A KEEPER AT THE CHALET SCHOOL


Prologue


Arilinn Tower, Cottmann IV, 'Darkover'.

Lorill Hastur, Regent of Darkover, swung himself down from his stallion and handed the reins briefly to the non-human kyrri, standing patiently waiting for the Comyn lord to turn the horse over to him. Then, with an abstracted nod of thanks, Lorill marched into the door of the Tower of Arilinn.

He was completely familiar with it; some thirty years before, Lorill, like many other Comyn children with laran, had come here for the essential training. The proverb that an untrained telepath was a danger to him or herself and everyone else had been proved true too often for the Domain families to ignore such talents. In any case, in these years, those very talents, which were central to Darkovan economy and culture, where becoming all too rare, even in the families of the Seven Domains.

Leonie! Lorill called mentally. To his surprise, no answer returned, and, frowning, the Hastur lord sent out another mental call. A moment later it was answered by the appearance of Lady Janine, Keeper- under Leonie-of Arilinn Tower.

"Where is my sister?" Lorill demanded, courtesies being unnecessary and a waste of time in the current situation.

Janine, a startlingly lovely girl of twenty, shook her head. "She is not well, Lorill," she said sadly. "Ever since-since the Forbidden Tower established itself, Leonie has been filled with melancholy."

Lorill frowned. The Towers were powerhouses of mental and psi activity, and the Keepers who co-ordinated the circles of power were set apart, seen by the uneducated as sorceresses- which was far from the truth- were trained from girlhood to deaden emotion and feeling, since a Keeper, it was believed, must be impassive, emotionless, inviolate.

All of those things Leonie of Arilinn had been; apart from Lorill himself, the only other living creature Leonie could be said to love was the girl who was now responsible for her distress. Callista Lanart-Carr, once Callista of Arilinn, had helped to establish a Forbidden Tower which claimed that, after all, a Keeper need not be almost inhuman; need not sacrifice all that most women held dear.

Callista was now a wife, would soon be a mother, and yet contrary to custom still managed to wield the full force of a very powerful talent, and it was this that Leonie could not endure. She had trained Callista with such care, and even, it must be admitted, such cruelty as always attended the making of a Keeper, and had believed that she could finally lay down the burden of her office to one who was younger and thus better able to handle the great energon rings. And now Callista was lost to the Towers and had defied the Way of Arilinn. It was inevitable that Leonie, the living personification of the Way, should feel it deeply, despite her training and strong will.

"Has she taken her place in the circle?" Lorill asked as he moved towards the currently empty monitor's room.

Janine shook her head. "No, not once, since we were defeated in the Overworld."

"Has she done any laran work at all?" Lorill wanted to know, almost incredulous. As long as he could remember, his twin sister had been determined to exercise her powers within the Towers; preferably, within the Tower of Arilinn, which alone of all the Towers sent its Keeper to sit, in her own right, on the Council.

Now Janine too looked uneasy. "I do not think so. Mostly, she has stayed in her own quarters. I still see her once or twice a day for training, but- that is all."

Lorill looked at the papers he held, and a small smile creased his mouth. "I think I know how to rouse her," he said with more confidence than he felt.

Janine, who could read behind the seeming-confidence, only looked steadily at him, and Lorill found his disquiet returning, but he managed to nod at the girl and then put up his hand to lightly knock on his sister's door.

Before he could do so, it swung open, and he found himself face to face with Leonie Hastur, Lady of Arilinn. In politeness, he bowed to the most powerful woman in the Domains. Leonie- unsurprisingly- did not return the compliment, but simply stepped back unsmilingly and allowed her twin to enter.

Lorill stood and looked at his sister. Like himself, she was tall and slender, and her hair was the deep red of the Comyn. She looked tired, and Lorill felt his heart sink as he noted the lack of spirit in Leonie's eyes. Truly, it appeared that this proud woman had been defeated. Her dress bore this out; for the first time in longer than Lorill cared to remember, Leonie was not dressed in the crimson robes of a Keeper. He opened his mouth to protest, but Leonie simply waved her hand, and sent a thought to him.

Why are you here, my brother?

"To see you, Leonie. Now, listen. You cannot give in in this way. You are still needed. The Forbidden Tower is declared renegade, and all the other Towers will hold to the Way of Arilinn. You are the head of that Way. How can they continue without you?"

"Janine will take my place," Leonie responded tonelessly.

Lorill shook his head. "No, Leonie, she cannot. Janine is a good telepath, but we and you know that she has not the power of Callista Lanart-Carr, Damon Ridenow- or you yourself! Besides which, she has only just begun a Keeper's work and she is too young. She does not have your authority!"

"If Callista had not gone, she would be Keeper now, and she is no older than Janine!" Leonie defended.

Her brother raised an eyebrow at her and she sighed. "Very well. What would you have me do?"

Lorill seated himself and looked at his sister with grave eyes. "We need more telepaths in the Towers and we need them now, Leonie. You, more than anyone, know this. It is crucial to our future if we do not want Darkover absorbed into the Empire!"

"That will never happen!" Leonie replied, her Hastur pride flaring out for a moment, and Lorill suppressed a feeling of relief. He had known- hoped, rather, that pride would rouse Leonie from her despair. It might also cause her to agree to the request he had come with.

"There are fewer telepaths every year," he began, and Leonie waved an impatient hand.

Why do you come here to tell me what I already know?

You seem to have forgotten it! Lorill's mental voice rebuked. You are Keeper, my sister, and you have not laid down your place! Until you do, you are still ultimately responsible for the training of telepaths on Darkover- which means that the declining numbers of those with laran is, or should be, of paramount importance!

"What do you want me to do about it?" Leonie demanded, her fair skin flushing. "Become like the Forbidden Tower, and let any with a trace of laran into the Towers? Take a husband, as Callista did? I suppose she at least is doing her part," she ended bitterly. "She is to have a child, did you know? That child will almost certainly have powerful laran. An increase of one!"

Furiously, she turned away from Lorill, who was watching her with mouth agape. He could not remember the last time he had seen such passion from his twin.

"I want you to go to Terra," he said bluntly at last. "In fact, I want you to travel back to the twentieth century, Terran time, and join a school. It is called," he continued smoothly after a quick glance at his papers, "the Chalet School. Margali Lorne told Rohana Ardais of it. It seems that there could be telepaths at this school. Perhaps- you could assess them, and bring them back?"

"What if they don't want to come?" Leonie asked, ignoring the practicalities of getting from Darkover to Terra and back again.

Lorill smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Leonie, you are Hastur. You have traces of most of the Gifts- including, as I well know, that of Alton- forced rapport, command voice. If you so desire, you can force them to come."

Leonie stood and gazed at her twin as if she had never seen him before. Finally, to his own amazement, she agreed.