Hastur Lord

Hastur Lord

NOTES

Marion Zimmer Bradley: For those with an obsessive need to know which book comes after which on Darkover, these events occur after The World Wreckersand before Exile’s Song—about ten years.

Deborah J. Ross: Marion created Darkover over the span of three decades, from the 1962 publication of Planet Saversand Sword of Aldonesuntil her death in 1999. Over the years, she developed, matured, and reworked many aspects of this rich, marvelous world. In such a process, given that Marion never let previously published details interfere with a good story, minor inconsistencies of geography and time are inevitable. What is important is that each story be whole in itself and emotionally satisfying.

BOOK I: Regis

1

Above the ancient city of Thendara, the great crimson sun of Darkover crept toward midday. Winter was drawing to a close, yet even at this hour, shadows stretched across the narrow, twisting streets of the Old Town. Snowfall had been light for the last tenday, and the marketplaces surged with renewed life, anticipating the approach of spring.

Regis Hastur, the Heir of his Domain, stood on a balcony of Comyn Castle and wrapped his fur-lined cloak more tightly around his shoulders. He was a tall man in his mid thirties, with startling white hair and the intense masculine beauty of his clan. His gaze slowly swept from the spires and towers of Thendara to the Terran Trade City, the rising steel edifice of the Empire Headquarters complex and, still farther, the spaceport.

Throughout this past winter, he had divided his time between attending sessions of the Cortes, negotiating disputes and trade agreements between city magistrates and various guilds, and meeting with representatives of the Terran Empire and diplomatic envoys from the Seven Domains that once had formed Darkover’s ruling Council.

Oddly, Regis found himself nostalgic for the days when the Comyn gathered together, debating and discussing, scheming and plotting, planning marriages and trading gossip, even those times when a traditional evening of dancing and music was punctuated by the occasional formal duel.

Those days, he reflected, would never come again. Between a low birth rate, natural decline, and the targeted assassinations of the World Wreckers, the Comyn had been decimated, their remnants scattered. These last ten years had been an unbroken struggle to restore the ecology of the planet while trying to develop a new system of government. In his more pessimistic moments, Regis admitted that his idea for a new ruling Council, one open to telepaths of any caste, had been a singularly lame-brained scheme. What had he been thinking, to exchange men who had been educated for leadership since birth for a patched-together assembly that was inexperienced, sometimes illiterate, often pathologically independent? Even the Keepers, with years of rigorous discipline in the use of their psychic powers, had little training in matters beyond their own Towers.

The only saving grace, he thought ruefully, was that the Telepath Council was so disparate and disorganized, it was unlikely to do anything effective on a large scale. What would happen if a crisis demanded unified action? He supposed the remains of the Comyn would rally; certainly, the people would, if he asked.

If I asked . . .

Regis no longer needed to be on constant guard against an assassin’s dagger or Compact-forbidden Terran blaster, but no power under the Bloody Sun could erase the look of awe as he passed through the streets or silence the murmured whispers, “The Hastur Lord.”The people bowed to him in respect and gratitude, having no idea how their adulation ate like acid into his soul.

Even without the hushed footsteps, Regis knew by the softening of his mood and the lightening of his heart that Danilo Syrtis-Ardais had come into the room behind him. He closed his eyes, opening the space in his mind where their thoughts met.

With a click of the latch, Danilo closed the door and came to stand beside Regis. “ Bredhyu,” he inflected the castaterm in a far more intimate mode than the usual meaning of sworn brother.

“What troubles you, Regis?”

Regis turned his back on the city to face his paxman. Danilo wore the Hastur colors, blue and silver, with a winter-weight cloak of dark gray wool folded back over one shoulder so that his sword was within easy reach. Concern darkened his eyes.

“Nothing more than this foul mood of mine,” Regis replied, trying to keep his voice light. “It will pass soon enough, now that you are here.”

Danilo’s eyes flickered to the weathered stone wall. The Castle was a city unto itself, a massive accretion of centuries, with towers, courtyards and ballrooms, a mazelike labyrinth of halls and corridors, stairs and archways, fireplaces and parapets, the living quarters once reserved for the use of each Domain during Council season, and the glittering domed ceiling of the Crystal Chamber. The main Guard hall was on the lower level, with its own barracks, armory, and training yards.

Danilo’s expressive mouth tightened. “This place is like a tomb.”

“Yes, but one that requires constant tending. Even with whole sections shut up, the rest must be maintained. The Castle won’t run itself, and Grandfather isn’t up to it.”

Regis fell silent, deliberately avoiding the logical next point in the discussion. What the Castle needed, as Danvan Hastur reminded Regis on a regular basis, was a chatelaine, a Lady Hastur to see to its orderly function.

With a slight inclination of his head, Danilo opened the balcony door and stepped back so that Regis could precede him.

“The dregs of winter are always depressing,” Danilo said. “Things will be better in the spring,” alluding not only to the brighter days but also to the old Comyn custom of gathering in Thendara for Council season. Old habits died hard.

“Things,” Regis replied, “will be better in about an hour.”

They clattered through the chamber behind the balcony, once a pleasant sitting room that formed part of the Hastur quarters, then down the corridor and past the office Regis still maintained, although he did not live in the Castle, and down a flight of stairs.

“Oh?” Danilo arched one eyebrow. “We’re bound for the Terran Zone, then?”

Regis grinned like a boy sneaking away from his lessons. He still felt the lure of the spaceport, with its promise of worlds that were strange and deliciously terrifying. Years ago, he had accepted that his duty lay here, on the planet of his birth, with all that implied.

Walking briskly, Regis and Danilo made their way to Terran Headquarters. They were not the only ones taking advantage of the temporary lessening of winter’s bitter grip. They passed men in fur cloaks, women muffled to their eyes in layers of wool, an occasional Terran looking miserably chill in his synthetic thermal parka, and wagons pulled by blanket-draped horses or hardy antlered chervines.A girl in a red jacket swept a layer of snow, no more than a single night’s worth, from the stone steps in front of a shop. On the corner, a woman sold apple fritters, scooped steaming and fragrant from a vat of hot oil and then dusted with Terran sugar.

Danilo stayed close, a flowing shadow yet deadly as the steel he carried. Regis had no doubt that any man approaching them with menace would not live to regret it. From the time they had served together in the City Guards, both men had rarely gone unarmed. Their weapons were honorable, not those of a coward, used to kill from a safe distance. Dagger, knife, and sword all placed the man who used them at equal risk. The Compact that eliminated weapons with far reaching targets and those that could cause vast destruction but permitted personal duels had lasted a thousand years, woven into the fabric of Darkovan ethics.

The border between Darkovan Thendara and the Terran Trade sector had blurred over the years, leaving a zone that was a blend of the two cultures, sometimes exotic, sometimes awkward, sometimes the worst of both worlds. Danilo came alert at the sight of a pair of Spaceforce officers in black leather uniforms, but one whispered to the other and they stepped aside.

As they approached the glass and steel tower of Terran Headquarters, one of the guards stationed there smiled and nodded, “Good morning, Lord Hastur.”

Regis refrained from pointing out that as long as his grandfather lived, Danvan remained Lord Hastur,but the man was well-meaning. It would be a waste of breath to chide him for simple ignorance.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Regis and Danilo passed within, where a receptionist informed them that the Legate was expecting them. If Lord Hastur would wait but a moment, she would summon an escort.

“I know the way,” Regis said mildly. “As you see, I have brought my own escort.” Before she could protest, he and Danilo strode past her into the bowels of the building.

Regis had never been comfortable within Terran walls, but at least here the likelihood of an armed attack was less; the Terrans did not permit their own people to carry weapons inside Headquarters.

Dan Lawton, the Terran Legate, bowed to Regis. Over the years, a sympathy had grown up between the two men, for Lawton was Darkovan-born but had chosen to live as a Terran. Lawton could not have been much more than forty, and that was not old by the standards of Terran medicine, yet his lean, angular face was careworn, etched by the habit of worry.

“It has been too long, Lord Regis,” Lawton began, then smiled as Regis invited him with a gesture to move to a less formal basis.

Regis slipped off his heavy outdoor cloak and took the proffered seat. Danilo sat down as well, clearly at ease.

“You look well, Regis. And you, too, as usual, Danilo. How is Mikhail?” Lawton asked.

“My sister writes he is strong and healthy,” Regis answered. After finishing his term in the City Guards cadets, Mikhail had spent the winter in Armida, learning the duties of a Domains lord. In choosing Javanne’s youngest son for his legal heir, Regis had done better than he expected. Mikhail, although still young enough for occasional foolish high spirits, showed an underlying steadiness of temperament.

In response to a polite inquiry, Lawton replied that he himself was well, that his son and wife had gone for an outing in the Old Town.

Lawton had married a few years prior to the time of the World Wreckers. The couple had met off-world during Lawton’s diplomatic certification training and had wed after a brief, intense courtship. Regis had met the woman once or twice. She was strikingly beautiful, with pearl-bright skin and lushly curling black hair, exotic on a world that fostered pale-skinned redheads. Yet Regis found something unsettling in her manner, beyond the expected awkwardness of a wife who has found herself on a world far from home, confronted with strange customs. He had tried without success to draw her out in conversation. She was the wife of a Terran dignitary and, more than that, of his friend.

“I don’t believe I have ever met your son,” Regis said.

“His name is Felix,” Lawton said, and they both smiled, for the name was popular and much-honored on Darkover. Many Comyn, Regis among them, bore it somewhere in their long string of names. “He’s eleven, and a handful.”

“May the happiness of his name follow him through his lifetime,” Danilo said.

“Thank you,” Lawton replied. “He’s still at the most trying age, no longer a child and not yet a man. If it were up to me, I’d send him to be fostered for a few years at Armida or Carcosa, so that he could use up some of that exuberance learning to ride horses or cutting brush on fire-lines, but his mother won’t hear of it. Today they’re out looking for ‘native treasures’ as offerings for her grandfather’s saint day.”

“I’m not familiar with that custom,” Regis said. “Is it proper to offer best wishes?”

Lawton frowned. “Not on Temperance. Tiphani’s grandfather has been dead for twenty years now, but his entire family still feels obliged to offer sacrifices for the atonement of his sins. Whatever she sends home will be purified and then burned. It seems a waste to me, but it’s their way.”

“Was he as terrible as that?” Regis was familiar with the concept of a punitive afterworld. As a youth, he had studied for some years at the monastery school at St.-Valentine’s-of-the-Snows. Altogether too aware of the universality of human frailty, Regis had little sympathy with the monks’ obsession with purity and perdition.

Or,he added silently, with a quick glance in Danilo’s direction, their condemnation of certain expressions of love.

“I never met the man,” Lawton continued. “For myself, I prefer to be remembered for the good I achieved and the happiness I brought to those I loved.”

“So should we all.”

Lawton turned back to the console on his desk. He engaged the visiphone with a few efficient strokes. “I’ve set it to play the priority message that arrived on coded frequency for you. I’m afraid it’s formatted as play-and-destruct, so you’ll only be able to watch it once. Touch this panel to begin and this one here to record a reply, if any.” He got to his feet, bowed again, this time in an abbreviated, less formal manner, and left Regis and Danilo in privacy.

“What’s this about?” Danilo asked, coming around to view the screen as Regis took Lawton’s seat.

“I assume it’s from Lew Alton. I can’t imagine who else would want to contact me in such a manner.”

Regis pressed the panel Lawton had indicated. The screen’s background pattern dissolved into bits of iridescent gray. An instant later, the familiar scarred features of Lewis-Kennard Alton, one of Regis’s oldest friends and now the Darkovan Senator to the Terran Empire, came into focus.

Since his ordeal fighting the immensely powerful, illegal matrix known as Sharra nearly twenty years ago, Lew had never looked well. The battle had left him battered, a widower aged beyond his years, and in despair. Time and a happy second marriage had softened his expression, but his gray eyes still looked bleak.

“ Vai domRegis,” Lew began formally in casta.Regis imagined him leaning forward, choosing his words with care, masking the urgency behind them.

“I can’t risk sending this through normal channels, although soon enough the news will be broadcast everywhere. You may think me overly cautious. Paranoia is, after all, an asset in this profession. If I’m right, however, you’ll need all the advance warning I can give you.”

Lew paused and glanced down, consulting his notes. “The debate over changing the constitutional structure of the Empire has been going on for three years now, most of it behind closed doors. The people promoting it, particularly Sandra Nagy and Augustus Verogist—sorry, those names won’t mean anything to you, but they are two of the most powerful politicians in the Empire—have managed to keep all reports to the level of rumor so they can move ahead while no one takes the issue seriously. I’ve just learned through my own sources that the proposal will come up for a vote in the full Senate this session. Nagy and her allies are planning a preemptive strike against their opponents.”

Regis and Danilo exchanged glances. Neither had given much attention to the internal politics of the Terran Empire. But Regis had heard, through Lawton and Dr. Jason Allison as well as Lew himself, about the move to change the Empire to a Federation. He had considered it an alteration in name only. Most people didn’t really care if the Terranancalled themselves an Empire or a Federation or an Alliance or a spring dance. But Regis could not mistake the urgency in Lew’s voice or the grave expression in his eyes.

“The measure will pass,” Lew went on. “Make no mistake about it. This is no mere relabeling of the same system. You will undoubtedly hear propaganda about how the new Federation will extend autonomy to all member worlds, increase interstellar cooperation, and promote free trade—all the persuasive phrases that people want to hear. Even people on Darkover. Don’t fall for it, Regis.This whole process is a power grab by the Expansionist party. They want free access to developing worlds, and they’ve as much as admitted that their goal is to bring an end to what they call special privilegesand protected status.”

Regis drew in his breath. Beside him, Danilo tensed. The light in the office was too bright, too yellow, the air tainted with alien chemical vapors.

Regis paused the recording. “Danilo, if what Lew says is true, then Darkover could lose its status as a Class D Closed World.”

The immensely powerful corporations that had hired the World Wreckers would like nothing better than to have free access to Darkover. Only the Empire’s restrictive laws governing Closed Worlds prevented others from turning Darkover into a colony planet. Without legal protections, nothing would stand in the way of those who wanted to exploit Darkover’s resources or its pivotal position in the galactic arm.

Not even the Comyn,Danilo sent the telepathic thought.

“Although I hate to admit it, the Telepath Council is completely inadequate to this challenge.” With a sigh, Regis resumed the recorded message.

“The new Federation must tread lightly at first,” Lew said. “The Expansionist alliance will be fragile, and they will need every vote. They dare not alienate their supporters by forcing full membership on any planet that does not desire it. Therein lies our hope. If Darkover refuses to change its Closed World status, then we have a chance of surviving this period of instability. Eventually the political pendulum will swing back to a more sane and compassionate balance between the benefits of cooperation and the need for self-determination.

“Regis . . . if anyone can preserve Darkover’s independence during this dangerous time, it is you. For the sake of all we hold dear, may the gods walk with you. Adelandeyo,my friend.”

The screen went blank, then words appeared: MESSAGE DESTROYED. Regis read Terran Standard well enough to make out the words.

They sat for a moment in silence, letting the weight of Lew’s words sink in. Disgust rose up in Regis, abhorrence of the glass and metal cage around him, the machines, the regulations, the artificiality, the smug implied superiority. He reminded himself that he had survived crises before. Having been raised and shaped by Darkover’s greatest living statesman, he knew the uses of power.

“Let’s get out of here,” Danilo said. “This place is not good for either of us.”

He opened the door and followed Regis into the reception room. Dan Lawton bent over his secretary’s desk, going over some documents with her. He looked up, and his expression shifted.

“Is it something you can tell me?” he asked Regis. “Can I be of any service?”

“I’m afraid not.” Regis tried not to sound curt, to lash out as he badly wanted to. This man, despite his Terran uniform, was not his enemy. The offer of help had been sincere. “Perhaps later.”

“Of course.”

“We’ll see ourselves out.” Danilo strode to the outer door and opened it. He had shifted back into his role as bodyguard, eyes alert, posture fluid and balanced, fingertips brushing the hilt of his sword.

Corridors sped by in a blur of glass and metal, of chemically treated air and people in strange, immodest uniforms. Regis wondered if this was the future of the world he had sworn to defend. Only when they were out on the street, with the swollen red sun casting the sky into a glory of color and the Venza Hills rising like waves of living stone beyond the city, did Regis draw a free breath.

2

Regis waited until they were well away from the Terran sector and once more surrounded by familiar sights and sounds—street vendors calling out their wares, wagon wheels creaking and hoofbeats muffled in the snow. “The problem,” he said to Danilo, “is that some people will see this move as a good thing. They will wantwhat the Expansionists offer them. The Ridenow in particular have agitated for us to join the Empire—excuse me, the Federation.”

Danilo nodded. “It surprised no one when Lerrys and Geremy went off-world for good. They had always been . . .” he hesitated, as if searching for the phrase that conveyed both disdain and proper respect for Comyn lords, “. . . enamoredof off-world ways and technologies.”

“Especially the pleasures of places like Vainwal, where anything can be had, or done, or forgotten,” Regis looked away, his mouth curling in distaste, “for a price.”

Pedestrians streamed past the two men, hurrying about their business in the brief warmth of midday. The Bloody Sun had passed its zenith. Inky shadows lengthened. Despite his fur-lined cloak, Regis shivered. If Lerrys Ridenow and his allies had their way, Darkover would become nothing more than a Terran colony ruled by Terran laws, the ancient ways eroding under Terran customs.

Our heritage will be bartered for luxuries enjoyed only by those few wealthy enough to afford them!

It did no good to dwell on such things, just as it did no good to stand here on a public street. He must take action, although he did not yet know what.

They reached the townhouse on the edge of the Terran Zone. Regis had maintained it as his residence for some years now. At first, he had hated the place, for it was boxy and cramped, lacking the spaciousness of Castle Hastur. The only good thing about it, besides that it was not Comyn Castle, was its ease of defense. The pair of City Guards on duty at the gates could hold off a small army if need be. At least, Regis thought as he and Danilo handed their cloaks to a servant and stepped through the foyer, it was warm.

In the parlor, a fire had been lit on the unadorned stone hearth. Regis halted before it, stretching his chilled fingers. A moment later, the same servant, a man named Marton, who had grown up on the Carcosa estate, brought in a pitcher of jaco,placed it on the little table that stood between two armchairs near the fireplace, and silently withdrew.

“The Ridenow will press for full membership, of course.” Danilo poured a mug and settled into his usual chair, cradling it between his hands. “Aldaran will join in, not that they count. Hastur and Elhalyn—well, that’s you, for all practical purposes. With Lew off-planet and Gabriel Lanart as conservative as he is, Alton’s not a worry, either. Who else is there? Aillard? None of them are left. Ardais?”

“Danilo, you’re going through the roll call of the Domains as if there were still a Comyn Council,” Regis said, a little pettishly. “I very much doubt this decision will be made in the old way, by the heads of the Domains conferring together. For the last ten years, the Council has not existed.”

“ Youexist. Youare still Heir to Hastur.”

Regis shook his head, refusing to be drawn in. He threw himself into the empty chair. “It’s not so simple. The Terrans have things of value to offer us. Many of the common people—businessmen, crafters, those who’ve profited from Terran technology, even some in the Telepath Council—they’ll look favorably on increased access to those benefits. They want things that make a hard life easier: fire- fighting chemicals to protect our forests and the means to deliver them quickly and effectively, fertilizers and nutrients to restore our soil, medicines to prolong life and reduce infant mortality . . .”

“All these things come at a cost,” Danilo reminded him.

“One we have been able to pay, so far. You more than anyone know that I’m no isolationist, not like my grandfather or the Di Asturiens. I know that Darkover must change. I had hoped the Telepath Council would have accomplished more by now. Sometimes, getting them to agree on any action is like—how do the Terrans put it? herding cats?”

At that, Danilo laughed. They both relaxed. Regis went on, more seriously, “I wish Mikhail were not off at Armida. His generation will have to live with whatever we decide, so we should ask his opinion. If only for his sake, I will not surrender the dream of an independent, DarkovanDarkover, safe from the Empire and its soulless technology. I would have us follow our own path into that future.”

“So you always said,” Danilo smiled, warmth lighting his eyes. He set his half-empty mug on the table. “Many will listen to you. You are Hastur, after all, and you speak with an authority that goes back to the beginning of time.”

Regis looked away, uncomfortable with so much power and half-afraid that he might lack the wisdom to use it. Should one man, no matter how noble his motives, ever wield such overwhelming influence over another?

And yet, if he had not stepped into the position he now held, if he had let others make decisions because he mistrusted his own judgment, Darkover itself and all its people would have paid the price. Once he had asked himself if he sought the love of power or the power of love. He wished the answer were as clear now as it had been then.

Meeting Danilo’s steady gaze, his heart softening in the pulse of acceptance that flowed through their light rapport, Regis almost believed himself worthy of such trust.

“Let’s hope so,” he said, “for I have quarrels enough for the moment. Thanks to Lew, we will have time to plan before the matter of Federation membership becomes public. I should consult my grandfather without delay.”

Danilo’s expression darkened minutely. They both knew that the irascible old man had never relented in pressing Regis to marry and ensure a proper succession. Nor was he the only one. Ruyven Di Asturien would like nothing better than to see his daughter, Crystal, married to Regis; the son she had borne Regis had not lived past his fourth year, but the fact remained that she was fertile, willing, and acceptable to even the most hidebound conservatives.

Together, Regis and Danilo drew up a plan to meet with those members of the Telepath Council who had remained in Thendara for the winter and to contact others through the Tower relays. Danilo suggested that Regis consult Gabriel Lanart-Hastur. Since assuming lordship of the great house at Armida, Gabriel divided his time between running the estate and his duties as Commander of the Guards.

Regis was happy to be doing something, for he never liked waiting for trouble to come to him. However, he was not looking forward to the debate once spring opened the roads and brought people like Valdir and Haldred Ridenow to Thendara.

Leave tomorrow’s sorrows to tomorrow,the old proverb went. He would do his best to follow it.

After a brief midday meal, Regis set off on foot for Comyn Castle, accompanied as always by Danilo. His grandfather maintained a suite of rooms in the Hastur section. One of the tasks Regis had set for himself in overseeing the running of the Castle was to make sure the old man was well cared for.

He should have retired to Castle Hastur years ago, among his own people.But Old Hastur, as he was still called, was not yet ready to surrender the reins of power. He insisted he would remain where he was needed.

A servant greeted them at the entrance to the Hastur apartments. Regis found his grandfather in his study, seated before his writing desk and warmed by a merry fire. Danvan Hastur had once been a tall, strongly built man, but age and care had withered him. His hair was pure white now, thinning but neatly combed. The tunic of supple leather, dyed blue and trimmed with silver fir-tree design embroidery, hung on his bony frame. He looked up from the document he had been reading, tracing the lines of script with one finger. The knuckle was swollen, misaligned.

As he studied his grandfather’s face, Regis had the curious feeling that all normal life had been burned out of the old man, leaving Lord Hastur as pure refined will. How old was he, anyway? Over a century, certainly. Chieriblood ran in the Hasturs, often granting them exceptionally long lives. To Regis, his grandfather had always seemed immortal, like a force of nature. Now he saw an old man, sustained only by the remains of the fire that had tempered him.

Will I look like this someday?Regis wondered. Will that be my face . . . my fate?

“Regis, it is good to see you. No, no formal bowing or anything like that. I’m too tired to get up.”

Unexpectedly moved by the warmth of the greeting, Regis moved to the desk and pressed his cheek against the dry, shriveled side of his grandfather’s face.

After inquiries about one another’s health, mention of the weather and the condition of the streets, Regis and Danilo settled into their respective chairs. The servant came back, bearing a tray with the ubiquitous jacoand a plate of custard tarts, the old man’s favorite. Regis took one out of politeness.

Regis outlined the situation as he understood it from Lew Alton’s message. Danvan listened intently. From time to time, the muscles around Danvan’s eyes tightened and he clenched his jaw. Danvan had spent the better part of his very long life engaged in political maneuvering, ever since he had assumed the Regency for the incompetent King Stefan Elhalyn. He had presided over periods of transition and tumult, one crisis after another.

“This is what comes from trying to negotiate with the Terranan,” he muttered. “To think that we might become a third-rate colony . . .”

“Sir,” Regis said, “that is exactly what we must find a way to prevent. We are not without resources. Let us not forget that we have friends within the Empire, men of good will who still believe that each world has the right to determine its own fate. Lew Alton still represents us in the Senate, and that will not change when the Terran Empire is replaced by a Federation.”

“If there still isa Senate!” Danvan snapped. “We should have held firm right from the beginning. We had no choice in allowing them to land their ships and build their spaceport here. But we should have insisted that the contact end there. We should have forced them to leave us our own way of life and go about their own business without involving us.”

Regis smothered a sigh. They had been over the old argument too many times already, and he saw no point in continuing. The Terran Empire was a fact, impossible to wish away. Banshee chicks could not be put back into their eggs. Given a generation or more of contact with a star-spanning civilization, Darkover could never have continued on its own isolated way.

“Whether we chose rightly or not, we are part of the Empire now,” Regis said. “If we had refused permission for them to build their spaceport here in Thendara, they would have gone elsewhere. Caer Donn was bad enough, but what if they had chosen Shainsa? Would the Dry Town lords, who have never observed the Compact, have hesitated to trade for blasters and worse?”

Danilo drew in a quick, horrified breath. Danvan masked his own reaction better. In a flash, Regis understood that his grandfather had indeed considered the possibility. As long as the Terrans could be restricted to Thendara, could be monitored and regulated, then the possibility of imported, illegal weaponry was minimized. After the Sharra disaster and the destruction of the Terrans’ secondary spaceport at Caer Donn, the Empire officials had reluctantly agreed to abide by the Compact. How long would that memory last?

Regis went on, “The Terrans granted us Closed World status so that we would not suffer debilitating social upheavals from exposure to their culture.”

“Are you defending them?”

Regis shook his head. “No, I am trying to be realistic. Darkover isn’t suitable for industrialization like the city worlds. Between lack of minerals and a fragile ecology, we simply can’t sustain certain kinds of technologies. The Terrans know this as well as we do.”

Danvan’s blue eyes glinted, although his voice sounded as weary as ever. “Do you think that would stop them? It didn’t stop the World Wreckers from doing their best to bring us to the brink of ruin.”

“Then what would you propose we do . . . sir?” Regis struggled to contain his temper.

“We have only one hope of standing against the power of the Terrans as they play on the ignorance and greed of the people.” With each phrase, Danvan gathered momentum like an avalanche in the Hellers. “We need a single, strong man to unite us.”

Regis closed his eyes. In that moment, he was a boy again, trying to stand up to the most influential, charismatic, and legendary figure on Darkover. He felt Danilo sitting not far from him and opened his mind to his bredhyu’scalm resolve.

Just listen,Danilo thought. He can’t force you into anything.

They both knew what was coming next.

“Why do you think I’ve held on this long?” Danvan’s burst of passion-fueled vigor was fading, and Regis felt, like a shiver in his bones, the brittleness of his grandfather’s failing strength. “I should have retired as Regent long ago. I would have if there had been someone to take my place.”

Stung, Regis shot back, “What more do you want of me? I stayed on Darkover. I pledged myself to Hastur and to our world.” I’m only one man! There’s only so much I can give, or I will end an empty husk!

“Yes, you have behaved with honor,” Danvan admitted. His voice lost some of its urgency. “No one questions that. You have stepped forward, at great cost to yourself, when a crisis demanded it.”

Regis sat back, surprised by his grandfather’s concession.

“But . . .” Danvan picked up his argument, “you have not fulfilled the one duty that only you, as Heir to Hastur, can perform—to give our caste, our world, our people the leadership to take them safely into the future. Look around you! As you yourself pointed out numerous times, the Comyn are all but gone, a few noble families here and there clinging to the shards of the past. We no longer meet in Council to decide crucial issues and provide guidance. The Towers have never interested themselves in anything beyond their own walls, and now they have to contend with training any ruffian with a trace of laran.”

Thanks to your Telepath Council,Danvan meant.

Regis gritted his teeth. If the old tyrant insisted on pushing his point to its conclusion, let him be the one to do it.

The charred end of a log broke off and tumbled into the bed of ashes, sending up a tiny spark. The mote of brilliance flared and died.

“Regis, my lad, we both know what you must do,” Danvan said, his voice now hoarse with emotion.

No.Did he speak aloud, or only in his heart?

I will not become king. I have never wanted that kind of power.

“You are the only one with the true right.” Danvan shifted to smooth persuasion born from deeply-held belief. “Not even if Aldones himself wished it could we place an Elhalyn on the throne. Your claim is legitimate, since your mother was King Stefan’s only sister. Not even the most hidebound conservatives will oppose you. Rather, they will gladly unite behind you. How can you not see how they need—they yearn—for one voice to bring them together, to speak for Darkover?”

“If they are so eager for a leader,” Regis said hotly, “let them choose one themselves!”

Danvan snorted and made a rude, dismissive gesture. “Bah! Terranannotions of democracy have no place here. Darkover needs continuation, stability, and, above all, a solution in accord with our own ancient traditions.”

He paused, visibly regaining his poise. “It must be you, Regis. There is no other. And it must be soon, so that you are prepared to counter this new attempt to destroy everything we hold precious and honorable.”

Regis wished his pulse were not rampaging so insistently. He did not want to wound his grandfather’s pride. He searched for a way to tell the truth and yet not be needlessly cruel.

“I will—” never agree to be king“—consider what you have said. There may be other options, ones better suited for Darkover as it is now, rather than as it has been in the past.”

“Do not take too long,” Danvan paused, as if formulating another argument. Then his thin shoulders lifted, his vision cleared, and he went on, “While you are considering, give some thought to the necessity of a consort.” He raised his voice as Regis began to protest. “Yes, we have been over the reasons why you refuse to take a proper wife.”

Near the end of his tolerance, Regis broke in. “And you have not listened to a word I have said on the subject! I have told you more than once that when I actually meet the woman I can accept as a wife, I want to be free to marry her!” He paused, then plunged on. “Not even you, sir, can accuse me of not doing my duty in providing the Domain with an heir. Between naming Mikhail as my son and—” with a glance at Danilo, who had once resented the times Regis had brought himself to have an affair with some woman eager to bear a Hastur child, “and fathering nedestrochildren, I have more than fulfilled my obligations!”

Danvan glared at him, then subsided. “I cannot fault you on that. Mikhail is a fine lad, and you are training him well. But as king, you require a lady at your side. You need not marry her di catenas.A consort will suffice.”

Regis was about to retort that there was no functional difference. He would be saddled with the woman, no matter what her title. Still, it was a remarkable concession for his grandfather to make.

In all truth, he admitted to himself, he had once thought that in Linnea Storn he had met a woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Danilo, surprisingly, had liked her. In the end, the intense flurry of emotional intimacy, fostered by the events surrounding the gathering of telepaths for the new council, had died down. They had parted amicably.

Regis rose, unwilling to pursue the conversation any farther. He bowed to his grandfather, assuring him that he would give the subject of a wife or consort equal consideration with that of the throne, and departed.

With Danilo following close behind, Regis strode down the corridor and through the arched entrance to the stairs. He slowed his pace only when they were well beyond the Castle gates.

Regis recalled Danilo’s words on one of the many past occasions when his grandfather had been pressuring him.

“Regis, you are Heir to Hastur and all the burden that comes with it. I would lighten it for you if I could, but no man alive can do that. You yourself would not have it otherwise.”

“You lighten it with your understanding,”Regis had replied, “so that I need not face the future alone.”

The old sympathy began to weave itself between them, closer than words, the telepathic bond of laran, of sworn brotherhood, and more.

Regis felt the coming of night, the swift veil of crimson-edged darkness that swept across the unseen sky like a vast hush of wings. The earth itself shifted, drawing into itself for the long, lightless cold. Throughout the city, candles and rush torches cast pools of fragile light while above the galactic arm stretched in milky glory across the heavens. Mormallor rose, shimmering in pearly light, followed by mauve Idriel.

This,he thought, this will endure.He knew in the fearful recesses of his mind that it might not. Among those points of brilliance, men plotted and schemed, men with knives and blasters and weapons far more dreadful, men with poisons to leave soil and ocean barren, to warp the very nature of living cells, to steal the will and crush the hope of his people.

The bedroom fire had died down, its embers glowing like molten gems, then drifting into ashes with a sound that was softer than a maiden’s sigh.

Danilo, who had fallen silent and watchful, reached out to touch Regis on the back of one wrist, a telepath’s butterfly-light touch.

Come to bed, beloved. Tomorrow’s sorrows will still be there in the morning.

Regis met the other man’s gaze. In the psychic rapport catalyzed by touch, he felt as if there were no barriers between them. His heart was joined to Danilo’s, as it had been for so many years. They both understood, without the need for speech, that one reason Regis had chosen to remain in this house was that here they might find a modicum of privacy. The love between men was not shameful by Darkovan standards, but their constancy in the face of Regis’ refusal to marry made both of them targets for scandal and censure.

They also knew that if the issue of Federation membership was as urgent as they feared, Regis would have to take up his formal position as Regent, as Hastur of Hastur. In order to rule effectively, with all the influence of his position, he must move to his quarters in Comyn Castle, and there they must comport themselves as lord and paxman.

Regis had filled the bedroom with family treasures from Castle Hastur. The bedframe of wood glossy and black with age, the Ardcarran carpet underfoot, the lamps of Shainsa filigree work, the panels of translucent blue stone, all created a haven. The room smelled of leather and spice and love.

They turned to one another with a desperate passion, as if they could lose themselves and all their cares in it.

Long into the night, Regis lay awake in a tumble of bedclothes. Danilo curled on his side, facing away, one shoulder bare. Regis grasped the comforter to cover him. As he moved, Danilo made a small, strangled sound. Regis drew back, for it had been many years since Danilo had cried out in his sleep from the old nightmares. He had learned not to ask, just as Danilo respected his own moments of tortured reflection. Some wounds were best left alone. But what, he wondered, had come back to haunt them now?

3

Heart pounding, Regis jerked awake. Footsteps sounded outside his bedchamber door, not the clatter of heels, but muffled, as if the wearer had no desire to announce his arrival. Darkness shrouded the chamber, and the air was still and heavy. The mattress still bore the faint imprint of Danilo’s body, but it it was cold. Such a time, Regis thought, invited despair.

He shook himself free of the dregs of sleep and reached out with his laran.Immediately, he sensed Danilo’s presence. The door swung open with only the mildest of creaking. The flickering light of a taper shone on Danilo’s face. Shadows etched hollows around his eyes, but the slightly haunted look was not all illusion. He wore his ordinary working clothes, a dagger at his belt. Regis ached for him, for whatever old wound had been touched during the night.

Danilo glided to the bedstand and touched the taper to the candle there. “I’m sorry to disturb you, vai dom,but there is an urgent matter requiring your attention.”

“Meaning something you cannot fend off by yourself?” Regis winced at his own dark mood. His anger was not toward Danilo but toward whatever had so disturbed Danilo’s sleep that he should be up and dressed—and armed—at this hour.

The second source of irritation was Danilo’s use of the honorific, the shift from lover and equal to loyal paxman.

“What is it?” Regis asked, more gently.

“A messenger from the Legate.”

“It’s not yet dawn. Couldn’t it wait until a decent hour?”

“Apparently not.”

“Forgive me, I’m in a beastly mood. You have done nothing to displease me.” Regis reached out for the bond between them, heart and mind and body’s sated need.

And if Ishould displease you?

“Zandrua’s frozen hells, Danilo! What does thatmean? Look, I don’t want to quarrel with you. If I can’t rely on you, you of all people—to whom can I turn?”

Danilo drew a breath, almost disguising how his voice trembled. “I will be here at your side as long . . . as long as you want me.” When Regis reached out a hand to him, he shifted to avoid the touch.

Regis cursed silently, not caring if Danilo sensed his thoughts. It’s that dream, or the Federation, or old memories. Whatever it is, I won’t let it come between us!

“All right, I’ll see the messenger in the downstairs parlor.” Regis pulled on a dressing robe and shoved his feet into fleece-lined house boots. “I’ll be down in a minute. Make sure the man has something hot to drink.”

A few minutes later, Regis joined Danilo and the Terran messenger around a newly lit fire. Shivering in his synthetic parka, the Terran looked vaguely familiar in the way many off-worlders did, but Regis could not recall meeting him before. From the tray with its steaming pitcher and untouched mugs, Regis surmised the messenger had refused refreshment. Danilo, despite the outward nonchalance of his posture, looked ready to draw his dagger any instant.

“I am Regis Hastur. My paxman says you have a message for me.”

The poor messenger was not only half frozen, but was terrified at facing an armed and obviously suspicious bodyguard. He could not have been more than twenty, probably on his first tour of duty.

“From the Legate,” Regis prompted.

“Your Highness—er, Your Honor—Lord Hastur,” the man stammered and attempted a bow.

“We can dispense with titles,” Regis told him. “I’m sorry you had to come out here on such a night. What is so pressing it cannot wait until morning?”

Some of the stiffness left the messenger’s body. “I don’t rightly know, sir. The Legate—Mr. Lawton—he asked if you could please come up to Medical. As soon as possible.”

“Medical? He’s not ill?” Regis felt a little frisson of fear. Why would Dan Lawton send for him, of all people? He had no medical training and only the most rudimentary knowledge of laranhealing, so he could be of little use there. If Dan were badly injured, dying, he might send for Regis—to disclose what?

The messenger shook his head. “I wasn’t g-given that information, j-just to ask you to come.”

Regis nodded, decisive. “I’ll be ready shortly. Wait here, and for Evanda’s sake, man, get some hot drink into you!”

Outside, clouds had blotted out the stars. Needle-edged rain slashed down, a harbinger of the coming spring. Although the temperature was above freezing, the damp wind penetrated even the warmest woolen clothing.

A motorized ground transport stood waiting for them outside the gated grounds of the town house. Regis sensed Danilo’s abhorrence of the machine, an echo to his own. The messenger held the door open. Regis sighed as and he and Danilo slid into their seats. The conveyance was practical, given the hour and the weather. Truthfully, he was glad not to have to walk, to arrive at Terran HQ shivering and soaked.

Danilo, tautly vigilant, eyed the Spaceforce patrolmen as they passed through the checkpoints. Beyond the gates, fences and barricades cut off all view of the spaceport. Stark white lights illuminated the entrance to Central Headquarters. The building was dark, the floors slick. The heels of their boots clattered on the hard synthetic surface. Although an underground power plant heated the complex, the entrance hall was frigid. To Regis, the chill was as much of the spirit as of the flesh.

As they made their way up the strange rising shafts and along the corridors of the Medical section, the lighting shifted, became less harsh. Perhaps the sick required illumination that soothed and sustained instead of assaulting the senses. Unlike the outer areas of the building, the Medical section was as busy at this hour as during the day. Staff in white uniforms, and some in pale green or blue, hurried by, speaking in pairs, clutching recording tablets. A few stared at Regis and Danilo.

The messenger brought them to a halt below a sign that read, INTENSIVE CARE. A young man glanced up from behind a long, curving barrier that served as counter and desk. Regis decided he must be a nurse, because his white uniform bore the staff- and-serpent emblem of the Terran Medics. A musical recording issued from the console behind the counter, a woman singing in a lilting, alien tongue, accompanied by drums and guitar. The snatch of melody reminded Regis of the sea.

Regis tried not to stare, for the nurse’s skin was a glossy blue-black and his hair a cap of fuzz. His ears were like ebony shells set on either side of his skull. Dark eyes, bright with intelligence, took in the two Darkovans, their native clothing and pale skins. But there was no judgment in that brief glance, only curiosity and good will.

How insular we are,Regis thought, and how little we know about the infinite variety of humankind.

“We have been expecting you,” the nurse said in a musical voice. “Please wait here while I page Dr. Allison.” He returned to his work at the computer console. Regis caught his flicker of amusement at being the object of curiosity.

He knows what it is to be set apart from his kind, to feel different, and yet he has made his peace with it.Regis would have liked to speak further with the man, but just then Jason Allison emerged around the corner. Jason wore a white coat, unbuttoned and flowing, over ordinary Darkovan clothing.

“ DomRegis, Danilo, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he said in flawless casta, inclining his head but making no effort to shake hands. “Come this way.”

Regis had known Jason since they had worked together on finding a vaccine for trailmen’s fever. He liked and trusted Jason, who had been born on Darkover and lived several years among the nonhuman aboriginals.

They hurried down the corridor that ran behind the nurse’s station and past three or four open doors. Regis glanced in, seeing darkened rooms and empty beds, two to a room. The next door was closed, but Jason entered without preamble.

The first impression Regis had upon entering was that he had stepped onto another planet. The chamber was saturated with light and the clutter of carts and machines. The stink of chemicals masked a miasma of emotions. Before he could raise his laranbarriers, he caught a whiff of curdled fear from the woman on the other side of the bed. She looked up at him with frightened eyes. Regis recognized Dan Lawton’s wife.

From the patient on the single bed, surrounded by machines and a spiderweb of wires and tubing, came the flare of laran, wild and un-shaped. Frantic, barely contained anguish radiated from the man in the corner chair.

The intensity of the emotions and the utter strangeness of the surroundings battered at Regis. Sensations, raw and intense, flooded through him.

Memories surged up through the tumult. In the recesses of his mind, Regis was once more fifteen and wracked by threshold sickness. He remembered how visions had swept his mind like blasts of a Hellers storm. His head had throbbed, and his eyes had flickered with jags of eerie light, incomprehensible visual traceries . . .

Solid warmth steadied him. Blinking, Regis came back to himself. Danilo stood at his back, leaning into him, supporting him.

Ever there, my faithful friend. You saved me then, and you save me now.

The bizarre sensations had not been solely memories of his own struggles as his laranawakened. Regis had been picking them up from the boy who lay on the bed. With his own psychic senses, he tasted the drugs surging through the boy’s bloodstream, off-world medicines designed to sedate and numb. All they had accomplished, however, was to blur the boy’s mind, to deprive him of any understanding of what was happening to him.

Moved to pity, Regis reached out to touch the boy. His mother shrieked, “Stay away from him!”

At the same time, Dan Lawton, who had been sitting in the corner, leaped to his feet.

Jason ignored the woman’s outburst. “Regis, do you know what’s wrong with him? Is it threshold sickness?”

“This farce has gone on long enough!” the black- haired woman cried. Her anguish sizzled in the air, panic edged with bitterness and love for her child. “I will not have abominable, superstitious natives treating my son! Felix is critically ill. You said so yourself, Dr. Allison! I insist on proper medical care for him, do you hear?”

Jason guided her toward her husband. “Ms. Lawton, sit down now or leave the room.”

“I mean your son no harm,” Regis began. “I’m here to help, if I can.”

“There’s nothing you can do!” Violet eyes blazed at him, molten. “Nothing! Because he cannot possibly have contracted this degenerate alien threshold syndrome!” She jerked away from Jason’s hold. “Daniel, tell them!”

“Tiphani, we’ve been over this—” Dan protested.

“No!” Ebony tresses whirling around her pale face, Tiphani faced her husband. “This is all wrong! I will not have my own son exposed to those native—those— perverts!” She lunged at Regis as if she would attack him with her bare hands.

Regis recoiled, not only from her words themselves but from the burst of hatred behind them. Danilo placed himself between Regis and the near-hysterical woman. Danilo had not drawn his dagger, but Regis had no doubt that he was now fully protected.

Danilo said, in a voice all the more menacing for its calm, “No one speaks in that manner to the Heir of Hastur. No one.”

“That’s enough!” Jason said, with all the command of his medical rank. Two nurses, one a woman, appeared in the doorway. “Remove this lady from the room. If she resists, sedate her!”

“What, and leave my son to whatever devil-sorcery—” Tiphani shrieked.

“Go with them,” Dan begged. “I’ll stay here and make sure nothing happens. You’ve got to calm down and let the doctor do his work. Please.”

“It’s all your fault,” she raged at her husband. “If you hadn’t let him run wild in the gutters, he’d be fine!”

Regis reminded himself that this mother was almost beside herself with worry for her critically ill child. At such times, people often looked for someone to blame.

By this time, the nurses had taken her arms. She tensed, ready to resist. She glanced from her husband’s pleading face to Jason Allison’s stern authority, to Danilo’s poised suspicion. Regis held his silence, believing that anything he said would only provoke the woman further.

As Tiphani disappeared through the doorway, flanked by the nurses, Regis wondered at her reaction. What in Zandru’s Seven Frozen Hells was wrong with her? Surely Dan, who was devoted to Darkover, would have chosen a wife who felt the same.

Instead, Tiphani had made a poor adaptation to the world her husband loved and served. Had she been so blinded by love that she did not consider what she was committing herself to, a life on a remote, low-technology planet? Or had she thought she could persuade Dan Lawton to relocate elsewhere, perhaps her own world—what was it called, Temperance? That was obviously not a quality it bestowed upon its inhabitants.

Was happiness in marriage a matter of chance if left to the rages of infatuation? Regis could not help comparing Dan’s relationship with his own. He and Danilo were so many things to one another; bredhinand companions, lovers and lord and paxman. In Linnea Storn, Regis had found a woman of his own caste who was a trained and powerful telepath as well as a loving person. It was too bad things had not worked out, since he did not know if he would ever find such a good match again.

After a moment of embarrassed silence, Regis bent over the bed. The boy appeared to be eleven or twelve, with the wiry slenderness of adolescence. Reddish tints shone in his brown hair. Sweat covered his skin, which was pale from growing up beneath the crimson sun. He opened his eyes, and Regis thought he looked simultaneously terrified and unaware of his surroundings.

“Is it threshold sickness?” Dan asked.

Carefully, Regis lowered his laranshields and touched the boy’s mind. Regis had never studied in a Tower, but over the years he had learned not only to master his own psychic powers but to use them in ways no other living Comyn could. To the best of his knowledge, he was the only bearer of the rare and powerful Hastur Gift, that of being a living matrix in himself.

His vision shifted, and he saw not only the white-shrouded form of a pubescent boy but also a tangle of mental energies, streams of color, laransurging through its channels, sometimes flowing freely, sometimes pooling, stagnant and festering. The channels in the boy’s lower body, which normally carried both laranand awakening sexual energy, were dangerously overloaded.

“How long has he been like this?” Regis heard his own words as if whispered from far away.

“He was fine this morning,” Dan responded. “Bright, a bit rebellious, a typical adolescent. I thought the trip to the market would do him good. Could he have been made ill by something he ate there?”

Regis shook his head. “I’m not a trained monitor, but I think it’s rare for the sickness to come on so fast and strong. Danilo, what do you think?”

With a sense of inexpressible relief, Regis felt his bredhyu’smind open to his, a flowing unity that he had never experienced with any other human being. Like Regis, Danilo had not trained in a Tower, and like Regis, he was the sole possessor of a rare gift, that of catalyzing telepathy, of awakening latent talent. Unlike Regis, however, his own passage through the tumult of adolescent threshold sickness had been relatively benign.

Danilo shifted, his mental touch like silk over water, and he said, in a voice that shimmered in Regis’s mind, “Where is his starstone?”

“His—you mean a matrix crystal?” Dan said. “As far as I know, he’s never had one. Where would he get it?”

Danilo looked directly at Regis. “I’d stake my life this boy has keyed into a starstone. That’s why—”

Before he could go further, Felix gave a sudden cry. His body arched upward, straining at the bandages, almost ripping out the needle taped to his arm. Jason sprang into action at the same time Regis did, Danilo a split instant later. Together, the two Darkovans managed to hold the convulsing boy. Regis felt a shock as he touched the boy’s skin with his bare hands. Energy, raw and directionless, surged just beneath the surface.

Deftly, Jason adjusted the intravenous apparatus. Regis could not see exactly what the doctor was doing, nor would he have understood if he could. Instead, he sensed a lessening of the frantic surge of laranpower and a softening of the boy’s muscles. A shudder ran the length of Felix’s body, and he sank back on the bed.

Regis drew his hands back, frowning. This was not a natural end to the spasm. The convulsions had not run their course, nor had the cause been remedied. He glanced at Jason.

“That will hold him for the moment,” Jason said. “I’ve increased the dosage of antiseizure medication to the maximum for his body mass. I dare not give him any more.”

Regis shook his head. “It’s not over.”

“I know, I know.” Sweating visibly, Jason raked his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know what else to do for him. God help him if he has another attack. He could suffer permanent brain damage. That’s why I sent for you.”

From outside the door came the sound of a woman’s voice, taut with strain, and Tiphani’s frantic sobs.

“You’d best see to your wife.” Regis nodded to Dan, who hurried from the room.

After a few murmured words, footsteps receded down the corridor. The room fell into a hush, the three men and the boy lying so still he seemed to be not breathing.

“Danilo—” Regis began. “You’re sure he has a starstone?”

Danilo nodded. “Can’t you feel the vibrational pattern?”

“Under all that chaotic flow, who can tell anything?” Regis frowned.

“Maybe . . . I’m not nearly as sensitive as you. If you say so, I’ll take your word on it.”

“I know what a starstone looks like,” Jason said, puzzled. “When Felix was admitted, he did not have one on his person or among his possessions. I thought that once a person had keyed into a stone, handling it or taking it away from him could kill him.”

For a long beat, neither Regis nor Danilo breathed an answer. Slowly, Jason nodded. “Oh.”

If they failed to find and restore the psychoactive gem, the boy’s convulsions would get worse. Threshold sickness could be fatal. Regis had lost one of his few remaining nedestrochildren to it.

Regis went to the door. The ebony-skinned nurse, still at his station, pointed toward a room at the end of the corridor. “They went to the chapel.”

The door opened soundlessly at a touch. Unlike the chill, antiseptic furnishings of the rest of the building, this room struck Regis as Darkovan. Panels of chestnut-brown wood alternated with hangings in soft greens and blues. At the far end, light glowed softly behind panels of tinted glass patterned like trees and mountains. Even the air smelled fresher. To one side of the glass panels, a red votive light glimmered on a table set with various articles. Instruments of prayer,the Father Master at St. Valentine’s monastery would have called them. Regis recognized a cristofororosary, a stack of worn prayer books, a glass vessel filled with flower petals, a bell, and a bronze bowl and stick. Dan sat beside his wife on one of the simple wooden benches, his arm around her. Her back was bowed over so that her hair fell like a cascade of glossy curls over her face.

Something in the tenderness of Dan’s posture, the way he stroked Tiphani’s hair, and the sweet rumble of his voice touched Regis unexpectedly. Beneath the fear lay a woman who was deeply loved, a mother grievously worried for her child.

Regis took a seat beside her, beyond casual touch, yet close enough to feel the shimmer of almost- laranemanating from her shuddering form. She was not Comyn, she was not even Darkovan. He had encountered a range of telepathic talents in off-worlders in the last decade, since he had sent out an invitation throughout the Empire as part of Project Telepath. People with true psychic abilities, not parlor-trick charlatans, were rare, often near psychotic. Tiphani seemed sane enough, just distraught as any mother in this situation might be.

The next moment, the awareness vanished. Tiphani’s mind clamped down around her fragmentary gift so completely that she might not have had any telepathic ability at all. In her position as wife to the legate, she must have encountered psychically-Gifted Comyn. Untrained and culturally isolated, she would have had no preparation for contact with other telepaths. The resulting confusion must have fueled discomfort, turning awkwardness into distrust, suspicion into outright hostility.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” Regis said, “but for the sake of your son, I must ask you a few questions, MestraLawton.”

She gave a shuddering sigh and lifted her head. Huge violet eyes turned toward him. Even with her cheeks reddened with weeping, she was beautiful.

“You aren’t a doctor. What can you do?”

“No,” he admitted, “but nonetheless, I am here to help.”

“Dearest,” Dan said, “it won’t hurt to let him try.”

Tiphani’s hands tightened around the object she held; Regis could not see exactly what it was, most likely some religious token. The hectic color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin as clear as porcelain.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that threatened to break. “I was ungracious when your intentions were kind. I don’t know what I can add to Dr. Allison’s diagnosis.”

“Sometimes, an insignificant detail is the key,” Regis said. “While your memory is fresh, tell me as much as you can about your son’s activities today. Did he seem in usual health in the morning? What did he buy in the market?”

“You’re not suggesting I deliberately poisoned my own child!” Quivering in indignation, Tiphani gathered herself to spring to her feet. “Or exposed him to—I am a decent, God-fearing woman!”

Regis wondered what fear of any of the gods had to do with a sick child. “Let me understand you clearly, mestra.Neither of you made any purchases? Could the boy have acquired a small item without your knowledge?”

The woman glanced at her husband, her eyes streaked with red, and then at the altar. She slumped back on the bench. “I did my best. Daniel, believe me! I took the filthy thing away from him as soon as I realized.Oh God, it’s all my fault! If only I had not been weak in letting Felix have his way! If only I had watched him more closely—”

She broke off, too distraught to continue. Dan did his best to comfort her. She turned her face against his shoulder.

“You took something away from Felix?” Dan murmured into her hair. “What was it?”

Tiphani fumbled in her breast pocket and drew out a wad of fabric tied with a drawstring, on a long loop made to be worn around the neck. The cloth was a handkerchief, the kind that could be purchased for a few reisin any market. A crude design had been painted on it. With disgust, Regis realized that it was a tourist’s version of the pouches in which many Comyn carried their personal starstones. His own matrix was shielded by triple layers of insulating silk. A piece of blue glass might well have substituted for a genuine matrix stone, which might be offensive but not criminal. Exposed to an unkeyed stone, without guidance or supervision, a latent telepath risked madness or death. Who in their right mind would sell such a thing?

Only a head-b lind fool, who could not tell the difference . . . or someone who intended this to happen.Regis suppressed a twinge of paranoia, for the Comyn had been particular targets of the World Wreckers assassins.

Deliberately not looking at Regis, Tiphani thrust the little bag into her husband’s hand.

“I’d better take it,” Regis said. Handling the bag as if it were a snake that might bite him, Dan passed it over. Regis studied the little bundle for a moment, sensing a pulse of jagged power. The thin cloth provided a barrier to physical touch but none at all to psychic energy.

I’m not a Keeper. I shouldn’t even be holding it.But who else was there? Thendara no longer possessed a working Tower, and Linnea Storn was hundreds of miles away. A tendril of longing brushed his heart. When she had left, after only a few years together, he had not realized how much he would miss her.

He closed his fingers around the bag and said to Tiphani, “When you have recovered, join me in the boy’s room.” He did not dare to say more, to offer even the illusion of hope.

When Regis returned to Felix’s room, the boy’s condition was unchanged. Danilo let out a low whistle as Regis held out the wad of cloth.

“Is that it?” Jason asked.

Regis nodded. “Open one of the boy’s hands. I’ll drop it on his palm. We might need to close his fingers around it, but be careful not to touch the stone.”

The boy’s fingers were thin, yet long and graceful. There were only five of them, Regis noted, but many of the Comyn had only five. Taking a deep breath, he lowered the bundle to the opened hand and drew out his eating knife.

“Careful,” Danilo murmured.

“Pray to your holy saints, Danilo, that he doesn’t have another seizure while I’m doing this.”

The sharp point of the knife slid easily beneath the knotted cord. The fibers parted with only a little resistance. Regis let out his breath. With his fingertips, he drew apart the folds of cloth. The boy moaned and whipped his head from side to side. Danilo grabbed Felix’s forearm to hold it steady.

A flash of blue-white light appeared in the folded cloth. Regis tipped the pouch, sliding the starstone onto Felix’s exposed palm.

Immediately, Regis had to look away. Ribbons of liquid light twisted within the heart of the stone. Nausea rose up in him, mixed with something akin to euphoria. Motes of brightness jigged and danced behind his eyes, as they had when he almost died from threshold sickness.

With a practiced mental gesture, Regis raised his barriers. The sensations ended abruptly. He knew that what he had experienced was only a fraction of what raged through the boy’s mind. He remembered how his older sister, Javanne, had guided him through attuning his starstone to his mind.

As he curled his fingers over Felix’s, closing them around the chip of faceted brilliance, Danilo reached out with one hand and placed it on top.

A shudder ran down the boy’s body, very different from his previous convulsive spasms. This was, Regis sensed, a wave of tissue-deep relief, of being made whole again.

Felix opened his eyes and looked directly at Regis. “Where am I?” he asked in an exhausted, thready voice. “What happened?”

Regis almost laughed aloud. “We’ll explain later. For now, just keep holding on to that stone. Don’t let anyone except your Keeper handle it.”

Especially not your mother,he added silently. It was a miracle the boy had survived. Tiphani must not have known what the pouch contained and saw it only as a barbaric talisman.

With a physician’s deft touch, Jason taped the stone to Felix’s hand. It only took a few moments, but when it was done, the boy drifted into a sound, natural sleep.

Regis felt as if he had just raced from the Wall Around the World to the Dry Towns. Wearily, he said to Jason, “He should be nursed by someone with larantraining. I don’t know of anyone who’s studied in a Tower who is in Thendara at the moment. I believe that some of the Bridge Society Renunciates have skill in these matters.”

Jason nodded. “Yes, we’re fortunate enough to have one or two with that training.”

“They will do for the moment,” Regis said. “It would be better if we had a Keeper to see to him . . .” Out of the corner of his vision, he caught the fleeting spark behind Danilo’s eyes, and knew that his bredhyuwas also thinking of Linnea.

“I very much suspect that because the Renunciate healer is unconnected with me, MestraLawton will regard her with favor,” Regis said in an attempt to divert the awkward moment. “Can she attend him here?”

“I see no reason why not,” Jason said. The three men had reached the doorway. “I won’t release Felix until he’s recovered from the convulsions. You look exhausted, Regis. I’m sorry to have dragged you out of bed at this hour. Danilo, take him home. I’ll speak with the Lawtons.”

Jason bowed to Regis, the slight inclination of his body that betokened personal respect rather than the responsibilities of caste. Regis promised to check the boy’s progress when he could.

4

During the following tenday, Thendara enjoyed an unseasonably rapid transition to spring, as if winter had suddenly opened its fist. Throughout the Lowlands, the bitter edge of winter softened.

Regis felt the turning toward longer days as a rising hope in his own spirit. Sometimes he paused in the middle of the street while hurrying from one conference or another, or he simply stood looking over the ancient city. All things came in their own season, he reminded himself.

Regis had used Lew’s warning as best he could to prepare for the choice that would soon be presented to Darkover. Although the vote in the Empire Senate was not yet official, rumors spread throughout the Terran Zone, spilling over into the city. No formal declaration had yet been made, but that was only a matter of time.

Division on the subject of Federation membership developed much as Regis had expected. His grandfather was not the only one who wanted Darkover to cut off ties with the Terranan.Conservatives like Ruyven Di Asturien and Kyril Eldrin immediately made alliances. They saw the reorganization of the Federation as an opportunity to sever all off-world relations.

On the other side of the question were Valdir Ridenow, Regent of Serrais, the Aldarans, the Pan Darkovan League, and many citizens of Thendara. The Terrans stationed on Darkover maintained a carefully neutral public face, but Regis needed no laranto tell they were worried.

On one of the visits Regis made to check on Felix Lawton’s progress, Dan made him an unexpected offer of assistance.

“This is completely unofficial, you understand,” Dan said privately, behind closed doors. “As Legate, I cannot be seen to take sides in the debate. Only the citizens of Darkover may determine their course.”

They were alone in Dan Lawton’s private office, with Danilo on guard beside the door. Regis remembered again that Dan had a legitimate stake in the debate, for his parentage was part Comyn. The Domains accepted the notion of citizenshipreluctantly, for the term usually referred to legal rights, rather than the complex web of responsibilities that characterized Darkovan culture. Whatever laranDan possessed was deeply buried and likely to remain so in his Terran role. Yet Regis sensed in the other man a passionate desire to protect the world of his birth.

It was, Regis reflected, not strictly true that Darkover would be allowed to choose without any Terran influence or hint of coercion. If the Terrans decided their own interests were threatened—if, for instance, a disturbance should take place at the spaceport or a Terran patroller should be threatened or injured—then those sympathetic to the Expansionists would seize the excuse to impose martial law. Such a thing had happened on other worlds, according to Lew Alton.

If we do not give them an excuse, they may invent one for themselves.

“I thank you,” Regis said carefully, “but there is nothing I need from you now.”

Dan nodded. “We still have time before a final decision. However, the prospect of full membership in the Federation may cause . . . unrest.”

Dan was saying, in the way he had juxtaposed the offer of help and the warning, Keep your own people in order, and I will keep mine out of your affairs.

Revolted by the intricacies of political schemes, Regis changed the subject. “I’m glad your son is better. That, at least, is one area in which our two peoples can work cooperatively for our mutual benefit.”

Dan’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yes, between Dr. Allison’s medical expertise and the care of the Renunciate healer—Ferrika n’ha Margali—he is recovering. It will take time for his laranto stabilize, but his life is no longer in danger. Ferrika says that eventually he ought to go to a Tower for proper training.”

Regis had sensed the power of the boy’s laranbut had not realized it was so strong. “Indeed? He has the makings of a matrix mechanic or technician?”

“She says . . .” Dan paused, wet his lips, “he could make a Keeper.”

Danilo and Regis exchanged startled glances, for both had been taught that only women could hold the demanding centripolar position in a matrix circle. Male Keepers were very rare. Regis had met only one, Jeff Kerwin, now Keeper at Arilinn Tower.

“Do you think it is possible,” Dan went on, “that he may have the Ardais Gift?” His Comyn heritage came through that Domain, through his Darkovan mother.

Regis turned thoughtful. “I don’t think so, but he could well have another talent. If he does, it must be trained and preserved. There are so few of us, and the old Gifts no longer breed true. I am, to my knowledge, the only living bearer of the Hastur Gift.” Again, his eyes sought Danilo’s.

And you are the only living catalyst telepath and have no child who might inherit the talent.

Don’t rub it in.Danilo looked away, once more the faithful paxman, his features a mask of disciplined vigilance.

Comprehension swept through Regis. He had been a fool not to realize that every time his grandfather pressured him to marry, to father heirs and provide for the succession of the Domain, Danvan also meant the necessity to continue the unique talent of the clan. From there, it was only a small step of logic to the requirement for Danilo to do the same. Catalyst telepathy was the rarest of all the known Gifts. Danilo had the ability to awaken even the most deeply buried latent laranin another individual.

Unlike Regis, Danilo had never been able to couple with women for the sole purpose of procreation. He was one of those telepaths for whom a deep mental and emotional closeness was essential to physical intimacy. His heart was focused on Regis, and they were bound not only by love but by the vows of bredhinand those of lord and paxman.

“If that is true,” Regis turned back to Dan, “then a Tower is the only place Felix can receive the training to properly use his Gift. An untrained telepath is a danger to himself and everyone around him. But someone with the potential to be a Keeper . . . I cannot imagine what that person might suffer if his talent is ignored or suppressed.”

“We have already seen the dangers of uncontrolled laran,” Dan agreed with a touch of grimness. His worried expression returned, tightening the muscles around his eyes. “His mother is opposed to the idea, of course. She has finally come around to see that help from Darkovan telepaths is necessary, but she doesn’t like it. She’s not . . . she’s not a bad person.”

“You need not make excuses for your wife’s behavior,” Regis interrupted, affected by his friend’s obvious chagrin. “She acted out of love for her son, as any mother might. I am sorry that our ways are strange and frightening to her.”

“Yes,” Dan said, “I had hoped that after this long she would have adapted to Darkovan culture. It’s my fault for not helping her. I’ve been so busy with my work, I haven’t had the time to help her make Darkovan friends. She’s a very strong-willed woman, passionate in her opinions.”

“You would not have her any other way, my friend.”

Dan’s description of his wife reminded Regis of Linnea. For all the years they had been apart, she had never been very far from his thoughts. In a rush, he realized that there was a way to placate his grandfather, temporarily escape the Federation membership debate, and obtain skilled help for Felix.

“There is one thing you could do for me, if your offer extends this far,” he said. “Lend me a Terran aircraft.”

Dan Lawton had said the Terran pilot was the best, and the man deserved his reputation. He held the small craft on a steady course past the point where most would have turned back. The powerful, unpredictable wind currents of the Hellers made air travel chancy at best.

The land rose as the bones of the earth thrust skyward into uneven, snow-draped peaks. Winds buffeted the little craft, but the cabin was warm. Regis and Danilo had dressed in clothing suitable for mountain travel: knee-length jackets of thick wool, fur-lined hooded cloaks, and stout boots.

Around Regis, the metal device bucked like a badly broken horse. He dug his fingers into the cushioned armrests and felt the safety harness tighten around his chest. His stomach lurched, and he broke out into a cold sweat. Out of the corner of his vision, he glimpsed Danilo’s white, set face. Then the aircar leveled out.

Finally, the pilot set down on a frost-whitened field no bigger than the practice yard at the City Guards. Beyond the field stood a village.

Regis clambered out of the aircraft, glad beyond words to be standing once more on firm soil. Wind had scoured away the worst of the snow, leaving the ground almost bare. He turned toward the village, the earth crunching beneath his feet. In the distance, the castle of High Windward perched on a massive outcropping of rock. Regis estimated that it would take a good day’s ride to reach it.

A deputation of mountain folk, including one stout graybeard who must be the village headman, hurried out to greet them. From their exclamations, they found the Terran flying machine strange and perplexing. Few of them had seen such a thing, this deep into the Hellers. Their excitement turned to awe when they learned who Regis was. “The Hastur Lord . . .”

The pilot, who had thought of Regis only as a native friend of the Legate’s, regarded him with new respect.

The headman took them inside his own house, a snug cottage with three separate rooms, its stone walls daubed with mortar to keep out the wind. Like many mountain dwellings, it was situated to make use of the light and to present a solid face to the prevailing wind. After accepting offerings of food, hot drink, and the best place by the fire, Regis asked that riding animals and a guide for the journey to High Windward be provided, and also accommodations in the village for the pilot.

They passed an uneventful night. The headman insisted that the Hastur Lord must sleep in his best bed and would not be persuaded otherwise. As a youth, Regis had slept on the ground while working the fire-lines, and the bunks in the cadet barracks had not been much softer. He would have been just as happy curled up in a blanket before the hearth.

The next morning, as daybreak seeped across the cragged eastern horizon and shadows lay thick across the frozen fields, Regis and Danilo took their leave. The headman’s grown son brought out two mountain ponies, clearly the best that could be had, one antlered chervineladen with supplies and blankets, and another saddled for riding. The villagers clustered around them, women bundled in layers of woolen shawls, children like round-bellied puppies in their thick jackets, and men with windburned faces and bright eyes.

Regis swung up on his pony. At his height, his feet dangled, and he was already anticipating sore muscles. The beast was unprepossessing in appearance, its rust-black coat so thick and ragged that it looked like a badly shorn sheep. Its long tail brushed the ground, and little could be seen of its eyes through the tangle of its forelock. Danilo’s mount could have been its twin, except for a crescent of white on its off-side rump.

They set off, the headman’s son in the lead. The bridle rings and the bells on the harnesses of the chervineschimed brightly. Regis reined his pony beside Danilo’s. To his surprise, the animal had easy gaits and a pleasant, willing manner. Truly, it was the best the village had to offer.

Late in the day, they reached the steep trail leading to the gates of High Windward. Set among chasms and crags, the castle had been originally constructed as a fortress. It was said to date back to the Ages of Chaos, and legend had it that the walls had been raised by laranin a single day. Centuries had weathered the stone, leaving the castle like an old toothless dragon, melting back into the rock from which it had sprung. Only the great Sunrise Tower, a soaring structure of translucent stone, seemed untouched by time.

Since Regis could remember, the Storns had been peaceful country lords without any pretense of great power, living amicably with their neighbors and content to trade their fine hawks as well as precious metals from the mountain forges.

They were spotted long before they reached the gates, and a welcoming party emerged. The gates stood open, but they looked in excellent repair. The men who came out to greet them wore swords and looked competent in their use. Regis recognized one of them as having served in the City Guards. A murmur spread through the welcome party.

Regis clamped down his laranbarriers, but not before he caught the edge of the guards’ thoughts. Hastur . . . The Heir himself . . .

Would he never be free of it, free to be simply Regis?

After making sure their guide and animals would be properly cared for, fed and given warm shelter, Regis allowed himself to be conducted inside. Danilo followed him like a shadow.

The ancient custom of hospitality still ran strong in the mountains, where life itself depended on the goodwill of strangers against the common enemies of cold and avalanche, wolf and banshee and worse.

The coridomwelcomed them in true mountain style, refraining from inquiring about their business until their physical needs had been attended to. He escorted them through the vaulted hall, very old by its design, and into a suite of rooms in a more modern section. Panels of wood as golden as sunlight on honey covered the stone walls. Newly lit fires warmed the sitting room and also the two adjacent bedrooms. A servant brought a basin of water scented with herbs, soap, and towels. A moment later, while Regis was still exchanging courtesies with the steward, a second servant arrived with jacoand hot spiced wine. After they had warmed themselves and washed, the coridomhimself returned to conduct them to the solarium, where Lady Linnea waited to receive them.

The coridomled them through a series of back hallways, avoiding the major halls where Regis would be easily recognized and a subject of great curiosity, not to mention extravagant hospitality. Linnea knew how much he hated that kind of ostentatious attention.

The solarium, like those common in mountain castles, was a pleasantly intimate room. Carpets cushioned the center of the worn stone floor, and comfortable chairs and divans had been placed for conversation or family activities. Although it was almost dark outside the thick, mullioned windows, the air inside the room still held the sun’s warmth. A fire, newly lit, danced in the hearth. Linnea sat on one of the stools before it, picking out a melody on a ryll,while a little girl of ten or so accompanied her on a reed flute.

Linnea’s head was bent over her instrument, the light of the fire heightening the red- auburn of her curls. The folds of her woolen gown, a shade of green that made her look like a wood sprite, fell gracefully to the floor. An old dog slept at her feet, and a plump middle-aged woman sat knitting in a corner.

For a long moment, Regis could not speak, could not move. The domesticity of the scene, the love evident between mother and daughter, woke a hunger in him. He had never known his parents, for his father had been killed before he was born, ambushed by outlaws wielding Compact-illegal weapons. His mother had died soon afterward, of a broken heart, it was said. In their place, his grandfather had been a stern and undemonstrative guardian only too glad to send his young grandson to be educated at Nevarsin. The only warmth Regis had known as a child had come from his older sister, Javanne, herself thrust too soon into adult responsibilities and a politically advantageous marriage.

Regis had thought that the love he shared with Danilo and the satisfaction of knowing he had done his duty were the best he could expect in life. He had not known, until this moment, that he could want more.

While Regis stood, transfixed by the unfamiliar emotions boiling up within him, Linnea finished the musical phrase and set aside the lap harp. She met his gaze with unaffected directness. Even across the expanse of the room, Regis was struck by the purity of her features, her heart-shaped face, her wide gray eyes, and her air of utter composure. The girl glanced at her mother and got to her feet.

“Lord Regis.” Linnea rose, but did not curtsy. As a Keeper, even one who no longer worked as such, she bowed to no man. “You lend us grace. Stelli, this is your father.”

She did not ask why he had come.

Before Regis could say anything, the child approached him. She had Linnea’s eyes, he saw, but the jawline of his own people. Her hair, the same shade of copper as his had been at her age, fell in two gleaming braids down her back. As she met his gaze, Regis realized that she was younger than he had supposed; she would be eight or nine now. It was her height, her slenderness, and her movement, graceful as a chieri,that made her appear older. Her smile brought radiance to her entire face.

Kierestelli.This must be the daughter conceived during the brief, intense time when the World Wreckers almost destroyed their world. That a creature of such grace and beauty could have come from such a black and desperate time amazed Regis.

“Papa, is it really you?” Flute in hand, she ran to him.

For an instant, Regis had no idea how to respond. Surely, she could not remember him, for he and Linnea had separated when she was very young. Could she? He had no time to answer the question before the child flung herself into his arms. He lifted her up, hugging her in return before he realized what he was doing. Her body was agile as a dancer’s and her hair smelled like a mountain stream. Awkwardly, he set her down.

“I am sorry if I have offended you, Father,” she said. The formal words sounded odd, coming from the mouth of a child. “Mother says I forget myself in gladness.”

“And so you do,” Linnea said gently. “I think your father is not used to the excitement of children. Make your farewells, and go off to the nursery.”

Kierestelli flashed Regis another brilliant smile and skipped cheerfully from the room, accompanied by the middle-aged woman. The room fell silent except for the crackling of the fire.

Linnea gestured to the half-circle of chairs before the hearth. “Regis, will you sit down? And Danilo as well? Shall I send for jacoor ale? The ale’s quite good; High Windward has a skillful brewmaster.”

Her homely reference helped to break the tension. Regis and Danilo settled themselves, and she took a seat opposite them.

“Had you a pleasant journey?” she asked, when they declined refreshment.

“It was well enough, thank you,” Regis said. “We came by aircar as far as Black Rock village.”

Linnea nodded. “It’s a long day’s ride at this season, but I remember attending the harvest festivals there as a child.” She paused, waiting for him to say more.

“You look well, and so does Kierestelli,” he said.

She gave a little laugh. “As you see, we are both very well. Regis, I cannot believe that you came all this way, and risked taking a Terrananflying-machine into these mountains, simply to inquire after my health. Please tell me why you have come. Has something happened? Is it your grandfather?”

“No, there is nothing wrong with him beyond his years,” Regis hastened to assure her. “I came to ask a favor and also to see you. It has been too long.”

“It hasbeen a long time.” Linnea glanced away, for the first time a trifle unsure; then she gathered herself to face him directly. “What favor?”

He’d forgotten how straightforward she was, how plain and unaffected in her speech. She’d never been rude, having been brought up with all the social niceties of their class, but years as a Keeper, coupled with a natural frankness, had stripped away conventional insincerities.

As simply as he could, Regis told her about Felix Lawton. At the end, he said, “Will you come to Thendara to work with him?”

“Thendara is far away,” she said, her tone guarded. “It’s hard to believe that there is no qualified leronisnearer.”

“There is no one else with your training who is not committed to work in the Towers. The Bridge Society healer can help him through the worst of his threshold sickness, but she cannot teach him how to use his laran.She thinks he may have the potential to become a Keeper.”

You more than anyone knows how important it is to nurture such a talent.

Her gray eyes widened, but only for an instant. “It would not be a simple matter to move to Thendara. I have made a life here. High Windward is my home. And there is Kierestelli to consider. You have seen your daughter, Regis. How do you think she would fare in a city?”

Regis had not considered that Linnea would keep Kierestelli with her. Having seen the two of them together, however, he understood why Linnea would not consider leaving without her.

“I could arrange for accommodations in either the Hastur section of Comyn Castle or my own town house,” he said. “Thendara is a large city, with all that implies. At the same time, it offers many resources, art and culture and society, a chance to learn about other worlds and to meet a wide variety of people.”

“To be assaulted and exploited by them, you mean.” Linnea’s gray eyes flashed silver fire. She did not need to remind Regis of his own dead children, slain by World Wrecker assassins before Kierestelli was born.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That was a long time ago. Yes, any place where large numbers of people live together has problems, but I promise you that our daughter will not be exposed to them. I myself will keep her safe.”

There it was, his word on it. The word of a Hastur was still considered more binding than any oath.

Linnea sat very still, with the unearthly calm she had developed in her years at a Tower. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I believe you would.”

She got to her feet in a swirl of woolen skirts. “I must think about this. Such a decision ought not to be made carelessly or too quickly. Meanwhile, enjoy the hospitality of High Windward. The cooks have been rushing around like headless barnfowl since your arrival, concocting a dinner they believe worthy of you.” She smiled with a trace of mischievous spirit. “My kinsmen are also anxious to welcome you properly. Don’t worry, they keep to the old ways and will not press you about your business here.”

“I believe I can endure an evening of toasts and storytelling,” Regis said.

“Then,” she said, going to him and laying her fingertips on his arm, “let us go down to join them.”

5

The next day brought fine weather, high clear skies of the crystalline brilliance of the mountains. Regis and Danilo went riding with Linnea and Kierestelli, the three adults on shaggy ponies, the girl on a beautiful silver-gray chervine.Regis noticed that although the little doe wore a halter, Kierestelli never touched the reins. Girl and animal moved as one, bound by a sympathy of mind.

Linnea took them down the path to the old, deserted village of the forge folk and showed them the caves where she had played as a child. Regis very much suspected that Kierestelli did the same. Once or twice, they came upon a herd of wild chervineswho stared at them, unafraid, before bounding away. Kierestelli laughed and clapped her hands.

That evening, they took their dinner along with Kierestelli and her nurse in the suite of rooms that Linnea had grown up in. These were in the same wing as the chambers Regis and Danilo had been given. Regis realized that Linnea had a hand in that choice.

“I knew you wouldn’t be comfortable in the Royal Suite,” she said on the second night, as they sat near the fire over cups of warmed firiand bowls of pitchoonuts. Kierestelli had just gone up to bed. “It’s huge and echoing and pretentious. They say it was built just in case a Hastur Lord should visit. I think it’s been used only once, and that by bandits.”

“You’re right, I’m much better where I am,” Regis answered. Replete with hearty country food, exercise in the cold air, and undemanding companionship, he was far more relaxed than in Thendara.

“I do admit,” he went on in a jovial mood, “there is a certain appropriateness in reserving the Royal Suite to the princes of the road, as outlaws are sometimes called.”

“The folk who dwelled here would have been far less amused at the prospect,” Danilo said.

Linnea glanced at him. “Yes, from all accounts that was a terrible time. The fellow’s name was Brynat Scarface, or something like that. You can still see the damage to the inner parapet where his men breached the walls.”

“Let us hope those lawless times never come again,” Danilo said.

Regis took a sip of his firi,finding it too sweet for his taste. The Terrans had brought more effective policing methods, and the Domains had been at peace with one another for decades. The closest they had come to war was during the Sharra business, when Beltran of Aldaran marched on Thendara with an army. Still, Regis reflected grimly, the decline of the Comyn created openings for ruthless men to take advantage of the weak. Petty thieves were one thing, even bandit kings like Brynat Scarface, but should a leader emerge, one bent on conquest and willing to use any means necessary to seize power . . .

He came back to himself as Linnea picked up her rylland tested the tuning of the strings. She picked out the melody of an old lullaby, a tune so haunting that Regis wondered if he had heard it in his dreams. She sang in a light but pleasant voice. Then she shifted into a walking song with a strong rhythm, and Regis sang along, while Danilo accompanied them on a small drum.

Eventually, the silences between songs lengthened. Regis noted that Danilo was yawning. “Go to bed before you fall over.”

“I’m all right.”

“I’m in no danger here, and you’re done in. I don’t want to have to carry you.”

Danilo’s gaze flickered to Linnea, sitting with her ryllon her lap.

Are we going to argue because I want a little time with the mother of my daughter?Regis thought.

Danilo pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll be off, then. Vai leronis,” he bowed to Linnea. “Regis.”

After Danilo had departed, Linnea set her harp in its case. “He has no reason to be jealous of me.”

“Protective, I think.”

She sighed. “Do you remember how we teased him about sleeping across the threshold of our door?”

“Come here.” Regis held out his hand to her and indicated the place on the divan beside him. “I remember what happened behind those closed doors.”

She came to him, still holding herself apart, but smiling now. “It was glorious, that brief time. I regret none of it. How could I, every time I see Stelli?”

Regis remembered when, in a gesture of compassion and openness of heart, Linnea had offered to give him children to replace those murdered by the World Wreckers. Then, as now, he had thought that a child by her would be precious beyond words.

“I do not regret it, either,” he said in a voice made hoarse by emotion. “It is said that when we love someone, they become part of us forever.”

What was this fey, romantic mood that had taken hold of him? He felt the yearning harmonics of the ballad thrumming beneath the beating of his heart. On impulse, he said, “Could we ever get it back, do you think?”

She turned to him, gray eyes wide with surprise. His question had caught her off guard. No, he told himself silently, it had caught both of them unprepared and open.

“I—I don’t know. Such things do happen. Regis, please don’t toy with me. You know I loved you, and I love you still. And Iknow that your first, your primary love will always be Danilo.”

“Is that why you left Thendara? Because you could not share me? Was the love I was able to give you not enough?”

Linnea shook her head, refusing to be drawn into a quarrel. “No, it is not that. I simply—” She got up, restless yet still too much in command of herself to give way to pacing. “I wanted more. I thought we loved each other in those first days enough to find our way through any difficulty. How little I knew! It was my first serious love affair and, I suspect, yours with a woman. I didn’t anticipate how intense the feelings would be, how sweet, how overwhelming. I think we both went a little mad. I didn’t think . . .” Now she turned back to him. Shadows of remembered pain cloaked her eyes.

“I didn’t measure what I would lose against what I would gain. In the end, it wasn’t enough.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You have our daughter and as much of my heart as I am capable of offering to any woman. Is that not sufficient?”

Too late, after the words were said, Regis realized what she had given up. She had been a Keeper, one of the few elite Tower workers capable of occupying the centripolar position in a matrix circle. Through her supple, disciplined mind had run the interwoven psychic powers of every member of the circle. Their lives as well as their sanity had been in her keeping. Once, Keepers had been revered as gods, living apart and virgin, immune to normal human warmth. For a man to lift a hand to a Keeper or even assault her with a lustful glance had been punishable by death. Those times were long past; Keepers no longer trained in the old ways of inhuman restrictions. Linnea had not been a virgin, although she had set aside her work as a leroniswhen she came to him.

“Surely—surely you can still function as a Keeper?” Regis said. “You know how to do so safely?”

She sat down beside him again. The fragrance of her hair, some kind of spicy herb, filled him. “Of course, I know how to keep my channels clear,” she said. “I have known that since my first training as a monitor. I did not lose my skills along with my virginity. But, Regis—I cannot be both Keeper and mother.”

She paused to let her words sink in. “In a circle,” she explained, “I must put all other thought aside, leave all loyalties and considerations outside the door. The slightest lapse or indecision might have disastrous consequences. I cannot abandon Kierestelli, not even for a single night. She is always in my heart, in my thoughts. Can you understand that?”

Slowly, he nodded. He wondered what it was like to be so loved by a woman. His bond with Danilo was of quite another sort, one unique to their histories. Danilo’s catalyst telepathy had wakened his deeply suppressed laranwhen they were still teenagers. Danilo was the other half of his mind, of his heart. Yet in his encounters with women, in the happiness he had glimpsed in married couples, he sensed a different balance, a complementarity that both excited and puzzled him.

He felt a stirring of desire and admiration, of respect and then rising pleasure, in her nearness. They sat close enough so he could see the tendrils of hair that had escaped from the clasp at the base of her neck. He remembered touching the soft skin there, tasting her, feeling his own passion in her eager response.

“Could you teach Felix,” he asked, “give him the training he might have received in days gone by from a household leronis?”

“Yes, I could . . . if I were sure that Kierestelli would come to no harm in Thendara. And,” she added in a whisper, “if you wanted me there. I would not subject her—” and myself—“to your resentment.”

“My—? Linnea, if you do not believe my words, then believe this . . .”

Regis leaned forward and slid one hand beneath the coils of her hair, cupping the back of her head. She sighed and moved toward him. Deliberately, he lowered his laranbarriers so that his mind was open to hers. He offered her the tenderness now welling up in him, the response of his body to hers.

He had forgotten how soft her mouth was, how smooth her skin. It felt as if she were kissing him with her heart, not just her lips. Her touch was not like a man’s, not like Danilo’s, and yet it was perfect.

The thought struck Regis that it was impossible to compare one person’s loving with another’s. How could Linnea take Danilo’s place or he hers? Then all rational thought disappeared as he gave himself over to the kiss.

The rapport between them deepened, obliterating all outside awareness. Regis had forgotten how strong her laranwas, how supple her mind. Echoes rippled through him, wordless emotion and memory of the deep sharing they had once offered one another. In that world of thought, no time had passed. The first moment of their love was still going on, stretching into the future. In the opening of one heart to another, they were still bound.

The wave of passion crested. Linnea drew back, her eyes shining. The light from the fire burnished her hair to dark copper. Lips parted, cheeks flushed, she had never looked lovelier to him.

She rose and took his hand, smiling slightly. “My rooms, I think.”

Linnea had taken a suite in the older part of the castle, apart from the rest of the inhabitants. As they made their way down the chilly hallway, Regis sensed the muting of the background psychic chatter. Of course, someone with Linnea’s sensitivity and Tower training would prefer a degree of insulation.

As they entered the sitting room, the young maid who had been tending the fire stood up.

“Thank you, Neyrissa,” Linnea said. “I won’t need you for anything else tonight.”

The girl curtsied and hurried away. Linnea stretched her fingers toward the fire. Regis came to stand beside her, although he had no need of bodily warmth.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said.

“You mean, will gossip about us fill the castle tomorrow morning?” She looked up at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “I am a leronis.I have not granted any of my kinsmen the right to be the keeper of my conscience—or of my virtue, or my reputation—nor am I likely to. I tend to those matters as I myself see fit. My family accepted this when I went to Arilinn.”

She paused, somber now. “We are not so different in this, you and I. We do our duty as honor demands but according to our own understanding. It would have been far easier for you to set Danilo aside and marry. I’m sure DomDanvan Hastur and the entire Comyn Council would have been delighted.”

“I choose whom I take to my bed and with whom I share my life.”

“As do I.” Linnea closed the space between them and slipped her hands around his neck. Her fingers parted his hair, caressing the sensitive skin on his nape. Tilting her head back, she stood on tiptoe and whispered, “I choose . . .”

In the echo of her words, Regis realized that he, too, had chosen. This night would not be like so many others, the pleasantry of a few hours, the discharge of his responsibility to produce heirs for his clan and caste. In the past, women had been drawn to him because of his position and power, his beauty, his sensual personality. By the time Linnea entered his life, he had grown cynical about women. Because he could have almost any woman he wanted, he had wanted none of them. She had changed all that with the simple opening of her heart, a woman of his own caste, a trained Keeper willing to set aside her own dreams to ease his grief.

This was no dalliance, this night. Every kiss, every caress, created anew the love that had once flowed between them. Her joy magnified his own through their shared rapport. He danced through the movements, feeling how their differences complemented and enhanced one another.

At the peak of their pleasure, when all the world swirled around him in a rapture of iridescent light, Regis became aware of a change in that radiance, a gathering of energy into a tiny point. Golden light-that-was-more-than-light bathed the mote. Regis felt a sense of imminence, of condensing presence, and knew that Linnea sensed it also.

Regis had once promised himself that he would not marry, would not share his Domain with any woman with whom he was not also content to share his life. This woman now bore his son.

He had been a fool to let her go. This time, he would make sure it turned out differently.

Regis rose early the next morning and found himself whistling under his breath as he broke his fast. The meal was a round, crusty nut-bread, pots of jams and preserves, a platter of browned, steaming sausages, and bowls of pickled redroot.

Danilo had already gone down to the stables, preparing for their departure. He had been asleep when Regis returned in the early hours, so Regis had not had the chance to tell him that he had a private matter to discuss with Linnea. After last night, Regis had no doubt that she would understand his intentions in only a few words. He must return to Thendara, but she and Kierestelli would follow as soon as arrangements could be made.

In times gone by, they would have had to obtain permission to marry from the Comyn Council. Now, with the Council disbanded, that was not possible, but Danvan Hastur must be consulted. The old man would doubtless be delighted. The ceremony itself should take place in the Crystal Chamber of Comyn Castle with as many dignitaries and Comyn as could be assembled.

Regis paused in adjusting folds of his short indoor cloak. In all likelihood, the wedding itself could not be arranged sooner than Midsummer, but that was all for the best, for many of the remaining Comyn still came to Thendara during that time.

Still whistling, he sent a servant ahead to ask Linnea to receive him. After waiting what seemed an appropriate time for the lady to prepare herself, he made his way to her suite of rooms. The same maidservant from last night ushered him inside. Linnea wore a gown of gray that shimmered a little like moonlight. She looked up from the little table on which sat a tray bearing a pitcher of the usual jacoand a basket of plain brown bread. She came toward him, her expression puzzled.

Regis took her hand in his and drew her to sit beside the fire.

“Linnea,” he began, “we have known one another for a number of years.”

She stiffened then, perhaps at his formality or the prospect of unpleasant news. He winced, fearing that he had inadvertently offended her.

“As you know, my grandfather has pressured me to marry for a long time. Until now, I could not bring myself to do so. It has also been suggested that I choose an official consort for ceremonial occasions—”

Linnea did not move. Her skin turned very pale. Her breathing became slow and shallow.

“I want to be frank with you, Linnea. I have not—in the past, I have not had the deepest feelings for women.” He swallowed hard. “You know that since boyhood, I have been committed to Danilo.”

“I doubt there is a single Comyn in the Seven Domains who is not aware of your preference.” Under the calmness of her voice, she gave no hint of her feelings.

“Be that as it may,” Regis cleared his throat, “for the sake of my Domain and the necessities of my position, I must have a legitimate heir of my own body.”

. . . the son we conceived last night . . .

“You already have an heir,” she pointed out.

“My sister’s son, Mikhail, yes. But that was an extraordinary circumstance. I thought I might not return from Caer Donn. If anything happened to Mikhail, I could not ask Javanne again—it would be better if . . .”

Linnea turned away. She kept silent for a long moment, leaving Regis hanging in a hellish backwash of uncertainty. Then she said, very quietly, “I am aware of the great honor you do me, Regis. I am grateful for your honesty.”

She paused, visibly gathering herself. “As you say, we have known each other for some years now. I think we have been as good friends as a man—particularly a lover of men—can ever be with a woman. But I do not believe . . .” Her voice faltered and grew rough. “. . . that I would care to . . . to be a ceremonial consort . . .”

“I asked you to be my wife!”

“Wife, consort, barragana! It is all the same!” she shot back at him. “It would mean binding myself to someone who does not want me,only a woman—any well-born one will do!—to fill a position!”

Regis stared at her in dismay. Never had he thought to see the usually calm and self-possessed Comynara in such a state.

“That’s not what I meant,” he stammered.

“I understand you all too well! You come all the way from Thendara, flouting your position and your wealth. No ordinary Darkovan, even a Comyn lord, could command a Terran aircar. You offer me the one thing I cannot refuse, the one thing you knew I could not turn away from, and that is the means to work, to use the skills for which I trained so hard, and still be a mother to Kierestelli.”

Training Felix to use his laran!In the frenzy of the moment, Regis had all but forgotten that request. Obviously, Linnea had not.

“And then you come to me, all romantic. You ply me with memories of the dreams I—we once had. You play with our daughter, you give me hope that we could be together as a family. You kiss me and hold me as if I were the most precious—”

She broke off. Every fiber in her slender body quivered in outrage. He realized the depth of her sense of betrayal. Had she thought he had given himself entirely to her? Had he created that impression?

Had he not been in love with her last night? What kind of inconstant villain was he?

Between one heartbeat and the next, Regis realized that, as a Keeper, Linnea must have been well aware of her own fertility. She had deliberately allowed herself to conceive—she had chosen—b ecause she believed so fully in his love for her. His mind had been open to hers, as hers to his. How could they have come to such a misunderstanding?

“I’m s-sorry,” he stammered. “I h- had no idea you would find my proposal so distressing.”

His stilted words only made matters worse. What little experience he had with women failed him now. He blundered on.

“You see, I thought that since we were friends, it would be all right.” Trying to keep the rising panic from his voice, he reached out to lay his fingertips lightly on her wrist. She jerked away. “If I must have a wife, surely it should be someone I care for, rather than a stranger.”

“A stranger!” Her eyes brimmed with hot, angry tears. “So now I am little better than a stranger?”

“I do care for you, Linnea. I give you my word, the word of a Hastur, that no other woman has ever meant as much to me. Or ever will.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” she raged. “Can’t you see that only makes things worse?”

“Linnea, what is wrong? I don’t understand why you are so upset. You’ve always been so calm, so—”

“So in control of myself? I am—I wasa Keeper and celibate. Why do you think I must choose between that work and sexual intimacy?” Wringing her hands, she surged to her feet and began to pace while Regis watched, helpless and aghast. “Regis, I know I’m overly emotional. I knowI’m being unfair to you. But that doesn’t mean I am not also telling the truth. It’s not just that we made love last night, it’s that we made love.I didn’t justhave sex with you.”

She was right. Their union had been more, not just the pleasure of the body, but a joining of their hearts and psychic energy. And more . . . If he closed his eyes, he could still see the tiny glowing point of new life. No wonder she was reactive, brittle, with nothing left for dealing with the troubles of ordinary life, let alone a proposal of marriage.

“Please,” he pleaded, “sit down. I spoke clumsily, but I meant well. The situation cannot be that bad.”

Linnea turned, her gray eyes pools of shadow, and lowered herself to the divan beside him. She was still trembling, but she was no longer weeping.

“I know you care for me,” she said, her voice rough, “but I don’t think it is enough.”

“What would you have me do?”

Linnea took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. “I do understand. But youmust also understand that I have needs and feelings, too. Even if—even if I could make a life for myself in the shadow of your love for Danilo—always second, never allowed to forget that you two are sworn to one another, bredhin,that no woman could ever come between you—even then, there are others to consider.”

He raised his head.

“There is Kierestelli . . .” she said gently, “and our unborn son. I must provide for both of them—”

“As my wife, you will want for nothing—”

Impatiently, she brushed aside his offer. “I meant that I must provide for their emotional needs, not their physical comfort. What do you think it would do to them, growing up in a family where their parents merely tolerate one another? It would be a cold house indeed, and I alone cannot change that.”

In a moment of insight, the words cold houseechoed through his mind, and his own childhood came rushing up. He had grown up in such a cold house,starved for affection, constantly measured and censured, first by his grandfather and then by the monks at Nevarsin. Surely, she must be wrong—he would never allow that to happen to his own children! How could she believe such a thing?

“I can’t court you with fancy words,” he said, wrestling his anger under control. “Linnea, look into my heart and see if I am such a monster. I love you . . . and I would love our children.”

And give them a better home than I ever knew.

“You say that now, when I have something you want, when I still have it within my power to say no!” Her fury had returned, edged with desperation. “Once I give in, you will make me an appendage, an ornament. You said so yourself— an official consort for ceremonial occasions!A toy to be paraded before the court and then set aside. I will sleep like a prisoner every night, while you—you—I will not have even half of your heart, I will have none!”

What did the woman want? How could he make her understand? Was there any woman in the world worth this kind of humiliation?

Again, he tried. “You spoke of my heart. Is a heart divisible? Can it not be big enough for more than one person? Do we not each love many people in our lives—parents, cherished friends, children, lovers?” The words came rushing out from deep within him. “Can one beloved ever truly take the place of another? I have already said that I love you as much as I can love any woman. Is that not enough to build a life together?”

Eyes glittering like ice, wild mood spent, she turned back to him. “But you did not ask me to marry you out of love,Regis. You asked out of duty, out of convenience, out of political necessity.”

“I made a mistake. I spoke badly, I admit it! Does that matter if the love is there?”

“I hope that you and Danilo find the happiness you deserve, or at least a measure of peace,” Linnea said, striding to the door and laying her hand on the latch. “But you must find it without me. I shall always be your friend, as you will always be the father of my children.”

“I suppose I had no right to a better answer,” Regis muttered. “If that is your final word on the subject, then I wish you a long and prosperous life and that you may find more joy in it than I have found in mine!”

He bowed to her, his cheeks burning with anger and shame. Then he withdrew from the chamber without another word, vowing that he would never put himself through such an ordeal again.

6

Wrapped in his fur-lined travel cloak, Regis stormed across High Windward’s courtyard. Danilo stood talking with one of the grooms and the headman’s son from the village. The ponies and pack animal were saddled and ready to go. The Red Sun was well up, radiating a tentative warmth.

Danilo smiled pleasantly as Regis approached. “Good morning, my lord. Did—”

“Let’s get out of here!” Regis snapped. He did not wait for any assistance but grabbed the reins of his pony from the groom, thrust the toe of his left boot in the near stirrup, and swung into the saddle.

Danilo’s eyes widened for an instant. He gestured to the headman’s son and handed a small purse to the groom. Regis had already booted his pony into a trot, headed for the outer gates, when Danilo caught up with him. The ponies, fresh and eager, jogged down the ice-hard trail.

Despite the easy gait of his mount, each step jarred his clenched teeth. He knew he should not press the ponies so early in the day, that they would require their strength to reach the village or risk having to camp overnight in the open. The need to get away as fast as possible consumed him.

“Regis! Vai dom,what is wrong?” Danilo’s voice held a note of true concern. “Has something happened?”

“She said no!”

“ No? I don’t understand. Will you slow down and talk to me? You’re upset . . .”

A harmonic of distress in Danilo’s voice brought Regis back to himself. When he touched the reins, the pony dropped back into a walk and heaved a sigh at this return to sanity.

“She said no,” Danilo prompted. “She will not come to Thendara and work with Lawton’s son? Why not?”

Glancing back, Regis made certain that the headman’s son was far enough behind so that they would not be easily overheard. “I asked her to marry me, and she refused, quite emphatically.”

With his nerves still raw from the interview with Linnea, Regis felt Danilo’s emotional reaction, astonishment and anger.

“I am surprised to hear it,” Danilo said, his eyes focused between the ears of his mount. “Indeed, I cannot imagine what she must be thinking. I was under the impression that there was not a woman in all the Seven Domains, except a few among the Renunciates, who would not leap at the chance to become Lady Hastur.”

Regis could think of no reply. He did not know if he were more angry at Linnea or at himself, for having mishandled the proposal so badly. For good or ill, the words were spoken, the offer rejected.

You can’t put a banshee chick back into its egg,ran the old proverb. At the moment, he would much rather have tackled one of the giant carnivorous birds than his own feelings.

Several minutes passed in silence, broken only by the muted clop of the ponies’ hooves and the creak of the leather harnesses. The breath of men and beasts made plumes of mist in the cold dry air. The trail steepened, and the animals slowed.

Their way wound along the side of the mountain, from which sprang an enormous knuckle of bare rock, the outcropping on which High Windward perched. From time to time, they caught glimpses of the peaks beyond, the sloping meadows draped in layers of hardened snow. Morning sun turned the ice-encased trees into confections of crystalline beauty.

Regis sensed Danilo’s storm cloud mood. “Let’s have it. Are you gladshe rejected me?”

“When were you going to tell me?” Danilo said tightly. “On your wedding night? Or when you ordered me to find housing elsewhere?”

“I amtelling you, now. I swear to you I did not come here with the intention of proposing marriage to her, or even asking her to become my ceremonial consort—”

“Or your seamstress, for all that matters! You owe me no explanations, vai dom.”

“Danilo, don’t go all formal, my-lord-this, my-lord-that, on me. I only decided on it last night.”

I know what you were doing last night.

“Stop it!” Regis cried. “If I’ve given you cause to be jealous, tell me. I won’t have it festering between us. If all the malicious gossip of the court, not to mention Grandfather’s machinations, could not drive a wedge between us, how can one failed marriage proposal?”

“You think I’m jealous?” Danilo turned to him, and Regis saw the hurt in his paxman’s eyes. “That’s not it at all! I know very well that you are expected to furnish the Comyn with as many sons as you can. I accepted your liaisons with women over the years, even the malicious gossipyou spoke of. Did I complain when you and Linnea became lovers? Did I do anything to make life more difficult for you? Did I ever—once—ask you to set her or any other woman aside?”

“No, you have ever been faithful to the vows we swore to one another.” If there has been a failing, it has been mine.

“Then why this sudden change?” Danilo demanded. “Why, when you were so opposed to marriage, when you consistently defied your grandfather and the entire Council on the matter, did you suddenly take it into your head to propose? Why did you keep it secret? Do you have so little trust in me? What else are you hiding?”

Regis rocked back in the saddle, causing the pony to flick its tail in protest. Danilo’s anguish brought back the wretched fight surrounding Crystal Di Asturien’s pregnancy. Regis ought to have told Danilo himself, but the news had come, in the most spiteful manner, from Dyan Ardais. Danilo had been hurt and outraged, then as now. His sense of betrayal had not arisen from Regis sleeping with a woman but from the secrecy about an event that had the power to drastically alter both their lives.

“I’ve never kept my relationship with Linnea secret,” Regis protested. “You knew that if I ever gave in to Grandfather’s demands, she would be the one. You and she get along tolerably well, and I thought of her as a friend. More than that, she is of my own choosing, not some brood mare selected for me by the Council.”

“What a nice, convenient solution!” Danilo barked. “You get your grandfather and the Council off your back, and Comyn Castle gets a chatelaine, all at very little trouble to yourself!”

Regis bit back a hot reply. His temper had been in shreds when they began this conversation, and it was increasingly difficult not to take out his frustration on Danilo.

“I suppose what decided me,” Regis said, trying his best to speak calmly, “was seeing little Kierestelli. I had no idea a child could bring me such delight. I don’t want her to grow up not knowing me.”

“And this is why you proposed to her mother, without so much as mentioning the possibility? Excuse me, vai dom,but that is nonsense. You could have ordered the child to be fostered in Thendara, where you might see her at your convenience.”

In his memory, Regis saw the snug little room, heard the lilt of Linnea’s harp and the sweetness of Kierestelli’s flute. In a low voice, he said, “It would not be the same.”

Had he finally encountered something in life in which Danilo had no part? Sadness shivered through him.

How can I choose between them . . . the man I love, to whom I am sworn, and the family I never knew I longed for?

It came to him, in a rush that left him breathless and his hands limp on the reins, that Danilo had made exactly this choice. Made it with without hesitation, without a backward glance, without ever a hint of recrimination at the cost.

“Danilo, do you ever regret what you have given up? I know you were raised cristoforo,and they do not look kindly upon lovers of men. You must have been taught to want a wife and family . . .”

“I am hardly an observant cristoforo.It was my father’s faith, one I accepted without question when I was a child,” Danilo said with such bleak finality that Regis could think of nothing that would reach him.

“As for the other matter, do not trouble yourself. I have never thought to marry, my lord. I am entirely at your service. Perhaps next time you will see fit to advise me before you decide to marry.”

Regis raised one hand to his heart to ease the ache there. He could not remember such a gulf between them. And he did not know what to do to bridge this one.

“Danilo . . .”

“Regis, let it go. Please. We’re both hurt and angry, but it will pass.”

Danilo was right. The proposal had touched a sore point, one that might never be resolved. It was best to let the matter rest and to go on as best they could, knowing they would always have each other.

The interview with Danvan Hastur did not go well. Regis had delayed as long as he could, stopping first at the Terran Headquarters to meet with Dan Lawton. Dan had masked his disappointment well. Felix was making slow progress and would have greatly benefited from having a Keeper as a guide and mentor. Perhaps, as the remnants of the Comyn returned to Thendara during the old Council season, another teacher could be found.

Regis could not help thinking that if only he had handled the situation better, Linnea would at this moment be preparing to come to Thendara. My clumsiness has cost more than my own pride.

Once the visit with Lawton was concluded, the baggage sent on its way, and the pilot given an additional gift for his excellent services, Regis had returned to the townhouse on the pretext of making himself presentable to his grandfather. Danilo performed his duties as paxman and bodyguard with faultless precision and not a hint of personal feeling.

Danvan’s personal servant, a quiet, meticulous man named Rondo, who had come from Castle Hastur about three years ago, ushered Regis into the master suite of the Hastur apartments in Comyn Castle. After the intimacy of Linnea’s chambers at High Windward, the rooms felt emotionally barren. They were certainly comfortable, warm and well-appointed, the stone walls covered in tapestries. Regis remembered staring at the hanging beside the door leading to his grandfather’s study, trying to decipher which of the two women portrayed was the Blessed Cassilda and which was Camilla, but the threads were so faded, he could not be sure. He imagined the accumulation of years, the unrelenting demands of Comyn honor, blending into an oppressive weight. These walls were no better than the bars of a cage, one that pressed closer with each passing year.

Some day, will I be like Grandfather, an irascible old tyrant with only dreams of past Comyn glories for comfort?Danvan Hastur was revered throughout the Seven Domains. Regis knew that his own unhappiness put such thoughts into his mind.

The servant gestured for Regis to enter his grandfather’s study. Wincing at the formality, Regis turned to Danilo. “You’d better wait here. He’ll be upset enough, and I don’t want him to take it out on you.”

“As you wish.” An unreadable emotion flickered behind Danilo’s eyes. Then he added, in a voice low enough so the servant could not overhear, “Don’t let him bully you, bredhyu.”

Regis felt a smile rise from his heart, stopping just short of his lips. He nodded to Danilo and followed the servant inside. The room, like the rest of the suite, was very much as Regis remembered it, untouched by time. A faint aroma of beeswax polish, paper, and leather book bindings hung in the air. A fire brightened the hearth, and ranks of candles produced enough light for even aged eyes to read easily.

Danvan Hastur stood beside his writing table, bracing himself on one hand, a man who once had been strongly built, of commanding presence, but who had now shriveled into a husk. Looking at his grandfather, Regis felt a wave of pity. Time and too many seasons had quenched the fire that once burned in those blue eyes. How many years did the old man have left, and how many of those would he insist on wasting in service to a world that, very possibly, no longer wanted it?

Regis paused, bowed formally, and then approached. Danvan held out his free hand. Regis took it, feeling the bony joints, the slight trembling in the withered muscles.

“Good morning, sir.”

“So you’re back from seeing the Storn woman,” Danvan lowered himself into his chair and gestured for Regis to be seated as well.

“News travels fast,” Regis said neutrally.

Danvan’s scowl deepened. “What a dreadful mess you’ve made of it! You’ve managed to lose a perfectly eligible young woman, one who’s already borne you a child so we know she’s fertile, and, of course, there’s not the slightest question of her parentage or laran. Did you deliberately offend her so that she wouldn’t have you? And do you intend to do that with every other suitable young woman—” Danvan broke off, wheezing and coughing.

“Grandfather, please calm yourself,” Regis said, alarmed at the old man’s breathing. “You mustn’t make yourself ill.”

“It isn’t methat’s making myself ill,” Danvan snarled.

“I regret that you think I arranged for my proposal to be refused in order to annoy you,” Regis said hotly. “My offer to DomnaLinnea was quite genuine. I am as—as distressed by her answer as you are.”

“I doubt it.”

“Nonetheless, it is done. Are you sure you are well? Can I get you jaco?A tisane? Hot wine?”

Danvan leaned heavily on one armrest, still breathing with difficulty. At the mention of hot wine, he nodded, and Regis called Rondo to bring some. A few minutes later, the servant returned with the drinks. He hovered, face furrowed with worry, as Regis poured out a goblet. A little of the wine spilled as Danvan grasped the cup in both hands and brought it to his lips. He took a large gulp, closed his eyes, and sagged in his chair.

“Rondo, don’t linger,” Danvan grumbled. “My grandson can tend to me.” The servant glided away.

“You aren’t well, sir,” Regis said. “Have you seen a healer?” There was no point in asking if Danvan had consulted a Terran physician.

“I’m fit enough for the work before us,” Danvan muttered. “The only thing wrong with me, other than the passage of time, is I was foolish enough to think that when you went to High Windward, you’d finally acquired sense: marriage, then accepting the throne, standing up to the Federation . . . But I was mistaken. You haven’t come around to my way of thinking, have you?”

Regis shook his head. “We’ve had this discussion a dozen times before. Nothing you can say will change my mind. I don’t believe returning to a monarchy will solve anything. In fact, I believe the opposite, that we must move toward broader participation, increased literacy and communication, not a concentration of authority.”

“Spare me your degenerate notions! Clearly, you’ve been contaminated by your Terrananfriends. Next you’ll be saying we should look to the common people for leadership, against all our history and traditions.”

“If you’ll forgive me saying so,” Regis said stubbornly, “the days when we Comyn were regarded as descended from the gods are long over. Darkover is in transition, and such times are never easy. The old ways are gone, and we must create new ones, a culture that embodies the finest of who we are. I have a great deal more trust in the people than you do. If we allowed them more education, if they understood what was at stake, then they could fully take part—”

“Where would that get us? The rabble see only the advantages of Terran citizenship, the luxuries. They have no concept of the price. It’s up to usto maintain our integrity in the face of these temptations—we, the Comyn, what is left of us.” The old man subsided. He had half-risen from his seat in the heat of the argument, but now he sank back. Under his breath, he muttered something that sounded to Regis like, “—if you won’t do your duty, there is another who will—”

What was the old man talking about? Had he not emphasized, time and again, that Regis had the only legitimate claim to the throne? The only other possibilities were the minor Elhalyn children, hidden away by their reclusive mother.

“Grandfather, I think it prudent that we discontinue this conversation. Clearly, it is distressing to you, and neither of us can possibly say anything that will change the other’s mind. I wish you good day, then, and take my leave of you.” Without waiting for an answer, Regis bowed and strode out of the room.

Regis passed Rondo outside the door. “Look after him.” Rondo nodded and went inside.

7

When Regis returned to his townhouse, a message was waiting for him. Dan Lawton had sent word of the vote in the Terran Senate. The Empire was now a Federation. Pending the reformulation of planetary classification protocols, all Class D Closed Worlds, including Darkover, were now Protectorates of the new Terran Federation.

Regis barely had a moment to sleep in the next tenday. Half the people he talked to reacted with outrage to Protectorate status as a de factomilitary takeover, and the other half rejoiced in it as a step toward full Federation membership. Several small riots had taken place in the markets, for the warming weather had brought a stream of traders and farmers who feared its impact on their livelihoods.

Working closely with Gabriel Lanart, Commander of the City Guards, Regis was able to disperse the worst of the gatherings with a minimum of violence. It had been a decade since he had led Darkover through the World Wreckers crisis, and many people still remembered him. He began walking the streets when he wasn’t meeting with Telepath Council members, Guild masters, or Cortes judges. His height, features, and distinctive white hair made him stand out in any crowd. Danilo was not happy about this public vulnerability, but he assumed his role as bodyguard with good grace. In a way, it was like old times, the two of them together.

Felix Lawton improved enough to be discharged from Medical, although he remained housebound. Regis visited from time to time, which allowed him to hold informal discussions with Lawton. The Terran Legate hinted that the newly reconstituted Federation Senate was unlikely to take immediate action on Darkover’s planetary status. They had time to plan their strategy, but plan they must, for the reprieve could not last.

With the lengthening days, the roads through the mountains became passable once more. Word had gone out about the Senate vote, by telepathic relay or by simple messenger. By this time, almost all the remaining Comyn knew about the new Federation, and some journeyed to Thendara to make their voices heard. Just as Regis was making preparations for an informal gathering of Comyn that summer, Rondo arrived at the town house with a private message that Danvan Hastur had been taken suddenly, seriously ill.

Regis raced through the hallways of Comyn Castle, Danilo at his heels.

If he dies, it’s my fault! If I hadn’t provoked him when he was ill, and then ignored him . . .

Regis could not imagine Darkover without the old man.

Rondo waited at the entrance to the Hastur apartments. The servant had no perceptible laran,but grief surrounded him like a dark halo. He opened the door to the bedroom and stood back for Regis and Danilo to enter. This time, Regis would not ask Danilo to wait outside. I go to make my farewells as I am, not as he would have me.

Regis could not remember the last time he had stepped into the ornately furnished bedchamber. By far, the majority of his visits had been conducted in the presence-chamber or the study. Light filtered through the windows with their thick, irregular panes of glass. A film of dust lingered on the polished surfaces of the chairs and desk, the huge blackwood armoire, the immense old-fashioned bed with its headboard carved in a scene of a stag leaping through a stylized forest. Over the headboard, a coat of arms bore the Hastur device, the silver fir- tree, and motto in the archaic plural form: Permanedó.

We shall remain.

Rondo closed the door behind them. The room, although spacious, seemed filled with people, Danvan’s secretary, looking very agitated, a couple of servant women, and three or four young pages. One of the women was wringing out a cloth over a basin on the washing stand, and the other was measuring a tincture into a goblet.

For a terrible instant, Regis feared he had come too late. His grandfather lay so still, it was impossible to tell whether he was still breathing. Then the old man groaned and shifted. Regis crossed the room in a few long strides and bent over the bed.

Pale blue eyes opened, blank and unfocused, without a hint of recognition. One withered hand pawed the bedcovers. The gesture moved Regis unexpectedly.

“Grandfather,” he murmured, “it’s Regis. Don’t you know me?”

He almost expected the old man to sit up and berate him for one thing or another, mocking his concern as weakness. As the seconds blended into minutes, Regis knew this would not happen. In fact, his grandfather very possibly would never recognize him again.

Regis turned to Rondo, who had come to stand, like a mute sentinel, at the foot of the bed. “What’s wrong with him? Has a healer been consulted? Why isn’t someone attending him properly?”

“It was a stroke, a seizure of the brain.” One of the women that Regis had taken for a servant stepped forward, goblet in hand. She looked vaguely familiar, and he realized that he had seen her in the Terran Medical Building. She was one of the Bridge Society Renunciates, although garbed in ordinary women’s clothing.

“I am sorry,” she said, “there’s very little we can do for him.”

“Surely, the Terrans have treatments—I must apologize, mestra,I have not greeted you properly. I don’t know your name.”

“Ferrika n’ha Margali.”

“The same who helped Felix Lawton?”

She smiled, a lightening of the corners of her mouth. As she stepped closer to the bed, the light shone on her ruddy hair.

“Then I am doubly in your debt. Has Dr. Allison been sent for?”

“ DomDanvan would never permit it,” Rondo interrupted.

“My grandfather is in no condition to protest.”

Rondo glared at Regis for an instant before bowing his head.

Ferrika gestured for Regis to come apart from the others. “Lord Regis, not even the most sophisticated Terran medical technology can reverse old age. If your grandfather had not suffered a stroke, then it would be something else. I am sorry to sound harsh, but neither do I wish to offer you false hope. After a century of living, the body falls apart; it is only a matter of which organ system will fail first.”

Regis could not tell whether his grandfather was aware of their conversation, and if so, what he thought. The old man would doubtless make a caustic comment about the weakness of will that could not overcome such a trivial inconvenience as death.

“How long does he have?” Regis asked.

Ferrika glanced away. “Only Avarra knows the length of a man’s years. If he improves in the next two days, then he may live on for a time. But not, I think, for very long.”

“Live on . . .?” Regis echoed her words. “Like this?”

How Grandfather would hate to be trapped in a shell of unresponsive flesh, dependent on others for the simplest care.

Ferrika’s gaze met his with a disconcerting directness that reminded Regis of Linnea. “Sometimes, a swift ending is a blessing.”

He nodded, unable to speak. Ferrika began ushering the others from the room. Danvan’s secretary protested, but not too vigorously. Rondo set his jaw and looked as if he would refuse, until she reassured him that he would be summoned if there was any change. In the end, only Danilo remained, on guard just inside the door. Ferrika left the two of them alone with Danvan.

Regis found a chair and drew it up near his grandfather’s head. His mind had gone blank, as it had when he was a boy called to account by this stern, disapproving old man.

Moments slipped by, marked by the halting rise and fall of the old man’s chest. With his psychic barriers down, Regis felt Danilo’s steady presence. Danilo believed in him, believed that he could rise above the past. Therefore, Regis must find a way to see the best in this old man, as he had in so many others.

One of Danvan’s hands lay on top of the covers. The fingers, with their arthritic joints, quivered like the wings of a misshapen bird. On impulse, Regis grasped the hand. Its lightness surprised him, the softness of the paper-thin skin, the frailness of the bones.

“Grandfather . . .” He could not force the words through his lips, even if he knew what to say.

Grandfather, there’s so much I never told you . . .

Tears stung his eyes, but Regis refused to look away. He focused on the pale blue irises that glimmered between crepey lids.

See me, hear me. Forgive me.

“I know I often disappointed you,” Regis said aloud. “I couldn’t live up to my father’s reputation—” which grew in glory with each retelling and which you never let me forget.“I couldn’t be the king you so fiercely wanted me to be. I’m sorry if I let you down.”

Regis paused, unable to overcome the resentments that surged within him. Certainly, he admired his grandfather, for who of the Comyn did not, even when they disagreed with him? Part of him still craved the old man’s approval, although he knew he would never have it. Nothing he did would ever be good enough, nor would any sacrifice of his dreams ever be great enough.

He had run out of time. Unless he spoke now, he might never have another chance to set aside the old rancor, to summon all his compassion, to send his grandfather to whatever came beyond life with a clear conscience.

“Grandfather . . .”

Suddenly, the blue eyes cleared, and the withered mouth moved silently. Regis tensed, and bony fingers closed around his own with desperate, brittle strength. Regis . . .

Regis gasped, taken by surprise. Danvan Hastur, for all his force of will and personality and his extraordinary statesmanship, had very little of the laranthat characterized the Comyn. He had been able to lead the Domains for three generations by diplomacy, wily cunning, and reasoned argumentation. For him to now speak mind-to-mind required almost superhuman effort.

Regis . . .

Grandfather, I am here.

I . . . am dying . . . have . . . very little time . . .

One mind, linked directly to another, could not lie about a matter of such importance.

. . . secret I have carried . . . these many years . . . your brother . . . you have a brother . . .

Regis startled, almost dropping out of telepathic rapport. A brother? How was that possible? He had always believed that he, like Danilo, was the only son of his parents. To the best of his knowledge, his parents had been so devoted to each other that when Rafael Hastur had been killed, his wife Alanna had lived only long enough to deliver Regis and then had died of a broken heart.

. . . your father’s son . . .nedestro . . .

Lord of Light! Had his mother known?

Danvan’s gaze wavered in intensity.

No, it was . . . before they married . . . Regis! . . . find Rinaldo . . . bring him to Thendara, ensure his rights . . . as Hastur . . .

The old man’s mental presence, which had strengthened for a moment, now thinned like mist.

An older brother! Regis reeled under the thought. For so much of his life, he had struggled under the weight of believing himself the sole Hastur son. Nedestrochildren were often legitimatized; Regis had done this for his own offspring, those that survived infancy.

Promise me . . .came Danvan’s fading thought, more plea than command.

“Of course, I will. A brother, I never thought to have a brother!” And a brother with a claim to Hastur, a place among the Comyn.

Then . . . what would his life be like, as a second son? Might he at last be free to choose for himself?

Swear . . .

Regis wrenched his thoughts away from the tumult of possibilities. He felt as if his entire world had just turned inside out. What sort of man would his brother be, after all these years? No, Regis thought, he must set aside these questions for the moment. All would be revealed in the proper time.

Although he did not know if his grandfather could feel it, he tightened his grasp around the limp hand.

“I swear.”

There was no response, neither of the flesh nor of the spirit.

Regis sat there, holding his grandfather’s hand as it began to cool. His eyes were parched, his heart empty and aching, until Danilo touched his shoulder.

8

Over the next tenday, Comyn and minor nobility streamed into Thendara to attend the funeral of Danvan Hastur. One of the first to arrive was Javanne Lanart-Hastur, older sister to Regis. Her husband, Gabriel, who commanded the City Guards, had sent word to her immediately. By a feat of organizational skill, she singlehandedly managed the journey from Armida for herself and her household. Her two older sons were already in Thendara, serving as officers in the Guards under their father’s stern eye, and her daughter Liriel was a novice at Tramontana Tower.

As soon as Javanne had settled in, Regis and Danilo paid her a visit. With Lew Alton and his only child off-world and no other Heir to Alton, Gabriel held the position of Warden of that Domain, and his family now occupied a spacious suite in that section of the Castle. The rooms, although newly cleaned, still retained a musty, disused smell. They had not been in regular use since the days of Lord Kennard.

Javanne, a bevy of serving women, and her daughter, Ariel, were unpacking a chest of household linens when Regis entered the sitting room. Her features were taut with strain. Awkwardly, he took her in his arms. She drew in her breath as if to speak, but the words choked in her throat. Ariel, a thin girl of fourteen or so, was too nervous and shy to look directly at Regis.

“I didn’t think to see you so soon, nor under such circumstances,” Regis began.

“Mother, I can’t find—” Mikhail, sturdy and golden- haired, burst from one of the inner rooms. His face came alight. “Uncle Regis!”

“Come here, lad.” Regis gave the boy a kinsman’s embrace. No, Regis realized, not a boy. Mikhail had grown into a young man. The season at Armida, a working horse ranch, had added muscle to his body and a steady judgment to his gaze. He had open, generous features and an air of calm beyond his years, sensitivity combined with a naturally even temper.

I have not done my duty in training him as he deserves,Regis thought, for although he had seen to it that Mikhail had a proper Darkovan education and service in the cadets, he had acted out of his own convenience and not Mikhail’s need for a thorough apprenticeship in statecraft. Now, with Danvan’s death, all that changed. Once the funeral and attendant period of official mourning had passed, he must make arrangements for Mikhail to move into the townhouse.

No, not the townhouse,Regis corrected himself. It was one thing for the Heir to Hastur to indulge himself in the isolation of a private residence. He was now the Head of his Domain and must live here, in Comyn Castle, in his grandfather’s old quarters. He shuddered at the thought of those cheerless rooms.

Regis clapped Mikhail on the arm and stepped back. “We must discuss your future, but this is not the time.”

Mikhail nodded. “I expected as much. With Great-grandfather’s death, your situation and mine have changed. I expect that you will want me here in Thendara year-round now, and I intend to be of as much assistance to you as I can.”

Gods, the boy was sharp!

“Mikhail!” Javanne burst out. “How can you say such things at a time like this! Where are your proper feelings?”

“What else should he say but the truth?” Regis turned to his older sister. “Mikhail is thinking of the future, as a Hastur must. It’s exactly what Grandfather would have expected of him.”

“You are right, of course. We must all look ahead, even in the midst of . . .” Javanne went back to the table and picked up a length of fine embroidered linex,as if she would wring it between her hands. “It’s all so sudden and difficult. My entire life, Grandfather has been there, as dependable and enduring as the Wall Around the World.”

And as unforgiving.

Her head jerked up, eyes white for an instant. Regis remembered that she had trained for a season or so at Neskaya Tower. He’d have to be more guarded in his thoughts around her. Certainly, she was distressed by their grandfather’s death, but Regis pulled back from a subtle change in her. He could not identify it precisely, only that she was no longer the same sister he once trusted.

“Ariel, come away with me . . .” Mikhail motioned to his younger sister, and a moment later, they retreated to an inner room and closed the door.

Regis took Javanne’s hand and led her to a divan. He had to move an armful of shawls and a cloak to make room for both of them.

“I, too, once believed that Grandfather would last forever,” he said gently. “I put off assuming my full responsibilities because he was always here. The best way we can honor his memory is to strive for the highest standards of honor and duty. Even as he did.”

Javanne sniffed and wiped her eyes with the corner of one shawl. “You were never unworthy, Regis. He should have told you he was proud of you. I know he was, he was just too—” a sob came out as a hiccough, “—too stubborn to admit it. To either of us.”

Regis felt his heart give a little jump. He had always thought that Javanne had had an easier life, simply because she was a woman and less was expected of her. She had already fulfilled her primary duty, that of producing sons. She’d given birth to three fine boys and two daughters, one of them with enough laranto be accepted at a Tower. In that moment, Regis realized that she had had no more encouragement or approval from the old man than he himself had. No one, least of all Danvan Hastur, had ever consulted her on her own wishes. Had she wanted to remain at Neskaya? Or choose her own husband? Or not bear one child after another until all her youth and beauty were spent?

“Javanne . . . did Grandfather ever talk to you . . . about our family?”

She startled. “Why do you ask?”

“Before he died, Grandfather revealed to me . . . Javanne, prepare yourself for startling news.”

Her eyes widened, and Regis caught the flicker of her fears. What terrible secret did the old man lay upon us now? Scandal, rebellion, poison from the skies?

“No, nothing like that. Breda,we are not alone. We have a brother.”

“A—no, surely that’s not possible! Mother—”

“No, not hers. Father’s son.”

“Father would never have . . .” She collected herself. “Such things happen. In the old days, when a woman was heavy with child, or ill, it was no shame if her husband took another to bed to spare her the burden.”

The burden? Regis brushed the thought aside. Had Linnea thought their lovemaking a burden?

“An older brother,” he continued, “conceived most likely before our parents were wed. He is, of course, nedestro.I don’t even know if he’s aware of his parentage. All I have is a name. Rinaldo.”

“Rinaldo.” Javanne frowned, her brows drawing together, as if she did not quite like the taste of the name. “It’s an old family name, to be sure. I’m certain I’ve never heard of him. Where has he been all these years?”

“That’s the problem, Grandfather died before he could tell me.” Regis sighed. “But not before he made me promise to find Rinaldo and secure his rights.”

Javanne’s eyebrows lifted, and her mouth formed a moue of surprise. “Bless Evanda I was born a woman and exempt from such duties. I don’t envy you. Where will you start?”

“With Grandfather’s private papers, most likely. It’s too much to hope that he kept a record, but the search must be made. I would like Mikhail’s help, and it would give him exposure to the not-so-public history of Grandfather’s Regency.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “You’ll want to keep Mikhail with you, and not just in Council season and Midwinter. While I have appreciated the extra time with him at home, I can’t look at him without thinking he is no longer mine.”

“Sister, in his heart, he will always be yours.”

“That is as it may be.” Pain flickered behind her eyes, quickly masked.

Regis, struck by the vehemence behind her words, looked away. “There is another matter on which I would ask your help.” He did not mean the words to sound so stilted.

Her expression turned polite. “You are now the Head of our Domain. You have only to ask.”

“In a few days, the Castle will have more Comyn residing here than it has in years,” he began. “The coridom’s overwhelmed as it is, and the housekeeping staff isn’t adequate to that many. In addition, I must move my own household into Grandfather’s old quarters.” He searched for the right way to phrase his request.

She nodded. “You can’t possibly oversee all that and attend to the funeral, not to mention your new duties. As sister to the new Head of Hastur, it would not be improper for me to take on the duties of Castle chatelaine.”

Regis closed his eyes, trying not to sigh audibly in relief. Javanne had capably managed the great estate of Armida.

“This is only temporary,” she cautioned him, “until you have a wife or an official consort to take over the position.”

“That event will be a long time coming,” Regis said with an edge of bitterness. “After the season, most of the Comyn will return to their own homes, and we will manage with the staff we have. Perhaps you can recommend additional housekeepers to the coridom.”

Shrugging, she got to her feet. “Now, if you have no further startling revelations, I really must get back to unpacking.”

The funeral procession for Danvan-Valentine, Lord Hastur, Warden of Elhalyn and Regent of the Seven Domains, left Thendara along the Old North Road. Except for the Aldarans, all the Domains were represented, for the weather had been mild enough to permit travel. In addition, Dan Lawton attended for the new Terran Federation.

For the moment, the debate over Federation membership had been set aside. Whatever their differences, the various parties had agreed on the traditional period of mourning. A man of Danvan Hastur’s stature deserved no less. He had not only ruled the Hastur Domain through three generations, but had guided the Domains through the most turbulent and uncertain times in memory.

Slowly, the cavalcade proceded past the cloud- lake at Hali. Across the seething mists stood the ruins of Hali Tower, a silent testimony to the horrors of unbridled laran. Regis wondered if it would ever be rebuilt, or the Tower in Comyn Castle occupied once more. Beneath him, his fine Armida-bred mare tossed her head, sensing his unease. Something terrible had happened in this place, or something was about to happen, he could not tell which. Only when they moved off, nearing the rhu fead, did he draw an easy breath.

Regis found himself astonished at the quality of his grief. For so many years, he had resented the old man’s meddling. Why should he now feel such a poignant loss? It was beyond comprehension. Danvan Hastur had never had a kind word for his grandson and had never ceased trying to part Regis from Danilo. Now that Regis was finally free of his grandfather’s interference, he missed the old man more than he could put into words.

Following the ancient custom, Danvan’s body was lowered into an unmarked grave. The hole gaped like a wound in the world. The mourners gathered around. As the highest- ranking person present, Regis was expected to speak first.

“When I was a child, my grandfather seemed indestructible,” he began, remembering Javanne’s words, “like an elemental force of nature. He was the only father I ever knew, and he wanted me to be an honorable man and a good Son of Hastur. I can only hope to do as well by my own children.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, and he wanted to finish before tears choked his voice. “Let this memory lighten grief.”

Javanne came forward, leaning on her husband’s arm. “I was eleven when my parents died, and Grandfather was there when I needed him. He chose a wonderful husband for me,” her hand tightened briefly on Gabriel’s, “and once . . . once, he told me that he was proud of me, that I was a good wife and mother, and that my sons did me credit. Let this memory lighten grief.”

“When both my sisters died, and I unexpectedly became the head of my Domain,” said Marilla Lindir-Aillard, “Lord Hastur called on me, putting aside his own grief, to help me adjust to my new position. Let this memory lighten grief.”

Valdir Ridenow, Warden of Serrais, stood a little apart from the others, surrounded by a couple of his kinsmen and his favorite nephew, Francisco. “Some have called Lord Hastur antiquated and hopelessly out-of-date, but that was neither kind nor true. He lived a long time and guided Darkover through many difficult challenges. He always tried to make sure that any change—or lack thereof—was what was best for all of us. Let this memory lighten grief.”

Ruyven Di Asturien observed, “Lord Hastur oversaw a great deal of change over his lifetime, but he still held to the values of the Comyn. When we last spoke, he told me how proud he was of his grandson, that he trusted Regis to defend and maintain the Comyn. Let this memory lighten grief.”

Regis heard the unspoken warning. The Di Asturiens had played a pivotal role in Comyn politics for as long as Regis could remember. Theirs was an ancient and dignified family, but as conservative and scheming as any. It was said they never did anything without at least two hidden motives. What had Grandfather and Di Asturien been plotting?

When Dan Lawton came forward, a few muttered that a Terrananhad no business speaking. Their neighbors quickly hushed them, reminding them that since his mother had been Ardais, he had as much right to be there as any of them. He waited until the flurry died down.

“Danvan Hastur once told me that it was his ill fortune to rule over a period of upheaval,” he said, “but I cannot think of any man more capable. He did not choose to be chief Councillor to King Stephan, nor to assume the Regency on that King’s death, nor to negotiate with the Terran Empire for over three generations. He never shirked his duty, and his determination and loyalty preserved the Darkover we all love to this day. Let this memory lighten grief.”

As the other mourners spoke, Danilo had hung back. As the former Warden of Ardais, he had the right to be among the first to speak. Through the turmoil of emotions, Regis could not sense his friend’s thoughts. Danvan Hastur had never found personal fault with Danilo except for his relationship to Regis. Danvan had long since advanced the opinion that the Heir of Hastur ought not to have the reputation of a lover of men, and the sooner Regis married, the better.

With his face tightly set, Danilo stepped forward. He gathered himself in a moment of silence, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “I knew Lord Hastur as a man of honor. When I was wronged, he saw to it that justice was done. Let this memory lighten grief.”

On the journey back to Thendara, rain began to fall, at first a mist, then a sprinkle of ice-edged tears. Finally, sheets of rain slashed down from the darkening skies. Water pooled in the ruts of the road, turning solid ground to mud. The horses snorted and clamped their tails to their rumps. Woolen cloaks were soon soaked, but they retained their warmth.

About half the party, including Javanne and the other women, stopped at an inn in one of the villages. Regis and Danilo, along with the Ridenow party, pushed on.

As Danilo dropped back to rearguard position, Valdir Ridenow reined his horse beside Regis. The overcast sky and icy rain made his skin even paler than usual. His hooded cloak and the saddle blanket of his horse were of fine orange and green wool. In the shadow of his hood, his hair gleamed like pale gold, as fair as that of a Dry Towns lord. The reins hung loose in his hands, and from the way he sat his horse, a rangy blood-bay without a speck of white, he clearly possessed the Ridenow empathy with beasts. Regis thought him maybe ten years older than himself, a well-favored man who had been strong and active all his life, but he could not recall ever seeing Valdir in any meeting of the defunct Comyn Council.

Politely, Regis nodded. As the new Lord of Hastur, he held higher rank, and it was his prerogative to initiate a conversation. Feeling emotionally exhausted, wrung out like a rag, he would have preferred to ride back in solitude. Yet curiosity stirred as Valdir returned the greeting.

“I did not have a proper chance to greet you on your arrival in Thendara,” Regis said. “You must have had a hard ride from Serrais.”

“This early in the season, yes. I thank you for your concern, vai dom,” Valdir replied, somewhat formally. “Faced with the two gravest situations in the last decade, I could do no less.”

He meant the coincidence of the death of Danvan Hastur and the Terran Federation question. “I have no wish to be rude,” Regis said wearily, “but my grandfather is not yet cold in his grave, and we are both chilled and drenched. I have not the slightest intention of discussing the future of Darkover under these circumstances.”

Valdir’s horse threw up his head, as if reflecting his rider’s reaction. But the Ridenow lord said, “My deepest apologies if I gave that impression. Surely, such matters as the future of Darkovermerit serious attention and thoughtful debate.”

A debate you intend to be part of?Regis smothered a sigh. “We will speak at the proper time, in the proper setting.”

With an enigmatic smile, Valdir returned to his own kinsmen.

Mikhail, who had been riding close enough to overhear the conversation, guided his horse forward. “Was that something I should know about? I can’t tell if DomValdir meant he was your ally or your enemy.”

“If he is anything like his cousins, we will find ourselves on opposite sides of the Federation membership debate,” Regis said, frowning. “However, men have been known to change their minds. We must wait until we hear what he has to say before placing him in either camp.”

Mikhail glanced back, peering through the rain at the green and gold cloaks of the Ridenow party. “Francisco Ridenow seems to be a pleasant enough sort. I think I might have a word or two with him, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means, get to know him. Unless DomValdir produces a son, young Francisco stands in the line of succession, so if you are already on friendly terms, you may be of support to one another.”

Regis arrived back at his townhouse to find a hot bath waiting. He waved away the help of his servant and stripped off his sodden clothing himself. Danilo helped with his boots.

Fresh-smelling herbs had been added to the steaming water. He eased himself in, wishing it were large enough for two.

“I’ll get mine later, once the horses are properly seen to,” Danilo said with a hint of a grin. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Regis closed his eyes, feeling the heat seep into his aching muscles. The day’s ride had been long, but not beyond his strength. Emotional intensity, not physical exertion, had drained him. Around him, he sensed the house with all its familiar and alien aspects. Like so many other things in modern Darkover, it represented an uneasy compromise between the past and the interstellar present. Reluctantly, Regis admitted he would miss the place, but he could not maintain a residence separate from Comyn Castle. Shuddering, he slid deeper into the water. Even the most cheerful Castle rooms had the power to oppress him. As a child, he had fancied the ancient stone walls rising like mountains on all sides, crushing life and breath and hope.

At least, Regis thought wearily, he had resisted Grandfather’s schemes to make him king.

He was almost asleep when Danilo glided into the bathroom with a mug of honey-sweetened chamomile tisane.

Spring lurched to a standstill as cold, damp weather settled over Thendara. It seemed to Regis that Darkover itself mourned the passing of his grandfather. The few social gatherings were subdued. Regis attended only a few, those he could not in all civility decline. With Javanne’s help, he moved his household into the Hastur quarters of Comyn Castle.

Regis stood in the middle of his grandfather’s study, alone yet hemmed in on every side by memories. The chamber was pleasant enough, designed and furnished for intimate meetings and research. Between the heavy glass windows and the perfectly situated fireplace, the room was warm even in the depths of winter. He would not change the massive desk or the bookcases that looked at least as old as his grandfather had been. The huge bed, on the other hand, he had already ordered moved to another part of the Hastur suite and his own brought from the townhouse.

Papers and bound ledgers, along with writing supplies and reference books, covered most of the desk. Regis had avoided going through them, as if he would be invading his grandfather’s privacy, snooping where he had no right. A part of him could not comprehend that this room, this library, this archival midden spanning three generations of Comyn history, was now his. He had dreaded this day and dreamed of escaping it. Yet now that it was here, he found himself resigned. He would not have chosen it for himself—indeed, he would have chosen almost anything else—but over the last years, he had become reconciled. He was Hastur, and there was no one else.

A tap on the door brought him alert. Mikhail stepped in, backlit so that he appeared to be enveloped in his own golden aura. Regis smiled and gestured for him to come in.

Mikhail surveyed the room with an expression bordering on awe. “So this is where Darkover’s destiny was plotted. And it’s yours now.”

“No,” Regis said, shaking his head, “it’s ours.I have no intention of sitting here alone, spinning out schemes like a spider in the center of a planet-spanning web. The reason I formed the Telepath Council in the first place was to ensure that many voices be heard. Together, we will plan our future.” With a light touch, he guided Mikhail into the chair behind the desk.

“Uncle Regis, I can’t sit here! This is your place now!”

“Someday, my lad, it will be yours. I want you to have the best training I can give you.”

“I’m not ready!”

“Not now, but you will be,” Regis said, reflecting that no honest man ever felt truly prepared for such a position. He himself certainly did not. Changing the subject, he pointed to a sheaf of papers covered with Danvan Hastur’s circular scrawl.

Mikhail could read and write the two primary Darkovan languages, castaand informal cahuenga,as well as Terran Standard. “I think I could make out this handwriting with a little practice. It’s Lord Hastur’s, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He also employed a secretary, sometimes two or three, most of them trained at the Nevarsin monastery, so their script is quite clear.” Regis himself wrote a barely legible scrawl, but Danilo, who had also studied at St. Valentine’s, still had the clearest writing of any of them.

“Much of this is of historical value,” Regis said, “but some will help us now. I’ll spend some time going through the documents, but I cannot do it alone.”

And I dare not trust anyone besides you and Danilo.

Mikhail looked up, eyes wide. “Where do you want me to begin? How should I sort all this?”

“Let’s start by making an inventory. Use general categories—personal, Hastur Domain, Comyn Council, like that. Set aside anything that strikes you as pertinent to the Federation membership. And . . .”

“Yes?”

“There may be a reference to a man named Rinaldo. He’d be in his early forties now. Please show me anything you find, even the slightest mention . . . and I trust your discretion. Mention this to no one.”

The light in Mikhail’s eyes gave Regis confidence in the younger man’s probity. Again, he blessed the impulse that led him to choose Mikhail over his brothers. They had turned into sturdy, reliable, unimaginative men, a credit to their family and caste. Mikhail . . . Mikhail was something more. Regis determined that, no matter what happened, Mikhail must not be pushed aside.

9

Afew days later, as Mikhail continued to sort and catalog Danvan’s papers, Regis received another coded message from Lew Alton. As before, this was delivered through Dan Lawton’s office. Unlike the previous message, however, this one began with Lew’s request that the Legate listen to its content.

Regis had thought it was not possible for Lew to look any more haggard. With his scarred face and eyes etched with sorrow, Lew had always appeared older than his years. Tightly bottled anger now flushed his features.

“Regis . . . and Dan, I am assuming you are listening to this together.” Lew’s normal voice was hoarse because of his damaged vocal cords. “First of all, Regis, I’m sorry about your grandfather. I wish I could have spoken at the rhu fead, but that is for another life. In all sincerity, I wish him peace.”

Regis, knowing the struggles Lew had endured with his own father’s death, bowed his head.

Lew went on, his voice more gravelly than before, “I have made no secret about my opposition to Darkover’s membership in the new Federation. As you can imagine, this has not been well received in some quarters. Darkover’s location on the galactic arm makes it a rich prize. I’ve heard speculation about turning the entire planet into a military base.”

As Lew drew in his breath, a vision came to Regis of forests razed, villages cemented over and rivers dammed, fields of permacrete covered by an armada of ships, blasting off again and again until the earth cried out like a wounded beast . . . the native peoples, from the shy arboreal trailmen to the ethereal chieriextinct . . . the Comyn preserved like zoo specimens . . .

That must never come to pass. Not so long as I have breath and strength to prevent it.

“I swear to you, Regis,” Lew was speaking again now, and it seemed to Regis that the other man echoed his own thoughts, “that I will be damned in Zandru’s coldest Hell before I let that happen. But three days ago . . . they came for me in the night, here in the Diplomatic Sector. Only two of them,” and here, Lew’s lips twisted in a feral grimace, and Regis remembered that even one- handed, Lew was a formidable opponent with Darkovan weapons. “My wife and daughter are shaken but unharmed,” Lew ended. “I don’t think they’ll try again, but I’ve sent Dio and Marja off-world for safety.”

Lawton, standing beside Regis, drew in his breath. His hands had curled into fists, and he was almost shaking with outrage.

“As Senator and as Alton,I will do whateverI can,” Lew said, putting a faint, suggestive emphasis on the words. “Darkover must stand firm. Any sign of weakness or division and the Expansionists will seize the opening. I won’t be able to stop them. Regis, we’re counting on you.”

So it had come at last, the fate Regis had struggled so long to avoid.

The screen flickered into blankness as the play-and-destroy program ran to completion. For a long moment, none of the three men said anything. Regis sensed Danilo’s unvoiced thought, I am with you, no matter where this takes us.

To be king, you mean.Desperation boiled up in Regis. There must be another way to keep Darkover free! We must not exchange one kind of tyranny for another.

“Dan, leave us for a moment,” Regis said. “I want to send a private reply.”

“Play-and-destruct?”

Grimly, Regis nodded. Dan set the console to encrypt the return message and then left. Danilo glanced at the closed door, but Regis had no doubt of the Legate’s integrity.

Regis leaned back in the console chair. The plasteen and metal gave slightly under his weight. He wished, not for the first time, that the interstellar void was not such a barrier to mental communication. Only the most extraordinary telepaths could contact one another over more than the shortest distances. He and Lew must used nuanced words to convey what would be so simple face-to face.

Lew’s message, although forthright enough on the surface, carried a deeper meaning, that slight emphasis on the word whatevercoupled with the deliberate mention of Lew’s Domain. Lew was the only adult known to possess the Alton Gift, the ability to force mental rapport, even with nontelepaths.

Regis paused, his fingertip hovering above the panel that would begin the recording. Lew, like every other Darkovan who had trained at a Tower, had taken an oath never to enter the mind of another except to help or heal and then only with consent.

Was Lew serious about using laranto sway the Federation politicians? To convince them that Darkover was not worth bothering with, that it would be better to let Darkover go its own way and remain a Closed World?

He knows I would never ask such a thing, Regis thought, but clearly, he feels the situation might require it.

Regis had sometimes wondered why the Alton Gift had been bred into the Comyn during the Ages of Chaos. The leroniof the Towers recognized it as dangerous but had not seen fit to eliminate it. Instead, it had been preserved through the centuries.

As a final weapon? Or as a last defense when all else failed?

A defense when the future of Darkover hung in the balance?

It went against his training and personal ethics to order Lew to use the Alton Gift in this way.

At the back of his mind, Regis felt Danilo’s steady support, his abiding trust. Regis drew in his breath and touched the panel.

“ DomLewis-Kennard Alton,” he said, using the formal title to convey his understanding of Lew’s reference. “The situation is indeed distressing. I am glad that you have taken those precautions you deem necessary. During these difficult times, Darkover could have no better spokesman and protector. I have always known you to be a man of honor. You have my authority to act as you see fit.”

Before he could say anything more, Regis cut off the recording. He would neither command nor forbid Lew in such a matter of conscience. He was not Lew’s Keeper, nor would he ever wish to wield that kind of power over another.

With a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening, or whatever power could span the light- years, he tapped the panel to send the message. It was done, for good or ill.

And, for good or ill, if Darkover was to remain free, he must take up the full power and influence of the Lord of Hastur.

Outside the Headquarters Building, the Terran Sector seemed bleaker than ever. Structures of steel and glass rose like the walls of canyons where the sun never shone. The wind tasted like dust and metal; as it swept through the streets, it sounded like keening.

Regis said little as he and Danilo made their way back to Comyn Castle. They were, as usual, in light rapport, so Danilo sensed his mood. “Has Mikhail found any clue as to your brother’s whereabouts?”

Regis shook his head. “I am beginning to think Grandfather invented Rinaldo in order to get me to do what he wanted. I can hear him saying, from his grave, ‘If you don’t take your responsibilities as the Heir of Hastur seriously, then I’ll find someone else who will!’ ”

“Not even Lord Hastur would fabricate a lost brother for such a purpose,” Danilo said.

They passed the borders of the Terran Zone under the watchful eyes of a Spaceforce patrol.

“I have been considering the problem,” Danilo said, “and I think it likely that if Lord Hastur recorded this knowledge, it would have been not on paper, which could be stolen and used against him, but to someone he trusted without reservation.”

Who might that have been? Danvan Hastur had outlived any cousins or comrades who came to manhood with him, and his only son was dead.

When Regis voiced his question, Danilo shook his head and said he would look into it before venturing more. Regis knew his bredhyu’sstubborn nature well enough to not press him.

Regis paced his sitting room, waiting for the signal that the meeting of the Telepath Council was ready to begin. It would not take place in the Crystal Chamber, for the remaining Comyn would object strenuously if an assembly such as the Telepath Council met there, and Regis needed their support. Instead, he had chosen one of the newer, less formal halls.

As usual, when faced with addressing a large group, his thoughts tangled like one of Javanne’s childhood embroidery samplers. He had given enough public speeches to know that the feeling would pass. The trick was to make eye contact with a few people and speak directly to them. Moreover, he must speak from his heart.

How, in all the world, could he speak from his heart when he wore the mantle of Hastur? He threw himself into a chair beside the door, then heaved himself up again. One thought returned to him again and again.

There is no one else. I alone must do this!

Only the day before, official word had come through the Legate’s office. All worlds previously classified as Class D Closed were now subject to automatic Open citizenship unless they requested an exemption.

Request? We mustdemand it!

Regis was so distracted that he heard the knock at the door before he felt Danilo’s presence.

Danilo cracked the door open. “ Vai dom,it’s time.”

Regis straightened his shoulders and glanced down at his attire, a formal suit of suede, with high boots to match, all dyed in Hastur blue, the jacket embroidered in silver thread with the fir-tree emblem of his Domain. A bejeweled ceremonial sword hung from an equally flamboyant belt. Javanne had urged him to add a court-length cloak trimmed with marlfur, but he had refused.

“How do I look?”

One corner of Danilo’s mouth quirked upward. He stepped back and gestured for Regis to lead the way.

The four Guards stationed outside the door were seasoned veterans, for theirs was a post of honor. They bowed to Regis and stood back.

Gabriel Lanart-Hastur announced, “Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur y Elhalyn, Hastur of Hastur!” In the old times, the title would have included, “Regent of the Crown of the Seven Domains,” but Regis would not permit it.

Regis forced himself to a stately pace. The crowd drew back to let him pass. He waded through a sea of faces crowned with hair in a hundred shades of red, from flaming fire to pale-rose-tinted flax to burnt copper.

Here and there, Regis recognized friend or kin. Javanne stood in the center of a knot of glittering nobles, including Marilla Lindir and Valdir Ridenow. The earnest young man at Valdir’s side must be Francisco. Mikhail, standing a little apart from the others, smiled as Regis passed, as did a Renunciate with an open, generous face. Regis did not see any Tower folk. He wished Linnea were here.

Unlike the Crystal Chamber, this room had not been equipped with telepathic dampers. Even through his laranbarriers, Regis felt the vast, unfocused presence of so many minds. He clenched his jaw, forced himself to breathe, and stepped onto the platform at the far end of the chamber.

Most of the audience knew that the time had come for Darkover to choose or reject full Federation membership. Even so, Regis began with a brief discussion of the particulars involved, the drawbacks and costs as well as the benefits of such a move.

The Telepath Council included traders and merchants as well as aristocrats. The pro-Terran Pan Darkovan League, while not officially present, spoke through its sympathizers. Those whose livelihood depended upon interstellar trade made no secret of welcoming greater access to foreign markets and suppliers. As Regis expected, they presented their concerns in carefully calculated, rehearsed phrases.

“Darkover must take its rightful place among the great worlds of the new Federation,” said an aging man with more gray than rust- red in his hair. Regis knew him from the lower Cortes and by reputation as a sound judge of character, respected by the community. Even without laran,the man’s sincerity rang out; he truly believed what he said.

“We should not have to beg for the privileges and rights that are due to us,” the man went on. “Many of the Federation welcome us like the long-parted kinsmen we are. We should rectify the mistake of confining ourselves to Closed World status.”

Murmurs of agreement spread through the chamber. The League spokesman had appealed to their pride, offering a vision of Darkover as one among equals, no longer a second- rate backwater world but a great among greats.

“I do not speak solely for those whose businesses depend upon off-world trade and travel. Every one of us, throughout the Domains, will benefit from the superior technology of the Terrans, as well as their medicine and science. More than that, the Federation offers education for all our sons, not just those fortunate enough to have been born Comyn!”

As the man spoke, Regis felt the old longing to take passage in one of those starfaring vessels, to walk upon strange worlds and meet people to whom the name Hasturmeant nothing. Since that was not possible—he had long since given his oath to his Domain and the Comyn—he had made sure that Mikhail benefited from Terran education. How many boys—and girls, too—still hungered for that knowledge?

Modern techniques of weather control could transform Darkovan agriculture, make travel throughout the Hellers possible, and bring the lands beyond the Wall Around the World into contact with the Domains. Some day, the deserts of the Dry Towns might be reclaimed, as well.

Regis paused and the crowd grew still. He drew in his breath, willing his heart to be still. An unnamed force rose up in him, flowed throughhim, a force that came from beyond his own limited physical and intellectual powers. He felt himself reaching out to his audience with mental touch as well as words. Phrases rolled through his mind.