of our toes or the color of our hair or what lies our fathers told. Or if we have six fathers or none at all! Our bodies are as the gods have made us, but what is in our hearts, that is who we truly are!”

Gareth finished with gentler words, encouraging Coryn to sleep well because lessons would begin the next morning. Thoroughly awake, Coryn lay back, thinking about what the monitor had said and wondering about the new world he had entered.

The next morning, Coryn said good-bye to Rafe, who had waited until he could witness Coryn’s recovery with his own eyes before returning to Verdanta. The Keepers supplied Rafe with a sound riding horse and trail food enough to take him on the circuitous trip. “There should be no more storms like the last one,” Mikhail-Esteban, a matrix mechanic who had good weather-sense, said with a hint of disapproval. Rafe gave Coryn a gruff, silent hug and left with his usual lack of words.

Coryn went down to the dining hall, where the other young people had gathered for breakfast. There were six novices at Tramontana at this time, three close to his own age and three older, one of whom was shortly to leave for Hali, to work as a monitor there before leaving the Towers for an arranged marriage. Coryn’s two age-mates were Liane and a tall, dark-eyed boy named Aran MacAran.

Liane glared at Coryn when he sat down, then tossed her head and pretended to be interested in the conversation on her other side, something about layering energon rings along a crystalline lattice. Coryn had no idea what they were talking about.

“Is it true,” Aran asked shyly, “that you were caught without shelter by the Aldaran storm? And that you had to kill your horses and climb inside their bodies to stay warm?”