The Fall of Neskaya by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

back from the Tower, we’ll have him and then we won’t need anyone else!”
    Tessa flushed, stammering out an apology for her younger sister’s behavior. Rumail waved her words away, saying, “She is but a child, already missing her big brother. I leave her to your care and tutelage, damisela .”
    Coryn swung up on Dancer’s back and took a last leave of his father. As he rode out of the yard, with Rafe in the lead, Kristlin darted after him. She clung to his stirrup.
    “I would take you with me if I could, chiya, ” he said.
    Her lower lip trembled, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to go to a Tower, not even with you. I want to stay here forever.”
    On impulse, he said, “At the bottom of my chest is a carved soapwood box. Will you keep it for me? Then, whenever you are missing me, you can hold it and know I am thinking of you.”
    She brightened, nodded, and released his stirrup. His hand went to the inner pocket of his vest, where his mother’s handkerchief lay safely tucked. As long as it was safe, so was he.

    By the time Rafe called a halt for the midday meal, sun and fresh air combined with the exercise of riding to dispel the queasiness from the over-rich breakfast. They were still riding through Verdanta lands, but as the hours wore on, the shape of the hills grew less and less familiar. The trail wound past rock formations pocked with caves, through meadows of sun-parched grass, and down valleys lush with ferns and brambleberries. They stopped to let the horses drink and rest beside a stream.
    Coryn sat on a fallen log, picking at the yellow-flecked shelf fungus growing along its length and nibbling the last of his nutbread and cheese. Once this narrow stretch of forest had been wide and deep, and trailmen were said to have roamed it, but the river had become a mere stream and no one had seen the elusive creatures in living memory. Maybe he’d come back some day and look for them. He wouldn’t be staying at the Tower forever . . . would he? He sighed, stretched, and went to get another apple from his saddlebags.
    “You’ve a good enough appetite,” Rafe said.
    “Yes, I’m fine.” Coryn took a bite from the apple. It was last fall’s harvesting and had lost its crispness. He’d been searching for the right time to speak all morning. “Rafe . . . you’re my father’s man, are you not, and not Dom Rumail’s?”
    The old soldier’s mouth tightened at the corners. Coryn had guessed right, that he didn’t like being given orders by a foreign laranzu. He’d handled the wrapped vial of kirian as if it were tainted with wizard’s magic.
    “And we both know I don’t need a nursemaid,” Coryn went on. “I think . . . I think it would be less insulting to both of us if I took the kirian , the vial he gave you, and used it when I need to. Instead of you having to watch over me and the trail at the same time.”
    He half-expected Rafe to protest, but the man nodded, fetched the leather pouch from his saddlebag, and handed it over.
    Coryn waited until Rafe had gone off into the ferny undergrowth to relieve himself. Crouching beside the stream, he unstoppered the vial. A faint lemony smell rose from within. He dumped out the contents, rinsed the vial twice and refilled it with fresh water. Except for a bit of dampness, no one could tell by looking that anything had changed. He tucked the wrapped vial inside his vest, next to the folded handkerchief.
    Mounting up once more, Coryn felt as if a great weight had been lifted. He’d broken free of Rumail’s hold. He was going to a Tower, to be trained in laran , to learn to fly a glider with his starstone and maybe learn the secrets of talking to other Towers at a distance or making clingfire . He sang and made jokes as the day drew on. Although Rafe wasn’t much for conversation, he smiled now and again.

    Late into the fourth day, Coryn and Rafe left the forested slopes for barren, rock-strewn hillsides. Haze covered the sky. The air turned