Oathbreaker
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
In the cool of the evening, Flora of Arilinn moved si­lently through the Keeper's Garden, the Garden of Fra­grance. Here she had come to be alone, to enjoy the drifting scents of the herbs and flowers planted by some long-ago Keeper. She wondered who that Keeper had been, the Keeper who before recorded time had created this peaceful place, her very own retreat. Had she, too, been blind? Or, perhaps he—for Fiora knew that in ancient times some men, too, had been Keeper—even in Arilinn. Some day, perhaps, when work was not so pressing, she might undertake Timesearch and try to discover some­thing of that long-ago Keeper.
Fiora smiled, almost wistfully. When work was not so pressing—that was like saying, when oranges and apples grew on the ice walls of Nevarsin! The life of a Keeper, certainly of a Keeper of Arilinn, was too crowded to allow for the indulgence of purely intellectual curiosity. There were novices to be trained, young people to be tested for laran, and, if possible, claimed for a period of service in Arilinn or one of the few remaining Towers. And there was much other Tower work, complicated by the unending service in the Relays. From this last, how­ever, Fiora was exempt; a Keeper had more important work to do.
For this moment Fiora was at liberty to enjoy the pri­vacy of this special garden, her own particular domain. But not for long; she heard the sound of the garden gate, and even before her mind reached out to touch him, she knew who it was from the fumbling step and the faint scent of kirian which hung always about him; Rian Ardais, the aging technician she had known since childhood.
He was drunk again with kirian. Fiora sighed; she hated seeing him this way, but how could she forbid it, even though she knew he would sooner or later destroy himself? She remembered that Janine, the old Keeper who had trained her when she was new-come to Arilinn, had mentioned Rian's continual intoxication:
"It is the lesser of two evils. It is not for me to refuse him whatever it is that he needs to keep his balance. He never allows it to affect his work; in relay and circle he is always perfectly sober." Janine had said no more, yet Fiora had heard the unspoken words clearly, how can I stop him or deny him that surcease, when the alternative would be that he could no longer tolerate his work here at all?
"Domna Fiora," the old man said unsteadily, "I would not intrude upon you in this condition without necessity. You have earned leisure, and—"
"Never mind," she said. She had seen the old man once, before the illness which had deprived her of her sight. She still saw him as handsome and erect, though she knew he had grown skeletal and his old hands trem­bled. Except, of course, working in the lattices, when they were always perfectly steady. How strange that was, that he should retain the ability to remain steady within a matrix lattice, when he could not so much as shave without cutting himself.
"What is the matter, Rian?"
"There is a messenger in the outer courtyard," he said, "from Ardais. Young Dyan is needed at home, and if it is possible, I must go, too."
"Impossible," Fiora said, "You may go, of course; you have certainly earned a holiday. But you know very well why Dyan cannot." She was shocked that he should even ask; the strictest of laws stated that for the four months after a novice had been accepted at Arilinn, nothing might intrude on his training. Drunk or not, Rian should have been able to handle that without appealing to a Keeper. "Send the messenger away and tell them Dyan is in isolation."
Then she realized that the old man was shaking. Fiora reached out with the awareness which served her better than sight. She should have known. He would not have
interrupted her here without need, after all, and it was really far more urgent than she had believed. She sighed, realizing how hard he had tried to keep any hint of his distress from reaching her, and came all the way back from the peace of the garden.
"Tell me," she said aloud.
He spoke, carefully disciplining his thoughts so that Fiora need not pick up anything but the spoken word if she chose.
"A death."
"Lord Kyril?" But that was small loss to any, thought Fiora. Even in the isolation of Arilinn, the young Keeper had heard about the Lord of Ardais, about his dissolute life, his fits of madness. So many of the Ardais clan were dangerously unstable. Kyril mad; Rian himself, though he tried his best, addicted to the intoxication of kirian. It was too soon to know about young Dyan, though she had hopes for him.
"Yet even for a death in the family Dyan may not be released so soon." Although, if it were Kyril, Dyan would be Heir to Ardais and there would be no question of allowing him to take oath at Arilinn in service to the Towers.
"It is not Kyril," Rian's voice was shaking, and though he tried to keep rein on his thoughts she heard it clearly, would that it had been no more than that! "It is worse than that. The Gods witness I love my brother and never once envied him heirship to our house; I was content to make my life here."
Yes, Fiora thought, so content that you cannot get through a tenday without making yourself drunk with kirian or some other drug. But who was she to mock the man's defenses? She had her own. She only said, again, "Tell me."
Yet he hesitated. She could feel him thinking; Fiora was Keeper, sworn virgin, such things should not be spo­ken before her.
At last he said, and she could feel the desperation in his voice, "It is Dom Kyril's wife, the Lady Valentina. She has been an invalid for years and his youngest daughter—Dyan of course is the eldest, his son by his first wife—his daughter Elorie has been acting as his
hostess. Some of Kyril's parties are—dissolute," he said, carefully choosing the most neutral word he could.
So Fiora had heard. She nodded for him to go on.
"The Lady Valentina was reluctant for Elorie to ap­pear at these parties," Rian said, "but Kyril would not have it otherwise. So Domna Valentina appeared, de­spite her illness, to protect the girl's character. And Kyril, in a drunken rage—or worse—struck her."
He paused, but Fiora already knew the worst.
"He killed her."
It was indeed worse than Fiora had believed. Kyril had always been a dissolute man—the roster of his bas­tards was said, and not altogether in jest, to equal the legendary conquests of Dom Hilario, a notorious lecher of folk-tale and fable—and there were tales that he had more than once paid heavily to hush up a brutal beating. Fiora was too innocent to be aware of the sexual impli­cations of this, and would have believed it meant no more than ordinary drunken brutality. But murder, and of a lawful wife di catenas—that was something else, and probably could not be hushed up at all.
Still Fiora hesitated. "You are Regent of Ardais till Dyan is of age," she said after a moment's thought, "and I am hesitant to interrupt his training. We know he has not the Ardais Gift, but he is potentially a powerful telepath. An untrained telepath is a menace to himself and everyone around him," she added, quoting one of the oldest Arilinn maxims of training. "I know this is a serious crisis in Ardais and perhaps in all the Comyn, Dom Rian; it may well demand Council action. But must it involve Dyan? You are Dom Kyril's brother and Re­gent. And you may go as soon as you wish; I will give you leave at once. But why must Dyan accompany you? It is not even as if the Lady Valentina were his mother; she was no more than his stepmother. I think you should go at once and that Dyan should remain here."
Rian twisted his hands. Fiora could sense the man's desperation; she did not need sight for that. Once again she was aware peripherally of the strong smell of the drug that clung to him, blocking out the scents from the garden, and felt with irritation that he had profaned her favorite retreat; she wondered if she would ever walk in
it again without the overpowering scent of drug and mis­ery which she could feel on the evening breeze. Silence; the blind woman was tense with the pain of the man who faced her.
Rian was not, Fiora thought, really an old man; it was sorrow and perhaps the side effects of the drugs which made him seem so. He should have been in the heartiest stage of his middle years; he was more than a year Dom Kyril's junior. Yet he seemed decrepit, and she had seen him so in the eyes of everyone at Arilinn. He still stood silent before her, and after a moment she heard the small sound of the stifled sob.
"Rian, what is it? Is there something else?"
He did not speak, but the Keeper, open in empathy to the misery of the man before her, was overwhelmed with his despair. In that moment she knew why Rian drugged himself, why he seemed an old man when he was younger than Kyril, as she heard his first stam­mering, shamed word.
"I am—I have always been afraid of Kyril. I dare not, I have never been able to face his—his anger, his brutal­ity. Ever since I was a young man, I have tried never to face him at all. Dyan is not afraid of his father. I dare not go home, especially not now, unless Dyan is with me."
Fiora tried hard to conceal her shock and pity, realiz­ing it was not untouched with a contempt of which she knew she should be ashamed. Rian's weaknesses were not of his own choosing. Yet she knew nothing would ever be the same again between them. She was Keeper; she had won through to that high office by achievement, hard work, and an austerity which would have broken nine women out of ten. She was Rian's superior, but the man was her elder, and she had always liked and even admired him. The liking remained unchanged, but she was shocked and distressed by the change in her own feelings. Nevertheless, the young Keeper made her voice gentle, without judgment.
"Well, then, Rian, it seems there is no help for it. I will speak with Dyan. If it can be done without totally wrecking all his training so far, I will give him leave to go with you to Ardais. Send him to me—" she hesitated,
"—but not here." She would not have her garden fur­ther spoiled for her. "I will await him, an hour from now, in the fireside room."
Dyan Ardais at this time of his life—he was about nineteen, she thought—was still as slight as a boy. Fiora, who of course could not see him, had seen him often enough in the eyes of the others in the circle at Arilinn. He was a darkly handsome young man, dark hair coarsely curling about his face, which was narrow and finely made. He had also eyes of the colorless steely gray which, Fiora knew, often marked the strongest telepaths. If Dyan was a telepath, though, he had learned to barrier his thoughts perfectly, even from her.
In the training which had made her Keeper, she had learned to be impervious to all men; and Dyan was no exception. But though Fiora was innocent, she was a Keeper and a telepath and in the course of the early training, when Dyan had first come here, she had learned many things about him, and one was this; he would forever be impervious to her or to any woman. That did not matter to Fiora; he was neither the first nor the last lover of men to make a place and a reputa­tion for himself in the Towers. What troubled her was that a boy so young—Fiora herself was not past twenty, but a Keeper's training made one age rapidly in both body and mind—should be so braced, so impassive and invulnerable. At his age, a novice in a Tower should be open to his Keeper. Was it some early warning sign of the Ardais instability, which might later show itself in becoming, like Rian, addicted to some drug? Or—in fair­ness, she remembered what she knew of Dom Kyril— was it only the effect of growing up in the presence of a madman? As far as she knew, and she would have known, Dyan used kirian only for the necessary work in the Towers and for training. And though some Ardais drank far too much, she had noticed that he drank only moderately and at dinner. He had, as far as she knew, no glaring character flaws; some Keepers might have considered his homosexuality a flaw, but it did not trou­ble Fiora as long as it created no trouble within the circle, and so far she had not heard of any dissension
that it had caused; the others in the circle were tolerant and seemed to like him. He seemed a quiet, inoffensive youngster, yet something about him, something sublimi­nal which she could not yet quite identify, still troubled her; why should a youth of Dyan's age be opaque when to his Keeper he should have been transparent?
Dyan bowed and said, in the musical voice which was, to Fiora, one of his most attractive qualities, "My uncle said you wanted to speak to me, Domna."
"Has he told you anything about what it is?"
"He said to me that there was trouble at home, and that I was needed there. No more than that ... no; he said, too, that it was important enough that I should have to go home even though I have not yet passed my first period of probation here." He paused, expectantly.
Fiora asked, "Do you want to go home, Dyan?" And for the first time she sensed a trace of emotion in his voice.
"Why? Has my work here been unsatisfactory? I have—have tried very hard—"
She said quickly, "It is nothing like that, Dyan. Noth­ing would please me more than that you should com­plete your training with us here, and perhaps work with us for a time, perhaps many years; although, as you are Heir to Ardais, you cannot spend a lifetime here. But, as Rian has told you, there is trouble at home which he feels he is not competent to meet alone. He has asked us as a favor that you be allowed to go with him. This is very unusual at this stage in your training, and I need to assess whether it will do any damage to interrupt your training at this point." She added forthrightly, "If you are here only because you are unhappy at home, as you can see, your dedication to Arilinn is certainly in question."
She could feel that he smiled. He said, "It is true that I have no great love for living at Ardais. I do not know how much you know about my father, Lady, but I assure you, a desire to escape the chaos of life at Ardais is a healthy sign of a sane mind. That I find pleasure in my work here—is that a bad thing?"
"Of course not," she said, "and I have no particular
fault to find with you at this point. Who has been train­ing you?"
"Rian, for the most part. He has told me that he thinks I will make a technician. And Domna Angelica has said she believes I have mastered the work of a monitor. She said she thought I was ready for the moni­tor's Oath."
"That I will certainly authorize," Fiora said, "and it is even your right to take it at my hands if you desire. Even so, you must have realized while we were talking that you have not answered my question, Dyan. Do you want to go home?"
He sighed, and that heavy sigh answered her question. Fiora was not a maternal woman, but for a moment she felt she would have liked to shelter the youth in her arms; a fleeting sensation, and one, she knew, which would have distressed Dyan as much as herself. Recall­ing herself to the duty of questioning, not only in words, she reached out to him; she could feel the tension in his shoulders, the weight of the lines in his face, telling her better than sight what the answer would have been to her question.
"I do not. But if I am needed, how can I refuse? Rian means well, but he is not—" he paused, and she felt him searching for truthful words which would not reflect on his kinsman, "not worldly."
She did not challenge the polite evasion of what she had really asked him; though she felt, with some distress, that he should have been willing to be more honest with his Keeper.
"Dyan, you are a responsible young man; what do you think? Will it harm your training? I shall leave it to you."
The sigh he gave seemed drawn up from his very depths. He said "I thank you, Domna, for asking that question. The only answer that I can give is that if the Domain demands my presence, I must not think of any­thing else."
Again, without really knowing why, Fiora felt an enor­mous pity for the young man before her. "Spoken like an honorable man, Dyan."
She could sense the very stoop of Dyan's shoulders,
as if he bore the weight of a world on them. No, not a world. Only a Domain. She said gently, "Then it remains only to give you the monitor's Oath, Dyan; you must not leave here without that. Then you are free to do as your conscience bids you."
She took leave of them a few hours later at the front gates of Arilinn. Rian already in his saddle, stooped and looking older than his years; Dyan standing beside his horse, his handsome face drawn with tension which Fiora could sense, without sight, from her distance of several feet. He bent over her hand respectfully and she could feel the lines drawn in his face.
"Farewell, Lady. I hope to return to you soon."
"I wish you a pleasant journey."
"That is impossible," Dyan said with a faint tinge of amusement. "The journey to Ardais lies through some of the worst mountains in the Domains, including the Pass of Scaravel."
"Then I wish you a safe journey: and I shall hope that you may be able to return soon and that when you arrive at your home you find the problems less serious than you have foreseen," she said, and they mounted and rode away. As he went, Fiora felt enormous anger. No, she thought, I should never have let him go!
The kinsmen rode in silence for some time. At last Dyan said, "You knew that Fiora had insisted that I take the monitor's Oath before I left the Tower. Is such haste usual, uncle?"
Rian sighed and said, "Indeed, it is customary to give the Oath even to children at the first moment they are old enough to understand its meaning."
"Then it was not a personal statement that Fiora did not trust me—that she was in such haste to bind my Oath?" Dyan asked.
Rian frowned and said "Of course not. It is customary."
"Indeed."
"You can hardly have any qualms of conscience about taking the Oath of a monitor," exclaimed Rian, recalling the words of the Oath ... to enter no mind save to help or heal, and never to force the conscience of any.
"Perhaps not," Dyan said after a moment, "yet I can­not help but feel as if I had ceded some right over my own conscience. I thought not that I needed any to keep my conscience, nor an Oath to bind me to ethical use of laran."
"The Oath is needed most by those most reluctant to take it," said Rian, "those who feel they need it not should surely have no qualms about it."
He felt that Dyan wanted to say more. But he didn't.
The journey took four days, at the best speed they could make over the mountains. When they came in sight of Castle Ardais, Dyan noticed that the crimson and gray pennant was flying which announced that the Head of the Domain was in residence.
"He is here," Dyan said. "Perhaps I wished that he had fled us. The Domain is in mourning; this is arrogance."
"More likely," Rian said, "he feels himself so justified that it would not occur to him to flee justice."
Dyan said sighing "I remember him as he was be­fore—when I was a little child. I loved him; now I can hardly remember when he was not a brute. I remember hiding in a cupboard from him when he was drunk and roaring all over the castle, threatening us all ... I think it the saddest of all that Elorie will remember nothing but this and has no memory of a father to love; because despite everything, Rian, never doubt this; I love my father well, whatever he has done."
"I never thought to doubt that, lad," Rian said gently. "Once I loved him, too."
Almost on the threshold, Elorie appeared, pale as death; it looked to the men as if she had neither slept nor eaten since her mother's death. She flung herself, weeping, into Dyan's arms.
"Oh, my brother! You have heard—my mother—"
"Hush, little sister," Dyan said, stroking her hair. "I came as soon as I heard. I loved her, too. Where is our father?"
"He has barricaded himself in the Tower room and will let no one near him, not even his body-servants. For
a full day afterward, he was drunk and shouting and roaring all over the castle, offering to fight anyone—" Elorie shivered, and Dyan, remembering similar epi­sodes when he himself was very young, patted her as if she were a little girl. "Then he hid himself in the Tower room and would not come out. I had to arrange every­thing for—for Mother—"
"I am sorry, little sister; I am here now, and you need not be frightened of anything. You must go and rest now, and sleep. Tell your nurse to put you to bed, and give you a sleeping draught; I will take care of every­thing, as bents Warden of the Domain," said Dyan. "And as soon as your mother is buried, you cannot stay here alone with Father, not now."
"But where can I go?" she asked.
"I will find a place to send you; perhaps you could be fostered at Armida or even in one of the Towers; you are Comyn and nobly born," Dyan said, "but now you must sleep and eat and rest; you must look seemly and lady-like when your mother is laid to rest. You do not want to look as if you dwelt under siege here—even," he added shrewdly, "if that is what you feel like."
"But what of Father? Will you let him hide there in the Tower saying evil things of how Mother drove him to kill her?"
Dyan said quietly "You must just leave Father to me, Lori, child."
And at her look of relief he stroked her hair again and said to Rian, "Ring for her nurse now, will you, and tell her to take Lori away to her rooms and look after her properly."
"Oh," Elorie sighed, and he could see that she was near to collapse, "I am so weary, so glad you are home, brother. Now you are here, everything will be all right."
When Elorie had been taken to her own rooms, Dyan went into the Great Hall, and called the condom.
"Lord Dyan, how good to see you," the man said, and curiously repeated what Elorie had said; "Now you are here, everything will be all right." It was like a weight on him; Dyan thought, with smothered rage, they should be seeking to make things easy for him, instead of all waiting until the burden could be put on his shoulders.
He was not ready for the weight of the Domain; could he not even complete his education? He should have known when he was summoned, a year earlier than he had been promised from Nevarsin, that he might assume the place of Warden of the Domain, when his father was ill with the autumn fever; they had feared he might die and had. .lost no time in naming Dyan as Warden. It was the fever that did it, Dyan thought; some injury to his brain. Before that he had been drunken and dissolute, but sane, and only rarely cruel.
There had never been any question, he thought dispas­sionately, of naming Rian as Kyril's successor. Not even the most optimistic of Ardais kindred had believed Rian fit for that office; they were all ready to dump it on the shoulders of a boy of nineteen.
The condom began telling how the ill-fated feast had begun; but Dyan waved him to silence.
"None of that matters; how came he to strike down my stepmother?"
"I am not sure he knew he struck down any; he was drunk."
"Then, in the name of all the Gods," Dyan shouted in frustration, "when all of you know he has these rages when he is drunk, why do you not keep him away from drink?"
"Lord Dyan, if you who are his son, or the Lady who was his wife, cannot forbid it, how are we who are but servants to do so?"
Dyan supposed there was some justice to the question. But now it was too late to leave such things to servants or chance.
"There's no help for it; the man's mad, he must be watched over, perhaps locked up so he'll do no harm to himself or others," Dyan said.
"And what of the Domain, with my Lady dead and you all away in the Tower?" asked the condom.
Dyan sighed heavily and said "Leave that to me. Now I will go and see my father."
Dom Kyril had barricaded himself inside the topmost room of the north tower, and Dyan struggled in vain
with the heavy door. Finally he shouted and kicked at the door, and at last a quavering voice came from inside.
"Who is there?"
"It is Dyan, father. Your son."
"Oh, no," the voice said. "You can't get me that way. My son Dyan is in Arilinn. If he were here, none of this would be happening; he'd make sure my rebellious servants did my will."
"Father, I journeyed last night from Arilinn," Dyan said, feeling his heart sink at the crafty madness—real or feigned?—in his father's voice. If I had been here, it is true, this would not have happened; I'd have had him chained first.
"Damn you, Father, open this door or I'll kick it in!" Dyan backed up the threat with a mighty kick that rat­tled the hinges.
"I'll open, I'll open," said the voice petulantly. "No need to go breaking things."
There was a creak in the mighty lock, and after a moment a small crack widened and Dyan saw his fa­ther's face.
Once Dom Kyril had been handsome, with the good looks of all the Ardais men. Now his eyes were blood­shot, his face puffy and swollen, the features blurred with drink and indecision, his clothes filthy and dishev­eled. He looked with hostile grimaces at Dyan and mut­tered "What are you doing here, then? You were so anxious to go off to the Tower and get away, now what are you doing back?"
So that would be his defense? Pretending to ignore what had happened and putting Dyan on the defensive?
"I went with your leave, Father. Was I to think the Domain could not be trusted with its ruler? Come, Fa­ther, don't pretend to be madder or drunker than you are."
Dom Kyril's bloodshot eyes grimaced closed; he said "Dyan, is it you? Really you? Why is everybody angry with me? What did I do this time? I need a drink, boy, and they won't bring me wine—"
Dyan was not surprised; but now he understood his father's ravings. A long-term drunkard, abruptly de-
prived of all drink—by this stage no doubt he was seeing things crawling out of the walls at him.
He could understand the servants; but at this point if they were to have any rational discourse, his father must have at least enough of the poison to give him the simu­lacrum of sanity. His brain had grown unused to func­tioning without drink; Dyan could see the shaking hands, the uneven gait.
He should never have been allowed to come to this point. No doubt they found it simpler to abandon the man to drink himself to death, rather than contend with him for his own good. If I had been here, Dyan thought painfully, looking at the wreck of the father he once had loved. But as he says, I was eager to get away from the problem, and so it is as much my fault as his. I am no better than Rian.
"I'll get you a drink, Father," he said.
He went down to the foot of the stairs and found wine and told the condom to bring food. His father drank with haste and eagerness, slopping the wine on his shirt-front, and after, when the shakes had subsided, Dyan managed to persuade him to drink some soup.
The shivering and trembling slowly stopped. Now, when he had had a drink, Dyan thought, his father seemed more sober than when his system was free of the drink. It was true that he could no longer function normally without it.
"Now let us talk sensibly," said Dyan, when the man who faced him had been restored at least to a semblance of the man he had once known. "Do you know what you have done?"
"They were angry with me," Dom Kyril said, "Elorie and her mother—damn all puling womenfolk—I shut her up, that's all," he said craftily, "Never was a woman didn't deserve a lick or two. Won't hurt them. Does them good, and they like it really. Has she been bawling to you because I hit her?"
But Dyan heard the craftiness in his father's voice; he was still pretending to be drunker than he was, and madder.
"You wretch, you killed her," he exploded. "Your own wife!"
"Well," murmured the drunken man, staring at his knuckles. "I didn't go for to do it, I di'n mean any harm."
"All the same—no, Father, look at me, listen to me—" Dyan insisted. "All the same, you are no longer fit to rule the Domain, and after this—"
"Dyan—" His father tugged at his arm, "I was drunk; I di'n know what I was doing. Don't let them hang me!"
Dyan brushed off his grip with distaste. "There's no question of that," he said. "The .question is what's to be done with you so you won't kill the next person who crosses your path. I think the best thing for you to do is to turn the Domain over, formally, to me or to Rian, and confine yourself to these rooms except when you're in your senses."
"So that's what this is all about," his father said furi­ously. "Trying again to get the Domain away from me? I thought as much. Never, hear me? It's my Domain and my rule and I should give it over to an upstart boy?"
"Father, I beg you; no one shall harm you, but when you are incapacitated, I can care for the Domain safely in your place."
"Never!"
"Or if you do not trust me, give it over to Rian and I will stand by him faithfully—"
"Rian!" His father made an inexpressible sound of contempt. "Oh, no, I know what you're up to. Look at me, Gods—" he spread his hands and began, drunkenly, to weep. "My brother, my children—all my enemies, try­ing to get the Domain out of my hands—lock me up—"
Dyan never knew when he had made the decision he made now, but perhaps at first it was only a desire to silence the drunken whining. He reached out with the new strength of his laran—it was the first time he had used it since training began at Arilinn—and gripped his father with the force of it. The words trailed off into incoherence; Dyan gripped harder and harder, knowing what he must do if this was ever to be settled and the Domain of Ardais free of a madman's rule.
When he stopped he was white and shaking, stopping himself with force before he killed the man. He knew, shamed, that this was what he had wanted. His father
was slumped on the floor, having slid, during that mon­strous battle, from his chair.
Dom Kyril mumbled, "Of course ... only rational thing to do. Call the wardens an' we'll have it done."
Silently, without a word, Dyan went and summoned the condom. All he said was, "Summon the Wardens of the Domain; he is rational now and ready to do what must be done."
Within the hour they came; the council of old men of the Domain, who had been notified of the emergency days ago; by whose counsel and agreement the Ruler of Ardais held his power.
"Kinsmen," Dyan said, facing them; he had gone to his room and changed into a sober suit of the formal colors of the Domain. He had also summoned his fa­ther's body-servant and had him washed and shaved and made presentable. "You know what sorry urgency brings us all here. Even before the Lady of Ardais is laid to rest, the Domain must be made secure."
"Has he agreed to turn the Domain over to you? We tried to persuade him, but—has he agreed to this of his own free will?"
"Of his free will," said Dyan. Even if he had not, what other choice have we? he wondered, but did not speak the question aloud.
"Then," said the oldest of them, "we are ready to witness it."
And so they all stood by as Kyril Ardais, calm now and evidently in his right mind, went through the brief ceremony where he formally and irrevocably laid down the wardenship of the Domain in favor of his eldest son Dyan-Valentine.
When it was over and the Council of Ardais had given Dyan their allegiance, Dyan relaxed the stern grip he had kept on his father's mind through the ceremony. The man slid to the floor, whining incoherently and retching. Dyan told himself; this had had to be done, there was no other way; but it left a bad taste in his mouth. This he knew to be a misuse of his laran. They should have kept him at Arilinn....
What was the alternative? he asked himself grimly. Put his father into the hands of healers—for a year per-
haps—until he came entirely to himself? No time for that. No, he had done what he must: No man can keep another's conscience. No, nor any woman either, he thought, scalded by the memory of Fiora and the moni­tor's Oath. This was, no doubt, why he had been reluc­tant to take it. Well, he could not cede the right to do what his own conscience bade him, not for many oaths. But it should never have happened. He would not even see Elorie; she was among those who had forced him to this.
Fiora of Arilinn had been informed of the arrival of the men from Ardais; she sensed some tension in each of them not consonant with only settling family affairs. Rian seemed calm; yet, reading in his mind what had befallen, she was angry. No, Rian was not on the surface the kind of man to rule a Domain; yet it was not right, either, that he should have been passed over. Given the responsibility, he might have grown into it; now he would always accept his own weakness and unfitness. It was wrong that he should be allowed to hide here, for­ever unable to grow to his own strength, forever imma­ture. Her hands went out to him, impulsively. "Welcome back, my old friend," she said, clasping his hands. "I had feared you were lost to us." Feared? She had hoped he would achieve the strength to take his brother's place; but in the test he had not done it.
And turning her attention to Dyan, she realized that he seemed weary, but calm, and the barrier had dropped; he was not opaque to her; he had arrived at some inner strength, achieved some unknown potential.
"Dyan, I am glad to see you again," she said, truth­fully if inaccurately, and she touched his hand lightly; and at the touch he was transparent to her, he no longer even wished to hide what he had done, or why; and in that moment she was shocked. She said, "Dyan, I am sorry to see what has happened to you."
"I have done what I must, and if you know what I have done, you know why. Hypocrites, all; none of them had the courage to do what must be done. I did; and now you, too, will censure me?"
"Censure you? No. I am the Keeper of Arilinn, but
not the keeper of any man's conscience," she said, know­ing it was not true; she had sought to bind his con­science, and had failed. "I say only that now you may not return to us, and you know why. Recall the words of the monitor's Oath; to enter no mind save to help or heal and never to force the conscience of any...."
"Lady, if you know how I forced my father's assent, you know well why I did so, and what alternatives I had." Dyan said, his face carefully impassive, denying her touch. Fiora bent her head.
This was wrong, what she must do. Now they could have no control over him, no link to right whatever wrong had been done; he was forever beyond even a Keeper's help or touch.
"I do not judge you. I only say that having violated that Oath you have no place here." But where, then, she thought wildly, could he go, having stepped beyond her judgment, gone further than he had ever wanted to go. Already his life was to be led outside the laws laid down for them all. Must he be an outlaw before he was out of his teens? Desperately, she realized that he had put himself outside even her help. She said slowly, "Will you take my blessing, Dyan?"
"Willingly, Lady." His voice shook, and she thought, with deep pity, he is only a boy, he needs our help more now than ever. Damn our laws and rules! He had the courage to break them; he did what he must. I wish I dared as much.
She said, slowly, holding out her fingertips to him, "You have courage. If you always act in accordance with your own conscience, even when it violates the standards of others, I do not censure you. Yet if you will let me counsel you, I would say you have embarked on a dan­gerous path. Perhaps it is right for you; I cannot say."
"I have come to a place in my life, Lady, where I cannot think of right or otherwise, but only of necessity."
"Then may all the Gods walk with you, Dyan, for you will need their aid more than any of us." Her voice broke, and he looked down at her—she felt it—with pain and pity. For the first time and maybe the last in his life he is reaching out for help and I am bound by my own
oaths and laws not to help him. She said quietly, "You may send Elorie here when you will."
Dyan bent over Fiora's hand and touched his lips to the corpse-pale fingers; he said "If there are any Gods, Lady, I ask their help and understanding; but why came they not to my aid when I needed it most?" He straight­ened, with a bleak smile, and Fiora knew he had barri­caded himself again; he was forever beyond their reach. Then he rode away from Arilinn without looking back.