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Many of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s early Darkover novels examined the clash of cultures between the technological Terrans and the “primitive” Darkovans with the inevitable misunderstandings. Federation officials negotiated with the Comyn Council, most notably the Hasturs, for access to a spaceport as well as trade and cultural exchange. All too often, the space-faring Terrans viewed Darkovans as ignorant and unsophisticated, sometimes with disastrous results. There are two sides to every story, however, as Rosemary Edghill and Rebecca Fox point out.
Rosemary Edghill (aka eluki bes shahar) has published stories in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine as well as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s long-running Sword & Sorceress anthology series. This led to her ghost-writing the urban fantasy series Witchlight, Ghostlight, Gravelight, and Heartlight under Bradley’s name. A woman of many talents, she’s also an anthologist and editorial mentor. Her most recent books include the Shadow Grail series.
Rebecca (“Becky”) Fox started writing stories when she was seven years old, and hasn’t stopped since. Becky lives in Lexington, Kentucky with three parrots, a chestnut mare, and a Jack Russell terrier who is not-so-secretly an evil canine genius. In her other life, she’s a professional biologist with an interest in bird behavior.
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“Cottman Four is no name for a world,” Armsmaster Zhenyar snarled. “Do the Terranan have so many worlds that they must number them like storehouses?” Zhenyar was not a stupid man (and he was also a man entirely used to disasters); he rather suspected the wretched Terranan did.
For once, Antonno held his tongue. The teniente fell into step behind his master as the two of them walked from the barracks wing of Castle Aldaran. Zhenyar was grateful for the silence. Antonno was a good man, but he had a habit of speaking when it was unnecessary.
Zhenyar had been Master of Arms at Aldaran Castle these last fifteen years and more, and until that day the thrice-damned Terranan had come, those years had been peaceful. And then the Terranan came down out of the sky with a great groaning of metal, and settled at Caer Donn. Of course—in addition to building a place for even more of their ships to come—the arrogant strangers insisted on renaming the place. Shigashik or somesuch. It sounded like Trailmen chatter, which Zhenyar supposed was fitting; the Terranan reminded him of Trailmen, and he wanted just about as much to do with them.
He could smell a fire even before he reached the Great Hall, even though it was barely even autumn. Undoubtedly, this waste of fuel had been committed in deference to their thin-skinned guest. It gave Zhenyar no small amount of satisfaction to contemplate how much they would enjoy their first Darkovan winter.
“You might at least consider being polite,” Antonno said in a voice meant for Zhenyar’s ears alone.
Whatever Zhenyar might have said in retort died in his throat when he saw it was not only Coridom Rumail with the stranger in the Great Hall, but Dom Barak and Domna Istvana as well. They stood together in front of one of the great fireplaces. Behind them—practically in the fire itself—stood a slight youth in the clothing of the Terrans. Zhenyar approached. “Vai dom,” he said, bowing his head.
“We will speak Trade,” Lord Aldaran said, “out of courtesy to our guest.”
Zhenyar nodded. He straightened his shoulders and tried to keep from grimacing. It would be dishonorable to show such discourtesy before his lord.
Domna Istvana smiled faintly, as if she knew Zhenyar’s thoughts. “Armsmaster Zhenyar,” she said, “allow me to present Jenny Lauren of Port Chicago. She is the Terran Cultural Reconciliation Specialist.”
The youth was no youth, but a woman. Wearing trousers and short-cropped hair like one of the Comhi-Letzii! She stepped forward and offered her hand—a Terranan gesture. Zhenyar sighed and took it; he could tell from the expression on Rumail’s face it was expected. Coridom Rumail lectured him regularly on courtesy, though it seemed to Zhenyar that fine manners hardly fell within the purview of an armsmaster’s duties.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Armsmaster Zhenyar,” she said. “I only wish it was under better circumstances. Lord Aldaran asked me here to discuss a matter that concerns both my people and yours.”
Zhenyar could not imagine what matter could possibly require his own involvement, but then Dom Barak held out an object. It was made of a silvery not-quite-metal; a tube a couple of handspans long attached to a grip that was clearly meant to fit a man’s hand. When he took it, he found it was surprisingly heavy. Whatever it was, it was an ugly thing—soulless, with no hint of craftsmanship about it. Zhenyar regarded it with mild puzzlement.
“A servant discovered this in the castle today, and destroyed one of the windows with it before it was removed from his possession,” Dom Barak said, the frown lines in his face deepening.
“I offer my apologies on behalf of the Terran Imperial Federation, Lord Aldaran,” Mestra Jenny said regretfully. “I am aware that you made it quite clear to Commander Stone that things like this are taboo in your culture.”
“They violate the Compact, to which all have sworn,” Lord Aldaran said mildly, ignoring the insult.
This is a thing that could kill at a distance with no risk to its wielder. Carefully, Zhenyar set the gun down on the table beside him.
“And so of course,” Mestra Jenny continued (apparently she liked to talk even more than Antonno did), “we’ve been careful to keep all of our weapons in Port Chicago as you requested—” Dom Barak regarded her with a brooding look that Zhenyar recognized but Mestra Jenny clearly did not, because it looked very much as though she meant to keep speaking.
“But clearly this one came here to Castle Aldaran,” Dom Barak said. “And I should very much like to know how.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what to tell you, Lord Aldaran,” Mestra Jenny said, holding out her hands in a gesture of apology. “The first thing we’d have to do is go back to Port Chicago and take inventory. Of course we keep records of everything removed from our Armory—”
Lord Aldaran smiled thinly, but there was no amusement whatsoever in his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “As a gesture of my goodwill, I will send Armsmaster Zhenyar and his teniente Antonno to assist you, since this will undoubtedly be a significant undertaking.”
For a moment, Zhenyar was almost certain he had misheard. But then Dom Barak said that certainly Korin could look after Zhenyar’s duties for the few days that Zhenyar and Antonno would be gone, and Domna Istvana wished them good hunting, and he knew he hadn’t misheard at all. He looked at the Terranan woman who was dressed like a boy and sighed softly.
~o0o~
Mestra Jenny wished to return to Port Chicago at once. Antonno smiled at her—too friendly as always—and said he would gather his things. Zhenyar squared his shoulders, told Mestra Jenny to await them in the forecourt in an hour’s time, and went to do the same. When he descended the stone steps into the cobbled forecourt wearing his autumn cloak and carrying his traveling pack, Mestra Jenny regarded him with a look of naked horror. He stopped on the last step and studied her, one eyebrow raised.
After a moment of silence, she finally said, “Your sword, Armsmaster,” and pointed at it as if she did not expect him to understand what she was talking about. “Certainly you will have no need for such a—an object—in Port Chicago!”
Did she truly expect Zhenyar to go unarmed as if he were a woman? Perhaps the Terranan were even madder than he believed.
Just then, Antonno arrived, armed in much the same manner as Zhenyar was. Mestra Jenny’s eyes lit on his sword, and she frowned.
“Darkovan custom,” Zhenyar said gruffly, and her frown deepened, but she at least did not say anything more on the matter.
“I will be glad to offer you the use of one of the castle mounts,” Zhenyar said as they neared the stables by the outer gate. “As surely your horse is tired from your long journey.”
To his immense surprise, she merely laughed delightedly and smiled at him as if she were imparting a great secret. “My ‘horse’ never gets tired, Armsmaster. Come, I’ll show you.”
She led them down into the village surrounding Castle Aldaran, chattering all the while about trade, as if Zhenyar were some merchant she hoped to flatter. He wondered whether all Terranan babbled like this. “And of course,” she said, “the Imperial Federation has a very great deal to offer you—technology, especially. ‘Horses’ that never get tired. Machines the size of a book that can hold entire libraries—”
Antonno kept smiling at her. (Antonno never learned.)
“And what,” Zhenyar asked, perhaps a bit more irritably than courtesy permitted, “does Darkover have to offer your Imperial Federation, as we are so backward?”
Mestra Jenny simply beamed. “Cottman IV was one of the first planets settled in the Age of Exploration, Armsmaster. I’m sure your records are fascinating.”
Zhenyar merely shook his head. He couldn’t help it.
They were on the far side of the village before she stopped to take a breath. Of course, before Zhenyar could so much at sigh with relief at finally having peace in which to string two thoughts together, Mestra Jenny gestured portentously.
“And here you see my ‘horse,’ Armsmaster Zhenyar, Antonno,” she said, smiling. “You can see why he didn’t find the journey from Port Chicago at all exhausting.”
While the design of the thing was clearly foreign, Zhenyar recognized a flier when he saw one. “It’s a wonder you’re not dead,” he said, studying her with a mixture of awe and horror.
“Oh, I assure you, Armsmaster, flying is perfectly safe!” she exclaimed with a little chuckle. “And much faster than riding a horse.”
“Not this time of year, it’s not,” he said with a frown. “Even for an experienced pilot, which I beg leave to doubt you are. The autumn winds in the Hellers are fierce. So before you get me and Antonno here killed, explain to me about your weapons.”
It was her turn to stare at him. He rather relished it.
Finally she regained her equilibrium, and said, “Our guns are based on very straightforward technology. You’ll have to tell me how much you know about physics, Armsmaster, because I’m not really sure where to start—”
He cut her off with a sharp gesture. “I don’t care how they work,” he said. “Who has them? How many do you have? Who guards your armory?”
“I’m sorry, Armsmaster, but you’ll have to come and see for yourself. You simply don’t have the cultural referents to understand what I’d tell you.”
“I understand one thing already,” he said between gritted teeth. “If there was a Terranan weapon at Castle Aldaran, someone brought it here.”
~o0o~
He was right about Jenny Lauren not being an experienced pilot, but neither was the woman entirely stupid. She avoided the worst of the winds by flying so low she terrorized everything on four legs between Aldaran Castle and Caer Donn. Zhenyar sighed, thinking of the demands for compensation that would shortly be arriving at the castle from the farmers and herdsfolk. And there would be no decent hunting to be had for a fortnight or more.
At least they arrived in one piece.
By the time he’d been in the city of the Terranan three hours, Zhenyar was positive that he never wanted to set foot in Port Shigashik again. The entire place was a sea of squat little gray square buildings, all alike. (“Prefab architecture,” Mestra Jenny said breezily. “Not the prettiest, but it keeps the rain off.”) Every interior was lit to a glaring white brightness and heated until it was hotter than Zandru’s Forge.
“I’m sorry, Armsmaster,” Mestra Jenny said. “Our climate control just can’t keep up with your weather. This is as warm as it gets.”
Zhenyar cast a look at Antonno, who was trying to unobtrusively wipe the sweat from his brow. “Oh no, Mestra Jenny,” Antonno said genially. “It’s plenty warm enough for us.”
If this was what the Terranan considered home, Zhenyar wanted nothing further to do with it.
Or them.
Or their damned guns.
To make matters worse, this warren of bake-ovens in which the Terranan lived was full to bursting with people, none of whom had any manners at all. They all spoke to him as if to an equal, though he was Lord Aldaran’s man, and their speech was a tangle of meaningless phrases and chatter about the weather. He was grateful to find he could not easily tell the men from the women, for they all went about half-naked, their necks exposed, as if this were some vast brothel. Since he dared not look any of them in the eye for fear of what he might see, he kept his eyes upon their feet. He noticed Antonno did the same.
“And this way, gentlemen, is the gymnasium and spa facilities, which—”
Zhenyar stopped. “Mestra. I am here to see where you keep your weapons.”
“But I just wanted to—”
“I do not care,” Zhenyar said. “The armory. At once. Of your courtesy.”
She studied him for a long moment, as if she were a huntsman and his face the land across which she must track her quarry. At last she sighed.
“Of course, Armsman Zhenyar. It is this way.”
~o0o~
The moment they walked into the Armory, Zhenyar knew they had a problem.
It was the largest chamber he had seen so far. The dead stink the Terranan seemed oblivious to was gaggingly strong here. Everything was as gray as old ice, and between that and the ever-present white glare, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he wished they hadn’t.
The walls were covered with racks, and the racks were filled with devices. He gestured wordlessly.
“Those are rifles,” Mestra Jenny explained. “They’re like the handguns you’ve seen, but of course, more powerful and capable of shooting over a greater distance.”
“And you use these?” Antonno blurted in horror.
“Of course we hope we don’t have to,” she answered obliquely. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest.” She had plenty to say on all sorts of other matters, though, and Zhenyar wondered whether all Terranan babbled like this.
Every child on Darkover grew up learning of the Ages of Chaos, the time before the Compact when the Hundred Kingdoms made war with terrifying weapons. Cities hundreds of miles distant burned to ash. Forests turned to wastelands where nothing grew. People slaughtered by enemies too far away to see.
Zhenyar felt as though he had somehow fallen through a door into that time. There were hand weapons in several sizes, both those that discharged a small pellet with lethal force, and those that fired an equally deadly beam of light. There were items Mestra Jenny called “heavy weapons”—guns even larger than the rifles—and grenades, things that could be hurled through the air and explode on impact. She said, as if it were nothing at all, that they had disarmed their fliers, but that many of these weapons were meant to be mounted on those vehicles. The room contained, by a rough count, perhaps a thousand items. Enough to arm each of the Terranan of Port Chicago twice or three times over.
“Mestra, who do you think is going to attack you?” Antonno said helplessly. “Lord Aldaran has given his promise of your safety.”
“If you need protection, ask for armsmen,” Zhenyar said bluntly.
“Of course we don’t doubt his word, Armsmaster Zhenyar,” Mestra Jenny said, studying his face. “This is all standard equipment. It’s only a precaution. A gun is a lot more use than a sword if you have to defend yourself. No need to get so close to your enemy!”
“Armsmaster Zhenyar likes his sword fine,” Antonno said, recovering his equilibrium. “It has been a good companion to him these many years.”
Zhenyar just rolled his eyes. Antonno made him sound like an old soldier in his dotage. And Mestra Jenny—charmed by the good Antonno, just as all women seemed to be—was smiling.
“I’d think you’d all be glad to finally get out of the Middle Ages,” she said.
“I have no idea what these ‘middle ages’ of yours are, but I like my way of life just fine,” Zhenyar growled. They were supposed to be counting guns, but all she seemed to be doing was talking.
“But your way of life is so inefficient!” she cried.
When he felt he had a handle on his temper, Zhenyar said: “We tried your ‘efficiency’ once.”
“And?” she asked curiously.
“We decided we’d rather be alive.” Clearly Mestra Jenny had not read a single one of those records she was sure were so fascinating.
“Well, now you’ve seen the Armory, and—”
“And now we will count your weapons,” Zhenyar said. “And check them against your tally board.”
He’d hoped that at last they could begin to accomplish what he had been sent to do, but his mention of a tally board led the infernal woman to show off more of her “Terranan wonders.” This one was a glass-fronted box that displayed unfamiliar symbols in brightly-glowing letters.
“So you see,” she said brightly, “there’s no need to check anything. All of our weapons are numbered.” She tapped some keys, and the picture on the glass changed. “The one found at Castle Aldaran was reported missing yesterday. All the rest are accounted for.” She began to explain what the glass box was, and what it did.
“Does your...thing...say how many of each kind should be here?” Zhenyar interrupted.
“Why...yes. Of course.” More tapping. More pictures. “Adjusted for loss and damage, there are two hundred seventy-nine energy rifles, thirty-five pellet-rifles, four hundred type one hand weapons, three—”
He waved a hand irritably, silencing her. “Can you put that list on a tally sheet?” he asked.
She sighed, and tapped a few more buttons. Thin sharp-edged pieces of paper began rising up out of a slot on the desk. He took one. It wasn’t quite paper, and had an odd unpleasant feel to it.
“That’s everything,” she said. “Now what?”
Zhenyar smiled. “Now, mestra, we count them.”
~o0o~
“All the rifles are here,” Antonno called out.
Mestra Jenny had sent for a clip-board and a stylus. Zhenyar scrawled notes and numbers beside the indecipherable Terran script. Since counting the rifles meant touching them, he had left that part of the task to Antonno. Antonno was eternally willing to throw himself in front of the avalanche, particularly to save a chiy’lla in distress.
It took them several tedious hours to determine that the remainder of the Terranan weapons were all accounted for. All were here, save for the handguns currently signed out to the Terranan armsmen. Two guardsmen stood outside the door at all times. (Zhenyar had seen them as he came in, but he could not imagine what use armsmen without armor could be.) At the end of each shift, the armsmen of Port Chicago returned their weapons to this place as the next shift picked theirs up. The two shifts overlapped, as weapons were checked out to relieve a shift before that shift checked their own weapons back in. Mestra Jenny said the “computer” did a “continuous inventory.”
The weapon discovered at the castle today had been reported as missing. There were no other missing weapons.
“Well, I am sure Lord Aldaran will commend you for your...thoroughness,” Mestra Jenny said as they emerged from the armory into the fading autumn sunlight. At least outside, the temperature was comfortable and the light no longer hurt his eyes (Mestra Jenny closed the fastenings on her heavy coat and pulled the hood up around her face). “I’m sure this was an isolated incident, but I’ll warn Commander Stone to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. In the meantime, I’m glad to have had this chance to get to know you. I hope we can be friends.” She offered her hand once more, in that curiously rude Terranan gesture.
With a sigh, Zhenyar took her hand and shook it. And probably, he should say something meaningless and thank her on behalf of Lord Aldaran, but there had been enough meaningless noise today.
“I’ll be happy to fly you back to Castle Aldaran,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll be home in time for supper.”
Zhenyar squinted at the sky and decided he preferred not to risk getting his brains smashed out against the rocks of the Hellers twice in one day.
“I thank you,” he said carefully, “but Antonno and I will stay in Caer Donn tonight. There is a livery here. We will ride back in the morning.”
“There’s no need to trouble yourself, mestra, truly,” Antonno added quickly.
Zhenyar saw Mestra Jenny gathering herself to protest that it would be no trouble at all, and walked off, deliberately making his strides long.
“You might have been a little kinder,” Antonno said in mild reproof when he caught up. Alone, Zhenyar was relieved to note.
“Why?” Zhenyar asked. “I don’t like her. She is entirely unwomanly. And she talks too much.”
Antonno drew breath to speak, and then seemed to think better of it. They reached the gate separating Port Chicago from Caer Donn. There were two guards there, but the gate stood open and the guards did nothing to stop them. Beyond the gate, the stone path led to the walls of Caer Donn, where the gates were properly barred, and the armsmen upon the wall challenged them before they permitted them to enter.
Zhenyar breathed a sigh of relief when the gates shut behind him. He was back in a world he understood. Now to the stables to bespeak horses, then an inn, and a tankard of mulled ale by the honest light of lanterns.
Antonno permitted the silence to last until they were within sight of the stables, but it could not endure forever. “Master? There’s one thing I don’t understand about all of this.”
“And what thing would that be, Antonno?” Zhenyar asked wearily.
“How did that lost gun get from here...all the way to the castle? And inside?”
Zhenyar merely growled.
~o0o~
A month after her encounter with Armsmaster Zhenyar, Cultural Reconciliation Specialist Jenny Lauren still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Darkover was her fourth posting. She was good at what she did. And her job was a necessary one.
It had been over a thousand years since Terra had sent her children forth to find new homes for the human race. Desperation as much as exploration had fueled that early effort, for Earth itself had been dying, wracked by plagues and ecological disasters. A war with the colony worlds of the Solar System had brought a new Dark Age to Earth, leaving its isolated survivors to reclaim their world and rebuild their civilization. When they had at last succeeded, they’d thought the Age of Exploration was a myth. Then they discovered the first of the lost colonies, and suddenly the Terran Imperial Federation had a new mission.
Rediscovery.
Some of the colonies had suffered no interregnum. Others, through isolation, mischance, and even war, had devolved into primitive superstition and barbarism. It was the task of the Cultural Reconciliation Department to discover the best way to educate those people, and bring them into full equality with their galactic siblings.
Darkover was a problem.
Darkover was snow, sorcery, superstition...and seven ruling families called the Comyn. The natives here held the red-haired ruling caste in superstitious awe, attributing to them miracles and mystical powers—a notion that undoubtedly served their Comyn overlords very well indeed. The ITF was just lucky to have arrived in a part of Darkover where the local divine warlord was a reasonable man. But reasonable or not, Lord Aldaran was firmly opposed to accepting Terran ways, Terran ideas, or Terran technology.
Jenny sighed. A cultural reconciliation specialist’s job was much easier when the members of both cultures wanted to be reconciled. She supposed Armsmaster Zhenyar was a typical specimen of the sort of mindset her department would need to overcome to make any real headway here. She’d much preferred the company of the affable Antonno. She wondered if she might arrange to see him again. Her department was conducting interviews with all the natives it could manage to corral, trying to build a picture of Darkovan society that would let them send in undercover anthropologists to do the real work, but she knew they weren’t getting a reliable picture of what was clearly a very stratified feudal society. The chance to learn more about Antonno would fill in a few gaps.
Assuming they didn’t all freeze to death first. The survey teams who had braved the endless snow to finish mapping Cottman IV’s single continent had suggested perhaps Thendara would make a better place for a spaceport. It lay south of here, so it might be warmer during the winter, and more to the point, Thendara was not only already a major trade city, but the seat of what passed for a ruling body: the Comyn Council. And certainly Lord Hastur was open to letting the Terrans settle on his lands. The only real hitch was going to be moving to their new home. By the time all of the ritual forms had been satisfied and Lord Aldaran was once again reassured that the Terrans were not merely a bunch of ignorant savages, it would be winter again. Next winter. If they were lucky.
Nothing on this planet moved quickly.
She was preparing to (once again) petition to expand the range of goods offered in the Trading Post when there was a racket in the outer office. A moment later, her door flew open to reveal Armsmaster Zhenyar, looking thunderous, with four security officers and her assistant, Palmer, in hot pursuit.
“Sir! You can’t just go in there! Sir—” Palmer shouted.
Zhenyar ignored him and strode into the room.
“Armsmaster Zhenyar, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, standing up. “What can we do for you?”
Scowling ferociously, he upended the sack he was carrying over her desk. Its contents tumbled out with dull, damning thuds. Two standard issue security sidearms. An energy pistol. A game console. A radio. None of which, according to the agreement the Imperial Federation had reached with Lord Aldaran, should be in Darkovan hands—Zhenyar’s or anyone else’s. She looked from the pile of illicit technology to Zhenyar and back again. Palmer was still stammering about how you couldn’t just barge in on the Cultural Reconciliation Specialist without an appointment. Jenny held up a hand to silence him.
“Where did these come from?” she asked.
Zhenyar told her, scowling furiously. The three weapons from Castle Aldaran (she groaned inwardly), the game console from a small village a short journey from the castle, and the radio from St.-Valentine-of-the-Snows.
“The monks had no idea what it was,” he said. “They found it in the offering box.”
“No one from Port Chicago has been anywhere near Nevarasin. Anyone planning to travel off-base has to go through me. If they’d been there, I’d know.”
“Get me a map,” Armsmaster Zhenyar said. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Palmer bristling at his peremptory tone, but Jenny nodded at him, adding: “Hardcopy, please.” Reluctantly, he went.
A few minutes later, Palmer came back with the map. They spread it out on the big table under her window. Zhenyar glared at it for awhile, rubbing his chin with what Jenny suspected was irritation rather than thoughtfulness. It was very detailed; he should be able to recognize the landmarks even if he couldn’t read the Terran.
Finally he stabbed a blunt forefinger at the map. (Jenny thought the surveying teams would be glad to know they’d proven themselves useful.)
“Here,” Zhenyar said. “Aldaran Castle. And here,” the finger stabbed down on the mark that indicated Port Chicago. “Caer Donn.” His finger slammed down accusingly on a point almost halfway between—a logical waypoint if you were on horseback or taking a leisurely journey from Port Chicago to the castle. “This is the village where we found the game console.”
“My people would not give your people items that violate our agreement with Lord Aldaran!” she said indignantly.
“My people,” said, his finger still resting on the map, “would not steal them. And if you think Lord Hastur is going to give the Terranan a better deal in Thendara than you received from my Lord Aldaran, you’re deluding yourself.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. How on earth would someone like Zhenyar have any idea the Terrans were quietly negotiating with Lord Hastur to build a port in the Trade City?
Zhenyar shrugged. “Do you think Lord Hastur didn’t ask my lord about your folk?”
“How?” she demanded. It was a long journey between Castle Aldaran and Thendara, one already difficult, if not impossible, on horseback.
He gave another of his one-shouldered shrugs. “I don’t meddle in Comyn affairs,” he said in a warning tone. “And neither will you, if you’re wise.”
Jenny gritted her teeth in irritation. One of the first things she meant to do was strike off the chains of superstition that kept Darkover mired in its damnable regressive past. Fortunately, before she could say anything of the sort, her commlink buzzed. On the other end was the quartermaster’s most junior assistant; he was calling from the gatehouse.
“Beg pardon, Specialist Lauren,” the kid said, “but Sergeant Jeffries sent me to tell you that there’s a bunch of stuff missing from the trading post and you’d better come and see.”
“I’ll be there at once,” she answered. “You might as well come,” she said to Armsmaster Zhenyar.
“Good,” he said. “I’m not finished with you yet.”
~o0o~
The trading post was a stone building within the walls of Caer Donn. They’d tried setting it up inside Port Chicago, but the natives wouldn’t come. This was a compromise, reached at the cost of disassembling and reassembling a portion of the village wall to enclose the space. The building itself was the same sort of prefab structure as the Armory was, but its exterior had been coated in plaster and its plasteel roof given a thatchwork coating. As disguises went, it wasn’t a very good one. Jenny supposed that was part of the attraction.
The trading post was crowded with Darkovans, but despite the press of bodies, it was cold. There were a few battery-powered lamps lighting the room, but the room was dim. If I had to live here without power, I’d go blind, she thought randomly.
She averted her eyes from the pile of animal skins on the counter. She’d done her best to become used to this sort of thing, though Terra had outlawed animal slavery and animal exploitation centuries ago. It didn’t make it any prettier when she encountered it.
She tried to head to the back room, but there were too many people in the way. When he realized their destination, Zhenyar gave the nearest man a shove. At the sight of his livery, all conversation died, and the traders opened a clear pathway. Jenny wasn’t sure whether to be impressed at the efficiency, or sickened at the privilege it represented.
Quartermaster Sergeant Jeffries glared at Zhenyar when he stepped through the door behind Jenny. “Out—” she began.
“Rachel, this is Armsmaster Zhenyar,” Jenny said quickly. “He’s investigating the weapons disappearances on behalf of Lord Aldaran. Armsmaster Zhenyar, this is Rachel Jeffries, our quartermaster. She keeps track of all the property in Port Chicago.”
Jeffries gave a minute shrug and turned to gesture at about six vacant spots on the shelves. The only thing left in any of them was the outlines of whatever had been there, clearly demarcated in a sea of undisturbed frost. It was as if whatever had been there had simply vanished where it sat.
“It’s all little stuff,” Jeffries said with a grimace. “Dried food, some toys, cups, tinware, some glass. Nothing contraband—we don’t let it off the port, and we certainly don’t offer it for sale. I figured it was just kids, but someone would’ve had to’ve seen them leaving with this much stuff.”
Zhenyar studied one of the empty places carefully and looked thoughtful, but whatever he was thinking, he apparently didn’t feel like sharing. “When did you lose these objects?” he asked.
Jeffries shrugged, a twist of the shoulders. “Sometime last night after the trading post closed,” she said. “Gordon found the stuff gone when he opened this morning. He radioed me, and I came down to see for myself.”
Zhenyar’s frown got even deeper, if that was possible. “And the other items?” he asked. “The ones that vanished from the port? When did they go missing?”
Jeffries glanced from him to Jenny, and Jenny nodded fractionally.
“At night,” Jeffries said. “All the thefts were reported at the start of First Shift.”
“I’m going to spend the night here,” Zhenyar said, looking as if he meant to put down roots.
“Of course,” Jenny said, startled. “I’ll arrange a room for you, unless you—”
“No,” Zhenyar said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if to a small child. “Here.” He gestured at the shelves.
~o0o~
It was either very late or very early when Jenny was startled out of sleep by a loud pounding on her apartment door. She stumbled into a warm robe and a pair of sheepskin slippers. The pounding resumed before she was halfway to the door, more urgently this time.
“I’m coming!” she shouted. “Just hold on.” Normal people, she thought, would call first. She hauled the door open, shivering in the cold. Somehow she was totally unsurprised to find Zhenyar standing there, his arms folded. She couldn’t fathom why he wasn’t shivering so hard his teeth chattered, given that his outerwear consisted of a knitted cap and a quilted jacket.
As usual, he was staring in the direction of her feet. “You were asleep,” he said accusingly.
“It’s the middle of the night!”
“It’s dawn,” he answered, and shrugged, dismissing the matter. “I know how your missing objects are being removed from your custody. What I don’t know is why.”
“You caught the thieves?” she asked. She stepped back, gesturing for him to enter. She wondered if she’d be able to intercede for them, or if he’d already murdered them.
Zhenyar was now staring fixedly at the wall to her left. “No,” he said shortly. “I still have no idea who’s doing this.”
“Then how?” she asked, belting the robe more tightly around herself.
“Laran,” he said.
She sighed and tried not to rub her temples. “You’re saying the armory and the trading post were robbed by magic?” It would be nice when Cottman IV decided to join the rest of the Imperial Federation in the present day.
“Not magic,” Zhenyar said, sounding as if he was trying to be very patient. “Laran. Starstones.”
“Magic rocks, then,” she said wearily.
Zhenyar was opening his mouth to say something more when there was another knock at the door. Schooling her expression into what she hoped was something polite, she opened it.
Antonno was standing there (dressed no more warmly than Zhenyar, but at least he had an escort), looking apologetic. She wondered if he’d come all this way in the middle of the night (oh no, of course he hadn’t, she thought sarcastically; Zhenyar had said it was dawn). “I’m sorry for the intrusion, mestra,” he said.
She shrugged and stood aside to let him in. “I’m already up,” she said with a faint smile. “Can I get you a cup of tea?” Antonno made it much easier to be polite to him than his master did.
“Thank you, no,” he said, still standing on the threshold. Rather than freeze, she gestured him inside, and waved his escort away. “I came to find Armsmaster Zhenyar. My news cannot wait.”
“You found something?” Zhenyar demanded. He was actually willing to look at Antonno, Jenny noted.
“I’ve spent the last fortnight staring at records,” Antonno said, stretching as if he had only just now stood up from a desk in some dusty library. “With Coridom Rumail’s help, I’ve traced every member of the Aldaran line back ten generations.”
This is a hell of a time for a genealogical side trip.
“And?” Zhenyar asked impatiently, folding his arms.
“Anjali Aldaran—cousin to Lord Aldaran’s great-grandmother—is the only one who had it strong enough to train. She’d be very old by now, if she’s even still—”
Zhenyar cut him off. “Where in Zandru’s nine hells is she?” he demanded.
Clearly Antonno did not wish to answer. “Vai dom,” he said softly, “she went to Tramontana thirty years ago and never came out.”
Jenny frowned in confusion. None of the conversation made any sense. “Tramontana?” she asked, looking at Antonno. Just like Zhenyar, Antonno looked away from her. She wondered if she were violating some obscure Darkovan taboo.
“Tramontana Tower,” Antonno said. “It’s not far from here. But the last time there were enough people for a circle there was fifty years ago.”
Jenny recognized the term. Towers were where Darkovan sorcerers—leroni, wielders of laran—had supposedly roosted, once upon a time. Apparently both Zhenyar and Antonno believed magic was at the root of these thefts.
Zhenyar actually shuddered. “Then it is a matter for the Comyn now,” he said. He turned to Jenny, nodding curtly in the direction of her knees. “My investigation is finished,” he announced. “My teniente and I will trouble you no further.”
“You’ve been looking for the person who’s been smuggling illegal technology out of Port Chicago for months,” Jenny said incredulously. “You’ve tracked the thieves to this Tower and now you want to let them go?”
“This is a Comyn matter now,” Zhenyar repeated between gritted teeth. “And I will take it to Lord Aldaran as soon as may be. You,” he said, stabbing a blunt finger at Jenny, “would be wise to remain in Port Shigashik where it is safe.”
Jenny scoffed. She knew it was rude, but she couldn’t help it. “You’re afraid of wizards and ghost stories?” she asked incredulously. “If this Anjali person is the one behind the thefts, we should go and get her!”
“That really wouldn’t be a good idea, mestra,” Antonno said diplomatically. “You see—”
“We are finished here,” Zhenyar announced. “Come, Antonno.”
He motioned to Antonno, and left without a further word.
And good riddance, Master Zhenyar, Jenny thought acidly. Superstitious primitives.
~o0o~
The sky outside the windows of Dom Barak’s private sitting room was a dark solid gray with the first storm of winter. Zhenyar gratefully accepted a mug of warm spiced wine from a servant. He and Antonno had arrived home just in time. He’d not have wanted to be caught on the road in this misery.
Dom Barak’s face had remained impassive throughout Zhenyar’s report, but now he ran a weary hand through his graying hair and sighed. “It is as you said. This is a Comyn matter now, and when the storm has broken, I...shall go and see Tramontana for myself. The thefts will stop.”
“As my lord says,” Zhenyar answered. He wanted nothing more right now than to return to the barracks. No doubt he would lead the escort when Dom Barak went to Tramontana, but that would not be for some days yet. And he would not have to go inside.
“But come, Zhenyar, I have news that will lighten your spirits,” Dom Barak continued. “You are no longer to be afflicted with the Terranan. Lord Hastur is pleased to welcome them to Thendara. They will be gone by summer.”
“If it is news which pleases you, my lord, then it pleases me also,” Zhenyar said formally. In fact, it would please him if they all vanished into the Ninth Hell at once, but those were words best reserved for Antonno’s ears alone. He wished the Hasturs much delight in the little Terranan woman and her trailman chatter.
Dom Barak dismissed him, but he had barely put his hand on the door when it was flung open in his face. It was Timas, one of the guardsmen.
“My Lord!” he said. “Armsmaster, a Terranan craft has crashed inside the outer courtyard. Antonno has taken men and gone to fetch the passengers—assuming they survived that landing,” he added under his breath.
“What sort of madman flies in this weather?” Dom Barak demanded, getting to his feet.
“Terranan madmen,” Zhenyar said darkly. “I think they believe themselves to be immortal.”
“Zhenyar, bring the passengers to the Great Hall if they are not too badly injured,” Dom Barak said, setting his cup on his desk with a thud. “I will join them momentarily.”
~o0o~
There was only one person in the flyer, a dark-skinned Terranan who had been a frequent guest at the castle. There was no one with him, so Zhenyar assumed the idiot must have piloted his own craft. He was standing beside the wreckage, looking properly shaken, when Zhenyar arrived.
“Come inside, man!” Zhenyar said. “It’s snowing.”
“My name is Carroll Stone,” the visitor said in barely-understandable Trade. “I must see Barak Aldaran at once.”
“I will take you to him,” Zhenyar said.
“Commander Legate,” Dom Barak said, when they arrived in the Great Hall. “This is unfortunate weather for flying.” He gestured for his guest to sit.
The Terranan winced as he lowered himself into a chair near the fire. “My apologies for this unexpected visit, Lord Aldaran,” he said in his slow Trade.
“Certainly nothing but an emergency could have moved you to fly in this weather,” Dom Barak said. “How may we be of assistance? This is Armsmaster Zhenyar. You may speak freely in his presence, for he holds my trust.”
The Commander Legate nodded formally, and (much to Zhenyar’s relief), did not offer his hand. “Perhaps Armsmaster Zhenyar can help me,” he said, sounding relieved. “He knows Jenny Lauren.”
Zhenyar waited impassively, not having been given leave to speak, but his thoughts were whirling.
“First I must ask: did she perhaps return with your people today?”
Dom Barak looked at him. “She did not,” Zhenyar said.
“I’d hoped to find her here,” the Commander Legate said, looking unhappy. “She apparently told her assistant she knew who was behind the thefts from our stores. Then she vanished.”
“She’s gone to Tramontana,” Zhenyar said heavily. He did not know who deserved the greater blame: Antonno, for speaking of where leronis Anjuli might be found, or himself for permitting it. He is your man. The blame is yours.
“When the storm abates, we will of course send out search parties,” Dom Barak said firmly. “Please, Commander Legate, accept my hospitality until it passes.” He lifted his hand. “Zhenyar, please tell Rumail to attend me.”
Zhenyar bowed, and took his leave.
~o0o~
He would as soon abandon a helpless child to the tender mercies of the weather as a Terranan, no matter how rude and foolish she was, but by the time Zhenyar finally reached the outskirts of the land surrounding Tramontana Tower, he thoroughly regretted his noble impulse. Even under layers of fur and wool and oiled leather, he was chilled to the core.
He wasn’t sure if he was disgusted or pleased that the chervines seemed utterly unperturbed by the blowing white snow. He would have preferred horses, but if one was foolish enough to travel in a blizzard, the sure-footed little stag-ponies were the only reliable mounts. He gritted his teeth and ducked his head against the snow-thick wind. He fervently hoped Mestra Jenny was still alive; he wanted to strangle her himself. And in comfort, which was why he’d brought a second beast, saddled in the hopes that the idiot Terranan woman had actually survived her ill-considered journey.
He could see the Tower silhouetted against the sky when he came upon the flyer in a clearing. It was half buried in snow. He hoped she’d had the sense to stay with it.
But the flier was empty.
The snow had covered any tracks. He frowned, trying to imagine what she had done. He and Antonno had left Port Chicago a little after dawn. It was a four hour ride to Castle Aldaran from there, but the morning had been clear; the storm clouds had only begun to boil over the Hellers around midday. Tramontana was two hours north of Caer Donn, but in a flyer, only a few minutes. Mestra Jenny had remained in the Terran City long enough to speak to her servants—some hours perhaps—before coming here. The weather would still have been clear; she would have landed, and gone ahead on foot. Zhenyar sighed and clucked to the chervines. He hated the thought of going into the Tower, but there was nowhere else to search: if Mestra Jenny wasn’t at Tremontaya, she was dead.
~o0o~
The tower was a dark looming presence against the grey brightness of the storm. Zhenyar shivered, and not from the cold; when he was a child, his grandmother had told him stories of the days when the leroni worked at Tramontana, of how the tower’s stones would glow with an eldritch blue radiance that could be seen for miles.
He dismounted to ring the bell beside the gate leading in to the inner courtyard, for it did not matter how deserted the place seemed, it was a thing which belonged to the leroni, and only a madman would offend them.
Nothing happened.
He pushed the gate open cautiously and led the chervines inside. At least the walls around the courtyard would keep off the worst of the wind. He left the chervines looking for whatever might be hidden under the snow, and once again rang the bell, this time at the door of the Tower itself. Again, there was no answer, and he hoped to all the gods he could name that the Tower was no longer warded, for if it was, he risked death or worse with his next step.
Again, nothing happened.
It wasn’t any warmer inside than it was outside, but at least the thick walls muted the howling of the wind.
Pale witchlight rose from the stone as he shut the door behind him. This, at least, was something he’d seen before: it was matrix-work, but a thing that could be set and forgotten. Many of the interior rooms at Castle Aldaran had such light. He stamped his feet to shake the snow off his boots, and brushed off the sleeves of his outer coat. And then he looked around himself.
The entirety of the chamber floor was covered with a jumble of Terranan...junk. Dozens of handled cups stood in precarious towers. There were many bright objects of the material named duraplast; it was as if anything small enough to fetch had been swept up and dumped here. Weapons, too: a greater number than Mestra Jenny had admitted were missing. Or she did not know. Their quartermaster is clearly an incompetent fool. Drifts of that substance that was paper-but-not-paper had gathered against the walls.
Armsman Zhenyar had never in his life been so unhappy to be proven right.
The ground floor was deserted. It had never been meant for any purpose other than receiving visitors and storing supplies, and had clearly been unused for a very long time. If Mestra Jenny was in the Tower, she was on an upper level. After a long, suspicious look at the stone staircase, he set one a hand on the banister and the other on the hilt of the sword he dared not draw under any circumstances, and proceeded cautiously upstairs.
He found nothing on the first three floors. He searched every room, but they were empty of everything save witchlight, echoes...and dead kyrri. There were a dozen of the nonhuman servants and protectors of the leroni, all dead. Possibly from age, for their fur was white as frost, but the fact there were so many bodies, all lying where they had fallen, was troubling. He was starting to make, in his head, the story of this place, and it was not a happy one.
Finally he reached the top of the Tower, and the last possible place Mestra Jenny could possibly be. The old Working Room. It was a place no one like Zhenyar had ever been meant to see, and he did not want to see it now, but he had no choice. Swallowing hard, he reached to touch wood of the door.
It was as warm as living flesh.
And it swung open on its own.
The chamber beyond was as bright as any in the Terran city. Fighting the instinct to turn and run, Zhenyar stepped inside, squinting against the light.
The room was thirty feet across, round, and windowed. The walls were layered with fine tapestries and the floor was heaped with rugs. There was no furniture here, if there ever had been, save a single throne-like chair that faced the door. Sitting in it was the oldest woman Zhenyar had ever seen, her face deeply lined, her skin translucent, her long white hair nothing more than a drift of cobwebs across her arms. She wore what must have once been a fine gown, heavy and ornate. A starstone blazed at her throat. Both her hands were heavy with gold and copper rings, and they cradled the thing she held in her lap: an enormous gun of dull gray plasteel, one of the kind that could spit a gout of fire across a great distance. Zhenyar wondered, a bit wildly, if the old woman could even lift the weapon.
Kneeling beside her throne was Mestra Jenny, her eyes wide and utterly empty. Bespelled.
“I would have thought Aldaran himself would have had the honor to come to me,” the old woman said in a clear thin voice, meeting his gaze.
“He will come as soon as the storm passes, vai leronis,” Zhenyar said soothingly, taking a cautious step forward.
“It was to have been him,” the old woman said in the same cool, dispassionate voice. “I thought surely my riddles would have brought him by now. The Comyn must understand the danger I have Seen. The Terranan will plunge us into a new Age of Chaos. All my life I waited, Armsmaster, but when their ship came, I was too old, too weak to rip it from the sky. I am so sorry. I could not save you. And so you must save yourselves. Drive them from our home with fire and the sword!”
The old woman could be no one other than Anjali Aldaran, who had come to Tramontana half a century ago and never left. The other leroni had left, one by one, until she had only kyrri to tend her, but she had waited steadfastly. Watching for the danger she had Seen. Terror and reverence and love filled his mind, too muddled together to separate.
Then she lifted the enormous gun and held it out.
“It should have been Barak,” Anjali said, “My precious little cousin. But you will have to do, Armsmaster.”
Mestra Jenny, her face as still as a mask, took the weapon.
Horror replaced all other emotions as Zhenyar saw Mestra Jenny’s finger tighten on the trigger. He tried to move, and found he could not.
The beam went wide, as any first shot from an unfamiliar weapon might. It struck the hangings on the wall with an electric sizzle. They burst into flame.
Mestra Jenny dropped the gun in shock, and Zhenyar found his limbs were his own once more. The fire was spreading hungrily; here, where the kyrri had brought all the Tower’s furnishings, there was much for it to feed on.
“Domna!” he shouted. “Quench the flames!” Fire is the first spell. The simplest spell. She can do this. She must.
Her head lolled now against the back of the chair; the starstone at her throat flickered as she gasped for air in the weakness of age. “Darkover is burning. Darkover will burn. I have Seen....” And the flames glowed brighter, and began to race over the walls with unnatural speed.
He lunged forward, grabbed Mestra Jenny by the wrist, and ran.
Down, down, down, with the inferno licking at their heels, roaring hungrily as it fed. Did Leronis Anjali still sit in the Working Room crowned in Sharra’s own flame, smiling as if at some secret joke?
When he reached the courtyard he had to let go to catch the chervines. The falling snow melted in the air, and the courtyard was nothing but mud and water now. Even in the middle of this, Mestra Jenny was trying to talk to him. It was surely Cassilda’s mercy she did not run back inside to try to find someone else to talk to when he ignored her. He lifted her onto one of the chervines and led both to the outer gate. It opened easily, and they galloped through the gate and out into the snow.
~o0o~
It was immediately clear that Mestra Jenny had no idea what to do with a riding beast, but the little stag-pony would follow its herdmate. The whole of the sky was orange with fire. There was no difficulty now in seeing the trail.
He let out a long slow sigh of relief when they reached the trail hut. “You’re just lucky this place is already stocked,” he said. The least likely to be used were provisioned last, and there was nothing up this way but Tramontana.
He shoved the door open and dragged Mestra Jenny inside. The two chervines followed immediately, glad to be out of the storm. He settled the beasts and found fodder for them, glancing at Mestra Jenny as he did. All she did was huddle in a corner and shiver. He supposed he wasn’t surprised. Away from their ‘efficiency,’ the Terranan really didn’t seem to be good for much.
Once a fire was burning brightly, he handed Mestra Jenny a trail bar from his pack and asked her what in Zandru’s nine hells she’d been thinking.
“I had no idea a storm was on its way,” she said numbly, turning the food bar over in her hands. Zhenyar held his tongue as she explained that she’d decided to go up to the Tower and root out the nest of bandits he was clearly too superstitious to clear out himself. “And then the fire started,” she said, rubbing her temples and wincing against the headache she undoubtedly had. “One of the band of outlaws living there must have drugged me.”
Zhenyar rolled his eyes, and took the trail bar away from her to unwrap. “Eat,” he said, handing it back. The Terranan had their own superstitions, and he was far too smart to argue.
“But we were the only ones who got out of there,” Mestra Jenny said. “So I guess the problem is solved now, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” Zhenyar said with some relish. “Our problem is over. The Hastur has ruled. You’re to go to Thendara in the spring.”
You’ll be someone else’s problem then.
But Zhenyar could not help but wonder, studying the Terranan woman as she sat there as haughtily as any leronis in her heavy parka, had Leronis Anjali been mad?
Or had she been right?
