The Heirs of Hammerfell by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

paralyzed with dread, as the flames rose higher and higher and finally, with a great crash like the end of the world, the castle fell in and the flames began to subside. Shaking in terror, she fled through the woods rill she could no longer see the sun rising over the ruin that had been the proud fortress of Hammerfell. By early morning she was all alone in a strange wood, with the dog huddled against her legs and the tired child clinging round her neck. Jewel whined in sympathy as if trying to comfort her, nudging so close that she almost pushed Erminie off her feet. Erminie sat down on a log, Jewel cuddling close to her for warmth, and tried to avert her eyes from the dying fire of what had been the only home she had ever known.
    As the light of the new day strengthened, she drew herself wearily to her feet and, hoisting the heavy weight of the sleeping twin, she trudged into
    what was left of the village at the foot of the hill. Horrorstruck, she realized that Storn's men had been here first; house after house lay in smoldering ruins, and most of the people had fled―except for those who lay slaughtered. Weary and heartsick, she forced herself to search throughout the remains of the village, the few houses left standing; to ask anyone she recognized of Markos and Conn, who had been in his arms. But nowhere did she hear any news of the old man or her child. She carefully avoided being seen by any stranger―if any Storn follower recognized her, she knew she would be killed at once without mercy, and her child, too. Till near noon she waited, still hoping that the duke had escaped that last conflagration and would join her there, but everyone she asked in the wood now filled with homeless villagers regarded the sad-faced, bedraggled woman with her dog and her heavy child with pity and kindness as they denied any sight or word of an older man bearing a year-old child in his arms.
    All day she persisted in her search, but by sunset, she knew that what she most feared had indeed come to pass. Markos was vanished, dead or slain, or else he had abandoned her for some reason, and since the duke had not come for her at sunrise, he must have perished in the fall of the burning castle.
    And so, filled with despair and the dawning of terror as the last light died, Erminie forced herself to sit down, to straighten and braid her long, disheveled hair, to eat some food from her basket, then feed some bread to her dog and her hungry child. At least she was not completely alone, but left with her firstborn, now the Duke of Hammerfell―and where, where was his twin? Her only support and
    protection was a witless dog. She lay down and wrapped herself in her cloak, creeping close to Jewel for warmth, sheltering the sleeping Alastair in her arms. She fervently thanked the Gods the winter had passed. At first light, she knew that she must look about carefully and take her bearings, then set out on the long road that would bring her at last to the faraway city of Thendara, and to her kinsmen in the Tower there. Alastair was rocked in her embrace as her body was wracked with sobs.
    5
    Thendara lay nestled in a valley of the Venza Mountains, the great Tower rising over the heights of the city. Unlike other, more secluded Towers which housed all the telepaths working there―monitors, Keepers, technicians, and mechanics―the Tower in Thendara did not serve to isolate the inhabitants from the people of the city, but as in all the cities of the lowlands, tended to set the tone of social life in general.
    The Tower workers mostly had residences in the city itself, sometimes very elegant and splendid ones. However, this was not the case with the widowed Duchess of
    Hammerfell. Erminie, who had shed that identity for the simple one (which carried even higher prestige in the society of Thendara) of Second Technician in Thendara Tower, lived modestly, in a small house off the Street of Swordsmiths, whose only
    luxury was a garden filled with scented