Read Online Stormqueen! by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Edwin Zimmer - Free Book Online
Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Edwin Zimmer
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the clan. We have made compact with the Aillard clan for a daughter of their line, whose genes have been so modified that they will be dominant, so that your children will have the sight, and the control to use it without danger. You will marry this girl. Also she has two nedestro sisters, and the leroni of the Tower have discovered a technique which will assure that you will father only sons on all of these. If the experiment succeeds, your sons will have the foresight and the control, too.” He saw the disgust in Allart’s face and said, enraged, “Are you no more than a squeamish boy?”
“I am a cristoforo . The first precept of the Creed of Chastity is to take no woman unwilling .”
“Good enough for a monk, not a man! Yet none of these will be unwilling when you take her, I assure you. If you wish, the two who are not your wives need not even know your name; we have drugs now which will mean that they carry away only the memory of a pleasant interlude. And every woman wishes to bear a child of the lineage of Hastur and Cassilda.”
Allart grimaced in revulsion. “I want no woman who must be delivered to me drugged and unconscious. Unwilling does not only mean fighting in terror of rape; it would also mean a woman whose ability to give, or refuse, free consent had been destroyed by drugs!”
“I would not suggest it,” said the old man angrily, “but you have made it clear that you are not ready to do your duty by caste and clan of your own free will! At your age, Damon-Rafael had a dozen nedestro sons by as many willing women! But you, you sandal-wearer - “
Allart bent his head, fighting the reflex of anger which prompted him to take that frail old neck between his hands and squeeze the life out of it. “Damon-Rafael spoke his mind often enough on the subject of my manhood, Father. Must I hear it from you as well?”
“What have you done to give me a better opinion of you? Where are your sons?”
“I do not agree with you that manhood must be measured by sons alone, sir; but I will not argue the point with you now. I do not wish to pass on this curse in my blood. I know something of laran . I feel you are wrong in trying to breed for greater strength in these gifts. You can see in me - and in Lauren, even more - that the human mind was never intended to bear such weight. Do you know what I mean if I speak of recessives and lethal genes !”
“Are you going to teach me my business, youngster?”
“No, but in all respect, Father, I will have no part in it If I were ever to have sons - “
“There is no if about it. You must have sons.”
The old man’s voice was positive, and Allart sighed. His father simply did not hear him. Oh, he heard the words with his ears. But he did not listen; the words went through and past him, because what Allart was saying did not agree with the fixed belief of Lord Elhalyn - that a son’s prime duty was to breed the sons who would carry on the fabled gifts of Hastur and Cassilda, the laran of the Domains.
Laran , sorcery, psi power, which enabled these families to excel in the manipulation of the matrix stones, the starstones amplifying the hidden powers of the mind; to know the future, to force the minds of lesser men to their own will, to manipulate inanimate objects, to compel the minds of animal and bird - laran was the key to power beyond imagining, and for generations the Domains had been breeding for it.
“Father, hear me, I beg you.” Allart was not angry or argumentative now, but desperately in earnest. “I tell you, nothing but evil can come of this breeding program, which makes of women only instruments to breed monsters of the mind, without humanity! I have a conscience; I cannot do it.”
His father sneered, “Are you a lover of men, that you will not give sons to our caste?”
“I am not,” Allart said, “but I have known no woman. If I have been cursed with this evil gift of laran - “
“Silence! You blaspheme our forefathers and the Lord of Light
“I am a cristoforo . The first precept of the Creed of Chastity is to take no woman unwilling .”
“Good enough for a monk, not a man! Yet none of these will be unwilling when you take her, I assure you. If you wish, the two who are not your wives need not even know your name; we have drugs now which will mean that they carry away only the memory of a pleasant interlude. And every woman wishes to bear a child of the lineage of Hastur and Cassilda.”
Allart grimaced in revulsion. “I want no woman who must be delivered to me drugged and unconscious. Unwilling does not only mean fighting in terror of rape; it would also mean a woman whose ability to give, or refuse, free consent had been destroyed by drugs!”
“I would not suggest it,” said the old man angrily, “but you have made it clear that you are not ready to do your duty by caste and clan of your own free will! At your age, Damon-Rafael had a dozen nedestro sons by as many willing women! But you, you sandal-wearer - “
Allart bent his head, fighting the reflex of anger which prompted him to take that frail old neck between his hands and squeeze the life out of it. “Damon-Rafael spoke his mind often enough on the subject of my manhood, Father. Must I hear it from you as well?”
“What have you done to give me a better opinion of you? Where are your sons?”
“I do not agree with you that manhood must be measured by sons alone, sir; but I will not argue the point with you now. I do not wish to pass on this curse in my blood. I know something of laran . I feel you are wrong in trying to breed for greater strength in these gifts. You can see in me - and in Lauren, even more - that the human mind was never intended to bear such weight. Do you know what I mean if I speak of recessives and lethal genes !”
“Are you going to teach me my business, youngster?”
“No, but in all respect, Father, I will have no part in it If I were ever to have sons - “
“There is no if about it. You must have sons.”
The old man’s voice was positive, and Allart sighed. His father simply did not hear him. Oh, he heard the words with his ears. But he did not listen; the words went through and past him, because what Allart was saying did not agree with the fixed belief of Lord Elhalyn - that a son’s prime duty was to breed the sons who would carry on the fabled gifts of Hastur and Cassilda, the laran of the Domains.
Laran , sorcery, psi power, which enabled these families to excel in the manipulation of the matrix stones, the starstones amplifying the hidden powers of the mind; to know the future, to force the minds of lesser men to their own will, to manipulate inanimate objects, to compel the minds of animal and bird - laran was the key to power beyond imagining, and for generations the Domains had been breeding for it.
“Father, hear me, I beg you.” Allart was not angry or argumentative now, but desperately in earnest. “I tell you, nothing but evil can come of this breeding program, which makes of women only instruments to breed monsters of the mind, without humanity! I have a conscience; I cannot do it.”
His father sneered, “Are you a lover of men, that you will not give sons to our caste?”
“I am not,” Allart said, “but I have known no woman. If I have been cursed with this evil gift of laran - “
“Silence! You blaspheme our forefathers and the Lord of Light
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