Read Online Falcons of Narabedla by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

looked up, and his voice sounded tired. “This is difficult,” he said. “My men think you are Adric. I’d never be able to convince them you aren’t. Would you mind—pretending? You’ll have to; otherwise—” he paused, and I saw disquiet in his face. He was not a man who would enjoy threatening, but I could understand his situation. They didn’t know me from Adam; I was just an outsider who messed things up by resembling Adric. Well, I was stuck. I hadn’t liked the Narabedlans enough to give a hang what Narayan meant to do to them. Narayan, by comparison, looked pretty decent. And there was no other way to save my skin. Adric wasn’t too popular, it seemed and in Adric’s body I hadn’t a chance. I laughed. “I’ll try,” I told him. “But what’s this all about?”
    Narayan looked up again. “That’s right. You wouldn’t know. You have some of Adric’s memory, I suppose, but not all. You remember who I am?”
    â€œNot entirely—” I told him. I remembered some things. Narayan had been born, some thirty years ago, into a respectable country family who were appalled to discover they had given birth to a mutant Dreamer, and were only too glad to deliver him to the Narabedlans for the enforced stasis. I told Narayan.
    â€œYou remember the old Dreamer who served your House?”
    I nodded. He had become old, mortal, weak—and had been eliminated. I bowed my head, although I had no personal guilt.
    Afterwards, Narayan and I had been bound. “I slept in the Dreamer’s Keep—” Narayan sounded reflective, almost guilty, “I was wakened, and—given sacrifice. I learned to use my power and to give it up to Adric.” A brooding horror was in the grey eyes; I realized that Narayan dwelt in his own personal private hell with the memory of what he had done under the spell of Narabedla. “Adric was—strong.”
    Yes, I thought; Adric had called on Narayan’s new power without counting cost. What wonder the memory maddened Narayan? The young Dreamer seemed to win his silent fight for self-control. “Well, you—Adric, I mean—freed me. I found my sister again; Cynara. I was like a child; I had to learn to live, to be alive again. I had been trained to use my power only through the Sacrifice. I had to learn to use it without. It wasn’t easy.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked thoughtlessly. Narayan’s eyes froze me. “To use that power,” he said in a tense, controlled voice, “Took human life.”
    * * * *
    Outside the door I could hear the noises of the camp; the light of their watch-fires crept in through the cracks. It was too dark to see Narayan’s face now, but I heard him moving restlessly about the room. “I have harnessed the power somewhat,” he said, “I can use it, myself, a little. Not much. Adric helped me; so did my sister. She had been taken for Sacrifice, but you—Adric—redeemed her. Then—we were able to throw an illusion around Cynara. She is not of Narabedla; but we made it seem as if she had always been there, in Rainbow City. We could do that because Evarin is weak, and because Karamy did not care. It was Rhys who made the Illusion.”
    â€œRhys!” The old Dreamer, the only one born in Narabedla—
    â€œYes; Gamine is careless with Rhys and lets him wake too long. Rhys and I have been in contact for a long time.”
    I was hearing scraps of conversation from a vast abyss of time and space, when I had been drawn in electric coma through Karamy’s Time Ellipse. They will know, Narayan will know. That had been old Rhys. And Adric; What have I to do with Narayan? Adric had been—still was—playing a fancy double game with Narayan; I started to open my lips to tell the young Dreamer about it, but he was still talking. “Rhys will not act, not directly, against Rainbow City. But