Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover 23 by The World Wreckers

Author:The World Wreckers [Wreckers, The World]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-11-23T19:54:50+00:00

to a man of her own kind; one who could equal her own sensitivity, a fellow telepath. Darilyn, born into a village, growing up surrounded (a freak; a throwback) by those who could neither understand nor respect what she was, had chosen to have her womanhood destroyed by the neutering operation rather than subject it to a man who would be, to her, only a dumb beast.

Linnea’s voice was gentle as she said, “Be welcome, countrywomen. My discourtesy was born of weariness, no more. Has refreshment been offered you? Is it well in the hills of our homeland, Menella?”

“It is as evil as can be, vai leronis ,” Menella said, “But we did not come to tell you a twice-told tale.

You know that fire and hunger have ravaged us. Darilyn, tell her what you saw.”

Darilyn, outwardly composed, was wretchedly nervous. She stated, “My freemate and I recently traveled with an outworld woman, not a Free Amazon, though she behaved much like one of us. She had contracted for our service as guides and hunters through the mountains. She was strange, like a Keeper who had lost her powers, but outworlders are all mad and we were not surprised at that. I could read her thoughts a little; she did not trouble to hide them and so I thought she had nothing to hide.” Suddenly, Darilyn began to tremble.

“She was evil ,” she said with utter conviction. “She passed the blighted forests, and she looked at them as if her own hand had set them to flaming. She looked on me, and I knew that with her will all of our kind would die. And once I saw her from far off, burying a charm in the woods, and I knew that by her will, the soil would be blighted and die. I know this is madness, Linnea. I learned before my breasts grew that there were no witches and that evil will harmed no one any more than good intentions helped. Yet I cannot help it; I know that this woman’s evil will would kill our world. It is a riddle I cannot read, vai leronis, and none in our world can read it if a Keeper cannot.”

Linnea said, “This is superstition and folly.” And yet her voice weakened and died.

A plot against our world?

What had Regis said?

The work of a witch? Impossible. Yet were these girls saying, in the light of their limited understanding, a truth? Truth, or at least that they believed it implicitly, was in every line of their stubborn, boyish faces. In any case, no Darkovan would lie to a Keeper. This conviction made her voice gentle as she said, “I do not see how what you say can be, and yet you must have seen something to make for such a belief. Have you left this woman’s service?”

“Not yet, Lady. As we passed near Arilinn we told her we must pay you our respects and she thought nothing of it.”

Linnea spoke decisively. “I will look into it.

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